Ravi Pendekanti, Dell EMC | Dell Technologies World 2018
(upbeat music) >> Announcer: Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCUBE, day three in Las Vegas at Dell Technologies World. I am Lisa Martin with John Troyer. We have been here for three days, there's over 14,000 people here, 30,000 plus more engaging with video content livestream on demand. We're excited to welcome back to theCUBE, not just back to theCUBE, but back today for a second appearance, he's so in demand, Ravi Pendekanti, Senior Vice President, Servers and Systems Product Management and Marketing at Dell EMC, welcome back! >> Thank you, Lisa, great to be here. >> So, you have so much energy for day three, but so much excitement, lots of announcements. >> Ravi: Yes. >> The theme of this event, "Make It Real," is provocative. We've heard a lot of >> Yes it is. >> Lisa: Interpretations about what that means for different customers and different industries who are looking to take advantage of emerging technologies: AI, machine learning, deep learning, IoT, to make digital transformation real. What's going on in the world of AI and machine learning? >> Lisa, a lot. Now, having said that, I don't think there's a single industry in the, in any part of the world today that we talk to that's not interested in AI, machine learning, for that matter, deep learning. Why is that so? Just think about the fact that each one of us today is probably creating and generating two and a half times more data than a year ago. It's huge. I mean, when I started out, people used to think megabytes is huge, then it went to terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, and now I think very soon we're going to talk about zettabytes, right? I'll leave it to you guys to talk about the number of zeros, but setting that aside, data by itself again, the second they went, so of much of data is being created, data in my view has absolutely no value until you create information out of it. >> Lisa: Absolutely. >> And that's where I think companies are becoming more aware of the fact that you need to start getting some information out of it, wherein starts the whole engine, first of all about going about collecting all of the data. And we have all kinds of data. We have got structured data, unstructured data, and now it's important that we actually get all of the disparate data into a format that can now be executed upon. So that's first and foremost what customers are trying to figure out. And then from there comes all the elements that the data analytics part, and then you can go into the machine learning and deep learning. So that's the way people are looking at it, and you made an interesting comment, Lisa, which is making it real. This is where people are looking at things beyond the buzzwords, right? It's sufficed to say AI is not a new term. I recall as a kid, we used to talk about AI. But now is when businesses are depending on it to ensure they have the competitive edge. >> So, Ravi, you know the pendulum swings, right, and ten years ago, >> It does. >> John: Software is eating the world and the cloud is coming, and at one point it looked like a future of undifferentiated x86 compute somewhere. It turns out, hardware actually matters, and as our application and data needs have grown, the hardware matters. >> It does. >> John: And so, part of your portfolio is the PowerEdge set of PowerEdge servers. I mean, how are you approaching that of making the needs of this new generation of software, this massive data parallelism and throughput real? >> Great question, John. It's interesting, yes, the pendulum keeps swinging, right? And the beauty is, as... It's my only hope that, as the pendulum swings, we're actually learning, too, and we're not making the same thing, the same mistakes. Thankfully, we are not. Now, when people talk about cloud, guess what? To your point, it has to run on something, software has to run on something. So, obviously the hardware. Now, to keep up with the changing tide and the needs, some of the recent things we have done, as an example, with our R840 launch yesterday, you know, NVMe is the talk of the town, too, talking about some of the new technologies. And customers want us to go out and provide a better way and a faster way for them to get access to the data in a much more faster way closer to the compute, so that's where the NVMe drives come in. We have got 24 NVMe drives on R840 today, which is two times more than the closest competitor. More into the R940xa; xa stands for extreme acceleration. Again, we have never had an xa product, this is the first of its kind that we are bringing out, and the beauty of this is, we wanted to makes sure there is a one to one relationship between the GPU and the CPU. So, for every CPU you have a GPU. It's a one to one relationship. If you look at the R940 we introduced earlier, it had, just to give the context to your question, John, it had, it could support four CPUs but only two GPUs. So if we are, think of it this way, if we are doubling the number of GPUs, and that's not it, we are actually enabling our customers to add up to eight FPGAs if they