>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 special coverage sponsored by AWS global partner network. >>Welcome everyone to the cube live covering AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today. We are joined by Joshua Virgin. He is the general manager at AWS outposts. Thanks so much for coming on the cube. Joshua, >>Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. >>It's great to have you, so tell our viewers a little bit about AWS, AWS outposts. >>Oh sure. It's one of my favorite subjects, obviously. So outposts is a service from AWS that allows you to use the same tools, technology, API APIs, programming interfaces that you do in the cloud, but install this and run it on your own premises or in a co-location facility. So it really extends the reach of AWS to far more locations than you could otherwise use it. >>So what are some of the advancements, uh, this year >>It's, it's been an amazingly busy year, even under unprecedented kind of circumstances where we've tried to turn the crank really hard and deliver value for our customers. We increased the number of countries you could order outposts in up to 51 countries. You can now connect outpost to all 22 AWS regions and our gov cloud regions, everything outside of China. And we delivered 15 new services or incremental features, including a S3 on outposts, which was the top thing that customers asked for, but also our application load balancer, Alasta cash, our relational database service RDS. Uh, you know, there's probably more than I'm missing here, but, um, you know, and we're definitely not slowing down in that regard. 2021 will probably be an even bigger year. >>So tell us a little bit about the, the response from customers since the launch of AWS outpost last year. What are, what are you hearing? >>Yeah, I mean, we're, we're hearing a lot, uh, I think we've been pleasantly surprised by the, the breadth and the depth of the customer use cases. One of the biggest things we heard from people was, you know, the, the outposts are great, but it's a, it's a full rack of compute or many racks of compute in some cases and storage, you know, their locations that people wanted to put it in that were smaller where their space constrained, maybe a restaurant or a factory floor or a small medical facility, uh, you know, a telco like a cell site. And so what we did based on that is something that we actually just announced in Andy's keynote. Uh, just a few days ago here, which is the new small form factor outposts that are one you and two use size, uh, servers. It's about the size of one or two pizza boxes stacked on top of each other. >>So that's even going to make outposts available to even more use cases, uh, you know, early on, uh, we kind of said to ourselves that it's important to kind of give people that consistent experience wherever they might need the compute and the storage and the other services. And so I've been, I've been really pleasantly surprised, as I mentioned earlier, by how many people have talked to us. We have customers like Phillips healthcare. They are, uh, they're bringing their medical imaging solution to outposts and it allows them to kind of modernize the way they deliver services to hospitals and medical research centers around the world. Something that really wouldn't be possible without having AWS everywhere. >>And that is much, much needed today. Um, tell us a little bit about more about this year in particular, you said it yourself at the beginning of our conversation, this is an unprecedented year for so many different reasons. How has the COVID-19 pandemic effected AWS outposts and how your team interacts with customers and, and gets your job done? >>Yeah, we, I think we have some unique challenges in that regard, obviously, as I mentioned earlier, AWS outposts are installed in a co-location facility or on a customer's own premises in a data center, you know, other things like that. So obviously we have to get our technicians out there to roll them in and hook them up to your network and, you know, to get them powered up. So that means that we are complying with, uh, COVID restrictions. And as I mentioned, 51 different countries. So there was even an install earlier this year at a mining location, uh, you know, far outside the U S where we had to get technicians working with, uh, local technicians from the customer following COVID guidelines, wearing protective gear, and actually installing the outpost, uh, you know, using kind of satellite conductivity and phones to phone home, and talk to us during the installation of course, cause it's not hooked up yet. So those are just kind of examples of the, the links to which we'll go to make sure that, of course we're safe, the customers are safe, but that they can kind of continue to modernize their application portfolio and get benefits from the outposts. >>And what are you hearing from clients and customers in terms of how they're thinking about their technology needs now and in the coming year? >>Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I mean, it, it really varies by market segment. So you have customers like Ericsson and Telefonica. They're going to be using outpost to, uh, kind of run their 5g packet core technology, Abe it's, it's gotta be run at the edge right there, telcos, they need to minimize latency single digit milliseconds, or you might have a customer like Lockheed Martin. And what they've told us is they have projects that are subject to government contracts and regulations. And not only do they have of course compliance regimes, like fed ramp that they need to be aware of, but there's data residency