>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida. It's theCUBE! Covering .conf18. Brought to you by Splunk. >> Welcome back to Orlando, everybody. Splunk .conf18. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. I'm Dave Vellante with my co-host, Stu Miniman. Carnival Cruise Lines is back. We heard from them yesterday, we heard them on the main stage of .conf. CEO is up there with Doug Merritt. Sheldon White is here. He's an enterprise architect at Carnival Cruise Line And Alex Taberras, who's the director of threat intelligence at Carnival. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Doing a lot of talk on security today. They've lined us up, which is great. We love the conversation. So much to learn. Alex, I'll start with you. When you think about security and threat intelligence, what are the big changes that you've seen over the last, whatever, pick a time. Half a decade? Decade? Couple of years even. >> Alex: So, it's just the amount of threats that are coming in now and how fast they're coming in, right? We can't seem to be keeping up with everything that's happening in the environment, everything that's happening outside, trying to get into our environment and cause all that damage, right? So, that's why Splunk is awesome, right? I get to see everything come in, real time. I'm able to quickly pinpoint any action I need to take, send it to my team and have them immediate right away. >> So, Sheldon, yesterday we had ship and shore from Carnival and he was talking about really different problems. You know, the folks on the ship, they got 250 thousand people on the ocean at any one point in time collecting data, trying to make a better experience, keep them connected. Folks on the shore, obviously, websites and things like that. Where do you fit into that mix of ship and shore? >> Sheldon: Right, so there's an entire value stream that we map out as enterprise architects. And so, what we do there is analyze all the customer touch points. And then we aggregate all of that information into a pipeline that we then address our audiences with those critical KPIs. Operational and infrastructure, the entire stack. >> Dave: You guys obviously have very strong relationship with Splunk. We heard from your CEO, Arnold Donald, right? >> Alex: Correct. >> Interesting name, I haven't messed that up yet so. (laughing) And so, where did that relationship start? Did it start in SecOps? Did it start in IT operations management? >> Alex: So, it really started in Devops, right? And they started... They purchased Splunk, I think back in like 2007, 2008. And they started looking at it, right? And I think I was talking to one of our other architects and it was one gig is what we started at, right? Now, we're upwards of 600 gigs. Just for security. So, it started there and it just kind of morphed into this huge relationship where we're partnering and touching all aspects of our business with Splunk. You know, and the Cloud and everything else. >> So, we heard, I don't know if you guys saw the key notes today, but we saw some announcements building on yesterday's Splunk next announcement. We heard some business workflow and some industrial IOT. I would think both of those are relevant for you guys. Not industrial IOT, but your IOT. Do you see Splunk permeating further into the organization? I guess, the answer's yes. You kind of already said that. But I'm interested in what role you guys play in facilitating that ? Are you kind of champions, evangelist, experts, consultants? How does that work? How do you see that (mumbles)? >> Sheldon: So, we see ourselves as internal consultants. We have our internal customers that depend on our guidance and our end-to-end view of the business processes. So, and now as enter our Cloud journey, into the second year of our Cloud journey, just we're able to accelerate our time to value for our internal customers to gain even greater insights into what's happening ship and shore. >> Dave: I wonder how, if you can talk about, how enterprise architecture has changed over the last decade even. You know, it used to be you were trying to harden the two tier or three tier architecture and harden top, don't touch it, it works. And then, of course, we all know, it created a lot of different stove pipes and a lot of data was locked into those stove pipes. That's changed, obviously. Cloud, now the Edge. Maybe because you guys were always sort of a distributed data company, you approached it differently. But I wondered if you could gives us (mumbles)? >> Sheldon: No, that's an interesting question. Because the evolution is not so much enterprise architect as it is eco system architect, right? So, now you have these massively distributed systems. So, you're really managing an eco system of internal and third party. And then all the relevant touch points, right? Like Alex mentioned, all that perimeters constantly shifting now. So, yeah, our focus is always aligning with the on-time business process and our internal customers. >> Yeah, wonder if we could dig into the Cloud a little. Alex, can we start with you? How does Cloud fit into your world of security? >> Alex: So, for me, the Cloud, as far as Splunk goes, it allows me to expand and contract as needed, right? So before, we used to have our on premise hardware, very finite RAM memory, I mean, disk space everything. So now, with the Cloud, I'm able to expand my environment as I move across all my North American brands, European brands, to be able to gather all that data, look at it and take action on it, right? >> Stu: And Sheldon, you're using AWS. We see they're, every software provider lives in AWS. It's often in the marketplace. We been seeing a lot this week that there's a deeper partnership. There's actually a lot of integration. Maybe give us your viewpoint on what you've seen on how Splunk and AWS work together to meet your requirements. >> Yeah. So, that's an interesting evolution as well of that partnership, right? So, you're starting to see things like the S3 API integration. So that you're removing storage from the critical path. And now that opens up different scale of possibilities, right? And internal opportunities. But yes, as you can see, leveraging the machine learning toolkit. I saw that one coming. It's going to be interesting to see how that keeps evolving, right? And also, like I was speaking to Alex, about the natural language capability. So, that also is well brought into the dimension of how our senior leadership with interact with these operational platforms. >> Yeah, I got to thank you. You're going to have your customer's natural language has to get into some of their rooms. It's definitely future. >> Sheldon: Oh, it's going to be apart of that value