>>from Santa Clara, California In the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the queue covering altitude 2020. Brought to you by aviatrix. >>Okay, welcome back to altitude. 2020 for the folks on the Livestream. I'm John Furrier Steve Mullaney with CEO of aviatrix for our first of two customer panels on cloud with Cloud Network Architects. We got Bobby. Will be They gone. Luis Castillo, National Instruments. David should nick with fact set. Guys, welcome >>to the stage for this digital >>event. Come on up. >>Hey, good to see you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. >>Okay. Customer panel. This is my favorite part. We get to hear the real scoop. Get the gardener. Given this the industry overview. Certainly multi clouds, very relevant. And cloud native networking is the hot trend with live stream out there in the digital events of guys. Let's get into it. The journey is you guys are pioneering this journey of multi cloud and cloud native networking and soon going to be a lot more coming. So I want to get into the journey. What's it been like? Is it really got a lot of scar tissue? Uh, what is some of the learnings >>Yeah, absolutely. So multi Cloud is whether or not we accepted as network engineers is a reality. Um, like Steve said about two years ago, companies really decided to to just to just bite the bullet and move there. Whether or not whether or not we accept that fact, we need to now create a consistent architecture across across multiple clouds and that that is challenging, um, without orchestration layers as you start managing different different tool sets and different languages across different clouds. So that's it's it's really important to start thinking about that. You >>guys are on the other Panelists here this different phases of this journey. Some come at it from a networking perspective. Some comment from a problem. Troubleshooting. Which What's your experiences? >>Yeah, so, uh, from a networking perspective, it's been incredibly exciting. It's kind of a once in a generational opportunity to look at how you're building out your network. You can start to embrace things like infrastructure as code that maybe your peers on the systems teams have been doing for years. But it just never really worked on Prem, so it's really it's really exciting to look at all the opportunities that we have And then all the interesting challenges that come up that you, uh, that you get to tackle >>and in fact said, you guys are mostly aws, right? >>Right now, though, where we are looking at multiple clouds, we have production workloads running in multiple clouds today. But a lot of the initial work has been with them, >>and you see it from a networking perspective. That's where you guys are coming at it from. Yep. Yeah. So >>we evolved more from a customer requirement. Perspective started out primarily is AWS. But as the customer needed mawr resources manager like HPC, you know, Azure A D. Things like that. Even recently, Google do analytics. Our journey has evolved into more of a multi cloud environment. >>Steve weigh in on the architecture because this has been the big conversation. I want you to lead this sector. >>Yeah, so I mean, I think you guys agreed that journey. It seems like the journey started a couple of years ago got real serious. The need for multi cloud, whether you're there today. Of course it's going to be there in the future, so that's really important. I think the next thing is just architecture. I love to hear what you you had some comments about architecture matters. It all starts. I mean, every enterprise I talked to maybe talk about architecture in the importance of architecture. Maybe Bobby >>is from architectural perspective. We started our journey five years ago. Wow. Okay. And we're just now starting our fourth evolution of our network architect. Okay? And we call it networking security. Net sec versus just network on that. Fourth generation architectures be based primarily upon Palo Alto networks and aviatrix aviatrix doing the orchestration piece of it. But that journey came because of the need for simplicity, the need for a multi cloud orchestration without having to go and do reprogramming efforts across every cloud as it comes along. >>Right? I guess. The other question, I I also had around architectures also, Louise, maybe just talk about I know we've talked a little bit about scripting right and some of your thoughts on that. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so for us, we started, We started creating Ah, the network constructs with cloud formation. And we've stuck with that, for the most part. What's interesting about that is today on premise, we have a lot of a lot of automation around around how we provision networks, but confirmation has become a little bit like the new manual for us. So we're now having issues with having the automate that component and making it consistent with our on premise architecture, making it consistent with azure architecture and Google Cloud. So it's really interesting to see to see companies now bring that layer of abstraction that SD Wan brought to the to the wan side. Now it's going up into into the cloud networking architectures, >>right? So on the fourth generation of you mentioned, you're 1/4 gen architecture. What do you guys? What have you learned? Is there any lessons? Scar tissue, what to avoid? What worked? What was