want. Nobody else does it, and this goes back to, I think Lisa, I think when we start to talk about FPGAs, too, and therein comes the issue, wherein customers don't have the flexibility in most of the cases in a lot of products out there. We have decided that flexibility has to be given to our customers because the changing, workload's changing, technologies, and even most customers today, they go in thinking that that's all they need, but sooner or later they realize that they need more than what they planned for. So our goal is to ensure that there is enough of scalability and headroom to enable that to happen. So that's how we, as PowerEdge Team, are building servers today, which actually enables us to provide our customers with an ability to have a headroom and at the same time give them the flexibility to change, whether it is NVMe drives or any kind of SSD drive, GPUs, FPGAs, so there's all the flexibility built into it along with ease of management. >> A couple things that you mention that I think are really important is that data doesn't have any value unless you're able to extract insights from it. >> Ravi: Yeah. >> Companies that are transforming digitally well are able to combine and recombine the same data using it as catalysts across many different applications within a business, that agility is key, that speed is key. >> Ravi: Yes. >> How are you, what are some of the things that you're hearing from the 14,000 plus people that I'm sure are all lined up to want to talk to you this week about what, for example, PowerEdge is going to enable them to do? You talked about flexibility, you talked about speed, what are some of the real applications that you're hearing feedback-wise from some of these new features that you've announced? >> Oh, great, so I think, again, an excellent question in terms of how the customers are reacting to and what are we doing. So now, talking about AI machine learning, think of it this way, right, the permutations and combinations are way too many. And the reason I say that is, keeping the hardware aside, when you talk about frameworks that are available today for most of the AI or machine learnings applications, people talk about TensorFlow, people talk about Caffe2, people talk about CNTK, I mean, there's a whole plethora of frameworks. And then there are different neural network methodologies, right? You hear of DNN, deep neural network, right? And then you hear of things called RNN, there is something called CNN, my point is, there is so many permutations and combinations in the mix that what our customers have come back and told us, going back to where we were earlier, talking about the flexibility in the architecture that we are providing, where we provide seamless scalability on any of the vectors, that they actually love that we are giving them the flexibility because when there are so many software options with frameworks and every other methodology, we wanted to make sure that we also provided the flexibility and the scalability. And our scalability comes in, whether it is the I/O connectability, we talked about PowerEdge MX that's going to be coming up soon that was a preview, but that's where we talked about something called the kinetic infrastructure, which essentially enables our customers to go out and run multiple workloads on the same modular infrastructure. Never happened before, right? Or, you know, the seamless way we do it now is a lot better than anything else. Likewise, to go back into the R940xa. We have the ability to go out and support hard drives, SSDs, FPGAs, GPUs, so the feedback has been that our customers are really excited about the fact that we're giving them the flexibility and agility to go out and match to the needs of their different workloads and the different options they have. So, they love it. >> Ravi, I was talking to some of your team yesterday and I was really impressed as they talked about the product development cycle. They said that we start with the customers and we start with applications. >> Ravi: Yes. >> And then we figure out what technologies are now appropriate to build in what combinations. They don't just start from let's throw the newest thing in because we can. As you talk to CIOs and enterprise architects, it used to be if you just do a server refresh and just check the box and push the button, now you've got to look at cloud readiness and what I keep on prim and what I keep off prim and what's going to fit my applications. What are you hearing from customers and how are you trying to educate them on how to approach their next refresh, well, I think even refresh is probably a bad frame, their next set of applications that they're going to have to build in this digital transformation? >> You know, John, this is actually no different, I mean let's step aside from the compute world for a minute, let's pick up an automobile industry, right? If you get into the automobile industry, a family might say they need a sedan, or a family of five or six with young kids might say they want a minivan, right? And maybe now the kids are grown up or you're still in your 20s or 30s and some of the folks