(light upbeat music) >> Hey, everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's day two live coverage of VMware Explore 2022 from Moscone Center in San Francisco. Lisa Martin here as your host with Dave Nicholson. We've got a couple of guests here and we have some props on set. Get a load of this Nature Fresh Farms produce. Keith Bradley joins us, the VP of IT from Nature Fresh Farms, and Alison Biers is back, as well, director of marketing at Edge Solutions for Dell. Guys, welcome back to the program and thanks for bringin' some food. >> Well, thank you, yeah. >> Thank you so much. >> So, Keith, talk to us a little bit about technology from Nature Fresh Farm's perspective. How do we look at this farming organization as a tech company? >> As technical, we're something that measures everything we grow. So, we're 200 acres of greenhouse, spanning probably about 3 or 400 acres of land. Everything's entirely environmentally controlled. So, the peppers that we have in front of you, the tomatoes, they're all grown and controlled from everything they get from light to moisture to irrigation and nutrients. So, we do all that. >> So, should I be able to taste the Dell goodness in these cucumbers, for example? >> I'd like to say Nature Fresh slash Dell good. >> Connect the dots for us. So, let's go through that sort of mental exercise of how are these end products for consumers better because of what you're doing in IT? >> So, one of the things that we've been able to do, and one of the transformations we made is we are now able to run our ETLs. So, analyze the data realtime at the Edge. So, making decisions which used to be only once a day based on analytics to now multiple times a day. Our ETLs used to take 8 to 10 hours to run. Now they run- >> So, extraction, transformation and load. >> Yep, yep. >> Okay. So, we consider it a party foul if you use a TLA and you don't find it the first time. >> Okay. >> But you get a pass 'cause you're an actual and real person. >> I'll give you that one. >> I already had a claim laid on that. I'm sorry, so continue. >> Yeah, yeah. So, it allowed now the growers to make multiple decisions and then you start adding the next layer. As we expanded our technology base, we started introducing AI into it. So now, AI is even starting to make decisions before the grower even knows to make them based on historical data. So, it's allowed us to become more proactive in protecting the health and longevity and even taste of that plant and the product coming out to you. >> That's awesome. Alison, talk to us about from Dell's perspective how is it helping Nature Fresh to simplify the Edge which there's a lot of complexity there? You talked about the size of the organization but how do you help simplify it? >> I think Nature Fresh had a lot of common problems that we see customers have. So, they had some really interesting ambitions to improve their produce and do it in a GMO free way and really bring a quality product to their customer. But yet, they were each solving their problems on their individual farms in different ways. And so, one of the ways that we were able to help was to consolidate a lot of those silos as they were expanding the scope and scale of what they really wanted to do from a technology perspective. And then being able to do that in a secure way that's delivering the insights they need when they need them right there at the Edge is really critical. >> I think it's wonderful that we have the actual stuff here. Because we often talk in these abstract terms about outcomes. There's your outcome right there. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> But talk about this growing in the soil somewhere. You have growers. It's not an abstraction. These are actual actual people. Where does the technology organism interface occur here? You have organically grown crops. Where's that interface? Where's the first technology involved in this process? Literally physically. >> Physically. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a shack with a server in it somewhere? >> So, we actually have, we have a core data center at the center of Nature Fresh set up basically where everything ends up. We have our Edge. So, we have computers, we're at the Edge analyzing stuff. But if you want to go right back to the grassroots of where it actually is, is it's right at, not dirt, but a ground up coconut husk. That is what the plants are grown in. And we analyze the data right there, 'cause that is our first Edge. And people think that's static for us. The Edge isn't static. 'Cause the Edge now moves. We have a plant that grows. Then we pick it. And then we have to store it and then we have to ship it. So, our Edge actually does move from area to area to area. So, statically one thing isn't the same all the time. It's a hard thing to say how it all starts but it's just a combination of everything from natural gas to everything. >> Okay, then are those, 'cause we think of things in terms of like internet of things and these sensors. >> Oh yeah. >> Things are being gathered. So, you've got stuff happily growing in husks and then being picked. What's the next step there? Where is that aggregated? Where does that go? Is that all going straight back to your data center or are there sort of intermediate steps in the process? >> So, what we do is we actually store everything at the Edge, and we do daily processes right there. And then it aggregates that data and it drops it down from a large number to a smaller number to go to the core. >> Got it. >> And then that way, at the core, it does the long term analysis. 'Cause again, a lot of the data that we collect, we don't need to keep. A lot of it is the temperature was X, the temperature was X, the temperature, we don't need that. So, it aggregates it all down. So, that way the information coming to the core doesn't overwhelm it. Because we do store enough information. And to give you an idea of how our 1.8 million plants are living and breathing. We actually have estimated 1.8 million plants throughout our 200 acres. >> At any moment. >> Yeah. >> That's how many plants they're tracking. And so, that realtime information is helping to make sure that they water the plants precisely with the amount that they need, that they're fertilizing them. And you were telling me about how the life of a plant, you're really maintaining that plant over the life of 12 months. So, if you make a mistake at any point along the line, then you're dealing with that in terms of their yield throughout the life of the plant. But you aggregate a lot of that data right there on site so that you're not having to send so much back to the cloud or to the core. And you do that a lot with VxRail as well as other technology you have on site. Right? >> Yeah. Our VxRail is the center of the core of how we process things. It allowed us to even expand, not even just for compute but GPUs for our AIs to do it. So, it's what we did. And it allowed us to mold how we do things. >> Alison, question for you, this sounds like a dynamic Edge the way that you described it, Keith, and you described it so eloquently. How does the partnership that Dell has with Nature Fresh, how is Dell enabling and accelerating and advancing its Edge solutions based on what you're seeing here and this need for realtime data analytics. >> Well, we spend a lot of time with customers like Keith and also across all kinds of other industries. And what we see is that they have a really common set of problems. They're all trying to derive realtime data right then and there so that they can make business decisions that impact their profitability and their competitiveness and all of their customers experience their product quality. And what we see a lot of times is that they have a common set of concerns around security. How to manage all of the hardware that they're implementing. And at the same time, they really want to be an enabler for the business outcome. So, people have creative ideas and they come to IT hoping for support in that journey. If you're managing everything as a snowflake, it becomes really hard and untenable. So, I think one of the things that we have as our mission is to help customers simplify their Edge so that they can be the enabler that's helping the business to transform and modernize. One of the things I really admire about Nature Fresh Farms is that they decided it from a full organization perspective. So, everybody from the operational technologists to the IT to the business decision makers and leaders at the company, they all decided to modernize together. And so, I think from a partnership perspective, too, that's one of the areas that we try to work with our customers on is really talking about total transformation and modernization. >> So, it sounds like, Keith, there was an appetite there as Alison was saying for a digital transformation and IT transformation. Talk to me a little bit about from a historical perspective, how old Nature Fresh is and how did you get the team on board sounds so eloquent. How did you get the team on board to go, "This is what we need to do and technology needs to fuel our business because it's going to impact the end user, consumer of our fabulous English cucumbers." >> So, it's actually really neat. Our owner, Pete Quiring, when he first started out he really wanted to embrace technology. And this is going back right to 2000. 2000 is when we first had our first planting. And he was actually a builder by nature. He actually was a builder and fabricator and he built greenhouses for other companies. But he said they're getting a little bigger and it's the labor amount, and the number of growers he needed for a range was getting exponentially higher. So, he was one of the first ones that said, "I'm going to put a computer right in the middle and control this 16 acre range." >> It's a pretty visionary view when you really think about it. He's trying to operate his farm. >> Yeah. >> Right? >> From one single computer. >> Operationalize it. It's really cool. >> So, it was neat concept and it was actually very much not a normal concept then. You go back to 2000, people weren't talking about internet of things. They didn't talk about automation. It wasn't there. And he basically said, this is the way to go. And unfortunately, he thought, "I'll sell it to somebody. I'll grow it, I'll put a product in for a year and I'll sell it." And then guess what happened? He didn't sell it. He says, "Ah, it's not big enough. I'll build another phase two." And then his comment to me was after he built the fourth phase, he says, "I guess I'm in the pepper and cucumber business now." And that's what he is just grown. But he said it was a great relationship we had and it's a great concept. And it even goes back, and I know we talked about before, is the computer allowed one senior grower to control large number of acreages. Where before, you'd need multiple growers that know exactly what to do, 'cause they'd have to manually change all these things. Now, from a single computer they can see everything that's going on in the entire range. >> You mentioned temperature and water. And this is kind of out of the blue question, but how have global circumstances and increases in the cost of fertilizer affected you? Or is that fertilizer that's not the type that you use in your operation? You have any insight into that. >> Yeah, everything has, the global change in cost has changed everybody. I don't think there's anybody that's exempt from it. The only thing that we've been able to do is we're able to control it. We don't need to rely on, I guess you can say, rely on the weather to help us do things. We can control how much is. And we recycle all of our water. So, what the plant doesn't absorb today for nutrients, we'll put it back in the system, sterilize- >> Wait, when you say 200 acres, it's all enclosed? >> Yep, 200 acres. >> 200 acres of greenhouse. >> Yep, at 200 acres of greenhouse entirely enclosed. >> Okay, okay. >> There is not a single portion of our greenhouse that's actually gets exposed to the outside. And if you ever see a picture of a greenhouse and you see one of these lovely plants here wet, that's not true. That's just a nice to make it look better. >> Spray it for the photo. >> Yeah, yeah. They spray it for the photo. But actually everything is dry. That water goes directly to the roots and we monitor how much we put in and how much comes out. And then we recycle it. We even get so much recycling, we run natural gas generators to heat the water to heat the greenhouse. We take the burn-off of natural gas, the CO2, and funnel that into the greenhouse to give it natural stimulant. >> So, this is starting to remind me of "The Martian", if you read the book or if you seen the movie. >> Oh yeah. >> But planting the potatoes inside the hab, in the habitat. >> Yeah, and you cut 'em in half and the little ones grow with that next ones. But yep, we recycle everything that we do. And that's what we do. >> That's amazing. >> And all that information at their fingertips. Really, I think what technology is enabling you all to do is focus on what you all are good at, which is focusing on your farming operation and not necessarily the technology. So, one of the places I think we deliver some value is in validating a lot of the solutions so that customers don't have to figure that all out themselves. >> Yeah, 'cause I'm not a security expert. I don't always understand the true depth of security, but that's where that relationship is. We need this and we need that. And we need a secure way to let those communicate. And we can hand that off to the experts at Dell and let us do what we do best. >> What have been some of the changes? In the last couple of years, we've seen the security elevate skyrocket to a board level conversation. Ransomware is a when, not if, we get attacked. How does Dell help you from a security perspective ensure that what you're able to do ultimately gets these products to market in a secure fashion so that all that data that you're generating isn't exposed? >> So, like I said, I agree 100%. It's not matter of if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen. So, one of the things that we've actually done is we started to use Dell solution, the PowerProtect Data Manager to back up our solutions on the VxRail. And it actually did twofold for us. It allowed us to do a lot of database manipulation from restores and stuff like that. But we're now actually even investing in the cyber recovery vault that gives us that protection. And it allows us to now look at how long will it take us to get back up. And we're doing some tests right now and the last test we did is we're able to get back up going as a company from a full attack in about an hour. >> Wow. >> We've actually done a few simulations now. So, we are able to recover what our core needs are within an hour. >> Which is a very different metric than simply saying, "Oh, the data's available." >> Yeah. >> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You get zero credit for that. We need our operations to be back up and running. >> Even that hour is stressful to our growers. >> Sure. >> It's a variable within a variable because if you go in the summer when it's super hot, they'll be very stressed out within an hour. And then you got nice calm weather day, it's not as bad. But the weather can change in how they have to close the vents. And you're not just closing one vent, you're closing 32, 64, 100 acres of vents. And you're changing irrigation cycle. You need that automation to do it for you. >> How do you let people eat these things after all the care that goes into it? I'm going to feel mildly guilty for just about a second and a half before I sink my teeth into the cucumber. >> Oh, but that's the joy of it. That's one of the things that I love. >> This is serious. You're proud of this, aren't you? >> Oh yeah. You know what? There's not single person at Nature Fresh that isn't proud of what we do each day. We enjoy what we do and it's a culture that makes us strive to do better every day. It's just a great feeling to be there every day and to just enjoy what you're doing. >> And see, it's real. It's real. Isn't it great? Isn't it great to be a part of? My background's in economics. I think of these things in terms of driving efficiency. And this is just a beautiful thing. When you control those variables, you leverage the technology and what's the end result? You're essentially uplifting everything in the world. >> Yeah, so true. >> Not to get philosophical on ya. >> Right, and feeding the world, especially during the last couple of years, that access. One of the things we learned in the pandemic, one of many, is access to realtime data isn't a nice to have anymore, it's essential. >> Yeah. >> So true. >> And so, the story that you're telling here, the impact to the growers, enabling them to focus what you were saying, Alison, on what they do best, Dell Technologies, VxRail enabling Nature Fresh to focus on what it does best, ultimately delivering food to people during the last couple of years was huge. >> Yeah, and allowing even at a reduced labor number for us to keep growing and doing things by automation. We still need labor in the greenhouse to pick, prune and do stuff like that. But again, we're looking into technologies to help offset that. But again, it was one of those things that we just had to be efficient at everything we do. And we drove that through everything we have. >> Well, and you guys haven't stopped. Right? >> Yeah. >> You're continuing to figure out, he was just telling me a little bit about what their next step is. So, just getting more and more accurate, more intelligence as they grow. So, it's the possibilities, that's what's exciting to me about Edge. I think this example is great, 'cause it's so relatable. Everybody can understand what the Edge is in this context. And it's really driven by the fact that you can put compute into so many different places now. It's more though a matter about how do you gather it? How do you do it in a way where you can actually understand and glean information and insights from it? And that, I think, is what you all are really focused on. >> Yeah, yeah, information is key. >> It is key. What's next from Dell's perspective for Edge computing technologies? what are some of the things you guys got cooking? >> Yeah, we're going to try to help customers to continue to simplify their Edge. So, to deliver those insights that they need where they need them, to do it in a really secure way. I know we talked about security but to do it in really a zero trust fashion. And to help customers to do it also in a zero IT fashion. Because in this example, it's the growers that are out there in the fields, or in your greenhouse in this sense, helping people that aren't necessarily IT specialists to be able to get all the benefits from the technology. >> So, do you think that VxRail technology could be used to optimize say the production of olive oil? I'm looking here and we have the makings of a pretty good salad. >> Yeah, you do. >> There you go. >> It obviously doesn't just apply to food production. >> Yeah, it really goes across the board. Whether we're talking about manufacturing or retail or energy, putting technology right there at the point of data creation and being able to figure out how to manage that inflow of data, be able to figure out which portion of the data is really valuable, and then driving decisions and being able to understand and intelligently make decisions for your business based on that data is really important. >> Keith, what's next? Give us, as we wrap out this segment here, what's next from a technology perspective? You mentioned a couple things you're looking into. >> Yeah, so I think automation is really going to change the way we do things. And automation within the greenhouse is truly just becoming a reality. It's funny we go back and we say, can we do this stuff? And now it's like, oh, even three years ago, I don't think we were quite ready for it, but now it's right there. So, I see us doing a lot more work with vendors like Dell and to do automatic picking, automatic scouting, all that stuff that we do by hand, do it in an automated fashion. >> And at scale, right? >> Yeah. >> That's the important part. I think when you're managing a snowflake, you can only do it to some level, and to be able to automate it and to be able to break down those silos, you're going to be able to apply it to so many parts of your business. >> Yeah, wide applicability. Guys, thank you so much for joining us, sharing the Nature Fresh, Dell story, bringing us actual product. This is so exciting. We congratulate you on how you're leveraging technology in a really innovative way. And we look forward to hearing what's next. Maybe we'll see you at Dell Technologies World next year. >> Sounds great. >> Sounds great. >> Thank you so much. >> All right, our pleasure, guys. >> Thank you. >> For our guests and Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from VMware Explorer 2022. Dave and I will be right back with our next guest. So, stick around. (light upbeat music)

>> Announcer: theCUBE presents Dell Technologies World, brought to you by Dell. >> Hey everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Dell Technologies World 2022, live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante. This is our second full day of coverage of theCUBE. Lots going on, lots of announcements. We always love talking to customers, hearing the voice of the customer, and we have a couple of guests, one from Dell Customer at Lowe's, John Dabek is here, the senior director of infrastructure. Ali Biers also joins us, marketing director of edge solutions at Dell Technologies. Welcome to the program. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for inviting us. Appreciate it. >> So John, let's go ahead and start with you. Let's talk about what the heck is going on in retail. Tremendous change, tremendous transformation, lot of pressures. The last two years have been quite influential. Talk to us about some of the trends that you're seeing in retail, some of the challenges that are going on. >> Absolutely, so COVID has put everything on steroids in terms of the omnichannel experience, so we no longer think of digital as something that's separate. It's all integrated with the store experience. So, interestingly enough, two thirds of our customers shop online before they come into the store, so that shows you the power of having the digital working in harmony with the store. >> So how does that affect your technology strategy? What changes do you see? >> That's a very good question, so we've had to accelerate a number of our new technologies to really create that frictionless experience for the customer. So for example, I'll give you a great example of a technology that we deploy today called pickup lockers. So you order online and then there's a set of pickup lockers right in the vestibule of the store. You go up and you scan it, the locker opens, and then you can take your merchandise and go on, so it's a great experience as to how the technology has changed, and everything from utilizing the mobile applications where customers can now text us when they're in the parking lot, we can deliver their merchandise. Michael Dell put it very well in terms of the strategy in his keynote yesterday. What he talked about was today it's the public cloud, it's the private cloud within the data centers, and it's the edge, and the edge has become very, very important for us because that's where we want to put all of our technologies in the store, closer to the store. >> Ali talk to us about from an overall a Dell vision lens perspective the challenges overall that you're seeing in retail and where the edge is really advantageous for organizations to be competitive. >> Yeah, I mean, really what you're seeing is you've got these incredibly savvy customers who really want to have an experience when they go into the store, and on the other hand, you have the retailer that wants to develop that loyalty but yet they're dealing with tremendous complexity in their footprint, as well as just the pace of change, so trying to modernize and do that at a really fast pace just like what John was talking about and still stick to all the imperatives like being secure and manageable at scale. It's really a big challenge. >> Yeah, and when you talk, Ali, about modernizing at a fast pace, the first 600 stores that we did with VxRail, and we'll go into a little more detail I'm sure about that, we did in three months with the help of Dell technology. >> Lisa: 600 stores in three months? >> In three months, right, and the key was zero disruptions in the store. Now we're talking about 100,000+ square foot stores, so we're talking big stores, and we have a very short window. We can go from midnight to 5:00 AM because 5:00 AM the contractors are there to pick up their materials and we have to be open and ready, so we didn't miss a beat. >> So that's interesting. I heard your CEO the other day talking about how you guys really focused on the contractors, especially during COVID. So that was also another shift. I mean, the volume from contractors probably increased 'cause we give them such great focus. So there's this concept of the intelligent factory. Is there a similar one with the intelligent store? >> John: Oh, without a doubt. So I'll give you an example. We have 140,000 mobile devices deployed in our stores for our employees that can do everything from find merchandise, talk, receive calls. You're going to the store to pick up mulch, and they can take the device and do a checkout from the device instead of you having to come into the store and then go out to pick up your mulch. It doesn't get better than that. >> I love that example cause that one's so relatable, and I think like once you start thinking about how all this to technology in the store can really help, so all of a sudden you know where your customers are spending their time in the store. You can position your customer service people to help in the aisles where people are getting stuck, so it really just puts so many more insights in the hands of retailers to be able to action and make decisions. >> You know, it's funny, sometimes people, when they talk to people in IT, technology like ourselves say, "You know, you guys always talk about, oh, permanent changes. Nah, it's going to be the same. You watch in a few years." Here's an example, there's no way we're ever going back. You know, it's permanent. >> It's permanent, and you know what? All the bad things about about COVID and the pandemic, the great thing is it really accelerated that omnichannel journey. It forced many retailers to do that, including Lowe's. >> Silver lining, but it also, from a forcing factor perspective, it was critical from a competitive standpoint. I mean, we have these expectations as consumers that we can have this consumer experience everywhere which means I want to be able to do my transaction in real time. I want to go onto the website and make sure that they have what I want inventory wise in real time. Real time we learned in the pandemic, not a nice to have anymore. >> No, absolutely. >> Lisa: That is a competitive advantage for every industry, especially retail. >> Yeah, and if you think about it, we have a mini data center inside the store with the VxRail, so it was very important for us because we were not able to leverage the new application development on the old platform, so we absolutely need the power of the new platform to enable the stores. It's very, very, critical. >> Paint a picture of what it's like inside of a store. I mean, what's the infrastructure look like, the apps that are running, the data flow? >> John: So if you picture a dedicated room for the technology, unfortunately in a store you don't build a data center, so it's a concrete floor, as you can imagine. But through the help of Dell, they've really helped us harden the environment as well, to put in technologies that help with intelligent power distribution units and other types of technology because we're making such a big investment that we don't want to have power be a disrupter. You get six nines on our network, six nines on our, on our compute infrastructure. We don't want power to be an impact. But in terms of the apps, everything that you need to run a store from a POS perspective runs in the environment, and it's being enhanced every day, because now the communication from the mobile device of the consumer to what happens in the store is integrating, so it really requires a lot of compute power. >> What I really like about the way you guys have done it too is that you guys have really thought about it in terms of planning for the future. So you thought about how to create that foundation that's really going to scale over time. >> And Ali you've brought up a good point because one of the things that we didn't anticipate when we started was the fact that we would need GPUs in the future. and the power of the GPU was required for things like video analytics, AI, and it came to light as we had one of our innovator, person in the lab saying, "Hey in the test system, we want 300 gigs of memory to do a test," and we're going like, oh my God, this would never run in production. So that's when we got into the whole concept of GPU so all of our stores are GPU enabled, so as we need them, we can add that to the store, but thanks for bringing that. >> That's really interesting. So for what, security? Other use cases? AI, you're saying. How are you applying that? Dig into that. >> It could be security, so think of having cameras in the store that watch what people do from a checkout perspective, and it's tied in with the system so it knows the weight of an item, it knows the cost of an item, and it's able to spot potential frauds and alert people. But to do that, you need video analytics, and that requires a lot of processing power. >> How much of that data do you persist? >> We could talk about that for another hour. >> Oh, okay. >> With respect to that. But generally we utilize the data to handle what we're looking to accomplish. We do capture other data for AI and other analytic purposes as well. >> Ali I think I interrupted you. >> Ali: Oh, no worries. I think one of the things about the edges, people have a tendency to go build a technology stack to address the business problem that they're trying to address in that moment, and it's usually driven by the people that are working in the store. They see an opportunity for advancement, but all of a sudden, if you have a lot of those, how now are you going to deploy it, secure it, manage it, and do them all separately? So I think what you're talking about is you've really figured out a way to do that across all those different use cases, and maybe even for the ones that you don't know exist yet so. >> And that's the good point is that we don't know what exists, because we have to, as we build it, we have to build the business case for what makes sense to put into the stores. So you you'll see a lot of continued innovation with inventory aids to help stock shelves, applications that help the customer journey. I saw some deployment of some new apps in the stores where we can tell where people are located real time in the store, so wouldn't it be great if you know that you can dispatch customer service personnel to that area and great opportunity to plus sell in that environment. >> I can't wait for my next trip to Lowe's. This is going to be so fantastic. But John, I got to ask you, you're sitting here with the marketing director, I'm a marketing girl myself, future proof. It's a term that is always interests me because it can mean so many different things. You're working with Dell, I've been working with Dell for a while, how is what you've architected for the connected store? Intelligence store, excuse me. How do you feel like when you don't know what's coming, but do you really feel like we've got a future-proof architecture capabilities and a partner that's going to allow us to scale and grow as things, obviously we couldn't have predicted what happened in the last two years. >> So not too recent in the past where you would primarily have appliances in stores and single purpose servers, separate storage. So now with the VxRail technology, you have hyper converged infrastructure. So things are virtualized, your storage is virtualized, your server host infrastructure is virtualized, and the power of the VxRail is that as we grow and have different needs, we can change out the processor, we can add memory, we can add storage all while we're still running in a store. >> Dave: Bring a GPU in if you need to, right? >> Bring a GPU in, so it was architected to handle the growth and the simplicity of running the store. So we only have a handful of people that manage the stores from a technology standpoint, and thanks to the the technologies that are provided. >> So you could scale it, and you got the blueprint, what's the network look like? >> And that's some good advice for folks who are looking at this. You have to address the network first, so we deployed a software defined network that gave us the capacity and the future growth capacity and the backup we're using. We're transferring to from 4G to 5G for backup purposes, and we're trying to figure out what's the role of 5G in the future? 'Cause it gives you tremendous flexibility. But remember the VxRail and the edge can run independently, so if the network goes down, we operate a store. >> Lisa: And you had that frictionless experience which as consumers, we all had this expectation that it's going to be frictionless, it's going to be seamless, I'm going to be able to get what I want. >> Absolutely. >> Not quite 24/7. Well, yeah, with online, yeah. >> With online, 24/7. >> So last question as we grab, and I wish we had more time to dig into this. What's next? What are some of the future directions as hopefully things return back to "normal". What are some of the things that Lowe's and Dell are going to do next together? >> We have to finish the stores. We'll be done by October. And by the way, we're experiencing supply chain issue, but not with Dell. We're having trouble getting network switches, but last week we had a breakthrough, and right now we're on track to finish all of the stores by October of 2022. But what's next? Continuing to now leverage the platform that we've put in place, to bring the applications and to start working with our innovators to experiment with the GPUs and put it into effect, and I'm sure Ali's got some great things planned as well on the edge with the technology which we're look to take advantage of. >> Yeah I mean, our goal is really to help customers to simplify their edge because it's incredibly complex. They're dealing with an ecosystem of partners, software, hardware, networking, so really being that partner that they can rely on, having that broad end to end portfolio, and being the person and the company that can architect and bring all of that together in a way that you can life cycle manage it over time. >> John: And the great thing is by being software defined, it's all seems very complicated, but it's simple to manage, and that's the key and that's the power that Dell brings to us. >> Simple to manage, famous last words. John, thank you, Ali you as well for joining us, sharing what Dell and Lowe's are doing together to really enable this intelligent store. I really can't wait for my next trip. (everyone laughing) >> Thank you so much. >> Yes, I got to hit the mulch pile. Want 'em to bring into my car's, it's too heavy to carry. Guys thank you so much for sharing your insights. We appreciate the story. >> Thank you. >> For our guests and Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from Las Vegas at the Venetian. Day two of our coverage of Dell Tech World continues right after this short break. (soft music)

