>>Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the cube covering Microsoft ignite brought to you by Cohesity. >>Welcome back everyone. We are wrapping up three at days of wall to wall coverage of Microsoft ignite. It is a game day atmosphere on the show floor at the orange County civic center. Thank you so much to Cohesity for hosting the cube for this fantastic three days. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight along with my co host Stu Miniman. Still this is awesome. We talk about the buzz on the floor and the energy on the show and definitely guy here Cohesity always bright and activity >>in the booth and it's been a lot of fun hanging out here for the week with you Rebecca and our hosts and all, all of the guests. Yes, absolutely. So this is day three. We are starting our series of interviews, but I want to hear because you are so in this community you have a lot of connections, a lot of buddies, a lot of colleagues, former colleagues, current colleagues. What has impressed you about the show and what is missing? Let's start with the positives and it's interesting because this is only my second year coming. One of those, you know, my background networking, I've interacted with Microsoft for most of my career. I would not say I am deep in the community, but I know enough of the MVPs, have friends here and really have learned a lot in these two years. So first of all, the breadth of this show is just so impressive. >>One of the things that you and I've been talking about the last two years, years, what is the show? It started out as a windows admin show. Lot of discussion about office migration to windows 10 was the big thing last year. We haven't heard as much about this this year. Yesterday was a big developer day. Of course Azure sits at the center of everything. Lots of big announcements here. Felt like a kind of on par with what we hear at AWS. It shows with just so many announcements across the board. But really when you talk about the applications of business productivity, people come to this show. When I talk to people in the booth, I'm looking for solutions and how do I put those together? It's not some of the tech shows where you just, you're constantly down in the speeds and feeds and what they're doing and some of the competitive dynamics. >>I have a problem, my business needs something in, this is what I'm looking to solve. And Microsoft has a broad and diverse ecosystem and the word we kept coming back to the word of the week I think is of course trust. >> Absolutely. I couldn't agree more with what you've just said. That is what we hear. And the other thing about Microsoft is that at a time when big tech is really under a lot of fire, there's a lot of suspicion policymakers, regulators are bearing down on a lot of the tech CEOs. Microsoft really stands above. And when you think about antitrust, there's major presidential candidates talking about breaking up big Chuck, big tech. Microsoft is really riding above that fray. There's sort of a feeling of deja VU for Microsoft, I'm sure. But that they're really been there, done that. They're not. Yeah, I mean it was Satya Nadella to, you know, really put a pointed attack. >>He did not say it, but we all know it's Google. You know the company that was do no evil at the start. Now everybody's concerned because Google's model is primarily selling ads and while Google will say what they're doing in the enterprise, they just acquired Fitbit and said, you're not going to get ads on your Fitbit. We're not going to leverage that way, but there's not that trust built up. And then the number one competitor out there is AWS. And if you talk about the ecosystem, the concern that every AWS show is, Oh my gosh, what announcements are Amazon going to make and are they going to steal my lunch money if you were or put me out of business for the years worth of work on doing. Microsoft doesn't feel that way. They, you know, if you talk about the ecosystem I was talking, they made announcements that do compete against number the products, RPA, or was announced as part of the power platform out there. >>There's a number of RPA companies here. I talked to them there. Microsoft's a strong partner. We've been doing breakouts, we're talking with them. Yes, they are just like SAP getting into this market, but it's a Microsoft shop and it's not, you know, it is new. It's not the best of breed. They're on it. They are not concerned that they can still live in this environment. And I'd say both AWS and Azure very much about choice and ecosystem and building them out. >> So you're talking about the marketplace here. So in terms of the marketplace, what is Microsoft doing to drive business and is it effective? Well actually I'm glad you, so specifically we talk about the marketplace. So there's the ecosystem and then there's actually the marketplace. So AWS has what we really consider, it's the enterprise app store. If I want to go buy software, you know there's Salesforce and all of their connectors and everyone that uses Salesforce knows that. >>But AWS really has driven a robust ecosystem just like on amazon.com most of the products that are sold are from third parties. The AWS marketplace is mostly how I can procure and buy software. And they drive a lot of it. So a lot of the AWS adoption is through the marketplace and the ecosystem makes lots of dollars. Reminds me, we used to talk about VMware for years is for every dollar of VMware you bought you would buy, you know, 10 $20 worth of third party ecosystem. But we were talking about things like storage and like for AWS it's on procuring software and underneath on leveraging the AWS services. While Microsoft Azure has a marketplace, it is not as mature. They don't really push as many people through it. So while I've talked to a number of the partners that are, yes we're part of the marketplace, but people buy lots of different ways as opposed to AWS is trying to get everybody from a customer and an ecosystem through it. >>And part of that is to simplify the environment, how I purchase it. But it's that balance of trust and you know, ease of use out there. So when I look forward, what do I like to see from Azure is how will they mature there. I was actually something John furrier had had us digging into here and the marketplace at Azure definitely is, I would say years behind where AWS is, is there, but you know, Azure great growth, doing really well, a strong trusted ecosystem. Just some areas for improvement that I would look for going forward. >>But maybe that's part of their, their approach and their strategy is we'll work with you, we, we collaborate, we can do this together. Whereas AWS there is that, that feeling sometimes when you're at reinvent, as you said, roll out the beer, CURT's early please. My business is over. So, so, so comparing the two show, the three, the various cloud shows, and this is not just a cloud show, of course we're going to get into that more. But when you think about re-invent and you think about VM world, how does the, the feel and the energy here differ? >>Yeah. So the thing that always strikes me when I go to an AWS show, and I have been to many of them from the regional shows through the big one and reinvent, which is more than twice the size of this 26,000 person show. The customers there are always trying new things. They are open and looking for the environment that they can do new things. Here what we're talking about here feels like it's like a tweener. We had a lot of conversations about building bridges to where customers are while AWS is starting to talk hybrid more and meet you in your data center and doing outpost Microsoft, they have their windows install base, they have their own three 65 pieces. So there's a broad spectrum of from the latest and greatest autonomous systems. You want to talk about it. Microsoft has that through, you know, I'm a, you know, 20 year CIS admin and I, you know, I'm going to hold on to, you know, my servers, you know, as long as I can, they're there for you. >>So Microsoft does bam, that gamut and VMware is more, once again making that transition as we go to the cloud. So Microsoft right in the middle of that transition, we talked a bunch about digital transformation with the customers on here. So it really, it has all a lot for a lot of different people. You know is one of the things I've heard is they really ramped up some of the developer activity at this show. They just bought get hub, get hub, has their own show, get hub universe next week, which will stay very focused on that environment. But Microsoft also has a conference build and there's been some rumblings that maybe build an ignite get wrapped together. We saw that with IBM. IBM had lots of different shows and they put all the wood behind think and made that a massive show. There's pros and cons of that, seeing lots of companies that have taken a big show and put it into a 40 show around the globe. >>Now someone like Amazon has reinvented, but then they have of second tier and third tier regional shows to push that out. So lots of different ways to, to get to customers. Um, and it is interesting, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about Azure Ark. I'll be at the cube con cloud-native clown show in just two weeks and San Diego and expect that to be talked. And really it is in preview mode. So when I look at it at the end of the day is, you know, you've got red hat open shift, you have Google, you have what AWS is doing with outpost and welcome to the party. Microsoft, they have got a strong hybrid solution already because they played at both ends. But really as your arc is unifying and pulling those together so that it's not just my data center and Azure, but even AWS, they're saying, we'll see how this all plays out. >>Microsoft definitely has a strong data focus and a strong application focus. And so it be interesting to see where that adoption happens. I've been saying for a couple of weeks. Really Kubernetes just get baked in everywhere and you know, customers aren't going to have to think about it in a most Microsoft definitely strong partner focus. Just to reinforce something I've said a couple times this week, they still have a partnership with red hat. They still have a partnership with VMware. The Azure arc is not the only way to get the Kubernetes story in play into your Microsoft environment. And Microsoft's done well with that. We all know from the early days of Microsoft living on tops of lots of hardware. Now Microsoft software will live a lot of places. Yes, their cloud is large growing one of the top two choices out there. But they truly embrace that it will be multi-cloud and be able to live in lots of environments. >>So I want to talk about something that's more in my wheel, hasn't met his productivity. So we have heard a little bit about teams. I mean there was a lot of announcements. It's not exactly where we focused a lot here on the cube this week, but there were some really interesting announcements about the ways in which Microsoft is thinking about human productivity, both at individual productivity and team collaboration, the way teams interact and communicate. There are a lot of interesting new uh, characteristics and elements to what they're doing in terms of Cortana re read me my emails. Uh, I'm going to send this email but I'm actually gonna wait, it's good. It's going to be a scheduled send. It's going to send when the, when the, the person I'm sending it to is, is actually at his or her desk. Um, and so those are just some interesting things to me that really speak volumes about how Microsoft views the future of work and views the, the future of our, of our lives. And, and, and understanding how much technology has encroached in our lives because they're saying, read me my emails while I take my dog for a walk while I am actually doing, while I'm on a run first thing in the morning. I, you know, make me more productive but also give me my time back. And so I think those are some really, really interesting ways in which Microsoft, as I said, understands the technology has taken over and they're trying to give you a bit of your time back. >>It's interesting cause you know when I look