would love to have a sports car, like the McLaren that up >> I'll take that one! >> Ravi: On the stage with Jeff; I know, I would love that too, right? (Lisa laughing) So my point is, when people are trying to decide on what is it they really want to buy, they actually know what they're looking for, right? A family of four doesn't go in and say, "I need a two-seat car," for example. It's a similar thing here, as people start looking at the workload first, they come in and start looking at mapping, "Hey, this is the kind of workload we have now," now let's start looking at what infrastructure can we provide behind it? You know, even if you look at our, something that we have announced in the past, but the 740xd. So, we have a 740 version and 740xd version; xd there stands for extreme density. So, if customers want a 2-CPU box, a 2-U box, a server, but they want more storage, then they have xd version. But they decide that storage is not really crucial, they just need the compute, then we provide the 740 on its own, the R740. So my point being that, accentuating the point you raised, is it's always nice to look at the application, look at what its needs are, whether it's memory, whether it's storage, whether it's the GPUs, the CPUs, and then look at how it transposes itself over the next few years because you really don't want to acquire something and then really decide later that you've run out of room. It's like buying a home and then you know you're going to have your kids or you're going to raise a family, you don't probably want to start off with a single bedroom and you know you're going to have a family in a couple of years. My point again being that, that is where the planning becomes absolutely important. So we are planning, and the planning phase is crucial because once you have that right, you now can rest at ease for the next few years and as we do that, one of the other fundamental design principles of PowerEdge is that we want to really support the platforms for multiple generations. Case in point, when we came out with our PowerEdge m1000e, we said that we will guarantee support for three generations of processors. We actually are up to the fifth generation as we speak right now. And our customers love it, because nobody really wants to go ahead and buy more servers every few years if they can go back with their investment they have made and ensure that there is room to grow. So, to your point, absolutely the right spot to start is start looking at the workload, start looking, once you have pegged it, then start looking at really at growing and what your needs could be. And then start connecting the dots and I think you would be coming out with the better outcome for the long run. >> We had the opportunity to talk, John and I just an hour or two ago, with the CIO, with Bask Iyer, and one of the things that was interesting is we talked to him about how the role of the CIO is changing to be really part of corporate strategy, >> Ravi: Yeah. >> And business strategy; as you talk with customers about building this infrastructure, to set them up for the flexibility and the agility that they need, allowing them to make the right decisions for what they need but also scale it over time, how much are you seeing the boots on the street that you're talking to have to sell this up the stack as this is fundamental to transforming IT, which is fundamental to transforming our business into a digital business? >> Very, very true. By the way, Bask is a great friend and a collaborator, we certainly look to, as the saying goes, "Eat your own dog food." So we work with Bask and team very closely because, as a CIO for a large corporation himself, we learn a lot; there's nothing better than trying to walk in the shoes of our customers so, going back to the comment you made, Lisa, is most of the, by the way, most of the customers today, the CIOs, who are now becoming not cost centers, they're becoming profit centers >> Profit centers, >> Lisa: That's what Michael Dell said on Monday. >> Absolutely, and he's absolutely right, Michael is absolutely right because most of the organizations we speak to today on an average, I would think that the number of CIOs we talk to has probably been dialed up, because we see the kind of questions that they're being asked of, right, to the point that we're making earlier, they're not looking at making point purchases for something that will satisfy them for the next 12 months or 18 months. They're looking at the next horizon, they're looking at a long-term strategy, and then they're looking back at the ROI. So what is it I'm able to go back in and provide to my customers internally, whether it is in terms of the number of users or the performance, whatever the SLAs, the Service Level Agreements may be internally, that's what they're looking for. So, towards that end, the whole concept of ROI and TCO, the total cost of ownership and the return of investment nowadays is probably a much bigger talking point that we need to support with the right factoids. I think that's becoming crucial, and the CIOs are getting more engaged in the discussions than ever in