>> Live from Seattle, Washington it's theCUBE covering KubeCon and CloudNativeCon, North America 2018. Brought to you by Red Hat, The CloudNative Computing Foundation, and Antico System Partners. (upbeat music) >> Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE. Day two live coverage here in Seattle of the CNCF KubeCon and CouldNative. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE with Stu Miniman here all week for three days as multiple years we've been covering KubeCon. We've been covering this community, all the way back to the OpenStack days to now CloudNative and Kubernetes, rise of Kubernetes, and KubeCon has been great. CloudNative Computing Foundation and the center of it has been an individual CUBE alumni that we've talked to many times, Lew Tucker, VP and CTO of Cloud Computing at Cisco Systems. Great to have Lew on, good to see you. >> Great to be back again. >> We got a great history of conversations and every year we kind of have a pinch me moment where it's like it's so awesome right now, the technology's coming together, now more than ever, the standardization, the maturization of Kubenetes and what's going on around it, is probably one of the most exciting trends. It's not just about Kubernetes, it's about what that's enabling, ecosystems, storage, networking and compute, now the, is working now magically creating a lot of value. So, we've talked about it, what's the update from your perspective, how do you see it evolving now? >> I see it very much the same way, I had a short little keynote today, yesterday, and was talking about I think we've entered this kind of golden age of software where because of the number of projects that are now going into the CNCF for example, and elsewhere, and get up repositories, we just have a major driving force which is the accumulation of the software that's used now to power the cloud, power data centers, totally transforming infrastructure. We're no longer cabling as I sort of say has no become code. >> Yeah. >> And that's all about the software, it's about through the open source communities. >> We've been talking about before we came on camera about the, and we've had other conversations about the historical waves of innovation. AI's been around for a while, you know all these things have kind of been around but now with cloud computing and the resources available in terms of compute power, storage, and networking now programmable, it's creating a lot of innovation right. And this has been a tailwind for some and a headwind for others, companies that have transformed and understood that have been leveraging it. We've seen conversations from Net App, Cisco, you guys are transform, you turned it into a tailwind, for Cisco, because now all that magic can come in for the programmability on the networking side. >> Exactly right, yeah. We see AI as having a big impact across the board on all of these, we're big contributors also into Cube Clove, for example, because on top of Kubernetes, the biggest issue we're going to have in AI going forward is we don't have enough AI engineers. We don't have enough people who are trained in that. So we need to create these tools and the services that we see coming out in the cloud now for AI are designed to make it easy to consume AI. You don't have to be an AI expert in order to use it and that sort of thing is really exciting. >> How is the CloudNative environment changing IT investments 'cause again, the old days I'd have to throw a machine at something, I got to buy this and siloed, you got now horizontal capabilities, you got the vertical specialization with machine learning and AI as you just referenced. How is it changing investments, people now are looking at re-imagining their infrastructure, they're re-imagining how apps are built. How is Kubernetes, CloudNative impacting IT investments? >> So we've found for example when we talk to our customers and everything else, they're all using multiple clouds. So I think internally we're getting to see a rise here now is this multi-cloud environment that we have. And so Cisco with what we've been doing with our hybrid solutions for AWS and hybrid solutions that we're having with Google is making it so that you can have the same environment within your data center as you have in the cloud, and then we connect the two so that now the IT infrastructure really is looking like a cloud and there's many clouds, multiple clouds in your own data center, in multiple service providers. That makes it easier for IT to really consume CloudNative technology. >> I wonder if you can chill us down a level from what we're talking- you talk about cube flow and machine learning remember back to big data, was like okay, well what do we have to do with the network? Well, I need some more buffering but you know, how are we what is just the base infrastructure layer and where Kubernetes and this ecosystem just becomes the platform for all of the modern applications, and what has to be done differently, I wonder if you could help- >> Yeah so one of the big challenges I think is this how do we connect the different clouds together with your own data center. And that's why we, the hybrid solutions, where Cisco's driving now are designed specifically to make that easy because it's scary for IT organizations to say they're going to open up some part of their firewall to have connections coming in, and so we provide a solution that makes it easy for people. And that means that things such as cube flow, and things like that, they can be running, perhaps they might do some of their research in a hybrid- in a public cloud provider, such as AWS or Google. And then they want to run it now in production within their own data center, and they don't want to change a thing. And at the same time, we're seeing other capabilities. You want to access some service in the cloud as a part of your enterprise app. >> Yeah one of the things people have a hard time understanding is what is just kind of standardized, okay I've got compliant Kubernetes it can run all these places and then there's areas where Cisco has done deep integration work with both Google Cloud and with AWS, maybe help understand what are the standard pieces and what's the extra engineering work needed to be done to support some of these? >> Well I think what has helped us all is the fact that Kubernetes has really taken off. So we really are seeing if you have a Kubernetes platform and you adhere to the public APIs of Kubernetes and everything else like that, you then can have the portability of applications back in the java days we were going after that, and now we're seeing it with Kubernetes. And so by what we've developed has been with the Cisco container platform is an on premise manage Kubernetes environment that looks identical to what you find in the Kubernetes environment at AWS or at Google. So the same interfaces are there, the IT doesn't have to relearn things, they can actually get the advantage of that standardization. >> And that's key for operations and IT because that is the promise of cloud operations. Similar on both platforms on premises and in the cloud. And the next question is okay from a networking perspective, we've had many conversations with Suzie Wee at Cisco around network programmability or net dev options as you guys call it, which is kind of a play on dev ops. This is the future because with multi-cloud the apps don't need to know about where to provision workloads, which cloud when, is it better region over here, latency, network factors come in, you still got to move things around, put A to B, edge of the network for IOT. Talk about the importance of network programmability now more than ever with CloudNative why it's so important. >> Well the first and foremost, it has to be driven by APIs. The old days of actually going out and having people configure network switches to make connectivity or open up provisions and firewalls and things like that, that's behind us. Now we have that all being because of programmability of the network through what we've been doing with ACI and other technologies, we can make it so we can connect these clouds and make it, maintain the security. We're also seeing other things such as isteo and edgebased computing and things like that come into play, where again, the ordinary developer doesn't have to learn all of the details of networking and security, but the operations people need it to be secure, need it to be able to be moved around, need to be able to have telemetry so they can tell what's going on. >> One of the things we've been talking about on theCUBE, Stu and I were yesterday riffing on this but for a while, but it's also now trickled into the Silicon Valley conversations around some of the tech elite people around architecture. Cloud architects are in high demand and there's two schools of thought. There's a persona around a systems architect, more of a systems view, operating systems kind of view, that's cloud that's operating, environment, serverless, advanced, these are kind of concepts that is a systems-oriented thinker. And then you have the application developer that looks like an app server kind of world. Those are all paradigms that we've lived through. >> Right. >> Now coming together now in one, horizontally scaled both cloud that's a system, vertical specialization around the apps, and with dev ops layer, having these guys work together. Talk about this dynamic, your thoughts on it, how it shapes employee selection, people who lead projects. 'Cause the CTO and architect role's now more important, but the software side's just as important. >> Yeah so I think one thing that's become very clear is that we need to make it easier for the domain experts in an application area to just take care of their part. And so that's why like one of the previous episodes we talked about here was about istea, where we've actually separated out essentially the data play, the transport of data around with security, encryption, identity, and everything else from the actual application code of the micro service. That makes it much easier because now the engineering teams are too large, you can't have everybody know everything anymore, like you say, we've got specialists in different areas. We need to be able to provide then, underlying systems that connect these things and that underlying system then has to be managed by your operations people. So we've got dev ops where the application people are writing code actually that the operations people use, so that we can actually have this kind of uniform infrastructure that is maintainable. >> And security is super important and all that good stuff. >> Yeah so Lew it's interesting, we've been watching so many of the pieces we've worked on OpenStack, it was really from the bottoms up building the infrastructure, we've seen the dynamic the last two years, Kubernetes some, and server-less even more, coming from the top down. We want to get your thoughts on that, we've been digging in and trying to tease out some of the Knative pieces that are being discussed here, versus some of the functions things that are happening, especially in Amazon and Microsoft, I'd love to get your take. >> I think we're always seeing this progression in platforms for computing, and programming languages, and paths we've talked about years ago. All of these things are designed always to make it easier. So you're right we've got for example Knative now really coming on as saying can we standardize a way specifically helping Kubernetes people move into this area. Like I've mentioned before the Kubeflow again, how can we start to standardize these pieces? The beauty of this is, the standardized pieces are coming out in open source. So everybody gets it, and that means it's deployable in your public clouds, it's deployable in your data center, and then through a lot of the hybrid technology that Cisco's working, you can connect those together. But you're right we're going to continue to see innovation, that's great, because we need that, we need that constantly. What we need to be able to do is make it easier to consume and then integrate into these systems. And that's where I think Kubernetes has a lot do with how we make it easier. >> Final question on Cisco then I want to go on a more personal note with you on your situation which is news breaking here on theCUBE. Cisco has successfully transformed it's direction, it's been always a great leader in networking, always a great business, billions and billions of dollars in revenue. Now with CloudNative and Kubernetes, the relationship I saw with Amazon, you got Google, you guys have taken that systems view in making things programmable. Explain the Cisco strategy from your perspective as a CTO and as a legend in the industry, for the people that know Cisco, know the old Cisco, what is the new Cisco? And how does Kubernetes and how does all this CloudNative fit into the new Cisco? >> I think the new Cisco really is focused now on where customers are taking their computing resources and it is in this multi-cloud world where we're seeing it's not a fight anymore. You can't say I have a reason to keep things here in my data center, I'm never going to go to cloud, and other customers are saying I'm never going to have a data center, now everybody's saying we're probably going to have both. And Cisco as a networking company, this plays right into our strength because what you have to be able to do is now connect those environments in a secure way, in a manageable way. And so this plays right into where Cisco's growth I think is going to be, it'll be in much more of these kinds of services that allow that to happen, and in the relationships and partnerships that we have with the major cloud providers. >> This basically, the decomposition of monolithic applications into sets of microservices is connected by the network. >> Exactly right. >> This is the fundamental beauty of where you guys see that tailwind. >> Exactly. >> Awesome. Well Lew you've been a legend in the industry, I've been following your career from the beginning. You've been- you have product that's in the Computers Museum you've done amazing work at Sun Microsystems, I mean just a great story career, the work you've done at Cisco, you've been on theCUBE so many times, I don't know that number. You've really contributed to the industry and this news now about your situation, share the news about what's happening with you. >> Well I made announcements at our CNCF board and our OpenStack board meetings that I'm leaving Cisco and so I'm having to withdraw from the board positions as well as Cloud Foundry and that's sad in a way because I have relationships with those people, but it many ways after I want to spend some time to really see where the future is again, because as you know in my career I've changed several times. And I'm so looking forward to actually, now going into sort of a new direction which may be much more moving up the stack. I think there's very exciting things going on in AI, there's exciting things going on in genomics. There's a lot of activity going on so we've been building this technology for a purpose to allow us to have those kinds of things. Now I want to start focusing much more directly. >> And you're leaving Cisco on what date? >> Leaving Cisco beginning of January. >> Well congratulations, great work and I think one of the trends I think this speaks to is I see a lot of computer scientists, a lot of people who have some DNA from the old ways like you do, and been there, and contributed at a seminal level, just some great contributions. Seeing computer science as an opportunity to solve problems. This is kind of a renaissance from seasoned pioneers and young people coming together. This is a great opportunity, is that kind of what you're thinking, you're just going to attack the problem? >> There's 8000 people here, this show's sold out and this is all developers so people who have background in computer science or are getting online and learning it themselves, this is an opportunity and the time to get in. >> You've been a great mentor to many, you've been a great contributor in the open source community, again, your contributions at the systems level and you understand certainly what's going on with CloudNative, looking forward to following up and congratulations. >> Yep, well I hope to be back again. >> Of course, you're VIP CUBE alumni. Lew Tucker, exciting news, Cisco's transformed. He's moving on to- taking on some big new challenges, thanks for coming on theCUBE really appreciate it. Lew Tucker, Vice President CTO systems, Cisco systems, moving on to some new endeavors. Here in theCUBE we're covering the live coverage here at KubeCon CloudNative I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman, back with more day two interviews after this short break. (upbeat music)