>> from Austin, Texas. It's Theo Cube, covering pure storage. Accelerate 2019. Brought to you by pure storage. >> Welcome back to the Cube, The leader and live tech coverage. I'm Lisa Martin with David Dante. We got a pretty cool guests coming up next, guys, you may have seen him here on the Q before. He has back Matt Harris, the head of I T for Mercedes AMG, Petronas Motor Sport. Matt, Welcome back. >> Often a >> way got the car over there with excitement. One of the coolest sports I've ever become involved with. Formula One is this incredible mix of technology strategy. All these crazy things you guys that Mercedes have been partners, customers a cure for about what? 45 years? >> 2015. As a customer, we became partners in 2016. >> I wonder if they like to save Mercedes AMG Petunias Motor Sport has had five consecutive years of both constructors championships driver's championships. You're a great position on both for 2019. It was a little bit of a history about the product that you put out on truck every other week and how pure storage is a facilitator of that. >> Yeah, okay, so it's an interest in a story for those that are interested in Formula One, because what you see on the track looks the same. But realistically, every time he goes out, the guarantee will be different. That level of difference could be a simple wing change or configuration, always based on data that we're learning from during a race again. But every week we also have a different car dependent on the track we're going to. So we have two different worlds that basically were to rate on a minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day at the track. But in the factory, that could be the same sort of it oration. But it could also be into weekly or monthly or year for a car. So all of that is based on data. So everything we do is that businesses revolves around data. We never make a change to the car without me now to back it up with empirical knowledge. Even if the driver turns around and tells us they feel something called, they believe something, we will always make sure we have data to back up that decision, So access to data is critical. Compute performance whether it's high performance, compute for our safety, for instance, whether it's for you as an end user, access to data is critical across everything that we do is time critical Time is our currency really as a business if we slow down your job? Generally, that probably means that you've got less time to make the correct decision. Or maybe you have to turn into a guess or a hunch, which that's never a good place to be in our sport. >> No, I would think not. >> I've I recall, from our conversation last year their rules that say, How many people you can have in your entourage like 60. I think it was yes, and at the time I think you said you got, like, 15 Allocated to data. Is that ratio kind of still holding? I >> still exactly the same in our tracks. On environment, they're still the same in the factory. We have more than that, depending on how many people on what time of day, what day of the week. So on a Friday race day, practice day, we can have a minimum. There'll be 30 people in our race support room will be looking at data along with those other 15. But you can have the whole Aargh department or design department or logistics. Whoever could still be looking at data from the track real time, so we can have as many as 4 to 500 looking at data if they want to. And if that's the right thing going on earlier in the season, you generally get more people looking As the season goes on. It's probably more aargh focused, maybe mechanically if we got something new, or maybe the engine division again in a completely separate building in the U. K 40 miles apart, they've got another set of people that will be looking and trolling through data riel time from the but looking really at the power unit rather than the chassis side. >> And you're generating, like roughly half a terabyte a weekend on a race weekend. Is that still about the same? Or is that growing a car >> perspective? It's just under half a terabyte, but we produce up to another half a terabyte of other supporting data with that GPS data, weather data, video, audio, whatever it would be other information to help with the strategy side of things So we're around 77 50 to 1 terabyte for race weekend, >> and each car has about 300 sensors. I think when we spoke with you last year, or maybe you're half ago is about 200 so that's increasing in terms of all the data being captured every race weekend. But one of the things that I love that matter sizes, you know, we're idea at Mercedes is not that unlike I t at other groups who really rely on high performance systems. But you do put out a new product every two weeks and this really extreme range of conditions, your product is extremely expensive as pretty sexy. Like the portability factor. You have to set up a tea shop, have any 20 weekends a year and set it up in what, 36 hours and take it down in six. >> And a nine year old joke about the taking it down in six is a bit like a Benny Hill sketch. It's obviously choreographed and, well, well rehearsed, but we have all the same systems as any normal business would have the tracks. That environment is very different, though we don't have air conditioning in so all the IittIe equipment has to work at the natural ambient air temperature of the country. We're in this year. Believe it or not, Germany and hungry have been our biggest challenge. We've had for the last 43 to 4 years because they had 45 degree air ambient air temperature. So forget humidity for a minute, which is Another kettle of fish probably affects us a bit more, maybe, than the systems, but we're only chucking that air as fast as we can across the components. So we're not putting any cooling into what is probably around the tolerance of most I T systems. So we have to rely basically on air throughput to terminate. Keep kit. Cool. Now the benefit with pure is actually doesn't create any heat, either. There's no riel heat generation, so it's quite tolerant, which helps us get it doesn't create Maur, but the environment we put it into is quite special. But what we're doing is what any business would want to do. Access toe email file systems. What we're trying to do is give it in a performance fashion. People need to make a decision. So in qualifying, for instance, those 300 sensors. That information that we've got from the car, we've got minutes to make a decision based on data. If it takes you too long to get the data off, you can't then look at the data to make a decision. So we have to make sure data in just from the car and then basically multi access from everybody in the factory or the track side is performance enough to make a decision before the car goes back out again. Otherwise, we're wasting track time. >> So you've always had data in this business. Early days was all analog, and it obviously progressed and thinking about what you want to do, Going forward with data. What kind of information or capabilities don't you have? Where that technology in the future could address >> s so interesting. One is technology of the future. If you know what it is, let me know with what we know right now, I think a lot of it's gonna be about having the ability to have persistent storage. But actually the dynamic of the compute resource eso looking at things like kubernetes or anything like that to turn around and have dynamic resource spin up as and when required to do high performance computer calculations based on the data, maybe to start giving us some automated information, I'm gonna be careful of the M l A. I is for our businesses, it's not quite as simple as others because our senior management very technically capable, and they just see it as advanced statistical analysis. So unless you program, it is not gonna give you an answer. Now we've started to see some things this year were actually the computer is teaching us things we didn't ask it to. So we have got some areas where we're beginning to learn that. That's not necessarily the case now, but for us that access to data moving forward, it's probably gonna be compute. Combined with that underlying storage platform, there's going to be critical onstage. You you heard Robin people talking about the ability to have that always present storage layer with the right computer. That's something for us is going to be critical, because otherwise we're gonna waste money and have resource sat doing nothing. >> Is security >> an issue for you? I mean, it's an issue for everybody, but there isn't a game of honor because you got this, you know, little community that you guys trying to hack each other systems. >> So it's an interesting one inside the sport, Actually, no. Because a few years ago there was a very high profile case where data went between two teams and there was £100 million fine's exclusion from the sport for a season. So that's that's >> too big. You don't mess with that. >> But also, if you think of that from our perspective, we've got the Daimler star on here. We cannot afford to have any of that Brenda brand reputational rubbing off on Damon's. So that's a no no other teams I can't talk for. But we're all fairly sensible between ourselves. What will be interesting moving forward is what technologies air in our sport, but actually of the whether their motor manufacturers or not, is their technology in there that they're interested in. Maybe the battery technology from the power unit side of things is that the power unit itself. So are other things actually more interesting to those other >> places. It legal for you, you know, by the rules of sports, a monitor, just data or captured data, whether it's visual, whatever from your competitors. Eso anything, >> this public? Yes, it's fair game. Okay, so we get given all the teams. Actually, we get a standard set of three or four different streams of information around GPS timing on some video feeds and audio feeds on their publicly consumable by the team's. When I say public for a second on those feeds, we can do what we like. You know that there for us to infer information, which we do a lot off, is what helps our strategy team to turn around and actually predict what we might or might not need to do as far as a pit stop or tire degradation. >> And that's where the human element must come into understanding the competent, like to football coaches who who know each other right? >> Well, yes. And now, if you think if you add to that the human element off Well, what happens if one team strategy person changes? Are they gonna make a different call based on the same data? Is their hunch different? Do they think they know better within a team? You can have that discussion. So what happens in another team where they're cars, not as performance so their mindset. Maybe they're thinking differently. Or maybe a team's got the most performance car of the moment and they think that they're going to do X. And we're like, Well, we're gonna do something different than to try and actually catch them out. So do we. Now don't do the normal thing. >> So let's hope >> Gamification I love it. >> Let's look at all. Make a prediction. 2019 is gonna be another Mercedes AMG way. So at the end of the season, all of the data that you have collected from the cars, all the sensors, all the weather data, GPS, et cetera how does pure facilitate in the off season the design of the 2020 car, for example, Where does where does things like computational fluid dynamics? >> Okay, so all of our production data is on pure, whether it's on a ray or blade somewhere, it's on pure storage across the site. So they're involved. Whether you're talking about design, whether you're talking about final element analysis for hyper a ll, the C f. D. Using high performance computer systems, everything some pure so from that point of view, is making sure we're using the right resource in the right place to get the best performance. Now, see if he's an interesting one because we're regulated by the F A a. About the amount of compute that weaken you. He's now. Because of that, you want it to be as efficient as you possibly can. It's not speed but the efficient use off CPU time. So if a CPU is waiting for data, that's wasted, Okay, so for us, it's trying to make sure that whole ecosystem is as efficient as we can. That's obviously an integral part of everything we do, so whether