chain. Yeah, for sure. >> Dave: How does the S3 API integration affect you guys? Obviously, you got to put Syntax in an object store, which is going to scale. What does that mean for you guys? >> Sheldon: So, using the Splunk developer Cloud, we could develop all sorts of solutions to manage it intelligently how our storage, right? In near real time. So, we can completely automate and that end-to-end just integration with Splunk, how it ingest, how long that data stays relevant and how we offload it into things like Glacier. >> Dave: In the enablement, there is the S3 API. So, you're taking advantage of all the AWS automation tooling. >> Sheldon: Correct. >> Is that right? >> Sheldon: Correct. >> Alright. >> Sheldon: That's another example of that side integration. Not only with the S3 API. Lex, for the natural language. Obviously, TensorFlow and the machine learning toolkit. So, I think you're going to see that type of... those type of capabilities expanding as Splunk evolves. Next year, I'm sure they're going to have a ton of more, you know, announcements around how this evolution continues, right? >> Dave: So, you know, I was interested in the TensorFlow and Spark integration. And Stu and I were talking in an earlier segment. It's great, developers love that. We saw a lot of demos today that was like, looks so simple. Anybody could do it. Even I might be able to do it. But as practitioners of Splunk, is it really going to be that easy? Are business users actually going to be able to pick this stuff up and what are they going to have to do in order to take advantage of Splunk? Some training involved? >> Sheldon: Right, right. >> What's the learning curve going to be like? >> Sheldon: That's a great question, because there's a dual focus to this, right? First, is offloading from the developer. All that heavy lifting of creating this user interface and the dashboards, per say. Now, its all API driven. So, as you saw, maybe in the keynote this morning, that within the demo, was an API driven dashboard came together in several minutes. But one is offloading that and the second part is just enabling the business user with other capabilities, like natural language process. And they don't necessarily need to be on that screen. They can get acception reporting through emails and voice commands. So, training is also part of it, obviously. So, it's a multifaceted approach to leveraging these new capabilities. >> Dave: Are you guys responsible for the physical infrastructure of your ships? I mean, is that part of your purview? Okay. So, really there's is an industrial IOT component big time for you guys. >> Absolutely. >> Alex: And there's a huge push now for Maritime security, right? We saw what happened with Maersk and NotPetya virus, right? So, how it took them out of operation for about three weeks. So, this IOT is very, I think, awesome, right? I was speaking to some of the Splunk guys yesterday about it. How we could leverage that on our ships to gather that data, right, from our SCADA systems. And from our bridge and engine control systems to be able to view any kind of threat. Any kind of vulnerability that we might be seeing in the environment. How we can control that and how we can predict anything from happening, right? So, that's going to be very key to us. >> Dave: So, Splunk is going to take that data right off the machines. Which Stu and I were talking, that to us is a huge advantage. So many IT companies are coming and saying, "Hey! We're going to put a box at the edge". That's nice, but what about the data? So, Splunk's starting with the data, but it's the standards of that data. They're really driven by engineers and operations technology folks. Is Splunk sort of standard agnostic? Can they be able to ingest that data? What has to be done for you guys to take advantage of that? >> So, we'll have to ingest that data. And we'll have to, you know, look at it and see what we're seeing, right? This is all brand new to us as well. >> Dave: Right. >> Right. This whole Maritime thing has risen up in the past year, year and a half. So, we're going to have to look at the data and then kind of figure out what we want to see. Normalize it, you know, we'll probably get some PS services or something to assist us. Some experts. And then we just go from there, right? We build our dashboards and our reports. >> Dave: And predictive maintenance is a huge use case for you guys. >> Alex: Absolutely. >> I mean, to me, it's as important as the airlines. >> Alex: Absolutely, yes. >> So, I would think, anytime you... Well, first of all, real time during a journey. But anytime that journey is completed, you must bring in the inspectors and, I'm sure, very time consuming and precise. >> So, I know that some of our senior leadership, especially in the Maritime space, has now looking towards Splunk to do some of that predictive maintenance. To make sure that we have that right nuts and bolts, right? Per say, on the ship. To be able to fix any issue that might arise at sea while we're on there. >> Dave: Now, it's expect that the drive is going to be for human augmentation and of drive efficiency. >> Alex: Correct. >> You're not just going to trust the machines right out of the box. No way, right? >> Alex: No. But it's empowering those engineers, right? As we see with some of the dashboards that they're coming up with at the keynote. Empowering some of the those engineers that are in the engine room. That are in bridge. To be able to see those issues come up, right? And be able to track. >> Dave: Plus, I would imagine this is the kind of thing like an airline pilot. You're double checking, you're triple checking. So, you might catch misses earlier on in the cycle. >> Alex: Yeah. I could see it having huge impact. >> Stu: Yeah. Sheldon, I was just thinking through the other next announcement. I wonder if Splunk business flows sounds like something that might fit into your data pipeline? Get insights, understand satisfaction. Seems like it might be a fit. Is that of interest to you? >> Sheldon: Yeah, it sure is. Because we definitely want to, since we've evolved with kind of fragmented systems. We still have main frames, we still have whole call center environment that we need to ensure that it's parts of the end-to-end guest experience. So, for sure, we're getting into the whole early adopter program on the process flow. >> Yeah. Can you give us little insight? What kind of back and forth do you have with Splunk? What sort of things are you asking that would help make your jobs easier going forward? >> So, going forward, I know they're addressing a lot so the ingestion and data standardization. And now, with the decoupling of the storage, which is awesome, makes our lives a lot