>> Narrator: From around the globe. It's theCUBE, with digital coverage of Actifio Data Driven 2020, brought to you by Actifio. >> Welcome back. I'm Stuart Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of Actifio Data Driven 2020. We wish everybody could join us in Boston, but instead we're doing it online this year, of course, and really excited. We're going to be digging into the value of data, how DataOps, data scientists are leveraging data. And joining me on the program, Scott Buckles, he's the North American Business Executive for database data science and DataOps with IBM, Scott, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thanks Stuart, thanks for having me, great to see you. >> Start with the Actifio-IBM partnership. Anyone that knows that Actifio knows that the IBM partnership is really the oldest one that they've had, either it's hardware through software, those joint solutions go together. So tell us about the partnership here in 2020. >> Sure. So it's been a fabulous partnership. In the DataOps world where we are looking to help, all of our customers gain efficiency and effectiveness in their data pipeline and getting value out of their data, Actifio really compliments a lot of the solutions that we have very well. So the folks from everybody from the up top, all the way through the engineering team, is a great team to work with. We're very, very fortunate to have them. How many or any specific examples or anonymized examples that you can share about joint (indistinct). >> I'm going to stay safe and go on the anonymized side. But we've had a lot of great wins, several significantly large wins, where we've had clients that have been struggling with their different data pipelines. And I say data pipeline, I mean getting value from understanding their data, to developing models and and doing the testing on that, and we can get into this in a minute, but those folks have really needed a solution where Actifio has stepped in and provided that solution. To do that at several of the largest banks in the world, including one that was a very recent merger down in the Southeast, where we were able to bring in the Actifio solution and address our, the customer's needs around how they were testing and how they were trying to really move through that testing cycle, because it was a very iterative process, a very sequential process, and they just weren't doing it fast enough, and Actifio stepped in and helped us deliver that in a much more effective way, in a much more efficient way, especially when you into a bank or two banks rather that are merging and have a lot of work to convert systems into one another and converge data, not an easy task. And that was one of the best wins that we've had in the recent months. And again, going back to the partnership, it was an awesome, awesome opportunity to work with them. >> Well, Scott, as I teed up for the beginning of the conversation, you've got data science and DataOps, help us understand how this isn't just a storage solution, when you're talking about BDP. How does DevOps fit into this? Talk a little bit about some of the constituents inside your customers that are engaging with the solution. >> Yeah. So we call it DataOps, and DataOps is both a methodology, which is really trying to combine the best of the way that we've transformed how we develop applications with DevOps and Agile Development. So going back 20 years ago, everything was a waterfall approach, everything was very slow , and then you had to wait a long time to figure out whether you had success or failure in the application that you had developed and whether it was the right application. And with the advent of DevOps and continuous delivery, the advent of things like Agile Development methodologies, DataOps is really converging that and applying that to our data pipelines. So when we look at the opportunity ahead of us, with the world exploding with data, we see it all the time. And it's not just structured data anymore, it's unstructured data, it's how do we take advantage of all the data that we have so that we can make that impact to our business. But oftentimes we are seeing where it's still a very slow process. Data scientists are struggling or business analysts are struggling to get the data in the right form so that they can create a model, and then they're having to go through a long process of trying to figure out whether that model that they've created in Python or R is an effective model. So DataOps is all about driving more efficiency, more speed to that process, and doing it in a much more effective manner. And we've had a lot of good success, and so it's part methodology, which is really cool, and applying that to certain use cases within the, in the data science world, and then it's also a part of how do we build our solutions within IBM, so that we are aligning with that methodology and taking advantage of it. So that we have the AI machine learning capabilities built in to increase that speed which is required by our customers. Because data science is great, AI is great, but you still have to have good data underneath and you have to do it at speed. Well, yeah, Scott, definitely a theme that I heard loud and clear read. IBM think this year, we do a lot of interviews with theCUBE there, it was helping with the tools, helping with the processes, and as you said, helping customers move fast. A big piece of IBM strategy there are the Cloud Paks. My understanding you've got an update with regards to BDP and Cloud Pak. So to tell us what the new releases here for the show. >> Yeah. So in our (indistinct) release that's coming up, we will be to launch BDP directly from Cloud Pak, so that you can take advantage of the Activio capabilities, which we call virtual data pipeline, straight from within Cloud Pak. So it's a native integration, and that's the first of many things to come with how we are tying those two capabilities and those two solutions more closely together. So we're excited about it and we're looking forward to getting it in our customer's hands. >> All right. And that's the Cloud Pak for Data, if I have that correct, right? >> That's called Cloud Pak for data, correct, sorry, yes. Absolutely, I should have been more clear. >> No, it's all right. It's, it's definitely, we've been watching that, those different solutions that IBM is building out with the Cloud Paks, and of course data, as we said, it's so important. Bring us inside a little bit, if you could, the customers. What are the use cases, those problems that you're helping your customers solve with these solution? >> Sure. So there's three primary use cases. One is about accelerating the development process. Getting into how do you take data from its raw form, which may or may not be usable, in a lot of cases it's not, and getting it to a business ready state, so that your data scientists, your business, your data models can take advantage of it, about speed. The second is about reducing storage costs. As data has exponentially grown so has storage costs. We've been in the test data management world for a number of years now. And our ability to help customers reduce that storage footprint is also tied to actually the acceleration piece, but helping them reduce that cost is a big part of it. And then the third part is about mitigating risk. With the amount of data security challenges that we've seen, customers are continuously looking for ways to mitigate their exposure to somebody manipulating data, accessing production data and manipulating production data, especially sensitive data. And by virtualizing that data, we really almost fully mitigate that risk of them being able to do that. Somebody either unintentionally or intentionally altering that data and exposing a client. >> Scott, I know IBM is speaking at the Data Driven event. I read through some of the pieces that they're talking about. It looks like really what you talk about accelerating customer outcomes, helping them be more productive, if you could, what, what are some of key measurements, KPIs that your customers have when they successfully deploy the solution? >> So when it comes to speed, it's really about, we're looking at about how are we reducing the time of that project, right? Are we able to have a material impact on the amount of time that we see clients get through a testing cycle, right? Are we taking them from months to days, are we taking them from