(bright upbeat music) >> Welcome back to theCube's coverage of HPE's Green Lake announcement. We've been following the caves of Green Lake's announcement for several quarters now, and even years. And we're going to look at cloud adoption and frameworks to help facilitate cloud adoptions. You know, in 2020, the world was on a forced march to digital and there was a lot that they didn't know. Big part of that was how to automate, how to reduce your reliance on physically, manually and plugging things in. And so, customers need an adoption framework to better understand and how to de-risk that journey to the cloud. And with me to talk about that are Alexia Clements, who's the Vice President at Worldwide go to market for GreenLake cloud services at HPE and Alexei Gerasimov who's the vice president of Hybrid Cloud Delivery advisory and professional services at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Folks, welcome to theCube. >> Alexia: Thanks so much for having us. >> You're very welcome. So, Alexei, what is a cloud adoption framework? How does that all work? >> Gerasimov: Yeah, thanks Dave. So the framework is a structured approach to elevate the conversation, to help our customers get outcomes. So we've been helping customers adopt the benefits in the most of IT for a decade. And we've noticed that they basically focus on eight key areas as they transform to cloud-like capabilities. It's a strategy and governance, it's innovation, people, a dev ops applications, operations security, and data. So we've structured our framework around those core components to help our customers get value. Because end of the day, it's all about changing the way they operate. To get the advantage of all of it. >> Yes. So you can't just pave the cow path and kind of plug your existing process. There's a lot that's unknown, as I said up front. So, so Alexia, maybe you could talk a little bit more about some of the real problems that you're solving with customers that you see in the field. >> Alexey: Yeah, absolutely. So most customers are going through some form of digital transformation and these transformations are difficult and they need a structured approach to help them through that journey. I kind of like to think of it as a recipe to make a meal. So you need to know what ingredients to buy and what are the steps to perform to make that meal. >> Okay. So when you talk to customers, what do you, what do you tell them? That's in it for them after the, after you've actually successfully helped them deploy? What are they telling you? >> Yeah, well, they're telling they now have reached their business outcomes and they're, you know, they're a more agile organization. >> What's the experience look like when you, when you go through one of these journeys and you, you apply the adoption framework, can you sort of paint a picture for us? >> Yeah, absolutely. So every customer is in some sort of transformation, like Alexia said, that transformation implies you've got to know where you start and again, know where you're going. So the experience traditionally is customers need to understand what are my current hybrid cloud capabilities? What do I have, what am I missing? What's lacking and then determine where do you want to go? And in order to get from point A to point B, they have to get a prescriptive approach. So the framework sort of breaks down their path from where they are to their desired maturity. And it takes them in the very prescriptive path to get there. >> So you start with an assessment, you do a gap analysis based on their skill sets. I presume you identify what's possible, help them understand, you know, best practice, which they may not achieve, but this is kind of their north star. Right? And then do you help? How do you help them fill those gaps? Because are skills gaps. Everybody talks about that today. You guys presumably can provide additional services to do that, but so can you add a little bit color to that scope? >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so to your point, the first is a maturity level. So once you figure out the maturity level, you understand what needs to be done. So if you look at our domain, the eight domains that I mentioned and the framework, people is a big one, right? Most of the folks are struggling with people's skills and organizational capabilities. And it's so because it's an operating model change, right? And people are the key component to this operating model change. So we help our customers figure out how do we achieve that optimal operating level and operating a model maturity. And that could be on-prem that could be on public cloud. That could be hybrid. That could be at the edge. And yeah, we, if we can HP, the framework, by the way is pretty, pretty open and pretty objective. If we can help our customers address and achieve their sales gaps great. If we can not directly, then we can have a partner that can help them, you know, plug in something that we don't have. >> Are you finding that, that in terms of the maturity that most people have some kind of experience with, with cloud, but they're struggling to bring that cloud experience to their on-premise state. They don't want to just shove everything into the cloud. Right. So, what does that kind of typical journey look like for folks? I know there's--it's a wide spectrum, or you've got people that are maybe more mature. Maybe some of the folks in financial services got more resources, but can you sort of give us a sense as to what the typical, the average. >> Oh yeah yeah yeah, absolutely. By the way. So that give you a customer example, perfect example of a large North American integrated energy company. They decided to go cloud fresh, like a lot of companies. that wants to do cloud first. And why? The reason was agility. So they started going to the cloud and they realized in order to get agility, you can't just go to you, pick your public CSP, you got to change the way to operate. So they brought us in and they asked, could you help me figure out how we can change the organization? So we actually operate on the proper level of maturity. So we brought our team in. We help them figure out what do we need to look at? We need to look at operations. We need to look at people. We need to look at applications, and we need to figure out what gives you the best value. So when all said and done, they realized that their initial desire of, you know, public first or cloud