easier. But the evolution of the natural language and the integration with AWS natively is huge for us, as well as our Cloud program matures. And we start enabling Serverless architectures, for example. So, yeah. No, it's a very important part. >> Stu: Yeah. I mean, Serverless is actually something we're pretty interested. What are some of the early places that you're finding value there? >> Well, many people don't know this, but Carnival's also one of the largest travel agencies in the United States. So, we have the whole... Well, it's the whole global air travel platform that we're currently migrating to a Serverless architecture, integrates with Sabre. So, we're looking at things like open trace for that. And I know that our friends at Splunk are enabling capabilities for that type of management. >> Dave: And what's the business impact of Serverless there? You're just better utilization of resources? Faster time to value? Maybe you could describe. >> Yeah. Near real time processing. Scaling up and scaling down seasonally. Our key aspects of that. Removing the constraints of CPU and storage and-- >> Dave: Alex, has it changed the security paradigm at all? Serverless? How does it change it? >> Alex: So, it does. It let's me not have to worry so much about on premise stuff, right? As I did before. So, that helps a lot, right? And being able to scale up and down quickly as much data as we're ingesting is very key for us. >> Dave: You guys are heavy into Cloud, it's obvious. I wonder if you could share with us how you decide, kind of, what goes? If you're not all in on Cloud, right? It's not 100 percent Cloud? >> Sheldon: No, we could never be all in. >> No. >> Dave: And we've put forth that notion for years. We call it "true private cloud". That what you want to do is bring the Cloud experience to your data, wherever that data lives. There's certain data and workloads that you're not just going to put into the Cloud. >> Sheldon: That's correct. >> So, you would confirm that. That's the case. Like, you just said it. >> Correct. >> Dave: You're never going to put some of these workloads on Cloud. >> Well, we have floating data centers. So, we'll always be in a hybrid model. But there is a decision framework around how we create those application, migration pipelines. And the complexity and interdependencies between these platforms, some are easier to move than others. So, yeah. No, we're quite aware of-- >> Dave: And so, my follow up question is are you trying to bring that Cloud experience to those... to the floating data centers, wherever possible? And how is the industry doing? If you had a grade them in terms of their success. I mean, you certainly hear this from the big tech suppliers. "Oh, yes! We've got private Cloud" and "It's just like the public Cloud". And we know it's not and it doesn't have to be. >> Sheldon: Right. >> But if it can substantially mimic that public Cloud experience, it's a win for you guys. So, how is the industry doing in your view? >> So, I think it's a crawl, walk, run type of thing. Obviously, you have these floating cities and satellite bandwidth is a precious resource that we have to use wisely, right? So, we definitely are Edge computing strategy is evolving rapidly. What do we act upon at the Edge? What do we send to the Cloud? When do we send it? There also some business drivers behind this. For example, one of our early Cloud forays was in replicating a guest activity aboard the ship. So, we know if somebody buys a margarita off the coast of Australia, we know it five seconds later. And then, we could act upon that data. Casino or whatever data it may be in near real time. >> So, a lot of data stays at the floating data center, obviously. >> Correct. >> Much of it comes back to the Cloud. When it comes back to the Cloud is a decision, 'cause of the expense of the bandwidth. What do you do? You part the ship at the data center and put a big fire hose in there? (laughing) >> Alex: I wish it was that easy. >> You got a bunch of disc drives that you just take and load up? That's got to be a challenge. >> So, there business requirements, right? So, we have to figure out what application is more important, right? So, usually like our ship property management system, right. Where we have all our guests data, as far as their names, birth dates, all that stuff. That takes priority over a lot of other things, right. So, we have to use, like Sheldon said, that bandwidth wisely. 'Cause we don't really own a lot of the ports that we go into. So, we can't, just like you say, plug in a cable and move on, right? We still rely heavily on our satellites. So, bandwidth is our number on constraint and we have to, you know, we share it with our revenue generating guests as well. So, obviously, they take priority and a lot of factors go into that. >> Dave: And data's not shrinking. So, I'll give you guys the last word, if you could just sort of summarize, in your view, some of the big challenges that you're going to try to apply Splunk towards solving in the next near to mid term. >> Alex: Well, I'm more security focused. So, for me, its just making sure that I can get that data as fast as possible. I know that I saw yesterday at the keynote, the mobile app. That for me is going to be like one of the things I'm going to go like, research right away, right? 'Cause for me, its' getting that alert right away when something's going on, so that I can mitigate quickly, move fast and stop those threats from hitting our environment. >> Dave: Sheldon? >> Yes, I think the challenges are, like you mentioned earlier, about the stove pipes and how organizations evolve. Now, with this massive influx of data, that just making sense of it from a people, technology and processes standpoint. So that we could manage the chaos, so to speak, right? And make sure that we have an orderly end-to-end view of all the activity on the ships. >> Dave: Well, thank you guys. Stu and I are like kids in a candy shop, 'cause we getting to talk to so many customers this week. So, we really appreciate your time and your insights and the inspiration for your peers. So, thank you. >> Oh, thank you very much. >> Alex: Thank you for having us. >> Dave: You're welcome. Alright, keep it right there everybody. Stu and I will be back right after this short break. You're watching theCUBE Live from .conf18. Be right back. (techno music)

>> Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE, covering .conf18. Brought to you by Splunk. >> Welcome back to Splunk .conf18, #splunkconf18. You're here watching theCUBE, the leader in live-tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm with my cohost, Stu Miniman, and we're going to take a cruise with the data. Curt Persaud is here. He's the director of IT for Guest Technology at Carnival Cruise Lines. So, he's the ship. And Ariel Molina is here. He's the Senior Director of web development and enterprise architecture at Carnival Cruise Line. He's the shore. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. Good to see you. >> Happy to be here. Very, very. >> Thanks for having us guys. >> Dave, I sea what you did there. (laughs) >> Yeah, Stu, it's pretty good, huh. Well, this is kind of, you know, Splunk is known for a little tongue in cheek. >> Alright, let's keep this interview on course. >> (laughs) Alright, you got it. So Arnold Donald, your CEO, was on stage today with Doug Merritt, a very inspirational individual. You guys have an amazing company. You see those ads and just go "wow." Just makes you want to go. But Ariel, let's start with you, your role, what you guys are doing here. Just kick it off for us. >> So, no, it's fantastic, great to be here. Great energy in the conference today. The keynote was fantastic. It was great to see our CEO up there and really represent our company, really talk about, sort of, where we're heading and how Splunk helps us along that journey when it comes to data. Things are changing, they're moving faster every day, right? We're pressured into delivering more value, delivering innovation at a faster pace, and Splunk is a key enabler of that, for us. >> And Curt, at any one point in time, you guys said you have like 250,000 guests on the seas around the world. Wow! And everybody wants to be connected these days. So that's kind of your purview, right? >> Yeah, absolutely. Five, 10 years ago, what sold cruises was the ability to be disconnected. Right now, people want to be connected more than ever. So what we try to do, beyond just the connectivity, and giving them better bandwidth, and stuff like that, was to try to develop products onboard that helps them be connected, be social, but not miss out on the product that we're actually selling, which is the ship, the people, the crew, and the actual entertainment and the staff onboard. So we're trying to make people social, but not anti-social with some of the technologies that we're bringing onboard, as well. >> Doug Merritt said today, "we're all data emitters." And I think the number was you guys will service 13 million guests in any given year? So a huge, huge number of data emitters. And of course, Ariel, you obviously are analyzing a lot of data, as well. So, how has the use of data changed over the years at Carnival? Maybe you could kind of take us through that. >> Well, ultimately I think it's about personalizing the experience. So, how do we use the data to better understand what folks are looking for in that guest journey? We call the guest journey everything from planning a voyage, purchasing a voyage, purchasing all the auxiliary items that are up for sale, and then ultimately making it into the ship. So, what we're doing these days, is looking at mining this data, and looking for opportunities. On the dot-com side of things, obviously it's about resiliency and personalization. How do we deliver innovation through multiple releases, and then do so in a resilient way? And a lot of those innovations, typically, are around personalization. And we see that move the needle. We're incentivized to have more folks book online. That's ultimately good for the bottom line. So, data's a big part of that. Personalization, resiliency. >> Yeah, it's one of those interesting things we look at. Most people probably think of cruise ships as you're vacation or transportation, everything like that. You're a technology company now. You're tied in, you've got multiple mobile apps, before and during. Maybe bring us a little bit inside what that's like. >> Over the past three years, we've seen a great transformation in terms of the technologies that we're bringing on board. You name it, whether it's very high end tools, like Splunk and other APM tools that we use, to cutting-edge technology like AI, chatbots, facial recognition. We're using the full breadth of all these innovations, in terms of technology, to try to enhance guest experience. And to Ariel's point, the focus is really on trying to be very personal, trying to personalize this information, trying to personalize the guest experience, and using all those data points that we're capturing to really target what a custom experience looks for you. It's really interesting, because one of the things that we try to do in that personalization is try to manage those micro-moments. We're trying to get you what you want, we're trying to get you the feedback that you need in that micro-moment, so that you can do your transaction and move on to enjoying your cruise. >> There's something that you mentioned. You want a balance. You want people to take advantage of what's there. You used to think of a vacation like this, you'd disconnect yourself. Help understand that balance. >> You'd be surprised. We were just recently on a cruise, my family and I, and we don't cruise as often as you would imagine. >> Because you work for the company. >> Even though, when you do, it feels good to be a customer, right? There's so much activity going on on a ship on a given day. It's very hard to understand where to be at a certain point in time, and some people find that overwhelming. What things like the app does is really allow you to curate your day. To say hey, you like music? Let's focus on events that are music-oriented and that's going to be in Location XYZ on the ship. And they're going to be sequenced. So, that's personalizing the experience. But it's also ensuring that folks are really taking advantage of the full product. >> From our perspective, the technology should be in the background. It's more complementary. The real product is really the ship, the crew members, the activities, the entertainment on board. That's the product we really want people to really connect to. The stuff that we do is auxiliary in terms of, let me help you maximize those experiences on board. And that's what we're really trying to do. If we can get that done and accomplished, than we have done our jobs. >> So the app is the digital conduit to the physical experience >> Exactly. >> If you have a good app, it makes all the difference in the world. If you're at Disney, and you're trying to figure out what's next, what do the lines look like? You get a lot of people on a ship, and you want to prioritize. You all call that curating your experience. It's all about the app, as they say. What's the state of the app? The 1.0 probably needed a little work. Where are you know in the evolution? >> We're in a 2.0 release version of it. The original version, we started with what we called the meat