>> Narrator: Live from Washington D.C. It's the Cube, covering AWS Public Sector Summit. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back everyone, to the Cube's live coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit here in our nations capitol. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, along with my cohost John Furrier. We have Allison Robinson joining us, she is the AVP IT operations at Cal Poly University. Thanks so much for coming on the Cube. >> Thank you for having me. >> So, talk about your big announcement yesterday in terms of ground station. This is one of John's favorite topics, so tell us more about what you announced. >> So yesterday there was an announcement that Cal Poly through our digital transformation hub, and that hub exists to do innovated things with the greater good through the public sector and helping with challenges that they're trying to learn more about and solve problems. And so, through that group, we announced the initiative to do cube satellite in connection with ground station at AWS, to be able to help people that use these satellites be able to test these satellites and collect data and share it ultimately, with others. 'Cause there's a problem, they're not expensive satellites but that means you don't have a lot of money to work with. And so to be able to test and make sure your communications are good and the infrastructure is there, is kind of missing in the whole environment. And now, that's going to be solved. >> And you're able to get many more shots and pay as you go, not necessarily have to, as you said, put up your own satellite yourself. >> Exactly, you can put the satellite up. The problem was the infrastructure to communicate back with it. So, the ground station, those antenna are approximately located to AWS regions. So you can now bring the data, process it, store it, analyze it, and then ultimately share it. That, again, being for the public good, we want to make sure the date we're collecting is in the AWS registry, data set registry. So that people can access that information, that's important. >> Allison, talk about the relationship with AWS, how did it get started? I mean your involved with these cool projects like ground station, which I'm a big fan of. 'Cause I think the impact to IOT, just forest fires in California could be a real... >> Allison: Right. >> Saver right there. Just using data, back hauling data for whatever is going to be a great thing. But you got a relationship with AWS, that goes beyond, not just ground station, there's other things going on. Take a minute to explain the relationship with AWS. >> So, the vice president of IT at Cal Poly, Bill Britton, began his position with Cal Poly about two years ago. And took a look at the data center and had to ask the question, do we invest here on prem or do we have to look for something else? And that began the conversation of, we need to do something about our data center, it looks like Amazon has the tools we need to modernize our technical environment. Both in how we work, how people work, our processes and our technical infrastructure. And so, that began the work of, we announced two years ago, I didn't work for Cal Poly yet. They announced there, the President and Bill announced that we were all in. The data center was going to AWS. I happened to be presenting on a different topic, and we connected there, and a year later, we made a connection and I have been at Cal Poly now for a year to help them get to the AWS data center. >> Lot of smart people Cal Poly, I know, I looked at the university. Great computer science, great everything. You guys got a lot of smart people, so what was it like to actually, as this starts to evolve, the progression of the modernization. Take us through where you guys are on progress, what are some of the cool things going on. What's the result of this shift? What are some of the notable highlights? >> It's really exciting, because we really did take an approach of we've got to look at, not just as AWS and a new tool. Which you have to work so differently, in dev ops and agily. We said okay, then we've got to figure out our processes to be able to work that way. We have to change as an organization. So we were more structured around those technical silos. And we became a service management group for like, who do we serve and what are they trying to accomplish? And that's the focus of everything we do. So from idea to service we have a process to handle to that. And AWS, we're all in on their tools too.6 So they completely facilitate that process6. >> You have a lot of stake holders, so you have impact at the student body level, faculty, institution overall.6 >> Right. >> What are some of the game changers that you see? Obviously the ground station, you got great R and D coming in with Amazon. What's the impact? >> The digital transformation hub is part of the IT organization as well. And our community outreach and giving students actual hands on experience to work with the public sector, whether it be law enforcement, or maybe a city trying to deal with a homeless situation. They actually are engaged with professionals and learning about problems and solutions. And in ten weeks, we work on quarters, and our quarters are ten weeks, which align perfectly to exactly how long it takes an engagement with the digital hub to find what's possible in terms of solutions to problems. >> So talk about the students of today. I mean, we hear a lot about them. And I want to hear you, you're teaching them, you're helping to educate this new generation of people who we hope will make huge, great waves in industry, private industry, as well as state, local, and the federal government. >> Allison: Right. >> What do you see as their strengths, their weaknesses, and what are they looking at in terms of building careers? >> You know, they, I really do love working with the students. They are incredible. It makes me wonder sometimes, I don't think I'd get into college now, times have changed. And they really care, they care, that's why the public, being able to work through these to serve the greater good of the public and share that data after actually means so much more to them. Than if it were just a class project, because they want to make a difference. They care about social justice and making sure that we're green and efficient with how we use our earth resources. And so this maps around a lot of the challenges. The homelessness that I mentioned before, and how we've worked with that. Or making sure that we can make cities safer. They care about that deeply. And they have access to a lot of resources. This past fall's incoming class was born in the year 2000. They've never not known a time with computers. They do math homework, they're not reading, they're actually doing homework on their phones. Their very mobilely engaged, very digitally engaged. And we're going to see wonderful things from them, because they think so differently about these things. >> It sounds as though the education that you're providing is very practical, in the sense that you're having your students work with the state and local governments on these issues like homelessness and climate change. Can you talk about some of the projects that their doing? >> So our mantra is learn by doing. And you come in and you are admitted to a major. And you begin working in that major right away. Every student finishes their last quarter with a senior project. And you actually produce an outcome and have something you can talk about, both as the product and the process to get there. I was recently invited to the senior projects showcase for the graphic arts department. And, in common, they all had technology. And some where, one of the students we had just contracted for some software, and thank you so much you helped make the difference with that. So that's neat, when you get to see to make that difference. But even though it's graphic arts, in every way technology was key to what they do. And they have, really, you know students come from some great backgrounds too, where they've had some great access to information and technology and really think differently about it. Engineering students are winning awards and doing really great things. So it's fun to see and be a part of. Great energy. >> What about the culture within your department itself? I mean, you're not only educating the next generation but you're also doing research yourself. Can you talk about, particularly, as a partner, as working so closely with AWS, which has such a famous culture of innovation and of taking risks and tolerating failure, because the more failures you'll have, you'll ultimately get there someday. So can you talk a little bit about the culture within Cal Poly? >> It's hard, because IT people are usually very analytical and there's a right and a wrong. So that sense of it's okay to get it wrong, isn't popular generally. So, that starts with me, I had to get up and say we may not get it right, but rarely do we get it wrong. We might get parts of it wrong, we adjust. It's okay to get it wrong. We've got to figure things out, all of this is new. And as I've been there longer and really work with people through different things, they believe that from me now. There's not judgment. I once worked at a place where it'd go on your permanent record. Well, try and get somebody to try something innovated if you have a problem and it goes on your permanent record. So I don't have that now. >> Rebecca: It'd be a career ender. >> Yeah. >> Bill: Yeah. >> I have a lot of people getting it, and we're trying it. And you can work so fast in the AWS environment, that if it isn't right, blow it away and start over again. >> In some organization you were a renegade if you tried something new. You know, oh my God, don't touch that third rail. >> Allison: Yeah. >> Here, you guys are doing, it's progressive in the sense that you're trying new things. >> Learn by doing is a call to action, but it also gives you that space to try. >> Bill: Yeah, be creative. >> It's learning. >> What's your impression of the show here in DC? Obviously, it's our fourth year covering public sector. I've been following them a couple years earlier, but the first four years covering live broadcasting, reporting. But, besides the growth, what's your takeaway? >> I need to be cloned. (laughter) >> There are so many things happening here. >> You need a digital twin. >> There you go. >> You can solve that, Allison. >> There's going to be a lot of people that say, no don't clone her, don't do it. But there's so much information and the innovation that AWS does. Sometimes it's like exciting to hear, and it's like oh where was that a month ago when we were working on that? So we just have to stay on our toes and we have to keep engaged with AWS and what they're doing and what we can use from them to make our environment better. And move even faster. >> You got to keep, keeping pace is also a hard thing. Because they're introducing so many new things. At amazon. We're very fortunate again in our partnership, actually that does translate into the IT operations organization. That we've been working with them on some services that they do. We can tell them, hey this isn't quite working, and they honestly listen to us. And deliver what they ask on a road map, sometimes sooner than later too. So it's been a great partnership. >> That's interesting, a company that actually delivers on what you ask for. >> Exactly, exactly. And we have scaled, you know it's a small town there's 24,000 students, you have your faculty and staff. So when we try something with them, we have the opportunity for big impacts right away. >> That's awesome, well, congratulations, great work >> Thank you. >> On the DX hubs fascinating ground station. Great projects, students and you guys to play around and help that grow. Because that's going to be a great service. >> Yes, we're excited. We can't wait to get going. >> Rebecca: Thanks for coming the Cube Allison. >> Thank you. >> We will have more of the Cubes live coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit here in Washington DC. Stay tuned. (upbeat beat music)

>> fly from San Francisco. It's the Cube covering Google Club next nineteen, right Tio by Google Cloud and its ecosystem partners. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. We are here live in San Francisco for cubes. Coverage of Google next twenty nineteen. Hashtag Google. Next nineteen, Google's Cloud Conference, where their customers, developers all come together Cubes. Three days of coverage. Day one. I'm John forward, my Coast, Dave Aloft as well. Astute many men Who's out there doing some reporter? Next guess Allison. Wagon filled is the CMO of Google Cloud. Great to see you. Thanks for joining us. >> Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here, >> so I got to say, looking out on the floor here, we're in the middle of the floor. Great demographics. A lot of developers, lot of enterprise customers. A lot of you know, sea levels will also enterprise architects and cloud architects. So this is not just a developer fest. This is a business developer conference. >> Yes. So that's been a real change this year. Not only have we increase the numbers I think I mentioned earlier that we have thirty thousand people are actually able even more than that. We had a cap registration we sold out last week. But the composition is different this year because this year we have over seventy percent from enterprise companies and then within enterprise Cos it's Dev's decision makers, business leaders. And then we have a whole executive track of leader Circle program as well. So it's been a really great mix of different energy, different questions in different sessions. >> You guys do a great job in event kudos to the team original Google Io was a great event that continues to be the consumer side on Google. You guys have that same kind of grew swing going on a lot of sessions. Take him in to explain the theme of the show. What's going on around the events? Breakouts? What's the focus? >> Yes, so the focus? Well, there's a theme and a couple different levels. The broad theme is a cloud like no other, because we've introduced a lot of new, different features and products and programs. We introduced Antos this morning, which was really revolutionary way of using containers broadly multi cloud, high but cloud. So it's from a product standpoint, but it's also a cloud like no other, because it's about the community that's here, and it's truly a partnership with our customers and our partners about building this cloud together, and we see the community as a really key part of that. It's really corta Google's values around openness, open source technology and really embracing the broader community to build the cloud together. >> And I thought was interesting. The Kino was phenomenal. You had the CEO of Google come out Sundar Pichai and the new CEO on the job for ten weeks. T K >> Sommers. Korean. Yes. Lot of action >> going on a Google right now. >> Yeah, it's been great to have Thomas. Diane was phenomenal and building the business. It's wonderful. Have Sundar here. He's got a lot of commitment, really engaged with our customers. And so it's a lot of energy and a lot of excitement. A Google. >> I thought the vory class act of Thomas Curry and his first words on stage at the CEO was to give props. The Diane Green very, very respected, that was >> great, was very gracious of, Thomas >> said. Sorry, he said. The press, sir, that one of things I really like about Google is not afraid of hard problems, So I wanted to ask you a CMO I always asked the most about brand promise. What's the brand promise? That you want customers and the community to take away from an event like this? >> So the brand promise has a couple different areas. First and foremost, we want our customers to be successful with their customers. And so we think, really holistically about lessons. Make sure that we're delivering the cloud technologies so that customers can really serve everyone that they want to serve, whether it be a retailer that wants to create a wonderful, offline and online experience, whether it's a health care provider that wants to ensure that every doctor, it knows all of the right data about all the patients or within a hospital. And so that's the way we're always thinking is how do we ensure that we help our customers set up to be successful? >> So one of the big teams we heard this morning was the industry focus, and you just referenced that again. It seems to be an increasingly important part of the messaging and the technologies that you're creating, and it ties into digital transformation. You seeing every industry transform data is at the heart of that transformation. You're seeing big companies traverse different industries. So what if you could talk about the industry focus? Uh, where'd that come from? Where do you see it going? >> Yes, So there's really three core parts of what we've been talking about today. First and foremost is the infrastructure and ensuring that we have the world's best infrastructure. Then, on top of that, it's ensuring that we have all the right applications to help with digital transformation. And then, as part of that further, is the industry solutions. Because in our six focus industries, we want to make sure that we're really developing the right applications with the right solutions and half a deep expertise that companies are looking for so that we can really part with partner with them and really, truly be innovative. And we could feel much more comfortable being innovative. But we really understand our customer problems >> keep Part of that is the global s eyes. You look out here, you see all the big names I won't name because I'll forget one. But there's two obvious ones right there because once you start to see those guys come into the ecosystem, that's when you can partner and get really deep industry expertise globally, >> I agree. And so we do have a great partnerships that said here with Accenture in tow, Lloyd and Antos or three of them, many more that we were working really closely with. And there really are an extension of what we want to build because we know that we will not be able Teo create every single last mile industry solution and every single industry, and working with those companies really helps us. >> I was on the plane last night watching the game. Of course, I love you guys got to see it. You're probably appear busy, but I focused. Google was all over the this year, >> so this is our second year of our partnership with the law, and it's been great. There's a couple dimensions to that partnership. First and foremost, we help them analyze eighty years worth of data. And through all of that analysis, we've been working with him about making predictions about games in helping them understand players and coaches and teams better. Everything from creating brackets. Teo, how do you fan experience? And then as part of that, we also had opportunity to do some advertising within their games. So you may have seen some of the TV spots that we did, which was about analyzing that data. We put ourselves on the line by making predictions during the game about what we thought would happen based on all of our analysis. And then the Big Chef this year was we included students, so it was really studies. Last year we created all these models, but we did it within Google. We had Google, Debs and Google engineers creating prediction models. We said, like, What if we brought students in tow? Help us? So we recruited thirty or so all star students around the country from their schools, brought them together. They learned DCP like that. It was awesome. And then they started working together doing predictions. And so a lot of what you saw in the Games and on our hub was actually students using Google Claude platform to make predictions about the games. >> So just get this right. The reference on stage by T K students. So you had data from the that was exposed to the students. They had a hackathon. How much lead time that they have? What was that >> did everything with thirty days. So they hack it on was about two months ago or so. But within the last thirty days, they did all of these different projects and they were actually doing really creative things about trying to come up with new types of stats like explosiveness. What does that mean? Does that mean that you move in closer to the basket or does it mean that here they're coming up, the stats around pace of game and different elements of the place? It was really fun. >> How many slam dunk this, Miss Fowles? So >> question, Who do you who you're rooting for? I was >> writing from Virginia. You know, Let's say I >> was right for >> Virginia after my bracket got busted, so I was allowed to kind of change a little bit. And they're Michigan. Once they were gone, I was like, >> So I use no way. I but I hit ninety ninth percentile. So you go. I had Michigan in Michigan State rather in Virginia in my Final Four for Michigan State. Lost, but still, I would have been >> That's pretty good >> night, point nine. So what is with what kind of predictions were the students doing well, >> predictions about everything from, well, last night we had some predictions about the number two point last. We had about how many different times we're going to exchange like the ball will go back and forth between teams. We had predictions about three pointers and one game everything. So it's been really fun. Teo work with >> that kind of in game predictions. To see that a lot. >> You probably saw some stats real >> probability of, ah, victory, which of course, last night. Forget it. I mean, it's changed so quickly. >> Great program. One of those I want to ask you change gears is you have a book in the press room called customer Voices. So this has been a focus, and I think a lot of people have been Lego Google's great tact, but not a lot of customers, which you guys air debunking with. Not only this, but here to show shown the logo slide really kind of showing the traction from a customer's standpoint. >> Yes, about >> the focus on the customer. How does that change? How you doing your job? How is the tech rolling out? Can you share some insight into customer focused. >> Yeah, this has been a really big step change this year. We have over four hundred customers speaking throughout this event, and then we have a number of them that are on stage in the keynotes telling real stories. Two years ago, we had some customers speaking and they would say, I'm looking. I'm dabbling and this But now they're making rial kind of bet The company decisions using our technology. And so this customer voices is looking at those companies. We have something called the customer innovation serious this afternoon, where the CIA of HSBC will be talking about their evolution and Gogo Cloud. Two years ago, Darrell West was on stage talking about just kind of what they will be getting. Two Dio with Google Cloud Platform And now here we are two years later, when they've made a lot of progress and we'LL be sharing their stories that the custom innovation Siri's is one of my favorite parts. It next, >> you know, we cover a lot of events. David eyes were like two ESPN of tech or game day. We've gotten the shows, we see a lot of events and you kind of hear the key words over and over again. Soon these events here we're hearing scale, which we've heard all the time. Google scales, scales, scales solve all our problems. But we're hearing more about customers. OK, this has been a big focus. How have you guys shifted internally? Because this seems to been around for a while. Like you said, I think it's a step function from what we're seeing as well. What's going on internally. How you guys mobilizing, How you guys taking this to the mark? Because you've got great partition. So Cisco onstage VM wears even up there. You got an ecosystem developing a lot of momentum. >> So we're truly this year Enterprise ready to use a buzz word that comes up. So two years ago, we still had some holes in some of our technology stack, and we're still really building to go to market teams. We still vastly scaling that so absolutely growing there. But we're in a whole different place as a business where we are able to serve really large enterprises at scale. McKesson just announced sixth largest company that they are moving and working with us a Google cloud. I mean, so these air major companies that are making big decisions to work with us. And so it's at a whole different level this year, and we're really proud that the customers have chosen to work with us, and we're building the organization to ensure that their successful. So that's our customer success program. That's ensuring we have the right kind of customer engineers working hand in hand with our customers. So it's a big focus ever. Whole group. It's a focus where Thomas Kurian has a lot of background serving enterprise customers at Oracle for twenty years, bringing that expertise. So you'LL see that everywhere. So I'm glad you picked up on that and feel it because it's really permeates everything we're doing at Google clouds, >> and it's been a good, positive change. The results of their What's the focus for you As you look forward, It's a lot to do. You guys are a great opportunity. I always say Google's dark horse now Samson's got a good lead out there being first in, but you guys have a lot of tech. You got the customer focus. You got a lot of momentum on the tech side. Cloud native Open source. Partner ecosystem Developing customer ecosystem. So kind of ball's in your court, so to speak. >> You feel really well, position we It's early. So in the whole market, people seem to think that I like all these decisions, but it's really still eighty percent of workload Zoran data centers of these big enterprises, everybody who's here with us right now. And most companies were choosing a multi club strategy this morning. We announced a major product and those that really enables the multi cloud strategy so enables Google to really be at the center of that multi cloud and provide the services using containers and a lot of the biggest best advances right now. And so as we scale our go to market, we can really bring this technology that way here, over and over again, is the best technology in the business. Yeah, we had it really had to go to market in place to bring it to customers. And this is really where we're taking it so we can help get this awesome technology. It's so fun is a marketer to them, bring it to everybody. >> I always say it so early. The wave is just getting started more ways behind it. I'm very impressed. That intrigue also by the rebranding of the Google Cloud platform what you guys announced last kind of hybrid and those is interesting because it's a rebrand slash new set of integration points Sisco again on stage kind of integrating with your container platform is a key key story that I think is nuanced but kind of points to a whole new Google. What was behind the rebranding? Can you just share some insight that what the commerce she's like Google Cloud Platforms is descriptive. But I mean, >> sister, thanks >> Cloud Services platform when we chose that name last year is when we wanted to Alfa with a product and frankly, within the marketing team, he kind of knew was always a placeholder name. And then the debate was, What do we change the name when you go to Beta, which we did a couple months ago? Or when we go to went to Gaea and we decided this would be a great opportunity to change the name, so we always knew it was going to change the name. Picking a name is always complicated, and so we spent a lot of time thinking about what way wanted that name too mean and what we wanted to stand for. And we really liked Anthros. It's a Greek word. It is a nod to the Greek aspects of the history of the product. With Cooper, Netease, Andhis, Teo and other areas. It means the blossom it means to grow. It means all. And so you many words like Anthology and things like that. So we'd liked both what it meant, And we also liked that with all Namie decisions, it's easy to spell. It's easy to find. It's all great, >> and it's super >> booming in California. Here as we speak. Well, ironic. >> It has an international flavor to it. But you guys, you guys are taking this show overseas, right? They've got a big show in London in November, I know and yes, >> be in Tokyo in July at next and then London in November. And then we do it between all of these. What we call Clouds Summit Siri's, which are in country slightly smaller. But we bring a lot of the same technology, and speakers and sessions just have a slightly scaled down version. >> Intimate. We really appreciate your support. We love doing the Cube hearing a lot of Czech athletes, as we say here on the show floor. Lot of knowledge, good customer converses. Alison's Thanks for sharing the inside congratulates on the great >> show, so I left be here. Thanks >> for rebranding as the market shifts. Great time to have a rebrand, certainly when it means something more. Multi cloud hybrid cloud Google Cloud Platform now and those that cube bring you live coverage here from the floor at Google next twenty nineteen. Stay with us for more after this short break.