weeks to hours? Having that type of material impact. The other piece on storage costs is certainly looking at what is the future growth? You're not necessarily going to reduce storage costs, but are you reducing the growth or the speed at which your storage costs are growing. And then the third piece is really looking at how are we minimizing the vulnerabilities that we have. And when you go through an audit, internally or externally around your data, understanding that the number of exposures and helping find a material impact there, those vulnerabilities are reduced. >> Scott, last question I have for you. You talk about making data scientists more efficient and the like, what are you seeing organizationally, have teams come together or are they planning together, who has the enablement to be able to leverage some of the more modern technologies out there? >> Well, that's a great question. And it varies. I think the organizations that we see that have the most impact are the ones that are most open to bringing their data science as close to the business as possible. The ones that are integrating their data organizations, either the CDO organization or wherever that may set it. Even if you don't have a CDO, that data organization and who owned those data scientists, and folding them and integrating them into the business so that they're an integral part of it, rather than a standalone organization. I think the ones that sort of weave them into the fabric of the business are the ones that get the most benefit and we've seen have the most success thus far. >> Well, Scott, absolutely. We know how important data is and getting full value out of those data scientists, critical initiative for customers. Thanks so much for joining us. Great to get the updates. >> Oh, thank you for having me. Greatly appreciated. >> Stay tuned for more coverage from Activio Data Driven 2020. I'm Stuart Miniman, and thank you for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE! With digital coverage of Actifio Data Driven 2020. Brought to you by Actifio. >> We're back, This is theCUBE's coverage, our ongoing coverage of Actifio's Data Driven, of course we've gone virtual this year. Ash Ashutosh is here, he's the founder, president, and CEO of Actifio. Ash, great to see you again. >> Likewise, Dave, always, always good to see you. >> We were at a little meetup, you and I, in Boston, I always enjoy our conversations. Little did we know that a few months later, we'd only be talking at this type of distance, and of course, it's sad, I mean, Data Driven is one of our favorite events, it's intimate, it's customer content-driven. The theme this year is, you call it the next normal. Some people call it the new abnormal. The next normal, what's that all about? >> I think it's pretty fascinating to see, when we walked in in March, all of us were shocked by the effect of this pandemic. And for a while, we all scrambled around, trying to figure out, how do you react to this one? And everybody reacted very differently, but most people had this tendency to think that this is going to be a pretty brutal environment with lots of unknown variables, and it is important for us to try to figure out how to get our hands around this. By the time we came around about six weeks into that, almost all of us have figured out, this is not something you fight against, this is not something you wait for it to go away, but this is one that you figure out how to live it, and you figure out how to work around it. And that, we believe, is the next normal. It's not about trying to create a new abnormal, it's not about creating a new normal, but it's truly one that basically says "There is a path forward, there's a way to create this next normal," and you just figure out how to live with the environment we have, and phenomenal outcomes of companies that have done remarkably well, as a result of these actions, Actifio being one of them. >> It's quite amazing, isn't it, I mean, I've talked to a lot of tech companies, CEOs, and their customers, and it's almost like, the first reaction was of course they cared about their employees and their broader families. Number one, number two was, many companies, as you know, saw a tailwind, and initially didn't want to be seen as ambulance chasing, and then of course the entrepreneurial spirit kicked in, and they said, "Okay, hey, "we can only control what we can control." And tech companies in particular have just done exceedingly well. I mean, I don't think anybody really predicted that early on. >> Yeah. I think at the heart we are all human beings and the first reaction was to take care of, four constituencies, right? One, take care of your family, take care of your community, take care of your employees, take care of your customers. And that was the hardest part. The first four to six weeks was to figure out how do you do each of those four. Once you figured that part out, or you figured out ways to get around to making sure you can take care of those, you really found the next normal. You really started figuring out how to continue to innovate, continue to support each of those four constituencies, and people have done different things. I know it's amazing how CUBE continues to operate. As far as a user is concerned, they're all watching remote. Yes, we don't have the wonderful desk and we all get to chat and look in the eye. But the content, the message is as powerful as what it was a few months ago. So I'm sure this is how we're all going to figure out how to make through. There's a new next normal. >> Yeah, and digital transformation kind of went from push to pull, I mean every conference you'd go to, they'd say, "Well, look at Uber, look at Airbnb," and they put up the examples. "You have to do this too." And then all of a sudden the industry dragged you along. So I'm curious as to how, and I guess the other point there is digital means data. We've said that many, many times, if you didn't have a digital strategy during the height of the lockdown, you couldn't transact business and still many restaurants are still trying to figure this out, but so how did it affect you and your customers? >> Yeah, it's really interesting. And we spend a lot of time with several of our customers who are managing some of the largest IT organizations. And we talk about a very interesting phenomenon that happened somewhere beginning of this year, about 20 years ago, we used to worry about this thing called the digital divide. Those who have access to the network and internet, and those who don't. And now there is this data divide, the divide between organizations that know how to leverage, exploit, and absolutely accelerate the business using data, and those who don't. And I think we're seeing this effect show very clearly among organizations that are able to come back and address some of this stuff. And it's fascinating. Yes, we all have the examples of the likes of people who are doing delivery. People who are doing E-tailing, but there are so many little things, you're seeing organizations, and just the other day, we had a video from Sentry Data Systems, which is helping accelerate COVID-19 research because you're able to get copies of the data faster, they're able to get access to data, to their researchers much, much faster, sometimes from several days to a few minutes. It's that level of effect, it's not just down to some subtle, you know, you almost think of it as nice to have, but it's must have life threatening stuff, essential stuff, or just addressing today, I was reading a wonderful article about this supercomputer and that's doing analysis of COVID-19, and how it's figured out most of these symptoms, then able to figure it out by just crunching a ton of data. And almost every one of those symptoms the supercomputer has predicted, has been accurate. It's about data, right? It is absolutely about data, and which is why I think this is a phenomenal time for companies to absolutely go change, make this transformation about data acceleration, data leverage, data exploitation. And there's a ton of it all around us. >> Yeah, and part of that digital transformation, the mandate is to really put data at the core. I mean, we've certainly seen this with the top market cap companies. They've got data at the core, and now, as I say, it's become a mandate. And you know, there's been several things that we've clearly noticed. I mean, you saw the work from home