requirements. So whether they're deploying in the United States or, you know, with our allies all around the world, the compute and the storage, they need to run in specific locations. So now outposts are going to be a key, uh, advancement and kind of a key differentiator for them in how they deliver services to their customers and still meet those data residency or compliance requirement. >>Joshua, tell our viewers more about AWS outpost ready? >>Oh, that's a, it's another thing I'm really glad you mentioned. So the outposts ready program, these are solutions from our APN and our Amazon AWS partner network that are, uh, validated and following our best practices on AWS outposts. They're certified to work and, you know, they're generally available to customers. And so it's a program where, you know, ISV and SAS providers can ensure that the technology that they provide that this third-party technology is going to work in the outpost environment. And there's, there's something about outposts that I think makes this, uh, a differentiator and uniquely valuable when I mentioned kind of that consistent hybrid experience. When you think about how outposts are deployed, you know, in a customer's data center, maybe alongside other technology they're already using. And so customers say, look, these AWS services are great, but I already use a variety of third party technology maybe from Veritas or trend micro Palo Alto networks Convolt size sense, PagerDuty, pure storage NetApp, or the, you know, the list is actually pretty extensive of what people are already using. >>And so they've said, you know, I do plan on using AWS services, but I also don't want to give up, uh, you know, what my team is already familiar with. So can you make sure that's going to work for me, whether I'm using it in the region or on the AWS outposts. And so the, the, the interest in kind of demand for this, both from customers and the enthusiasm from the partners has been off the charts. We started the program in just September, which is not that long ago, and we had 32 partners. And, uh, as of today we have an additional, uh, additional 25 partners, right? It's 57 partners, total 64 certified solutions. So that's a lot of momentum and just kind of a, a short amount of time. And I'm really happy that we can deliver that to the customer. >>So it does, it's already showing tremendous momentum. How do you think about it in terms of the primary benefits that it gives to customers and how it helps customers and partners, >>You know, in order to qualify, the solution has to be tested and validated upon, uh, against a bunch of, uh, criteria that we have very specific technical criteria, security requirements, operational, and, you know, they're, they're supported for customers with clear deployment guidelines. So, you know, the customers can kind of think of this as a guarantee that we're not just saying maybe this could work, but, but this will work. If you're already using it, it's going to continue to work in a way that's familiar to you. And again, that's important that consistent hybrid experience, whether you're using a solution from a third party or from AWS, whether you're using it in the region or on a local zone or in a wavelength zone, and some of our other kind of innovative infrastructure deployments or using it on an outpost, no matter where you're using it, it has to work the same way. >>And so this is something that customers have said, I want to be able to get up and running quickly. We had a customer riot games, uh, th they're the maker of league of legends, but also when they were launching their new game, Valerie hunt, uh, in, in June of 2020, they deployed outposts in four different locations to kind of ensure a level playing field in terms of latency and what they told us, uh, you know, very much like the service ready program is they were able to get up and running in just a matter of days once the outpost was deployed. And it's because we gave them those same API APIs, that same tooling. So I think that's really important for people and, you know, I hope we can continue to deliver on that promise. >>So to close this out here, I want you to look into your crystal ball and think ahead, 12 and 24 months, when you know, fingers crossed, things are back to somewhat more normal. Uh, what's in store for AWS outposts. >>Yeah. I mean, we're going to deliver on what we announced here at reinvent, which has the new small form factor outposts. And I think what we're going to continue to do is listen to customers. We develop outposts from the very beginning because customer said, could, could you deploy outposts in our, in our data center or, sorry, can you deploy AWS? And our data center didn't have a name back then. And so that's really the hallmark of AWS. You know, somewhere around 90% of our roadmaps are based on what customers tell us they want. And the other 10% is when we kind of look around the corner and hopefully delight people with something they didn't even know they needed. And I really hope for my team and that that's what 2021 and 2022 brings is more countries, more services, more value, more compliance, certifications, you know, all the things that people tell us they want. We're going to keep turning the crank as hard as we can. And delivering that as quickly as possible >>With the trademark Amazon customer delight. Yes, absolutely. Excellent. Well, Joshua, Virgin, thank you so much for coming on the cube. It was a pleasure having you. >>It was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much. >>I'm Rebecca Knight for more of the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 stay tuned.