(electronic music) >> Announcer: Live from Austin, Texas, it's The Cube. Covering South By Southwest 2017. Brought to you by Intel. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hey, welcome back, everyone, we're here live in Austin, Texas, for South By Southwest Cube coverage at the Intel AI Lounge, #IntelAI if you're watching, put it out on Twitter. I'm John Furrier of Silicon Angle for the Cube. Our next guest is Alison Yu who's with Cloudera. And in the news today, although they won't comment on it. It's great to see you, social media manager at Cloudera. >> Yes, it's nice to see you as well. >> Great to see you. So, Cloudera has a strategic relationship with Intel. You guys have a strategic investment, Intel, and you guys partner up, so it's well-known in the industry. But what's going on here is interesting, AI for social good is our theme. >> Alison: Yes. >> Cloudera has always been a pay-it-forward company. And I've known the founders, Mike Olson and Amr Awadallah. >> Really all about the community and paying it forward. So Alison, talk about what you guys are working on. Because you're involved in a panel, but also Cloudera Cares. And you guys have teamed up with Thorn, doing some interesting things. >> Alison: Yeah (laughing). >> Take it away! >> Sure, thanks. Thanks for the great intro. So I'll give you a little bit of a brief introduction to Cloudera Cares. Cloudera Cares was founded roughly about three years ago. It was really an employee-driven and -led effort. I kind of stepped into the role and ended up being a little bit more of the leader just by the way it worked out. So we've really gone from, going from, you know, we're just doing soup kitchens and everything else, to strategic partnerships, donating software, professional service hours, things along those lines. >> Which has been very exciting to see our nonprofit partnerships grow in that way. So it really went from almost grass-root efforts to an organized organization now. And we start stepping up our strategic partnerships about a year and a half ago. We started with DataKind, is our initial one. About two years ago, we initiated that. Then we a year ago, about in September, we finalized our donation of an enterprise data hub to Thorn, which if you're not aware of they're all about using technology and innovation to stop child-trafficking. So last year, around September or so, we announced the partnership and we donated professional service hours. And then in October, we went with them to Grace Hopper, which is obviously the largest Women in Tech Conference in North America. And we hosted a hackathon and we helped mentor women entering into the tech workforce, and trying to come up with some really cool innovative solutions for them to track and see what's going on with the dark web, so we had quite a few interesting ideas coming out of that. >> Okay, awesome. We had Frederico Gomez Suarez on, who was the technical advisor. >> Alison: Yeah. >> A Microsoft employee, but he's volunteering at Thorn, and this is interesting because this is not just donating to the soup kitchens and what not. >> Alison: Yeah. >> You're starting to see a community approach to philanthropy that's coding RENN. >> Yeah. >> Hackathons turning into community galvanizing communities, and actually taking it to the next level. >> Yeah. So, I think one of the things we realize is tech, while it's so great, we have actually introduced a lot of new problems. So, I don't know if everyone's aware, but in the '80s and '90s, child exploitation had almost completely died. They had almost resolved the issue. With the introduction of technology and the Internet, it opened up a lot more ways for people to go ahead and exploit children, arrange things, in the dark web. So we're trying to figure out a way to use technology to combat a problem that technology kind of created as well, but not only solving it, but rescuing people. >> It's a classic security problem, the surface area has increased for this kind of thing. But big data, which is where you guys were founded on in the cloud era that we live in. >> Alison: Yeah. >> Pun intended. (laughing) Using the machine learning now you start with some scale now involved. >> Yes, exactly, and that's what we're really hoping, so we're partnering with Intel in the National Center of Missing Exploited Children. We're actually kicking off a virtual hackathon tomorrow, and our hope is we can figure out some different innovative ways that AI can be applied to scraping data and finding children. A lot of times we'll see there's not a lot of clues, but for example, if we can upload, if there can be a tool that can upload three or four different angles of a child's face when they go missing, maybe what happens is someone posts a picture on Instagram or Twitter that has a geo tag and this kid is in the background. That would be an amazing way of using AI and machine learning-- >> Yeah. >> Alison: To find a child, right. >> Well, I'll give you guy a plug for Cloudera. And I'll reference Dr. Naveen Rao, who's the GM of Intel's AI group, was on earlier. And he was talking about how there's a lot of storage available, not a lot of compute. Now, Cloudera, you guys have really pioneered the data lake, data hub concept where storage is critical. >> Yeah. >> Now, you got this compute power and machine learning, that's kind of where it comes together. Did I get that right? >> Yeah, and I think it's great that with the partnership with Intel we're able to integrate our technology directly into the hardware, which makes it so much more efficient. You're able to compute massive amounts of data in a very short amount of time, and really come up with real results. And with this partnership, specifically with Thorn and NCMEC, we're seeing that it's real impact for thousands of people last year, I think. In the 2016 impact report, Thorn said they identified over 6,000 trafficking victims, of which over 2,000 were children. Right, so that tool that they use is actually built on Cloudera. So, it's great seeing our technology put into place. >> Yeah, that's awesome. I was talking to an Intel person the other day, they have 72 cores now on a processor, on the high-end Xeons. Let's get down to some other things that you're working on. What are you doing here at the show? Do you have things that you're doing? You have a panel? >> Yeah, so at the show, at South by Southwest, we're kicking off a virtual hackathon tomorrow at our Austin offices for South by Southwest. Everyone's welcome to come. I just did the liquor order, so yes, everyone please come. (laughing) >> You just came from Austin's office, you're just coming there. >> Yeah, exactly. So we've-- >> Unlimited Red Bull, pizza, food. (laughing) >> Well, we'll be doing lots and lots tomorrow, but we're kicking that off, we have representatives from Thorn, NCMEC, Google, Intel, all on site to answer questions. That's kind of our kickoff of this month-long virtual hackathon. You don't need to be in Austin to participate, but that is one of the things that we are kicking off. >> And then on Sunday, actually here at the Intel AI Lounge we're doing a panel on AI for Good, and using artificial intelligence to solve problems. >> And we'll be broadcasting that live here on The Cube. So, folks, SiliconAngle.tv will carry that. Alison, talk about the trend that, you weren't here when we were talking about how there's now a new counterculture developing in a good way around community and social change. How real is the trend that you're starting to see these hackathons evolve from what used to be recruiting sessions to people just jamming together to meet each other. Now, you're starting to see the next level of formation where people are organizing collectively-- >> Yeah. >> To impact real issues. >> Yeah. >> Is this a real trend or where is that trend, can you speak to that? >> Sure, so from what I've seen from the hackathons what we've been seeing before was it's very company-specific. Only one company wanted to do it, and they would kind of silo themselves, right? Now, we're kind of seeing this coming together of companies that are generally competitors, but they see a great social cause and they decide that they want to band together, regardless of their differences in technology, product, et cetera, for a common good. And, so. >> Like a Thorn. >> For Thorn, you'll see a lot of competitors, so you'll see Facebook and Twitter or Google and Amazon, right? >> John: Yeah. >> And we'll see all these different competitors come together, lend their workforce to us, and have them code for one great project. >> So, you see it as a real trend. >> I do see it as a trend. I saw Thorn last year did a great one with Facebook and on-site with Facebook. This year as we started to introduce this hackathon, we decided that we wanted to do a hackathon series versus just a one-off hackathon. So we're seeing people being able to share code, contribute, work on top of other code, right, and it's very much a sharing community, so we're very excited for that. >> All right, so I got to ask you what's they culture like at Cloudera these days, as you guys prepare to go public? What's the vibe internally of the company, obviously Mike Olson, the founder, is still around, Amr's around. You guys have been growing really fast. Got your new space. What's the vibe like in Cloudera now? >> Honestly, the culture at Cloudera hasn't really changed. So, when I joined three years ago we were much smaller than we are now. But I think one thing that we're really excited about is everyone's still so collaborative, and everyone makes sure to help one another out. So, I think our common goal is really more along the lines of we're one team, and let's put out the best product we can. >> Awesome. So, what's South by Southwest mean to you this year? If you had to kind of zoom out and say, okay. What's the theme? We heard Robert Scoble earlier say it's a VR theme. We hear at Intel it's AI. So, there's a plethora of different touchpoints here. What do you see? >> Yeah, so I actually went to the opening keynote this morning, which was great. There was an introduction, and then I don't know if you realized, but Cory Booker was on as well, which is great. >> John: Yep. >> But I think a lot of what we had seen was they called out on stage that artificial intelligence is something that will be a trend for the next year. And I think that's very exciting that Intel really hit the nail on the head with the AI Lounge, right? >> Cory Booker, I'm a big fan. He's from my neighborhood, went to the same school I went to, that my family. So in Northern Valley, Old Tappan. Cory, if you're watching, retweet us, hashtag #IntelAI. So AI's there. >> AI is definitely there. >> No doubt, it's on stage. >> Yes, but I think we're also seeing a very large, just community around how can we make our community better versus let's try to go in these different silos, and just be hyper-aware of what's only in front of us, right? So, we're seeing a lot more from the community as well, just being interested in things that are not immediately in front of us, the wider, either nation, global, et cetera. So, I think that's very exciting people are stepping out of just their own little bubbles, right? And looking and having more compassion for other people, and figuring out how they can give back. >> And, of course, open source at the center of all the innovation as always. (laughing) >> I would like to think so, right? >> It is! I would testify. Machine learning is just a great example, how that's now going up into the cloud. We started to see that really being part of all the apps coming out, which is great because you guys are in the big data business. >> Alison: Yeah. >> Okay, Alison, thanks so much for taking the time. Real quick plug for your panel on Sunday here. >> Yeah. >> What are you going to talk about? >> So we're going to be talking a lot about AI for good. We're really going to be talking about the NCMEC, Thorn, Google, Intel, Cloudera partnership. How we've been able to do that, and a lot of what we're going to also concentrate on is how the everyday tech worker can really get involved and give back and contribute. I think there is generally a misconception of if there's not a program at my company, how do I give back? >> John: Yeah. >> And I think Cloudera's a shining example of how a few employees can really enact a lot of change. We went from grassroots, just a few employees, to a global program pretty quickly, so. >> And it's organically grown, which is the formula for success versus some sort of structured company program (laughing). >> Exactly, so we definitely gone from soup kitchen to strategic partnerships, and being able to donate our own time, our engineers' times, and obviously our software, so. >> Thanks for taking the time to come on our Cube. It's getting crowded in here. It's rocking the house, the house is rocking here at the Intel AI Lounge. If you're watching, check out the hashtag #IntelAI or South by Southwest. I'm John Furrie. I'll be back with more after this short break. (electronic music)

(bright music) >> Hi, this is Dave Volante, and we're getting ready to bring the Cube to Dell Tech World 2022. This is the first Dell Tech World that will be held in person since 2019. And, it's the first major Dell customer and industry gathering since Dell spun out VMware, as a completely separate company. Without Dell ownership, of course the chairman remains the same. Now, that Dell is untethered from VMware, it means its most lucrative asset is no longer going to show up on the income statement. Now, with the client business as an increasingly large share of revenue for Dell, over the past couple of years, thanks to the pandemic, Dell's gross margin line stands out more going from the low 30s to around 20%. Now, as part of the spin, Dell executed a special commercial agreement with VMware. Dell is VMware's number one distribution channel and sells tons of VMware software. So, that combined with the fact that Michael Dell is leading both companies was plenty of incentive for VMware to make disagreement. The special commercial agreement sets certain terms and conditions regarding how the two companies will work together to maximize technical integrations, co-marketing initiatives, and other go to market opportunities. This was done to ensure that the relationship between the two companies remains as strong as it was prior to the spin. It's interesting, a lot of people complained about the acquisition, that Dell and VMware shouldn't be together but customers, by all accounts, loved it. The other major change is Dell... For, with Dell post spin, is it now is a much stronger balance sheet. It has paid down a ton of debt to where it's now considered investment grade by the ratings bureaus. This means lower interest rates for Dell on its debt. And, it also means Dell has more flexibility to do dividends and stock buybacks and MNA. Dell, in our view, will begin to do some more of these tuck in acquisitions and beef up its software portfolio, As it still relies heavily on VMware software for much of its data center business, but we think it needs to diversify. It's increasingly going to look to expand into cloud offerings with its apex as a service. And, apex really is this as of surface offer, which is essentially Dell's version of their cloud and it spans on premises, the public cloud, and ultimately out to the edge. So, at Dell Tech World, expect the following areas to be emphasized client solutions. It's around half of the company's revenue. So, laptops and desktops and client side solutions have to be part of the discussion. It's a lower margin business than enterprise, but with COVID been growing quite rapidly as remote work has become the thing. The other thing we expect to hear, the other theme, is around ransomware, cyber resiliency, cyber threats are top of mind. Expect Dell to stress the importance of having sound security and data protection strategies in the post COVID era. You may see some specific offerings from Dell or perhaps even further emphasizing security in many of its products or both. Okay, we would also expect more storage innovation. Dell's legacy EMC storage business has been under pressure from the cloud and other competitors like Pure and some new entrants, nipping at Dell's heels. We would expect Dell to beef up its as a service offering both on prem within systems, AKA boxes, and as part of apex. Now, apex is going to be a big theme at the show. The as a service is going to absolutely be a big focus in our view. Dell has entered the market after HPE came in with GreenLake and Dell doesn't want to be overshadowed by HPE's all in as a service strategy. So, expect Dell to provide updates on its progress with apex, identify differentiation from some of the other players, AKA HP, and announce new services across its portfolio. You'll likely also hear some discussion about the ecosystem and partnerships with some global system integrators and also of some announcements about how they plan to appeal to the developer community. I think multi cloud is another theme that you're going to hear. Sometimes we call it super cloud. We would expect Dell to emphasize the importance of its ability to serve customers irrespective of physical location, right? Cloud is not a destination. It's an operating model kind of thing. On-prem, public cloud, across clouds, at the edge. Some of this is going to be vision, a lot of it of course will be vision, but some of it's going to be offerings. Might see some things in Telco and hear some 5g talk, as well as some Edge and Telco partnerships to attack that 5g opportunity and other opportunities at the edge. Dell's a large company. They, I think very conscious of responsibility. So, you're going to hear, I would say some, maybe not tons, but some fair dose of ESG, environmental, social, and governance. This will likely be a theme as companies like Dell, they got to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as the sustainability of the environment. They can move the needle. They may likely also get into privacy, things like that. Maybe tech for good, or maybe talk a little bit about AI for good, maybe even AI solutions, although let's, we'll see, we'll report if we hear that. You're going to also hear about digital transformation like any conference and how Dell is helping customers transform their businesses. What maybe what Dell's doing internally with its own technology organization and its own digital transformation. Dell's role is to provide technologies and services that can accelerate those digital transformations. So, you'll hear Dell position itself there we think. And, finally channel partnerships and ecosystems as Dell transforms to a cloud company, that's going to redefine cloud. It has to, in our view, increasingly emphasize its ecosystem partnerships which are a critical component of cloud companies. Now, I hope as a company building out its own cloud vision, and trying to reset the cloud narrative, that we hear some focused discussion around developers. I mentioned that before, and how infrastructure's code is a key aspect of Dell's vision and offerings. Now, the Cube will be there. We start Monday evening. It'll be late east coast time, but it'll be 6, 6:30 west coast time. We're going to feature myself, John Farrier, Lisa Martin, and David Nicholson as host. Monday is largely focused on partners. And, then we go all day, wall to wall, on Tuesday and Wednesday with our typical Cube coverage. Several key execs are going to be joining us including, of course, Michael Dell and Chuck Whitten, who's the new co-chief operating officer, along with Jeff Clark, who is also vice chairman. He's going to be joining us and several others from Dell's ELT, including Cheryl Cook, JD Davis, Alison Dew, and a number of Dell customers, partners, and several members from the product teams coming on to talk about the new announcements that they're making at the show. And, of course, you'll get the Cube's take on all the keynotes, the product announcements, and the vibe at the show and what's happening in the hallways and in the evening events. So, tune into the cube.net, check out siliconangle.com for all the news and coverage. And, we'll see you there. (bright music)

>>Mhm Yes. >>Hello and welcome back to the cubes coverage of Del Tech World Virtual. I'm john for a host of the cube. We've got a great two guests here talking about a new apex brand and products Allison Langdon, Senior Manager, product marketing at Dell and David Reed senior Director of Product Management. Dell all around the apex to CUBA alumni's great to see you remotely. Soon to be in person. It's right around the corner but great to see you. >>Hey, thanks for having me and us. >>So I wish >>we were in person. >>We missed the Deltek Worlds amazing event. Um we're virtual this year but all great goodness is here but great big announcement still go on. The Apex Brandon portfolio is coming together the cloud and as a service, everything is happening. You got the new apex data storage service take us through what what is the new service? Why? >>Sure. So I can start um you know, we've been seeing this this shift towards an as a service model, you know I. T. Has always struggled with complexities associated with under and over provisioning capital budget constraints, lengthy and complex to refresh cycles. So you know the events over this past year and our new normal is really accelerated these you know challenges and it made them even more manageable. You know organizations need to become really agile and um they don't want to invest make big upfront investments in infrastructure when they're having such a hard time forecasting there needs you know the new levels of unpredictability that's been accelerating this you know adoption of as of service. So this is why we're introducing apex data storage services essentially were radically simplifying how customers can acquire and manage their storage resources. So data storage services is going to be the first as a service offering in our apex portfolio. So it's going to provide an on crown portfolio of scalable and elastic storage resources that are designed for affects treatment. It's all going to be anchored in our apex console. So it's gonna be a seamless self service experience where you just have a few key inputs, your data service, your performance tier, you're looking for your commitment term, your base capacity, for example and then all the infrastructure is owned and maintained by us built on our Industry leading Technology. So really delivering a super simple self service as a service experience, >>You know, when Jeff Clark was first talking about this as a service as it should be, you know, introducing the project, Apex Devon, I was kind of okay, this is kind of what we heard when we were last in person in 2019. The end to end l cloud, hybrid, cloud operating model, this is kind of what we're talking about here. What's something that covers? What's what's what is this data services? How does that vector into that? Because you know data control planes are being talked about a lot. The use of data in A I. And A II. Operations impacts I. T. And cloud scale. So hybrids now the operating model for the enterprise. >>Yeah. Yeah definitely. And it's this is really only where we're starting and we're going to be starting on a set of apex data storage services. Um so if I step back a little bit and talk a little bit about what apex data storage services are, I'd like to draw a little bit of a contrast to how customers procure their equipment today. So a customer typically today says I need some storage I need some mid range storage. I need for example a power store 5000 and then they work with the sales representative and says I need 24 1.92 terabyte drives. They need certain connectivity and then we present a quote to them with a whole bunch of line items with a lot of different prices and then the customer needs purchased that year, purchased that upfront and then uh, the only asset and then they managed the asset. So they're taking the risk. They need to plan for that capacity. And what we're doing is we're radically flipping that model. Uh, and what we're, what we're doing here is we're just driving to an outcome. So customers, they don't want to take that risk. They just want to drive to their business outcomes and they want to manage their applications. So what they have to do in this model is just pick, hey, I want storage services, I want some block services, I want a certain performance level and I learned a certain capacity and I want a commitment level. And what we do is we basically create a rate for them And we've optimized a lot of our processes on the back end to be able to, once that order has booked, we target a very rapid time of 14 days from the time the order is dropped until the customer can actually start operating on that here. From the, the time is dropped to the time that they can produce in their first volume Is 14 days. And really all they have to do is operate the year and we manage everything everything for them that you know, from capacity management to change management to software, life cycles, patching and you and things like that. And now jOHN I want to address your question about the hybrid world. It's absolutely designed for a hybrid world. So in our first release will be offering this on customer premises. And we're also introducing announcing a relationship we have with the data center provider of Equinox, which is the largest co location provider in the world. And what will be able to do is provide the subscription service of this as a service, not only customer on customer premises but in near cloud environments, in a co location facility. And we also have software assets that will extend into this environment, all driven by a central pain of unified experience. >>That's awesome. The hybrid cloud, It's gotta have that table stakes now. So, good, good plug there. Thanks Call out Allison, I gotta ask you on the customer side, what's the drivers for the apex data storage service? What was the key things that there you're hearing, why this is important to them? Uh, and what is the value proposition? >>Right, Great question. So I touched on a little bit of that upfront, but it's, you know, essentially what we what we do with this offering is take it out of the infrastructure business so that they can focus on more value added activities, focusing on customer satisfaction. Um You know, because we're maintaining we're managing and maintaining all the infrastructure for them. You know, some of the key pain points are just, you know, the overhead associated with maintaining and managing that infrastructure. But there's also the financial aspect as well. These services are designed for affects treatment, so you're not having to make that big initial Capex expense, um you're really able to align your expenses with actual usage versus anticipated usage. So it eliminates that, you know, cycle of over and under provisioning, which either results in, you know, over provisions waste or under provisions risk. We essentially, you know, streamlined all of those processes. So the customer just has to worry about operating the, operating their storage and it takes a lot of that worry off of them and they're able to just pay for what they use, elastically scale of resources up and down. So it's essentially really simplified and more predictable. >>Page has always been one of those things where hey, I'll pay when I need it. I gotta ask you on the differentiation side. This is comes up all the time. How do you guys different from alternatives? How do you differentiate going forward? How do you guys be successful? What's the, what's the strategy? What's the, what's the focus? >>Yeah. So I'll take the, I'll take a couple of points and then I'll pass it over to you Alison if you don't >>mind. Um, >>so first and foremost, I'm asked this a lot. So what does Dell bring to the table in this whole little apex? And as a service? First and foremost, Del is the leading infrastructure provider for all of I. T. On premise. We have the enterprise infrastructure re leading across just about every major category of infrastructure. So first and foremost we have that. We also have the scale of the reach, not only in our enterprise relationships through our partner community. So that is one that is one huge advantage that we have. One thing that we're and we talked about this model. Um the level of management that we provide for our customers is second to none with this solution. So we provide um we provide all of the the difficult management tasks from end end that a customer that we repeatedly hear from our customers that they don't want to be dealing with anymore. And we're going to be able to do that at scale for our customers. And I know there's a couple more points, so I'd like to I'll pass it on to Alison and she can she can address a couple more points there. >>Yeah, sure. I mean obviously Devin makes a great point as being an industry leader and just the breadth of our portfolio in general, beyond just storage that we can essentially deliver as a service, but no, with our initial flagship storage as a service offering. Um, so with apex data storage services, you know, I talked a little bit about, you know, the pay as you go, pay as you know, pay for what you use. You know, essentially the way this works is, you know, there's an initial based commitment of capacity that the customer commits to and then they're able to elastically scale up and down above that base and only pay for what they use. One of the differentiators were bringing to the table is that, you know, in addition to that base and that, you know, the on demand space if you will, that that goes above that we're charging a single rate. So it's really a simplified and transparent billing process. So you're not getting any over ridge penalties or fees for going into that on demand. It's essentially a single rate based on your commitment and you know, as much as you scale up and down, you're gonna you're gonna stay within one single rate. So no surprise average penalties. So that's definitely something that that differentiates us. And the customers also have the ability to raise that based commitment at any point. Co terminus lee in their contract. So if they're seeing like a strong growth trajectory or anticipating a more, you know, a big burst in usage for some data intensive type workloads. You know, we can add that can raise that floor commitment resulting in a lower rate but still a single rate for both based on demand. >>Well certainly data storage and moving data around, having it in the edge to the core to whatever is critical. And I think I think that's a great service. The question I want to ask you guys next to addresses. Give us an update on the apex brand and portfolio overall. How does this fit in? How is it shaping out? Can just take a minute to explain kind of where it is right now and what's available, how it was the strategy and what's coming? >>Sure. So I can talk a little bit about what's available when we're talking about today and then maybe devon if you can touch a little bit on the on the strategy and going forward. Um But what we've announced today is you at Del Tech World is the apex brand, the apex portfolio, which as I mentioned, it's our strategy for as a service and cloud. So in addition to our data storage services offering that we've been focused on today, um which is part of our infrastructure services, we're also introducing our cloud services as well as some more customizable services. So from a cloud services perspective, we're also going to be talking about our apex private cloud and apex hybrid cloud offerings. And then of course the apex console is really what brings all of these pieces together. It's that single self service experience to manage all of your as a service resources from a single place, David, I don't know if you want to take it. >>So what I would, what I would like to add is a little bit more color on the customized services. So if you look at apex at a high level um it's really how we're transforming the way we do business with our partners and customers and the way we deliver products and offers to our our partners and customers. And within the apex umbrella there's really two segments of customers that we see. One, there is still a segment of customers that want some technology control. They want to build their they want to build their clouds, they want to build their infrastructure and that's where really the apex custom comes into it. And we have a very large business in our custom business today with Dell technologies on demand with flex on demand and data center utility and those will be represented to be apex flex on demand, apex data center utility, um you know, that's what we're announcing here. And then the second portion is really this apex turnkey offer where customers don't care to manage it, they want to just consume, they want to operate their gear. And that's where a lot of the innovation, a lot of the a lot of the strategy that we're talking about here with the hybrid cloud service, the product cloud service, apex data storage services. So we're building out a set of world class infrastructure services that will then be able to wrap our leading infrastructure utilities around data protection, security, migration, compliance etcetera. And then build a set of horizontal and vertical solutions on top of this infrastructure to provide uh paramount uh value to our >>awesome Alice. I gotta ask you because this is always the case right. There's always one or two features that jump out the product, everything as a service clearly aligns with the market macro conditions in the marketplace and the evolution of the architecture in all businesses. That's clear, there's no debate on that. You guys got that nailed. What's the, what's the key thing if you had to kind of boil out the one thing that people are gravitating towards on the data storage service because um, everyone kinda is going here, right? So what if you get people that are watching it are learning what's popping out as the key product feature here or a few things that jump out. >>Sure. So, I mean really at the core, it's all about simplicity. Um, it's in terms of the console itself, which we've talked about it, you know, you have your infrastructure resources, your storage, your cloud services and it's all, it's just so simple. It's just, it's a matter of a few simple clicks and inputs that are pretty intuitive to meet your needs. It's the fact that its outcome based, you know, we're not focused on delivering a product, it's really truly delivering an outcome and a service to meet the customer's needs. So it's a whole new way of you know approaching the market and talking to our customers and making it intuitive and simple and seamless and really, you know, taking so much of the complexity off of the table for them. Um So it's the simplicity of the console, it's the being able to transition to more op ex model um from a financial aspect is huge and then you know aligning your expenses, you know with your actual versus and you know anticipated usage, so being able to manage that unpredictability, so that's necessary talking about a specific feature but really how we're driving towards really focusing on the customer needs. >>Now the business values right there, it's all about the outcome and you know, we're about getting charged on this variable, you know, over age on some service David. How about under the hood? If I look at the engine of this, how it fits into the kind of product architecture, you look at the product management, you're building the product and the engineers are cranking away what's the, what's the gear, what gears look like? What's the machinery look like under the hood? What's the cool tech, if any, um, you would share, if you can share. >>Yeah, it's interesting that you asked that, john and it's, it's really interesting that we got probably what, 12 minutes into this interview and we didn't even talk about a product, not one single product and that is really by design here. We're really, we're really selling the service. We're selling an offer. The product is the service, the service is the product and it's really about selling those outcomes. But then at the end of the day since we're talking talking shop here um we are introducing block services and that's powered by our new award winning power store mid range product and our file services are going to be powered by our um our award winning power scale and Ice alone systems as well. So we'll be interested you know introducing block and file services and we'll be extending that to object object services and data storage services. Uh >>huh, awesome. You know Alison and Devon I was talking to a friend we're running weren't on camera with the camera was turned on but we're just riffing about all the coolness around devops to have sex cops, how I. T. S go into large scale cloud apps and we're talking about all that and we were both kind of coming to the same conclusion that the next generation on top of all this automation is the excess of service, everything is a service. Because if you go that next level, that's where it is. Because the outcomes, the outcome is the services and that's underpinned by automation ai ops all the other stuff that's kind of hardened underneath still enables it. And you guys are already there. So congratulations. That's really cool reaction to that. That concept of automation powers X as a service. >>Yeah, I'll take that one, john. So, um while I talked only about playing storage technologies that power this there is a phenomenal amount of investment in um uh work and thought going into building out the underlying infrastructure and operations behind this because we need to provide um the operations and management of this infrastructure services, not only for storage but for compute and solutions and develops environment at scale. And it's crucial that we, we build out that infrastructure, that automation, that machine learning AI offers to really support this. So yeah, you're absolutely right. That is fundamental to getting this model. Uh nailed >>Alison. You're feeling pretty good about the product and the service. Now everything is a service that's your wheelhouse. It's happening. >>Yeah, here we are. We've got, we've got apex portfolio has arrived. So yeah, feeling good. Um, definitely excited. >>He was bright. Congratulations Allison David, thanks for coming on the Cuban, sharing the updates on the apex new data storage services, the new portfolio, the directionally correct action of everything as a service and all the automation that goes on the, that's really kind of a game changer. Thanks so much for sharing on the CUBA. Really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. >>Thanks a lot, john, >>thank you. Okay. >>Del Tech world cube coverage continues. I'm john Kerry, the host. Thanks for watching. Yeah. Mhm.