required laptops and, you know, end point security and things of that, VDI made a comeback, and certainly cloud was there, but I've been struck by the reality of multi-cloud. I was kind of a multi-cloud skeptic early on. I said many times, I thought it was more of a symptom than it was a strategy, but that's completely flipped. Recently in our ETR surveys, we saw multicloud popping up all over the place. I wonder what you're seeing when you talk to your customers and other CIOs. >> Yeah. So fascinating. No, we released our first cloud product sometime around 2018, end of 2018. >> Dave: GO, right? >> Yeah, Actifio GO, OnVault, which is a phenomenal way to completely change the way you think about using object storage in the cloud. For over two years, we saw about 20% of our business, by the beginning of this year, 20% of our business was built on leveraging the cloud. Since March, so that was the end of our, almost the end of the Q1, to now, we're just in the middle of Q3. In six months, we added 12 more percent of the business. Literally we did it in six months, what we did not do before for 18 months before that, significantly more than what we did for a year and a half before that. And there are really three reasons, and you see this over and over again, we have a large customer we closed in January. Ironically we were deploying out of UK, a very large marketing organization, got everything deployed. They were running their backup and DR in a separate data center. And they had a practical problem of not being able to access the second site, literally in the middle of deployment, we steer that customer to GCP, or Google Cloud, because there was simply no way for them to continue protecting the data, being able to develop new applications with that data, they simply had no access. So there was, this was the number one reason, the inability for an organization to physically access or put their employees at risk, and have portal for the cloud be the infrastructure. That's number one. So that first of all drove the reason for the cloud. And then there's a second reason. There are practical reasons on why some cloud platforms are good at one workload. The other ones are not so good at some of the workloads. And so if I'm an organization that has, that spans everything, I've got a power PC, an X86 machine, a VM, I've got container platforms, I got Oracle, I got SAP. There is no single cloud platform that supports all my workload as efficiently, it's available in all the regions I want. So inevitably I have to go adopt different cloud platforms. So that's the second practical reason. And then there's a strategic reason. No vendor, no customer, wants to be locked into any one cloud platform. At least two, you're going to go pay, more likely three. So those are the reasons. And then interestingly enough, we were on a panel with us global CIOs. And in addition to just the usual cloud providers that we all know and love inside the US, across the world, in Europe, in Asia, there's a rise of regional cloud providers. So you take all these factors, right? You've got absolute physical necessity. You got practical constraints of what can the cloud provider support, the strategic reasons of why, either because, I don't want to be locked into a cloud provider, or because there's a rise of, you know, data nationalism that's going on, that people want to keep their data within the country bounds. All of these reasons are the foundations of why multicloud is almost becoming a de facto. It's impossible for a decent size organization to assume they would just depend on one cloud anymore. >> The other big trend we're seeing, I wonder if you could comment, is this notion of the data life cycle, of the data pipeline. It's a very complex situation for a lot of organizations. Their data is siloed. We hear that a lot. They have data scientists, data engineers, developers, data quality engineers, just a lot of different constituencies and lines of business, and it's kind of a mess. And so what they're trying to do is bring that together. So they've done that, data scientists complain, they spend all their time wrangling data, but ultimately the ones that are succeeding to putting data at the core as we've just been discussing, are seeing amazing outcomes, by being able to have a single version of the truth, have confidence in that data, create self-serve for their lines of business and actually reduce the end to end cycle times that's driving your major monetization, whether that's cost cutting or revenue. And I'm curious as to what you're seeing, you guys do a lot of work, heavy work in DevOps and hardcore database. Those are key components of that data life cycle. What are you seeing in that regard regarding that data pipeline? >> Yeah, that's a phenomenal point. If you really want to go back and exploit data within an organization, if you really want to be a data driven organization, the very first thing you have to do is break down the silos. Ironically, every organization has all the data required to make the decisions they want to. They just can't either get to it, or it's so hard to break the silos that it's just not worth trying to make it happen. And 10 years ago, we set out on this mission, rather than keep these individual silos of data, why don't we flip it open and make it into a pipeline which looks like a data cloud, where essentially anybody who's consuming it has access to it based on the governance rules, based on the security rules that the operations people have set. And based on the kind of format they want to see data, not everybody may want to see the data in a database format. Maybe you want the database format converted to a CSB format before you run analytics. And this idea of making data the new infrastructure, this idea of having the operations people provide this new layer container. It's finally come to roost. I mean, it's fascinating. I was looking at the numbers last quarter. We just finished up Q2. Now 45% of our customer base uses Actifio for, or reuses the backup data for things that accelerate the business, things that make the business move faster, more productive, or even survive. That was the mission. That was what we set out to do 10 years ago. You know, we were talking to an analyst this morning and now there's this question of, you know, "Hey, looks like there's a theme of backup data being reused." We said, "Yeah, that's kind of what we've been saying for 10 years." Backup cannot be an insurance, backup cannot be a destination. It has to be something that you can use as an asset. And that I think is finally coming to the point where you can use backup as a single source of truth, only if you designed it right from the beginning for that purpose, you cannot just, there are lots of ways to fake it, make it, try to pretend like you're doing it, but that was the true purpose of making data the new infrastructure, making it a cloud, making it something that is truly an asset. And it's fascinating to see our businesses. You take any of our large accounts, and the way they've gone about transforming, not just basic backup and DR. Yes, we are the world's fastest backup and most scalable DR solution. That's a starting point. But to be able to use that to develop applications eight, 10 times faster, to run analytics 100 X faster? The more data you have, the more people who use data you have, the better this return becomes. >> You know, that is interesting to hear you talk about that, because that has been the Holy Grail of backup was to go beyond insurance to actually create business value. And you're actually seeing some underlying trends, we talked about that data pipeline, and one of the areas that is the most interesting is in database, which was so boring for so many years, and you're seeing new workloads emerge. They take the data warehouse beyond, you know, reporting, never really lived up to its promise of 360 degree view. You mentioned analytics, that's really starting to happen. And it's all about data. You know, John Furrier used to say that data is the new development kit. You call it the new infrastructure and it's sort of the same type of theme. So maybe some of the trends you're seeing in database, I'd love to talk about that for a little bit, and then pick your brains on some other tech like object storage is another one that we've really seen take off. >> Yeah, so I think our journey with object storage began