and potatoes. The very basic stuff, that hey, where can I get food? What is the entertainment lineup for the day? We started off with some innovation in terms of being able to generate, we did a chat, kind of like, communication, so people could chat with their families onboard without having to purchase a plan or have any bandwidth needs. And then, as we evolved that, then we started to go into things that are more transactional. So, you're able to purchase your photos digitally through the app. We leveraged facial recognition software, so that if a photographer on a ship takes a picture of you, it recognizes that as you and puts your photo in your photo stream and your photo album. So, very, very convenient. We do things like sell shore excursions in terms of transactional stuff. You can sit at the pool and say "oh, tomorrow's a port day, "I'm going to be in the Bahamas. "Let me see what shore excursion I want to do. And you can do it directly from the app without even moving. So now, as we evolve that now, as Ariel said, now we're trying to leverage all that data now, to go beyond the transactions, and make things even more personalized. So, I know that you favor the casino, maybe you're a spa person, you want a facial. We'll target you and say hey, on your previous cruise you did this. Let's target you because we might have something special waiting for you onboard. >> And then carry that across the journey, right. So now they leave our ships. And how do we get them to come back to our ships? How do you create that conversation that's ongoing, notifications about what's going on on our ships. People follow their favorite cruise director. People follow a lot of the unique experiences there. How do you bring that to the online, to the dot-com experience? So that when they're thinking about that next cruise, they can remember what that last cruise was about, and they can know what's happening on each one of our ships in real-time. It's a journey. And technology definitely is a huge enabler for us and the experience. >> So what's the data architecture look like on there? We always talk on theCUBE about the innovation sandwich of the future. It used to be Moore's Law, doubling every two years. Okay, great. Now, it's data, plus machine intelligence, and you scale with the cloud. What's your data architecture look like? >> Well, I think it's early days. I think it's, I mean, they're all over the place, right? I think there's silos within the enterprise that are really maximizing data. I think that that trend continues to happen. But I think there's got to be, and the enterprise architecture world is sort of about wrangling that, and figuring out how data from different dispersed touch points affect that. So, it's early days. I do think that you're starting to see that machine learning algorithms do play a part. I'm seeing it personally, more in the operations side of the world. So all these systems, at the end of the day, they need to be resilient and they need to have high service levels. So, what I'm seeing now is tools, and at Splunk, you saw that today, being able to be really predictive about where the anomalies are. Traditionally, you were having to log errors and then interpret errors, and then that would be the way you action some of these things. The predictive nature of some of these tools are such that you're being proactive. So when you talk about data there's so many different places you can go. If you think about our technology stack, and that guest experience point of view, it's all about really maintaining that SLA's, resolving issues as quickly as possible. And there's a ton of data in that space, right? I mean, it's everywhere, there's a ton of signals. >> Well you guys know, we tend not to throw stuff away in technology. You sort of have to figure out how to integrate. >> A signal via the customer is probably one of those, as well. So at the end of the day, what more information are we collecting about our guest to ultimately personalize that experience? It's centered around that. >> And that's challenging, I mean, look at the airlines. And your app, which you love the airline apps. I mean, you're not, like, tethered to them. But the phone experience, and even the laptop experience, are a little bit different. Because of the data, it's very, very challenging. Have you figured that out? Or are you sort of figuring that out? >> That's API's, right? It's that experienced API layer. Being able to activate that data which is sitting in distinct silos and then do so across those experience apps, the experience channels, which is dot-com, the app, the chatbot, there's so many interfaces out there. But, yeah, it's a solid, mature API strategy that's going to get us there. >> And I think one of the things that our challenge is, as technology partners, is the ability to build those platforms so that the next wave of conversions, as you mentioned, there's some disjointed experience across the desktop view versus the mobile view, is to try to bring those conversions together. And in order to that, like Ariel said, maybe making some API extraction layers figuring out how to mine the data better, figuring out how to leverage insights from different tools or machines and sensors, we have a ton of sensors on these ships as well. And bringing all those things together to be able to put us in a position that when we do finally get a seamless conversion, we're ready for it from a technology and a platform perspective. >> It's obvious why data is important for your business. You actually did a press release with Splunk. Maybe explain a little about how Splunk Cloud fits into this discussion that we've been having? >> Well, Cloud really removes the barriers of experimentation. How do you right-size a problem you don't understand very well? I think Cloud really helps with that. We're looking forward to being able to be flexible. Flexibility in architecture, flexibility in infrastructure. So that's absolutely the use-case I think security's got a number of use-cases. You see it every day in the news. So yeah, more opportunities, I would say, it scales that flexibility that's taken us the cloud route. >> When you think Splunk, you think security. You got guys in the Knock. That's not where you guys are. You're kind of closer to the business. And so you're seeing Splunk, as I said before, permeate into other parts of the organization. You kind of expected somebody else to do that. I don't know, the Hadoop guys. And it's interesting, Splunk never used to talk about big data. Now that the big data era is, sort of, behind us, Splunk talks a lot about big data. It's kind of an interesting flip. >> I would say it's democratizing the data. That's the stuff I liked, that