the past, and so it's just not about feeds and speeds, which I guess anyone can look at spec sheets, not as exciting, but at things beyond that that I think are getting more crucial. >> Well, Bask said, "Drinking your own champagne, eating your own dog food." I like champagne and dogs, although I'll go with both. >> I, why not. I just... >> We've got the therapy dogs next door. >> Therapy dogs, exactly. >> Lisa: Isn't that fantastic? >> They're great, they're great. >> So, last question in the last 30 seconds or so, biggest event, 14,000 as I said, expected live over the last three days, and tens of thousands more engaging, any one thing really stand out to you at this inaugural Dell Technologies World? >> The most important thing that has stuck for me is that human progress is indeed possible through technology. And this is the best showcase possible, and when you can enable human progress, which cuts across boundaries of nationality, and boundaries of any other kind, I think we are in the winning streak. >> Well said. Ravi, thanks so much for coming back today, couple times in hanging out with us on theCUBE and sharing some of the insights that you're seeing and that you're enabling your customers to achieve. >> Thank you, Lisa; thank you, John, it's been awesome. It's always wonderful being with you guys, so thank you. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE again. Lisa Martin with John Troyer live, day three of Dell Technologies World. Stick around, we'll be right back after a short break. (upbeat music)
SUMMARY :
Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. not just back to theCUBE, but back today So, you have so much energy for day three, The theme of this event, "Make It Real," is provocative. What's going on in the world of AI and machine learning? I'll leave it to you guys to talk about the number of zeros, and now it's important that we actually get all and the cloud is coming, of making the needs of this new generation of software, and the beauty of this is, we wanted to makes sure A couple things that you mention that I think are able to combine and recombine the same data We have the ability to go out and support and we start with applications. and just check the box and push the button, So my point being that, accentuating the point you raised, going back to the comment you made, Lisa, is most of the, because most of the organizations we speak to today I like champagne and dogs, although I'll go with both. I just... We've got the therapy dogs and when you can enable human progress, and sharing some of the insights that you're seeing It's always wonderful being with you guys, so thank you. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE again.
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Kash Shaikh, Dell EMC & Marc Oshima, Aerofarms | Dell Technologies World 2018
>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2018, brought to you by Dell EMC and it's ecosystem partners. >> Well, good afternoon. Welcome back. We are live here on theCUBE, Dell Technologies World 2018 in Las Vegas. I'm John Walls with Stu Miniman, and I hope you're hungry, because we have just something to satisfy that tech appetite of yours. We have a couple of guests to talk about plants, about eating, about vegetables. I'm looking forward to this. Marc Oshima, the CMO of AeroFarms. Marc, thank you for being with us. >> Yeah, thank you. We're always excited to share what we're doing and how we're transforming agriculture, how we are feeding communities, nourishing communities by enabling local production, bringing the farm to the cities where people are >> Excellent. Good, and also with us is Kash Saikh, who is the vice president of Cloud & Solutions at Dell EMC. Kash, good to see you too. >> Thank you for having me again. >> You bet. So, Marc, let's talk about AeroFarms. First off, to share your story with the folks at home, in case they're not familiar, when I said I hope you're hungry, there's a reason why, AeroFarms. >> Yeah, so this is one of the exciting things we're doing at AeroFarms. I'm one of the co-founders. We are growing indoors. This is indoor vertical farming. We're growing in converted warehouses without sun or soil. We're really rethinking about agriculture and what we can do when we think about the rising challenges we have, climate change, we think about access to fresh water, loss of arable land, but more importantly, again, how can we take back that control as a way of growing. So, AeroFarms, the Aero in AeroFarms refers to aeroponics. We're misting the roots with nutrients and water, using 95% less water than the field farm, so, we have growing that uses no pesticides, we use a fraction of the fertilizer. So, we're really changing the inputs, something about how we have better outputs, and this is an exciting time for us. >> Well, I do want to say, first off, congratulations to the Dell EMC Workforce Transformation Award Winner, so congratulations on that front. That's a great distinction, I assume quite proud and quite worthy, right? >> Yeah, a number of farms, we have a number of great stories and it's, really, starts with the