in 2016, 2017, as we started to adopt cloud platform in response to the user requirements, we did more like most companies have done and unfortunately continue to do, we take the on-prem product and then just move it onto the cloud. And one of the things we saw was there was a fundamental difference of how the design points of a cloud engineering is all about, what the design it for. Object storage is one of those primitives, the fundamental storage primitives that the cloud providers actually produced, that nobody really exploited. It was used as a graveyard for data. It's a replacement for the place where data goes to die. And then we look at it really closely and say, "Well, this is actually a massively scalable, very low cost storage, but it has some problems." It has an interface that you cannot use with traditional servers. It has some issues around, you know, not being able to read, modify, write the data, so it feels like you're consuming a lot of storage. So we went on to solve those problems. It took us a good two years to come back with something called OnVault, that fundamentally treats object storage like this massively scalable high performing disk. Except for just ridiculous low cost and optimize the capacity. So this thing called OnVault, as we patent it, has really become the foundation of how everything in cloud works without using CPU. Today there is simply nothing at a lower TCO, that actually, if you want to do basic backup, the more importantly use that to do this massive analytics. Now you're talking about data warehouse, data lakes, right? Because now there's something called data lakehouse. All of these are still silos. All of these are people trying to take some data from somewhere, put it into another new construct and have it be controlled by somebody else. This is autosync, it's just, you just move the silos from someplace to another place, and sort of creating a pipeline. If you want to really create a pipeline, object storage has been an integral part of that pipeline, not a separate bucket by itself. And that's what we did. And same thing with databases. You know, most business, most of the critical business runs on databases, and the ability to find a way to leverage those and move them around, leverage in terms of whichever format the database is accessed, whichever location it's accessed, doesn't matter how big it is. Lots of work has gone into trying to figure that one out. And we had some very, very good partners in some of our largest customers who helped take the journey with us. Pretty much all of the global 2000 accounts you see across the board, were an integral part of our process. >> You know, you mentioned the word journey and it triggered a thought, your discussion with Ravi, the CIO of Seagate, who's a customer of yours. And what he said, I liked what he said, he, of course he used the term journey, we all do. But he said, "You know what? I kind of don't like that term because I want to inject a sense of urgency," essentially what he was saying, "I want speed." You know, journey's like, "Okay, kids get in the car, we're going to drive across country. We're going to make some stops." And so while there's a journey, he also was really trying to push the organization hard. And he talked about culture as some of the most difficult things. Like many CIOs said, "No, the technology is almost the easy part. It's true when it works." >> That's true. >> I thought that was a great discussion that you had. What were your, some of your takeaways? >> I think Ravi's a very astute IT executive who's been around the block for so long. And one of the fascinating things, when I asked him this question about, "Hey, what's the biggest challenge, we've just gone through this a couple of times, what is the biggest challenge?" Taking an organization as venerable, as well known as Seagate is, I mean, this is a data company. This is at the heart of half the world's data is on Seagate stuff. How do you take this old company that's been around for long, in the middle of Silicon Valley, and make it into a fast growing transformation company that's responding to the newer challenges? And I thought he was going to come back with, "Well, you know, I got to go through these pieces, I pick this technology that technology," and surely that's exactly what I expected he would end up with. He goes "It has nothing to do with technology." In this day and age, when you can have an Elon Musk can send a car to Mars, there's not many technologies that we can't really solve. Maybe COVID-19 is the next frontier we got to go solve. But frankly, he hit upon the one thing that matters to every company. It is the fundamental culture to create a bias to action. It's a fundamental culture where you have to come back and have a deliverable that moves the ball forward every day, every month, every quarter, as opposed to have this series of, like you said, a journey that says, and we all know this, right? People talk about, "Oh, we're going to do this in phase one, we're going to do this in phase two and do this in phase three," nothing ever happens in phase three. Nobody gets around to phase three. So I think he did a great job of saying, "I fundamentally had to go change the culture." That was my biggest takeaway. And this, I've heard this so many times, the most effective IT execs who've made the transformation, it actually shows in the people that they have. It's not the technology, it's the people. And his history is replete with organizations that have done remarkably well, not by leveraging the heck out of the technology, but truly by leveraging the change in the people's mindset. And of course that mindset leverages technology where appropriate, but Ravi is a insightful person, always such a delight to talk to him, it's a delight for him to have chosen us as a foundational technology for him to go pull his data warehouses and completely transform how he's doing manufacturing across the globe. >> Yeah, I want to add some color to what you just said, because some key takeaways from what you just said, Ash, is, you know, you're right. When you look back at the history of the computer industry, there used to be very well known processes, but the technology was the big mystery and the big risk. And you think about with COVID, were it not for technology, we didn't know what was coming. We were inventing new processes literally every day, every week, every month. And so technology was pretty well understood, and enabled that. And when you think, when we talked earlier about putting data at the core, it was interesting to hear Ravi. He basically said, "Yeah, we had a big data team in the US, a big data team in Europe." We actually organized around silos. And so you guys played a role, you were very respectful about, you know, touting Actifio with him. You did ask him, you know, what role you play, but it was interesting to hear him talk about how he had to address that both culturally and of course, there's technology underneath to enable that unification of data, that silo busting, if you will. And you guys played a role in that. >> Yeah, well, I always enjoy conversation with the folks who have taken a problem, identified what needs to be done, and then just get it done. And that's more fascinating than, yeah, of course Actifio plays a small part in a lot of things, and we're proud to have played a small part in his big initiative. And that's true of the thousands of customers we talk about, but it's such a fascinating story to have leaders who come back and make this transformation happen and to understand how they went about making those decisions, how they identified where the problem was. These are so hard when we all see them in our own lives. We see there's a problem, but sometimes it takes a while to try to understand how do you identify them and what do you have to do? And more importantly, actually do it. And so whenever I get an opportunity with people like Ravi, I think understanding that, and if there's a way to help, we always make sure that we play our own small part and we're privileged to be a part of those kinds of journeys. >> I think what's interesting about Actifio and the company that you created is essentially that we're talking about the democratization of data, that whole data pipeline, that discussion that we had, the self service of that data to the lines of business, and, you know, you guys clearly play a role