>> Announcer: Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's theCUBE, covering Commvault GO 2018. Brought to you by Commvault. >> Welcome to the Music City. You're watching theCUBE, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. This is Commvault GO. 20-year-old company, Commvault, the third year of their show, and the first time we have theCUBE here, and the first time we've been in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Stu Miniman, your host for one day of coverage and joining me to help unlock the Commvault is the CTO advisor, Keith Townsend. >> Good to be back on theCUBE. >> Yeah, Keith, so you've actually been to this show before. It's my first time. I've known Commvault for a long time, but, you know, we talk about companies, they're all going through some kind of digital transformation and Commvault is no exception. I love the energy that I'm seeing at this show. They've got great puns around data. Data is at the center of everything, and really comes to what we see. You know, we know that data is so important. All the tropes out there. It's the new oil, it's the new currency, it is one of the most important things, not only in IT, but in business. So what's your experience been, so far? >> So far great. You know, they did a great job, second go for me. Last year, they had Captain Sully, great inspirational talk. This year they had a comedian, Connell on it, did a fabulous job of fast-paced multimedia sessions, talking about the connection of data, our everyday lives, lives as a technologist. Really high-powered show, a lot of great conversation around data and its applicability. >> Yeah, I did love that. Steve Connell, he is a poet, and some humor, and a lot of geeky things in there, talking about, right, how data fits into all of our lives, and what we do. And then that's one of the reason's why we're here, why the customers are here, and that's what it's about. You look at a company like Commvault. They've got 10s of thousands of customers, and as the big wave's coming in, what is Cloud Mead? I like some of the messages. I know we're going to dig in, both in our analysis, as well as with the guests, how cloud is impacting this, as well as things like the wave of AI. How is that changing the product? How can I access the information? I hear things like ransomware and GDPR, and hacking. It's a dangerous time in technology, whether you're talking social media, or talking in business. So give us a little bit of background, what you're hearing. Keith, you're talking to customers in your day job all the time. How important is data? And things like backup and data recovery, where do they fit in their world? >> Well, you know what? Customers are still learning this journey. I've talked to plenty of customers that have used Commvault, competing products, and a lot of, at the low level, a lot of these guys are still thinking about it as backup, but great, great testimony from one of the larger customers, out there, Merck, who talked about using backup or data protection, as part of their data management strategy, moving workloads from worker mobility, moving workloads from cloud to cloud, location to location. Every customer is dealing with multi-cloud challenges. Stu, we've talked about multi-cloud and the keys to multi-cloud data is absolutely the most important part of getting your multi-cloud strategy, or even cloud strategy, straight. So, I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation I've had out in the field, which is customers challenged with how do I simply identify a data management strategy? To hearing Commvault's message today and throughout the guests that we'll have on, customers, partners, the entire ecosystem, about how Commvault enables multi-cloud through data management. >> Yeah, I was curious what I would see coming in. Would this be, kind of, a hard core, let's get in to the product and understand things like backup and recovery. As you know, backup's important, but recovery is everything. We heard some of the customer stories about how fast they can recover. Those are great stories. How does cloud fit into it? You had the CEO and the COO on stage talking about do you go, when you go to the cloud, do you go simple or do you go smart? And there's some nuance there that you'll want to unpack as to understanding. You know, as we look at cloud, it's not just take the way we were doing things and throw them up there. I mean Keith, they talked about tape and virtual tape. You know, I remember back when, like, the VTLs were first being a thing, I was working at a storage company back then. You know, it was a huge move. Backup, those processes, are really hardened into an environment. What do the admins have to do? What do they have to change in the way they're doing things? Let's look at the news a little bit. So, you know, there was the, Commvault did a good job, I think, of checking all the check boxes. While there was nothing that jumped out at me as, like, wow this is the first time I've heard it, it's what I'm hearing from customers. So, moving to, and as a service portfolio, they've got a full line of appliances, but it's not only hardware. If you'd like to buy the software from them, of course you could do that. Got a number of big partners. We're going to HPE on the program. We're going to have Cisco on the program. NetUP is another big, big partner here. As well as, I think that the product that they're most excited to talk about is Commvault Activate, which is really looking a lot of the governance, which, when you talk in a cloud world, is one of the biggest challenges. By the way, if people in