some of the >>one of the biggest lesson there is that when you think you finally figured it out, you haven't right? Amazon will change something as you change something, you know, transit gateway, the game changer eso uh, and listening to the business requirements is probably the biggest thing we need to do up front. But I think from a simplicity perspective, we said We don't want to do things four times. We want two things. One time we want to have a right to an AP I, which aviatrix has and have them do the orchestration for us so that we don't have to do it four times. How >>important is architecture in the progression, is it? You guys get thrown in the deep end to solve these problems or you guys zooming out and looking at it. I mean, how are you guys looking at the architecture? >>I mean, you can't get off the ground if you don't have the network there. So all of those things we've gone through similar evolutions. We're on our fourth or fifth evolution. Uh, I think about what We started off with Amazon without a direct connect gateway without a transit gateway without ah, a lot of the things that are available today kind of the 80 20 that Steve was talking about. Just because it wasn't there doesn't mean we didn't need it, so we >>needed to figure out a way to do it. We >>couldn't say. You need to come back to the network team in a year. Maybe Amazon will have a solution for you. We need to do it now and evolve later and maybe optimize or change. Really, you're doing things in the future, But don't sit around and wait. You can't. >>I'd love to have you guys each individually answer this question for the livestream that comes up a lot. A lot of cloud architects out in the community. What should they be thinking about? The folks that are coming into this proactively and are realizing the business benefits are there? What advice would you guys give them? An architecture, which should be they be thinking about and what some guiding principles you could share. >>So I would start with, ah, looking at an architectural model that that can, that can spread and and give consistency the different two different cloud vendors that you will absolutely have to support. Um, cloud vendors tend to want to pull you into using their native tool set, and that's good. If only it was realistic, too. Talk about only one cloud, but because it doesn't, it's it's, um, it's super important to talk about and have a conversation with the business and with your technology teams about a consistent model. >>How do I do my day one work so that I'm not spending 80% of my time troubleshooting or managing my network. Because if I'm doing that, then I'm missing out on ways that I can make improvements to embrace new technologies. So it's really important early on to figure out how do I make this as low maintenance as possible so that I can focus on the things that the team really should be focusing on. >>Bobby. Your advice? The architect. I >>don't know what else I can add to. That simplicity of operations is gives key. >>Alright, so the holistic view of Day two operation you mentioned let's could jump in. Day one is you're getting stuff set up. Day two is your life after. This is what you're getting at, David. So what does that look like? What are you envisioning as you look at that 20 mile stare out post multi cloud world one of the things that you want in a day to operations? >>Yeah, infrastructure as code is really important to us. So how do we How do we design it so that we can fit start making network changes and putting them into like, a release pipeline and start looking at it like that rather than somebody logging into a router cli and troubleshooting things on an ad hoc nature. So moving more towards the Devil Ops model. >>Here's the thing I had on that day two. >>Yeah, I would. I would love to add something. So in terms of day two operations, you can you can either sort of ignore the day two operations for a little while where you get well, you get your feet wet, um, or you can start approaching it from the beginning. The fact is that the cloud native tools don't have a lot of maturity in that space. And when you run into an issue, you're gonna end up having a bad day, going through millions and millions of logs just to try to understand what's going on. So that's something that the industry just now is beginning to realize. It's It's such a such a big gap. >>I think that's key, because for us, we're moving to more of an event driven or operations. In the past. Monitoring got the job done. It is impossible to modern monitor something that's not there when the event happens, right, so the event driven application and then detection is important. >>I think Gardner is about the Cloud Native wave coming into networking. That's going to be a serious thing. I want to get you guys perspective. I know you have different views of how you came into the journey and how you're executing. And I always say the beauty's in the eye of the beholder and that kind of applies the networks laid out. So, Bobby, you guys do a lot of high performance encryption both on AWS and Azure. That's kind of a unique thing for you. How are you seeing that impact with multi cloud? >>And that's a new requirement for us to where we, uh we have a requirement to encrypt, and they never get the question Should encryption and encrypt. The answer is always yes, you should encrypt. You should