first, wasn't really public cloud first. It's a way to operate. So now the customer is in three different public CSPs. They're on-prem, there are at edge and everywhere. So that's the focus. Yeah. >> Is the scope predominantly the technical organization. How deep does it go into the, to the business? Is it obviously the application development team is involved, but how deep into the business does this go? The framework. >> Right, and it's absolutely not a technology focused, the whole concept areas, it's outcomes based, and it's a results based. So if you look at the framework, there's really not a single element of the framework that says tech, like storage or compute. No, it's its people, its data, it's business value, strategy and governance, because the goal for us is being objective is we're just trying to help them address the outcomes. Not necessarily to give them more tech. >> So Alexia, I like that answer because it's a wider scope as, I mean, if we just focused on the tech and that's the swim lane, it'd be a lot easier. But as we all know, it's the people in the process that are really the hard part. So that, that makes the challenge for customers greater. You're hurting more cats. So what are the, some of the obstacles that potentially you help customers before they dive in understand. >> Yeah. So we're giving them a roadmap on where they need to go. So we're like I mentioned that recipe, so we're really trying to identify what is their strategy and where do they, what are the outcomes that they're trying to drive and help them on a street, you know, with that path to meet those outcomes. So some of those, I mean, every customer's a little bit different. I mean, we had one customer, which was a, one of the largest hospitals in north America and they, they would needed to, they wanted to go to the cloud, but they realized they couldn't put all of their patient data on the cloud. So what we did was we helped them in changing their operating model and really look to see how does that, how do they need to what's that end game for them, and actually help redo their operating model to have some in the cloud and some on-prem and, and really identify, you know, where they needed to go for their roadmap. So that was an obstacle that they had, hey, we can't put all this stuff out there. How does that now need to work in this new world? >> I would think the data model is a big deal here. I mean, you just gave an example where there's a, there's a, there's a governance and compliance aspect to it. So thinking about that example, did they have to change the way in which they provided federated governance was that presumably identify whose whose responsibility that was to adjudicate, but also had to get the, the implementers to follow that's the, how does that all work? Is it just the deep conversations? And then you figure out how to codify it or. >> No. So what so we have, so through those eight domains that Alexia mentioned, we go through, step-by-step how they need to think about it. And within mind, what are their business outcomes and goals that they're trying to achieve? So really identifying how they need to change that operating model to meet those business outcomes. >> So what's the output, it's a plan, right. That's tailored to the customer. Is that, is that correct? And, and then sort of assistance in implementing downstream or what do they get? >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just to piggyback to what Alexia said, the alignment, the early alignment, the strategy and governance, as you mentioned, this is probably the most important thing, because everybody says we want to be cloud first, but what does that mean? Cloud first means different things to everyone. So we said, give him a plan. The first we'll help with figure out is what does that mean for you? Because at the end of the day, you're not going to the cloud for the sake of cloud, or anywhere you go into the cloud to get some sort of value. So what's that alignment. So the plan is supposed to help you on your road to that value, right? So we'll help them figure out what I want to do, why, for what purpose, what's going to actually address my business value. So yes, they will get a plan as part of it. But more importantly, they get, they get a set of activities, communication plans, which by the way, another block that you got to address. >> Dave: Huge. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, a lot of executives tell me, look, if you don't change your operating model and go to the cloud, yeah. You're talking, you know, nickels and dimes. If you want to get telephone numbers, you know, big companies, you want to get into bees with billions, you have to change the operating model. And the problem that they tell me is a lot of times the corner offices, okay, we're doing this, but everybody in the fat middle says, what are we doing? >> Right. And now more than ever, I mean, customers need to look at that model like a more modern operating model to realize the benefits of cloud capabilities, whether that be at the edge, their data centers, their colos cloud. So they really need to look at that. And what we've seen is with our framework, we're really helping customers accelerate their business outcomes. De-risk their transformation, and really optimize that cloud operating model. >> It's that alignment you reducing friction within the organization, confusing confusion. When people don't know which direction they're going, they'll just going to go wherever they're pointed. Right. Right. >> And you back to the alignment. So you've got alignment and you mentioned communication. You have to communicate up and down and left and right across the organization because that's one of the most probably ignored elements of any transformation lots of people don't know. So you got to communicate. And then you have to actually measure and report on how they, you know, how the transformation is happening. So we can help in all three of those. >> Especially when everybody's remote. Yeah. Right. And then I said, hey, these digital transformations, there's so much, that's unknown. >> Alexia: Right. It's difficult. >> It's a lot of new. And so you also have to, I presume part of the plan is, Hey, you're not, it's not going to be a hundred percent perfect. So you have to have. >> Alexia: Right. And you're constantly iterating on that plan. >> What does this have to do with GreenLake? >> Alexia: Yeah. So, I