we're wind tunnel testing, whether we're in the dino, the simulators, but everything basically comes back to trying to understand and correlate the six or seven different places we generate data, trying to make sure that when there's a change in the simulator, we understand that change in the real world or in a diner or in safety. So all of that, what pure do is allow us to have that single place to go and look how I perform and always available. And for me, I don't have to have a story. Jasmine. Yeah, we've got a team of people that actually are thinking about that for us at Pure, You know, there is invested in us these days. Yeah, I walk around here, I'm very fortunate. I get to see all of the senior guys here and there. They are asking me what's going on and how's things with sequel Oracle Because they know exactly what we're doing and they're they're trying to say what's coming. So things like object engine Pierre So we've been talking to pure about using that over the coming months. But what? We're not having it at the moment. Go out and learn it. Actually, they coming in and they're telling us all about it. So they become a virtual extension to my team, which is just amazing. >> Yeah, far more efficient. You're able to focus on a much more things that drive value for the business. As we look at some of the things like the Evergreen business model. What were some of the big ah ha we hear is the right solution for us back in 2015. Is that >> so? Evergreen and love. Your stories were two things at the time that we're just incredible for us because love your storage was basically you could have an array and basically you could use it. And there was no commitment, no anything. But if you like that, you could keep it, obviously, paying for it. Ah, nde. When we did that in the factory, basically, within a week of being in there that the team were like, Whoa, hang on, that's going nowhere. So that was That was a nice, easy one. But Evergreen was an interesting one, which has only really, truly for me. I've always bought into it. But the last probably 18 months we've used it time and time and time again because the improvements with the speed of light x 90 coming envy Emmy drives. When we were looking at capacity, what we did was we turned round and said, Well, actually, we can buy more dense units in the next 90 so we're only buying the extra capacity, but we were getting new technology. So nations, all the innovation that you're putting into their products were getting it. So today, when they were talking about the memory based access, and if your things always sat there going, I can use that. Oh, and there's no there's no work for me, there's no effort. The only thing I gotta worry about is whether I've got capacity for that. Those modules to go in. So Evergreen has worked several times because I don't have to go back to the cap export and go. Could I have another x £1,000,000 please? Why? I need some more storage. Yeah, but you bought some of the other day. Yeah, well, that one. I need to get rid of it because I need a bigger one. And I don't have to do that. Now. I just go in. I'm telling them what the increases for which actually, they can choose Then if they want to increase, they know what the business benefit is rather than just I t has got to turn around and either replace it because of age or the new version doesn't support is not an uplift, not upgrade from the old. One >> I've seen was looking at some of your stats and the case study that's currently online on. Imagine these numbers have gone up 68% reduction in data center Rackspace and saving £100,000 a year and operating costs >> those that would have been probably two years ago. Ish roughly those figures. And the operating cost is a huge improvement for us. Cap Ex is probably the biggest one for me. They were moving forward with cost caps coming into Formula One. That type of thing is gonna be invaluable. Does not happen to do a forklift upgrade of your storage. Well, I wouldn't know what I would do if I had to upgrade what I now own from pure I can't even imagine what? I don't want to turn around town my bosses what that's >> gonna cost. Well, it sounds like you really attacked the op X side with R and D with pure r and D. I kind of like that shifting, you know, labor toe are Andy because you don't want to spend labour on managing storage a raise, make no sense for your business. Okay. What do you want? Pure toe spend? R and D are now, what problem can they saw for? You mean >> so racy is gonna help If I'm really honest, that's actually is gonna help fill a whole quite well for us because we weren't really sure what to put some of that less hot data we were like, Well, where we going to start to put this now? Because we were beginning to fill up the array and the blades. Actually, with a racy no, we can actually use that different class of storage actually, to keep it still online. Still be out to do some machine learning A. I in the future when that comes around. But actually I can now have Maur longevity out of my existing array and blades. So that's brilliant and coming, I think, having I need to be careful, I know some things that are coming. Uh, the active sinking array is brilliant, and we've been using that since it came out. Having that similar or same ability in Blade when it comes will be a very advantageous having those played enclosures. We've gone to multi chassis flash played over the last six weeks, so that for us is great. Once we can start to synchronize between those two, then that's ah, that's another big one for us, for resiliency, for fault, tolerance, but also workload movement. That thing I said about persistent stories, layer, I'm not gonna need to care where it is, and it will be worked out by the storage in the orchestration layer so it can have the storage in the computer in the right place. >> Wow. Great story, Matt, as always. And I think it's Pierre calls this the unfair advantage coming to life. Best of luck for the rest of the 2019 season. >> I'll take it. >> All right, We'll see you next time. >> Thank you. >> Keep before >> for David Dante. I am Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube from Cure Accelerate in Austin, Texas.