I heard today. How do you get these tools away from the IT operators that are writing these complex queries to get insights? And how do you elevate that up to the analysts, and the product managers? And how do they get access to those interfaces? You know, drag-and-drop, whatever you want to call it. But I think that where I see this happening more so than, machine learning, that's great and predictive. But just empowering others to really leverage that data. I would say Splunk is leading there and it's good to see some of that stuff today. >> Absolutely. It's putting the power where it really needs to be, where it's the end users, the guys making decisions, it's the product owners, the product managers, that are making those slight tweaks to that interface, or to that design, or to that experience, that makes a difference. And that's what we're trying to do, and leverage with tools like Splunk, as well. >> Even the simple visualization, right, the stuff that's out of the box is really important for the business user, right? >> The out of the box part's another thing that I saw today, which is more, sort of, curating for particular use-case, and saying hey, we're going to build that end-to-end and really turn it on and activate it a little sooner. So that infrastructure product we saw today, I think that's a big step forward. Where you're a platform, but at some point you're going to have to start being a little more vertical in the way that you bring to market, the way that they did with security. >> And Doug talked about, you know, Doug Merritt, that is, talked about data is messy, and the messiest landscape is the data. And then he talked about being able to organize that data in the moment. So, I think about, okay, just put it in the, we like to call data ocean, right, and just capture it. But then having the tools to be able to actually look at it in whatever schema you want, when you want it, is a challenge that people have. My question is, did he describe it accurately? I think yes. But then, can you actually do that with this messy data? >> I think it's a great concept. I'm interested to see how that plays out going forward. But I think in our world, we have several use-cases where that makes sense. We have a very captive audience for seven to 10 days. So we really have a very limited amount of time to make a really good impression. So, it's not only about attracting first-time cruisers; it's trying to get a repeat cruiser. So that limited time frame that we have to leave a really lasting impression is very limited. So things like recovery, in terms of getting metrics or data real-time, and being able to act on it immediately. Say you had a bad experience at the sushi bar. If we're able to grab that information, whatever data points that allow us to understand what happened, and then do a quick recovery, we may have a guest for a repeat cruise. Those are the things that we're trying to do. And, if what Doug is saying is something that they've kind of solved, or are able to try to solve in a good way, that is very powerful for us as well, and we definitely see leverage in that. >> Last question, Ariel, you're saying off-camera it's kind of early days. What's the future hold? I mean, that's going to blow our minds. Blow our minds! >> Oh, it's the predictive thing, right? It's bringing you your favorite drink before you're ready to have it, or something. I don't know. The cruise line business, the travel and hospitality space is a very fun space to work in. We get to really see our guests enjoy the product. And us, as technologists, we get to see how technology moves the needle. Continued innovation, right? If you're in the development side of the world, challenging yourself to deploy more often, to deliver more value more often. And if you're on the data side, how to get aggregated, compile all this this data, for ultimately what we're looking for, which is to enhance the guest experience. >> I mean, that real-time notion that you were talking about Curt, you can see that coming together and completely transforming the guest experience. So guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. It was great to have you. Congratulations on all your success and good luck. Alright keep it right there everybody, we'll be back at Splunk .conf18. You're watching theCUBE. Dave Vellante with Stu Miniman. we'll be right back! (upbeat music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Dell Technology's World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and it's ecosystem partners. >> Hi, welcome to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman and we are live at Dell Technologies World 2019 in Las Vegas with about 15,000 or so other people. There's about 4,000 of the Dell Technologies community of partners here as well. Day one as I mentioned, we're very pleased to welcome back one of our cube alumni, Karen Quintos, EVP and Chief Customer Officer from Dell Technologies, Karen, welcome back to theCUBE. >> Thank you, thank you. Always great to be with you all. >> So one of the things you walk down on stage this morning with Michael Dell and and the whole gang and you started to share a story that I'd love for you to share with our audience about this darling little girl, Phoebe from Manchester, England that has to do with this Dell Technologies partnership with Deloitte Detroit and 3D prosthetics. Can you share this story and what it meant about this partnership. >> Well we wanted to tell this story about Phoebe because we really wanted the audience to understand the innovation and all of what's done it with social good is really about the individual, You know, technology plays a key role but the face behind the technology and the innovation are people and you know, as you mention Phoebe is from Manchester, U.K. Her father wrote this blog about Phoebe's experience. Phoebe's aunt, Claire works for Deloitte. She had access to a lot of what they could do in terms of 3D printing and basically came to Dell and we were able to take it and scale it and accelerate it and speed it up with a engineer by the name of Seamus who saw what the precision workstation could do. So it was this small idea to help an amazing little girl like this that has now turned into this movement around how do we more rapidly, quickly scale 3D prosthetics so these children and adults can have a chance at a normal life so. >> What kind of prosthetics did you guys build for her? >> It's an arm, so the very first arm that we built for her when she was about five years old had the frozen Disney theme painted on it. I asked her father Keith what is the one that she's wearing now because she's now this like really super cool seven-year-old that goes to school and all