the background hear these cheering, the Commvault employees are really excited, everybody's starting to walk on the show floor. We're in the center of it all, Keith. So, we got a preview yesterday, they actually announced it to the tech field day crew, which you and I sat in with. So, give me your thoughts as to what you saw in the product line. How does that line up with what you're hearing from customers in a competitive nature? >> So, I think I tweeted out yesterday, doing the tech field day session, Commvault does not sleep at the wheel. As you said, Stu, there's nothing amazingly new about what they announced, but a 20-year-old technology company is definitely keeping pace with the innovation that we've seen in the field. Customers want options when it comes to consuming backup and recovery. From a storage layer, they want the storage bricks, they want a hardware solution, they want to consume it via subscription, or perpetual license. They want this cloud-type capability. More importantly, they want, and they talked about it on stage today, this analytics capability. The ability to extract intelligence out of your data. Commvault calls is 4-D indexing. Other vendors just call it, simply, meta-data. But taking advantage of 15, 20 year-old data, to drive innovation in today's society, while keeping compliant with GDPR and other regulations that are coming up, sprouting up as it seems, every other week. >> I did like that terminology that you used. The 4-D innovation, because of course the fourth dimension is time and we're using intelligence. The challenge we have, as we know, is we have so much data and what do we the analytics for? They said we can use the analytics, first of all, compliance. I need to understand that I take care of that. Secondly, what if I want to cull data? What data don't I need anymore? What can I get rid of? There's huge cost savings that I can have there. And lastly, what can I get from analytics? How can I get value out of that information? And more. So, the use of analytics is something I was looking for, obviously want to talk to some of the product people, some of the customers, about what I've heard so far and talking to people. People were excited. I was actually talking to one of the partners of Commvault, they said one of the reasons they partnered deeper and are looking to work with Commvault, is they've got good tech. There's a reason they've been around for 20 years. They're a publicly traded stock. They've been doing well. They have been growing. Revenue wise, I looked, the last three years, I think they're at 700 million, they've been growing in the kind of eight to 9% year over year for the last couple years. Which, as a software company, it's not taking the world by storm, but for, in the infrastructure space, that is good growth. I do have to mention, there was some activist investor activity that came on. We actually we're going to have the CMO, we're going to have the COO on the program. We won't have the CEO, they are in the midst of going through a change there. And, you know, look, say what you will about activist investors. The reason they're getting involved is because they believe that there is more value that can be unlocked in Commvault with some changes and with product line and the things happening that's what we're starting to see here. That's why were excited to dig in and kind of understand. >> Yeah, we can see that even in some of the tech customer's testimonials. The state of Colorado net new customer. This is amazing in an area that we've seen 90 million, 250 million, easily a half a million dollars of investment in the data protection space. Commvault, 20-year-old company, still gaining traction with net new use cases and if I was an activist investor, I'd look at that. I'd look at the overall industry and thinking what can we do to unlock some of the potential of a fairly large customer base? Pretty stable company, but a very, very exciting part of the industry. >> Yeah, and Keith, you brought up meta-data. Meta-data's something that, you know, in the industry we've been talking about for a long time. It's really that intelligence that's going to allow the systems to gather everything. I know, when I get my brand new phone now, I can search my 4,000 photos by location, by date, everything like that. It's auto-recognizing information. The same thing we're getting on the business side. It used be oh okay, let's make sure when you put your photo, your file, in there that you tag it. Come on. Nobody can do this. Nobody's thinking when I'm doing my job, well I really need to think about the meta data 'cause five years from now, I might want to do it. Oh, I can search by person or project or things like that. But it's the intelligence in the system to be able to learn and grow and the more data we have, actually the more that the intelligence can get there. >> And that's critically important for even compliance. Again, culling data. You know, Bill Nye got up on stage and talked about being able to use data, or I'm sorry, AstraZeneca got up on stage and talked about using data that was 15-years-old to rerun through today's algorithms and trials. If you were to cull the wrong data, then they could not have the innovation that they've created by having 15-year-old data. So, the meta data, the ability to go back again, search your repository for key words, content, surface up that data and leverage that data. This is why we say data is the new currency, it's the new oil, it's the most critical. I even heard on stage today, data's the new water. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, you know I like my old-fashioned glass of water, but this is why we hear these terms because companies are reinventing themselves with the data. >> Alright, so Keith, what Dave Allante would point out is water is a limited resource. Data, we can reuse it. We can take a drink of data, we can share it. Data helps complete us. It's the shirts that they have at the show. We've got AstraZeneca, we've got the state of Colorado, we've got other users. The key partners, key executives. We're going to bring you the key data to help you extract the signal from the noise here at Commvault GO. For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman. Thanks for joining theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Informatica World 2017. Brought to you by Informatica. (Upbeat music fades) >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're live here in San Francisco for Informatica World 2017. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, SiliconeANGLE's flag shift program. We go out to the events and extract the seth-a-pla-noids. My co-host for the next two days is Peter Burris, general manager of Wikibon Research. You can find that research at wikibon.com. Our next guest is Deepak Gattala. Big data architect, enterprise business intelligence strategy and planning with Dell, EMC Dell. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Deepak: Thank you so much. >> Or Dell Technologies. That's a big company now. You got a zillion brands. We just came back from two days at Dell EMC World in Vegas. A lot of action goin' on in your world, but you're here in Informatica World. You are the distinct winner of the Innovation Honorary Award. Tell us about that. That was last night. >> Yeah, exactly. It was a really good. It was great to be there, and part of the Honorary Awards and things like that. Its been really trusting that, well, you should know, big data is coming into maturity at Informatica, and we use a lot of Informatica products to be successful in the big data site. >> So, you're a customer I n this case, with Informatica. You're a customer of theirs. >> Deepak: Yes >> Alright, so how are you guys using Informatica? >> So, Informatica, we use, uh... Well you name it, and we have it so many products that are out there for Informatica right now, so, we started our journey back in 2007 with Informatica Power Center. As we evolved in different silos and different data sets, that got into, over a site regard lot of structure and unstructured data, and the first of big data also started growing tremendously. So, we have a new platform, and we have a data lake today that we harvest a lot of data that's coming from different sources. Some structured, unstructured, semi-structured data. We needed a tool and technology that can help us to actually use our existing skill set, and the army of the people who knows Informatica from the days of 2007 til today, that we have kept in sight. We wanted to level raise our skill set. Then you're creating a bunch of new folks in the big data platform, and starting them from scratch. >> Deepak, Hadoop was supposed to change the world, and like actually kill Informatica. All the press had, "Low End for Matica," and "Big Data Hadoop." Hadoop is just one element, now, of the big data space, or, how we wanted to describe it. Data lakes are also just fine. I don't like the them data lake because they become data swamps if you don't use the data, and as Informatica-- My question is, as data is gettin' laid out, whether it's Hadoop, or in the clouds, making it relevant is a real architectural challenge. Can you share your insight into, how do you guys look at that data architecture? >> Differently, right? So, like anybody else, you know we also face the same problem off record a lot of data or that we put it on, whether it is water data or lake? Whatever you want to call it. Then over the time we realized like, "Oh, okay. "Now what do we do with this data? "What is the value? How we can extract it," right? That's how the tools and technologies around this whole ecosystem comes into the play, which actually provide that value to get that data value extracted from it. Informatica is one of the tools that our choice was offered doing some of the big ops, and going though a process off proof of concept, and we are identified. This is the stage that we have to make a conclusion to say that we want to go with Informatica because of too many reasons I can't speak about, but one the major reason was, what I can say, I can do the same existing skill sets of what we have in house, and improve on top of it. >> So Deepak, the concept of data management used to be associated with managing a file, managing a data base, effectively managing tools that handle data. As we're hearing it increasing applied in the digital universe, I presume at Dell as well, the notion of data management is starting to extend and generalize a little bit differently. How do you see data management? And the next question I may ask you is, from an architectural standpoint, what's the relationship between what you do an architecture standpoint and how you envision data to managed. What is data management to you? >> So the data management is basically like harvesting your data, right? So basically, drives, like I said, data is coming in different forms. You wanted to go and get the data consumption happen from different sources and different silos that we have one time. Now we are at the situation like, what kind of data exists? What is a metadata? What is the governance unearned it, right? So those are becoming more and more and more important as we move and getting