there. The multicloud discussion fits into that. I mean these are all trends that are tailwinds for companies that can help sort of flatten the data globe, if you will. Your final thoughts, Ash? >> Yeah, you said something that is so much at the heart of every IT exec that we are talking to. If data truly is the fundamental asset that I finally end up with as an organization, then democratization of data, where I do not lock this into another silo, another platform, another cloud, another application, has to be part of my foundation design. And therefore my ability to use each of these cloud platform for the services they provide while I am able to move the data to where I need it to be, that is so critical. So you almost start to think about the one position an organization now has. And we talked about this with a group of CIOs. There might be some pretty soon, not too far off, but if data is truly an asset, I might actually have a data market, just like you have a stock market, where I can start to sell my data, imagine a COVID-19, there's so many organizations that have so much data, and many of them have contributed to this research because this is an existential issue, but you can see this turning into a next level. So yes, we have got activists help move the data to one level higher where it's become a foundational construct for an organization. The next part is, can I actually turn this into an asset where I actually monetize some of this stuff? And it will be not too long when you and I could talk about how there's this new exchange and what's the rate of data for this company versus that company, and there'll be future trading options, who knows, it's going to be very interesting. >> Well, I think you're right on, this notion of a data marketplace is coming and it's not that far away. Well, Ash, it's always great to talk to you. I hope next year at Data Driven, we can be face to face, but I mean, look, this has been, we've dealt with it. It's actually created opportunities for us to kind of reinvent ourselves. So congratulations on the success that you've had and thank you for coming on theCUBE. >> No, thank you for hosting us and always a big fan of theCUBE. You guys, we've engaged with you since the early days, and it is fascinating to see how this company has grown. And it's probably many people don't even know how much you've grown behind the scenes and all the technologies and culture that you've created yourself. So it's hopefully one day we'll switch the table and then I'd be on the other side and ask you about transformation, digital transformation of CUBE itself. >> I'd love to do that, and thanks again, and thank you everybody for watching our continuous coverage of Actifio Data Driven. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next guest right after this short break. >> Ash: Thank you, Dave. (calm music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, It's theCube, with digital coverage, of Actifio data-driven 2020, brought to you by Actifio. >> Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman, and this is theCube coverage of Actifio Data-driven 2020. Really excited to, dig into a fun topic. I have a Cube alumni with us he is a DevOps author, and researcher Gene Kim. Unicorn Project is the most recent, Gene, great to see you, thanks so much for joining us. >> Stu, great to see you again, here at the Actifio conference, this is all fantastic. >> Yeah, so your new book, it was much awaited out there, you know, Unicorn's always discussed out there, but you know, the Phoenix Project, as I said, is really this seminal, book when people say, What is that DevOps thing and how do I do it? So, why don't you give us a little bit as to The Unicorn Project, why is it important? Why we're excited to dig into this and, we'll, we'll tie it into the discussion we're having here for the next normal, at Actifio. >> For sure, yeah, in fact, yeah. As you might have heard in the keynote address, you know, the what, what vexed me, after the Phoenix project came out in 2013 is that there is still looming problems that still remain, seven years after the Phoenix project was written. And, you know, these problems I think are very important, around you and what does it really take to enable developers to truly be productive, instead of being locked in a tundra of technical debt. Two is, you know, how do we unlock truly the power of data so that we can help everyone make better decisions, whether it's a developer, or anyone, within the business units and the organizations that we serve. And then three is like, what are really the behaviors that we need from leadership to make these amazing transformations possible? And so The Unicorn Project really is, the fifth project retold, but instead of through the eyes of Ops leadership, is told through the eyes, of a phenomenal developer. And so it was amazing to revisit the, the Phoenix project universe, I in the same timeline, but told from a different point of view. And it was such a fun project to work on, just because, you know, to relive the story, and just expose all these other problems, not happening, not on the side, but from, the development and data side. >> Yeah. They've always these characters in there that, I know I personally, and many people I talked to can, you know, really associate with, there was a return of certain characters, quite prominent, like Brent, you know, don't be the bottleneck in your system. It's great, if you're a fighter firefighter, and can solve everything, but if everything has to come through you, you know, Pedro is always going off, he's getting no sleep and, you know, you'd just get stressed out. You talked a bit more, about the organization and there are the five ideals in the book. So maybe if you can, you know, strongly recommend, of course, anybody at ending active you, got a copy of the books they'll be able to read the whole thing, but, you know, give us the bumper sticker on some of those key learnings. >> Yeah, for sure, yeah. So the five ideals represents five ideas, I think are just very important, for everyone, the organization, serves, especially leadership. The first ideal is locality and simplicity. In other words, when you need to get something done, we should be able to get it done within our team, without having to do a lot of communication coordination, with people outside of our team. The worst, the most horrible feeling is that in order, to do a small little thing, you actually have, to have a, coordinated action that spans 15 teams, right. And that's why you can't get anything done, right? And so that's so much the hallmark of large complex organizations. The second ideal is that what I think the outcomes are, which is focused flow and joy, you know, I've not just now started to for the first time in 20 years, self identify, not as an ops person, but as a developer. And, I really now understand, why we got into technology in the first place. This so that we can solve the business problem at hand unencumbered by minute share. And that allows for a sense of focus flow and even joy. And I love how Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describe it. He said, flow is a state that we feel when we love our work, so much that we lose track of time, and maybe even sense of self. And so I think we all in technology understand, you know, that that is how it is on the best of days and how terrible it is, you know, when we don't have that sense of flow. Third ideal is improvement of daily work, being even more important than daily work itself. The notion is greatness is never free, we must create it and must prioritize it, for the psychological safety. And the fifth is customer focus. So those are all the things I think are so important, for modern leaders, because it really defines the future of work. >> Yeah, we love that flow and it happens otherwise we're stuck, in that waiting place as you quoted Dr. Csi. So one of my favorite books there, there also. So Gene, for this audience here, there was, you know, yes, CICD is wonderful and I need to be able to move and ship fast, but the real transformational power, for that organization was unlocking the value of data, which is, I think something that everybody here can. So maybe to talk a little bit about that you know, we, there there's, we've almost talked too much, you know, data is the new oil and things like that, but it's that, you know, that allowing everybody to tap in and leverage, you know, real time what's happening there were just at the early parts of the industry being able to unlock that future. >> Oh yeah, I love that phrase. Data is new oil, especially since oil, you know, the last 50 years, the standard Port 500 was dominated by, you know, resource extraction oil company and so forth. And now that is no longer true, it's dominated by the tech giants. And, Columbia there was a Columbia journalism review article that said, data's not only the new oil, is really the new soil. And for me, you know, my area of passion for the last seven years has been studying the DevOps enterprise community where, we're taking all the learnings that were really pioneered by the tech giants, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, and seeing how they're being adopted by the largest, most complex organizations on the planet, the best known brands across every industry vertical. And it's so true that, you know, where the real learning gets exploited right, is through data. I realized, this is how we get to know our customers better. This is how we understand their wants and needs. This is how we test, and make offers to them to see if they like it or not to see if they value it or not. And, and so for me, one of the best examples, of this was, the target transformation and Adidas how it was just an amazing example of, to what links they went to, to liberate developers from, being shackled by ancient systems of records, data warehouses, and truly enabled developers to get access to the data they need modify it, even delete information, all without having to be dependent on, you know, integration teams that were essentially holding them hostage for six to nine months. And, these programs really enable some of the most strategic programs at their organizations, you know, enabling hundreds of projects over the years. So, I think that is really, just showing to what extent, the value that is created by unlocking data for individuals. And sorry Stu, one more thing that I'm just always dazzled by my friend, Chris Berg. He told me that, somewhere between a third and a half of all company employees use data in their daily work. They either use data or manipulate data as part of the daily work, which, you know, that, population is actually larger than the number of developers in an organization. So it just shows you how big this problem is, and how much value we can create by addressing this problem. >> Well, it's interesting if it's only a third, we still have work to do. What we've been saying for years is, you know, when you talk about digital transformation, the thing that separates those that have transformed and those that haven't is data needs to be at the core. I just can't be doing things the way I was or doing things off intuition, you know, being data-driven, I'm sure you know, the same Gene, if you're not, if you don't have data, you know, you're just some other person with an opinion. >> Yeah, yeah. That's it this is a great point. And in Risto Siilasmaa's amazing book, Transforming Nokia, I mean, he was, he said exactly that. And he said something that was even more astonishing. He said, there's not only at the core, but data also has to be at the edges. You know, he was describing at Amazon, anyone can do an experiment @booking.com. Anyone can do an experiment to see, if they can create value for the customer. They don't need approvals from, committees or their manager. This is something that is really truly part of everyone's daily work. And so, to me, that was a huge aha moment that says, you know, to what degree, you know. Our cultures need to change so that we can not only, use data, but also create learnings and create new data, you know, that the rest of the organization can learn from as well. >> Yeah. One of the other things I definitely, you know, felt in your book, you synthesize so much of the learnings that you've had over the years from like the DevOps enterprise summit. The question I have for you is, you know, you hear some of these, you know, great stories, but the question is, our companies, are they moving fast enough? Have they transformed the entire business or have they taken, you know, we've got one slice of the business that is kind of modernized and we're going to get to the other 30 pieces along the way, but you know, there's wholesale change, you know, 2020 has had such a big impact. What's your thoughts on, you know, how we are doing in the enterprise on pace of change these days? >> That's a great question. I mean, I think some people, when they ask me, you know, how far are we into kind of total adoption of DevOps? It's a newer better way of working. And I would say probably somewhere between 5 and 7%, right, and the math I would take them through is, you know, there are about 20 million developers on the planet of which at best, I think, a million of them are working in a DevOps type way. But yet now that's only growing. I think it was an amazing presentation at DevOps surprise summit in London that was virtual from nationwide building society, the largest organization of its kind. It's a large financially mutually owned organization for housing in the UK. And, they touched about how, you know, post COVID post lockdown suddenly they found themselves able to do them reckless things that would have normally taken four years, in four weeks. And I think that's what almost every organization is learning these days is, when survival is at stake, you know, we can throw the rules out of the window, right. And do things in a way that are safe and responsible, but, you know, create satisfy the business urgent needs, like, you know, provisioning tens of thousand people to work from home safely. You know, I think the shows, I think it's such a powerful proof point of what technology can do when it is unleashed from, you know, perhaps unnecessarily burdensome rules and process. And I think the other point I would make Stu is that, what has been so rewarding is the population of these technology leaders presenting at DevOps enterprise, they're all being promoted, they're all being, being given new responsibilities because they, are demonstrating that they have the best longterm interest of the organization at heart. And, they're being given even more responsibilities because, to make a bigger impact through the organization. So I'm incredibly optimistic about the direction we're heading and even the pace we're going at. >> Well, Gene definitely 2020 has put a real highlight on how fast things have changed, not just work from home, but, but the homeschooling, you know, telehealth, there are so many things out there where there was no choice, but to move forward. So the, the second presentation you participated in was talking about that next normal. So give us a little bit of, you know, what does that mean? You know, what, what we should be looking at going forward? >> Yeah, it was great to catch up with my friend Paul Forte, who I've known for many, many years, and now, now a VP of sales at the Actifio and yeah, I think it is amazing that academic Dr. Colada Perez, she said, you know, in every turning point, you know, where, there's such a the stage for decades of economic prosperity usually comes, by something exactly like what we're going through now, a huge economic recession or depression, following a period of intense re regulations there's new, technology that's unlocking, you know, new ways of working. And she pointed exactly to what's happening in the Covid pandemic in terms of, how much, the way we're working is being revolutionized, not by choice, but out of necessity. And, you know, as she said, you know, we're now learning to what degree we can actually do our daily work without getting on airplanes or, you know, meeting people in person. So, I'm a hue, I have so many friends in the travel industry, right. I think we all want normalcy to return, but I think we are learning, you know, potentially, you know, there are more efficient ways to do things, that don't require a day of travel for a couple hour meeting and day to return, right. So, yeah, I think this is being demonstrated. I think this will unlock a whole bunch of ways of interacting that will create efficiency. So I don't think we're going, as you suggested, right. There will be a new normal, but the new normal is not going to be the same as your old normal. And I think it will be, in general