mean, GreenLake is HPE's you know, cloud everywhere. And what we're really doing is this framework is helping customers with that path to get that cloud-like experience and as a service model. And so the framework is really helping clients understand where do they need to go and what GreenLake solutions can help them get there. >> So the fundamental assumption of not every cloud player necessarily bad, I would say most hyperscalers is, hey, ultimately, all the data and the workloads are going to go to the cloud, that's their operating premise. So they all have an operating framework to facilitate that. >> Alexia: Right. >> It's, it's tongue in cheek, but it's true. So, but everybody has one of these. How was yours different? >> Yeah. So like, like you said, there's lots of different, you know, frameworks out there, but what we're really focused on is meeting those business goals and outcomes for clients. So we didn't focus on the technology. Like we mentioned what we were really focusing around. I mean, we kind of learned early on that every customer has technical capabilities, applications, data in multiple clouds, on-prem in colos and at the edge. So we didn't focus on like just the technology. So it's really driving business outcomes and their goals and, and the tech, all those frameworks that we just mentioned, they're really specifically driving a particular technology tool or vendor implementing a particular technology or vendor. >> So we've talked about outcomes a lot, but I wonder if we could peel the onion on that. So, you know, the highest level outcome is I want to increase revenue, cut costs, drop to the bottom line, increase shareholder value, improve employee experiences and retention, make customers happier, grow my business. I mean, those are, I mean, I, I don't know a lot of businesses that don't... >> Alexia: Right. >> want to do that, So. Okay. That's cool. But then I'm imagining you really start to peel the layers and say, okay, this is how we're going to get there. And you get down to specific objectives as to the, how is that sort of how this works? >> Right, and that's due to echo at Alexia. So that's exactly why ours is different. We're not focusing on how to adopt Microsoft or AWS or Alibaba with focusing on how we can deliver the customer experience or a better revenue, you know, or, you know, increase the value for the consumer for whatever the company will help him. So the framework we'll look at that and figure out how do we actually address it, whether it's on public cloud, whether it's on prem, whether it's at the edge. >> You mentioned Alexia, that something, hey, if we don't have the skills, we can get a partner who does, a big company. You got a huge partner network. So for example, if you might not have necessarily a deep industry expertise, that's where you might lean on a partner or is that, is that a good example or is there a better one? >> Yes and we know. We're not going to just like you mentioned AWS or Microsoft, Alibaba thing that everything will go to public cloud. I don't believe so, but at the same time we know not everything will stay on-prem. So the combination of on-prem, the edge, you know, private cloud and public cloud is what the customers are after. So our partners could be either third party, system integrator that can help us implement something or even the public CSPs, because we know our customers have capabilities everywhere. So the question becomes, how can we holistically address their needs, whether it's on-prem, whether it's in public cloud. >> Great. Guys, thanks so much. >> Alexia: Thank you. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. >> My pleasure and thank you for watching everybody's as theCube's continuous coverage of HPE's GreenLake announcement, keep it right there for more great content. (bright upbeat music)

>> from Seattle WASHINGTON. It's the Q covering AWS Imagine brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Hey, welcome back. You're writing Jeffrey here with the Cube. We're in downtown >> Seattle. It aws Imagine. Edie you. It's a brand new show. Actually, this is the second year were here last year to really is part of public sector on Really addressing education and education is K through 12. It's higher education. It's community college. It's that and so much border. We're really excited to have our next guest. The company's been in the space for a long time, are really driving a lot of digital transformation internally as well as with their customers. And we have Andrew Gilfillan. He is the VP of product management for Pearson. Andrew, great to see you. >> Great to be here. Thanks for having me. >> All right. So give us the kind of quick over on Pearson for people who aren't familiar with the country. >> S O Pearson's a global education company operating in 70 countries around the world. And our mission is really to help people progress their lives through learning. >> Now things are changing up. Change it up a little bit. You're here he had a big announcement earlier today during the keynote Yes, about a new product called Rebel Pearson Rebel Pearson Rebels been around for a little while, so give us the background and what's changed now, >> right? So Rebel first launched in 2014. So it's now been around for a little more than five years on. And really, it's at the forefront of our transformation to digital course materials. Revels intended. Thio replaced the traditional tax book and give students the opportunity to have a fully digital interactive learning experience where they can read practice, study anywhere, >> anytime. So it's basically an app that integrates all the different types of material that they're going to use in their kind of day to day. In the actual engagement with that class. >> Eso it incorporates all of their course materials, so their readings, their assignments, they can access it through their computer or through mobile app, which is which is great because it enables them to learn anywhere. We know that students are on the go lots of priorities they're squeezing in their course, you know, their course work while there juggling jobs, families, activity is everything else. So it's pretty >> interesting because you talk about it being pretty mobile, heavy, mobile centric because that's one of the big attributes of mobile. Right? We check our phones were in line at the grocery store and you get a couple of minutes here in a couple minutes here, as opposed to when used to sit down at the computer. And I've kind of dedicated attention span. So you're seeing that on the education side with the kids in the way they actually engage with their with their curricula? >> Absolutely. I mean, we have to meet students where they are way have to bring learning to them so they can learn on their terms >> and is a workout. I mean, old school people like me, like Come on, you guys, let's sit down and concentrate for 20 minutes. 30 minutes on a particular topic. Yeah, it works for >> that. It does. And actually, what we know from research is that students actually learn better. When material is broken down into smaller chunks, the rebel is able to break the material down into smaller pieces. I'm really optimize the learning, provide immediate feedback for them, and soon can kind of stop pick up where they left off later down the road. You know, if they were studying during a break at their job right now and they're gonna pick back up when they get home, they can do that. >> Interesting. Okay, So that what is the Lexx? I have to do this. What's the opportunity? How did this come about in the first place? And then you guys do >> s so we're super excited to be able to partner with Amazon again. Our goal is Thio really make learning more engaging and more convenient for more learners. And the partnership with Amazon to bring the rebel skill for Alexa is another step in that direction. Eso, Alexa really enable students too engaged in their learning on their own terms. We had one student who tested the skill for us while it was in development who was juggling a family taking a full course load and had a full time job. And she used Alexa toe listen to her reading while she was preparing meals for her, for her family on it was a great way to really show that Alexa made possible her to fit her course. Bergin, when she had time to do it. >> So it's really just connecting her Alexa device at home in tow. Her her her revel account. >> Yeah, So the link your rebel account with your with your Alexa with your Amazon Alexa a count, and it allows you to stay up to date on when your assignments or do it allows. You listen to the tax. You can change devices and pick up where you left off on a new device >> in a different location at a different time. So how many different kind of actions will do >> so their number of commands? It's really focused on audio playback on understanding when your assignments are due being able to play sort of, you know what, you what the current assignment is or to know when the next assignment is due. Right? So it's still really focused on sort of the key activities that a student's gonna participate in when they're engaging with their with their rebel product. >> Okay, And do you see just isn't open up your product manager, you know, kind of a whole new host of of potential capabilities. Using voice is an interface versus >> yeah, eso eso I mean, we know that students air mobile. We know that the sort of current generation of students what we call the eye Jen's grew up in a world where Internets always been a thing. And so we really want to take advantage of all of the tools that are out there to deliver more engaging experiences, right, and and to really be able to reach Maur learners in really positive ways, >> right? And then who's your customer? Your customer usually like the school, the school entity, >> So that's a great question. Eso Historically, our customer really was The student is the end user. The educator ultimately chose what, uh, what they used or what they expected this student to use. Increasingly, Pierson's transforming and really looking at institutions as customers as well. And so we have tears of customers. It's It's the institution. It's Theo educator, and it's the student, and we have to meet the needs of all three of those things. One of the great things about Revel is not only do we believe that it drives better outcomes for the student, but it allows us to deliver a better product at a more affordable price, >> right? Do you find that the engagement with the application because it still basically the same application under the cover significantly is significantly different with a voice interaction around. If you have enough data yet, yeah, I think I >> think it's too early to tell. I mean, certainly were optimistic about the promise of voice being a part of the experience. It's not going to be the whole experience but will be an important part of the experience. And it will really enable more flexibility for students to use the tool in a variety of ways. >> It's just interesting to me with the whole voice thing that you get e mails old people like us get e mails telling you what you should ask your voice. You should ask Alexei, Have you thought about asking like something more than just turn on the radio with the weather? It's only a joke, >> you know, it's it's amazing. I think when you watch students interact with these tools, it's so natural and so intuitive for them. They've grown up with mobile devices. They've grown up with the Internet, they've grown up sort of with a new paradigm, and they expect that they're learning experiences, air gonna adapt in those ways and in sort of the ways that they're adopting, >> right? So last question. Here we're here. It it Just imagine, obviously, Theresa's super passionate about this area. Andrews super passionate about this area. What's it meant for you guys? How's Amazon been? Our AWS is a partner, you know, still kind of early days for them in this type of area. But clearly there's a lot of resource is being put behind. >> Yes, eso Amazon has been a great partner and Alexa the rebel skill for Alexis, sort of our new launch. But we've partnered with Amazon. Andi used Amazon Web service is underpinning Ah, lot of a lot of our product experiences, including Revel So they've been a great partner. And I think this is an example of just extending that one more step. And we look forward to be ableto, you know, look even further to see how we can work together to improve learning for students. >> I love a 200 year old company using voice. That's right. All right, Andrew. Well, thanks for taking a few minutes out of your way and congratulations. And look forward, Thio toe watching it progressively get more data coming out of that thing. Thank you. All right. He's an drum. Jeff, you're watching the key. Where eight of us. Imagine, in downtown Seattle. Thanks for watching.