mature in this whole data management prospective. >> So, its looking at data across applications and across tools to try to increasingly treat data as an asset that can be managed just like a plant can be managed. Do I got right? >> Exactly. So, we have to realize that now data is an asset. That's where the value is. Your business and your stakeholders, everybody is looking at the data that we extract a value enough. >> So, does a data architect, then... Again a data architect used to be the person who laid out the database manager, and what not. Do you see your job now more as, design plus implementation with an eye towards performance and ensuring peple understand how to use data. Making sure things can be governed. What does the emerging and evolving job of a data architect in this new era of data management as managing data assets? >> So, traditionally with the relational database, it worked pretty well for the architects with the work they are doing, and it worked pretty well. But the thing is with the new changes we are going though, with the fast evolving technologies that we are having and the mobile data that we are getting in different forms. It always gets challenging that it's not just a data architect. It have to be co-- Together with some of the solution architecture together, to see how we have to go and consume all this information, but at the same time, Paul, we are providing value at affect >> So the tools that Informatica is providing are helping you do that? >> Yes the tools at Informatica have definitely helped us, starting at the power center site, which is more inclined towards conditional databases. Today we use big data management tools on our website, which is actually helping us the same kind of value that it provided with the power center. Now we can provide the same value at our new platform. >> So as you look forward over the course of the next few years, do you anticipate that the assets, the data assets that you're creating in Dell, are going to be applied to... How developers going to do things differently? How users are going to do that things differently. How do you see the data architect and data management serving these different consumers of data within Dell? So, what all includes, like, you know the business satisfaction right? The business is trying to get the value of the data yesterday. So, you know what? You need to be so fast enough to deliver the stuff to the business. One of the major capabilities that we are looking at is, to have the self-service capabilities for the business stakeholders so they can go and do themself rather than waiting for the IT or being a bottleneck for them to deliver what they want. >> So I got to ask you about this award. Dell was recently selected as the grand prize winner of the Informatica one million dollar software and services big data ready challenge. Was that cash prize? Michael Dell just spent 69 billion dollars on EMC, you'd probably use-- No, I'm only kiddin' (Peter laughs) Was that cash or was that product services and-- >> No, it's not the cash. You're suggest I'm one of the hundred year award that we got as Dell, being a proactive customer. A few guys who got inbranded. And, so research and the software that actually we are looking at Informatica data and degration hub and Informatica Intelligence Data Lake, which actually will provide self-service capabilities and integration at a single point. >> So you apply-- so, the objective of the self-service capaibility. The outcomes that you seek, you use the data inegration hub and some, for a period of time, some free software and free services to build that pilot, and then roll it outto the organization. >> Exactly. The whole idea is to show the values out of the these tools and technologies that Informatica has been investing` and helping the whole ecosystem to improvise the standards. >> So, Deepak, I got to ask you. We had some of the execs on earlier, and they're talking about, "oh, data's the heartbeat of the organization." You know, kind of cliches, but kind of accurate. We believe that to be true. Certainly, data is the center of the action. But then, it brings up the whole data conversation. Who's the practitioner? Do you have heart surgeons? And then, what about the hygienist? You know you got to have data hygiene. The big data ready challenge is interesting because its always been a challenge to go from pilot to production, but then also its the readiness around an organization's ability to understand what the hell they have, how do they use it, and then how do they take it to the next level? The mastery of doing the data. So, certainly there's different skill sets. How do you look at that analogy, and how would you organize teams around that, because in some cases, there's a heart surgeon needed. You got to redo some surgery on the company, Felt at the data strategy. And, sometimes its just know your hygiene, brush your teeth, if you will, kind of a concept of being ready. Your thoughts and reaction to that? >> So, yeah, initially we also started in the simplest days just to get the data and put it in one place, but it's not; it's just one part of the whole equation. You have so many things like data governance, data quality, data security, because you know, you might have a PIAD now that you want to secure it, and you might have something like, weblocks is doing your security. Everybody has a play in this. Its not just a one thing that you know, here we have the data fusion done, and then, you know, you're good. So it's not that the case. You should just always that the maturity happens in different stages. >> So