of her classmates and friends around her see her as this rock star and the one that she has today is printed with unicorns and rainbows. So if you know anything about seven-year-old girls, it's all about unicorns and rainbows and she's done an amazing thing and she's inspired so many other people around the world, individuals, customers, partners like Deloitte and others that we're working with to really take this to a whole new level. >> Karen, I think back to Dell you know, if you think back a couple of decades ago you know, drove a lot of the some of the waves of technology change you know, think back to the PC, but in the early days it was you know supply chain and simple ordering in all these environments and when I've watched Dell move into the enterprise, a lot of that is, I need to be listening to my customer, I need to be much closer to them because it's not just ordering your SKU and having it faster and at a reasonable price but there's a lot more customization. Can you talk about how you're kind of putting that center, that customer in the center of the discussion and that feedback loops that you have with them, how that's changed in Dell. >> Yeah sure, so all of the basic fundamentals around you got to order, deliver, make the supply chain work to deliver for our customers still matters but it's gone beyond that to your point and probably the best way to talk about it is these six customer award winners that we recognized last night. I've gotten to know all six of those over the last year and while they are doing amazing things from a digital transformation using technology in the travel business, the automotive business, banking, financial services, insurance, kind of across the board, the thing that they say consistently is look, we didn't always have the answer in terms of what we needed but you came in, you listened, you rolled up your sleeves to try to figure out how you could design a solution that would meet the needs that we have and they said, that's why you're one of the most strategic partners that we have. Now you can do all those other things, right? You can supply chain ride and build and produce and all that but it's the design of a solution that helps us do the things that will allow us to be differentiated and you look at that list of six customers and brands that they represent, right, Carnival Cruise Lines, USAA, Bradesco, McLaren I mean, the list kind of goes on, they are the differentiators out there and we're really honored to be able to be working with them. >> So we're only a day one and it's only just after lunchtime but one of the things I think somatically that I heard this morning in the keynote with Michael and Pat and Jeff and Satya and yourself is, it's all about people. A couple interviews I did earlier today, same sort of thing, it's like we had the city of Las Vegas on. This is all driven by the people in for the people so that sense of community is really strong. I also noticed this year's theme of real transformation, parlays off last year's theme of make it real, it being digital transformation, IT, security, workforce transformation, what are some of the things that were like at Dell Technologies. Cloud this morning for example, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC that you guys specifically heard say from last year's attendees that are manifesting in some of the announcements today and some of the great things the 15 or so thousand people here are going to get to see and feel and touch at this year's event? >> Well, Lisa you nailed it. What you heard on stage today is what customers have been telling us over the last year. We unveiled about a month ago with a very small group of CIOs in Amia, our cloud strategy, our portfolio, the things that we're going to be able to do and one customer in particular immediately chimed in and said, we need you in the cloud and we need you in there now because you offer choice, you offer open, you offer simplicity, you offer integration and they're like, there's just too many choices and a lot of them are expensive. So what you heard on stage is absolutely a manifestation of what they told us. The other pieces, look, I think I think the industry and CIOs are very quickly realizing their workforce matters, making them happy and productive matters having them enabled that they can work flexibly wherever they want to really, really matters and you know, our Unified Workspace ONE solution is all about how we help them simplify, automate, streamline that experience with their workforce so their employees stick around. I mean, there's a war on talent and everybody's dealing with it and that experience is really, really important in particular to the gensies and the millennials. >> Karen, I love that point. Actually, I was really impressed this morning. In the press and analyst session this morning, there was a discussion of diversity and inclusion and the thing that I heard is, it's a business imperative, it's not, okay it's nice to do it or we should do it but no, this is actually critical to the business. Can you talk about what that means and what you hear from your customers and partners. >> Yes, yes, well, we're seeing it in spades and all of these technology jobs that are open, right. So look, all the research has shown that if you build a diverse team, you'll get to a more innovative solution and people generally get that but what they really get today is here in the U.S. alone, there's 1.1 million open technology jobs by the year 2024, half of them, half of them are going to be filled by the existing workforce. So there is this war in talent that is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and I think that's what really has given a wake-up call to corporations around why this matters. I think the other piece that we're starting to see, not just around diversity but in our other social impact priorities around the environment as well as how we use our technology for good, look, customers want to do business with a corporation that has a soul and they stand for something and they're doing something, not just a bunch of talking heads but where it's really turning into action and they're being transparent about the journeys and where they're at with it. So it matters now to the current generation, the next generation, it matters to business leaders, matters to the financial services community, which you start to see you know, some of the momentum around you know, the black stones and state street. So it's really exciting that we're part of it and we're leading the way in a lot of number of areas. >> And it's something to that we talked about a lot on theCUBE, diversity and inclusion from many different levels, one of them being the business