back, Microsoft has a bit of a checkered history when it comes to some of those environments. We all know the office suite teams is now part of O three 65 and I hear very strong. The people that use it really do like it. But those of us look back and we said, Oh I used to like using Skype and then Microsoft got ahold of it and Oh my gosh, what a horrendous mess. Skype was for a long time when it taught to a collaborative environment. Google really jumped Microsoft with the G suite and many smaller companies were like, Oh, it's relatively easy to use and I can collaborate there. Well teams really has gone through and understand that and we talk about a collaborative environment, you know, Microsoft teams, best of breeds. I attended an enterprise connect earlier this year and I couldn't hear enough about how much that was going on. >>And you know, strong ecosystem of companies that Microsoft worked with. So it's very strong, but it's kind of, if you're a Microsoft shop, you're doing it. But they did lose many companies too free or less expensive or lighter weight options out there. And then everything from Slack ate into it. But you know, Microsoft has a good product. Absolutely. It just, some of it is the perception and some of it is the pricing. You know, they do a good job of making sure that when you get get to college, you, you want to use some of these environments. Oh yeah, the pricing is graded free. But then when you get in the real world, hopefully you'll like it. So Microsoft does a little bit about now something we focused a lot on but did hear really good things about it. And it does get lost a little bit in some of the general discussion about all the other pieces, you know, autonomous systems, AI and the leaders. This stuff of Azure take a little bit of precedent over the, some of the things that are a little bit more on just as you said, business productivity or even on the consumer side of the house for Microsoft. >>So we are, we're, we're wrapping up here but I want to hear just final thoughts, final predictions for 2020 and you've really gotten, you've, we've, we've covered a lot of ground here, this wording, but I'm interested to hear what you think is on tap for Microsoft in 2020 I'll bring >>back to something we kicked off with the jet ideal coming in here really has that that whole process of winning that bid was a fortune function from Microsoft to rapidly mature some of their environment. You talk about security and trust, you know the government is not going to give that environment if it to Microsoft, if they could not trust them. Back when AWS won a CIA deal, it was like, Oh wait, if the security is good enough for the CIA, it's probably good enough for me to consider it. So the government agencies, which historically is not who you think about when you talk about innovation in driving change today. Public sector is really interesting. Even when we were talking to some of the people about, Hey, how can we haven't heard as much about Azure stack over the years? Well, it's been a lot of service providers and government agencies that have been deploying this and therefore we'll do it. So Microsoft still has a lot of work to do contracts. They still have to get some more security clearances. They need to make sure their performance and reliability is up to snuff on because they just can't have outages. If I, if this becomes a greater and greater piece of my overall how I run my business, I can't say, oops, wait, you know the Internet's down. This is now 2019 going into 2020 and in 2020 we'll all have perfect. >>Oh, of course. Oh yes indeed. Sue, I'm looking forward to another great day of coverage with you, and thank you again to Cohesity for hosting us in this really cool booth. Uh, so please stay tuned for more of the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite coming up in just a little bit.

>>Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the cube covering Microsoft ignite brought to you by Cohesity. >>Hello cube nation and welcome to back to the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. Along with my cohost Stu Miniman. We are closing down the second day of the three days of coverage. This is day two >>wall to wall to wall coverage. Joining us is Thomas LA rock, best job title ever, head geek at solar winds or speaker data expert and SQL rockstar and Microsoft MVP and Microsoft MVP and yes importantly and you saved me. You didn't have me on yesterday. You waited to the second day, the end of the second day. Thomas, we wanted to make sure that by the time you came on that you had got some time to really absorb some of those announcements and be ready to give us a different perspective on some of the items. All right. Precisely. So this is your 10th Microsoft ignite. It is my first go back to tech ed 2010 so yeah, my 10th consecutive between tech ed and McKnight. Thoughts, impressions of 2019, how is it different? How is the show evolving? What does the show all about? So your perspective, you know, I do a lot of events and shows and what my impression right now just over these two days is that this is one of the only shows this year I've been to where I feel the from year over year, the expo hall is say bigger. >>I mean I know it's the same size the last year. I think there's actually more vendors here this year. There are, and there's more people here. This year in the expo hall. Our traffic at the booth yesterday was amazing and continued through today. Uh, other events I've been to, I feel it's kind of shrinking a little bit. So to me the partners and the ecosystem for Microsoft in general is grow or I should just say Azure because that's what I think this show really is. Now I think the old tech ed you had mentioned was more like a windows type a show. But now this is th these shows between AWS and this, you're talking about the two biggest providers of infrastructure. This is an Azure show. Yeah. Well and Thomas, if you come follow us along, I'll be at CubeCon in two weeks and I'll be at AWS re invent. >>Yup. Right after Thanksgiving. Both of those shows are growing. The ecosystem are growing there too. So the cloud is definitely one of those. The raising tide is moving all boats. I want to poke you say Azure. Azure is definitely one of the main pieces, but you know, the applications that data are so important to your last year. AI front and center. Um, it was, it was more, you know, they didn't use the term AI as much here. You know, Satya, I was talking about, you know, tech intensity and all of the things we can do with data. So this, while a cloud is a major piece, I wouldn't call this just a cloud show because I think that would limit what we're actually talking about here. Cause there's so many of the apps and so many of the things. When I talked to some of the ecosystem providers, you know, they're looking for that solution that fits it and therefore they're go into the ecosystem and talking about all of those pieces. >>So for an infrastructure guy like me, cloud's a big piece of it, but it's way more than that. And that's one of the challenges is there's, you know, everything from, you know, the latest Azure arc all the way through big edge and mobile devices and, uh, you know, heck, there's even, you know, in the store they've got people playing Xbox. Uh, so it's, there's a lot in your Microsoft community here. So. Absolutely. So I, I didn't say cloud though. I said it's an Azure show. And then as your show is to me is almost synonymous with Microsoft and all that stuff. You see, uh, over there, that entire hall, you're right. They have all those other things. They have the, all the power apps, they have those applications, they have everything for developers that you need. But still to me, uh, so what was that stat you just gave me? >>We were debating, it's roughly eight upwards of 80% of workloads are still earth on premises, right? It's still there. So with Azure Ark now they have the ability to take an Azure surface and put it in your data center wherever you want it. So when I say it's an Azure show, it's not even that. It's just cloud. The cloud is coming to you and we see it with VMware, we see it with AWS and outposts that they have decided that 80% is a huge market and they're coming for it. Right? So, so Thomas, if you'd asked me two years ago, uh, which of the hyperscale providers as best as hybrid, my answer would have been Microsoft because they're in both places. The hybrid discussion at this show is way different. There was a lot of retooling. We talked about what was going on. Azure stacks has been there, but arc kind of is a new big push and everybody is trying to look at that and say, wait, is this a management tool? >>Is this just the latest Kubernetes flavor? In your viewpoint, how does arc fit in the Microsoft story? And you know, what should we be comparing it to from the other Amazon, VMware, you know, red hat type of pliers out there? Well Brian, >> I think it's the same thing is that, I was just saying is that arc to me, we can talk about the plumbing. So yeah, they put a fancy name on whether it's Kubernetes, Coobernetti's and all that stuff, but no arc to me is a way for Microsoft to get their hands on as many data estates as possible. Right? I know data state, right? I have a data state and it's next to my data Lake and I work at the data factory and everything's stored in the data warehouse and I shop at the data Mark. We can go on forever with this stuff, but that is the reality of the world. >>And the thing is all those things exist and they're, as your arc is, it's the ability to extend into there because what is Azure and AWS, they're nothing more than an electric company. Their utility and the utility, you're going to offer similar services and that's what they have. And of course VM Ware's in the mix as well. And it's just the ability for all those companies to have their hands on your data, wherever it is, whether it's in your data center or with them, they don't care. They just want the ability to have a piece of that data as it's in transit or at rest. >>And so what's the end there? I mean, you're making that sound like there's some sort of nefarious, uh, end game here. >>It's, I wouldn't say so. Farias I would just say it's market share. What's the end is to survive, to have the market share, to continue to build new cool things. Right. Um, I, I think the end is some consolidation. I don't think the end is, I don't know. Let's say there's five major players. I don't think those five will always exist. I think the are gonna see it shrink over time, but it really, that depends on how well they partner with each other too. Um, I think there's room for everybody, but it's just depends on where they want to say, um, if they want the co-exist or not. Right. So for some of them like VMware, that's really just kind of software, right? They're partnering with clouds. But the clouds are the infrastructure hose. And so how long does VMware really have? Now they've done the nice pivot and I think they're going to last a little bit longer. >>But had they not taken that pivot in the last year or two? I think their timeline with a much shorter, yeah, it's interesting cause we've been looking at, you talk about that cloud adoption, some of the traditional vendors out there, um, many of which are, you know, ecosystem providers that have show here it has to react and deal with the cloud. You know, everybody's jumped on the Kubernetes fly and bandwagon. Everybody's partnering especially with Azure but also AWS and the like. Um, you know, Thomas, you and your company deal with a lot of end users out there. What are they looking for when it comes to being a trusted provider? You know, who, what, what, what's there and how does Microsoft stack up? When we talk about that Satya talked about trust a lot and you know, just curious to how you see them being perceived out there and you know, when customer want to lead partner, what do they want? >>Well, uh, for us, we have, uh, I believe over 300,000 customers at this point and, uh, I think roughly 53% of them are Azure base and that's a higher percentage than what we have for AWS, for our customer base. So we have taken steps to be that trusted partner. So when these companies are going to take that 80% workload that isn't there yet, uh, just in the booth discussions this week where they come to us and they say, Hey, we're going to owe three 65, how can you help us? We're going here at small steps at the time, so that workload that will chip away at it, but we're a company that can help with that transition as people move their workloads and their systems into a place like Azure. Uh, I think what you're gonna also see is our ability to, um, help people understand wherever they want their for structure. >>So for example, last week we announced how we have 15 of our products are now, um, deployed to the Azure marketplace. So you're talking two clicks and everything's deployed for you and you're up and running. And then if you want, if you want to, you know, manage the nodes that are still in your data center, you can just point everything to go up to Azure and Azure, handle a lot of those infrastructure needs for you. So that to me is the trust where you partner with a company like Microsoft and you say, what will it take for us to get in the marketplace? What will it take for us to help help us help, help us help you get that data into your data, into your cloud, right? I think our customers really want to know that when it comes to, Hey, I got to go to Azure. Are you somebody who could help us get there and stay there and manage and monitor the stuff for us? >>I want to talk productivity because I think you have a pretty different take from Satya Nadella. So he had a, he on the, on the main stage yesterday, he said the human act, human attention to inattention is at the root of all productivity. He's, he laid out a stat when you multitask it takes 25 minutes. I'm sorry I got distracted. So it was a 25 minutes. Yes, 25 minutes and you lose 40% of your productivity with that 25 minute lapse. So I w I felt that compelling and that rang true to me. But absolutely >>it's true. So right after he got done with that, Microsoft told us the answer was they were going to take Yammer and shove it inside teams on a shoving inside outlook. I don't think we need more productivity tools. I don't think we need more ways of distracting us. They say they say, Hey, it's great. We'll put tasks from outlook right inside teams. I'm like maybe I'm in teams cause I shut down outlook because I'm distracted by email and other things right now maybe I don't need that. Is it a nice to have and it's a possible thing I guess, but at the end of the day, I don't need you shoving all these extra things into all the things. You're just making the problem worse. We need fewer productivity tools. At what point do we hit peak productivity? I guess? I think we're there. I think I have all the tools that enable me to do my job already. I don't need them all tightly integrated. I need to shut more things off. Right. In order to get stuff done. >>That's a, that's an excellent point because when I want to get work done, I go to a place where I can't get online. Right. Because that's, that's the biggest, >>that's why, uh, I work remote from home one that one of my advantages is I don't have people just walking by my desk and, and distracting me with all sorts of things. That's a huge advantage. I try to take advantage of what, cause I work remote, but for people in an office, bells, whistles, lists that and the other, you know, uh, I just, I get a cup of coffee. You know, it's, it's difficult and I'm not sure that these companies, not just Microsoft, I just don't think companies are really thinking through if they're making things better or not. Every one of them Slack, all of them, they all think that they're the one that's all you need. It's not true and it's not making things better. Yeah, it's a true, we've had good feedback about teams overall here. Especially you've talked to a number of people that are remote workers and they feel that that does help them get connected with teams and, uh, you know, in the remote areas and by itself, but, you know, create point, uh, on the productivity stuff too. >>Do you use teams to use teams? Uh, kind of reluctant at first, like, do I need the another tool? But now that, uh, we've all kind of started switching to it and my company went O three 65 as well. Some teams comes with it and, uh, I do find that very useful, um, uh, much more so than I have any of the other tools in the past. I think teams took a lot of good things from a lot of different tools and they rolled out of them to the one they, and it works for me. It doesn't work for everybody though. Right? >>Exactly. Exactly. So what, so what else are you taking away from the, from your 10th ever ignite, you go back to the office, but is your home on Monday? What kinds of conversations are you going to have most stayed with you, have most resonated you? Okay. >>For me, uh, I, I focus a lot on the data platform and uh, I think the thing that's going to resonate the most with me, it really is Azure arc and what that, what the, what that really means and getting a little more involved with, uh, understanding where they're headed with it. Like just the idea they're going to give me that one management console that can control everything. Earth and cloud. Uh, that's an interesting thing. I see. Come at me. I work for a tools vendor, so as a tools vendor, I'm sitting there going, so Microsoft's building something that gives visibility into both. Now, what does that mean for me and where we might, we want to think about pivoting to make sure that we stay ahead and keep offering value where Microsoft might have a gap. Um, so I think those are the things I'll probably be thinking about. >>My role as head geek is to, you know, help our users and the people who write the code and, you know, connect, share and learn and figure out where things are going. And also involves partnering and having conversations with folks at Microsoft, uh, to help our company, you know, continue to have that edge. So I think that's all I'll be thinking about on Monday, probably now on the plane ride home on Friday, but who knows, right. Uh, Thomas, any other