get encrypt for perspective. We we need to moderate a bunch of data from our data centers. We have some huge data centers on. Getting that data to the cloud is is timely experiencing some cases, So we have been mandated that we have to encrypt everything, leaving the data center. So we're looking at using the aviatrix insane mode appliances to be able to decrypt you know 10 20 gigabytes of data as it moves to the cloud itself. David, you're using >>terra form. You've got fire net. You've got a lot of complexity in your network. What do you guys look at the future for your environment? >>Yes. So something exciting that we're working on now is fire net. So for our security team, they obviously have a lot of a lot of knowledge based around Polito on with our commitments to our clients, you know, it's it's it's not very easy to shift your security model to a specific cloud vendor it So there's a lot of stock to compliance and things like that where being able to take some of what you've you know you've worked on for years on Prem and put it in the cloud and have the same type of assurance that things were gonna work and be secure in the same way that they are on Prem helps make that journey into the cloud a lot easier. >>And you guys got scripting and get a lot of things going on. What's your what's your unique angle on this? >>Um, yeah. No, absolutely so full disclosure. I'm not not not an aviatrix customer yet. >>It's okay. We want to hear the truth. So that's good. Tell >>us what you're thinking about. What's on your mind. >>No, really, Um, when you when you talk about, um, implementing the to like this, it's It's really just really important. Teoh talk about automation and focus on on value. So when you talk about things like encryption and thinks like so you're encrypting tunnels and encrypting the path and those things are, should it should should be second nature, Really? When you when you look at building those back ends and managing them with your team, it becomes really painful. So tools like aviatrix that that had a lot of automation. It's out of out of sight, out of mind. You can focus on the value you don't have to focus on. >>I got to ask, You guys are seeing the traces here. They're their supplier to the sector, but you guys are customers. Everyone's pitching your stuff that people are not going to buy my stuff. How >>do you >>guys have that conversation with the suppliers, like the cloud vendors and other folks? What's the What's the leg or a P? I all the way you got to support this. What are some >>of the >>what are some of your requirements? How do you talk to and evaluate people that walk in and want Teoh knock on your door and pitch you something? What's the conversation like? >>It's definitely It's definitely a p. I driven. Um, we we definitely look at the at the structure of the vendors provide before we select anything. Um, that that is always first of mine. And also, what problem are we really trying to solve? Usually people try to sell or try to give us something that isn't really valuable. Like implementing Cisco solution on the on the cloud isn't really doesn't really add a lot of value. >>David, what's your conversations like with suppliers? So you have a certain new way to do things as becomes more agile, essentially networking and more dynamic. What are some of the conversations with the other incumbents or new new vendors that you're having what you require? >>So ease of use is definitely, definitely high up there. We've had some vendors come in and say, Hey, you know, when you go to set this up, we're gonna want to send somebody on site and they're going to sit with you for a day to configure. And that's kind of a red flag. Wait a minute. You know, we really if one of my really talented engineers can't figure it out on his own, what's going on there and why is that? So, uh, you know, having having some ease of use and the team being comfortable with it and understanding it is really important. >>How about you in the old days was Do a bake off winner takes all. I mean, is it like that anymore? What's evolving Bake off >>last year for us to win, So But that's different now, because now when you when you get the product, you install the product in AWS in azure or have it up and running a matter of minutes. And the key is, can you be operational within hours or days instead of weeks? But we also have the flexibility to customize it to meet your needs, because you want to be. You would be put into a box with the other customers who have needs that pastor cut their needs. >>You can almost see the challenge of you guys are living where you've got the cloud immediate value, how you can roll a penny solutions. But then you have might have other needs. So you got to be careful not to buy into stuff that's not shipping. So you're trying to be proactive in the same time. Deal with what you got here. How do you guys see that evolving? Because multi cloud to me is definitely relevant. But it's not yet clear how to implement across. How do you guys look at this? Bakes versus, you know, future solutions coming? How do you balance that? >>Um, so again. So right now we were. We're taking the the ad hoc approach and experimenting with the different concepts of cloud on demand, really leveraging the native constructs of each cloud. But but there's there's a breaking point. For sure you don't you don't get to scale this like