imperative that you talked about, the workforce needing to compete for this talent, but also how much different products and technologies and apps and APS and things can be with just thought diversity in and of itself and I think it's refreshing to what Stu was saying, hey, we're hearing this is a business imperative but you're also seeing proof in the pudding. This isn't just, we've got an imperative and we're going to do things nominally, you're seeing the efforts manifest. One of the, Draper Labs who was one of the customer award winners. That video that was shown this morning struck probably everyone's heart with the campfire in Paradise California. >> Tragic. >> I grew up close to there and that was something that only maybe, I get goosebumps, six months ago, so massively devastating and we think you know, that was 2018 but seeing how Dell Technologies is enabling this laboratory to investigate the potential toxins coming from all of this chart debris and how they're working to understand the social impact to all of us as they rebuild, I just thought it was a really nice manifestation of a social impact but also the technology breadth and differentiation that Dell has enabling. >> That was also why this story today was so great about Phoebe, right because it's where you can connect the human spirit with technology and scale and have an even bigger impact and there's so much that technology can help with today. You know, that that story about Phoebe. From the time that her aunt from Deloitte identified, you know, what we could do, all the way to the time that Phoebe got her first arm was less than seven months, seven months and you think about you know, some of the other prototypes that were out there, times would take years to be able to do it. So I love that you know, connection of human need with the human spirit and connecting and inspiring and motivating so many children and adults around the world. >> And what what are some of the next, speaking of Phoebe and the Deloitte digital 3D prosthetics partnership, what are some of the other areas we're going to see this technology that this little five-year-old from Manchester spurned. >> Well, I'll give you another example. So we, there was an individual in India, actually an employee of ours that designed an application to help figure out how to deploy healthcare monitoring in some of the remote villages in India where they don't have access to basic things that we take for granted. Monitoring your blood pressure, right, checking your cholesterol level and he created this application that a year later now, we have given kind of the full range of the Dell portfolio technology suite. So it is you know our application plus Pivotal plus VMware plus Dell EMC combined with the partnering that we've done with Tata Trust and the State of India, we've now deployed this healthcare solution called Life Care Solution to nearly 37 million rural residents, citizens in India. >> Wow 37 million. >> 37 million, so a small idea, you take from a really passionate individual, a person, a human being and figure out how you can really leverage that across the full gamut of what Dell can do, I think the results are incredible. >> Awesome, you guys also have a Women in Technology Executive Summit that you're hosting later this week. Let's talk about that in conjunction of what we talked a minute ago about, it's a business imperative as Stu pointed out, there are tangible, measurable results, tell us about this. >> Well, I'm kind of done honestly with a lot of the negativity around, oh, we're not making any progress, oh, we need to be moving fast and if you look at the amount of effort, energy and focus that is going into this space by so many companies and the public sector, it's remarkable and I've met a number of these CIOs over the last year or two, so we basically said let's invite 20 of them, let's share our passion, have made progress, care about solving this across their organization. A lot of us are working on the same things so if we simply got in a room and figured out, are their power in numbers and if we worked collectively together, could we accelerate progress. So that's what it's all about. So we have about 15 or 20 CEOs, both men and women and we'll be spending you know, six or seven hours together and we want to walk away with one or two recommendations on some things that we could collaborate on and have a faster, bigger impact. >> And I heard that, you mentioned collaboration, that's one of the vibes I also got from the keynote this morning when you saw Michael up there with Pat and Jeff and Satya, the collaboration within Dell Technologies, I think even talking with Stu and some of the things that have come out and that I've read, it seems to be more symbiosis with VMware but even some the, like I said, we're only in, I wouldn't even say halfway through day one and that is the spirit around here. We talk about people influence, but this spirit of collaboration is very authentic here. You are the first chief customer officer for Dell, if you look back at your tenure in this role, could you have envisioned where you are now? >> No, because it was like the first ever chief customer officer at Dell and you know, it really gave me a unique opportunity to build something from scratch and you know, there's been a number of other competitors as well as other companies that have announced in the last year or so the need to have a chief customer officer, the need to figure out how, which is a big remit of mine across Dell Technologies, how do we how do we eliminate the silos and connect the seams because that's where the value is going to be unlocked for our customers. That's what you saw on stage today. You saw the value of that with Jeff, with Pat, with Satya, some you know, one of our most important partners out there. Our customers don't want point solutions, they want them to be integrated, they want it to be streamlined, they don't be automated, they want us to speed time to value, they want us to streamline a lot of the back-office kind of mundane things that they're like, I don't want my people spending their time anymore and doing that and that's where we see Dell Technologies being so much more differentiated from other choices in the market. >> Yep, I agree with you. Well Karen, thank you so much for joining Stu and me on theCUBE this afternoon, sharing some of the stories, look forward to hearing next year what comes out of this year's as Women in Tech Exec Summit. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you very much, thank you. >> with Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE, live day one of Dell Technology World from Las Vegas, thanks for watching. (light electronic music)