(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Dell Technologies World 2021, the virtual version. My name is Dave Vellante and this is theCUBE I'm pleased to welcome Bill Wavro, the president and GM, Dell Financial Services at Dell Technologies. Bill. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Yeah, thanks Dave. It's really great to be here with you. >> So we heard in Alison Doos keynote, Dell Technologies all in on as a service APEX. She's the executive lead. So really passionate about that. Talk about DFS in that context, you've always had a way to help people shift CapEx to OPEX but what's your specific role regarding APEX? >> Yeah, well, thanks Dave. Look, we're really excited about APEX in DFS we think APEX solutions gives customers access to the broadest range of infrastructured solutions in the industry if you combine that with the Dell Technologies portfolio of ISG technology and solutions, that's a great combination for customers but you asked about DFS and in DFS we've been delivering consumption solutions for over 15 years. So taking a look at the APEX portfolio you can broadly divided into two categories, turnkey, APEX turnkey solutions, like data storage services and then APEX custom solutions like data center utility and Flex on Demand and those custom solutions are with DFS plays. And as I said we've been offering those for over 15 years. We have a lot of experience with customers, what customers are looking for? We have tens of thousands of assets out there today with hundreds of customers that are being metered on a regular basis that we're billing monthly. So we're getting a lot of feedback from customers. And I think the APEX solutions announcements that you heard here at Dell Technologies World are a further expansion of that. They're built on the backbone of what DFS has been delivering for a long time. So we've taken I think the best of those solutions and we've listened to customers, what are they looking for? What do they want? And we've got even new and improved offerings in the current announcement that we made. So, I think when you talk to customers they want a couple of things. They want simplicity. They want to be able to understand how they're going to acquire it and how those payment solutions work and they want choice. And I think the APEX solutions gives customers both of those things. And the good news is they're available on all sorts of ISD hardware be it servers storage, hyper-converged, converged infrastructures. Customers can choose what technology they're looking for and they can create their own demand environment. And the last thing I'll do is a little plug for DFS. We've been in the payment solution business for over 25 years. So we not only offer consumption solutions but we offer traditional leases and financing. And so when you add all that together and you go talk to a customer about technology and how they want to pay for it we think we've got the broadest range in the industry. And we're really proud of that. >> Okay, cool. So you have the two areas that you simplified it. That which is great. You've got that standard off the shelf and then you've got the custom solutions. The standard stuff is like console data storage and then cloud services that breaks down even further. And then the custom, I got my notes, APEX Flex on Demand and APEX data center utility, how do APEX custom solutions differ from those turnkey offerings. >> Yeah. Well, the beautiful thing about APEX is it gives customers choice. So as you mentioned, you have turnkey. So if you think data storage services that's one of our new turnkey type offerings and those turnkey offerings are outcome-based. So think about it as an outcome. What is a customer looking for? Do they want file versus block storage? What sort of capacity do they need? What performance level are they looking for? But it's thinking of those outcomes. And Dell Technology is going to take care of the rest, right? A customer can go to the APEX console and they can review those choices. They can make their selections and then they can turn it over to Dell and we'll deploy that technology, we'll manage it, we'll upgrade it and we'll service it over the life of the term. So the customer can focus on outcomes versus on acquiring and managing technology. So that's the turnkey solution and that's probably the biggest and newest part of our announcement of APEX solutions. And then we have the custom, the custom, as you mentioned data center utility Flex on-demand. That's what DFS has been delivering for many years now. And that's for our customer who wants to select the product. So think of it as a product-based solution where a customer wants to select the technology. They may want to manage it themselves. They may want to have a partner manage it. They may want to include different services. So they're able to put that together in a custom way and satisfy whatever problem they're trying to solve. So we found that many customers are going to want to select that custom solution because they're in a part of their data transformation journey where they still want to control some of that technology and others will want to go the turnkey route. So again, it kind of goes back to the customer choice in allowing them to acquire it the way that they want to acquire it. >> Okay. So like an example might be, I'm just making this up. I'm a financial institution, I'm a big VMAX customer. I got some kind of special process that I use, that I wrote that gives me competitive differentiation because I can get a millisecond faster than my competitor speed or whatever. And I want that I'm not going to take it. That's not part of your turnkey solution but that's part of my value add, I want that but I want your help in sort of customizing that and making it as a service. Is that like reasonable example? >> That's a great example. And so let me talk about that a little bit. So let me give you a couple of examples of use cases and what the products provide. So think about, let's talk about data center utility first because when you think of the data center utility think data center, right? These are the large deployments. They're big customers. They they're most likely a global customer and they want to get out of the data center business, right? They want to get out of the day-to-day management of that and be able to focus on, hey, how do we as I as a CIO deliver value to my business? I want to make a difference in that business strategy. CIO is more and more being asked to help the business and enable that business strategy. And so many of them want to get out of the data center management business and this is where a data center utility product can come in. It allows us to go in as Dell and help that customer manage that data center. So it has the most flexibility in terms of, custom building, custom reporting, very low if any minimum commitments. And one of the best features is we have a delivery manager who's assigned to every account who can help that customer procure assets, manage assets, deal with capacity management. So we really can take over the management of that data center and allow the customers IT group to focus on delivering value to the business. So we think that's a really important aspect of it. And it allows us to manage even existing assets that are sitting out at the customer as well as new purchases. And then back to the kind of example that you gave, where a customer really wants that high performance they have specific hardware in mind. They can also use a Flex On Demand type product so that the customer is able to pick the hardware whether it be servers, storage, converged infrastructure, hyper-converged and they can select the technology that they want to use. They can sign up for a very flexible period of time. So they can go from one year to five years. They may only need this hardware for a limited period of time. Maybe they're working on a project where they're going to need additional storage capacity for the next couple of years, so they can sign up for a two year contract if they want, they can sign up for the commitment level that they want to use. So, one of the great things that customers are looking for is they want that cloudlike operating model. They want to pay for that technology as they utilize it. And they don't want to be locked in to having to purchase a large amount of data if potentially they're not going to use it. So Flex On Demand gives them that flexibility. They could sign up for 50% of a storage arrays capacity and only pay for usage above and beyond that 50%. So it offers customers a lot of choice and a lot of ability to get the technology they want and be a very flexible utilization method as they go forward. >> So, I don't think a lot of people realize that you said very low or no minimum commitments. And so maybe you could explain that a little bit and who owns the asset? >> When we talk about Flex on Demand it is still owned by Dell. So Dell owns that asset and the customer can commit. And we think we have the broadest range of commitment levels in the industry. So if you think about a Flex on Demand type offering and let's say you want to purchase a storage array you can sign up for a 50% minimum commitment. So again, you've got flexibility on the term. So you can go one to five years you can sign up for 50% commitment. So you're going to get a bill for 50% of that storage usage every month but you're not going to get a bill for anything more unless you utilize it. Now, let's say one month you go to 60%, right? So you're going to pay that extra 10% only when you use it. If you go back down to 50% the following month, you don't pay. And let me point something out on this because I think this is where we differ from a lot of our competition. The rate you pay is the same. So it's the same for the minimum commitment level of 50% as it is for the incremental 10% or 20% that you use above that. Some of our competitors have surge pricing. So basically once you go above your commitment you're paying a premium. We don't do that. We've heard from customers. They don't like that. They want it simple. They want to pay one rate per gigabyte throughout the life of that contract. And so we do that. Another unique feature which we kind of just implemented recently is that the max that you can pay is 85% on that storage usage. So if you sign up for a 50% minimum commitment and let's say you use 90% of it so you've got a pretty significant increase off your minimum. We will only charge you up to 85%. And that's a new feature that we added to all our Flex on Demand products recently for future customers as well as previous customer. So you've actually gone back to all our current customers and said, this applies to you even though that wasn't part of the original offering we're going to cap you at that 85% level. And the reason we did that is because a lot of customers love, pay for things as they use them. They're a little uncomfortable on uncertainty of maybe paying too much, right? So we put this in to help protect customers that they wouldn't have to worry about paying more than they expected to. So we think that's a pretty cool feature of what we offer. >> Yeah. So to summarize the features, I got the portfolio, I got the whole portfolio I have access to, I get the flexibility that you just described in great detail and then pricing transparency or certainty. And then the other piece of that is the value the 85% cap. So that's pretty cool. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So you've been doing this for a while. You have data and experience with real customers, with different types of customs solutions. Maybe you could share some of the business impacts and benefits that customers have seen. >> Yeah. Well, let me give you example. So data center utility like we had a large multinational manufacturer who again as I mentioned earlier they wanted to get out of the data center environment. They don't want to manage that anymore. They had a complex data center. It was managed with about 50% of their own internal IT department and 50% with a third-party service provider. They had multiple hardware vendors, multiple third parties providing services. It was very very complex. So they came to Dell Technologies. We took that data center put it into a data center and utility contract. And we took over management of the data center. So it freed up that 50% of their own IT staff to work on other things. It provided value to the business. And then we were able to take that consolidate vendors make it a lot simpler and improve the efficiency of the data center. And that's an important thing. So it's not just about how you pay for it, that you pay for it in a variable manner. It's how efficient can you make that data center? And no one knows Dell Technologies assets and hardware better than us, right? So we were able to create tremendous value by utilizing those assets more efficiently. So they were getting more productivity out of the underlying IT assets. We simplified it for them. And we were able to take their team out of that day-to-day management which is what they were looking for. So there's a great example of a win-win on both sides. And what we've found with these customers is once they go to this kind of model, they stay with it. They like it. And we actually ended up expanding our relationship with these customers. So it's good for us in a lot of ways. And one of the things we didn't talk about earlier is another benefit that maybe isn't so obvious, particularly when you look at a Flex on Demand type product. So let's think about Flex on Demand. One of the things customers are struggling with is how to predict how much data storage they're going to need in the future. There's this huge data explosion going on in the world. We've talked about that many times. And CIO's often have trouble trying to predict how much capacity they're going to need in the future, right? They don't know exactly where it's going to go. And so one of the struggles that they have is when they have a need for that data it takes time to get it available. So if you think about a CIO that all of a sudden has additional capacity they need to add to their infrastructure, it could take 90 days to get that out on the floor. They've got to go through their internal requisition process. They've got to select a vendor, they've got to acquire the hardware to get it all set up. This all takes time. 90 days later is too late. One of the things that Flex on Demand offers is that you're able to get that capacity on the floor and at the push of the button you can have it up and running. So you're not paying for it until you use it but once you do need it you can have it available really quickly. And that's one of the benefits that maybe people don't expect when they use this Flex on Demand product but provides tremendous value for customers. So we've seen that kind of time and time again with Flex on Demand we had a large pharmaceutical customer who went to one of these, had a mandate that they wanted to go to a cloud operating model for all their IT purchases. So they wanted to free up cash flow that was kind of a directive from the top, free up cashflow, let's get out of the CapEx business and Flex on Demand was a perfect answer to that because it freed up the cashflow. They paid for the technology over time and they were able to have this capacity available whenever they needed it. So we've seen that as a tremendous benefit of the custom Flex on Demand model. >> I've done a lot of TCO studies Bill and I'll tell you that the upfront planning, the capacity planning, the asset management, the procurement, these are a big chunk of the labor cost associated with total costs. Okay. So we've got the turnkey with the three components. We've got the custom with the two components. There was a fifth bucket in my notes here which is the partners in the channel. And I'm really interested in how the channel is transforming, no longer can you just be a box seller in the channel. Those days are gone. Made a lot of money doing that, good deal. But, now you got to add value. The cloud has really changed everything there. And of course it's all about the margin and profitability. So talk about the channel. You've always had relationships and how APEX fits with channel partners. >> Yeah, well look Dave, we've had great experience working with our partners. I mean, partners are hearing the same thing from customers that were here, they want a cloud-based type operating model. They want to pay for their technology as they use it. So partners are looking to provide the same value to customers. And we found that working with partners expands our reach tremendously and they have a lot of expertise. So the APEX custom solutions are designed to work with partners. Partners can either sell those for themselves so they can sort of resell our solution to them or they can just refer the business to us. And they're going to get a 20% uplift on the committed contract value for those contracts. So this is really financially attractive to our channel partners. And it allows us to work with those partners to get to more customers, right? And as I mentioned earlier these custom solutions can include services from the partners so we can provide the hardware piece to them. They can add on their services on top of that and they can be the primary relationship with a customer or again they can refer it over to us. So we found that to be a really good value proposition for partners. And we think they're pretty happy about it. I mean, we have an example, RelateCare as a company that supports healthcare organizations around the world. So helping with patient communication appointment scheduling tele-health which is a really big area right now as you know with the pandemic still going across the world this is an area for medics growth. So RelateCare was working with one of our partners, Arc Fire and they needed more flexibility in the data center. And so these APEX Flex on Demand was a perfect solution for that. It allowed them to deliver a secure flexible data center and work with their partner to really improve the service level that was occurring in that relationship. And if you think about it, one of the things we didn't mention is particularly for a lot of healthcare companies and companies and customers who have a high sensitivity around data security and where that data resides. One of the advantages of on-prem solutions like APEX Flex on Demand or data center utility is know where your data is. The public cloud can move the data around often without you knowing about it. And so that security of that assurance that you know exactly where your data is, is really important to a lot of our customers. So its kind of another feature that has been official for customers. And again, we're seeing partners adopt this more and more. And I think over time that is going to continue to grow. >> Yeah. So 20 points on the uplift plus additional services that I can bring in because they have a tighter relationship, in this model, right? The renewal starts when you sign the contract. So it's a much, much deeper relationship. Can the partners, can they white label the service? Is it co-branded? Is it all Dell branded? >> Yeah. Well, they have the choice. I mean, the partner can financially take on the billing and relationship primarily if that's what they would like to do. And again, so that's one of the offerings or they can refer it to us. Many partners they don't have the back end or the infrastructure to do all that billing and collecting themselves. So they prefer just to refer it to us. Another part is at large they do have those capabilities and they want to take on the primary relationships. So we can work with them both ways and we have worked with them both ways. >> Nice. We're out of time, Bill, but give us the bottom line. You've touched on some of this but why APEX over the competition? >> Yeah. Well, look, I think it goes back. The first thing is Dell Technologies, right? Dell Technologies has the broadest selection of products and services means. So you combine that with APEX solutions you've got a win-win, it's unbeatable in my opinion. We also I think have the best range of flexibility in those payments solutions. So you can go from a minimum commitment of 40% all the way up to 85%, you can go one to five years, no surcharges, right? The rate is the rate. The rate goes from the minimum all the way to the maximum. We have the storage cap that I talked about, HCI cap at 85%. So you're going to be capped. So you don't have unexpected costs that you didn't forecast and you can flex up and down, right? So you flex up, you could flex down, some of our competition once flex up you can't flex back down. And that's a real negative in my opinion. And we've got 15 years of experience of doing this. So that's really important. We work with a lot of customers. We've learned a lot during those journeys and we think we're the best equipped to provide you with consumption solutions and as a service solutions that really work with customers. >> Financial flexibility, asset management, the really key part of IT that we don't spend enough time talking about. Bill, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE and sharing your insights. >> Thanks, Dave. Really glad to be here. Thank you. >> All right. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE's continuous coverage of Dell Tech World 2021 the virtual edition. We'll be right back right after this short break. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> On February 19th of this year, Barron's dropped an article declaring Oracle, a cloud giant and the article explained why the stock was a buy. Investors took notice and the stock ran up 18% over the next nine trading days and it peaked on March 9th, the day before Oracle announced its latest earnings. The company beat consensus earnings on both top-line and EPS last quarter, but investors, they did not like Oracle's tepid guidance and the stock pulled back. But it's still, as you can see, well above its pre-Barron's article price. What does all this mean? Is Oracle a cloud giant? What are its growth prospects? Now many parts of Oracle's business are growing including Fusion ERP, Fusion HCM, NetSuite, we're talking deep into the double digits, 20 plus percent growth. It's OnPrem legacy licensed business however, continues to decline and that moderates, the overall company growth because that OnPrem business is so large. So the overall Oracle's growing in the low single digits. Now what stands out about Oracle is it's recurring revenue model. That figure, the company says now it represents 73% of its revenue and that's going to continue to grow. Now two other things stood out on the earnings call to us. First, Oracle plans on increasing its CapEX by 50% in the coming quarter, that's a lot. Now it's still far less than AWS Google or Microsoft Spend on capital but it's a meaningful data point. Second Oracle's consumption revenue for Autonomous Database and Cloud Infrastructure, OCI or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure grew at 64% and 139% respectively and these two factors combined with the CapEX Spend suggest that the company has real momentum. I mean look, it's possible that the CapEx announcements maybe just optics in they're front loading, some spend to show the street that it's a player in cloud but I don't think so. Oracle's Safra Catz's usually pretty disciplined when it comes to it's spending. Now today on March 17th, Oracle announced updates towards Autonomous Data Warehouse and with me is David Floyer who has extensively researched Oracle over the years and today we're going to unpack the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse, ADW announcement. What it means to customers but we also want to dig into Oracle's strategy. We want to compare it to some other prominent database vendors specifically, AWS and Snowflake. David Floyer, Welcome back to The Cube, thanks for making some time for me. >> Thank you Vellante, great pleasure to be here. >> All right, I want to get into the news but I want to start with this idea of the autonomous database which Oracle's announcement today is building on. Oracle uses the analogy of a self-driving car. It's obviously powerful metaphor as they call it the self-driving database and my takeaway is that, this means that the system automatically provisions, it upgrades, it does all the patching for you, it tunes itself. Oracle claims that all reduces labor costs or admin costs by 90%. So I ask you, is this the right interpretation of what Oracle means by autonomous database? And is it real? >> Is that the right interpretation? It's a nice analogy. It's a test to that analogy, isn't it? I would put it as the first stage of the Autonomous Data Warehouse was to do the things that you talked about, which was the tuning, the provisioning, all of that sort of thing. The second stage is actually, I think more interesting in that what they're focusing on is making it easy to use for the end user. Eliminating the requirement for IT, staff to be there to help in the actual using of it and that is a very big step for them but an absolutely vital step because all of the competition focusing on ease of use, ease of use, ease of use and cheapness of being able to manage and deploy. But, so I think that is the really important area that Oracle has focused on and it seemed to have done so very well. >> So in your view, is this, I mean you don't really hear a lot of other companies talking about this analogy of the self-driving database, is this unique? Is it differentiable for Oracle? If so, why, or maybe you could help us understand that a little bit better. >> Well, the whole strategy is unique in its breadth. It has really brought together a whole number of things together and made it of its type the best. So it has a single, whole number of data sources and database types. So it's got a very broad range of different ways that you can look at the data and the second thing that is also excellent is it's a platform. It is fully self provisioned and its functionality is very, very broad indeed. The quality of the original SQL and the query languages, etc, is very, very good indeed and it's a better agent to do joints for example, is excellent. So all of the building blocks are there and together with it's sharing of the same data with OLTP and inference and in memory data paces as well. All together the breadth of what they have is unique and very, very powerful. >> I want to come back to this but let's get into the news a little bit and the announcement. I mean, it seems like what's new in the autonomous data warehouse piece for Oracle's new tooling around four areas that so Andy Mendelsohn, the head of this group instead of the guy who releases his baby, he talked about four things. My takeaway, faster simpler loads, simplified transforms, autonomous machine learning models which are facilitating, What do you call it? Citizen data science and then faster time to insights. So tooling to make those four things happen. What's your take and takeaways on the news? >> I think those are all correct. I would add the ease of use in terms of being able to drag and drop, the user interface has been dramatically improved. Again, I think those, strategically are actually more important that the others are all useful and good components of it but strategically, I think is more important. There's ease of use, the use of apex for example, are more important. And, >> Why are they more important strategically? >> Because they focus on the end users capability. For example, one of other things that they've started to introduce is Python together with their spatial databases, for example. That is really important that you reach out to the developer as they are and what tools they want to use. So those type of ease of use things, those types of things are respecting what the end users use. For example, they haven't come out with anything like click or Tableau. They've left that there for that marketplace for the end user to use what they like best. >> Do you mean, they're not trying to compete with those two tools. They indeed had a laundry list of stuff that they supported, Talend, Tableau, Looker, click, Informatica, IBM, I had IBM there. So their claim was, hey, we're open. But so that's smart. That's just, hey, they realized that people use these tools. >> I'm trying to exclude other people, be a platform and be an ecosystem for the end users. >> Okay, so Mendelsohn who made the announcement said that Oracle's the smartphone of databases and I think, I actually think Alison kind of used that or maybe that was us planing to have, I thought he did like the iPhone of when he announced the exit data way back when the integrated hardware and software but is that how you see it, is Oracle, the smartphone of databases? >> It is, I mean, they are trying to own the complete stack, the hardware with the exit data all the way up to the databases at the data warehouses and the OLTP databases, the inference databases. They're trying to own the complete stack from top to bottom and that's what makes autonomy process possible. You can make it autonomous when you control all of that. Take away all of the requirements for IT in the business itself. So it's democratizing the use of data warehouses. It is pushing it out to the lines of business and it's simplifying it and making it possible to push out so that they can own their own data. They can manage their own data and they do not need an IT person from headquarters to help them. >> Let's stay in this a little bit more and then I want to go into some of the competitive stuff because Mendelsohn mentioned AWS several times. One of the things that struck me, he said, hey, we're basically one API 'cause we're doing analytics in the cloud, we're doing data in the cloud, we're doing integration in the cloud and that's sort of a big part of the value proposition. He made some comparisons to Redshift. Of course, I would say, if you can't find a workload where you beat your big competitor then you shouldn't be in this business. So I take those things with a grain of salt but one of the other things that caught me is that migrating from OnPrem to Oracle, Oracle Cloud was very simple and I think he might've made some comparisons to other platforms. And this to me is important because he also brought in that Gartner data. We looked at that Gardner data when they came out with it in the operational database class, Oracle smoked everybody. They were like way ahead and the reason why I think that's important is because let's face it, the Mission Critical Workloads, when you look at what's moving into AWS, the Mission Critical Workloads, the high performance, high criticality OLTP stuff. That's not moving in droves and you've made the point often that companies with their own cloud particularly, Oracle you've mentioned this about IBM for certain, DB2 for instance, customers are going to, there should be a lower risk environment moving from OnPrem to their cloud, because you could do, I don't think you could get Oracle RAC on AWS. For example, I don't think EXIF data is running in AWS data centers and so that like component is going to facilitate migration. What's your take on all that spiel? >> I think that's absolutely right. You all crown Jewels, the most expensive and the most valuable applications, the mission-critical applications. The ones that have got to take a beating, keep on taking. So those types of applications are where Oracle really shines. They own a very large high percentage of those Mission Critical Workloads and you have the choice if you're going to AWS, for example of either migrating to Oracle on AWS and that is frankly not a good fit at all. There're a lot of constraints to running large systems on AWS, large mission critical systems. So that's not an option and then the option, of course, that AWS will push is move to a Roller, change your way of writing applications, make them tiny little pieces and stitch them all together with microservices and that's okay if you're a small organization but that has got a lot of problems in its own, right? Because then you, the user have to stitch all those pieces together and you're responsible for testing it and you're responsible for looking after it. And that as you grow becomes a bigger and bigger overhead. So AWS, in my opinion needs to have a move towards a tier-one database of it's own and it's not in that position at the moment. >> Interesting, okay. So, let's talk about the competitive landscape and the choices that customers have. As I said, Mendelssohn mentioned AWS many times, Larry on the calls often take shy, it's a compliment to me. When Larry Ellison calls you out, that means you've made it, you're doing well. We've seen it over the years, whether it's IBM or Workday or Salesforce, even though Salesforce's big Oracle customer 'cause AWS, as we know are Oracle customer as well, even though AWS tells us they've off called when you peel the onion >> Five years should be great, some of the workers >> Well, as I said, I believe they're still using Oracle in certain workloads. Way, way, we digress. So AWS though, they take a different approach and I want to push on this a little bit with database. It's got more than a dozen, I think purpose-built databases. They take this kind of right tool for the right job approach was Oracle there converging all this function into a single database. SQL JSON graph databases, machine learning, blockchain. I'd love to talk about more about blockchain if we have time but seems to me that the right tool for the right job purpose-built, very granular down to the primitives and APIs. That seems to me to be a pretty viable approach versus kind of a Swiss Army approach. How do you compare the two? >> Yes, and it is to many initial programmers who are very interested for example, in graph databases or in time series databases. They are looking for a cheap database that will do the job for a particular project and that makes, for the program or for that individual piece of work is making a very sensible way of doing it and they pay for ads on it's clear cloud dynamics. The challenge as you have more and more data and as you're building up your data warehouse in your data lakes is that you do not want to have to move data from one place to another place. So for example, if you've got a Roller,, you have to move the database and it's a pretty complicated thing to do it, to move it to Redshift. It's a five or six steps to do that and each of those costs money and each of those take time. More importantly, they take time. The Oracle approach is a single database in terms of all the pieces that obviously you have multiple databases you have different OLTP databases and data warehouse databases but as a single architecture and a single design which means that all of the work in terms of moving stuff from one place to another place is within Oracle itself. It's Oracle that's doing that work for you and as you grow, that becomes very, very important. To me, very, very important, cost saving. The overhead of all those different ones and the databases themselves originate with all as open source and they've done very well with it and then there's a large revenue stream behind the, >> The AWS, you mean? >> Yes, the original database is in AWS and they've done a lot of work in terms of making it set with the panels, etc. But if a larger organization, especially very large ones and certainly if they want to combine, for example data warehouse with the OLTP and the inference which is in my opinion, a very good thing that they should be trying to do then that is incredibly difficult to do with AWS and in my opinion, AWS has to invest enormously in to make the whole ecosystem much better. >> Okay, so innovation required there maybe is part of the TAM expansion strategy but just to sort of digress for a second. So it seems like, and by the way, there are others that are doing, they're taking this converged approach. It seems like that is a trend. I mean, you certainly see it with single store. I mean, the name sort of implies that formerly MemSQL I think Monte Zweben of splice machine is probably headed in a similar direction, embedding AI in Microsoft's, kind of interesting. It seems like Microsoft is willing to build this abstraction layer that hides that complexity of the different tooling. AWS thus far has not taken that approach and then sort of looking at Snowflake, Snowflake's got a completely different, I think Snowflake's trying to do something completely different. I don't think they're necessarily trying to take Oracle head-on. I mean, they're certainly trying to just, I guess, let's talk about this. Snowflake simplified EDW, that's clear. Zero to snowflake in 90 minutes. It's got this data cloud vision. So you sign on to this Snowflake, speaking of layers they're abstracting the complexity of the underlying cloud. That's what the data cloud vision is all about. They, talk about this Global Mesh but they've not done a good job of explaining what the heck it is. We've been pushing them on that, but we got, >> Aspiration of moment >> Well, I guess, yeah, it seems that way. And so, but conceptually, it's I think very powerful but in reality, what snowflake is doing with data sharing, a lot of reading it's probably mostly read-only and I say, mostly read-only, oh, there you go. You'll get better but it's mostly read and so you're able to share the data, it's governed. I mean, it's exactly, quite genius how they've implemented this with its simplicity. It is a caching architecture. We've talked about that, we can geek out about that. There's good, there's bad, there's ugly but generally speaking, I guess my premise here I would love your thoughts. Is snowflakes trying to do something different? It's trying to be not just another data warehouse. It's not just trying to compete with data lakes. It's trying to create this data cloud to facilitate data sharing, put data in the hands of business owners in terms of a product build, data product builders. That's a different vision than anything I've seen thus far, your thoughts. >> I agree and even more going further, being a place where people can sell data. Put it up and make it available to whoever needs it and making it so simple that it can be shared across the country and across the world. I think it's a very powerful vision indeed. The challenge they have is that the pieces at the moment are very, very easy to use but the quality in terms of the, for example, joints, I mentioned, the joints were very powerful in Oracle. They don't try and do joints. They, they say >> They being Snowflake, snowflake. Yeah, they don't even write it. They would say use another Postgres >> Yeah. >> Database to do that. >> Yeah, so then they have a long way to go. >> Complex joints anyway, maybe simple joints, yeah. >> Complex joints, so they have a long way to go in terms of the functionality of their product and also in my opinion, they sure be going to have more types of databases inside it, including OLTP and they can do that. They have obviously got a great market gap and they can do that by acquisition as well as they can >> They've started. I think, I think they support JSON, right. >> Do they support JSON? And graph, I think there's a graph database that's either coming or it's there, I can't keep all that stuff in my head but there's no reason they can't go in that direction. I mean, in speaking to the founders in Snowflake they were like, look, we're kind of new. We would focus on simple. A lot of them came from Oracle so they know all database and they know how hard it is to do things like facilitate complex joints and do complex workload management and so they said, let's just simplify, we'll put it in the cloud and it will spin up a separate data warehouse. It's a virtual data warehouse every time you want one to. So that's how they handle those things. So different philosophy but again, coming back to some of the mission critical work and some of the larger Oracle customers, they said they have a thousand autonomous database customers. I think it was autonomous database, not ADW but anyway, a few stood out AON, lift, I think Deloitte stood out and as obviously, hundreds more. So we have people who misunderstand Oracle, I think. They got a big install base. They invest in R and D and they talk about lock-in sure but the CIO that I talked to and you talked to David, they're looking for business value. I would say that 75 to 80% of them will gravitate toward business value over the fear of lock-in and I think at the end of the day, they feel like, you know what? If our business is performing, it's a better business decision, it's a better business case. >> I fully agree, they've been very difficult to do business with in the past. Everybody's in dread of the >> The audit. >> The knock on the door from the auditor. >> Right. >> And that from a purchasing point of view has been really bad experience for many, many customers. The users of the database itself are very happy indeed. I mean, you talk to them and they understand why, what they're paying for. They understand the value and in terms of availability and all of the tools for complex multi-dimensional types of applications. It's pretty well, the only game in town. It's only DB2 and SQL that had any hope of doing >> Doing Microsoft, Microsoft SQL, right. >> Okay, SQL >> Which, okay, yeah, definitely competitive for sure. DB2, no IBM look, IBM lost its dominant position in database. They kind of seeded that. Oracle had to fight hard to win it. It wasn't obvious in the 80s who was going to be the database King and all had to fight. And to me, I always tell people the difference is that the chairman of Oracle is also the CTO. They spend money on R and D and they throw off a ton of cash. I want to say something about, >> I was just going to make one extra point. The simplicity and the capability of their cloud versions of all of this is incredibly good. They are better in terms of spending what you need or what you use much better than AWS, for example or anybody else. So they have really come full circle in terms of attractiveness in a cloud environment. >> You mean charging you for what you consume. Yeah, Mendelsohn talked about that. He made a big point about the granularity, you pay for only what you need. If you need 33 CPUs or the other databases you've got to shape, if you need 33, you've got to go to 64. I know that's true for everyone. I'm not sure if that's true too for snowflake. It may be, I got to dig into that a little bit, but maybe >> Yes, Snowflake has got a front end to hiding behind. >> Right, but I didn't want to push it that a little bit because I want to go look at their pricing strategies because I still think they make you buy, I may be wrong. I thought they make you still do a one-year or two-year or three-year term. I don't know if you can just turn it off at any time. They might allow, I should hold off. I'll do some more research on that but I wanted to make a point about the audits, you mentioned audits before. A big mistake that a lot of Oracle customers have made many times and we've written about this, negotiating with Oracle, you've got to bring your best and your brightest when you negotiate with Oracle. Some of the things that people didn't pay attention to and I think they've sort of caught onto this is that Oracle's SOW is adjudicate over the MSA, a lot of legal departments and procurement department. Oh, do we have an MSA? With all, Yes, you do, okay, great and because they think the MSA, they then can run. If they have an MSA, they can rubber stamp it but the SOW really dictateS and Oracle's gotcha there and they're really smart about that. So you got to bring your best and the brightest and you've got to really negotiate hard with Oracle, you get trouble. >> Sure. >> So it is what it is but coming back to Oracle, let's sort of wrap on this. Dominant position in mission critical, we saw that from the Gartner research, especially for operational, giant customer base, there's cloud-first notion, there's investing in R and D, open, we'll put a question Mark around that but hey, they're doing some cool stuff with Michael stuff. >> Ecosystem, I put that, ecosystem they're promoting their ecosystem. >> Yeah, and look, I mean, for a lot of their customers, we've talked to many, they say, look, there's actually, a tail at the tail way, this saves us money and we don't have to migrate. >> Yeah. So interesting, so I'll give you the last word. We started sort of focusing on the announcement. So what do you want to leave us with? >> My last word is that there are platforms with a certain key application or key parts of the infrastructure, which I think can differentiate themselves from the Azures or the AWS. and Oracle owns one of those, SAP might be another one but there are certain platforms which are big enough and important enough that they will, in my opinion will succeed in that cloud strategy for this. >> Great, David, thanks so much, appreciate your insights. >> Good to be here. Thank you for watching everybody, this is Dave Vellante for The Cube. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>>Okay, >>listen, we're gearing up for the start of the snowflake Data Cloud Summit, and we wanna go back to the early roots of Snowflake. We've got some of the founding engineers here. Abdul Monir, Ashish Motive, Allah and Alison Lee There three individuals that were at snowflake in the early years and participated in many of the technical decisions that led to the platform and is making snowflake famous today. Folks, great to see you. Thanks so much for taking some time out of your busy schedules. Hey, it's gotta be really gratifying. Thio, See this platform that you've built, you know, taking off and changing businesses. So I'm sure it was always smooth sailing. Right? There were. There were no debates. Wherever. >>I've never seen an engineer get into the bed. >>Alright, So seriously so take us back to the early days. You guys, you know, choose whoever wants to start. But what was it like early on? We're talking 2013 here, right? >>When I think back to the early days of Snowflake, I just think of all of us sitting in one room at the time. You know, we just had an office that was one room with, you know, 12 or 13 engineers sitting there clacking away on our keyboards, uh, working really hard, turning out code, uh, punctuated by you know, somebody asking a question about Hey, what should we do about this, or what should we do about that? And then everyone kind of looking up from their keyboards and getting into discussions and debates about the work that we're doing. >>So so Abdul it was just kind of heads down headphones on, just coating or e think there was >>a lot of talking and followed by a lot of typing. Andi, I think there were periods of time where where you know, anyone could just walk in into the office and probably out of the office and all the here is probably people, uh, typing away at their keyboards. And one of my member vivid, most vivid memories is actually I used to sit right across from Alison, and there's these huge to two huge monitor monitors between us and I would just here typing away in our keyboard, and sometimes I was thinking and and and, uh and all that type and got me nervous because it seemed like Alison knew exactly what what, what she needed to do, and I was just still thinking about it. >>So she she was just like bliss for for you as a developer engineer was it was a stressful time. What was the mood? So when you don't have >>a whole lot of customers, there's a lot of bliss. But at the same time, there was a lot of pressure on us to make sure that we build the product. There was a time line ahead of us. We knew we had to build this in a certain time frame. Um, so one thing I'll add to what Alison and Abdulle said is we did a lot of white boarding as well. There are a lot of discussions, and those discussions were a lot of fun. They actually cemented what we wanted to build. They made sure everyone was in tune, and and there we have it. >>Yes, so I mean, it is a really exciting time doing any start up. But when you know when you have to make decisions and development, invariably you come to a fork in the road. So I'm curious as to what some of those forks might have been. How you guys decided You know which fork to take. Was there a Yoda in the room that served as the Jedi master? I mean, how are those decisions made? Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. >>Yeah, that's an interesting question. And I think one of a Zai think back. One of the memories that that sticks out in my mind is is this, uh, epic meeting and one of our conference rooms called Northstar. Many of our conference rooms are named after ski resorts because the founders, they're really into skiing. And that's why that's where the snowflake name comes from. So there was this epic meeting and I'm not even sure exactly what topic we were discussing. I think it was It was the sign up flow and and there were a few different options on the table and and and one of the options that that people were gravitating Teoh, one of the founders, didn't like it and and on, and they said a few times that there's this makes no sense. There's no other system in the world that does it this way, and and I think one of the other founders said, uh, that's exactly why we should do it this way. And or at least seriously, consider this option. So I think there was always this, um, this this, uh, this tendency and and and this impulse that that we needed to think big and think differently and and not see the world the way it is but the way we wanted it to be and then work our way backwards and try to make it happen. >>Alison, Any fork in the road moments that you remember. >>Well, I'm just thinking back to a really early meeting with sheesh! And and a few of our founders where we're debating something probably not super exciting to a lot of people outside of hardcore database people, which was how to represent our our column metadata. Andi, I think it's funny that you that you mentioned Yoda because we often make jokes about one of our founders. Teary Bond refer to him as Yoda because he hasn't its tendency to say very concise things that kind of make you scratch your head and say, Wow, why didn't I think of that? Or you know, what exactly does that mean? I never thought about it that way. So I think when I think of the Yoda in the room, it was definitely Terry, >>uh, excuse you. Anything you can add to this, this conversation >>I'll agree with Alison on the you're a comment for short. Another big fork in the road, I recall, was when we changed. What are meta store where we store our own internal metadata? We used >>to use >>a tool called my sequel and we changed it. Thio another database called Foundation TV. I think that was a big game changer for us. And, you know, it was a tough decision. It took us a long time. For the longest time, we even had our own little branch. It was called Foundation DB, and everybody was developing on that branch. It's a little embarrassing, but, you know, those are the kind of decisions that have altered altered the shape of snowflake. >>Yeah. I mean, these air, really, you know, down in the weeds, hardcore stuff that a lot of people that might not be exposed to What would you say was the least obvious technical decision that you had to make it the time. And I wanna ask you about the most obvious to. But what was the what was the one that was so out of the box? I mean, you kind of maybe mentioned it a little bit before, but what if we could double click on that? >>Well, I think one of the core decisions in our architectures the separation of compute and storage on Do you know that is really court architecture. And there's so many features that we have today, um, for instance, data sharing zero copy cloning that that we couldn't have without that architecture. Er, um and I think it was both not obvious. And when we told people about it in the early days, there was definitely skepticism about being able to make that work on being able Thio have that architecture and still get great performance. >>Anything? Yeah, anything that was, like, clearly obvious, that is, Maybe that maybe that was the least and the most that that separation from computing story because it allowed you toe actually take advantage of cloud native. But But was there an obvious one that, you know, it's sort of dogma that you, you know, philosophically lived behind. You know, to this day, >>I think one really obvious thing, um is the sort of no tuning, no knobs, ease of use story behind snowflake. Andi and I say it's really obvious because everybody wants their system to be easy to use. But then I would say there are tons of decisions behind that, that it's not always obvious three implications of of such a choice, right, and really sticking to that. And I think that that's really like a core principle behind Snowflake that that led to a lot of non obvious decisions as a result of sticking to that principle. So, yeah, I >>think to add to that now, now you've gotten us thinking I think another really interesting one was was really, um, should we start from scratch or or should we use something that already exists and and build on top of that? And I think that was one of these, um, almost philosophical kind of stances that we took that that a lot of the systems that were out there were the way they were because because they weren't built for the for the platforms that they were running on, and the big thing that we were targeting was the cloud. And so one of the big stances we took was that we were gonna build it from scratch, and we weren't gonna borrow a single line of code from many other database out there. And this was something that really shocked a lot of people and and many times that this was pretty crazy and it waas. But this is how you build great products. >>That's awesome. All right. She should give you the last word. We got, like, just like 30 seconds left to bring us home >>Your till date. Actually, one of those said shocks people when you talk to them and they say, Wow, you're not You're not really using any other database and you build this entirely yourself. The number of people who actually can build a database from scratch are fairly limited. The group is fairly small, and so it was really a humongous task. And as you mentioned, you know, it really changed the direction off how we design the database. What we what does the database really mean? Tow us right the way Snowflake has built a database. It's really a number of organs that come together and form the body and That's also a concept that's novel to the database industry. >>Guys, congratulations. You must be so proud. And, uh, there's gonna be awesome watching the next next decade, so thank you so much for sharing your stories. >>Thanks, dude. >>Thank you.