final words about the community here? Uh, you know, you're a Microsoft MVP is we set up in front, uh, you know, Microsoft should get great kudos for, they put the unity in community and they talk about diversity and inclusion, something they highlight something that, at least from the viewpoint we've had, uh, they seem to be doing a good job in moving the needle here. >>But, uh, you know, as an insider to the Microsoft community, uh, anything particular that you'd call out? Well, certainly the changes and the emphasis I've seen on diversity inclusion over the years. You're absolutely right. I think, I know this, you were having some interviews earlier to have those specific discussions and, uh, it's an important conversation to have, uh, uh, as somebody who organizes events, it becomes, you know, what's the diversity, how diverse should the event be? At what point are we diverse enough? Right? And what does that really mean? And so I look at it and I say, if I'm going to run an event that caters to say an it community, well, what's the makeup of the it community? Then the speakers should represent the community that they're trying to speak to. So what I've seen over these 11 years is a lot more focus for events, especially like ones I help organize where it's like, no, what I'm going to go out and recruit the speakers that I need to represent the people that I want them to be presenting to. >>Uh, I don't think I will recall that I'm old. I don't recall a lot of things, but you know, 11 years ago when I was, when I joined to became an MVP, I, I don't think that the diversity was there and I don't think the efforts were being done. I think those efforts have come just in the past few years, four or five years maybe society as a whole, but specifically inside Microsoft and, and their programs. And I think it's fabulous. Uh, I, I think you could never be diverse enough. I guess. I don't know how to say that. I think he could always do more to, uh, include, I always say inclusion is better than the exclusion any day. You can never do enough for that. And I think Microsoft's made great efforts. I'm, I'm really proud to call myself a Microsoft MVP. Uh, I, I think it's a great program. I'm glad that I questioned, you know, their selection method maybe because they keep inviting me back, but they do and, but I love it. I, it's been a great ride, >>a great note to end on. Thomas law crock head geek. Great. Great to have you on the show. Great. Great. Thanks for having me back. I really appreciate it. I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu minimums. Come back tomorrow for more of the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite.

>>Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the cube covering Microsoft ignite brought to you by Cohesity. >>Hello everyone and welcome back to the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite 2019 here in Orlando. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co host Stu minimun. We are joined by Chris Weiberg. He is the vice president of product marketing at Cohesity. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for providing us with this great space, this prime real estate. We really appreciate it. >>Spot on the show floor and I hope this is working out for you guys here with uh, with all of us branding and so on behind >>it has been terrific as as we 26,000 people from around the world here at the orange County convention center. We'll talk about how the conference has been for you here at Cohesity. >>I think it's gone really, really well. I mean, apart from the loverly brute booth property we have right here, um, some of the keynote messages around the importance of hybrid cloud moving forward with what Microsoft's doing with arc and things like that, um, really resonate with how we see the market. So a couple of the announces we've made have been around support for Azure stack and for the AVS, the Azure VMware solution. And, uh, we, that's just what we see with our customers across the board. And I think Theresa actually mentioned this yesterday, that if you look forward at most organizations cloud journey, they end up somewhere in that hybrid range, right? They may not all be there today and maybe just a little bit of sass, Ooh, three 65 to start off with, for example. But, you know, looking ahead, unless you're natively born in the cloud, and that's typically small organizations. Most mid to large enterprises are hybrid cloud, >>yours that are not as familiar with Cohesity, which is a company that has growing from strength to strength. Tell us a little bit about what >>yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So, uh, we are very much a software defined data management platform. And typically when I say that to people, I get blank stares to begin with, right? But let me, let me tell you really what we've thought about. And, and this goes back to, um, the heritage of our founder. He, uh, before he cofounded Newtanics, he was the lead engineer on the Google file system. And the, the philosophy has for Cohesity and the direction that we're going is very much based upon his experiences there. If you build a shared nothing distributed file system and you do that right, you establish a great platform to build upon, right? And so if you think about what Google did, they did that, um, with the file system that today runs many things, right? Uh, Gmail, YouTube, all the G suite apps. Um, but the first thing is, is they built that file system and then they figured out how to manage that in a distributed fashion, right? >>Because of their points of presence are all over the, the globe these days. Uh, and then on that they started delivering applications. But if you think back, the very first application Google delivered was what the search, right? That's, that's how that became known as, as, as a company, as Google search. And, and so for us, we're taking that same mindset towards dealing with enterprise data. So if Google does a great job with data and the consumer world for the, that they own and operate, organizations don't have that luxury of having Google