the hiring and organizing a team, that's a specialty right? You're going to have the more skilled folks, and then some of the, you day to day, maybe an analyst or citizens data wrangler. You know, these things going on. Your thoughts on organizing, and the teams around data. >> Yeah, so one of the teams is that we are starting looking at these. We are harvesting a lot of data scientists interknow to Dell. That's because Dell's the ones, guys stuck Bill Nye on mostly to see, to extract the value of the hidden stuff, that we are not able to see as of today. To do that in an effective manner, we need to know how to unleash those guys and be self sustained by themself, so they can improve the quality and provide the value of innovation. >> The folks that have been following Informatica over the years, they were once a public company. The data warehouse was all the rage. Now, its real time. All kinds of landscape changes in the marketplace. What's Informatica all about today? >> Informatica is no more just data platform. I think its fanning it's wings to do more stuff. Especially on the beginner side. Now you have this Informatica data degration hub, and you are talking about having this intelligent data lake, and things like that. Which is going to be a link to use in learning off machine learning algorithms and things like that, having this whole meditator concept that is matured, or just a metadata manager. And right now, its going very huge because of the different big data platforms are coming together. Its not only the big data platform. The big data platform is very loose term to me. It's just not the Hadoop, you know? It could be... At Dell, we have so many different technologies come together and recall all of them as a data platform for us. We did a platform for us. We know how to just being one of the competent ones. >> So you're saying basically is there's no silver bullet. >> Yes. >> and there is no magical answer. >> But there are skills. >> Yes. >> And so, increasing what you're looking to do, is saying, what are the outcomes? What are the objectives? What are the skills we need to get there? And then, lets look for tools you today are lining up nicely with Informatica. >> Deepak: Exactly. >> So if you think about the next steps that you're going to take, where does the function of a data architect go within Dell, and what kind of recommendations would you make to those users out there who are thinking about how they want to optimize their skills. Their use of their skills in a data analytics world. >> Yeah, sure. So the data architecture is, like I said, knowing the previously in their traditional data warehouse kind of stuff, it was pretty straight forward. But now, they don't-- we are seeing that data architects are getting more and more matured, and I'm getting this data into semi-structured data, and improvising that how the data fit actually get readjusted in the right manner, so that, you know what we can really... Is it like three and one half, or whatever? Is it-- You can't have a data silos anymore? It's like what you need to bring in all data sets together to actually making a meaningful answer-- >> Peter: Well, at least make it possible to bring it together. >> Exactly. >> We had a lot of costs and a lot of pain. >> Yes. >> You may not have to bring them all together. As you said, you don't, its not all about putting it all in the data lake, its about making it possible to acquire. >> Exactly. So you have to know where the data is, you have to be able to quarry, you have to build and reformat on the fly, all these other things to servwe your customers, especially in the self-service world. >> Right. >> So, where does this go? How is this going to drive? What recommendation would you give to companies who are looking to accelerate their use of these new technologies and new approaches? >> I would say this to everybody. Adhere to your customers. Adhere to your business. They are the reason it is for your-- like you know what? There's no person in the organization that knows every domain. So you need to be in a way where right off your sneeze off different data domains that you have, and make sure you pull all these resources together to actually contributing to the whole arbitrational white impact. >> So, start with-- be true to your business. Your customers. Focus on finding data. And then focus on bringing the appropriate level of integration. Not putting it all in one place, but so your customers can be matched to the data they need. >> Deepak: Exactly. >> John: Alright, Deepak, final question. Just your thoughts on the show here. Again 3,000 people and growing every year. The new rebranding, Informatica going into the cloud world. Automation, you're seeing CLAIRE, this new AI meets data. What's your thoughts? >> I think this is phenomenal approach that Informatica is taking right now, and I'm glad. Like you said, there's 3,000 people here really interested to know what's going on and how the things are evolving with Informatica. It's a really great show to be here. Thank you. I'm very glad to be part of it. >> Congratulations on your award for the Big Data Ready Challenge, grand prize winner. A million dollars worth of products. I can knock down some of that purchase price, but I'm sure you guys are big customer. (group laughs) >> Thanks for coming on and sharing your insight as a customer of Informatica. >> It's my pleasure. >> It's theCUBE. I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris. More live coverage in San Fransisco. theCUBE at Informatica 2017. We'll be right back after this short break. Stay with us. (upbeat music)