>> Okay, listen, we're gearing up for the start of the Snowflake Data Cloud Summit and we want to go back to the early roots of Snowflake. We got some of the founding engineers here, Abdul Muneer, Ashish Modivala, and Alison Lee. They're three individuals that were at Snowflake in the early years and participated in many of the technical decisions that led to the platform that is making Snowflake famous today. Folks, great to see you. Thanks so much for taking some time out of your busy schedules. >> Than you for having us. >> Same. >> Hey, it's got to be really gratifying to see this platform that you've built, you know, taking off and changing businesses. So, I'm sure it was always smooth sailing, right? There were no debates, were there ever? >> Never. >> Now, I've never seen an engineer get into a debate. (laughter) >> All right, so seriously though, so take us back to the early days, you guys, you know, choose whoever wants to start but, what was it like early on? We're talking 2013 here, right? >> That's right. >> When I think back to the early days of Snowflake, I just think of all of us sitting in one room at the time you know, we just had an office that was one room with you know, 12 or 13 engineers sitting there, clacking away at our keyboards, working really hard, churning out code, punctuated by, you know, somebody asking a question about, "Hey, what should we do about this? Or what should we do about that?" And then everyone kind of looking up from their keyboards and getting into discussions and debates about, about the work that we were doing. >> So Abdul, it was just kind of heads down, headphones on, just coding, or >> I think there was a lot of talking and followed by a lot of typing. And, and I think there were periods of time where, you know, anyone could just walk in into the office and probably out of the office and all they'd hear is probably people typing away at their keyboards. And one of my vivid, most vivid memories is is actually I used to sit right across from Alison and there's these huge two, two huge monitors monitors between us. And I would just hear her typing away at our keyboard. And sometimes I was thinking and and all that typing got me nervous because it seemed like Alison knew exactly what, what she needed to do, and I was just still thinking about it. >> So Ashish was this like bliss for you as a developer, an engineer, or was it, was it a stressful time? What was the mood? >> When you don't have a whole lot of customers there's a lot of bliss, but at the same time, there's a lot of pressure on us to make sure that we build the product. There was a timeline ahead of us, we knew we had to build this in a certain timeframe. So one thing I'll add to what Alison and Abdul said is we did a lot of white boarding as well. There were a lot of discussions and those discussions were a lot of fun. They actually cemented what we wanted to build. They made sure that everyone was in tune and there we have it. >> (Dave) Yeah, so, I mean, it is a really exciting time doing any startup. When you have to make decisions in development and variably you come to a fork in the road. So I'm curious as to what some of those forks might've been, how you guys decided, you know, which fork to take. Was there a Yoda in the room that served as the Jedi master? I mean, how are those decisions made? Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. >> Yeah. That's an interesting question. And I think one of, as I think back, one of the memories that, that sticks out in my mind is this epic meeting in one of our conference rooms called North star. And many of our conference rooms are named after ski resorts because the founders are really into skiing and that's why, that's where the Snowflake names comes from. So there was this epic meeting and and I'm not even sure exactly what topic we were discussing. I think it was, it was the signup flow and there were a few different options on the table. and one of the options that, that people were gravitating to one of the founders didn't like it. And they said a few times that there's this makes no sense, there's no other system in the world that does it this way. And I think one of the other founders said that's exactly why we should do it this way. And, or at least seriously considered this option. So I think there was always this this tendency and this impulse that that we needed to think big and think differently and not see the world the way it is but the, the way we wanted it to be and then work our way backwards and try to make it happen. >> Alison, any fork in the road moments that you remember? >> Well, I'm just thinking back to a really early meeting with Ashish and a few of our founders where we were debating something, probably not super exciting to a lot of people outside of hardcore database people which was how to represent our column metadata. And I think it's funny that you, that you mentioned Yoda because we often make jokes about one of our founders Terry and referred to him as Yoda, because he has this tendency to say very concise things that kind of make you scratch your head and say, "Wow why didn't I think of that?" Or, you know, what exactly does that mean? I never thought about it that way. So I think when I think of the Yoda in the room, it was definitely Terry. >> Ashish, anything you can add to this conversation? >> I'll agree with Alison on the Yoda comment, for sure. Another big fork in the road I recall was when we changed one of our meta store where we store our on internal metadata. We used to use a tool called MySQL and we changed it to another database called FoundationDB, I think that was a big game changer for us. And, you know, it was a tough decision, it took us a long time. For the longest time we even had our own little branch it was called FoundationDB and everybody who was developing on that branch. It's a little embarrassing, but, you know, those are the kinds of decisions that alter the shape of Snowflake. >> Yeah, I mean, these are really, you know, down in the weeds hardcore stuff that a lot of people might not be exposed to. What would you say was the least obvious technical decision that you had to make at the time? And I want to ask you about the most obvious too, but what was the one that was so out of the box? I mean, you kind of maybe mentioned it a little bit before but I wonder if we could double click on that? >> Well, I think one of the core decisions in our architecture is the separation of compute and storage. And, you know, that is really core to our architecture, and there are so many features that we have today for instance, data sharing, zero copy cloning, that we couldn't have without that architecture. And I think it was both not obvious, and when we told people about it in the early days there was definitely skepticism about being able to make that work and being able to have that architecture and still get great performance. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. Anything that was like clearly obvious that maybe that, maybe that was the least and the most that, that separation from compute and store, because it allowed you to actually take advantage of Cloud native. But was there an obvious one that you know, is it sort of dogma that you, you know philosophically live by, you know, to this day? >> I think one really obvious thing is the sort of no tuning, no knobs, ease of use story behind Snowflake. And I say, it's really obvious because everybody wants their system to be easy to use. But then I would say there were tons of decisions behind that, that it's not always obvious, the implications, of such a choice, right? And really sticking to that. And I think that that's really like a core principle behind Snowflake, that led to a lot of non-obvious decisions as a result of sticking to that principle. >> So >> I think, to add to that, now you've grabbed us thinking. I think another really interesting one was really, should we start from scratch or should we use something that already exists and build on top of that? And I think that was one of these almost philosophical kind of stances that we took, that a lot of the systems that were out there were the way they were, because, because they weren't built for the, for the platforms that they were running on. And the big thing that we were targeting was the Cloud. And so one of the big stances we took was that we were going to build from scratch. And we weren't going to borrow a single line of code from many other database out there. And this was something that really shocked a lot of people and many times that this was pretty crazy, and it was, but this is how you build great products. >> That's awesome. All right Ashish, I should give you the last word. We got like just like 30 seconds left, bring us home. >> Till date, actually one of those said shocks people when you talk to them and they say, "Wow, you are naturally using any other database, and you build this entirely yourself." The number of people who actually can build a database from scratch are fairly limited, the group is fairly small. And so it was really a humongous task, and as you've mentioned, you know, it really changed the direction of how we designed a database. What we, what does the database really mean to us, right? The way Snowflake has built a database, it's really a number of organs that come together and form the body. And that's also a concept that's novel to the database industry. >> Guys, congratulations, you must be so proud and it's going to be awesome watching the next decade. So thank you so much for sharing your stories. >> Thanks too. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of Dell Technologies. World Digital Experience Brought to you by Dell Technologies. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the cubes wall to wall coverage of Dell Technologies World, The digital experience 2020. The Virtual Cube is coming at you. I'm Dave Volonte. And with me or two Great guest, my colleague and longtime business friend Howard Elias. He's the chief customer officer and president of services and digital Adele. And also joining me is Sri Raj, aka Sri Can't him Nene, who is the managing director of digital insights at Cargo, which is one of the world's largest privately held companies in the top maker and distributor of agricultural products and the things that we eat every day. Gentlemen, thanks so much for your time and coming on the Cube. Great to see you. >>Great to see you, Dave. And three. Great to see you again as well. >>Good to be with you both. So >>I wanna Howard, I wanna talk about start by talking about digital transformation. I'm gonna make it laugh. So I was talking to a customer every day or the other day, and we all talk about, you know, digital transformation. And I said, What's digital transformation to you? He said, Dave, my S a P system was 15 years old and I have to upgrade. It was like, Okay, there's eso There's a spectrum, as you know, but what do you seeing as digital transformation? What does that mean to your customers? >>Well, what we're seeing is a glimpse of the future. And first of all, Dave, Great to be with you again, uh, free and all of you out there hope everybody's safe. And, well, thanks for joining us, Adele Technologies World today. But digital transformation from our customers perspectives the technology enablement of experiences with customers, partners and employees, a swells automating processes to deliver value to the all key stakeholders. And we've just seen a glimpse of the future. Customers are accelerating their adoption of technology. We see this through necessity, right when everybody had to pivot from or toe work from home, especially those professional workers and for the most part, whether companies plan forward or not, we all embraced and learned new ways of being productive remotely, and that was all enabled by technology. But we've seen it in every walk of life. It's really an acceleration of trends that were already underway, whether it was the remote experience for professional employees, whether it's e commerce experience, whether it's telemedicine, distance learning. All of these things have been available for a while, but we've seen them be embraced and accelerated tremendously due to what we've seen over the last six months in all industries. And free will talk about what's happening specifically in the agricultural industry, and what we've seen is customers that have made investments over the years have been ableto move even faster in their specific industries. We've just on a survey of about 4600 customers around the world, and 80% have accelerated their investments in digital technology to improve the experience of their employees of their customers and of their partners. >>Yes, so So thank you for that, Howard. Three. I mean, a lot of people might think of cargo. There's physical business, but it's anything but. I mean, you've got such a huge data component to your business, but I wonder what you would add. I mean, we're maybe talk a little bit. I mean, it's such amazingly, you know, rich and deep company. But maybe talk about your digital transformation journey and at least in your sphere of the world where you're at. >>Yeah, thanks, David. You know, Howard's absolutely right. What? What Cove it has done is just accelerated the need for technology on farm and with our customers. And and certainly in the last few months, we've seen that accelerate tremendously, right? A t end of the day. Agriculture has been a technology first, um, industry for for hundreds of years, and and so we're seeing that take fold in the form of digital adoption, the use of analytics, the use of really unique sensor technologies like cameras and computer vision. Um, sound I liken it to the senses that we all have every day that we used to make decisions. Well, we're now seeing that adopted with our with our customers. And so it's a really interesting time, and I think an opportunity for for the industry to really move forward. >>I mean, in terms of the three in terms of the pandemic, you know, we we talked to a lot of customers. Howard just mentioned a survey. You certainly saw the pivot in tow work from home you know, increase in laptop momentum. And in Dell's business, we saw that you're seeing identity access, management, cloud security and point security. Even even VD I These were big tail winds early on. What did the pandemic due to your business and just in terms of your your priorities did you have to obviously shift to those things to support work from home? What happened to your digital transformation was was anything put on hold and is restarting. Can you just Yeah, I don't know what you could tell us about that, but anything you could describe and add some color to that narrative would be really helpful to our audience. >>Certainly. Yeah. You know, I think overnight we had, ah, workforce that went from being in the office toe working from home and and that just accelerated the need for for collaboration tools. Things like like teams and and Skype and Zoom have just taken off right? But also technologies that allow for virtual engagement, like white boarding and brainstorming sessions that we used to do in the office with customers and suppliers. We're now having to do in a virtual setting. So so that has just transformed how we do business on the customer. And, you know, technologies like computer vision and and sound really transform the need to to leverage labor differently. Right? One of the biggest challenges that the cove it has has placed is how labor interacts with animals and and with food production. And we've just seen a significant adoption of technology to help alleviate some of those stresses. >>Now you guys probably have seen the tongue in cheek cartoons, the covert wrecking ball, you know, the guys in the audience or the building saying digital transformation. Not on my watch in the cove, it comes in. I've often joked, uh, I guess we have to have a sense of humor in these times, but But if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We'll cove. It kind of broke everything. And Howard, when you think about digital transformation, yes, was going on before co vid. But But there are a lot of industries that hadn't been disrupted. I think about health care. I think about financial services. I think about defense. I mean, the list goes on unlike publishing, for instance, which got totally disrupted by the Internet. But now it seems like If you're not a digital business, you're out of business. Eso Are you seeing like virtually every industry adopting digital? Or are you seeing any trends that are different by industry? What are you seeing out there >>were absolutely seeing every company in every industry adopted in their own way, thinking through their business models. I mean, even think about what's happened in your local town. How technology is able enabled restaurants to dio, you know, uh, take out and delivery through digital tools, your local dry cleaner, your your local butcher and your baker. I mean, everybody's having toe be creative and reinvent. It's not just the, you know, large professional industrial financial services companies who are also reinventing. But I go back to what I said before what we're seeing. These trends were already underway. They've just been put into hyperspeed what folks were thinking about doing in two or three years we're doing into two or three months. The pivot toe work from home worldwide happened in two or three weeks, and it's not the crisis we planned for, but we're always preparing for the future. The groundwork was laid, and now it's just been accelerated. We're seeing it everywhere, including inside Adele. You know, I think about all the processes and the way we serve our employees, our customers and partners we've accelerated were adopting the product model within our own Del digital organization, for example, that's been accelerated. The move to multi cloud on having a cloud operating model no matter where the infrastructure has been accelerated. And you know, everything we've talked about on the client experience. Security models, networking model software, defined models, every every industry, every company has had to embrace this >>so sorry. I mean, I'm fascinated by your business. I mean again, I think a lot of people think of it as a real physical business. But there's so much data. You're the head of digital insights, which is You've got data running through your your entire operations. There's other things. There's there's double take words I see in your your background like aqua culture. So So how are you re imagining the future of your industry? >>That's Ah, that's a fascinating question, Dave. You know, think, Imagine this. You could listen to a shrimp eat and then turn that into unique insights about the feeding patterns on behaviors of shrimp, right? Who would have imagined 10 years ago that we would have technology that enabled us to do things like that? Right? And so, from aquaculture thio the dairy industry to, you know, grain origination. We're leveraging digital and data to really help our customers and producers make better, more informed decisions where in in the past it was really experience that allowed them toe be good farmers and and good stewards of our planet. Now we're using technology, so it's really an opportunity toe harness, the power of digital for our industry. >>Well, you know, and it's critical because we have people to feed and actually it's working. I mean, the yields that air coming out of the industry or are amazing. I know there's a lot of discussion now, but hey, you know, we're actually getting a lot of food to people. And now there's a discussion around nutrition that's that's front and center, and I presume technology and data fit in there as well. Three. I wonder if you could comment. >>Yeah, you know, by 2050 day there will be nearly 10 billion people on this planet. And to feed that growing population, we're gonna need 70% more protein on DSO. As you think about the impacts that that that growing population has on the planet. There's also, you know, nutrition. But think about sustainability. How do we how do we grow this food and get it from the place that it's produced to the place where it's consumed in a way that's a resource efficient and effective? So there's nutrition in just the middle class in Asia, you know, having a higher propensity to spend and dealing with that challenge on one end of the spectrum and then on the other end of the spectrum, being ableto really deal with with sustainability. >>I would have watched your career over the decades, and you've had so many roles, and I always used to joke with you. They give you the hardest problems if you want. If you want to get stuff done, you give it to the busiest guy. It was always Howard, you know, help us with with our own transformations. Help us do the integrations, whether it was m and a or the course, the largest in just >>industry I love a good challenge is you know, >>I do know and so I want to get. Get the update on Dell's own transformation. I've been talking to a number of your executives this week, and it looks like you know, you guys air, drinking your own champagne, dog food and whatever you wanna call it. But but bring us up to date on what you guys are doing internally. >>We are, and we're no different than any of our customers. And having Thio focus on our digital transformation agenda, I mentioned earlier the adoption of our product model, you know, moving from a project based Dell Digital and I T Organization to one that's a product model. So these are balanced teams with a product manager, a designer and developers working closely with the business and the function in an agile manner and the C I. C. D pipeline manner. And all of this again has been accelerated. We have our own del digital cloud, which is our hybrid cloud that we leverage internally. We're software defining everything, and it's really paying dividends because what we've seen literally in the last 6 to 8 months is higher levels of security, higher levels of availability, higher levels of resiliency. We've been able to handle all of the increased transactions on our e commerce engines, all at higher quality and lower costs. Now we the groundwork for this with Jen Felch in the team over the last couple of years, but again, by necessity, had to accelerate. And we've done that. And we're even moving faster now on data pipelines and really understanding all of our key processes and understanding the work flows and the data flows, working with machine learning and artificial intelligence again, exactly the way Cargill and other of our customers are doing in their businesses. I know you're talking or have talked to Doug Schmidt. You know, we've digitized and automated thousands of processes and our services organization Theobald bility on a remote basis to service our customers were we've invented new and innovative ways the service our customers remotely versus going on site, not just in break fix, deployment, remote change, management, manage services, consulting. It's just, you know, great to see all this wonderful innovation come together serving our customers. >>Thank you for that, Howard. And you, you said something that triggered me in a good way. Data pipelines. I use that term a lot. And three I wonder if you could talk about this because you're You guys have been around since the 18 hundreds, I think the largest privately held company in United States, I think, right, and probably close to one of the largest in the world. And so >>you >>got a lot of data and a lot of different places. So a huge challenge for you is okay. How do you manage those data pipelines? Those data, the data lifecycle, And I would think the company the size of cargo to the extent that you can reduce the end to end time it takes to go from raw data to insights E. That's gonna be telephone numbers for for your business and your bottom line that you can then reinvest and get back to customers, etcetera and be competitive. I wonder if you could talk about >>you >>know, that whole concept of the data pipeline And how are you using data and and some of the challenges of compressing that end to end cycle time and Leighton >>see, to >>get to insights >>that day. You know, Carlos, 155 year old company and and at our core were a supply chain company. Right? Um, you know, taking food from where it's produced, getting it through the manufacturing process, toe customers. And so at the end of the day, I I joked that not only are we have physical supply chain company, but we're also a data supply chain company. So the data value chain right is really about taking all the different inputs in data that we have in turning that into unique insights. And I don't think there's ah company on the planet in the food space that has the ability to connect those dots in the way that we dio. And so our ability to create unique, actionable insights for our customers is going to be really powerful, especially in the in the coming years. >>So talk about let's talk about Dell a little bit. I always ask, uh, technology leaders how your vendors doing for you? How did they help you through the pandemic? How would you grade del uh, in terms of its support through the pandemic? >>Dell has been absolutely fantastic, right? I mean, I think it is really need to have partners like Dell helping us achieve our mission for our customers. And I know they feel that way about us as their customers. So it's really wonderful. Toe have the type of collaboration and partnership that we do. >>Alright, Howard, Same question for you. How would you grade Del Onda? How you guys have done through the through the pandemic with regard to supporting your customers. I mean, you're you're never one toe overhype, uh, in my experience with you. But give us the your take. >>Why would grade del by what our customers say? And we do it both through direct conversations as well as the data and telemetry we get and the data and telemetry we have in terms of our NPS r R C sat scores or service level objectives that were delivering all have remained in profile. The team has really risen to the occasion. Been super creative, passionate, full of grit. We heard Alison and Angela talk about that the Dell Technologies world this morning, and our team is embodied that spirit and that great to be able to deliver. But in the conversations we're having with customers three and his peers, uh, you know, look, it's it's been a challenging time, but as you know, Dell has always focused on delivering value for the long term. We're not in it for the short term, and that has served us well. That philosophy Theobald active. We have with working with customers, eyes always about what's in the best interests of our customers in the long term. Because if we do that, it will ultimately be in the best interest of Dell. >>Well, it's It's been amazing to just watch. I mean, it's just ironic that we got hit with this at the beginning of this decade. It's gonna It's obviously gonna define. You know what we do going forward. I think we've all talked about it. It's funny. Everybody in our business and the technology business. We've become covert experts in some way, shape or form overnight. But we've talked a lot about the the things that we see as as permanent, and I think that >>you >>know you clearly the your two companies are examples of agility leaning into technology. And, as you said, Howard here for the long term, 155 years old, I think story said so well, here's to another 155 years. Gentlemen, thanks so much for coming to Cuba. Awesome guests. >>Thanks. Day. Appreciate it. >>Thank you for watching everybody. Our continuing coverage of Dell Technologies World 2020. You're watching the Cube?

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of Dell Technologies. World Digital experience brought to you by Dell Technologies. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the cubes coverage of Del Tech World 2020 the virtual del tech world. Of course, the virtual queue with me is Alison Do. She's the CMO and a member of the executive leadership team at Dell Technologies. Hey there, Alison. Good to see you. >>Hi, David. Good to see you too. I'm gonna see you alive, but it's so good to see on the feed. >>Yeah, I miss you, too. You know, it's been it's been tough, but we're getting through it and, you know, it's a least with technology. We're able to meet this way and, you know, for us continue the cube for you to continue del Tech world, reaching out to your to your customers. But, you know, maybe we could start there. It's like I said the other day else into somebody. I feel like everybody I know in the technology industry has also become a covert expert in the last six months. But but, you know, it changed so much. But I'm interested in well, first of all, you're a great communicator. I have met many, many members of your team. They're really motivated group. How did you handle the pandemic? Your communications. Uh, did you increase that? Did you? Did you have to change anything? Or maybe not. Because like I say, you've always been a great communicator with a strong team. What was your first move? >>Eso There's obviously there's many audiences that we serve through communications, but in this instance, the two most important our customers and our team members. So I'll take the customers first. You have likely seen the spoof Real's Going Around the Internet of Here's How Not to Talk to Customers, Right? So you saw early in February and March in April, all of these communications that started with in these troubled times We are here to help you and, you know, we're already in a crisis every single day, all day long. I don't think people needed to be reminded that there was a crisis happening. So you've got this one end where it's over crisis mongering and the other side where it was just ignoring the crisis. And so what we did was we really looked at all of our communications a new So, for example, in our small business space, we were just about I mean days away from launching a campaign that was about celebrating the success of small businesses. It's a beautiful piece of creative. I love it, and we made the very tough decision to put that work on the shelf and not launch it. Why? Because it would have been incredibly tone deaf in a moment where small businesses were going out of business and under incredible struggle to have a campaign that was celebrating their success. It just wouldn't have worked. And what we did very quickly was a new piece of creative that had our own small business advisers, lower production values, them working from home and talking about how they were helping customers. But frankly, even that then has a shelf life, because ultimately you have to get back to your original story. So as we thought about our own communications, my own leadership team and I went through every single piece of creative toe. Look for what's appropriate now what's tone deaf, and that was a very heavy lift and something that we had to continue to do and I'm really proud of the work. We did pivot quickly, then on the employee side. If you'd asked me in January, was Team member Communications the most important thing I was doing? I would have said It's an important thing I'm doing and I care deeply about it, But it's not the most important thing I'm doing. Where there was a period from probably February to June where I would have said it became the most important thing that I was doing because we had 120,000 people pivot over a weekend toe. Working from home, you had all of the demands of home schooling, the chaos that stress whilst also were obviously trying to keep a business running. So this engagement with our employees and connecting the connecting with them through more informal means, like zoom meetings with Michael and his leadership team, where once upon a time we would have had a more high value production became a key piece of what we did. So it sounds so easy, but this increase of the frequency with our own employees, while also being really honest with ourselves about the tone of those communications, so that's what we did and continue to dio >>Well, you've done a good job and you struck a nice balance. I mean, you weren't did see some folks ambulance chasing and it was a real turn off. Or like you said, sometimes tone deaf. And we can all look back over history and see, you know, so many communications disasters like you say, people being tone deaf or ignoring something. It was sloughing it off, and then it really comes back to bite them. Sometimes security breaches air like that. So it seems like Dell has I don't know, there's a methodology. I don't know if you use data or it's just a lot of good good experience. How have you been able to sort of nail it? I guess I would say is it is. >>But there's some secret method that I'm cautiously optimistic. And the superstitious part of me is like, Don't say that, Okay, I'm not gonna would alright eso so that it's it's both it z experience, obviously. And then what? I What I talk a lot about is this intersection of data versus did data and creativity, and you spend a lot of time in marketing circles. Those two things can be sometimes pitched is competing with each other. Oh, it's all about the creativity, or it's all about the data. And I think that's a silly non argument. And it should be both things And this this time like this. This point that I make about ambulance chasing and not re traumatizing people every single day by talking about in these troubled times is actually from a piece of research that we did, if you believe it or not. In 2008 during the middle of the global financial crisis, when we started to research some of our creative, we found that some of the people who have seen our creative were actually less inclined to buy Dell and less positive about Dell. Why? Because we started with those really hackneyed lines of in these troubled times. And then we went on to talk about how we could take out I t costs and were targeted at I T makers, who basically we first played to their fear function and they said, and now we're going to put you out of a job, right? So there's this years of learning around where you get this sweet spot from a messaging perspective to talk about customer outcomes while also talking about what you do is a company, and keeping the institutional knowledge is knowledge of those lessons and building and refining over time. And so that's why I think we've been able to pivot as quickly as we have is because we've been data driven and had a creative voice for a very long time. The other piece that has helped us be fast is that we've spent the last 2.5 3 years working on bringing our own data, our own customer data internally after many, many years of having that with the third party agency. So all the work we had to do to retarget to re pivot based on which verticals were being successful in this time and which were not we were able to now due in a matter of hours, something that would have taken us weeks before. So there's places where it's about the voice of who we are as a brand, and that's a lot of that is creative judgment. And then there's places about institutional knowledge of the data, and then riel getting too real time data analysis where we're on the cusp of doing that. >>Yeah, so I like the way you phrase that it's not just looking at the data and going with some robotic fashion. It reminds me of, you know the book. Michael Lewis, Moneyball, the famous movie, You know, it's like for a while it was it was in baseball, like whoever had the best nerds they thought we were gonna win. But it really is a balance of art and science, and it seems like you're on this journey with your customers together. I mean, how much how much? I mean, I know there's a lot of interaction, but but it seems like you guys are all learning together and evolving together in that regard. >>Absolutely. David, One of the things that has been really interesting to watch is we have had a connected workplace program for 10 years, so we've had flexible work arrangements for a very long time, and one of the things that we have learned from that is a combination of three key factors. The technology, obviously, can you do it? The three culture, and then the process is right. So when you have a the ability to work from home doesn't mean you should work from home 22 out of 24 hours. And that's where culture comes in. And I frankly, that's where this moment of cumulative global stress is so important to realize as a leader and to bring out to the Open and to talk about it. I mean, Michael's talked a lot about this is a marathon. This is not a sprint. We've done a lot of things to support our employees. And so if you think about those three factors and what we've learned, one of the things that we found as we got into the pipe pandemic was on the technology side. Even customers who thought they had business continuity plans in place or thought that they had worked from home infrastructure in place found that they didn't really so there was actually a very quick move to help our customers get the technology that would enable them to keep their businesses running and then on the other two fronts around processes and culture and leadership. We've been ableto have smaller, more intimate conversations with our customers than we would have historically, because frankly, we can bring Michael, Jeff. Other parts of the leadership team me together to have a conversation and one of the benefits of the fact that those of us who've been road warriors for many, many, many years as I know you have a swell suddenly found yourself actually staying in one place. You have time to have that conversation so that we continue to obviously help our customers on the technology front, but also have been able to lean in in a different way on what we've learned over 10 years and what we've learned over this incredibly dramatic eight months, >>you know, and you guys actually have some work from Home Street cred? I think, Del, you're the percentage of folks that were working from home Pre Koven was higher than the norm, significantly higher than normal. Wasn't that long ago that there were a couple of really high profile companies that were mandating come into the office and clear that they were on the wrong side of history? I mean, that surprised me actually on. Do you know what also surprised me? I don't know. I'm just gonna say it is There were two companies run by women, and I would have thought there was more empathy there. Uh, but Dal has always had this culture of Yeah, we were, You know, we could work. We could be productive no matter where. Maybe that's because of the the heritage or your founders. Still still chairman and CEO. I don't know. >>You know those companies and obviously we know who they are. Even at the time, what I thought about them was You don't have a location problem. You have a culture problem and you have a productivity problem and you a trust problem with your employees. And so, yes, I think they are going to be proven to be on the wrong side of history. And I think in those instances they've been on the wrong side of history on many things, sadly, and I hope that will never be us. I don't wanna be mean about that, but but the truth of the matter is one of the other benefits of being more flexible about where and how you work is. It opens up access to different talent pools who may or may not want to live in Austin, Texas, as an example, and that gives you a different way to get a more diverse workforce to get a younger workforce. And I think lots of companies are starting to have that really ization. And, you know, as I said, we've been doing this for 10 years. Even with that context, this is a quantum leap in. Now we're all basically not 100% but mainly all working from home, and we're still learning. So there's an interesting, ongoing lifelong learning that I think is very, very court of the Dell culture. >>I want to ask you about the virtual events you had you had a choice to make. You could have done what many did and said, Okay, we're going to run the event as scheduled, and you would have got a covert Mulligan. I mean, we saw Cem some pretty bad productions, frankly, but that was okay because they had to move fast and they got it done. So in a way, you kind of put more pressure on your yourselves. Andi, I guess you know, we saw this with VM Ware. I guess Was, you know, just recently last >>few >>weeks. Yeah, and so but they kind of raise the bar had great, you know, action with John Legend. So that was really kind of interesting, but, you know, kind of what went into that decision? A Zeiss A. You put more pressure on yourself because now you But you also had compares what? Your thoughts on >>that. So there was a moment in about March where I felt like I was making a multimillion dollar decision every single day. And that was on a personal note, somewhat stressful to kind of wake up and think, What? What? Not just on the events front. But as I said on the creative front, What work that my team has been working on for the last two years? I am I going to destroy today was sort of. I mean, I'm kind of joking, but not entirely how that felt for me personally at the moment. And we had about we made the decision early on to cancel events. We also made the decision quite early on that when we call that, we said we're not going to do any in person events until the end of this calendar year. So I felt good about the definitiveness there. We had about a week where we were still planning to do the virtual world in May and what I did together with my head of communications and head of event is we really sat and looked at the trajectory in the United States, and we thought, this is not gonna be a great moment for the U. S. The week we were supposed to run in May, if you looked at the trajectory of diseases, you would have news be dominated by the fact that we had an increasing spike in number of cases and subsequent deaths. And we just thought that don't just gonna care about our launches. So we had to really, very quickly re pivot that and what I was trying to do was not turn my own organization. So make the decisions start to plan and move on. And at the same time, though, what that then meant is we still have to get product launches out the door. So we did nine virtual launches in nine weeks. That was a big learning learning her for my team. I feel really good about that, and hopefully it helps us. And what I think will be a hybrid future going forward. >>Yeah, so not to generalize, but I've been generalizing about the following. So I've been saying for a while now that a lot >>of the >>marketing people have always wanted to have a greater component of virtual. But, you know, sales guys love the belly. The belly closed the deals, you know? But so where do you land on that? How do you see? You know, the future of events we do, you expect to continue to have ah, strong virtual component. >>I think it's gonna be a hybrid. I think we will never go back to what we did before. I think the same time people do need that human connection. Honestly, I miss seeing the people that I work with face to face. I said at the beginning of this conversation, I would like to be having this discussion with you live and I hate Las Vegas. So I never thought I'd be that interested in, like, let's go to Las Vegas, you know, who knew? But but so I think you'll see a hybrid future going forward. And then we will figure out what those smaller, more direct personal relationship moments are that over the next couple of years you could do more safely and then also frankly give you the opportunity to have those conversations that are more meaningful. So I'm not entirely sure what that looks like. Obviously, we're gonna learn a lot this year with this event, and we're going to continue to build on it. But there's places in the world if you look at what we've done in China for many, many, many years, we have held on over abundance of digital events because of frankly, just the size of the population and the the geographic complexity. And so there are places that even early into this, we could say, Well, we've already done this in China. How do we take that and apply it to the rest of the world? So that's what we're working through now. That's actually really exciting, >>You know, when you look at startups, it's like two things matter the engineering and sales and that's all anything else is a waste of money in their minds when you and and all they talk about is Legion Legion Legion. You don't hear that from a company like Dell because you have so many other channels on ways Thio communicate with your customers and engage with your customers. But of course, legions important demand. Gen. Is important. Do you feel like virtual events can be a Z effective? Maybe it's a longer tail, but can they be as productive as the physical events? >>So one thing that I've always been a little bit cantankerous on within marketing circles is I refuse to talk about it in terms of Brand versus Li Jen, because I think that's a false argument. And the way I've talked about it with my own team is there are things that we do that yield short term business results, maybe even in corridor in half for a year. And there are things that we do that lead to long term business results. First one is demand, and the second one is more traditional brand. But we have to do both. We have to think about our legacy as a known primarily for many, many years as a PC maker. In order for us to be successful in the business businesses that we are in now, we love our PC heritage. I grew up in that business, but we also want to embrace the other parts of their business and educate people about the things that we do that they may not even know, right? So that's a little bit of context in terms of you got to do both. You got to tell your story. You've got to change perceptions and you got to drive demand in quarter. So the interesting things about digital events is we can actually reach more people than we ever could in an in person world. So I think that expands the pie for both the perceptions and long term and short term. And I hope what we are more able to do effectively because of that point that I made about our own internal marketing digital transformation is connect those opportunities to lead and pass them off to sales more effectively. We've done a lot of work on the plumbing on the back end of that for the last couple of years, and I feel really fortunate that we did that because I don't think we'd be able to do what we're doing now. If we hadn't invested there, >>Well, it's interesting. You're right. I mean, Del of course, renowned during the PC era and rode that wave. And then, of course, the AMC acquisition one of the most amazing transformations, if not the most amazing transformation in the history of the computer industry. But when you when you look to the future and of course, we're hearing this week about as a service and you new pricing models, just new mindsets I look at and I wonder if you could comment, I look at Dell's futures, you know, not really a product company. You're becoming a platform. Essentially, for for digital transformation is how I look atyou. Well, how do you see the brand message going forward? >>Absolutely. I think that one of the things that's really interesting about Dell is that we have proven our ability to constantly and consistently reinvent ourselves, and I won't go through the whole thing. But if you look at started as a direct to consumer company, then went into servers then and started to go into small business meeting business a little bit about when private acquired e. M. C. I mean, we are a company who is always moving forward and always thinking about what's next. Oftentimes, people don't even realize the breadth and depth of what we do and who we are now so as even with all of that context in place, the horizon that we're facing into now is, I believe, the most important transformation that we've done, which is, as you see, historical, I t models change and it becomes, yes, about customer choice. We know that many of our customers will continue to want to buy hardware the way they always have. But we also know that we're going to see a very significant change in consumption models. And the way we stay on top of our game going forward is we lean into that huge transformation. And that's what we're announcing this week with Project Apex, which is that commitment to the entire company's transformation around as a service. And that's super exciting for us. >>Well, I was saying Before, you're sort of in lockstep with your customers. Or maybe you could we could. We could close by talking a little bit about Dell's digital transformation and what you guys have going on internally, and maybe some of the cultural impacts that you've seen. >>So you, you you touched on it. It's so easy to make it about just the I t. Work, and in fact, you actually have to make it about the i t. The business process. Change in the culture change. So if you look at what we did with the AMC acquisition and the fact that you know that there's a lot of skepticism about that at the time, they're not gonna be able to absorb that. Keep the business running. And in fact, we have really shown huge strides forward in the business. One of the reasons we've been able to do that is because we've been so thoughtful about all of those things. The technology, the culture and the business process change, and you'll see us continue to do that. As I said in my own organization, just to use the data driven transformation of marketing. Historically, we would have hired a certain type of person who was more of a creative Brett bent. Well, now, increasingly, we're hiring quants who are going to come into a career in marketing, and they never would have seen themselves doing that a couple of years ago. And so my team has to think about okay, these don't look like our historical marketing profile. How do we hire them? How do we do performance evaluations for them. And how do we make sure that we're not putting the parameters of old on a very new type of talent? And so when we talk about diversity, it's not just age, gender, etcetera. It's also of skills. And that's where I think the future of digital transformation is so interesting. There has been so much hype on this topic, and I think now is when we're really starting to see those big leaps forward and peoples in companies. Riel transformation. That's the benefit of this cookie year we got here, Dave. >>Well, I think I do think the culture comes through, especially in conversations like this. I mean, you're obviously a very clear thinker and good communicator, but I think your executive team is in lockstep. It gets down, toe the middle management into the into the field and and, you know, congratulations on how far you've come. And, uh, and and also I'm really impressed that you guys have such a huge ambitions in so many ways. Changing society obviously focused on customers and building great companies. So, Alison, thanks so much for >>thank you, Dave. You virtually I'm very >>great to see it. Hopefully hopefully see Assumes. Hopefully next year we could be together. Until then, virtually you'll >>see virtual, >>huh? Thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volonte for the Cube. Keep it right there. Our coverage of Del Tech World 2020. We'll be right back right after this short break.

>>From around the globe with digital coverage of 2020 brought to you by beam. Welcome back. I'm assuming a man, and this is the cubes coverage of Veem on 2020 online. I'm really happy to welcome to the program. We had done the Milan many years, first time doing it online and we have two first time guests. the center square. We have Daniel freed. He is the GM and senior vice president of AMEA and the head of worldwide sitting on the other side of the screen. Is it David Harvey? He's the vice president of Dietrich alliances. Both of them, of course, with beam. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. >>Thank you. >>All right, Daniel, maybe start with you, uh, you know, the online event, obviously, uh, you know, it gives us, you know, there's some allergens, but there's also some opportunities rather than, you know, thousands of us gathering in Las Vegas where right. There's a diversity of locations because if you look up and down the street, the strip, um, and instead we really have a global event in an operation, unity, I'm speaking to you where you are in Asia right now. What, what is, you know, the online event mean? And you know, how you can relate to, you know, how many countries do you have a attending the event. Okay. Yeah. >>Okay. So, so the good, the good thing about, about being online is, as you mentioned, as you said, is, is we can have all, all people from all countries, all around the world present. Of course we are surely, uh, now with my responsibility, my worldwide responsibility for the channels, uh, all countries in the world, we have partners of all in all countries in the world, which means that all our teams, as well as all our butlers are virtual things or the kid limits, uh, of, of joining that, that event today. But that's, that's why I'm very, very happy to have these virtual events, which is much easier. And they're heading all people try flying in from all the different parts of the world, do they guess? Right. And, and, and David, you know, also with alliances standpoint, I assume since, you know, they don't actually have to fly to Vegas. We've got the special guest appearances by Satya Nadella, uh, you know, Arvin, Krishna, you know, all of the, you know, Andy Jassy, you know, everyone's coming in, but no, and also seriousness from an Alliance standpoint, uh, you know, we'd love to hear how you're, you're working with them., uh, for, for the global event. >>Yeah, no, absolutely. And security is having a tough time keeping them at Bay right now. I mean, the online thing is handy because we can just cut them off, but, uh, yeah. Uh, but you're exactly right. It, the support of the alliances has been fantastic. Uh, everyone was trying to adjust to this new world we're in, but what you're seeing this week, um, he's a fantastic mom's body alliances. So once in Mike, all items should really work and we're doing the same for their events. And it's just a really nice >>If >>Camaraderie is coming together. And so, um, they've been great in supporting us as you've as seen through the week. Um, and we're excited about know whole vibe that getting in a commitment >>That, that we're getting from the customers I'm from the alliances, which is really, really good. Excellent. Well, we know that, you know, Veeam is a hundred percent partner focus, Daniel, maybe let's start with you, uh, you know, what, what's new kind of in the last year. So since we were together, last year, so on the new, on the new things that we have been doing for the last year, it's actually continuing first to move with our hundred percent, uh, since the beginning of, of, of Veem and all the way to the fully do squatters, that's more important even that is definitely the move that we see, uh, with working with your answers, uh, and their partners, as well as working much more with the Saudis providers, meaning the cloud service providers, where are there is a big, big trend now in the market with customers requesting more and more rather than, than I would say, technologies and products on premise. >>Uh, so we see that everywhere around the world. It is actually writing now again with the nutrition that we see, well, why, because of these, Nope, this is about situation, uh, where virtual is a big move that we, uh, we, we can see from customers and the partners that we have, the ecosystem that we've built, um, all around the world, he's helping very much in this move. Excellent. And David would love to hear the, the, the progress that, uh, your group with some of the parts. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's been a, it's been a really exciting ride, uh, year over year growth rates with the alliances, continue to shoot out, which we're really excited about. Um, the VTN launch was fantastic for us for most of our major strategic alliances. So we're really pleased about that. And a lot of our technical alliances as well, they really benefited from some of the new capability coming out there. >>So what we're seeing is not only are we seeing our go to market, be enriched more and have a lot of success with the strategic alliances, the technology Alliance is a really starting to benefit from some of that new innovation that just came out and funny as well. So that global systems integrators, we've seen a massive uptick in that interest in the last, in the last couple of quarters. And that's really helping too Alison tonight. Oh, I spy. So yeah, it's been a really exciting year. And certainly when you do these types of events virtually yeah. LinkedIn, your, I am, and text messages go through the roof, which is a nice way to, to keep communication with the alliances. Yeah, I did. David, I'd like to just drill in a little bit on some of the pieces that you're talking about there, uh, you know, I really feel in the last year, yeah. We saw a real maturation in what we do talk about. Yeah. Hybrid cloud and multicloud. Um, I, I know one of the, you know, key strategic Alliance is actually from day one for Veem. Yeah. And you know, every time I saw an announcement of some of the VMware Bob pieces, I usually felt like there was soon after a Veem piece of it. Uh, could you bring us inside a little bit, especially some of the cloud pieces and maybe how beam differentiate, uh, from, from some of the competition out there, you know, both VMware, >>You know, Amazon, Microsoft and that whole ecosystem. >>Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you touched on, uh, VMware and ops have been very close, Brown is process, and we're really excited about, uh, some of the recent work has been going on with them as well. Um, we're also have tremendous steps fools with Amazon that continues to be a strong area. And the Microsoft is a cloud in the way that we continue during the harms, the way we work with their solution. Um, it's really providing right strides forwards, especially for the enterprise customers. Uh, we also were excited about the recent announcement related to Google cloud as well. So that's another big area for us. Um, and so that was another thing that continues to differentiate us. And what I would say overall though, is it's about having that philosophy as customers continue to have there philosophical view related to on premise cloud on off premise cloud. >>What we're showing is whether it's through the hardware partners, whether it's through the application partners well through the cloud is we're enabling you to decide your workflows. And I think that's the bit it's a little bit different than, and some of the others that are out there taking that heritage, should we put into the virtual world and that mentality, there's certain it departments have. It enables us to really synergize with those different partners as they go through their evolution and a certain customers move more towards the public cloud. And then you might be look towards some workplace back to the private that synergy between all of those areas is hugely important. And even for the hardware partners that we have, do you have cloud plays, mentioning some of their value solutions as well. So it's a really sort of, um, heterogeneous world that it we're really pleased on the way that the market is accepting it. Yeah. And Daniel that this, this move and a maturation of what's happened in the cloud is a significant impact on the channel. I'd love to hear, you know, anything specifically, you know, with your, uh, your viewpoint on the channel as to, you know, how your partners are now adjusting to that, you know, VMware, Microsoft, uh, some of the other pieces is that how they are now ready, uh, to help customers, uh, through these transitions. >>Yeah. And, and let me, let me make one run back, which is very important. First of all, VIM is not Mmm. The cloud provider and will not be accepted, right. Or in other words, the idea is that we will never compete with our brothers, never. Uh, so we provide technology, which is used by our partners and a number of them. I just think that technology to provide services, a number of them are using this technology to resell, uh, or to implement some additional services for the customers. And this is a key, key element. We're not there to do anything and competition. We are here to compliment and to use it, to leverage as much as possible, all our partners, as much as we can, uh, they know very good the market, they know very good at how things are moving. They know very good where they can do they know very good where they cannot do and what their customers want or, or, Oh,. >>Um, so the big, big move that we see in the market is how everyone is moving more and more to, again, there's said initially, uh, to the cloud, um, I mean, providing cloud services, whether it's multicloud hybrid cloud, as you mentioned it, as you listed them, we have all different types of scenarios. And this is a very interesting thing, is us helping them, educating them on how to use our technology, to be able to verify we be provide services and capabilities to their end customers. So we have a big, big investments in this enablement in what we call sales acceleration software, because it's all about businesses, uh, and helping our partners to get there and to move them as fast as placebo. Again, there is a big, a big need, a big request from the end customers and the role of the partners. I understand that and have to move very quickly to this new world of services. >>And we are there to help and support because we strategically no, that this is a way not only for him, but for the entire market. Yeah. And Danielle, you know, an important point. I think anybody that thinks that, okay, editor, uh, you know, to the channel or things, you know, probably doesn't matter. Okay. Or value proposition, a Veeam. What I'm curious from your standpoint is what was the impact of know wire now? You know, obviously some management changes there. Uh, I'm, I'm curious what feedback you've gotten and how that impact, uh, you know, the channel first. Yeah. I mean, let's be open as you know, it's one of, I hope one of our qualities, that theme is the transparency and the way we communicate again with the world, with our, especially with our partners. So initially the feedback that I had and with a number of partners and partners, well, a little bit of, okay, Nope, no worries. >>Uh, no, no. What is going to happen? What is next? Are we going to, to lose the DVM culture? Are we going to, are we going to go through a number of changes eventually in the strategy of him? And actually I have to say, and I'm extremely comfortable, uh, in my, let's say regular communications and connections with, with the insight partners, we have quiet team software because they think that the strategy that we had and the strategy that we have now is the strategy they want just to keep on doing, because it is a successful strategy. And by the way, when we do get the data, uh, that we got from the market from, uh, from, from some, from IDC that that was out lately, we see that Veeam is the number one in both, all around the world, compared to all the other vendors, doing the same kind of technology. >>That means that each is a successful strategy going with the partners and through the partners, he's a very successful strategy. And there is no reason that that yeah, and insight partners understands that extremely good. And I feel very comfortable with it. Yeah. With our future. That would mean more to us, but that's okay. We'll see. In the coming quarters. Well, I, I think, uh, you know, we, we, we do need to have, make sure that VMs has a little bit more focused on getting some green in your home environments there. Um, cause normally if I'm doing an interview with green, I'm expecting with BMI Mexican and a little bit more of the, of the breaker in there, David, you know, obviously, you know, the strategic alliances, uh, you know, some of those executive relationships, good morning, bring us in a little bit, as you know, Daniel was saying there's a little bit yeah. >>Of trepidation at the bit. And they've worked ruin, uh, from the Alliance standpoint, uh, you know, what is this, uh, what what's, what's transpired. Yes, true. It's, it's one of those things. It's a really unexciting answer because they aren't similar, simple answers calmness. Um, I often 24 hours, once we announced it, my call sheet was pretty, pretty empty for the simple reason being that, uh, we've spoken to everybody very quickly and the resonant feedback was that's great news. We know insight. We trust insight. We're glad it is say a growth play. Uh, also it clears up the future. And obviously, yeah, when you have strategic alliances is always in the back of their mind, wondering when is one of our competitors going to come in and Acqua you guys Mmm. Your article feedback was, this is fantastic. This is exactly what we wanted to see. >>Um, you provide clarity to our partnership. You can continue to invest in grow, which you've demonstrated for years, and you can move that forward for the next few years. Um, but also more importantly, this enables us to feel even better doubling down on veins. And so frankly, while we haven't had any issues and I'm sure a lot of the viewers out there have been through events seeing sometimes that can be crazy. It's a Daniel was pointing the strategy. Hasn't changed, we're executing, we've got the support. And the strategic Alliance is probably for the executive level and also the day to day level on leaning in more and more of them please that we're executing on our strategy, focusing in the U S with a big push. Okay. Bringing the investment, moving forward, stabilizing the leadership team. It's just been overall. It's been fantastic. So yeah. >>Yeah. It's, it's a really unexciting new soundbite answer, but that's a, how long has inclarity clarity has been a real takeaway? Excellent. Well, one of the, the key messages in the keynote, of course talking about a digital transformation, we'd love to hear, uh, for, from both of you, uh, you know, what you're seeing and hearing how beam's message is a, you know, engaging with both partners and ultimately the, the end user itself, uh, Daniel, maybe we'll start with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for asking. It's usually always comes from the end customers and their needs, and we all know that the need for data uh he's he's getting exponential. Uh, so that is why we can't do things manually anymore. So it has to be digitalized everywhere. Yeah. The very interesting thing is that not only something that express with the end customers, but we see more and more because it's an absolute need. Uh, when partners are providing, uh, services or providing all night, chubby she's out services or providing even, even products, they have digitalize also themselves. They are doing it at very, very high speed. But I know I'm mentioning that because I'm extremely pleased with the ecosystems of partners that we have >>Because they understand it's very good, how the market is, is evolving. I'm still only about the customers, but it's also about themselves. Yeah. That they are evolving 21st. And did you digitalization of all the processors? Well, the way they work with their customers, it's definitely one of the key elements, uh, which is going to be extremely good for the future. That's why, because of all this moves in a very positive dynamic way, there is no reasons why we should change our strategies and no remaining said our rights, uh, lions first, whatever it is, uh, continue driving the ecosystem, building the ecosystems, organizing the acquisition. And he's absolutely key for the success of everyone, including people, Brittany and David, please from the Alliance side. Yeah, it's do, I'm sure you'll notice, but in anybody and, uh, we're in a fortunate situation that we probably both get to sit through, uh, all of the strategies that a lot of the Titans of industry are all focused on right now and, and, and having ecosystem we do in your line side, that rich tapestry from the very large to very small is focused on that digital transformation. >>And I think that the good news from my point of view, and I'm going to touch on one of the points Daniel mentioned before was we don't eat with them. And so, yeah, he volunteers, we've got his work hogging, a piece of that, the strategy that they're looking for, the criticality of data three is transformation is huge as everybody knows. Um, and what we're finding right now is that the approach that we take yep. Approach to focus on doing what we do extremely well is synergizing with the evolution of the customer is seeing as they go through that transformation and transformation, sometimes a scary transformation sometimes brings nervousness and they want to do it with a lot of their thought leaders. They working with the VM-ware has the Microsoft, the HBS, and then apps, et cetera. And so from that point of view, the fact that we can providing them with that peace of mind for the complete solution, it's been fantastic. >>So, you know, when you look at a 75 plus partners, there's always going to be one way you need to thread the needle. Shall we say on exactly where intellectual property provides that value to them? But the good news is we don't have to spend a lot of time on that because we're clear, we're concise. Uh, and a lot of times they've been involved in a lot of our strategy sessions. So they're on board with us. And I think the Daniels area as well with the channel, the channel sees that as well. And that's why, whether it's through the alliances channel or with us directly to the resellers, uh, we're finding that, uh, that harmony is bringing a lot of peace of mind. So you can focus on the pains of the customer. I'm not worried about your technology partners fighting with themselves. And that's really where we are, right. Uh, the overall ethic of the company. All right. Well, the final item I have for, for both of you is, you know, normally, you know, but we have a certain understanding of where we are and what the roadmap is. Look, of course, we're dealing with a global pandemic, right? So >>As we look forward to the outlook, uh, I'd love to be able to hear a little bit about, you know, what you're hearing from your partners, how that is coloring, you know, decisions that are made really for the rest of kind of the next 12 months or so. Um, and you know, okay. Any other data points that you have, uh, from your broad perspectives as to how people think the recovery is going to be know, obviously we understand there's a lot of inserts. Nope. Daniel, you've got a, uh, great global viewpoint. We understand, uh, you know, what, what is happening impacts differently locally quite a bit, but, um, what are you seeing going forward and do you know the impact? Bye bye. Yeah. So I couldn't say the contrary. Yeah. So they correct. And we see it in our numbers that the countries, which are the most impacted, I would buy the QVC. >>I would have been more difficulties than the others, uh, to move, to move forward for a business standpoint, uh, which everybody understands, but we've received in the numbers. No, the thing. And this is what I liked very much about, but our ecosystem and where is we had a plan, uh, that we said that we said in 2019 before we knew anything about curvy a con for 2020, and you know what, uh, we are now in no, in, in, in our, the second part of the month of the year, you too, and are going to make our numbers. We are going to make our plans and why are we going to make it? That's the only because, you know, it's just been because perfect, but he's very, very much because of all our partners who, despite all the issues that are, they are in country because of coverage are just getting there, biking, helping themselves, helping us, and altogether as, as a big business machine, as big business system, we all just making success. >>And this will only show extremely good at the end of the year. When we look at the market share, Jamie's going to gain again, uh, with all our butters, it will be the, the results of the success. So good results. Very good results. No. And, and do you mean just continuing to move with these, he's a network of fathers and David, obviously we've seen, you know, you know, many of the big partners, you know, uh, you know, very circumstance and their response, you know, nobody wants, are you seen as, uh, you know, doing something that is untoward towards customers taking care of business. Okay. So, you know, how how's this impacting, you know, what you're doing with your partners? And it gives a little bit of the outlook going forward. Yeah. I mean, why not use for this as energy? Mmm. Some of these headlines that you see, of course, they're not going to get picked up with the impact related to it on a day to day basis, through the discussions with the executives are in the field level, we're seeing the energy with same people want to make sure on what is a tricky situation was a very impactful situation. >>Um, but what, we're not seeing people Mmm. He was onto it. We're seeing people really want to, um, make sure that they are also relating to the needs of their customers today, whether it's more and point whether it's moving towards the user experience, but also taking this time to keep building the foundation for a lot of that infrastructure related to data protection, data availability, um, that we've enjoyed for a long period of time. So yeah, you know, you, you have a degree of disruption, but the objective that I'm seeing from all the major guys that are out there is let's make sure we drive hard. Let's not take the pedal off the metal. Let's not use this as an excuse. Let's keep moving. What, uh, I mean, I sh I would say our engagement with them has increased in sort of happened. Um, and so I don't think we ever expected to be running into tempo. >>We're running bean does it as standard, but we don't normally I have that same temperature. Okay. From some of the, uh, some of the alliances we're really pushing hard with him. So, yeah, we're excited. And we continue to evolve rudeness how, in a situation, everyone's going to be employees with a lot of aggression, a lot of desire to keep capitalizing on the work we've done together. The key solving the customer demands that are going to come over the next 18 to 24 months, um, and reading, make sure that, uh, this is really okay. Yeah. It's impactful just to be clear, but, but not one that we're going to let define our future. I'm looking into that together. So I think from us, um, we're excited about not only as Daniel said, beam success. Well, what, we're starting to see us really good attitudes, uh, from all of our lines bombs, which we love. Yeah. All right. Well, Daniel and David, thank you so much for the update. Great. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Lots more covered from Veeam on 2020 online. I'm assuming a minute. Thank you. Oh, wow. The cube.