come in and crawl and managing index all their data, right? We can help do that. So the journey begins with the genius behind our distributed file system that we call span Fs. And that's what a lot of the intellectual property has gone into is building that file system of that truly is, um, that's shared nothing architecture scales from a on-prem in your data center, core to the edge to the cloud. >>And then being able to produce a manageability layer on top of that, something we call Helio's that manages all the data across various sites you may have managed by Cohesity. And then our first app, if you will, on top of that platform really is data protection, right? So people may know as first and foremost as a backup and recovery company. And absolutely that's, that's something we're really, really good at. I would put us head to head against anybody else on the show floor here in, in that regard. And, and candidly, many large enterprise customers have done that with us and, and chosen us as their solution. Um, but I think from there the question is once you amass the data, uh, what can you do with it and, and how can you get more out of it? So if you look at backup and recovery, I think traditionally that's been largely viewed by it. >>Operators as an insurance policy, it's, there is something goes wrong. Uh, but we believe you can do more than that. You can not only have that insurance policy to help with things like disaster recovery and coming back from ransomware attacks and so on, but how can you do things like, uh, put analytics on top of it to get more out of it, get better insights out of it. Um, how can you have another customer? That store is all their customer care phone calls. It's a voice object, right? Kind of opaque, but they want to transcribe that. Why don't you do this transcription services on top of the data that you already have from that backup and recovery solution. And so, you know, get the data through backup, get the data through files and objects. I think David and I talked about that with you earlier. >>Uh, and that's a great way to start to aggregate and consolidate not only the data in your enterprise, but also all the infrastructure silos that are out there. And so that's problem one that we solve. And then we go from there. >> So Chris, when I think about all the various customers here, one thing they're dealing with, there's a lot of change. They've got their business challenges, whether it's adopting the cloud, looking at edge, right? Adopting containerization. Yeah. It's always defined by the change that's going on in their environment. Traditional backup and recovery was please don't change everything. I had my backup window, my administrator, I had the program that I'd used for 15 or 20 years that I trust. And I know, and I please don't sneeze on it because I've got it the way that I like it over the last like five years. >>Companies are because of that change. They're, they're looking at new solutions, they're looking at other environments. Tell us how Cohesity's riding that wave to move, you know, not like the enterprise is moving. Enterprises are moving fast. Right? But they're at least looking and that if they don't make some move, uh, you know, everybody else has, has moved along, so they need to at least be a little bit more agile and fast. >> Yeah. Well, I think, uh, you know, first of all, thank you for realizing that oftentimes our number one competitors that do nothing option, right? It's, I've done this forever, this way. Why change? Um, but, but to your comment about, you know, the backup window, well, there's no such thing anymore for most companies. It's seven by 24 by three 65. And so that alone I think is causing people to step back. And say, Hey, is the way that I used to do things still the right answer or is there a better way? >>And, and so that's often the beginning of a conversation we'll have where, you know, maybe, uh, their, their current, uh, contract with an existing provider is coming to a point where, uh, there's a window for renewal and they, and they want to look at something different. Um, but, but I do think, you know, and we had a customer panel earlier today at the show were a couple of law firms are talking about this. They just don't have the luxury of time they used to to deal with this. And so that, that sort of causes change whether you like it or not. And so that's often how we begin that conversation. Even though, to your point, these folks sometimes aren't the most, um, uh, risk embracing crowd in it, right? They're not on the bleeding edge all the time because if you're in the insurance policy, guys, you don't want to mess that up, right? >>Uh, but, but that's what we find is, is the disruption we're bringing in the market creates an opportunity to look at how you do things differently. Uh, w we had a, another customer panel back at VMworld in San Francisco this year where one of the customers had actually three different providers. One that was doing backup software, uh, one that was target storage and another that was the media gateways to handle some of their information. He was happy with all of those. But when he looked at that and he said, wait a second, instead of dealing with three companies that can do all the one and I can per data center eliminate about a half a rack of gear, he said that, that for me was it, that was a no brainer that led me to you guys. And so that's what we're saying. >>So we as a former it practitioner yourself, I'm curious to know how your background helps you get inside the brains of these people who are making decisions for, you said the do nothing option is compelling because? Because it's easy and yet it is the wrong way to go because in this ever changing world that that's risky in and of it. >>well it's, it's, it's always a risk reward balance. Right? And, and so I think whenever you're introduced to something new to the market and new concept, um, you ha, you feel the pain as, as a, as an organization. Cause you're having to educate people about there is a better way, right? I mean, I mean, think about, um, let's use Mohit form a company. Nutanix is an example of that. I remember the battles early on. People are scratching their heads, what is this HCI thing? I cause I do stories this way and I do, uh, compute this way and I do networking this way and I have my existing vendors, they put it all together and it took them awhile to get going. But when they did it that you really took off and, and I can think of multiple examples. I mean, Apple and the iPhone, what have you. >>Right. Um, and so I, we're sort of at that stage as a company where people are just starting to get their head around the opportunity we're putting on the table by disrupting the way things run and actually making their lives better. Um, and, and so it's, it's a, it's not just, you know, having an understanding of that from my background. Um, it's then being able to articulate the benefits, not just to the organizations looking to save money and do things more efficiently, but actually to the, the it operators themselves. Right? I mean, you talked to Theresa about this a bit yesterday. It burnout is a thing. And anything you can do to make manageability and automation easier, uh, the better off the folks actually doing the work are. And so that's something we care about deeply as well. It's not just, you know, saving money. >>It's, it's giving you a better way to do it. And, and ideally, uh, making, taking the complexity out of the puzzle you're managing today and, and making it easier. Simplifying it. So Chris, one of the challenges is as you were talking about, you can replace multiple solutions out there, but it means that there are multiple constituencies that you need to talk to and position your product. So, you know, with your marketing hat, how do you look at the roles and the message that we're going that you need to get to? Super, we're going to question. So my team will appreciate that you asked that. So one of the first things I did when I came onboard a few months back, let's say, Hey guys, we really need to sit down and think through the different personas, right? Classic marketing approach that we're talking to and really understand, um, what's in their heads, not only today but formerly and then what are they looking at going forward? Cause if you're going to cross that chasm, you need to understand that whole life cycle and what are the things that you can grab onto that draw their attention into the solutions we provide. And so we're going through an exercise right now to refresh those personas and be able to arm our field and our partners to have those conversations cause it does touch on different people in the data center. Absolutely true. >>So what, I wanted to return our conversation and come full circle with the very beginning of what is resonating with you here at this show. There've been so many new product announcements, started talking about Azure Ark as as sort of something that is catching your interest. What are you going to take back with you when the show's over? Chatting >>with some of our PM team, uh, earlier this week, um, we have our own management solution and we've done a lot to simplify it and make it easy to use. But as is the case for many providers, we are a building block in a bigger data center strategy. And, and so importantly, uh, while I love our console, a lot of people may not want to use it. We, we may not be the center of the management universe. And so something like arc and you saw this in, in what they demo now just being able to manage an Azure environment, but reaching across the aisle to AWS and so on. You know, we, we need to be able to fit into that management framework. And by the way, they're just one provider that does that. You know, the Atmos guys are out there and others. Um, and, and so the good news from a Cohesity standpoint is the products and built ground up with an API first approach. >>And what that means is, uh, you can take those declarative statements that you have in let's pretend someday as your Ark and use that to orchestrate deployment and management of Cohesity as well. And that, that is candidly one of the beauties of being a software defined solution. We thought about that from the ground up. And so I think we're not only ready for today, but also for the future. Alright. Uh, Chris, want to give you any other kind of customer aha moments or things that are brought through a final takeaways, uh, from, from Cohesity at the show? Yeah, I, I think, you know, uh, customers are still discovering us is, is an aha for me. The, the big change that I've seen in, in the booth behind us, uh, year over year as they think in the past, uh, we've only been an operations really selling for three years. >>It was who are you guys and what's up with all the green, right? This year the conversation has shifted to, Hey Cohesity, I know you guys are, I'm looking at changing things up in my software defined data center. I think you might be a part of that. So tell me why you're different. And so I'm really happy to be here and get the opportunity to have that discussion this year versus where we were last year. And again, I think, um, the types of questions that we're getting are much more focused on use case. How can you help me solve this pain point, this problem? Uh, you know, ransomware has been a constant conversation in the booth and, and the ability that we have because of what we've done, again, back down the file system to do what we call an instant mass restore. That's an interesting feature on a data sheet, but I'll tell you what, when you've been subject to a ransomware attack and you're, you're just lights out, that ability to bring back to the whole environment very quickly at once really is a differentiator for us. And so it's those sorts of conversations we're having this year, which is, which is a nice step forward. And so hopefully, you know, we'll come back next year and things are on that upward path even more. So. Thank you so much Chris. Wiborg pleasure having you on the show. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks guys. >>I'm Rebecca Knight for Sue minimun. Stay tuned for more of the cube.