for the better. >> So, Gene, you, you've gone to gotten to see some of the transformation happening in the organizations when it comes to developers, you know, the, the DevOps enterprise summit, the, the state of DevOps, you know. I think five years ago, we knew how important developers were, but there was such a gap between, well, the developers are kind of in the corner, they don't pay for anything. They're not tied to the enterprise. And today it feels like we have a more cohesive story that there, there is that if you put in The Unicorn Project, it's, you know, business and IT, you know. IT, and the developers can actually drive that change and the survival of the business. So, you know, are we there yet success or net developers now have a seat at the table? Or, you know, what do you see on that, that we still need to do? >> Yeah, I think we're still, I mean, I think we're getting there, we're closer than ever. And as my friend, Chris O'Malley the CEO of the famously resurgent mainframe vendor Compuware said, you know, it is, everyone is aware that you can't do any major initiatives these days without some investment in technology, right? In fact, you can't invest in anything without technology. So I think that is now better understood than ever. And, yeah, just the digital, it's a whole digital disruption, I think is really, no one needs to be convinced that if we organize large complex organizations, don't change, they're at a risk of, you know, being decimated by the organizations that can change using an exploiting technology, you know, to their benefit and to the other person's detriment. So, and that primarily comes through software and who creates software developers. So I, by the way, I love the Stripe it was a CFO for Stripe who said, the largest, constraint for them is, and their peers is not access to capital, it is access development talent. I think when you have CFOs talking like that, right. It does says it's suggested something really has changed in the economic environment that we all compete in. >> So, I mentioned that on the research side, one of the things I've loved reading over the years is that, fundamental discussion that, going faster does not mean, that I am sacrificing security, or, you know, the product itself, you know, in the last couple of years, it's, you know, what separates those really high performing companies, and, you know, just kind of the middle of the ground. So, what, what, what advice would you give out there, to make sure that I'm moving my company more along to those high performing methods. >> Yeah, but just to resonate with that, I was interviewing a friend of mine, Mike Nygaard, long time friend of mine, and we were talking on and we were recalling the first time we both heard the famous 2009 presentation doing 10 deploys a day, every day at flicker, by John Allspaw and Paul Hammond. And we were both incredulous, right there? We thought it was irresponsible reckless, and maybe even immoral what they were doing, because, you know, I think most organizations were doing three a year, and that was very problematic. How could one do 10 deploys a day. And I think, what we now know, with the size of evidence, especially through the state of DevOps research, is that, you know, for six years, 35,000 plus respondents, the only way that you can be reliable, and secure, is to do smaller deployments more frequently, right? It makes you, be able to respond quicker in the marketplace, allows you to have better stability and reliability in the operational environment, allows you to be more secure. It allows you to be able to, you know, increase market share, increase productivity, and, you know, have happier employees. So, you know, at this point, I think the research is so decisive, that, you know, we can, as a whole book accelerate, that really makes the case for that, that this is something that I now have moral certainty or even absolute certainty oh, right. It's, you know, self evident to me, and it, I think we should have confidence that that really is true. >> Wonderful work, Gene, thanks so much for giving us the update. I really appreciate it, some really good sessions here in Actifio, as well as the book. Thanks so much, great to talk to you. >> Stu is always a pleasure to see you again, and thank you so much. >> Alright, that's our coverage from Actifio Data-driven, be sure to check out thecube.net for all of the, on demand content, as well as, as I said, if you were part of the show, definitely recommend reading Gene's book, The Unicorn Project. I'm Stu Miniman. And thank you for watching the cube. (soft upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Actifio Data Driven 2020, brought to you by Actifio. >> Hi everybody this is Dave Vellante, full of preview of Actifio Data Driven, and with me is Brian Reagan who is a long time cube alumni, good friend. Brian, awesome to see you thanks for coming on and help us set up Data Driven >> Dave it's always a pleasure to be here, thanks for having me. >> So this is one of our favorite events of the season, not only because it's historically been in Boston, but it's a really good intimate event, lot of customer content. Unfortunately this year, of course everything has gone virtual but tell us about that, what do you guys got planned for Data Driven this year? >> Well again we're delighted to be able to put the show on, in spite of all of the challenges of travel and face to face. As you know from years past, Data Driven has always been sort of by the customers for the customers, very much an event that is driven around understanding how customers are using data strategically, and how Actifio is helping them do that to power their businesses. This year is no different, I think what we've done is we've taken the best of the physical events, which is really facilitating fireside chats and panels of people using our technology to move the business forward with data, but also added a lot of things that frankly are impossible to do when you're strained by a physical event, which is be able to run a series of on demand technical sessions. Our technical tracks are always standing room only, so now we can offer more content, more discreet package content that can be consumed the day of the event and on for a year plus after the event. So we're excited to really sort of mix the best of both worlds virtual and the forums that have worked so well for us in the physical events. >> Well it's like I said I mean, lots of these events are sort of vendor fests, but what you do with Data Driven is you bring in the customer's voice. And I remember last year in theCUBE, we had Holly st. Clair who was with the state of Massachusetts, she was awesome. We had a guest from DraftKings, which was really, really tremendous. Of course, you see what's happening with those guys now just exploding. >> Exactly. >> But we also had a lot of fun, when of course Ash comes on, and all the Actifio folk, but we had Frank Gens on, the first and only time we've ever had him on theCUBE, he's now retired from IDC, I guess semiretired. We had Duplessie on, which was a lot of fun. So it's just a good vibe. >> Yeah, we made a conscious decision to your point not to avoid the traditional vendor fest, and bludgeoning people with PowerPoint throughout the day, and really wanted to make it spin it around, and have the customers tell their stories in their own words, and really talk about the themes that are both common, in terms of challenges, ways that they've addressed those challenges, but also dig into the real implications of when they do solve these challenges, what are the unintended consequences? It's sort of like the... In a lot of ways I think about the journey that customers went through with VMware and with the ability to spin up VMs effortlessly, was a fantastic first step, and then all of a sudden they realized they had all of these spun up Vms that were consuming resources that they didn't necessarily had thought about at the very beginning. I think that our customers as they progress through their journey with Actifio, once they realize the power of being able to access data and deliver data, no matter how big it is, in any form factor in any cloud, there's incredible power there, but there also comes with that a real need to make sure that the governance and controls and management systems are in place to properly deliver that. Particularly today when everything is