(water running) (upbeat music) (electric buzzing) >> Fuel up! (upbeat music) (audience clapping) (upbeat music) >> Announcer: From around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of DockerCon live 2020, brought to you by Docker and its ecosystem partners. >> Hello everyone, welcome to DockerCon 2020. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE I'm in our Palo Alto studios with our quarantine crew. We have a great lineup here for DockerCon 2020. Virtual event, normally it was in person face to face. I'll be with you throughout the day from an amazing lineup of content, over 50 different sessions, cube tracks, keynotes, and we've got two great co-hosts here with Docker, Jenny Burcio and Bret Fisher. We'll be with you all day today, taking you through the program, helping you navigate the sessions. I'm so excited. Jenny, this is a virtual event. We talk about this. Can you believe it? Maybe the internet gods be with us today and hope everyone's having-- >> Yes. >> Easy time getting in. Jenny, Bret, thank you for-- >> Hello. >> Being here. >> Hey. >> Hi everyone, so great to see everyone chatting and telling us where they're from. Welcome to the Docker community. We have a great day planned for you. >> Guys great job getting this all together. I know how hard it is. These virtual events are hard to pull off. I'm blown away by the community at Docker. The amount of sessions that are coming in the sponsor support has been amazing. Just the overall excitement around the brand and the opportunities given this tough times where we're in. It's super exciting again, made the internet gods be with us throughout the day, but there's plenty of content. Bret's got an amazing all day marathon group of people coming in and chatting. Jenny, this has been an amazing journey and it's a great opportunity. Tell us about the virtual event. Why DockerCon virtual. Obviously everyone's canceling their events, but this is special to you guys. Talk about DockerCon virtual this year. >> The Docker community shows up at DockerCon every year, and even though we didn't have the opportunity to do an in person event this year, we didn't want to lose the time that we all come together at DockerCon. The conversations, the amazing content and learning opportunities. So we decided back in December to make DockerCon a virtual event. And of course when we did that, there was no quarantine we didn't expect, you know, I certainly didn't expect to be delivering it from my living room, but we were just, I mean we were completely blown away. There's nearly 70,000 people across the globe that have registered for DockerCon today. And when you look at DockerCon of past right live events, really and we're learning are just the tip of the iceberg and so thrilled to be able to deliver a more inclusive global event today. And we have so much planned I think. Bret, you want to tell us some of the things that you have planned? >> Well, I'm sure I'm going to forget something 'cause there's a lot going on. But, we've obviously got interviews all day today on this channel with John and the crew. Jenny has put together an amazing set of all these speakers, and then you have the captain's on deck, which is essentially the YouTube live hangout where we just basically talk shop. It's all engineers, all day long. Captains and special guests. And we're going to be in chat talking to you about answering your questions. Maybe we'll dig into some stuff based on the problems you're having or the questions you have. Maybe there'll be some random demos, but it's basically not scripted, it's an all day long unscripted event. So I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun hanging out in there. >> Well guys, I want to just say it's been amazing how you structured this so everyone has a chance to ask questions, whether it's informal laid back in the captain's channel or in the sessions, where the speakers will be there with their presentations. But Jenny, I want to get your thoughts because we have a site out there that's structured a certain way for the folks watching. If you're on your desktop, there's a main stage hero. There's then tracks and Bret's running the captain's tracks. You can click on that link and jump into his session all day long. He's got an amazing set of line of sleet, leaning back, having a good time. And then each of the tracks, you can jump into those sessions. It's on a clock, it'll be available on demand. All that content is available if you're on your desktop. If you're on your mobile, it's the same thing. Look at the calendar, find the session that you want. If you're interested in it, you could watch it live and chat with the participants in real time or watch it on demand. So there's plenty of content to navigate through. We do have it on a clock and we'll be streaming sessions as they happen. So you're in the moment and that's a great time to chat in real time. But there's more, Jenny, getting more out of this event. You guys try to bring together the stimulation of community. How does the participants get more out of the the event besides just consuming some of the content all day today? >> Yes, so first set up your profile, put your picture next to your chat handle and then chat. John said we have various setups today to help you get the most out of your experience are breakout sessions. The content is prerecorded, so you get quality content and the speakers and chat so you can ask questions the whole time. If you're looking for the hallway track, then definitely check out the captain's on deck channel. And then we have some great interviews all day on the queue. So set up your profile, join the conversation and be kind, right? This is a community event. Code of conduct is linked on every page at the top, and just have a great day. >> And Bret, you guys have an amazing lineup on the captain, so you have a great YouTube channel that you have your stream on. So the folks who were familiar with that can get that either on YouTube or on the site. The chat is integrated in, So you're set up, what do you got going on? Give us the highlights. What are you excited about throughout your day? Take us through your program on the captains. That's going to be probably pretty dynamic in the chat too. >> Yeah, so I'm sure we're going to have lots of, stuff going on in chat. So no cLancaerns there about, having crickets in the chat. But we're going to be basically starting the day with two of my good Docker captain friends, (murmurs) and Laura Taco. And we're going to basically start you out and at the end of this keynote, at the end of this hour and we're going to get you going and then you can maybe jump out and go to take some sessions. Maybe there's some stuff you want to check out and other sessions that you want to chat and talk with the instructors, the speakers there, and then you're going to come back to us, right? Or go over, check out the interviews. So the idea is you're hopping back and forth and throughout the day we're basically changing out every hour. We're not just changing out the guests basically, but we're also changing out the topics that we can cover because different guests will have different expertise. We're going to have some special guests in from Microsoft, talk about some of the cool stuff going on there, and basically it's captains all day long. And if you've been on my YouTube live show you've watched that, you've seen a lot of the guests we have on there. I'm lucky to just hang out with all these really awesome people around the world, so it's going to be fun. >> Awesome and the content again has been preserved. You guys had a great session on call for paper sessions. Jenny, this is good stuff. What other things can people do to make it interesting? Obviously we're looking for suggestions. Feel free to chirp on Twitter about ideas that can be new. But you guys got some surprises. There's some selfies, what else? What's going on? Any secret, surprises throughout the day. >> There are secret surprises throughout the day. You'll need to pay attention to the keynotes. Bret will have giveaways. I know our wonderful sponsors have giveaways planned as well in their sessions. Hopefully right you feel conflicted about what you're going to attend. So do know that everything is recorded and will be available on demand afterwards so you can catch anything that you miss. Most of them will be available right after they stream the initial time. >> All right, great stuff, so they've got the Docker selfie. So the Docker selfies, the hashtag is just DockerCon hashtag DockerCon. If you feel like you want to add some of the hashtag no problem, check out the sessions. You can pop in and out of the captains is kind of the cool kids are going to be hanging out with Bret and then all they'll knowledge and learning. Don't miss the keynote, the keynote should be solid. We've got chain Governor from red monk delivering a keynote. I'll be interviewing him live after his keynote. So stay with us. And again, check out the interactive calendar. All you got to do is look at the calendar and click on the session you want. You'll jump right in. Hop around, give us feedback. We're doing our best. Bret, any final thoughts on what you want to share to the community around, what you got going on the virtual event, just random thoughts? >> Yeah, so sorry we can't all be together in the same physical place. But the coolest thing about as business online, is that we actually get to involve everyone, so as long as you have a computer and internet, you can actually attend DockerCon if you've never been to one before. So we're trying to recreate that experience online. Like Jenny said, the code of conduct is important. So, we're all in this together with the chat, so try to be nice in there. These are all real humans that, have feelings just like me. So let's try to keep it cool. And, over in the Catherine's channel we'll be taking your questions and maybe playing some music, playing some games, giving away some free stuff, while you're, in between sessions learning, oh yeah. >> And I got to say props to your rig. You've got an amazing setup there, Bret. I love what your show, you do. It's really bad ass and kick ass. So great stuff. Jenny sponsors ecosystem response to this event has been phenomenal. The attendance 67,000. We're seeing a surge of people hitting the site now. So if you're not getting in, just, Wade's going, we're going to crank through the queue, but the sponsors on the ecosystem really delivered on the content side and also the sport. You want to share a few shout outs on the sponsors who really kind of helped make this happen. >> Yeah, so definitely make sure you check out the sponsor pages and you go, each page is the actual content that they will be delivering. So they are delivering great content to you. So you can learn and a huge thank you to our platinum and gold authors. >> Awesome, well I got to say, I'm super impressed. I'm looking forward to the Microsoft Amazon sessions, which are going to be good. And there's a couple of great customer sessions there. I tweeted this out last night and let them get you guys' reaction to this because there's been a lot of talk around the COVID crisis that we're in, but there's also a positive upshot to this is Cambridge and explosion of developers that are going to be building new apps. And I said, you know, apps aren't going to just change the world, they're going to save the world. So a lot of the theme here is the impact that developers are having right now in the current situation. If we get the goodness of compose and all the things going on in Docker and the relationships, this real impact happening with the developer community. And it's pretty evident in the program and some of the talks and some of the examples. how containers and microservices are certainly changing the world and helping save the world, your thoughts. >> Like you said, a number of sessions and interviews in the program today that really dive into that. And even particularly around COVID, Clement Beyondo is sharing his company's experience, from being able to continue operations in Italy when they were completely shut down beginning of March. We have also in theCUBE channel several interviews about from the national Institute of health and precision cancer medicine at the end of the day. And you just can really see how containerization and developers are moving in industry and really humanity forward because of what they're able to build and create, with advances in technology. >> Yeah and the first responders and these days is developers. Bret compose is getting a lot of traction on Twitter. I can see some buzz already building up. There's huge traction with compose, just the ease of use and almost a call for arms for integrating into all the system language libraries, I mean, what's going on with compose? I mean, what's the captain say about this? I mean, it seems to be really tracking in terms of demand and interest. >> I think we're over 700,000 composed files on GitHub. So it's definitely beyond just the standard Docker run commands. It's definitely the next tool that people use to run containers. Just by having that we just buy, and that's not even counting. I mean that's just counting the files that are named Docker compose YAML. So I'm sure a lot of you out there have created a YAML file to manage your local containers or even on a server with Docker compose. And the nice thing is is Docker is doubling down on that. So we've gotten some news recently, from them about what they want to do with opening the spec up, getting more companies involved because compose is already gathered so much interest from the community. You know, AWS has importers, there's Kubernetes importers for it. So there's more stuff coming and we might just see something here in a few minutes. >> All right, well let's get into the keynote guys, jump into the keynote. If you missing anything, come back to the stream, check out the sessions, check out the calendar. Let's go, let's have a great time. Have some fun, thanks and enjoy the rest of the day we'll see you soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Okay, what is the name of that Whale? >> Molly. >> And what is the name of this Whale? >> Mobby. >> That's right, dad's got to go, thanks bud. >> Bye. >> Bye. Hi, I'm Scott Johnson, CEO of Docker and welcome to DockerCon 2020. This year DockerCon is an all virtual event with more than 60,000 members of the Docker Community joining from around the world. And with the global shelter in place policies, we're excited to offer a unifying, inclusive virtual community event in which anyone and everyone can participate from their home. As a company, Docker has been through a lot of changes since our last DockerCon last year. The most important starting last November, is our refocusing 100% on developers and development teams. As part of that refocusing, one of the big challenges we've been working on, is how to help development teams quickly and efficiently get their app from code to cloud And wouldn't it be cool, if developers could quickly deploy to the cloud right from their local environment with the commands and workflow they already know. We're excited to give you a sneak preview of what we've been working on. And rather than slides, we thought we jumped right into the product. And joining me demonstrate some of these cool new features, is enclave your DACA. One of our engineers here at Docker working on Docker compose. Hello Lanca. >> Hello. >> We're going to show how an application development team collaborates using Docker desktop and Docker hub. And then deploys the app directly from the Docker command line to the clouds in just two commands. A development team would use this to quickly share functional changes of their app with the product management team, with beta testers or other development teams. Let's go ahead and take a look at our app. Now, this is a web app, that randomly pulls words from the database, and assembles them into sentences. You can see it's a pretty typical three tier application with each tier implemented in its own container. We have a front end web service, a middle tier, which implements the logic to randomly pull the words from the database and assemble them and a backend database. And here you can see the database uses the Postgres official image from Docker hub. Now let's first run the app locally using Docker command line and the Docker engine in Docker desktop. We'll do a Doc compose up and you can see that it's pulling the containers from our Docker organization account. Wordsmith, inc. Now that it's up. Let's go ahead and look at local host and we'll confirm that the application is functioning as desired. So there's one sentence, let's pull and now you and you can indeed see that we are pulling random words and assembling into sentences. Now you can also see though that the look and feel is a bit dated. And so Lanca is going to show us how easy it is to make changes and share them with the rest of the team. Lanca, over to you. >> Thank you, so I have, the source code of our application on my machine and I have updated it with the latest team from DockerCon 2020. So before committing the code, I'm going to build the application locally and run it, to verify that indeed the changes are good. So I'm going to build with Docker compose the image for the web service. Now that the image has been built, I'm going to deploy it locally. Wait to compose up. We can now check the dashboard in a Docker desktop that indeed our containers are up and running, and we can access, we can open in the web browser, the end point for the web service. So as we can see, we have the latest changes in for our application. So as you can see, the application has been updated successfully. So now, I'm going to push the image that I have just built to my organization's shared repository on Docker hub. So I can do this with Docker compose push web. Now that the image has been updated in the Docker hub repository, or my teammates can access it and check the changes. >> Excellent, well, thank you Lanca. Now of course, in these times, video conferencing is the new normal, and as great as it is, video conferencing does not allow users to actually test the application. And so, to allow us to have our app be accessible by others outside organizations such as beta testers or others, let's go ahead and deploy to the cloud. >> Sure we, can do this by employing a context. A Docker context, is a mechanism that we can use to target different platforms for deploying containers. The context we hold, information as the endpoint for the platform, and also how to authenticate to it. So I'm going to list the context that I have set locally. As you can see, I'm currently using the default context that is pointing to my local Docker engine. So all the commands that I have issued so far, we're targeting my local engine. Now, in order to deploy the application on a cloud. I have an account in the Azure Cloud, where I have no resource running currently, and I have created for this account, dedicated context that will hold the information on how to connect it to it. So now all I need to do, is to switch to this context, with Docker context use, and the name of my cloud context. So all the commands that I'm going to run, from now on, are going to target the cloud platform. So we can also check very, more simpler, in a simpler way we can check the running containers with Docker PS. So as we see no container is running in my cloud account. Now to deploy the application, all I need to do is to run a Docker compose up. And this will trigger the deployment of my application. >> Thanks Lanca. Now notice that Lanca did not have to move the composed file from Docker desktop to Azure. Notice you have to make any changes to the Docker compose file, and nor did she change any of the containers that she and I were using locally in our local environments. So the same composed file, same images, run locally and upon Azure without changes. While the app is deploying to Azure, let's highlight some of the features in Docker hub that helps teams with remote first collaboration. So first, here's our team's account where it (murmurs) and you can see the updated container sentences web that Lanca just pushed a couple of minutes ago. As far as collaboration, we can add members using their Docker ID or their email, and then we can organize them into different teams depending on their role in the application development process. So and then Lancae they're organized into different teams, we can assign them permissions, so that teams can work in parallel without stepping on each other's changes accidentally. For example, we'll give the engineering team full read, write access, whereas the product management team will go ahead and just give read only access. So this role based access controls, is just one of the many features in Docker hub that allows teams to collaboratively and quickly develop applications. Okay Lanca, how's our app doing? >> Our app has been successfully deployed to the cloud. So, we can easily check either the Azure portal to verify the containers running for it or simpler we can run a Docker PS again to get the list with the containers that have been deployed for it. In the output from the Docker PS, we can see an end point that we can use to access our application in the web browser. So we can see the application running in clouds. It's really up to date and now we can take this particular endpoint and share it within our organization such that anybody can have a look at it. >> That's cool Onka. We showed how we can deploy an app to the cloud in minutes and just two commands, and using commands that Docker users already know, thanks so much. In that sneak preview, you saw a team developing an app collaboratively, with a tool chain that includes Docker desktop and Docker hub. And simply by switching Docker context from their local environment to the cloud, deploy that app to the cloud, to Azure without leaving the command line using Docker commands they already know. And in doing so, really simplifying for development team, getting their app from code to cloud. And just as important, what you did not see, was a lot of complexity. You did not see cloud specific interfaces, user management or security. You did not see us having to provision and configure compute networking and storage resources in the cloud. And you did not see infrastructure specific application changes to either the composed file or the Docker images. And by simplifying a way that complexity, these new features help application DevOps teams, quickly iterate and get their ideas, their apps from code to cloud, and helping development teams, build share and run great applications, is what Docker is all about. A Docker is able to simplify for development teams getting their app from code to cloud quickly as a result of standards, products and ecosystem partners. It starts with open standards for applications and application artifacts, and active open source communities around those standards to ensure portability and choice. Then as you saw in the demo, the Docker experience delivered by Docker desktop and Docker hub, simplifies a team's collaborative development of applications, and together with ecosystem partners provides every stage of an application development tool chain. For example, deploying applications to the cloud in two commands. What you saw on the demo, well that's an extension of our strategic partnership with Microsoft, which we announced yesterday. And you can learn more about our partnership from Amanda Silver from Microsoft later today, right here at DockerCon. Another tool chain stage, the capability to scan applications for security and vulnerabilities, as a result of our partnership with Sneak, which we announced last week. You can learn more about that partnership from Peter McKay, CEO Sneak, again later today, right here at DockerCon. A third example, development team can automate the build of container images upon a simple get push, as a result of Docker hub integrations with GitHub and Alaska and Bitbucket. As a final example of Docker and the ecosystem helping teams quickly build applications, together with our ISV partners. We offer in Docker hub over 500 official and verified publisher images of ready to run Dockerized application components such as databases, load balancers, programming languages, and much more. Of course, none of this happens without people. And I would like to take a moment to thank four groups of people in particular. First, the Docker team, past and present. We've had a challenging 12 months including a restructuring and then a global pandemic, and yet their support for each other, and their passion for the product, this community and our customers has never been stronger. We think our community, Docker wouldn't be Docker without you, and whether you're one of the 50 Docker captains, they're almost 400 meetup organizers, the thousands of contributors and maintainers. Every day you show up, you give back, you teach new support. We thank our users, more than six and a half million developers who have built more than 7 million applications and are then sharing those applications through Docker hub at a rate of more than one and a half billion poles per week. Those apps are then run, are more than 44 million Docker engines. And finally, we thank our customers, the over 18,000 docker subscribers, both individual developers and development teams from startups to large organizations, 60% of which are outside the United States. And they spend every industry vertical, from media, to entertainment to manufacturing. healthcare and much more. Thank you. Now looking forward, given these unprecedented times, we would like to offer a challenge. While it would be easy to feel helpless and miss this global pandemic, the challenge is for us as individuals and as a community to instead see and grasp the tremendous opportunities before us to be forces for good. For starters, look no further than the pandemic itself, in the fight against this global disaster, applications and data are playing a critical role, and the Docker Community quickly recognize this and rose to the challenge. There are over 600 COVID-19 related publicly available projects on Docker hub today, from data processing to genome analytics to data visualization folding at home. The distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, is also available on Docker hub, and it uses spirit compute capacity to analyze COVID-19 proteins to aid in the design of new therapies. And right here at DockerCon, you can hear how Clemente Biondo and his company engineering in Gagne area Informatica are using Docker in the fight with COVID-19 in Italy every day. Now, in addition to fighting the pandemic directly, as a community, we also have an opportunity to bridge the disruption the pandemic is wreaking. It's impacting us at work and at home in every country around the world and every aspect of our lives. For example, many of you have a student at home, whose world is going to be very different when they returned to school. As employees, all of us have experienced the stresses from working from home as well as many of the benefits and in fact 75% of us say that going forward, we're going to continue to work from home at least occasionally. And of course one of the biggest disruptions has been job losses, over 35 million in the United States alone. And we know that's affected many of you. And yet your skills are in such demand and so important now more than ever. And that's why here at DockerCon, we want to try to do our part to help, and we're promoting this hashtag on Twitter, hashtag DockerCon jobs, where job seekers and those offering jobs can reach out to one another and connect. Now, pandemics disruption is accelerating the shift of more and more of our time, our priorities, our dollars from offline to online to hybrid, and even online only ways of living. We need to find new ways to collaborate, new approaches to engage customers, new modes for education and much more. And what is going to fill the needs created by this acceleration from offline, online? New applications. And it's this need, this demand for all these new applications that represents a great opportunity for the Docker community of developers. The world needs us, needs you developers now more than ever. So let's seize this moment. Let us in our teams, go build share and run great new applications. Thank you for joining today. And let's have a great DockerCon. >> Okay, welcome back to the DockerCon studio headquarters in your hosts, Jenny Burcio and myself John Furrier. u@farrier on Twitter. If you want to tweet me anything @DockerCon as well, share what you're thinking. Great keynote there from Scott CEO. Jenny, demo DockerCon jobs, some highlights there from Scott. Yeah, I love the intro. It's okay I'm about to do the keynote. The little green room comes on, makes it human. We're all trying to survive-- >> Let me answer the reality of what we are all doing with right now. I had to ask my kids to leave though or they would crash the whole stream but yes, we have a great community, a large community gather gathered here today, and we do want to take the opportunity for those that are looking for jobs, are hiring, to share with the hashtag DockerCon jobs. In addition, we want to support direct health care workers, and Bret Fisher and the captains will be running a all day charity stream on the captain's channel. Go there and you'll get the link to donate to directrelief.org which is a California based nonprofit, delivering and aid and supporting health care workers globally response to the COVID-19 crisis. >> Okay, if you jumping into the stream, I'm John Farrie with Jenny Webby, your hosts all day today throughout DockerCon. It's a packed house of great content. You have a main stream, theCUBE which is the mainstream that we'll be promoting a lot of cube interviews. But check out the 40 plus sessions underneath in the interactive calendar on dockercon.com site. Check it out, they're going to be live on a clock. So if you want to participate in real time in the chat, jump into your session on the track of your choice and participate with the folks in there chatting. If you miss it, it's going to go right on demand right after sort of all content will be immediately be available. So make sure you check it out. Docker selfie is a hashtag. Take a selfie, share it. Docker hashtag Docker jobs. If you're looking for a job or have openings, please share with the community and of course give us feedback on what you can do. We got James Governor, the keynote coming up next. He's with Red monk. Not afraid to share his opinion on open source on what companies should be doing, and also the evolution of this Cambrin explosion of apps that are going to be coming as we come out of this post pandemic world. A lot of people are thinking about this, the crisis and following through. So stay with us for more and more coverage. Jenny, favorite sessions on your mind for people to pay attention to that they should (murmurs)? >> I just want to address a few things that continue to come up in the chat sessions, especially breakout sessions after they play live and the speakers in chat with you, those go on demand, they are recorded, you will be able to access them. Also, if the screen is too small, there is the button to expand full screen, and different quality levels for the video that you can choose on your end. All the breakout sessions also have closed captioning, so please if you would like to read along, turn that on so you can, stay with the sessions. We have some great sessions, kicking off right at 10:00 a.m, getting started with Docker. We have a full track really in the how to enhance on that you should check out devs in action, hear what other people are doing and then of course our sponsors are delivering great content to you all day long. >> Tons of content. It's all available. They'll always be up always on at large scale. Thanks for watching. Now we got James Governor, the keynote. He's with Red Monk, the analyst firm and has been tracking open source for many generations. He's been doing amazing work. Watch his great keynote. I'm going to be interviewing him live right after. So stay with us and enjoy the rest of the day. We'll see you back shortly. (upbeat music) >> Hi, I'm James Governor, one of the co-founders of a company called RedMonk. We're an industry research firm focusing on developer led technology adoption. So that's I guess why Docker invited me to DockerCon 2020 to talk about some trends that we're seeing in the world of work and software development. So Monk Chips, that's who I am. I spent a lot of time on Twitter. It's a great research tool. It's a great way to find out what's going on with keep track of, as I say, there's people that we value so highly software developers, engineers and practitioners. So when I started talking to Docker about this event and it was pre Rhona, should we say, the idea of a crowd wasn't a scary thing, but today you see something like this, it makes you feel uncomfortable. This is not a place that I want to be. I'm pretty sure it's a place you don't want to be. And you know, to that end, I think it's interesting quote by Ellen Powell, she says, "Work from home is now just work" And we're going to see more and more of that. Organizations aren't feeling the same way they did about work before. Who all these people? Who is my cLancaern? So GitHub says has 50 million developers right on its network. Now, one of the things I think is most interesting, it's not that it has 50 million developers. Perhaps that's a proxy for number of developers worldwide. But quite frankly, a lot of those accounts, there's all kinds of people there. They're just Selena's. There are data engineers, there are data scientists, there are product managers, there were tech marketers. It's a big, big community and it goes way beyond just software developers itself. Frankly for me, I'd probably be saying there's more like 20 to 25 million developers worldwide, but GitHub knows a lot about the world of code. So what else do they know? One of the things they know is that world of code software and opensource, is becoming increasingly global. I get so excited about this stuff. The idea that there are these different software communities around the planet where we're seeing massive expansions in terms of things like open source. Great example is Nigeria. So Nigeria more than 200 million people, right? The energy there in terms of events, in terms of learning, in terms of teaching, in terms of the desire to code, the desire to launch businesses, desire to be part of a global software community is just so exciting. And you know, these, this sort of energy is not just in Nigeria, it's in other countries in Africa, it's happening in Egypt. It's happening around the world. This energy is something that's super interesting to me. We need to think about that. We've got global that we need to solve. And software is going to be a big part of that. At the moment, we can talk about other countries, but what about frankly the gender gap, the gender issue that, you know, from 1984 onwards, the number of women taking computer science degrees began to, not track but to create in comparison to what men were doing. The tech industry is way too male focused, there are men that are dominant, it's not welcoming, we haven't found ways to have those pathways and frankly to drive inclusion. And the women I know in tech, have to deal with the massively disproportionate amount of stress and things like online networks. But talking about online networks and talking about a better way of living, I was really excited by get up satellite recently, was a fantastic demo by Alison McMillan and she did a demo of a code spaces. So code spaces is Microsoft online ID, new platform that they've built. And online IDs, we're never quite sure, you know, plenty of people still out there just using the max. But, visual studio code has been a big success. And so this idea of moving to one online IDE, it's been around that for awhile. What they did was just make really tight integration. So you're in your GitHub repo and just be able to create a development environment with effectively one click, getting rid of all of the act shaving, making it super easy. And what I loved was it the demo, what Ali's like, yeah cause this is great. One of my kids are having a nap, I can just start (murmurs) and I don't have to sort out all the rest of it. And to me that was amazing. It was like productivity as inclusion. I'm here was a senior director at GitHub. They're doing this amazing work and then making this clear statement about being a parent. And I think that was fantastic. Because that's what, to me, importantly just working from home, which has been so challenging for so many of us, began to open up new possibilities, and frankly exciting possibilities. So Alley's also got a podcast parent-driven development, which I think is super important. Because this is about men and women rule in this together show parenting is a team sport, same as software development. And the idea that we should be thinking about, how to be more productive, is super important to me. So I want to talk a bit about developer culture and how it led to social media. Because you know, your social media, we're in this ad bomb stage now. It's TikTok, it's like exercise, people doing incredible back flips and stuff like that. Doing a bunch of dancing. We've had the world of sharing cat gifts, Facebook, we sort of see social media is I think a phenomenon in its own right. Whereas the me, I think it's interesting because it's its progenitors, where did it come from? So here's (murmurs) So 1971, one of the features in the emergency management information system, that he built, which it's topical, it was for medical tracking medical information as well, medical emergencies, included a bulletin board system. So that it could keep track of what people were doing on a team and make sure that they were collaborating effectively, boom! That was the start of something big, obviously. Another day I think is worth looking at 1983, Sorania Pullman, spanning tree protocol. So at DEC, they were very good at distributed systems. And the idea was that you can have a distributed system and so much of the internet working that we do today was based on radius work. And then it showed that basically, you could span out a huge network so that everyone could collaborate. That is incredibly exciting in terms of the trends, that I'm talking about. So then let's look at 1988, you've got IRC. IRC what developer has not used IRC, right. Well, I guess maybe some of the other ones might not have. But I don't know if we're post IRC yet, but (murmurs) at a finished university, really nailed it with IRC as a platform that people could communicate effectively with. And then we go into like 1991. So we've had IRC, we've had finished universities, doing a lot of really fantastic work about collaboration. And I don't think it was necessarily an accident that this is where the line is twofold, announced Linux. So Linux was a wonderfully packaged, idea in terms of we're going to take this Unix thing. And when I say package, what a package was the idea that we could collaborate on software. So, it may have just been the work of one person, but clearly what made it important, made it interesting, was finding a social networking pattern, for software development so that everybody could work on something at scale. That was really, I think, fundamental and foundational. Now I think it's important, We're going to talk about Linus, to talk about some things that are not good about software culture, not good about open source culture, not good about hacker culture. And that's where I'm going to talk about code of conduct. We have not been welcoming to new people. We got the acronyms, JFTI, We call people news, that's super unhelpful. We've got to find ways to be more welcoming and more self-sustaining in our communities, because otherwise communities will fail. And I'd like to thank everyone that has a code of conduct and has encouraged others to have codes of conduct. We need to have codes of conduct that are enforced to ensure that we have better diversity at our events. And that's what women, underrepresented minorities, all different kinds of people need to be well looked off to and be in safe and inclusive spaces. And that's the online events. But of course it's also for all of our activities offline. So Linus, as I say, I'm not the most charming of characters at all time, but he has done some amazing technology. So we got to like 2005 the creation of GIT. Not necessarily the distributed version control system that would win. But there was some interesting principles there, and they'd come out of the work that he had done in terms of trying to build and sustain the Linux code base. So it was very much based on experience. He had an itch that he needed to scratch and there was a community that was this building, this thing. So what was going to be the option, came up with Git foundational to another huge wave of social change, frankly get to logical awesome. April 20 April, 2008 GitHub, right? GiHub comes up, they've looked at Git, they've packaged it up, they found a way to make it consumable so the teams could use it and really begin to take advantage of the power of that distributed version control model. Now, ironically enough, of course they centralized the service in doing so. So we have a single point of failure on GitHub. But on the other hand, the notion of the poll request, the primitives that they established and made usable by people, that changed everything in terms of software development. I think another one that I'd really like to look at is Slack. So Slack is a huge success used by all different kinds of businesses. But it began specifically as a pivot from a company called Glitch. It was a game company and they still wanted, a tool internally that was better than IRC. So they built out something that later became Slack. So Slack 2014, is established as a company and basically it was this Slack fit software engineering. The focus on automation, the conversational aspects, the asynchronous aspects. It really pulled things together in a way that was interesting to software developers. And I think we've seen this pattern in the world, frankly, of the last few years. Software developers are influences. So Slack first used by the engineering teams, later used by everybody. And arguably you could say the same thing actually happened with Apple. Apple was mainstreamed by developers adopting that platform. Get to 2013, boom again, Solomon Hikes, Docker, right? So Docker was, I mean containers were not new, they were just super hard to use. People found it difficult technology, it was Easter Terek. It wasn't something that they could fully understand. Solomon did an incredible job of understanding how containers could fit into modern developer workflows. So if we think about immutable images, if we think about the ability to have everything required in the package where you are, it really tied into what people were trying to do with CICD, tied into microservices. And certainly the notion of sort of display usability Docker nailed that, and I guess from this conference, at least the rest is history. So I want to talk a little bit about, scratching the itch. And particularly what has become, I call it the developer authentic. So let's go into dark mode now. I've talked about developers laying out these foundations and frameworks that, the mainstream, frankly now my son, he's 14, he (murmurs) at me if I don't have dark mode on in an application. And it's this notion that developers, they have an aesthetic, it does get adopted I mean it's quite often jokey. One of the things we've seen in the really successful platforms like GitHub, Docker, NPM, let's look at GitHub. Let's look at over that Playfulness. I think was really interesting. And that changes the world of work, right? So we've got the world of work which can be buttoned up, which can be somewhat tight. I think both of those companies were really influential, in thinking that software development, which is a profession, it's also something that can and is fun. And I think about how can we make it more fun? How can we develop better applications together? Takes me to, if we think about Docker talking about build, share and run, for me the key word is share, because development has to be a team sport. It needs to be sharing. It needs to be kind and it needs to bring together people to do more effective work. Because that's what it's all about, doing effective work. If you think about zoom, it's a proxy for collaboration in terms of its value. So we've got all of these airlines and frankly, add up that their share that add up their total value. It's currently less than Zoom. So video conferencing has become so much of how we live now on a consumer basis. But certainly from a business to business perspective. I want to talk about how we live now. I want to think about like, what will come out all of this traumatic and it is incredibly traumatic time? I'd like to say I'm very privileged. I can work from home. So thank you to all the frontline workers that are out there that they're not in that position. But overall what I'm really thinking about, there's some things that will come out of this that will benefit us as a culture. Looking at cities like Paris, Milan, London, New York, putting a new cycling infrastructure, so that people can social distance and travel outside because they don't feel comfortable on public transport. I think sort of amazing widening pavements or we can't do that. All these cities have done it literally overnight. This sort of changes is exciting. And what does come off that like, oh there are some positive aspects of the current issues that we face. So I've got a conference or I've got a community that may and some of those, I've been working on. So Katie from HashiCorp and Carla from container solutions basically about, look, what will the world look like in developer relations? Can we have developer relations without the air miles? 'Cause developer advocates, they do too much travel ends up, you know, burning them out, develop relations. People don't like to say no. They may have bosses that say, you know, I was like, Oh that corporates went great. Now we're going to roll it out worldwide to 47 cities. That's stuff is terrible. It's terrible from a personal perspective, it's really terrible from an environmental perspective. We need to travel less. Virtual events are crushing it. Microsoft just at build, right? Normally that'd be just over 10,000 people, they had 245,000 plus registrations. 40,000 of them in the last day, right? Red Hat summit, 80,000 people, IBM think 90,000 people, GitHub Crushed it as well. Like this is a more inclusive way people can dip in. They can be from all around the world. I mentioned Nigeria and how fantastic it is. Very often Nigerian developers and advocates find it hard to get visas. Why should they be shut out of events? Events are going to start to become remote first because frankly, look at it, if you're turning in those kinds of numbers, and Microsoft was already doing great online events, but they absolutely nailed it. They're going to have to ask some serious questions about why everybody should get back on a plane again. So if you're going to do remote, you've got to be intentional about it. It's one thing I've learned some exciting about GitLab. GitLab's culture is amazing. Everything is documented, everything is public, everything is transparent. Think that really clear and if you look at their principles, everything, you can't have implicit collaboration models. Everything needs to be documented and explicit, so that anyone can work anywhere and they can still be part of the team. Remote first is where we're at now, Coinbase, Shopify, even Barkley says the not going to go back to having everybody in offices in the way they used to. This is a fundamental shift. And I think it's got significant implications for all industries, but definitely for software development. Here's the thing, the last 20 years were about distributed computing, microservices, the cloud, we've got pretty good at that. The next 20 years will be about distributed work. We can't have everybody living in San Francisco and London and Berlin. The talent is distributed, the talent is elsewhere. So how are we going to build tools? Who is going to scratch that itch to build tools to make them more effective? Who's building the next generation of apps, you are, thanks.

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Splunk.conf19, brought to you by Splunk. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here inside for Splunk.conf, their 10th-year conference. We've been here seven years. I'm John Furrier, the host. Our next guest is Sherrie Caltagirone, founder and executive director of the Global Emancipation Network, a cutting-edge company and organization connecting different groups together to fight that battle combating human trafficking with the power of data analytics. We're in a digital world. Sherrie, thanks for coming in. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> So love your mission. This is really close to my heart in terms of what you're doing because with digital technologies, there's a unification theme here at Splunk, unifying data sets, you hear on the keynotes. You guys got a shout-out on the keynote, congratulations. >> Sherrie: We did, thank you. >> So unifying data can help fight cybersecurity, fight the bad guys, but also there's other areas where unification comes in. This is what you're doing. Take a minute to explain the Global Emancipation Network. >> Yeah, thank you. So what we do is we are a data analytics and intelligence nonprofit, dedicated to countering all forms of human trafficking, whether it's labor trafficking, sex trafficking, or any of the sub types, men, women, and children all over the world. So when you think about that, what that really means is that we interact with thousands of stakeholders across law enforcement, governments, nonprofits, academia, and then private sector as well. And all of those essentially act as data silos for human trafficking data. And when you think about that as trafficking as a data problem or you tackle it as a data problem, what that really means is that you have to have a technology and data-led solution in order to solve the problem. So that's really our mission here is to bring together all of those stakeholders, give them easy access to tools that can help improve their counter posture. >> And where are you guys based and how big is the organization? What's the status? Give a quick plug for where you guys are at and what the current focus is. >> Yeah, perfect, so I am based in San Luis Obispo, California. We have just started a brand new trafficking investigations hub out at Cal Poly there. They're a fantastic organization whose motto is learn by doing, and so we are taking the trafficking problem and the tangential other issues, so like we mentioned, cyber crime, wildlife trafficking, drugs trafficking, all of this sort of has a criminal convergence around it and applying technology, and particularly Splunk, to that. >> Yeah, and I just want to make a note 'cause I think it's important to mention. Cal Poly's doing some cutting-edge work. Alison Robinson, Bill Britton, who runs the program over there, they got a great organization. They're doing a lot of data-oriented from media analysis, data, big focus there. Cal Poly quite a big organization. >> They are, and they're doing some wonderful things. AWS just started an innovation hub called the DX Hub there that we are a part of, really trying to tackle these really meaty problems here that are very data-centric and technology-centric. And Cal Poly's the best place to do that. >> Great, let's get into some of the details. One of the things around the news, obviously seeing Mark Zuckerberg doing the tour, Capitol Hill, DC, Georgetown, free speech, data. Facebook has been kind of blamed for breaking democracy. At the same time, it's a platform. They don't consider themselves as an editorial outlet. My personal opinion, they are, but they hide behind that platform. So bad things have happened, good things can happen. So you're seeing technology kind of being pigeonholed as bad. Tech for bad, there's also a tech for good. Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of VMware, publicly said technology's neutral. We humans can shape it. So you guys are looking at it from shaping it for good. How are you doing it? What are some of the things that are going on technically from a business standpoint that is shaping and unifying the data? >> Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely certain that technology has facilitated human trafficking and other ills throughout the world. It's a way that people bring their product, in this case, sadly, human beings, to the market to reach buyers, right? And technology absolutely facilitates that. But, as you mentioned, we can use that against them. So actually here at Conf we are bringing together for a first time the partnership that we did with Splunk for Good, Accenture, and Global Emancipation Network to help automatically classify and score risky businesses, content, ads, and individuals there to help not only with mitigating risk and liability for the private sector, whether it's social media giants or if it's transportation, hospitality, you name it, but also help ease the burden of content moderators. And that's the other side of it. So when you live in this space day in and day out, you really exact a mental toll here. It's really damaging to the individual who sits and reads this material and views photos over and over again. So using technology is a way to automate some of those investigations, and the identification of that content could be helpful in a variety of ways. >> In a way, it's a whole other adversary formula to try to identify. One of the things that Splunk, as we've been here at Splunk Conference, they've been about data from day one. A lot of data and then grew from there, and they have this platform. It's a data problem, and so one of the things that we're seeing here is diverse data, getting at more data makes AI smarter, makes things smarter. But that's hard. Diverse data might be in different data sets or silos, different groups. Sharing data's important, so getting that diverse data, how difficult is it for you guys? Because the bad guys can hide. They're hiding in from Craigslist to social platforms. You name it, they're everywhere. How do you get the data? What's the cutting-edge ingestion? Where are the shadows? Where are the blind spots? How do you guys look at that? Because it's only getting bigger. >> Absolutely, so we do it through a variety of different ways. We absolutely see gathering and aggregating and machining data the most central thing to what we do at Global Emancipation Network. So we have a coalition, really, of organizations that we host their scrapers and crawlers on and we run it through our ingestion pipeline. And we are partnered with Microsoft and AWS to store that data, but everything goes through Splunk as well. So what is that data, really? It's data on the open web, it's on the deep web. We have partners as well who look at the dark web, too, so Recorded Future, who's here at Conf, DeepL as well. So there's lots of different things on that. Now, honestly, the data that's available on the internet is easy for us to get to. It's easy enough to create a scraper and crawler, to even create an authenticated scraper behind a paywall, right? The harder thing is those privately held data sets that are in all of those silos that are in a million different data formats with all kinds of different fields and whatnot. So that is where it's a little bit more of a manual lift. We're always looking at new technologies to machine PDFs and that sort of thing as well. >> One of the things that I love about this business we're on, the wave we're on, we're in a digital media business, is that we're in pursuit of the truth. Trust, truth is a big part of what we do. We talk to people, get the data. You guys are doing something really compelling. You're classifying evil. Okay, this is a topic of your talk track here. Classifying evil, combating human trafficking with the power of data analytics. This is actually super important. Could you share why, for people that aren't following inside the ropes of this problem, why is it such a big problem to classify evil? Why isn't it so easy to do? What's the big story? What should people know about this challenge? >> Yeah, well, human trafficking is actually the second-most profitable crime in the world. It's the fastest-growing crime. So our best estimates are that there's somewhere between 20 million and 45 million people currently enslaved around the world. That's a population the size of Spain. That's nothing that an individual, or even a small army of investigators can handle. And when you think about the content that each of those produce or the traffickers are producing in order to advertise the services of those, it's way beyond the ability of any one organization or even, like I said, an army of them, to manage. And so what we need to do then is to be able to find the signal in the noise here. And there is a lot of noise. Even if you're looking at sex trafficking, particularly, there's consensual sex work or there's other things that are a little bit more in that arena, but we want to find that that is actually engaging in human trafficking. The talk that you mentioned that we're doing is actually a fantastic use case. This is what we did with Splunk for Good and Accenture. We were actually looking at doing a deep dive into the illicit massage industry in the US, and there are likely over 10,000 illicit massage businesses in the US. And those businesses, massages and spas, that are actually just a front for being a brothel, essentially. And it generates $2 billion a year. We're talking about a major industry here, and in that is a very large component of human trafficking. There's a very clear pipeline between Korea, China, down to New York and then being placed there. So what we ended up needing to do then, and again, we were going across data silos here, looking at state-owned data, whether it was license applications, arrest filings, legal cases, that sort of thing, down into the textual advertisements, so doing NLP work with weighted lexicons and really assigning a risk score to individual massage businesses to massage therapist business owners and then, again, to that content. So looking, again, how can we create a classifier to identify evil? >> It's interesting, I think about when you're talking about this is a business. This is a business model, this business continuity. There's a supply chain. This is a bona fide, underground, or overt business process. >> Yeah, absolutely, and you're right on that too that it is actually overt because at this point, traffickers actually operate with impunity for the most part. So actually framing it that way, as a market economy, whether it's shadowy and a little bit more in the black market or completely out in the open, it really helps us frame our identification, how we can manage disruptions, who need to be the stakeholders at the table for us in order to have a wider impact rather than just whack-a-mole. >> I was just talking with Sonia, one of our producers, around inclusiveness and this is so obviously a human passion issue. Why don't we just solve it? I mean, why doesn't someone like the elite class or world organization, just Davos, and people just say they're staring at this problem. Why don't they just say, "Hey, this is evil. "Let's just get rid of it." What's the-- >> Well, we're working on it, John, but the good thing is, and you're absolutely right, that there are a number of organizations who are actually working on it. So not just us, there's some other amazing nonprofits. But the tech sector's actually starting to come to the table as well, whether it's Splunk, it's Microsoft, it's AWS, it's Intel, IBM, Accenture. People are really waking up to how damaging this actually is, the impact that it has on GDP, the way that we're particularly needing to protect vulnerable populations, LGBTQ youth, children in foster care, indigenous populations, refugees, conflict zones. So you're absolutely right. I think, given the right tools and technology, and the awareness that needs to happen on the global stage, we will be able to significantly shrink this problem. >> It's classic arbitrage. If I'm a bad guy, you take advantage of the systematic problems of what's in place, so the current situation. Sounds like siloed groups somewhat funded, not mega-funded. This group over here, disconnect between communications. So you guys are, from what I could tell, pulling everyone together to kind of create a control plane of data to share information to kind of get a more holistic view of everything. >> Yeah, that's exactly it. Trying to do it at scale, at that. So I mentioned that at first we were looking at the illicit massage sector. We're moving over to the social media to look again at the recruitment side and content. And the financial sector is really the common thread that runs through all of it. So being able to identify, taking it back to a general use case here from cyber security, just indicators as well, indicators of compromise, but in our case, these are just words and lexicons, dollar values, things like that, down to behavioral analytics and patterns of behavior, whether people are moving, operating as call centers, network-like behavior, things that are really indicative of trafficking. And making sure that all of those silos understand that, are sharing the data they can, that's not overly sensitive, and making sure that we work together. >> Sherrie, you mentioned AWS. Teresa Carlson, I know she's super passionate about this. She's a leader. Cal Poly, we mentioned that. Splunk, you mentioned, how is Splunk involved? Are they the core technology behind this? Are they powering the-- >> They are, yeah, Splunk was actually with us from day one. We sat at a meeting, actually, at Microsoft and we were really just white boarding. What does this look like? How can we bring Splunk to bear on this problem? And so Splunk for Good, we're part of their pledge, the $10 million pledge over 10 years, and it's been amazing. So after we ingest all of our data, no matter what the data source is, whatever it looks like, and we deal with the ugliest and most unstructured data ever, and Splunk is really the only tool that we looked at that was able to deal with that. So everything goes through Splunk. From there, we're doing a series of external API calls that can really help us enrich that data, add correlations, whether it's spatial data, network analysis, cryptocurrency analysis, public records look-ups, a variety of things. But Splunk is at the heart. >> So I got to ask you, honestly, as this new architecture comes into play for attacking this big problem that you guys are doing, as someone who's not involved in that area, I get wow, spooked out by that. I'm like, "Wow, this is really bad." How can people help? What can people do either in their daily lives, whether it's how they handle their data, observations, donations, involvement? How do people get involved? What do you guys see as some areas that could be collaborating with? What do you guys need? How do people get involved? >> Yeah, one that's big for me is I would love to be able to sit in an interview like this, or go about my daily life, and know that what I am wearing or the things that I'm interacting with, my phone, my computer, weren't built from the hands of slave labor. And at this point, I really can't. So one thing that everybody can do is demand of the people that they are purchasing from that they're doing so in a socially viable and responsible way. So looking at supply chain management as well, and auditing specifically for human trafficking. We have sort of the certified, fair-trade certified organic seals. We need something like that for human trafficking. And that's something that we, the people, can demand. >> I think you're on the right track with that. I see a big business model wave where consumer purchasing power can be shifted to people who make the investments in those areas. So I think it's a big opportunity. It's kind of a new e-commerce, data-driven, social-impact-oriented economy. >> Yep, and you can see more and more, investment firms are becoming more interested in making socially responsible investments. And we just heard Splunk announce their $100 million social innovation fund as well. And I'm sure that human trafficking is going to be part of that awareness. >> Well, I'll tell you one of the things that's inspirational to me personally is that you're starting to see power and money come into helping these causes. My friend, Scott Tierney, just started a venture capital firm called Valo Ventures in Palo Alto. And they're for-profit, social impact investors. So they see a business model shift where people are getting behind these new things. I think your work is awesome, thank you. >> Yeah, thank you so much, I appreciate it. >> Thanks for coming on. Congratulations on the shout-out on the keynote. Appreciate it. The Global Emancipation Network, check them out. They're in San Luis Obispo, California. Get involved. This is theCUBE with bringing you the signal from the noise here at .conf. I'm John Furrier, back with more after this short break. (upbeat music)