company, so idea, the culture, the people, is really what makes it special, so for us it's very meaningful. So, we think about these farms being for the community, by the community. Our global headquarters are Newark, New Jersey. It's an exciting time in that city, helping really be part of a revitalization there. But 40% of our team's coming from Newark, 85% live within 15 miles of Newark, so the idea that we can create these year-long jobs, better wages, better benefits, and then really address the fact that it's a food desert as well, increase access to healthier foods, so it's exciting to think about what we can do with business. >> Yeah, okay, Kash, actually, I was trying to remember, was it an Innovation Award, that AeroFarms-- >> It was Innovation Award. >> Maybe for our audience, talk about some of what that means to be an Innovation Award. Obviously, AeroFarms is doing some pretty cool stuff, but bring if from the Dell's standpoint. >> Absolutely. Obviously, we are working very closely, my team and myself have been working very closely with AeroFarms, and they way I describe AeroFarms is they are what I call the digital born companies. They are completely disrupting the vertical data in the line of business they are in from all aspects. The innovation is multi-dimensional, if I can say that. So, if you look at the environment they are in, this is actually a warehouse, so there is no sunlight, there is no soil, and they are reducing the water by 95%. They are using our IOT technologies, alternative think technologies. They have the gateways where they are collecting the logistics of location, they have the multi-spectral camera where they are taking the images of the plants as they are coming in on these trays, in terms of what is the color, what is the texture, how they can make it more tasty, and that's where the machine learning comes in, where we are now looking at automating some of this processes around when they have the images, rather than sorting through these images, how we can automate them and make it even more digital. But, you know, it's impressive in terms of how many aspects of digital born and digital firsts these guys are using, because I don't think there is any customer that I've talked to in this area who's using all aspects of the disruption and disruptive technologies as Marc and AeroFarms is using. So, to me, they really deserve the Innovation Award, from so many perspectives and how they are leveraging the technology and how they are changing things in a very traditional industry. If you look at farming, it's a traditional industry but it's from the ground up, more digital. >> Marc, actually, I want to start there first, before we get into the IOT and the ML and all that wonderful stuff that we definitely want to cover. What do you consider your company? Are you a farming company, are you a technology company? You're one of the co-founders. Bring us back. You know, I'm from the area of New Jersey that you're based, no land, no soil, no area, a lot of time no sunlight, yep, sounds about right for that part of New Jersey. >> Yeah. >> So, the founding, was it a point in time with the technology, the skill set, bring us back, and how do you think of yourselves? >> Yeah, so, at the heart, we're farmers, but we're also a technology company, and there's this symbiotic relationship, and we realize if we want to be good at the farming, we need to be good at the technology. If we want to be good at the technology, we need to be good at the farming as well, so understanding this interaction. So, we think about the biology and the engineering and the environment, and what's exciting now, is we bring in the big data, so we're constantly sensing and looking at what's happening with the plant, so the plants are being monitored 24/7, so we think we are the world experts in understanding how to grow plants. We can grow a wide range of different types of crops, so what's exciting is that we can really change the equation in terms of having a better product. We can think about things like the taste, texture, and nutrition and, ultimately, yield, so we can have the right kind of sustainable business plan. >> I love that you say you're farmers. It's not just, oh, we're a software company, we're a digital company. You're right, farming's at the core. People that have seen the videos or tried your products understand, this is great produce you create there, and that pairing with, a big thing we've seen at the show, is the technology and the people, and bringing those together. So, bring us inside a little bit, your IT world, how you manage that, how you look at data as being a core piece of your business. >> What we love about the theme of the show is, well, make it real. It's so real that it's very tangible, it's food and thinking about how we can have that impact in communities, so everybody in our organization's very much aligned in terms of, again, how can we think about a new way of farming, from seed to package, a new way of growing that has food safety at the highest level. So, how do we do that? The technology, the IT, is helping enable a lot of this. We have