distributed, everything is essentially at arms length, so that's part of the fun of these events is really being able to hear all of the ways these unique customers are, adding value, delivering value, gaining value, from the platform. >> What's it's interesting you mentioned VMs, it was like life changing when you saw your first VM get spun up and you're like, wow, this is unbelievable, and then it was so easy to spin up. and then you just save VM creep and copy creep. >> Right. >> And you're seeing some similar things now with cloud I mean example is the cloud data warehouses is so easy to spin those things up now. The CFOs are looking at the bill going Whoa, what are we doing here? >> (laughs) >> You're going to see the same thing >> Exactly. >> with containers as you begin to persist containers, you're going to have the same problem. So you guys created the category, it's always a marketing executives dreams to be able to create a category. You guys created the Copy Data Management category, and of course, you've extended that. But that was really good, it was something that you guys set forth and then all the analysts picked up on it, people now use that as a term and it kind of resonates with everybody. >> Right, right. It was bittersweet but also very satisfying to start to see other vendors come out with their own Copy Data Management offerings, and so yes the validating that in fact this is a real problem in the enterprise continues to be a real problem in the enterprise, and by using technologies that Actifio really pioneered and patented quite a bit of foundational technologies around, we're able to help customers address those copy data challenges, those spiraling costs of managing all of these duplicate, physical instances of data. And to your point, to some degree when you're on-prem in a data center and you've already bought your storage array. Okay, I'm consuming 20% more of the Ray or 100% more of the array than I really need to be, but I've already paid for the array. When it comes to cloud, those bills are adding up hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and those are real costs, and so in many ways cloud is actually highlighting the power and frankly the problem of copy data, far more than the on-prem phenomenon ever did. >> Yeah I was on the phone with a former CIO, COO now of a healthcare organization, and he was saying to me there's a dark side of CapEx to OPEX, which is now that he's a COO he's like really concerned about the income statement and the variability of those costs, and so to your point I mean it's a big issue, the convenience seems to be outweighing some of that concern but nonetheless lack of predictability is a real concern there. >> Absolutely, absolutely. And I think we see that... You mentioned data lakes, and whether you call it a data lake or you just call it a massive data instance, one of the speakers of Data Driven this year is a customer of our Century Data Systems down in Florida. And they have 120 terabyte database that actually they're using, and this is an incredible story that we're excited to have them share with the world during Data Driven. They're using it to help the federal government get better data faster on COVID treatments and the efficacy of those treatments, and so to even consider being able to rapidly access and manage 120 terabyte instance. It breaks the laws of physics frankly. But again with Copy Data Management, we have the ability to help them really extend and really enhance their business and ultimately enhance the data flows that are hopefully going to accelerate the access to a vaccine for us in North American and worldwide, quite frankly. >> That's awesome, that's awesome. Now let's talk a little bit more about Data Driven what we can expect. Of course, the last couple of years you've been the host of Data Driven. They pulled a Ricky gervais' on you >> (Laughs loudly) like get the golden gloves, he's no longer being invited to host, but I think probably for different reasons, but what are some the major themes that we can expect this year? >> Yeah, we were disappointed that we couldn't get Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. >> (laughs quietly) I think we decided that in a virtual construct, the host duties were pretty amenable. So among the many things I talked about Sentry Data Systems and we have many customers who are going to be joining us and telling their stories. And again from accelerating data analytics to accelerating DevOps initiatives, to accelerating a move to the cloud, we're going to hear all of those different use cases described. One of the things that is different this year and we're really excited. Gene Kim sort of the author and noted DevOps guru, author of The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, he's going to be joining us. We had previously intended to do a road show with Gene this year and obviously those plans got changed a bit. So really excited to have him join us, talk about his point of view around DevOps. Certainly it's a hugely important use case for us, really important for many of our customers, and actually registrant's between now and the event, which is September 15th and 16th, we'll get an eCopy an e-book copy of his Unicorn Project book. So we're eager to have people register and if they haven't already read him then I think they're going to be really pleasantly surprised to see how accessible his materials are, and yet how meaningful and how powerful they can be in terms of articulating the journeys that many of these businesses are going through. >> Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I'm stucked I have not read that material, but I've heard a lot about it, and when I signed up I saw that, said great I'm going to get the free book. So I'm going to check that out, >> Yeah It's obviously a very, very hot topic. Well Brian, I really appreciate you coming on, and setting up the event. What are the details? So where do I go to sign up? When is the event? What's the format? Give us the lowdown. >> It is September 15th and 16th, actifio.com will guide you through the registration process. You'll be able to create the event based on the content that you're eager to participate in. And again not only on the 15th and 16th, but then into the future, you'll be able to go back and re access or access content that you didn't have the time to do during the event window. So we're really excited to be able to offer that as an important part of the event. >> Fantastic and of course theCUBE will be there doing its normal wall to wall coverage. Of course, this time virtual, and you'll see us on social media with all the clips and all the work on Silicon Angle. So Brian great to see you and we will see you online in September. >> Thanks, Dave. >> All right, and thank you. Go to actifio.com, sign up register for Data Driven, this is Dave Vellante for theCUBE, we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of active EO data driven 2020 brought to you by activity. >>However, this is Dave Volante for the Cube and appear to really tell you how excited we are about active CIOs. Data driven. We're partnering with active again this year. Of course, the conference has gone virtual. Data driven is a great event. It's a very customer oriented event. Active CEO is a company that deals with some really gnarly data problems at scale. They started in the space of copy data Management and have extended into Dev Ops and Analytics and Cloud. And so the Cube will be there. It's September 15th and 16th, 16th goto active geo dot com. Sign up. There's a free e book on Dev Ops. It's always a great program. We'll see you there. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of active eo data driven 2020 Brought to you by activity. >>Hi, I'm Brian Reagan from Active Seo. And I'd like to welcome you to join us at Data Driven 2020 this year. Online as in years past, it's all about the customer from the bear voice to you talking about how they're solving their cloud Dev Ops Analytics and data protection challenges using the activity of platform and helping move their business forward this year. We're also excited to welcome Gene Kim Noted Dev Ops author in Guru on his E book. The Unicorn Project is available for free if you register today, so join us September 15th and 16th for data driven 2020. We look forward to seeing you online. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah