(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Live from Boston, MA it's theCUBE covering Red Hat Summit 2019. Brought to you by Red Hat. (upbeat music continues) >> It is so good to have you back with us here on theCUBE as we continue our live coverage here at the BCEC at Red Hat Summit 2019. Glad to have you watching wherever you might be, Eastern Time Zone or maybe out West. Stu Miniman, John Walls here. Our coverage continuing; sixth year we've been at this summit. Eric Kern now joins us here. Both from Lenovo, Eric and Steve Brown. Eric is the Executive Distinguished Engineer. And Steve is the Managing Partner in the Software Business Unit and the DevOps practice leader. So gentlemen good to have you with us on theCUBE. Good to see you today! >> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you. >> No surprise, right, that you're here; long term partnership, very successful get together. First off, I want your ideas or your impressions of what you've hear or what you've seen so far here in the day and a half that we've been underway. And whether it's keynote or maybe one of the side sessions, just what's your first impression of what's goin' on here? >> Yeah, I mean it's great. There's a lot of people here, a lot of activity. I mean we can see the Expo behind us. You know the food is great, lunch is great so- (laughter) >> Rub it in. (laughter continues) Rub it in just a little bit. Okay, so a little bit of news this week with regard to what you're up to. And if you would, I'm not gonna ask you to go terribly deep, but just give us an idea of what some of the headlines are you guys were sending out this week. Steve, why don't you take that? >> Yeah, so this week we announced six new reference designs and solutions, engineered solutions. But pretty excited about OpenShift 4 and certainly Rel8 after a five year I guess pause, if you will, on major releases. So that's exciting. >> So, Eric, why don't we start with building on those partnerships, talk about some of the solutions your talking to customers and some of the latest and greatest? There's a lot of interesting things we're doing; one of the things we've been doing recently is around TruScale. So TruScale is our infrastructure as a service on premise. So one of the things we do with it is we build overall solutions. So there's a number of reference architectures that we talked about with Red Hat. These solutions, think about them as having an overall CapEx price and then we convert that into a OpEx price. Probably one of the neat novel things, and this is kind of the area that I really got into, right, is around how do we build a metering system that doesn't require us to install a bunch of software and can be compatible with everything? So with TruScale what we've done is we've leveraged our what's called our xclarity controller, it's the chip basically on the motherboard, and that xclarity controller has the ability to measure power. And measure power both at the overall input consumption, as well measuring power in the CPU, the memory and the eye out. And we built an infrastructure around that. We can actually tell you exactly what percentage the system is being used and consumed based on that. And we can charge for the overall system on a monthly basis. So we have a portal that's set up for that, whether it be our hardware on its own or our hardware with the Red Hat software installed on top of it. >> So how's that effect the customer relationship then? All the sudden your- whether there was a- not I'd say a dispute, but might of been questions about how much usage am I getting? How am I using this? Why am I being billed as I'm being billed? So on and so forth. Now all the sudden you can just deliver the proof's in the pudding, right? You can say this is exactly what you're doing with this, this is exactly how much you're consuming. And I would assume from a pricing standpoint for that modeling standpoint, you give everybody a lot of comfort, I would think; right? >> You do, right. Not only do they see exactly what they're being charged for, they see exactly some of the usage on their own systems. A lot of times they don't know how well-balanced or unbalanced their systems are. And so we're actually providing real usage data. It's different than what you get in public cloud. It's different in what you get in other solutions where it's virtual allocation. So there's a difference in knowing the physical utilization versus the allocated utilization. What a lot of people do, a lot of companies do when they're renting public cloud infrastructure is they spend a lot of time in automation to actually deallocate. Right, so they're doing all this work just to try to save money. Whereas in the TruScale model, you just run it like you normally run it and you save money because you know, if you're not using it, you're not paying for it. >> John: You don't pay for it. >> Exactly, exactly. >> All right, well Steve, a lot of discussion at the show this week about OpenShift, not least this morning, OpenShift 4 was released. We've had a chance to talk to a number of customers, bring us inside, you know, Lenovo's worked with OpenShift for awhile. Oftentimes we think about the application layers like oh, it's totally divorced, I don't need to think of it. Well, we understand there's integration work that happens there and would love your insight into what is happening at he integration, where it's progressed, and any customer stories that you've got along those lines. >> Well, yeah, we've been doing a lot of work with OpenShift. I would say for an upwards of more than two years. We started with Intel and Red Hat and built a number of Intel Select solutions, reference designs, both bare metal and hyper converged. We are on our fifth edition now of the OpenShift design on Cascade Lake. We're the, I wanna say the pioneers in the industry. We have a center of competency in DevOps with software to really promote software development solutions. And we're excited with OpenShift 4 because of the CoreOS integration as well as the auto-provisioning. Key things, it makes it so much easier to adopt and integrate. >> Any customer deployments? When they come to you, what's the kind of a-ha moment that they have? Is it just the agility that it brings them? Is there anything you can share as to the customers that are actually doing this in the field? >> Well, I like to think the customers get the a-ha when they realize that there is an engineered platform that's been purpose built and they're not coddling software and tools together. It helps with the CI/CD pipeline process templating much more effectively. Overall it's, I think, a lot more streamlined than it was in the earlier editions of OpenShift, especially Open Source. So we're pretty excited with comprehensive business support. I think that businesses feel comfortable. >> Kind of a simple question, but what do you, in terms of what TruScale operates now, what is the- what are you allowing people to do now that they didn't do before? In the latest version here, what exactly is- where's, you think, this improvement? Or where's the new efficiency? What are they getting out of it that would make me, as a customer, have that- if I haven't converted yet, or if I'm perhaps ripe for the taking, what would make me jump? >> Part of it is customers don't want to be managing their infrastructure. And so this there's a big push to public cloud. They just wanna be managing their applications. They just wanna focus on what's paying the bills, right? And paying the bills are providing the IT service is all in the application layer for the most part. What TruScale allows them to do is to have that public cloud kind of management platform. So it's Lenovo premium support behind the scenes; so Lenovo is managing the hardware itself, Lenovo maintains the ownership of the hardware, so they're not even owning the hardware, very similar to public cloud. And they can go and use it on FREM. So they don't have to worry about any security issues with the public cloud. They don't have to worry about any kind of network issues, right, it's all in their data center. It's running just exactly the way they'd run CapEx, but they're running in the way that they have really liked with the public cloud infrastructure. >> So confidence, comfort, security and all that stuff right? >> Eric: There ya go. Yeah. >> Yeah, that's just- I'll pay for that! >> Sure! (laughter) So, we've seen software move heavily towards this model whether it be SaaS or various moving CapEx to OpEx. When I look at infrastructure it's been a little bit of a slower move, especially, I've got some background on the storage side, if you look at storage, it's like oh okay. I'm conditioned as a customer to think about my capacity, my performance, and how I'm tuning everything, and I need to make adjustments, and making changes usually takes a little bit longer. Red Hat's got a lot of software products in the storage space. Help us understand how this fits in and are customers gettin' more comfortable moving from the CapEx to the OpEx for their uses? >> Yeah, good segue. So Ceph and Gluster are some really interesting storage products from Red Hat. And they fit right on our servers, and so we install them; we build big solutions around both of them. I'm actually working on big architecture for another company, for another customer out in Germany. So it's huge stuff cluster. The neat thing about it is our TruScale model allows us to actually sell them on OpEx in a storage product. And what we're measuring is the storage, what I call storage in motion versus the storage at rest. So we see all the different usages of the different servers. The servers are acting as controllers, a multi-tenant controller. And there's a lot of information that's being stored and transmitted through the systems. TruScale's just accumulating all the usage of that. And Steve, maybe you want to talk about some of the software side of it from the storage perspective, but it's really, TruScale fits right in real nicely with the storage side of it. >> I'd actually like to talk about it more comprehensively from the Red Hat software side of it. Anywho, let's talk about how they're already no certification needed. We're looking at all Red Hat applications on TruScale; whether it's OpenShift, or Rel8, Gluster, Ceph, Ansible. So we're really excited because we're not limited in the portfolio. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah. >> So, Steve, it's interesting, you used to think about, okay, what boxes am I buying, what license I'm doing. If you talk about a real true software world it should be a platform that unifies these things together. So it sounds like you're saying we're getting there. I shouldn't have to think about- give us a little bit, kind of the old way and where customers are seeing it today. >> Yeah, well we're not getting there. We're there. What that allows us to do is to take the reference designs that we have and the testing that we've previously validated with Intel and Red Hat and be able to snap pieces together. So it's just a matter of what's different and unique for the client and the client's situation and their growth pattern. What's great about TruScale is that in this model we can predicatively analyze their consumption forward based on the business growth. So for example, if you're using OpenShift and you start with a small cluster for one or two lines of business, as they adopt DevOps methodologies going from either Waterfall or Agile, we can predicatively analyze the consumption forward that they're gonna need. So they can plan years in advance as they progress. And as such, the other snap-ins, say storage, that they're gonna need for data in motion or data at rest. So it's actually smarter. And what that ends up doing is obviously saving them money, but it saves them time. The typical model is going back to IT and saying we need these severs, we need the storage and the software, and bolt it altogether. And the IT guys are hair on fire running around already. So they can, as long as IT approves it, they can sort of bypass that big, heavy lift. >> So from what you've heard of this week, with Rel8, the big launch last night, a lot of fun, right? >> Steve: Yeah. >> And then OpenShift 4 earlier today talked about- >> Yeah. >> What if there are elements to those two, either one of them, that you find most attractive? Or that really kinda jump off the page to you? Is there anything out there that you're seein' or through the demos that we saw today, or last night even that you think wow, that's cool, that's good, that this is gonna be useful for us? >> OpenShift is one of the things that we're seeing in the industry that's just really enabling the whole DevOps practice. So OpenShift is interesting from the perspective of flexibility, automation, the tooling. Rel8, of course, we've all been waiting for it, I guess for a while now probably. >> Host: Right. >> It's just the next level, the next generation. The Red Hat software, see I'm a big fan of Ceph. I mean I just like Ceph, it's just a neat storage product. It's been around for awhile, but it keeps getting better. It's kinda like the old storage product that first came out with some soft-refined storage. But the whole ecosystem around Red Hat is just very appealing. I actually, Cloudforms is one I think is a little under-utilized today. Cloudforms is a real nice cloud management platform as well. So there's a lot of interesting Red Hat software. Steve, we've done all these reference architectures, are there any ones that stick out to you? I've just been kind of rattling off some of the ones that I like. >> Yeah, I really like the CoreOS integration, 'cause we now see that acquisition really taking shape in a true productization sense, in a practical use sense. I think with Red Hat owning that asset and controlling the development, they can build out features as needed. They're not having to wait on the ecosystem or to spin different cycles for growth. So I think that's my highlight. I've been looking for that. And auto-provisioning as well. I think that's a really key benefit to it, just to make things more smooth and simple. >> Well gentlemen, thanks for the time. >> Guest: Sure. >> Nice to meet you. Look forward to seeing you down the road. We were talkin' about Lenovo, Stu and I were there a couple of years ago, Ashton Kutcher out in San Francisco, so now we get the two of you guys. You're right there with Ashton, right? (laughter) >> That's right. >> Same celebrity! Thanks for sharing the time. Good to see you guys. >> Eric: Thank you. >> Steve: You too. >> Back with more live here at Red Hat Summit 2019, we're in Boston, and you're watching theCube. (electronic music)

live from New York City it's the cube covering Lenovo transform 2.0 brought to you by Lenovo cubes live coverage of vote transform here in New York City I'm your host Rebecca night along with my co-host stu minimun so Stu this is the second ever Lenovo transform event and yet it's the third time the cube has been at a Lenovo explain to me what's going on here first first of all I mean Rebecca set the stage here we're at basketball city in New York City right on the water it feels like you know we just hit intermission time everybody got let out after after the keynotes of a good energy yes absolutely yes two years ago we were actually at a Lenovo show and the Enterprise Group is a small piece of it so ashton kutcher was there showing off the cool new note moto foam that has like the snap-on things that now they have like a 5g upgradable version of that so there is still the consumer group I saw some really cool gaming headsets that I might know myself but our focus today really talked about the enterprise the data center group is the ones that bring us in and we're gonna have a bunch of their guests on but you know Lenovo obviously company been around for a long time even though I know some people like wait who's Lenovo and they like wait look at the laptop their company gave them oh that's all I know is it every day right absolutely and they drive a lot of the things behind the scenes just cuz that's the IT business you know I still most people I talk to they're like what do you do I'm like it's computer stuff you know you don't understand so the big news of the day obviously is the net up Lenovo partnership to global powerhouse is coming together I want to unpack that with you but but first of all let's just talk about where Lenovo is at this moment in time this is a company that is really turning the corner and and we're starting to see a lot of positive growth explain tell our viewers where we are get our computers up to speed so so absolutely really good point we're gonna get to that that NetApp which is the big news of the day but to set the stage if you think over a decade ago when Lenovo acquired the PC division out of IBM ThinkPad brand people knew everything like that couple of years they went down and then they grew it become the number one PC manufacturer worldwide well they picked up the server division last year we were talking about 25 years of these x86 servers in the history and everything like that well history seems to be repeating yourself lenovo hopes it all repeats itself because they had about two years of well revenue to crime a little bit where do they focus and now they're starting to see growth you know some good growth and you know I think if it's you know year-over-year that the fastest growing you know vendor in the space you know large global presence so a lot of excitement there on all of the pieces from Lenovo hyper scale I'd love to talk about we're gonna have some segments here you know the storage piece as those solutions go together things like hyper-converged were there their large growth with new panics so a lot of things happening Lenovo and starting to see the fruits of the big Motorola Mobility and x86 server acquisitions really starting to hit on all cylinders ok so now so we and we are going to talk about all of those things later on the show I've got a lot of great guests coming but but but Lenovo NetApp so we're having Kurtz Kagan and Brett Anderson of net upcoming on the show right up after this what do you make of the deal and is it is it going to be the game changer that these two executives are predicting so when you look at Lenovo and say ok you know they didn't form you know a server group when they they bought the server division it's a datacenter group and if you have the data center let's not forget they actually have some nice networking pieces which what's the old the BNT pieces but when they talked about really their global scale you know the whole data center piece and mobility go together you've got to have storage and lenovo has a bunch of storage pieces they have a lot of partnerships we mentioned lenovo companies like pivot three scale computing are helping them but you know you bring that up and up is the largest independent storage company today now last numbers i saw friends at IDC we're putting out the numbers that you know net up is number two overall Dell and its various pieces of course Dell EMC from the EMC acquisition is number one but you know net up is there a broad portfolio getting in there with the all flash or a markets and this will be joint development ten products and two families but net offers very strong position in the all flashier a market and if you look at what storage is today there's really servers inside and this is servers there so this is not just wrapping these together you know and go to market but you know they are going to do joint development they're gonna work on innovation together they've got a joint venture in China because while Lenovo is global it is their positioning in China that will help them I remember if I saw right just you know they announced it today they start shipping tomorrow like overnight they will be the number three player in China and they have you know goal to drive them to be a force number one there and that's the story you hit with Lenovo they've got growth they've got a good usually at least top three position in many pieces of the market and through partnerships to requisitions that you know they are they are helping to themselves to broaden their portfolio move up the stack on some of these and deliver these solutions to help as they Kirk said it you know they're helping solve some of humanity's biggest challenges we're gonna talk about like supercomputers and the like that do some of those really cool things well I want to get back to what you chose to the strategy of the company in terms of the relationships because that really has been lenovo's their operating model is is are these collaborations these partnerships and they have them with with the big companies that everyone sort of the Amazon the Google the Microsoft and then they also have them with a lot of small smaller players is that in this fast-moving fast changing IT environment is that smart yeah absolutely they have to no single vendor can do it all usually we had a you know a decade or so where it was like well let's vertically integrate and put it all together then people thought well maybe it's just gonna be commoditized I mean come on Intel's the big sponsor here you know arm and arm of course that's probably you know the number one partner that lenovo has everybody's partnering with Intel everybody's parking with Nvidia VMware and Microsoft are the same you and I are going to be at Microsoft ignite in two weeks we're gonna be talking to a Lenovo executive they're one of the four biggest sponsors at that show working on as your staff working on the solutions I was at VMworld a couple of weeks ago Lenovo at a big booth they're talking about first that they have with VMware visa and moving in that market so of course Dell has a very strong relationship to VMware but Lenovo partners across a lot of these environments and to speak to how do you differentiate the story I really like is there's you know this is a multi-faceted market so yes there's the enterprise there's traditional markets that Lenovo from server early well there's new changing markets like Pike hyper-converged but as I mentioned like the hyper scale their strategy there is what they call odium Plus which means they do some customization but it massive scale these are tens or hundreds thousand plus servers that they will build for a vendor in a specific environment and it's not just off-the-shelf Intel that they do for that and there are some players in the server market that have just left not specifically HPE pretty sure that they're not touching that market it is relatively low margin it is very hard to get there you need that global scale so lenovo differentiating how they compete against the you know Dell Dell AMC and HP ease of the world as well as the ODMs out there kind of a generic brands so that they're making good progress and the partnerships absolutely are going to help them get there I'm glad we not only have a couple of partners we have you know one of the supercomputer customers on to really talk about some of those cool use cases you mentioned this idea of how Lenovo competes and the the theme that we keep hearing from all of the Lenovo executives is this relentless focus on the customer and really trying to comport itself as this brand that can be trusted that is ethical that is responsible is is that enough is that enough to just to just be to win your heart customers hearts and minds or do you need to be a little more so so so look it if there's one thing that you want to stick and start on focusing on the customer is a great place you're not gonna lose customers because they love you and you support them that's great when you talk about trust the storage world that's what we buy buy on trust and risk is what the storage and networking people buy so that's a great thing but it's not enough and I'm excited Rebekah we've got a whole bunch of interviews be able to dig in got the net up one kicking off and then some of the other pieces to really help us answer that question as to right start with the customer and everything leads from there so they're gonna be a great show thank you so much always a pleasure co-hosting with you alright excited for 6:00 with us at the cube we will have more from Lenovo transform here in New York City in just a few minutes

welcome to Las Vegas everybody watching the cube the leader in live tech coverage my name is Dave Boehne on time student Leena man he with my co-host Keith Townsend I'm Lisa Meredith John Sawyer coverage of Dell technologies world 2018 thanks so much for having us here and thanks for joining us on the Q how great to be here thank you guys for all the great coverage you always do a wonderful job [Music] loads of people here 14,000 in attendance 6500 partners analysts press you name it it's here talking about all things transformation we have this incredible platform that's been built over the last thirty years but now there are all these new enabling technologies that are going to take it much further as super powers are coming together the compute is now big enough the data is now volume is enough that we can do things never possible before obviously a very good couple of years since the Dell EMC merger it's really helped us there companies have come together right and and the and the offerings have come together together in a much more integrated fashion one of the most funny shows I mean obviously it's important for us to set our vision but you see things like the bean bags and sitting out there as a therapy job they're working so to be able to take a break and just spend some time breathing with some animals really really good and it didn't really experience the fun in the solutions Expo I'm a car guy so you know and talking about the way that we're taking plastic trash out of ocean and making art with it topped off as a great DX rail customer we have gold control try to beat the AI and TVs for a goal and it's a very cool demos vector right behind me we have our partner lounge we're hosting over 800 one-on-one meetings bdellium see executives or the partner executives so it's a combination of technical training networking executive meetings obviously product launches and announcements that we're bringing to market the opportunity to really cultivate it work globally in our global partner summit so it's a pretty active week the power of all of our capabilities we're powering up the modern data center the magnitude shift and what this portfolio can now do for our customers it's mind-boggling we've been talking for years about data as the rocket fuel of the economy and a business transformation and now we're really talking about data combined with those emerging technologies so things like AI IOT blockchain which are really taking that data and unlocking the business value data is the precious metal ISTE it's the crucial asset the whole world is gonna be wired everything is gonna have sensors outside of data center environments that's where all the data is gonna be produced and that's where decisions are going to be made and be all kinds of data if you've got structured data unstructured data and now it's important that we actually get all the disparate data into a format that can now be executed upon the business strategy really is the IT strategy and for that to happen we really have to bring our IT talent up the stack into where it's really enabling the business and that's usually at that application layer makes it more agile removes cost reduces complexity makes the planet more green we think we've got a long way to go in just building a private cloud making the data center if you like a cloud that's part number one freightin number two extending to the hybrid cloud the benefit of the fact that it is hosted in the cloud means that customers don't have anything to deploy and just like your smartphone you get all of the latest upgrades with no effort at all seamless process to scale quickly when you have new hotels coming online for example from a storage administrator perspective you can focus on much more strategic initiatives you don't have to do the day-to-day management you have to worry about what data sending where you don't to worry about how much of the different media types you've put into that array you just deploy it and it manages itself you can focus on more tasks this is the realest first step of actually trying to be truly autonomous storage it took so much time to do it before that I'd have to run my guys ragged for you know two or three weeks I'm like all right stay up overnight make sure at all companies that means value to customers that's money that they're saving directly there's a portfolio effect where customers look across everything that we're doing you say you know I don't really want to deal with 25 little companies but I wouldn't have a bigger relationship with Dell technologies and of course the dirty secret is is that almost all of the cool new apps are some ugly combination of new and old you don't want to have to have some other interface to go to it just has to be a natural extension of what your day-to-day job is you'll get this dashboard kind of help score across the entire environment then you'll see the red yellow green type markings on what to next the isolation piece of the solution is really where the value comes in you can use that for analysis of that data in that cleanroom to be able to detect early on problems that may be happening in your production environment the alternative one one product for everything we've always chosen not to go that path give them the flexibility to change whether it is nvme drives or any kind of SSD drives GPUs FPGAs the relevance of what we are doing has never been greater if they can sustain a degree of focus that allows them to pay down their debt do the financial engineering and Tom Suites our study I want you to take economics out of your decision about whether you want to go to the cloud or not because we can offer that capacity and capability depends a lot around the customer environment what kind of skill sets do they have are they willing to you know help you know go through some of that do-it-yourself type of process obviously Dell UMC services is there to help them you can't have mission-critical all this consolidations without data protection if they're smart enough to figure out where your backups are you're left with no protection so we really needed to isolate and put off network all that critical data we have built into power max the capabilities to do a direct backup from power max to a data domain and that gets you that second protection copy also on a protection storage it's no longer just about protecting the data but also about compliance and visibility it's about governance of the data it's really about management making it available so those are trends in which I think this this industry is not basically evolved over time in comes the Dell technologies world and you see this amazing dizzying array of new things and you're like wow that sounds great how do I do it right train them enable them package it for them I know the guys offer you where you can go in and so classroom kind of sympathy for today and see it in action before you actually purchase and use it we want them to engage in the hundreds of technical sessions that we have but still come away with I wish I could have gone to some more right and and so we we have all those online and and you know for us this is also big ears we're listening and we're learning we're hearing from our customers no I'm a little maybe a little smaller than some of your others but you still treat me like I'm the head you still listen to me I bring you ideas you say this fits so it's very very exciting to have a partner that does that with you do all of your reference Falls see it for yourself I mean I think quite a number of reference calls if people are in the same boat I was you know I'll scream share with them if they want to see our numbers I'll show them this is the opportunity for all of us embrace whether it's in the cube or through the sessions learn adjust because everybody's modernizing everybody needs to transform this is a great opportunity for them to do that with their skill set in their knowledge in the industry if everything you did work perfectly you're not trying enough stuff you need a change agent need a champion most likely at the senior level that's gonna really ride through this journey first three months didn't make a whole lot of progress I was just yelling like a madman to say Weiss it's not getting done and then you have to go back into I have to hire the right people so let's talk a few thing I made changes to the leadership team need more role models you need to get rid of and totally eliminate the harassment and the bullying and the you know old boys kind of club you got to create places where women in and minorities feel like they can be themselves culture plays a huge huge huge role there's just a wealth of enormously talented people now in our company ultimately creating a shared vision and an inspiring vision for what we want to do in the future you either embrace it okay you either stand on the sidelines or you leave the most creative of people from Leonardo da Vinci to Einstein Ben Franklin but Steve Jobs all love of the humanities and the science they stand at that intersection of sort of liberal arts technology you've got to interview Ashton Kutcher yeah which was quite amazing he's an unbelievable people don't maybe don't know no he's an investor he's kind of a geek Yeah right even though he's engineer my training please know that when you bring together a diverse group of individuals Jules always get to better answer for your customer you do place your bets on dell technology that's the right partner for you it's gonna it's gonna move you and your company Michael's got the right vision of where this is going he's got the right technology to do it and we've got great team members to help you get there simple predictable profitable right right keep it it's really that simple we need a few more thousand salespeople so if you're if you're really talented you know how to sell stuff you know it come come come join us at Dell technologies work where I earn more salespeople the future as Bob Dickinson said today we can cool all right everybody that's it from Dell technologies world I love you guys it's always great to be on the cube you guys do a fabulous job they go for a live tech coverage and it really has been a lot of fun we appreciate you and your team being here the next year we're gonna go party for your 10 year anniversary the cube love it we want to thank you for watching the cube again Lisa Martin with John Turner I'm Stu Mittleman this is Keith Townsend thanks for watching everybody we'll see you next time [Music] [Music]

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and it's ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to Las Vegas everybody. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage and this is day three of our coverage of the inaugural Dell Technologies World. We're in the home stretch. Stu Miniman and Dave Vellante joining you, with Alison Dew, the newly minted CMO of Dell. Great to see you, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having me, good to be here. >> So, you've been with Dell for a long time. >> 10 years >> You know the drill, you know the culture. But, 23 days as CMO? >> Yes >> Well congratulations. You were on stage today, awesome show. >> Thank you, I couldn't be more delighted. Great experience for me personally. Great show for our customers. >> Yeah, I'll bet. I mean, and you brought in some outside speakers this year, which has not been typical of this show, at least the legacy EMC world, and certainly Dell World did that. >> Stu: Dell World did, definitely. >> Alison: Dell World did do it more, you know. >> Yep, Bill Clinton, we saw some other amazing speakers. >> Elon Musk >> Elon Musk, I remember the year Elon came. >> So that's good, and you got to interview Ashton Kutcher >> Yeah >> Which was quite amazing. He's an unbelievable-- people don't know, he's an investor, he's kind of a geek. >> Alison: Yep >> Even though he's, you know >> An engineer by training? >> Right, so what'd you think of his discussion? >> I mean, I thought it was fantastic and, as you said, I think people don't quite realize how involved in technology he actually is. And also, how well and successful his businesses have been. And then, equally important, the work that he's doing with his foundation and the way he's using technology for really important human causes. I don't think he gets enough credit for that, so it was great to sit on stage and have that conversation. It was super fun. >> Yeah, cause we know him from That 70's Show. >> I know, I like That 70's Show. >> And he's a goofball, and he comes across He's a great actor, lot of fun. >> Yeah, there was one of the lines I actually really loved from the presentation. It's that he looks for companies that have counter-intuitive thesis because if you're doing something that everybody else is, then chances are somebody is going to catch you and everything else like that. You also had to talk about geeks. You know, John Rose and Ray O'Farrell, up there. Share a little bit about some commonalities you saw between these speakers, and some of the unconventional things they're doing. >> So, I completely agree. I love the point of talking, there's so much hype in the space. And that's why I think that line is so important. And so, the big commonality that we're really seeing and talking about this year in particular is we've been talking for years about data as the rocket fuel of the economy and of business transformation, and now we're really talking about data combined with those emerging technologies. So, things like AI, IOT, Blockchain, which are really taking that data and unlocking the business value because for years, there's been this hype about big data, but I don't think the reality has quite been there. And now as those technologies catch up, we're really starting to see some practical applications and use cases and that's why I thought, in particular, John Rose's section on AI and how we're seeing some of those really emerging practical applications was so interesting and fun and tied really well to Ashton's talk track. >> You know, that's a good point. I mean, I feel like we started covering the big data trend really early on. And I feel like big data was like the warm up. It's cheaper now to collect all this data. Now that we have all this data, we're going to apply machine intelligence to that data. We're going to scale it, with cloud economics and that's really what's going to drive value and innovation. What are your thoughts on that? >> Absolutely. We talked this morning on the stage even about some of the companies, large and small, who are really doing that. I think one of the examples that's really interesting Wal-Mart using Blockchain technology to decrease the amount of time from seven days to mere seconds that it takes them to identify the source of food contamination. Really interesting things where, a couple of years ago even, frankly even 18, 20 months ago, that would have been a promise, but maybe not a reality. And so that's what I think is really exciting. Finally. >> It's something that's actually resonated with me this week. We've talked for my entire career, there's the journeys. And it was like, a lot of times it's the journey of the technology. A couple of years ago, digital transformation was "Okay, is it real? Isn't it?" Every customer I talk to, they understand making it real as you said in the keynote, where they're going. What kind of feedback are you getting from people at the show? >> So one of the things I talked about briefly on Monday, but I think is really important, is this promise and the hope and the optimism of digital transformation. And yet also, the fear behind it as well. Through some of the work that we've done in our own research for Realizing 2030, we're really seeing that about 50% of our respondents say they believe in the power of the human machine partnership, which means that 50% don't. And all of the data questions are really divided and polarizing like that. And as a lifelong researcher, that's really interesting to me because it says that there's something going on there. And yet, at the same time, we're seeing over 85% of the respondents that we talk to who say they're committed to becoming a software defined company in five years. So this idea of "I know what I want to do "I know what it means to transform an industry, "And yet, I'm still not really sure that's going to "do me or my business good. "I'm not really sure what that means for "myself or my employees, getting really practical. "Obviously about the technologies, "that's what we do, "but the examples of how people can do "that better from a business perspective." That's a lot of the customer conversation that I've had over this week. >> But you're an optimist. You believe the world would be a better place as a result of machines. >> Yes, I do and we do. Are you an optimist? >> I am, I think there's some obviously some challenges but there's no question. Stu and I talk about this all the time, on theCUBE, that machines have always replaced humans throughout history. For the first time now, it's on cognitive functions, but the gap is creativity and eduction. So I am an optimist if we invest in the right places and I think there's an opportunity for public policy to really get involved. Leadership from companies like yours and others, politicians, of course. >> Dave and I did an event a couple of years ago with Andy McAfee and Erik Brynjolfssono, you had Andy here. Cause it's really it's not just the technology, it's technology and people, and those have to go together. And Dave said, there's policy and there's so many different layers of this that have to go into it. >> And I think we're just starting to really enter into that. On that optimist versus the robots are coming to get us spectrum, obviously there are things that we have to look out for as leaders, as society, as businesses. And yet, even if you look at the example from this morning, where Ashton is talking about minimizing child sexual trafficking and using AI and machine learning to one, arrest many of the perpetrators of these crimes, as well as free thousands of children from sexual slavery. I mean, you hear those examples, and it's hard not to be an optimist. >> I want to ask you about your digital transformation and how that's being led inside of Dell, what it means to you. >> So, obviously, we are two huge companies that came together. So when we talk about digital transformation, and what that really means, have a very different way of operating and working with IT and being in a different business model, we know that really well. One of the things that's really interesting for me personally, as the CMO for 23 days, is one of the biggest line items in my budget is actually for our own marketing digital transformation. Obviously, Dell in particular, had many, many years starting in the consumer and small business, and then growing up to larger businesses, of direct marketing. And we have a great relationship with our customers, but we also have all of these legacy systems and processes and way that work is done and now as we come together with EMC and we start to build Dell Technologies, the idea of what a data driven marketing engine can be, that possibility is something that we're also working to build ourselves. And so, everything from "how do we build our "own data lake to actually bring all "of these sources of data together? "How do we clean up that data?" is something that I'm pretty deeply into myself. There's a lot of that work going on across the company, and then for me personally, as CMO. Big initiative. >> So it's customer experience as part of it, but it's also a new way to work. >> Exactly. And it sounds so trite in a way to say the technology is the easy part, but the really hard part begins when the technology is finished. And I really believe that because if I look at my own team and my own teams experience, there's so many places where they've been doing marketing one way for a very long time. And if you come in and you ask them to do something differently, that's actually a pretty hard thing to do. And the only way to unlock the power of the data and the power of the new technologies, is to actually change how work is done. And I know it's an analogy that's overused, but if you'd ask the taxi dispatch "Are you important to the taxi business?" they would have said "Yes, of course "I'm the most important person in this chain." That's how taxis get to customers. And then along comes Uber, and suddenly you don't need that. You have to really think differently about that and as a leader, that's exciting and also really hard. >> I don't know if you've ever heard Sanjay Poonen talk about change, he says there's three reactions to change. Either run from it, fight it, or you embrace it. That's it. And the third is the only way to go. >> It's the only way. >> How about messaging? I'm sensing different messaging. Much more around the business, maybe a little bit less on the products. Plenty of product stuff here, but the high level stuff. What's your philosophy on messaging? >> I used to say "I'm a person that "believes in shades of gray" and about seven years ago I had to stop saying that. (laughs) >> But the truth is, I am a person who believes in shades of gray and I almost always believe that the answer is somewhere in the middle. So you get in marketing into these debates about is it these thought leadership and high level conversations or is it about product messaging and selling what's on the truck? And the honest truth is, you have to do both. You have to set a vision, you have to build the brand, you have to talk about the business and where we're going from a business perspective. As we talk about things like 2030, that's a really lean into the future conversation. At the same time, we also want to sell you some PCs and some servers and some storage and some data protection, so we need to do that well, too. And frankly, we need to get better as a marketing machine, as a company, and as salespeople, in terms of talking to customers. The right conversation at the right time. Again, sounds like marketing 101, but it's actually quite hard to do. When do you want to have a connected cities conversation? When do you want to just talk about how to modernize your data center? >> It's true, we always talk about above the line and below the line. When you're talking above the line, you might be speaking one language and below the line, another language. You try to mix the two, it doesn't work. >> Right, exactly. >> You have to target the appropriate audience. >> The conversation one of the women on my team started talking about this and I thought it really made sense was macro-conversations, micro-conversations. So to get out of this advertising vernacular, and I grew up in the ad industry, sort of above the line, below the line, and those were always two departments who didn't even talk to each other and usually hated each other. Instead of above the line, below the line, what's the macro-conversation? How are we talking about Realizing 2030? How are we talking about digital transformation? And then what are some of those micro-conversations where I'm going to talk to you about what are the personas that you have in your work force? And lets talk about some in user compute technology together with something really simple, like a monitor, that's going to help them be more productive. Those things don't have to fight with each other, you just have to be honest about when you're doing each one. >> Target them in the right place. >> Alison, we're getting to the end of the show here. >> Yeah, I can talk a lot. >> First of all, New Media Row here gave us the biggest set. We've done this show for nine years, we're super excited. The therapy dogs next door-- >> I love the therapy dogs. >> Are really fun to see, but every once in a while, give a little bit of color in the background here. For people that didn't get to come and experience in person, I know the sessions are online, but give us some of the flavors and some of the fun things you've seen and what would we expect from you in the future? >> I think this is just one of the most fun shows. I mean, obviously it's important for us to set our vision, it's important for people to come into the hands on labs, and the training, and the breakouts, and to learn and to engage. But, you see things like the beanbags and sitting out there, the therapy dogs, and my team does want me to say that every year we get new beanbag covers so we don't recycle those. And then really experience the fun in the Solutions Expo and talking about the way that we're taking trash, plastic trash, out of oceans and making art with it, so we can talk about our sustainable supply chain in an interesting way. I think, I'm biased, but I think this is the best show in terms of actual education and vision, but also some fun. Hopefully you guys think so too. >> Well, Sting. >> And Walk the Moon. Do you guys know who Walk the Moon is? >> Yes. >> I don't. >> Me neither. (laughs) >> Come on and dance with me. >> Oh, okay. Alright, great. >> I'm a child of the 80's, what can I say? >> Alright, so 23 days on the job, what should we be watching from you, your team, and Dell? >> So, as we talked about in the very beginning, this is our first Dell Technologies World, so obviously, we have just gone through some of the biggest integration of large tech companies in the history. And we're really proud of how successful that integration has been, and yet we also still have so much work to do around telling that integrated story. Yes, Dell and Dell EMC, but also together with VM, we're a pivotal RSA Secureworks, and the extend is strategically aligned businesses. And so that's what you'll see us really lean into is "How do we tell "that story more effectively?" We're continuing to invest in the brand, so a lot of the work that you've seen with Jeffrey Wright and those TV spots we launched again in March, and just making sure that people understand what the Dell Technologies family actually is. >> So really a more integrated story. But something that Dell always tried to tell, but you didn't have the portfolio to tell it. Now you do, so that's got to be exciting for you. >> It is exciting, yeah. >> Great. Alison, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. It was great to have you. >> My pleasure. Cheers, thanks. >> Alright, keep it right there, buddy. We'll be back with our next guest. You're watching theCUBE live from Dell Technologies World in Vegas. We'll be right back.

>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the Grace Hopper conference here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my cohost, Jeff Frick. We are joined by Yasmine Mustafa. She is the founder of ROAR. Thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> So ROAR is a self-defense wearable technology for women. Tell our viewers a little bit more about the technology and also really where you got the idea. >> Sure, I got the idea about four years ago. I decided to do something a little bit crazy. I got rid of all my possessions. I got rid of my apartment. I put a backpack on, and I booked a solo trip to South America for six months, and I did it for two reasons. The first reason is refugee, and when I came here, even though I was brought here when I was 15 applying for colleges, I actually found out I was undocumented, so I spent about 10 years working under the table trying to become legalized, and it was a very long, hard battle. It was very difficult to go to school and get a real job, and once I became a US citizen which happened five years ago, I was also able to sell my first company. I had a software company before ROAR. And after those two events, I said, "You know what, I'm 30 years old. "I deserve a break. "I've had a long journey. "I'm going to go celebrate." >> Jeff: Start another long journey. (laughs) >> Yeah, exactly. (laughing) I wanted to travel for so long and I couldn't 'cause when you're undocumented, it's really-- >> Hard to get back into the country. >> And you don't have the right credentials and even after I got my Green Card, I could. You can travel after getting your Green Card but I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to come back 'cause I've heard stories that I intentionally didn't, and so I booked this six-month trip as a way to reward myself and as a way to kind of make up for everything that had happened beforehand, and it was amazing trip. It was really life-changing. When I talk about it, I talk about my life in relation to before the trip and after the trip because it was so transformational, and I went to Spanish school for three weeks, did full Spanish immersions, stayed with a Spanish family in Ecuador, and then I went to Colombia and Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru. I spent a month in each country but as incredible as it was, it was also incredibly eye-opening because everywhere that I went and visited, I just kept hearing story after story of a time a woman had been attacked or abused or harassed, and it really opened my eyes to the violence women face every day, and a week after I came back to Philadelphia, it was in a downtown, when my neighbor went out to her car. It's a horrible story. She was grabbed from behind. she was dragged into an alley. She was severely assaulted, brutally assaulted. When I saw the news story the next day, that was when the light bulb moment hit, and I called up my cofounder, my formal adviser of my last company and told him about it, Anthony Gold, and we ended together to start ROAR for Good, and the concept initially was completely different. We thought the problem was that existing self-defense tools, pepper sprays, tasers was that you have to pull them out of your pocket or your purse for them to be useful, and it's not like you could just be like, "Excuse me. "One second," (laughing) and dig it out, so we thought let's make it wearable so that it's readily accessible. This is when Fitbit was huge, and the initial idea was actually called the macelet, mace in a bracelet, and (laughs) exactly, and as clever as that name was, we found out through market research that it was actually a terrible idea, that the number one fear that women had of self-defense tools is, "I'm afraid I'm going to be overpowered, and my own self-defense device used as a weapon against me," and another one, "What if I use it against myself accidentally?" And when we did more research, we found that existing self-defense tools are actually made by men for other men, and when the market opportunity for women came about, they shrunk it, they shrinked it and pinked it, and they didn't really account for women's needs, so we went back to the drawing board, and we said, "All right, we need to make something "that's stylish but discreet, "something that can call for help, "something that can ward off an attack, "and something that cannot be used "against the person wearing it", and that's how we came up with Athena. >> So do you have one that you can show are yours, what it looks like? >> I do, I do, yes. >> This is what it looks like. >> How it works, okay. >> So it has a magnetic band. Initially it was actually a bracelet, and when we were doing self-defense classes with prototypes, we actually found out the worst place to wear a safety device is on your wrist, and can you guess why? >> Somebody grabs your wrist, grabs your arm, right? >> Exactly, or now you only have the opposite hand to activate it, so we said, "No, we need to make something "that's more readily accessible "where both hands can be free," so we designed it with this magnetic strip so that you can clip it on any which way you want. The most popular options we've seen are purse, pocket bra strap, or lapel, and the way it works is if you feel nervous, if you want someone to watch over you, you triple press the button, and it sends your coordinates to your family and friends showing exactly where you are, and if there is danger, if you really need help right away, you press and hold it for three seconds, and it will also sound an alarm, and in about seven rings, you'll also be able to call emergency number, the local PSAP, 911 center in your neighborhood. >> Wow. >> It's such a great concept. As are so many great inventions are, it's really assembling a bunch of components that already exist, your cellphone, an app on your phone, your network of your contacts, the GPS in your phone, and assembling it in a slightly different way for a very specific application. >> Everything that's commonplace, it's in the device. There's nothing proprietary about it. It's just the way that we put it together. Again, we took existing technology and put it together in a way and tested it to make sure that it's something that can work, and we worked with police officers and self-defense instructors to put it together, which is really eye-opening as well. >> And the other part, if you can explore, it's a different way to interact with 911 so if it is an emergency, you're not picking up the phone, you're not talking but according to your website, it's faster, in a lot of ways, it's more efficient. There's a lot of benefits to a not phone call connection with what traditionally has been the way you ask for help, and how did getting that through, is that a regulatory thing? How did that whole process work? >> That's a great question. It's something that we probably spent about a year working on, and we actually have a partner that does it for us, so this partner, what's really cool about them is that they have a relationship with all 500 PSAPs, so a PSAP is just your local 911 center in your area, and our service is going to be able to to leverage their partnership to be able to connect with all of them. The way their system works is they can actually better track you through their service than your normal cellphone can, which is also really cool, and if you're my emergency contacts and I press this button 'cause I can't call 911 and you're in Orlando, I'm in Philadelphia, it will actually route you to the PSAP in my neighborhood versus your local PSAP so then it saves the time in terms of calling the Orlando PSAP and then having them call the Philadelphia PSAP and then finding me, so we're really, really excited about this opportunity. >> So apart from the technology, I want to talk to you a little bit about funding. Funding is one of the greatest barriers that really, all technologists but in particular, women founders face. Can you describe a little bit about how you went about finding sources of money? You already sold a company by then so you'd already been successful. >> Yes. >> But what about people without the track record? What would you say? >> Sure. I'd love to touch on the social mission aspect at some point too if you don't mind. For funding, I'm very lucky in the sense that my cofounder, he's also founded several companies in the past and fundraising is his thing, so he's been the one to lead it but what we did initially, so we spent about 18 months in product development, and we did a lot of testing, I mean really awkward, we put ourselves in really awkward situations where we went to parks and coffee shops, and showed people this and said, "Why would you not use this? "Tell me why you don't like this," and then we went back to the drawing board and did it again and again, and then we got to the point where people said, "Yeah, I want this. "I want this for my mom. "I want this for my child. "I want this for my college student." But there is a world of difference between, say, yeah, I want it versus buying it, so what we did initially is we actually launched a crowdfunding campaign. We launched an Indiegogo campaign, and for us, it was really a way to test if we really had, we were onto something. We initially had the goal of $40,000. The results really blew us away. We hit that $40,000 goal within the second day, got to 100 by the 10th day, 100,000, and then we ended the campaign with a little bit over 300,000 funding, and that really allowed us to do our seat stage round, and we were lucky from the sense we have a really interesting story. There is a billionaire couple in the UK that found out about us through the campaign after it took off. We had sales in every state in the country, 50 countries worldwide. Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it. It was amazing. It went viral for a little bit, which was incredible, but they learned about it, and then reached out to Indiegogo and said, "We want to meet this team, the company behind this team," and we connected with them, and they immediately put $2 million into the company. We went and met with them in Chicago after they came over, and within three days, we had the money in our bank account, so we got a little bit lucky but having that crowdfunding campaign, the success as validation really helped us to be able to raise that additional funding, and then we went to Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and they put in $250,000, our local economic resource center that does matching, and that's how we raised our initial seed to growth. >> And you mentioned the social mission piece so I want you to tell our viewers a little bit more. >> Yeah, so I, for a long tIme, lived in fear, so being undocumented, not really knowing what could happen, and I'm actually giving a talk tomorrow about my whole journey, and learning about women living in fear in another different way while traveling throughout South America. I didn't want to build a company that just built products and sold them to women that just put the onus on women 'cause it's too common for us to say were you drinking when something happens or don't do, don't wear this, don't go here, and we wanted to change that narrative, hence, the ROAR for Good aspect, and what we found after talking with psychologists and researchers is that violence against women stems from gender discrimination and inequality, and that there is one trait, if taught to young kids when they're most impressionable, can actually reduce violence against women, and that's empathy, and that empathy has actually decreased 40% over the last 20 years, and there is a controversy on whether or not it's something that's learned or innate but wherever you fall in that category, there is no denying that it is falling regardless, so we invest, we have what we call a ROAR Back program, which is we invest a portion of proceeds of every sale to nonprofits that specifically focus on teaching respect and healthy relationships to young kids when it matters most. >> Yasmine, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> It's a really exciting technology. Thank you. >> Hopefully we'll see you at Philly. We got to have a Philly show. >> Come to Philly, please. >> So you got Josh as a buddy so-- >> Yes. >> Come on, Josh. We got to have us some Philly. (laughing) >> I'm Rebecca Knight with Jeff Frick. We will have more from Grace Hopper just after this. (light music)

>> Announcer: Live from Washington, D.C., it's theCUBE, covering .conf2017. Brought to you by Splunk. >> Welcome back. Here on theCUBE, we continue our coverage of .conf2017, Splunk's get together here with some 7,000 plus attendees, 65 countries, we're right on the showfloor. A lot of buzz happening down here and it's all good. Along with Dave Vellante, I'm John Walls. We are live, as I said, in our nation's capital, and we're joined by a guest who represents her organization that is a member of the Splunk4Good program. We're going to explain that in just a little bit, but Sherrie Caltagirone is the founder and executive director of the Global Emancipation Network, and Sherry, thanks for being with us. We appreciate your time. >> Thanks so much for having me on, John. >> So your organization has to do with countering and combating global trafficking, human trafficking. >> That's right. >> We think about sex trafficking, labor trafficking, but you're a participant in the Splunk4Good program, which is their ten year pledge to support organizations such as yours to the tune of up to $100 million over that ten years to all kinds of organizations. So first off, let's just talk about that process, how you got involved, and then we want to get into how you're actually using this data that you're mining right now for your work. So first off, how'd you get involved with Splunk? >> Absolutely. It was really organic in that it's a really small community. There are a lot of people in the tech space who I found really want to use their skills for good, and they're very happy to make connections between people. We had a mutual friend actually introduce me to Monzy Merza, who's the head of security here at Splunk, and he said, "I'm really passionate about trafficking, I want to help "fight trafficking, let me connect you with Corey Marshall "at Splunk4Good." The rest is really history, and I have to tell you, yes, they have pledged up to $100 million to help, and in products and services, but what's more is they really individually care about our projects and that they are helping me build things, I call them up all the time and say, "Hey let's brainstorm an idea, "let's solve a problem, "let's figure out how we can do this together, and they really are, they're part of my family. They're part of GEN and Global Emancipation Network. >> That's outstanding. The size of the problem struck me today at the keynote when we talked about, first off, the various forms of trafficking that are going on; you said up to two dozen different subsets of trafficking, and then the size and the scale of 25 to 40-some million people around the globe are suffering. >> Yeah. >> Because of trafficking conditions. That puts it all in a really different perspective. >> You're right. Those weren't even numbers that we can really fathom what that means, can we? We don't know what 20 million looks like, and you're right, there's such a wide discrepancy between the numbers. 20 million, 46 million, maybe somewhere in between, and that is exactly part of the problem that we have is that there is no reliable data. Everyone silos their individual parts of the data that they have for trafficking, all the the different stakeholders. That's government, NGOs, law enforcement, academia, it's all kinds. It runs the gamut, really, and so it's really difficult to figure out exactly what the truth is. There's no reliable, repeatable way to count trafficking, so right now it's mostly anecdotal. It's NGOs reporting up to governments that say, "We've impacted this many victims," or, "We've encountered so-and-so who said that the "trafficking ring that they escaped from had 20 other people "in it," things like that, so it's really just an estimate, and it's the best that we have right now, but with a datalet approach, hopefully we'll get closer to a real accurate number. >> So talk more about the problem and the root of the problem, how it's manifesting itself, and we'll get into sort of what we can do about it. >> Yeah. It's really interesting in that a lot of the things that cause poverty are the same things that cause trafficking. It really is, you know, people become very vulnerable if they don't have a solid source of income or employment, things like that, so they are more willing to do whatever's necessary in order to do that, so it's easy to be lured into a situation where you can be exploited, for example, the refugee crisis right now that's happening across Europe and the Middle East is a major player for trafficking. It's a situation completely ripe for this, so people who are refugees who perhaps are willing to be smuggled out of the country, illegally, of course, but then at that point they are in the mercy and the hands of the people who smuggled them and it's very easy for them to become trafficked. Things like poverty, other ways that you're marginalized, the LGBTQ community is particularly vulnerable, homeless population, a lot of the same issues that you see in other problems come up, creates a situation of vulnerability to be exploited, and that's all trafficking really is: the exploitation of one individual through force, coercion, fraud, position of authority, to benefit another person. >> These individuals are essentially what, enslaved? >> Yeah. It's modern day slavery. There's lots of different forms, as you mentioned. There's labor trafficking, and that's several different forms; it can be that you're in a brick factory, or maybe you're forced into a fishing boat for years and years. Usually they take away your passport if you are from another country. There's usually some threats. They know where your family lives. If you go tell anyone or you run away, they're going to kill your family, those sorts of things. It is, it's modern day slavery, but on a much, much bigger scale, so it's no longer legal, but it still happens. >> How does data help solve the problem? You, as an executive director, what kind of data, when you set the North Star for the organization from a data perspective, what did that look like, and how is it coming into play? >> Well, one of the benefits that we have as an organization that's countering trafficking is that we are able to turn the tables on traffickers. They are using the internet in much the way that other private enterprises are. They know that that's how they move their product, which in this case is sadly human beings. They advertise for victims online. They recruit people online. They're using social media apps and things like Facebook and Kick and Whatsapp and whatnot. Then they are advertising openly for the people that they have recruited into trafficking, and then they are trying to sell their services, so for example, everyone knows about Backpage. There's hundreds of websites like that. It runs the gamut. They're recruiting people through false job advertisements, so we find where those sites are through lots of human intelligence and we're talking to lots of people all the time, and we gather those, and we try to look for patterns to identify who are the victims, who are the traffickers, what can we do about it? The data, to get back to your original question, is really what is going to inform policy to have a real change. >> So you can, in terms of I guess the forensics that you're doing, or whatever you're doing with that data, you're looking at not only the websites, but also the communications that are being spawned by those sites and looking to where those networks are branching off to? >> Yeah. That's one of the things that we really like to try to do. Instead of getting a low-level person, we like to try to build up an entire network so we can take down an entire ring instead of just the low fish. We do, we extract all the data from the website that we can to pull out names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, things like that, and then begin to make correlations; where else have we seen those phone numbers and those addresses on these other websites that we're collecting from, or did this person make a mistake, which we love to exploit mistakes with traffickers, and are they using the same user handle on their personal Flickr page, so then we can begin to get an attribution. >> John: That happens? >> Absolutely. >> It does, yeah. >> Sherrie: Without giving away all my secrets, exactly. >> Yeah, I don't to, don't give away the store, here. How much, then, are you looking internationally as opposed to domestically, then? >> We collect right now from 22 different countries, I think 77 individual cities, so a lot of these websites are usually very jurisdictionally specific, so, you know, like Craigslist; you go into Washington state and click on Seattle, something like that. We harvest from the main trafficking points that we can. We're collecting in six different languages right now. A lot of the data that we have right now is from the U.S. because that's the easier way to start is the low-hanging fish. >> What does your partner ecosystem look like? It comprises law enforcement, local agencies, federal agencies, presumably, NGOs. Will you describe that? >> Yeah. We do, we partner with attorneys general, we partner with law enforcement, those are the sort of operational partners we look for when we have built out intelligence. Who do we give it to now, because data is useless unless we do something with it, right? So we we build out these target packages and intelligence and give it to people who can do something with it, so those are really easy people to do something with. >> How hard is that, because you've got different jurisdictions and different policies, and it's got to be like herding cats to get guys working with you. >> It is, and it's actually something that they're begging for, and so, it's a good tool that they can use to deconflict with each other, 'cause they are running different trafficking-related operations all the time, and jurisdictions, they overlap in many cases, especially when you're talking about moving people, and they're going from one state to another state, so you have several jurisdictions and you need to deconflict your programs. >> Okay, so they're very receptive to you guys coming to them with they data. >> They are; they really want help, and they're strapped for resources. These are for the most part, not technically savvy people, and this is one of the good things about our nonprofit is that it is a staff of people who are very tech-savvy and who are very patient in explaining it and making it easy and usable and consumable by our customers. >> So if I'm an NGO out there, I'm a non-profit out there, and I'm very interested in having this kind of service, what would you say to them about what they can pursue, what kind of relationship you have with Splunk and the value they're providing, and what your experience has been so far. >> It's been wonderful. I've been over at the Splunk4Good booth all day helping out and it's been wonderful to see not only just the non-profits who have come up and said, "Hey, I run a church, "I'm trying to start a homeless shelter for drug-addicted "individuals, how can you help me," and it's wonderful when you start to see the light bulbs go off between the non-profit sector and the tech sector, between the philanthropic organizations like Splunk4Good, the non-profits, and then, we can't forget the third major important part here, which is, those are the tech volunteers, these are the people who are here at the conference and who are Splunk employees and whatnot and teaching them that they can use their skills for good in the non-profit sector. >> Has cryptocurrency, where people can conduct anonymous transactions, made your job a lot more difficult? >> No, it hasn't, and there's been a lot of research that has gone into block chain analysis, so for example, Backpage, all the adds are purchased with Bitcoin, and so there's been a wonderful amount of research then, trying to time the post to when the Bitcoin was purchased, and when the transactions happen, so they've done that, and it's really successful. There are a couple of other companies who do just that, like Chainalysis, that we partner with. >> You can use data to deanonymize? >> That's correct. It's not as anonymous as people think it is. >> Love it. >> Yeah, exactly. We love to exploit those little things like that. A lot of the websites, they put their wallets out there, and then we use that. >> Dave: You're like reverse hackers. >> That's right. It's interesting that you say that, because a lot of our volunteers actually are, they're hacker hunters. They're threat and intel analysts and whatnot, and so, they've learned that they can apply the exact same methods and techniques into our field, so it's brilliant to see the ways in which they do that. >> Dave: That's a judo move on the bad guys. >> Exactly. How long does this go on for you? Is this a year-to-year that you renew, or is it a multi-year commitment, how does that work? >> It's a year-to-year that we renew our pledge, but they're in it for the long haul with us, so they know that they're not getting rid of me and nor do they want me to, which is wonderful. It's so good, because they help, they sit at the table with me, always brainstorming, so it's year-to-year technically, but I know that we're in it together for the long haul. >> How about fundraising? A big part of your job is, you know. >> Of course it is. >> Fundraising. You spend a lot of time there. Maybe talk about that a little bit. >> Yeah, absolutely. Some of our goals right now, for example, is we're really looking to hire a full-time developer, we want a full-time intelligence analyst, so we're always looking to raise donations, so you could donate on our website. >> John: Which is? >> Which is globalemancipation.ngo. Globalemancipation.ngo. We're also always looking for people who are willing to help donate their time and their skills and whatnot. We have a couple of fundraising goals right now. We're always looking for that. We receive a lot of product donations from companies all over the world, mostly from the tech sector. We're really blessed in that we aren't spending a lot of money on that, but we do need to hire a couple of people so that's our next big goal. >> I should have asked you this off the top. Among your titles, executive director and founder, what was the founder part? What motivated you to get involved in this, because it's, I mean, there are a lot of opportunities to do non-profit work, but this one found you, or you found it. >> That's right. It's a happy circumstance. I've always done anti-human trafficking, since my college days, actually. I started volunteering, or I started to intern at the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University, which was a legislative-based program, so it was really fantastic, traveling the world, helping countries draft legislation on trafficking, but I really wanted to get closer and begin to measure my impact, so that's when I started thinking about data anyways, to be able to put our thumb, is what we're doing. Working. How are we going to be able to measure success and what does that look like? Then I started volunteering for a rescue operations organization; the sort of knock down the doors, go rescue people group, and so, I really liked having the closer impact and being able to feel like hey, I can do something about this problem that I know is terrible and that's why it spread. A lot of the people I worked with, including my husband, come from the cyberthreat intelligence world, so I feel like those ideas and values have been steeped in me, slowly and surely, over the last decade, so that just ages myself a little bit maybe, but yes, so those ideas have been percolating over time, so it just kind of happened that way. >> Well, you want to feel young, hang around with us. (laughing) I should speak for myself, John, I'm sorry. >> No, no, you're right on, believe me. I was nodding my head right there with you. >> Can you comment on the media coverage? Is it adequate in your view? Does there need to be more? >> On trafficking itself? You know, it's really good that it's starting to come into the forefront a lot more. I'm hearing about it. Five years ago, most of the time, if I told people that there are still people in slavery, it didn't end with the Civil War, they would stand at me slackjawed. There have been a few big media pushes. There's been some films, like Taken, Liam Neeson's film, so that's always the image I use, and that's just one type of trafficking, but I'm hearing more and more. Ashton Kutcher runs a foundation called Thorn that's really fantastic and they do a similar mission to what I do. He has been able to raise the spotlight a lot. Currently there's a debate on the floor of the Senate right now, too, talking about section 230 of the CDA, which is sort of centered around the Backpage debate anyway. Where do we draw the line between the freedom of speech on the internet, with ESPs in particular, but being able to still catch bad guys exactly. The Backpage sort of founder idea. It's really hot and present in the news right now. I would love to see the media start to ask questions, drill down into the data, to be able to ask and answer those real questions, so we're hoping that Global Emancipation Network will do that for the media and for policy makers around the world. >> Well it is extraordinary work being done by an extraordinary person. It's a privilege to have you on with us, here on theCUBE. We thank you, not only for the time, but for the work you're doing, and good luck with that. >> Thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate it. >> You bet. That's the Global Emancipation Network. Globalemancipation.ngo right? Fundraising, always helpful. Back with more here on theCUBE in Washington D.C., right after this. (electronic beats)