an amazing workforce. We also have over 300 standard operating procedures on how to run a farm, but what the technology's allowing us to do is how to replicate that, how to scale the businesses, and how to make sure we can do it consistently all year round. So, the idea that we have eyes and ears and, literally, we think of ourselves as the plant listeners or the plant whisperers of what do the plants need, and the technologies allowing us those windows into, again, how to optimize 'em. >> So, what are you measuring? I assume, soil, moisture, humidity, what all inputs are you getting, and how are you processing them, and then how's that, I guess, Kash, I want to hear from you, how you are enabling them to make sense of all this, the analytic side? >> We actually are growing without soil, so just to make that perfectly clear. >> That's right, I'm sorry. That's right, my mistake. >> We have patents on our growing medium. It's actually cloth, and so it's a reusable medium, but allows us a lot of flexibility in terms of the types of crops we can grow. But, we're looking at the environmental factors, so things like temperature, humidity, we're also thinking about things like the nutrients, we're thinking about lighting. So, we talk about having this expertise, understand how to have more effective photosynthesis. We can look at each plant, each stage of maturation, understand not only what type of spectrum of light, but what intensity, what frequency, so we can actually have more effective photosynthesis indoors and then have that consistently. So, we actually develop these growing algorithms, so this idea, so we have an R&D farm, R&D team is taking this, and really calibrating it, then it gets handed over to our operations team. An idea, though, is every harvest now becomes another learning opportunity, and the fact is we can have up to 30 different harvests a year, so those are 30 learning opportunities. We think about that, exponentially, how much more insight we have, how much more data, and that's what I think makes AeroFarms unique is this holistic view. So, we've been doing this since 2004. We'll be the first to tell you, it's really challenging, how to bring this together, and it's by working with partners like Dell can help us really amplify that work and be able to use the technology to make insights around the data. So, we think of ourselves, not only harvesting the plant, but harvesting those insights as well. >> Kash, bring us inside this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't sound like something that's off the shelf. What's involved in putting together a solution like this? How does Dell work with customers like AeroFarms? >> There are several aspects. The way we started was we started with an IOT workshop with AeroFarms. We also started with the gateways, which as we discussed, provide the logistics and location and all that good stuff. Then, we started working with Marc and the team on looking at how we can automate some of the things, especially around imaging. As I mentioned, there is a multi-spectral camera that is mounted on the harvesting table, and as you're taking the images, and rather than manually sorting through the images, the ideas can be applied, machine-learning technologies to automate some of that, because this is where we come in, especially from the machine learning and deep learning perspective, when we get involved, the first thing we evaluate is, with the customers, do they have the right set of the data? Do you have the right amount of data? If they have the data that is classified and categorized, and then the next step is, obviously, we can apply automation and machine learning and deep learning to get them faster in size, rather than doing it manually. And, in this case, like I said, they were pretty much already there because they are digital born company, they were using analytics, they have a lot of data, and so for us, it was a matter of making sure we focus on what is that they are trying to achieve. There are several aspects, as Marc said, there is yield, obviously, you want to increase the yield per square foot, and one of the matrix I saw was 390 times better productivity per square foot. So, the end of the day, they are trying to increase the yield and, for us, it's a matter of as we are gathering these images, how we can make the process more automated using machine learning and deep learning, if I can simplify that with the right amount of data. And, to answer your other part of the questions, too, in some cases, it's very customized, because they are different kind of customers. As I said, for me, AeroFarms is an example of digital first, they are already there, they have most of the technologies. In some cases, we work with a customers, they are in mature industries and they are mature customers, but they are now trying to be more digitally transformed. They are using some aspects of the digital transformation and we have them leverage machine learning or deep learning to get the faster in size and intelligence that can help them with a competitive differenciation. What we are trying to do is, as a part of these engagements, as in working with really advanced customers like AeroFarms or some other customers, is figuring out what are the typical challenges these customers run into. If I can summarize it, because there are a variety of customers, there are, obviously, early adapters, they come to us, they have figured out most of the things, but they have a particular problem around, let's say, a framework, TensorFlow, Caffe2, and what have you. Large majority of customers, they have heard about AI, they come to me and they are like, Kash, help us get started on this journey. It's just basic stuff, like how do get, even if I have IOT, how do I get started? So, I've heard about GPU and AI which is a cool thing. At the end of the day, I'm trying to solve my business problem and use it as a competitive differenciation. To me, is my job, especially as a solution lead for Dell EMC, is to bridge that gap, not just give them a building block, give them a solution. So, what we do, we have a lab we put together solutions. So, AI, complicated. You have various kinds of accelerators, you have operating systems, and then you have these frameworks, and then there are vertical softwares, what I call the AI. What we are doing in our labs is, based on learning from some of the customers, we are developing an AI validated start, which can be customized, depending on what the customers are trying to do, but they got a lot of guesswork. They got all their self-learning. Along with that, we provide consulting services, so, for example, these data scientists, they are a premium resource, hard-to-find skill sets. We don't want our customers to have the data scientists setting up these data lakes or figuring out all the stacks on their own. Give them the stack, provide them the services, so the idea is from accelerator, GPU, to solution faster. >> Right. So, Marc, your peers really appreciate that you're chewing some glass and working on some of these early solutions. Most customers I talk to, IOT is still relatively early, same thing with machine learning, so I wonder if you could just take a second and talk to some of the things you've learned, anything now that you look back and say I wish I'd understand this, either from a technology or organizational standpoint, kind of key lessons learned, that we can all learn from what you've done. >> Yeah, sure. I think at the heart of what we've heard is that this is a customized approach, so the idea that there are some key lessons, but we're writing a new playbook. That's what's exciting about this, and I think what was so key, though, what we saw with Dell, is there was a process. There was a collaboration in terms of hearing. These are important lessons because this is foundational work. So, I mentioned about the IOT workshop, really be able to get the stakeholders together, really understanding what are the business, and what are our business needs. But, it's not just that one point in time. It's ongoing, it's a really great collaboration, understanding how we integrated the data, what are the data insights, and then how we, it's a interative process, in terms of, again, how do we continue to evolve and make sense of this? Those are important lessons for any partner and any person starting out in this journey is making sure, understanding what the business's business need, but then being able to articulate that in a way that it'd be turned into action and insights. >> Anything that surprised you or caught you off guard in the process? >> Yeah, these are things that, again, because it's new, so it's making sure that we have an organizational commitment, again, in terms of, again, how we prioritize as scaling business, as an emerging business, with competing objectives at times, but at the heart of this is we really need to see what's the pulse of the business, and this is what's allowing us, so this is really important about making sure, strategically, it's front and center. >> It's a cool concept, no doubt about it, hydroponics, technology, an idea that you could say it's taken root, but that would be a terrible joke, and I wouldn't do that. Marc, thanks for being with us. Kash, a pleasure as well, and continued success. >> Well, I appreciate it. >> AeroFarms, based in Newark, New Jersey. Back with more, you're watching Dell Technologies World 2018, and we are live on theCUBE in Las Vegas, Nevada. (techy music)
SUMMARY :
brought to you by Dell EMC because we have just something bringing the farm to the cities Kash, good to see you too. First off, to share your of the exciting things so congratulations on that front. so the idea that we can but bring if from the Dell's standpoint. in the line of business they that we definitely want to cover. and the engineering and the environment, People that have seen the videos and how to make sure we can do it We actually are growing That's right, I'm sorry. and the fact is we can have something that's off the shelf. and one of the matrix I and talk to some of the so the idea that there so it's making sure that we have an idea that you could and we are live on theCUBE
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