like Simone said, and you have to focus on being able to deliver Ah, developer their their sandbox play area for the things that they're trying to build quickly. And the only way to do that is with some sort of consistent orchestration layer that allows you to. >>So you spent a lot more stuff becoming pretty quickly. >>I was very. I do expect things to start to start maturing quite quite quickly this year, >>and you guys see similar trends. New stuff coming fast. >>Yeah, the one of the biggest challenge we've got now is being able to segment within the network, being able to provide segmentation between production, non production workloads, even businesses, because we support many businesses worldwide and and isolation between those is a key criteria there. So the ability to identify and quickly isolate those workloads is key. >>So the cios that are watching are saying, Hey, take that hill, do multi cloud and then the bottoms up organization cause you're kind of like off a little bit. It's not how it works. I mean, what is the reality in terms of implementing, you know, and as fast as possible because the business benefits are clear, but it's not always clear in the technology how to move that fast. What are some of the barriers of blockers? One of the enabler, >>I think the reality is, is that you may not think of multi cloud, but your businesses, right? So I think the biggest barriers there is understanding what the requirements are and how best to meet those requirements. I think in a secure manner, because you need to make sure that things are working from a latency perspective, that things work the way they did and get out of the mind shift that, you know, if the Tier three application in the data center it doesn't have to be a Tier three application in the cloud, so lift and shift is not the way to go. >>Scale is a big part of what I see is the competitive advantage of all of these clouds, and it used to be proprietary network stacks in the old days and then open systems came. That was a good thing. But as clouds become bigger, there's kind of an inherent lock in there with the scale. How do you guys keep the choice open? How you guys thinking about interoperability? What is some of the conversations that you guys were having around those key concepts? >>Well, when we look at when we look at the from a networking perspective, it's really key for you to just enable enable all the all the clouds to be able to communicate between them. Developers will will find a way to use the cloud that best suits their business. Um and and like Like you said, it's whether whether you're in denial or not of the multi cloud fact that your company is in already, Um, that's it becomes really important for you to move quickly. >>Yeah, and the A lot of it also hinges on how well is the provider embracing what that specific cloud is doing? So are they swimming with Amazon or azure and just helping facilitate things? They're doing the heavy lifting AP I work for you or are they swimming upstream? And they're trying to hack it all together in a messy way, and so that helps you stay out of the lock in, because there, you know if they're doing if they're using Amazon native tools to help you get where you need to be, it's not like Amazon's going to release something in the future that completely, uh, you know, makes you have designed yourself into a corner. So the closer they're more cloud native, they are, the more, uh, the easier it is to, uh >>to the boy. But you also need to be aligned in such a way that you can take advantage of the cloud Native technology of limits sets. T J W. Is a game changer in terms of cost and performance. Right. So to completely ignore, that would be wrong. But, you know, if you needed to have encryption teaching double encrypted, so you need to have some type of a gateway to do the VPN encryption. So the aviatrix, too, will give you the beauty of both worlds. You can use T. W or the gateway real >>quick in the last minute we have. I want to just get a quick feedback from you guys. I hear a lot of people say to me, Hey, the pick The best cloud for the workload you got, then figure out multi cloud behind the scenes. So that seems to be Do you guys agree with that? I mean, is it doing one cloud across the whole company or this workload works great on AWS. That work was great on this from a cloud standpoint. Do you agree with that premise? And then what is multi cloud stitch them all together? >>Yeah, um, from from an application perspective, it it can be per workload, but It can also be an economical decision. Certain enterprise contracts will will pull you in one direction that value. Um, but the the network problem is still the same. >>It doesn't go away. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be trying to fit a square into a round hole, right? So if it works better on that cloud provider, then it's our job to make sure that that service is there. People can use >>it. Yeah, I agree. You just need to stay ahead of the game. Make sure that the network infrastructure is there. Secure is available and is multi cloud capable. >>Yeah. At the end of the day, you guys just validating that. It's the networking game now. Cloud storage. Compute Check. Networking is where the action is. Awesome. Thanks for your insights. Appreciate you coming on the Cube. Appreciate it. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah.