(gentle music) >> Hello, and welcome to theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. I've got a great guest here, CUBE alumni and very impressive, inspiring, Rachel Mushahwar Skaff, who's a managing director and general manager at AWS. Rachel, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to be here. You all make such a tremendous impact with reporting out what's happening in the tech space, and frankly, investing in topics like this, so thank you. >> It's our pleasure. Your career has been really impressive. You worked at Intel for almost a decade, and that company is very tech, very focused on Moore's law, cadence of technology power in the industry. Now at AWS, powering next-generation cloud. What inspired you to get into tech? How did you get here and how have you approached your career journey, because it's quite a track record? >> Wow, how long do we have? (Rachel and John laugh) >> John: We can go as long as you want. (laughs) It's great. >> You know, all joking aside, I think at the end of the day, it's about this simple statement. If you don't get goosebumps every single morning that you're waking up to do your job, it's not good enough. And that's a bit about how I've made all of the different career transitions that I have. You know, everything from building out data centers around the world, to leading network and engineering teams, to leading applications teams, to going and working for, you know, the largest semiconductor in the world, and now at AWS, every single one of those opportunities gave me goosebumps. And I was really focused on how do I surround myself with humans that are better than I am, smarter than I am, companies that plan in decades, but live in moments, companies that invest in their employees and create like artists? And frankly, for me, being part of a company where people know that life is finite, but they want to make an infinite impact, that's a bit about my career journey in a nutshell. >> Yeah. What's interesting is that, you know, over the years, a lot's changed, and a theme that we're hearing from leaders now that are heading up large teams and running companies, they have, you know, they have 20-plus years of experience under their belt and they look back and they say, "Wow, "things have changed and it's changing faster now, "hopefully faster to get change." But they all talk about confidence and they talk about curiosity and building. When did you know that this was going to be something that you got the goosebumps? And were there blockers in your way and how did you handle that? (Rachel laughs) >> There's always blockers in our way, and I think a lot of people don't actually talk about the blockers. I think they make it sound like, hey, I had this plan from day one, and every decision I've made has been perfect. And for me, I'll tell you, right, there are moments in your life that mark a differentiation and those moments that you realize nothing will be the same. And time is kind of divided into two parts, right, before this moment and after this moment. And that's everything from, before I had kids, that's a pretty big moment in people's lives, to after I had kids, and how do you work through some of those opportunities? Before I got married, before I got divorced. Before I went to this company, after I left this company. And I think the key for all of those is just having an insatiable curiosity around how do you continue to do better, create better and make better? And I'll tell you, those blockers, they exist. Coming back from maternity leave, hard. Coming back from a medical leave, hard. Coming back from caring for a sick parent or a sick friend, hard. But all of those things start to help craft who you are as a human being, not as a leader, but as a human being, and allows you to have some empathy with the people that you surround yourself with, right? And for me, it's, (sighs) you can think about these blockers in one of two ways. You can think about it as, you know, every single time that you're tempted to react in the same way to a blocker, you can be a prisoner of your past, or you can change how you react and be a pioneer of the future. It's not a blocker when you think about it in those terms. >> Mindset matters, and that's really a great point. You brought up something that's interesting, I want to bring this up. Some of the challenges in different stages of our lives. You know, one thing that's come out of this set of interviews, this, of day and in conversations is, that I haven't heard before, is the result of COVID, working at home brought empathy about people's personal lives to the table. That came up in a couple interviews. What's your reaction to that? Because that highlights that we're human, to your point of view. >> It does. It does. And I'm so thankful that you don't ask about balance because that is a pet peeve of mine, because there is no such thing as balance. If you're in perfect balance, you are not moving and you're not changing. But when you think about, you know, the impact of COVID and how the world has changed since that, it has allowed all of us to really think about, you know, what do we want to do versus what do we have to do? And I think so many times, in both our professional lives and our personal lives, we get caught up in doing what we think we have to do to get ahead versus taking a step back and saying, "Hey, what do I want to do? "And how do I become a, you know, "a better human?" And many times, John, I'm asked, "Hey, "how do you define success or achievement?" And, you know, my answer is really, for me, the greatest results that I've achieved, both personally and professionally, is when I eliminate the word success and balance from my vocabulary, and replace them with two words: What's my contribution and what's my impact? Those things make a difference, regardless of gender. And I'll tell you, none of it is easy, ever. I think all of us have been broken, we've been stretched, we've been burnt out. But I also think what we have to talk about as leaders in the industry is how we've also found endurance and resilience. And when we felt unsteady, we've continued to go forward, right? When we can't decide, the best answer is do what's uncomfortable. And all of those things really stemmed from a part of what happened with COVID. >> Yeah, yeah, I love the uncomfortable and the balance highlight. You mentioned being off balance. That means you're growing, you're not standing still. I want to get your thoughts on this because one thing that has come out again this year, and last year as well, is having a team with you when you do it. So if you're off balance and you're going to stretch, if you have a good team with you, that's where people help each other. Not just pick them up, but like maybe get 'em back on track again. So, but if you're solo, you fall, (laughs) you fall harder. So what's your reaction to that? 'Cause this has come up, and this comes up in team building, workforce formation, goal setting, contribution. What's your reaction to that? >> So my reaction to that that is pretty simple. Nobody gets there on their own at all, right? Passion and ambition can only take you so far. You've got to have people and teams that are supporting you. And here's the funny thing about people, and frankly, about being a leader that I think is really important: People don't follow for you. People follow for who you help them become. Think about that for a second. And when you think about all the amazing things that companies and teams are able to do, it's because of those people. And it's because you have leaders that are out there, inspiring them to take what they believe is impossible and turn it into the possible. That's the power of teams. >> Can you give an example of your approach on how you do that? How do you build your teams? How do you grow them? How do you lead them effectively and also make 'em inclusive, diverse and equitable? >> Whew. I'll give you a great example of some work that we're doing at AWS. This year at re:Invent, for the first time in its history, we've launched an initiative with theCUBE called Women of the Cloud. And part of Women of the Cloud is highlighting the business impact that so many of our partners, our customers and our employees have had on the social, on the economic and on the financials of many companies. They just haven't had the opportunity to tell their story. And at Amazon, right, it is absolutely integral to us to highlight those examples and continue to extend that ethos to our partners and our customers. And I think one of the things that I shared with you at re:Invent was, you know, as U2's Bono put it, (John laughs) "We'll build it better than we did before "and we are the people "that we've been waiting for." So if we're not out there, advocating and highlighting all the amazing things that other women are doing in the ecosystem, who will? >> Well, I've got to say, I want to give you props for that program. Not only was it groundbreaking, it's still running strong. And I saw some things on LinkedIn that were really impressive in its network effect. And I met at least half a dozen new people I never would have met before through some of that content interaction and engagement. And this is like the power of the current world. I mean, getting the voices out there creates momentum. And it's good for Amazon. It's not just personal brand building for my next job or whatever, you know, reason. It's sharing and it's attracting others, and it's causing people to connect and meet each other in that world. So it's still going strong. (laughs) And this program we did last year was part of Rachel Thornton, who's now at MessageBird, and Mary Camarata. They were the sponsors for this International Women's Day. They're not there anymore, so we decided we're going to do it again because the impact is so significant. We had the Amazon Education group on. It's amazing and it's free, and we've got to get the word out. I mean, talk about leveling up fast. You get in and you get trained and get certified, and there's a zillion jobs out (laughs) there in cloud, right, and partners. So this kind of leadership is really important. What was the key learnings that you've taken away and how do you extend this opportunity to nurture the talent out there in the field? Because when you throw the content out there from great leaders and practitioners and developers, it attracts other people. >> It does. It does. So look, I think there's two types of people, people that are focused on being and people who are focused on doing. And let me give you an example, right? When we think about labels of, hey, Rachel's a female executive who launched Women of the Cloud, that label really limits me. I'd rather just be a great executive. Or, hey, there's a great entrepreneur. Let's not be a great entrepreneur. Just go build something and sell it. And that's part of this whole Women of the cloud, is I don't want people focused on what their label is. I want people sharing their stories about what they're doing, and that's where the lasting impact happens, right? I think about something that my grandmother used to tell me, and she used to tell me, "Rachel, how successful "you are, doesn't matter. "The lasting impact that you have "is your legacy in this very finite time "that you have on Earth. "Leave a legacy." And that's what Women of the Cloud is about. So that people can start to say, "Oh, geez, "I didn't know that that was possible. "I didn't think about my career in that way." And, you know, all of those different types of stories that you're hearing out there. >> And I want to highlight something you said. We had another Amazonian on the program for this day earlier and she coined a term, 'cause inside Amazon, you have common language. One of them is bar raising. Raise the bar, that's an Amazonian (Rachel laughs) term. It means contribute and improve and raise the bar of capability. She said, "Bar raising is gender neutral. "The bar is a bar." And I'm like, wow, that was amazing. Now, that means your contribution angle there highlights that. What's the biggest challenge to get that mindset set in culture, in these- >> Oh. >> 'Cause it's that simple, contribution is neutral. >> It absolutely is neutral, but it's like I said earlier, I think so many times, people are focused on success and being a great leader versus what's the contribution I'm making and how am I doing as a leader, you know? And when it comes to a lot of the leadership principles that Amazon has, including bar raising, which means insisting on the highest standards, and then those standards continue to raise every single time. And what that is all about is having all of our employees figure out, how do I get better every single day, right? That's what it's about. It's not about being better than the peer next to you. It's about how do I become a better leader, a better human being than I was yesterday? >> Awesome. >> You know, I read this really cute quote and I think it really resonates. "You meditate to upgrade your software "and you work out to upgrade your hardware." And while it's important that we're all ourselves at work, we can't deny that a lot of times, ourselves still need that meditation or that workout. >> Well, I hope I don't have any zero days in my software out there, so, but I'm going to definitely work on that. I love that quote. I'm going to use that. Thank you very much. That was awesome. I got to ask you, I know you're really passionate about, and we've talked about this, around, so you're a great leader but you're also focused on what's behind you in the generation, pipelining women leaders, okay? Seats at the table, mentoring and sponsorship. What can we do to build a strong pipeline of leaders in technology and business? And where do you see the biggest opportunity to nurture the talent in these fields? >> Hmm, you know, that's great, great question. And, you know, I just read a "Forbes" article by another Amazonian, Tanuja Randery, who talked about, you know, some really interesting stats. And one of the stats that she shared was, you know, by 2030, less than 25% of tech specialists will be female, less than 25%. That's only a 6% growth from where we are in 2023, so in seven years. That's alarming. So we've really got to figure out what are the kinds of things that we're going to go do from an Amazon perspective to impact that? And one of the obvious starting points is showcasing tech careers to girls and young women, and talking openly about what a technology career looks like. So specifically at Amazon, we've got an AWS Git IT program that helps schools and educators bring in tech role models to show them what potential careers look like in tech. I think that's one great way that we can help build the pipeline, but once we get the pipeline, we also have to figure out how we don't let that pipeline leak. Meaning how do we keep women and, you know, young women on their tech career? And I think big part of that, John, is really talking about how hard it is, but it's also greater than you can ever imagine. And letting them see executives that are very authentic and will talk about, geez, you know, the challenges of COVID were a time of crisis and accelerated change, and here's what it meant to me personally and here's what we were able to solve professionally. These younger generations are all about social impact, they're about economic impact and they're about financial impact. And if we're not talking about all three of those, both from how AWS is leading from the front, but how its executives are also taking that into their personal lives, they're not going to want to go into tech. >> Yeah, and I think one of the things you mentioned there about getting people that get IT, good call out there, but also, Amazon's going to train 30 million people, put hundreds of millions of dollars into education. And not only are they making it easier to get in to get trained, but once you're in, even savvy folks that are in there still have to accelerate. And there's more ways to level up, more things are happening, but there's a big trend around people changing careers either in their late 20s, early 30s, or even those moments you talk about, where it's before and after, even later in the careers, 40s, 50s. Leaders like, well, good experience, good training, who were in another discipline who re-skilled. So you have, you know, more certifications coming in. So there's still other pivot points in the pipeline. It's not just down here. And that, I find that interesting. Are you seeing that same leadership opportunities coming in where someone can come into tech older? >> Absolutely. You know, we've got some amazing programs, like Amazon Returnity, that really focuses on how do we get other, you know, how do we get women that have taken some time off of work to get back into the workforce? And here's the other thing about switching careers. If I look back on my career, I started out as a civil engineer, heavy highway construction. And now I lead a sales team at the largest cloud company in the world. And there were, you know, twists and turns around there. I've always focused on how do we change and how do we continue to evolve? So it's not just focused on, you know, young women in the pipeline. It's focused on all gender and all diverse types throughout their career, and making sure that we're providing an inclusive environment for them to bring in their unique skillsets. >> Yeah, a building has good steel. It's well structured. Roads have great foundations. You know, you got the builder in you there. >> Yes. >> So I have to ask you, what's on your mind as a tech athlete, as an executive at AWS? You know, you got your huge team, big goals, the economy's got a little bit of a headwind, but still, cloud's transforming, edge is exploding. What's your outlook as you look out in the tech landscape these days and how are you thinking about it? What your plans? Can you share a little bit about what's on your mind? >> Sure. So, geez, there's so many trends that are top of mind right now. Everything from zero trust to artificial intelligence to security. We have more access to data now than ever before. So the opportunities are limitless when we think about how we can apply technology to solve some really difficult customer problems, right? Innovation sometimes feels like it's happening at a rapid pace. And I also say, you know, there are years when nothing happens, and then there's years when centuries happen. And I feel like we're kind of in those years where centuries are happening. Cloud technologies are refining sports as we know them now. There's a surge of innovation in smart energy. Everyone's supply chain is looking to transform. Custom silicon is going mainstream. And frankly, AWS's customers and partners are expecting us to come to them with a point of view on trends and on opportunities. And that's what differentiates us. (John laughs) That's what gives me goosebumps- >> I was just going to ask you that. Does that give you goosebumps? How could you not love technology with that excitement? I mean, AI, throw in AI, too. I just talked to Swami, who heads up the AI and database, and we just talked about the past 24 months, the change. And that is a century moment happening. The large language models, computer vision, more compute. Compute's booming than ever before. Who thought that was going to happen, is still happening? Massive change. So, I mean, if you're in tech, how can you not love tech? >> I know, even if you're not in tech, I think you've got to start to love tech because it gives you access to things you've never had before. And frankly, right, change is the only constant. And if you don't like change, you're going to like being irrelevant even less than you like change. So we've got to be nimble, we've got to adapt. And here's the great thing, once we figure it out, it changes all over again. And it's not something that's easy for any of us to operate. It's hard, right? It's hard learning new technology, it's hard figuring out what do I do next? But here's the secret. I think it's hard because we're doing it right. It's not hard because we're doing it wrong. It's just hard to be human and it's hard to figure out how we apply all this different technology in a way that positively impacts us, you know, economically, financially, environmentally and socially. >> And everyone's different, too. So you got to live those (mumbles). I want to get one more question in before we, my last question, which is about you and your impact. When you talk to your team, your sales, you got a large sales team, North America. And Tanuja, who you mentioned, is in EMEA, we're going to speak with her as well. You guys lead the front lines, helping customers, but also delivering the revenue to the company, which has been fantastic, by the way. So what's your message to the troops and the team out there? When you say, "Take that hill," like what is the motivational pitch, in a few sentences? What's the main North Star message in today's marketplace when you're doing that big team meeting? >> I don't know if it's just limited to a team meeting. I think this is a universal message, and the universal message for me is find your edge, whatever that may be. Whether it is the edge of what you know about artificial intelligence and neural networks or it's the edge of how do we migrate our applications to the cloud more quickly. Or it's the edge of, oh, my gosh, how do I be a better parent and still be great at work, right? Find your edge, and then sharpen it. Go to the brink of what you think is possible, and then force yourself to jump. Get involved. The world is run by the people that show up, professionally and personally. (John laughs) So show up and get started. >> Yeah as Steve Jobs once said, "The future "that everyone looks at was created "by people no smarter than you." And I love that quote. That's really there. Final question for you. I know we're tight on time, but I want to get this in. When you think about your impact on your company, AWS, and the industry, what's something you want people to remember? >> Oh, geez. I think what I want people to remember the most is it's not about what you've said, and this is a Maya Angelou quote. "It's not about what you've said to people "or what you've done, "it's about how you've made them feel." And we can all think back on leaders or we can all think back on personal moments in our lives where we felt like we belonged, where we felt like we did something amazing, where we felt loved. And those are the moments that sit with us for the rest of our lives. I want people to remember how they felt when they were part of something bigger. I want people to belong. It shouldn't be uncommon to talk about feelings at work. So I want people to feel. >> Rachel, thank you for your time. I know you're really busy and we stretched you a little bit there. Thank you so much for contributing to this wonderful day of great leaders sharing their stories. And you're an inspiration. Thanks for everything you do. We appreciate you. >> Thank you. And let's go do some more Women of the Cloud videos. >> We (laughs) got more coming. Bring those stories on. Back up the story truck. We're ready to go. Thanks so much. >> That's good. >> Thank you. >> Okay, this is theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. It's not just going to be March 8th. That's the big celebration day. It's going to be every quarter, more stories coming. Stay tuned at siliconangle.com and thecube.net here, with bringing all the stories. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (gentle music)

(low-key music) >> The cube's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies. Creating technologies that drive human progress. (uplifting electronic music) (crowd chattering in background) >> Welcome back to Spain, everybody. My name's Dave Vellante. I'm here with Dave Nicholson. We are live at the Fira in Barcelona, covering MWC23 day four. We've been talking about, you know, 5G all week. We're going to talk about it some more. Jillian Kaplan is here. She's the head of Global Telecom Thought Leadership at Dell Technologies, and we're pleased to have Meg Knauth, who's the Vice President for Digital Platform Engineering at T-Mobile. Ladies, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having us. >> Yeah, thank you. >> All right, Meg, can you explain 5G and edge to folks that may not be familiar with it? Give us the 101 on 5G and edge. >> Sure, I'd be happy to. So, at T-Mobile, we want businesses to be able to focus on their business outcomes and not have to stress about network technology. So we're here to handle the networking behind the scenes for you to achieve your business goals. The main way to think about 5G is speed, reduced latency, and heightened security. And you can apply that to so many different business goals and objectives. You know, some of the use cases that get touted out the most are in the retail manufacturing sectors with sensors and with control of inventory and things of that nature. But it can be applied to pretty much any industry because who doesn't need more (chuckles) more speed and lower latency. >> Yeah. And reliability, right? >> Exactly. >> I mean, that's what you're going to have there. So it's not like it's necessarily going to- you know, you think about 5G and these private networks, right? I mean, it's not going to, oh, maybe it is going to eat into, there's a Venn there, I know, but it's not going to going to replace wireless, right? I mean, it's new use cases. >> Yeah. >> Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. >> Yeah, they definitely coexist, right? And Meg touched a little bit on like all the use cases that are coming to be, but as we look at 5G, it's really the- we call it like the Enterprise G, right? It's where the enterprise is going to be able to see changes in their business and the way that they do things. And for them, it's going to be about reducing costs and heightening ROI, and safety too, right? Like being able to automate manufacturing facilities where you don't have workers, like, you know, getting hit by various pieces of equipment and you can take them out of harm's way and put robots in their place. And having them really work in an autonomous situation is going to be super, super key. And 5G is just the, it's the backbone of all future technologies if you look at it. We have to have a network like that in order to build things like AI and ML, and we talk about VR and the Metaverse. You have to have a super reliable network that can handle the amount of devices that we're putting out today, right? So, extremely important. >> From T-Mobile's perspective, I mean we hear a lot about, oh, we spent a lot on CapEx, we know that. You know, trillion and a half over the next seven years, going into 5G infrastructure. We heard in the early keynotes at MWC, we heard the call to you know, tax the over the top vendors. We heard the OTT, Netflix shot back, they said, "Why don't you help us pay for the content that we're creating?" But, okay, so I get that, but telcos have a great business. Where's T-Mobile stand on future revenue opportunities? Are you looking to get more data and monetize that data? Are you looking to do things like partner with Dell to do, you know, 5G networks? Where are the opportunities for T-Mobile? >> I think it's more, as Jillian said, it's the opportunities for each business and it's unique to those businesses. So we're not in it just for ourselves. We're in it to help others achieve their business goals and to do more with all of the new capabilities that this network provides. >> Yeah, man, I like that answer because again, listening to some of the CEOs of the large telcos, it's like, hmm, what's in it for me as the customer or the business? I didn't hear enough of that. And at least in the early keynotes, I'm hearing it more, you know, as the show goes on. But I don't know, Dave, what do you think about what you've heard at the event? >> Well, I'm curious from T-Mobile's perspective, you know when a consumer thinks about 5G, we think of voice, text, and data. And if we think about the 5G network that you already have in place, I'm curious, if you can share this kind of information, what percentage of that's being utilized now? How much is available for the, you know, for the Enterprise G that we're talking about, and maybe, you know, in five years in the future, do you have like a projected mix of consumer use versus all of these back office, call them processes that a consumer's not aware of, but you know the factory floor being connected via 5G, that frontiers that emerges, where are we now and what are you looking towards? Does that make sense? Kind of the mixed question? >> Hand over the business plan! (all laugh) >> Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, I- >> I want numbers Meg, numbers! >> Wow. (Dave and Dave laugh) I'm probably actually not the right person to speak to that. But as you know, T-Mobile has the largest 5G network in North America, and we just say, bring it, right? Let's talk- >> So you got room, you got room for Jillian's stuff? >> Yeah, let's solve >> Well, we can build so many >> business problems together. >> private 5G networks, right? Like I would say like the opportunities are... There's not a limit, right? Because as we build out these private networks, right? We're not on a public network when we're talking about like connecting these massive factories or connecting like a retail store to you and your house to be able to basically continue to try on the clothes remotely, something like that. It's limitless and what we can build- >> So they're related, but they're not necessarily mutually exclusive in the sense that what you are doing in the factory example is going to interfere with my ability to get my data through T-mobile. >> No, no, I- >> These are separated. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> As we build out these private networks and these private facilities, and there are so many applications in the consumer space that haven't even been realized yet. Like, when we think about 4G, when 4G launched, there were no applications that needed 4G to run on our cell phones, right? But then the engineers got to work, right? And we ended up with Uber and Instagram stories and all these applications that require 4G to launch. And that's what's going to happen with 5G too, it's like, as the network continues to get built, in the consumer space as well as the enterprise space, there's going to be new applications realized on this is all the stuff that we can do with this amazing network and look how many more devices and look how much faster it is, and the lower latency and the higher bandwidth, and you know, what we can really build. And I think what we're seeing at this show compared to last year is this stuff actually in practice. There was a lot of talk last year, like about, oh, this is what we can build, but now we're building it. And I think that's really key to show that companies like T-Mobile can help the enterprise in this space with cooperation, right? Like, we're not just talking about it now, we're actually putting it into practice. >> So how does it work? If I put in a private network, what are you doing? You slice out a piece of the network and charge me for it and then I get that as part of my private network. How does it actually work for the customer? >> You want to take that one? >> So I was going to say, yeah, you can do a network slice. You can actually physically build a private network, right? It depends, there's so many different ways to engineer it. So I think you can do it either way, basically. >> We just, we don't want it to be scary, right? >> Yep. >> So it starts with having a conversation about the business challenges that you're facing and then backing it into the technology and letting the technology power those solutions. But we don't want it to be scary for people because there's so much buzz around 5G, around edge, and it can be overwhelming and you can feel like you need a PhD in engineering to have a conversation. And we just want to kind of simplify things and talk in your language, not in our language. We'll figure out the tech behind the scenes. Just tell us what problems we can solve together. >> And so many non-technical companies are having to transform, right? Like retail, like manufacturing, that haven't had to be tech companies before. But together with T-Mobile and Dell, we can help enable that and make it not scary like Meg said. >> Right, so you come into my factory, I say, okay, look around. I got all these people there, and they're making hoses and they're physically putting 'em together. And we go and we have to take a physical measurement as to, you know, is it right? And because if we don't do that, then we have to rework it. Okay, now that's a problem. Okay, can you help me digitize that business? I need a network to do that. I'm going to put in some robots to do that. This is, I mean, I'm making this up but this has got to be a common use case, right? >> Yeah. >> So how do you simplify that for the business owner? >> So we start with what we can provide, and then in some cases you need additional solution providers. You might need a robotics company, you might need a sensor company. But we have those contacts to bring that together for you so that you don't have to be the expert in all those things. >> And what do I do with all the data that I'm collecting? Because, you know, I'm not really a data expert. Maybe, you know, I'm good at putting hoses together, but what's the data layer look like here? (all laughing) >> It's a hose business! >> I know! >> Great business. >> Back to the hoses again. >> There's a lot of different things you can do with it, right? You can collect it in a database, you can send it up to a cloud, you can, you know, use an edge device. It depends how we build the network. >> Dave V.: Can you guys help me do that? Can you guys- >> Sure, yeah. >> Help me figure that out. Should I put it into cloud? Should I use this database or that data? What kind of skills do I need? >> And it depends on the size of the network, right? And the size of the business. Like, you know, there's very simple. You don't have to be a massive manufacturer in order to install this stuff. >> No, I'm asking small business questions. >> Yeah. >> Right, I might not have this giant IT team. I might not have somebody who knows how to do ETL and PBA. >> Exactly. And we can talk to you too about what data matters, right? And we can, together, talk about what data might be the most valuable to you. We can talk to you about how we use data. But again, simplifying it down and making it personal to your business. >> Your point about scary is interesting, because no one has mentioned that until you did in four days. Three? Four days. Somebody says, let's do a private 5G network. That sounds like you're offering, you know, it's like, "Hey, you know what we should do Dave? We'll build you a cruise ship." It's like, I don't need a cruise ship, I just want to go bass fishing. >> Right, right, right. >> But in fact, these things are scalable in the sense that it can be scaled down from the trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It needs to be focused on your outcome, right? And not on the tech. >> When I was at the Dell booth I saw this little private network, it was about this big. I'm like, how much is that? I want one of those. (all laugh) >> I'm not the right person to talk about that! >> The little black one? >> Yes. >> I wanted one of those, too! >> I saw it, it had a little case to carry it around. I'm like, that could fit in my business. >> Just take it with you. >> theCUBE could use that! (all laugh) >> Anything that could go in a pelican case, I want. >> It's true. Like, it's so incredibly important, like you said, to focus on outcomes, right? Not just tech for the sake of tech. What's the problem? Let's solve the problem together. And then you're getting the outcome you want. You'll know what data you need. If you know what the problem is, you're like, okay this is the data I need to know if this problem is solved or not. >> So it sounds like 2022 was the year of talking about it. 2023, I'm inferring is the year of seeing it. >> Yep. >> And 2024 is going to be the year of doing it? >> I think we're doing it now. >> We're doing it now. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, yeah. We're definitely doing it now. >> All right. >> I see a lot of this stuff being put into place and a lot more innovation and a lot more working together. And Meg mentioned working with other partners. No one's going to do this alone. You've got to like, you know, Dell especially, we're focused on open and making sure that, you know, we have the right software partners. We're bringing in smaller players, right? Like ISVs too, as well as like the big software guys. Incredibly, incredibly important. The sensor companies, whatever we need you've got to be able to solve your customer's issue, which in this case, we're looking to help the enterprise together to transform their space. And Dell knows a little bit about the enterprise, so. >> So if we are there in 2023, then I assume 2024 will be the year that each of your companies sets up a dedicated vertical to address the hose manufacturing market. (Meg laughing) >> Oh, the hose manufacturing market. >> Further segmentation is usually a hallmark of the maturity of an industry. >> I got a lead for you. >> Yeah, there you go. >> And that's one thing we've done at Dell, too. We've built like this use case directory to help the service providers understand what, not just say like, oh, you can help manufacturers. Yeah, but how, what are the use cases to do that? And we worked with a research firm to figure out, like, you know these are the most mature, these are the best ROIs. Like to really help hone in on exactly what we can deploy for 5G and edge solutions that make the most sense, not only for service providers, right, but also for the enterprises. >> Where do you guys want to see this partnership go? Give us the vision. >> To infinity and beyond. To 5G! (Meg laughing) To 5G and beyond. >> I love it. >> It's continuation. I love that we're partnering together. It's incredibly important to the future of the business. >> Good deal. >> To bring the strengths of both together. And like Jillian said, other partners in the ecosystem, it has to be approached from a partnership perspective, but focused on outcomes. >> Jillian: Yep. >> To 5G and beyond. I love it. >> To 5G and beyond. >> Folks, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Thanks for having us. >> Appreciate your insights. >> Thank you. >> All right. Dave Vellante for Dave Nicholson, keep it right there. You're watching theCUBE. Go to silliconANGLE.com. John Furrier is banging out all the news. theCUBE.net has all the videos. We're live at the Fira in Barcelona, MWC23. We'll be right back. (uplifting electronic music)

>> Narrator: theCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies. Creating technologies that drive human progress. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Barcelona, Spain, everyone. It's theCUBE live at MWC '23, day three of four days of CUBE coverage. It's like a cannon of CUBE content coming right at you. I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Nicholson. We've got Dell and VMware here. Going to be talking about the ecosystem partnerships and what they're doing to further organizations in the telco industry. Please welcome Jared Woodrey, Director of Partner Engineering Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab, OTEL. Odded Solomon is here as well, Director of Product Management, VMware Service Provider and Edge Business Unit at VMware. Guys, great to have you on the program. >> Thank you for having me. >> Welcome to theCUBE. So Jared, first question for you. Talk about OTEL. I know there's a big announcement this week, but give the audience context and understanding of what OTEL is and how it works. >> Sure. So the Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab is physically located at Round Rock, Texas, it's the heart and soul of it. But this week we also just announced opening up the Cork, Ireland extension of OTEL. The reason for our existence is to to try and make it as easy as possible for both partners and customers to come together and to re-aggregate this disaggregated ecosystem. So that comes with a number of automation tools and basically just giving a known good testing environment so that tests that happen in our lab are as close to real world as they possibly can be and make it as transparent and open as possible for both partners like VMware as well as customers. >> Odded, talk about what you're doing with Dell and OTEL and give us a customer example of maybe one that you're working with or even even mentioning it by a high level descriptor if you have to. >> Yeah. So we provide a telco cloud platform, which is essentially a vertical in VMware. The telco cloud platform is serving network function vendors, such as Ericsson, Nokia, Mavenir, and so on. What we do with Dell as part of this partnership is essentially complementing the platform with some additional functionality that is not coming out of the box. We used to have a data protection in the past, but this is no longer our main business focus. So we do provide APIs that we can expose and work together with Dell PPDM solution so customer can benefit from this and leverage the partnership and have overall solution that is not coming out of the box from VMware. >> I'm curious, from a VMware perspective. VMware is associated often with the V in VMware, virtualization, and we've seen a transition over time between sort of flavors of virtualization and what is the mix currently today in the telecom space between environments that are leveraging what we would think of as more traditional virtualization with full blown Linux, Windows operating systems in a VM versus the world of containerized microservices? What does that mix look like today? Where do you see it going? >> Yeah, so the VMware telco cloud platform exists for about eight years. And the V started around that time. You might heard about open stack in addition to VMware. So this has definitely helped the network equipment providers with virtualizing their network functions. Those are typically VNF, virtualized network functions, inside the VMs. Essentially we have 4G applications, so core applications, EPC, we have IMS. Those are typically, I would say maybe 80 or 90% of the ecosystem right now. 5G is associated with cloud native network functions. So 5G is getting started now, getting deployed. There is an exponential growth on the core side. Now, when we expand towards the edge of the network we see more potential growth. This is 5G ran, we see the vRAN, we see the open RAN, we see early POCs, we see field trials that are starting. We obviously has production customer now. You just spoke to one. So this is really starting, cloud native is really starting I would say about 10 to 20% of the network functions these days are cloud native. >> Jared, question for you. You mentioned data protection, a huge topic there obviously from a security perspective. Data protection used to be the responsibility of the CSPs. You guys are changing that. Can you talk a little bit about how you're doing that and what Dell's play there is? >> Yeah, so PowerProtect Data Management is a product, but it's produced by Dell. So what this does is it enables data protection over virtual cloud as well as the physical infrastructure of specifically in this case of a telecoms ecosystem. So what this does is enables an ability to rapidly redeploy and back up existing configurations all the way up to the TCP and TCA that pulls the basis of our work here with VMware. >> So you've offloaded that responsibility from the CSPs. You freed them from that. >> So the work that we did, honestly was to make sure that we have a very clear and concise and accurate procedures for how to conduct this as well. And to put this through a realistic and real world as if it was in a telecoms own production network, what did that would actually look like, and what it would take to bring it back up as well. So our responsibility is to make sure that when we when we provide these products to the customers that not only do they work exactly as their intended to, but there is also documentation to help support them and to enable them to have their exact specifications met by as well. >> Got it. So talk about a little bit about OTEL expansion into Cork. What you guys are doing together to enable CSPs here in EMEA? >> Yeah, so the reason why we opened up a facility in Cork Island was to give, for an EMEA audience, for an EMEA CSPs and ability to look and feel and touch some of the products that we're working on. It also just facilitates and ease especially for European-based partners to have a chance to very easily come to a lab environment. The difference though, honestly, is the between Round Rock, Texas and Cork Island is that it's virtually an extension of the same thing. Like the physical locations can make it easier to provide access and obviously to showcase the products that we've developed with partners. But the reality is that it's more than just the physical location. It's more about the ability and ease by which customers and partners can access the labs. >> So we should be expecting a lot of Tito's vodka to be consumed in Cork at some point. Might change the national beverage. >> We do need to have some international exchange. >> Yeah, no, that's good to know. Odded, on the VMware side of things. There's a large group of folks who have VMware skillsets. >> Odded: Correct. >> The telecom industry is moving into this world of the kind of agility that those folks are familiar with. How do people come out of the traditional VMware virtualization world and move into that world of cloud native applications and serve the telecom space? What would your recommendation be? If you were speaking at a VMUG, a VMware Users Group meeting with all of your telecom background, what would you share with them that's critical to understand about how telecom is different, or how telecom's spot in its evolution might be different than the traditional IT space? >> So we're talking about the people with the knowledge and the background of. >> Yeah, I'm a V expert, let's say. And I'm looking into the future and I hear that there are 80,000 people in Barcelona at this event, and I hear that Dell is building optimized infrastructure specifically for telecom, and that VMware is involved. And I'm an expert in VMware and I want to be involved. What do I need to do? I know it's a little bit outside of the box question, but especially against the backdrop of economic headwinds globally, there are a lot of people facing transitions. What are your thoughts there? >> So, first of all, we understand the telco requirements, we understand the telco needs, and we make sure that what we learn from the customers, what we learn from the partners is being built into the VMware products. And simplicity is number one thing that is important for us. We want the customer experience, we want the user experience to be the same as they know even though we are transitioning into cloud native networks that require more frequent upgrades and they have more complexity to be honest. And what we do in our vertical inside VMware we are focusing on automation, telco cloud automation, telco cloud service assurance. Think of it as a wrapper around the SDDC stack that we have from VMware that really simplifies the operations for the telcos because it's really a challenge about skillset. You need to be a DevOps, SRE in order to operate these networks. And things are becoming really complex. We simplify it for them with the same VMware experience. We have a very good ability to do that. We sell products in VMware. Unlike our competition that is mostly selling professional services and support, we try to focus more on the products and delivering the value. Of course, we have services offering because telcos requires some customizations, but we do focus on automation simplicity throughout our staff. >> So just follow up. So in other words the investment in education in this VMware ecosystem absolutely can be extended and applied into the telecom world. I think it's an important thing. >> I was going to add to that. Our engagement in OTEL was also something that we created a solutions brief whether we released from Mobile World Congress this week. But in conjunction with that, we also have a white paper coming out that has a much more expansive explanation and documentation of what it was that we accomplished in the work that we've done together. And that's not something that is going to be a one-off thing. This is something that will stay evergreen that we'll continue to expand both the testing scope as well as the documentation for what this solution looks like and how it can be used as well as documentation on for the V experts for how they can then leverage and realize the the potential for what we're creating together. >> Jared, does Dell look at OTEL as having the potential to facilitate the continued evolution of the actual telco industry? And if so, how? >> Well, I mean, it would be a horrible answer if I were to say no to that. >> Right. >> I think, I honestly believe that one of the most difficult things about this idea of having desired ecosystem is not just trying to put it back together, but then also how to give yourself choice. So each time that you build one of those solution sets like that exists as an island out of all the other possibilities that comes with it. And OTEL seeks to not just be able to facilitate building that first solution set. Like that's what solutions engineering can do. And that's generally done relatively protected and internally. The Open Telecom Ecosystem seeks to build that then to also provide the ability to very easily change specific components of that whether that's a hardware component, a NIC, whether a security pass just came out or a change in either TCP or TCA or we talked a little bit about for this specific engagement that it was done on TCP 2.5. >> Odded: Correct. >> Obviously there's already a 2.7 and 3.0 is coming out. It's not like we're going to sit around and write our coattails of what 2.7 has happened. So this isn't intended to be a one and done thing. So when we talk about trying to make that easier and simpler and de-risk all of the risk that comes from trying to put all these things together, it's not just the the one single solution that you built in the lab. It's what's the next one? And how do I optimize this? And I have specific requirements as a CSP, how can I take something you built that doesn't quite match it, but how do I make that adjustment? So that's what we see to do and make it as easy and as painless as possible. >> What's the engagement model with CSPs? Is it led by Dell only, VMware partner? How does that work? >> Yeah, I can take that. So that depends on the customer, but typically customers they want to choose the cloud vendor. So they come to VMware, we want VMware. Typically, they come from the IT side. They said, "Oh, we want to manage the network side of the house the same way as we manage the IT. We don't want to have special skill sets, special teams." So they move from the IT to the network side and they want VMware there. And then obviously they have an RSP process and they have hardware choices. They can go with Dell, they can go with others. We leverage vSphere, other compatibility. So we can be flexible with the customer choice. And then depending on which customer, how large they are, they select the network equipment provider that the runs on top. We position our platform as multi-vendor. So many of them choose multiple network functions providers. So we work with Dell. So assuming that the customer is choosing Dell. We work very closely with them, offering the best solution for the customer. We work with them sometimes to even design the boxes to make sure that it fits their use cases and to make sure that it works properly. So we have a partnership validation certification end-to-end from the applications all the way down to the hardware. >> It's a fascinating place in history to be right now with 5G. Something that a lot of consumers sort of assume. It's like, "Oh, hey, yeah, we're already there. What's the 6G thing going to look like?" Well, wait a minute, we're just at the beginning stages. And so you talk about disaggregation, re-aggregation, or reintegration, the importance of that. Folks like Dell have experience in that space. Folks at VMware have a lot of experience in the virtualization space, but I heard that VMware is being acquired by Broadcom, if it all goes through, of course. You don't need to comment on it. But you mentioned something, SDDC, software-defined data center. That stack is sometimes misunderstood by the public at large and maybe the folks in the EU, I will editorialize for a moment here. It is eliminating capture in a way by larger hyperscale cloud providers. It absolutely introduces more competition into the market space. So it's interesting to hear Broadcom acknowledging that this is part of the future of VMware, no matter what else happens. These capabilities that spill into the telecom space are something that they say they're going to embrace and extend. I think that's important for anyone who's evaluating this if they're concern. Well, wait a minute. Yeah, when I reintegrate, do I want VMware as part of this mix? Is that an unknown? It's pretty clear that that's something that is part of the future of VMware moving forward. That's my personal opinion based on analysis. But you brought up SDDC, so I wanted to mention that. Again, I'm not going to ask you to get into trouble on that at all. What should we be, from a broad perspective, are there any services, outcomes that are going to come out of all of this work? The agility that's being built by you folks and folks in the open world. Are there any specific things that you personally are excited about? Or when we think about consumer devices, getting data, what are the other kinds of things that this facilitates? Anything cool, either one of you. >> So specific use cases? >> Yeah, anything. It's got to be cool though. If it's not cool we're going to ask you to leave. >> All right. I'll take that challenge. (laughs) I think one of the things that is interesting for something like OTEL as an exist, as being an Open Telecom Ecosystem, there are going to be some CSPs that it's very difficult for them to have this optionality existing for themselves. Especially when you start talking about tailoring it for specific CSPs and their needs. One of the things that becomes much more available to some of the smaller CSPs is the ability to leverage OTEL and basically act as one of their pre-production labs. So this would be something that would be very specific to a customer and we would obviously make sure that it's completely isolated but the intention there would be that it would open up the ability for what would normally take a much longer time period for them to receive some of the benefits of some of the changes that are happening within the industry. But they would have immediate benefit by leveraging specifically looking OTEL to provide them some of their solutions. And I know that you were also looking for specific use cases out of it, but like that's a huge deal for a lot of CSPs around the world that don't have the ability to lay out all the different permutations that they are most interested in and start to put each one of those through a test cycle. A specific use cases for what this looks like is honestly the most exciting that I've seen for right now is on the private 5G networks. Specifically within mining industry, we have a, sorry for the audience, but we have a demo at our booth that starts to lay out exactly how it was deployed and kind of the AB of what this looked like before the world of private 5G for this mining company and what it looks like afterwards. And the ability for both safety, as well as operational costs, as well as their ability to obviously do their job better is night and day. It completely opened up a very analog system and opened up to a very digitalized system. And I would be remiss, I didn't also mention OpenBrew, which is also an example in our booth. >> We saw it last night in action. >> We saw it. >> I hope you did. So OpenBrew is small brewery in Northeast America and we basically took a very manual process of checking temperature and pressure on multiple different tanks along the entire brewing process and digitized everything for them. All of that was enabled by a private 5G deployment that's built on Dell hardware. >> You asked for cool. I think we got it. >> Yeah, it's cool. >> Jared: I think beer. >> Cool brew, yes. >> Root beer, I think is trump card there. >> At least for folks from North America, we like our brew cool. >> Exactly. Guys, thank you so much for joining Dave and me talking about what Dell, OTEL, and VMware are doing together, what you're enabling CSPs to do and achieve. We appreciate your time and your insights. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> All right, our pleasure. For our guests and for Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You watching theCUBE live from MWC '23. Day three of our coverage continues right after a short break. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: "theCUBE's" live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies. Creating technologies that drive human progress. (intro music) >> Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to "theCUBE's" day three coverage of MWC23. Lisa Martin here in Spain, Barcelona, Spain with Dave Nicholson. We're going to have a really interesting conversation next. We're going to really dig into MWC, it's history, where it's going, some of the controversy here. Please welcome our guests. We have Jim Harris, International Best Selling Author of "Blindsided." And Carolina Milanese is here, President and Principle Analyst of creative strategies. Welcome to "theCUBE" guys. Thank you. >> Thanks. So great to be here. >> So this is day three. 80,000 people or so. You guys have a a lot of history up at this event. Caroline, I want to start with you. Talk a little bit about that. This obviously the biggest one in, in quite a few years. People are ready to be back, but there's been some, a lot of news here, but some controversy going on. Give us the history, and your perspective on some of the news that's coming out from this week's event. >> It feels like a very different show. I don't know if I would say growing up show, because we are still talking about networks and mobility, but there's so much more now around what the networks actually empower, versus the network themselves. And a little bit of maybe that's where some of the controversy is coming from, carriers still trying to find their identity, right, of, of what their role is in all there is to do with a connected world. I go back a long way. I go back to when Mobile World Congress was called, was actually called GSM, and it was in Khan. So, you know, we went from France to Spain. But just looking at the last full Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona, in pre-pandemic to now, very different show. We went from a show that was very much focused on mobility and smartphones, to a show that was all about cars. You know, we had cars everywhere, 'cause we were talking about smart cities and connected cars, to now a show this year that is very much focused on B2B. And so a lot of companies that are here to either work with the carriers, or also talk about sustainability for instance, or enable what is the next future evolution of computing with XR and VR. >> So Jim, talk to us a little bit about your background. You, I was doing a little sleuthing on you. You're really focusing on disruptive innovation. We talk about disruption a lot in different industries. We're seeing a lot of disruption in telco. We're seeing a lot of frenemies going on. Give us your thoughts about what you're seeing at this year's event. >> Well, there's some really exciting things. I listened to the keynote from Orange's CEO, and she was complaining that 55% of the traffic on her network is from five companies. And then the CEO of Deutsche Telecom got up, and he was complaining that 60% of the traffic on his network is from six entities. So do you think they coordinated pre, pre-show? But really what they're saying is, these OTT, you know, Netflix and YouTube, they should be paying us for access. Now, this is killer funny. The front page today of the show, "Daily," the CO-CEO of Netflix says, "Hey, we make less profit than the telcos, "so you should be paying us, "not the other way around." You know, we spend half of the money we make just on developing content. So, this is really interesting. The orange CEO said, "We're not challenging net neutrality. "We don't want more taxes." But boom. So this is disruptive. Huge pressure. 67% of all mobile traffic is video, right? So it's a big hog bandwidth wise. So how are they going to do this? Now, I look at it, and the business model for the, the telcos, is really selling sim cards and smartphones. But for every dollar of revenue there, there's five plus dollars in apps, and consulting and everything else. So really, but look at how they're structured. They can't, you know, take somebody who talks to the public and sells sim cards, and turn 'em in, turn 'em in to an app developer. So how are they going to square this circle? So I see some, they're being disrupted because they're sticking to what they've historically done. >> But it's interesting because at the end of the day, the conversation that we are having right now is the conversation that we had 10 years ago, where carriers don't want to just be a dumb pipe, right? And that's what they are now returning to. They tried to be media as well, but that didn't work out for most carriers, right? It is a little bit better in the US. We've seen, you know, some success there. But, but here has been more difficult. And I think that's the, the concern, that even for the next, you know, evolution, that's the, their role. >> So how do they, how do they balance this dumb pipe idea, with the fact that if you make the toll high enough, being a dumb pipe is actually a pretty good job. You know, sit back, collect check, go to the beach, right? So where, where, where, where does this end up? >> Well, I think what's going to happen is, if you see five to 15 X the revenue on top of a pipe, you know, the hyperscalers are going to start going after the business. The consulting companies like PWC, McKinsey, the app developers, they're... So how do you engage those communities as a telco to get more revenue? I think this is a question that they really need to look at. But we tend to stick within our existing business model. I'll just give you one stat that blows me away. Uber is worth more than every taxi cab company in North America added together. And so the taxi industry owns billions in assets in cars and limousines. Uber doesn't own a single vehicle. So having a widely distributed app, is a huge multiplier on valuation. And I look to a company like Safari in Kenya, which developed M-Pesa, which Pesa means mo, it's mobile money in Swahili. And 25% of the country's GDP is facilitated by M-Pesa. And that's not even on smartphones. They're feature phones, Nokia phones. I call them dumb phones, but Nokia would call them "feature phones." >> Yeah. >> So think about that. Like 25, now transactions are very small, and the cut is tiny. But when you're facilitating 25% of a country's GDP, >> Yeah. >> Tiny, over billions of transactions is huge. But that's not the way telcos have historically thought or worked. And so M-Pesa and Safari shows the way forward. What do you think on that? >> I, I think that the experience, and what they can layer on top from a services perspective, especially in the private sector, is also important. I don't, I never believe that a carrier, given how they operate, is the best media company in the world, right? It is a very different world. But I do think that there's opportunity, first of all, to, to actually tell their story in a different way. If you're thinking about everything that a network actually empowers, there's a, there's a lot there. There's a lot that is good for us as, as society. There's a lot that is good for business. What can they do to start talking about differently about their services, and then layer on top of what they offer? A better way to actually bring together private and public network. It's not all about cellular, wifi and cellular coming together. We're talking a lot about satellite here as well. So, there's definitely more there about quality of service. Is, is there though, almost a biological inevitability that prevents companies from being able to navigate that divide? >> Hmm. >> Look at, look at when, when, when we went from high definition 720P, very exciting, 1080P, 4K. Everybody ran out and got a 4K TV. Well where was the, where was the best 4K content coming from? It wasn't, it wasn't the networks, it wasn't your cable operator, it was YouTube. It was YouTube. If you had suggested that 10 years before, that that would happen, people would think that you were crazy. Is it possible for folks who are now leading their companies, getting up on stage, and daring to say, "This content's coming over, "and I want to charge you more "for using my pipes." It's like, "Really? Is that your vision? "That's the vision that you want to share with us here?" I hear the sound of dead people walking- (laughing) when I hear comments like that. And so, you know, my students at Wharton in the CTO program, who are constantly looking at this concept of disruption, would hear that and go, "Ooh, gee, did the board hear what that person said?" I, you know, am I being too critical of people who could crush me like a bug? (laughing) >> I mean, it's better that they ask the people with money than not consumers to pay, right? 'Cause we've been through a phase where the carriers were actually asking for more money depending on critical things. Like for instance, if you're doing business email, then were going to charge you more than if you were a consumer. Or if you were watching video, they would charge you more for that. Then they understood that a consumer would walk away and go somewhere else. So they stopped doing that. But to your point, I think, and, and very much to what you focus from a disruption perspective, look at what Chat GTP and what Microsoft has been doing. Not much talk about this here at the show, which is interesting, but the idea that now as a consumer, I can ask new Bing to get me the 10 best restaurants in Barcelona, and I no longer go to Yelp, or all the other businesses where I was going to before, to get their recommendation, what happens to them? You're, you're moving away, and you're taking eyeballs away from those websites. And, and I think that, that you know, your point is exactly right. That it's, it's about how, from a revenue perspective, you are spending a lot of money to facilitate somebody else, and what's in it for you? >> Yeah. And to be clear, consumers pay for everything. >> Always. Always. (laughs) >> Taxpayers and consumers always pay for everything. So there is no, "Well, we're going to make them pay, so you don't have to pay." >> And if you are not paying, you are the product. Exactly. >> Yes. (laughing) >> Carolina, talk a little bit about what you're seeing at the event from some of the infrastructure players, the hyperscalers, obviously a lot of enterprise focus here at this event. What are some of the things that you're seeing? Are you impressed with, with their focus in telco, their focus to partner, build an ecosystem? What are you seeing? >> I'm seeing also talk about sustainability, and enabling telco to be more sustainable. You know, there, there's a couple of things that are a little bit different from the US where I live, which is that telcos in Europe, have put money into sustainability through bonds. And so they use the money that they then get from the bonds that they create, to, to supply or to fuel their innovation in sustainability. And so there's a dollar amount on sustainability. There's also an opportunity obviously from a growth perspective. And there's a risk mitigation, right? Especially in Europe, more and more you're going to be evaluated based on how sustainable you are. So there are a lot of companies here, if you're thinking about the Ciscos of the world. Dell, IBM all talking about sustainability and how to help carriers measure, and then obviously be more sustainable with their consumption and, and power. >> Going to be interesting to see where that goes over the years, as we talk to, every company we talk to at whatever show, has an ESG sustainability initiative, and only, well, many of them only want to work with other companies who have the same types of initiative. So a lot of, great that there's focus on sustainability, but hopefully we'll see more action down the road. Wanted to ask you about your book, "Blind," the name is interesting, "Blindsided." >> Well, I just want to tag on to this. >> Sure. >> One of the most exciting things for me is fast charging technology. And Shalmie, cell phone, or a smartphone maker from China, just announced yesterday, a smartphone that charges from 0 to 100% in five minutes. Now this is using GAN FEST technology. And the leader in the market is a company called Navitas. And this has profound implications. You know, it starts with the smartphone, right? But then it moves to the laptops. And then it'll move to EV's. So, as we electrify the $10 trillion a year transportation industry, there's a huge opportunity. People want charging faster. There's also a sustainability story that, to Carolina's point, that it uses less electricity. So, if we electrify the grid in order to support transportation, like the Tesla Semi's coming out, there are huge demands over a period. We need energy efficiency technologies, like this GAN FEST technology. So to me, this is humongous. And it, we only see it here in the show, in Shalmie, saying, "Five minutes." And everybody, the consumers go, "Oh, that's cool." But let's look at the bigger story, which is electrifying transportation globally. And this is going to be big. >> Yeah. And, and to, and to double click on that a little bit, to be clear, when we talk about fast charging today, typically it's taking the battery from a, not a zero state of charge, but a relatively low state of charge to 80%. >> Yep. >> Then it tapers off dramatically. And that translates into less range in an EV, less usable time on any other device, and there's that whole linkage between the power in, and the battery's ability to be charged, and how much is usable. And from a sustainability perspective, we are going to have an avalanche of batteries going into secondary use cases over time. >> They don't get tossed into landfills contrary to what people might think. >> Yep. >> In fact, they are used in a variety of ways after their primary lifespan. But that, that is, that in and of itself is a revolutionary thing. I'm interested in each of your thoughts on the China factor. Glaringly absent here, from my perspective, as sort of an Apple fanboy, where are they? Why aren't they talking about their... They must, they must feel like, "Well we just don't need to." >> We don't need to. We just don't need to. >> Absolutely. >> And then you walk around and you see these, these company names that are often anglicized, and you don't necessarily immediately associate them with China, but it's like, "Wait a minute, "that looks better than what I have, "and I'm not allowed to have access to that thing." What happens in the future there geopolitically? >> It's a pretty big question for- >> Its is. >> For a short little tech show. (Caroline laughs) But what happens as we move forward? When is the entire world going to be able to leverage in a secure way, some of the stuff that's coming out of, if they're not the largest economy in the world yet, they shortly will be. >> What's the story there? >> Well, it's interesting that you mentioned First Apple that has never had a presence at Mobile World Congress. And fun enough, I'm part of the GSMA judges for the GLOMO Awards, and last night I gave out Best Mobile Phone for last year, and it was to the iPhone4 Team Pro. and best disruptive technology, which was for the satellite function feature on, on the new iPhone. So, Apple might not be here, but they are. >> Okay. >> And, and so that's the first thing. And they are as far as being top of mind to every competitor in the smartphone market still. So a lot of the things that, even from a design perspective that you see on some of the Chinese brands, really remind you of, of Apple. What is interesting for me, is how there wouldn't be, with the exception of Samsung and Motorola, there's no one else here that is non-Chinese from a smartphone point of view. So that's in itself, is something that changed dramatically over the years, especially for somebody like me that still remember Nokia being the number one in the market. >> Huh. >> So. >> Guys, we could continue this conversation. We are unfortunately out of time. But thank you so much for joining Dave and me, talking about your perspectives on the event, the industry, the disruptive forces. It's going to be really interesting to see where it goes. 'Cause at the end of the day, it's the consumers that just want to make sure I can connect wherever I am 24 by seven, and it just needs to work. Thank you so much for your insights. >> Thank you. >> Lisa, it's been great. Dave, great. It's a pleasure. >> Our pleasure. For our guests, and for Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching, "theCUBE," the leader in live and emerging tech coverage coming to you day three of our coverage of MWC 23. Stick around. Our next guest joins us momentarily. (outro music)

>> theCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies. Creating technologies that drive human progress. (ambient music) >> Lisa: Hey everyone, welcome back to Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE Live at MWC 23. Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante. This is day two of four days of cube coverage but you know that, because you've already been watching yesterday and today. We're going to have a great conversation next with EnterpriseWeb and Red Hat. We've had great conversations the last day and a half about the Telco industry, the challenges, the opportunities. We're going to unpack that from this lens. Please welcome Dave Duggal, founder and CEO of EnterpriseWeb and Azhar Sayeed is here, Senior Director Solution Architecture at Red Hat. >> Guys, it's great to have you on the program. >> Yes. >> Thank you Lisa, >> Great being here with you. >> Dave let's go ahead and start with you. Give the audience an overview of EnterpriseWeb. What kind of business is it? What's the business model? What do you guys do? >> Okay so, EnterpriseWeb is reinventing middleware, right? So the historic middleware was to build vertically integrated stacks, right? And those stacks are now such becoming the rate limiters for interoperability for so the end-to-end solutions that everybody's looking for, right? Red Hat's talking about the unified platform. You guys are talking about Supercloud, EnterpriseWeb addresses that we've built middleware based on serverless architecture, so lightweight, low latency, high performance middleware. And we're working with the world's biggest, we sell through channels and we work through partners like Red Hat Intel, Fortnet, Keysight, Tech Mahindra. So working with some of the biggest players that have recognized the value of our innovation, to deliver transformation to the Telecom industry. >> So what are you guys doing together? Is this, is this an OpenShift play? >> Is it? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, so we've got two projects right her on the floor at MWC throughout the various partners, where EnterpriseWeb is actually providing an application layer, sorry application middleware over Red Hat's, OpenShift and we're essentially generating operators so Red Hat operators, so that all our vendors, and, sorry vendors that we onboard into our catalog can be deployed easily through the OpenShift platform. And we allow those, those vendors to be flexibly composed into network services. So the real challenge for operators historically is that they, they have challenges onboarding the vendors. It takes a long time. Each one of them is a snowflake. They, you know, even though there's standards they don't all observe or follow the same standards. So we make it easier using models, right? For, in a model driven process to on boards or streamline that onboarding process, compose functions into services deploy those services seamlessly through Red Hat's OpenShift, and then manage the, the lifecycle, like the quality of service and the SLAs for those services. >> So Red Hat obviously has pretty prominent Telco business has for a while. Red Hat OpenStack actually is is pretty popular within the Telco business. People thought, "Oh, OpenStack, that's dead." Actually, no, it's actually doing quite well. We see it all over the place where for whatever reason people want to build their own cloud. And, and so, so what's happening in the industry because you have the traditional Telcos we heard in the keynotes that kind of typical narrative about, you know, we can't let the over the top vendors do this again. We're, we're going to be Apifi everything, we're going to monetize this time around, not just with connectivity but the, but the fact is they really don't have a developer community. >> Yes. >> Yet anyway. >> Then you have these disruptors over here that are saying "Yeah, we're going to enable ISVs." How do you see it? What's the landscape look like? Help us understand, you know, what the horses on the track are doing. >> Sure. I think what has happened, Dave, is that the conversation has moved a little bit from where they were just looking at IS infrastructure service with virtual machines and OpenStack, as you mentioned, to how do we move up the value chain and look at different applications. And therein comes the rub, right? You have applications with different requirements, IT network that have various different requirements that are there. So as you start to build those cloud platform, as you start to modernize those set of applications, you then start to look at microservices and how you build them. You need the ability to orchestrate them. So some of those problem statements have moved from not just refactoring those applications, but actually now to how do you reliably deploy, manage in a multicloud multi cluster way. So this conversation around Supercloud or this conversation around multicloud is very >> You could say Supercloud. That's okay >> (Dave Duggal and Azhar laughs) >> It's absolutely very real though. The reason why it's very real is, if you look at transformations around Telco, there are two things that are happening. One, Telco IT, they're looking at partnerships with hybrid cloud, I mean with public cloud players to build a hybrid environment. They're also building their own Telco Cloud environment for their network functions. Now, in both of those spaces, they end up operating two to three different environments themselves. Now how do you create a level of abstraction across those? How do you manage that particular infrastructure? And then how do you orchestrate all of those different workloads? Those are the type of problems that they're actually beginning to solve. So they've moved on from really just putting that virtualizing their application, putting it on OpenStack to now really seriously looking at "How do I build a service?" "How do I leverage the catalog that's available both in my private and public and build an overall service process?" >> And by the way what you just described as hybrid cloud and multicloud is, you know Supercloud is what multicloud should have been. And what, what it originally became is "I run on this cloud and I run on this cloud" and "I run on this cloud and I have a hybrid." And, and Supercloud is meant to create a common experience across those clouds. >> Dave Duggal: Right? >> Thanks to, you know, Supercloud middleware. >> Yeah. >> Right? And, and so that's what you guys do. >> Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Dave, I mean, even the name EnterpriseWeb, you know we started from looking from the application layer down. If you look at it, the last 10 years we've looked from the infrastructure up, right? And now everybody's looking northbound saying "You know what, actually, if I look from the infrastructure up the only thing I'll ever build is silos, right?" And those silos get in the way of the interoperability and the agility the businesses want. So we take the perspective as high level abstractions, common tools, so that if I'm a CXO, I can look down on my environments, right? When I'm really not, I honestly, if I'm an, if I'm a CEO I don't really care or CXO, I don't really care so much about my infrastructure to be honest. I care about my applications and their behavior. I care about my SLAs and my quality of service, right? Those are the things I care about. So I really want an EnterpriseWeb, right? Something that helps me connect all my distributed applications all across all of the environments. So I can have one place a consistency layer that speaks a common language. We know that there's a lot of heterogeneity down all those layers and a lot of complexity down those layers. But the business doesn't care. They don't want to care, right? They want to actually take their applications deploy them where they're the most performant where they're getting the best cost, right? The lowest and maybe sustainability concerns, all those. They want to address those problems, meet their SLAs meet their quality service. And you know what, if it's running on Amazon, great. If it's running on Google Cloud platform, great. If it, you know, we're doing one project right here that we're demonstrating here is with with Amazon Tech Mahindra and OpenShift, where we took a disaggregated 5G core, right? So this is like sort of latest telecom, you know net networking software, right? We're deploying pulling elements of that network across core, across Amazon EKS, OpenShift on Red Hat ROSA, as well as just OpenShift for cloud. And we, through a single pane of deployment and management, we deployed the elements of the 5G core across them and then connected them in an end-to-end process. That's Telco Supercloud. >> Dave Vellante: So that's an O-RAN deployment. >> Yeah that's >> So, the big advantage of that, pardon me, Dave but the big advantage of that is the customer really doesn't care where the components are being served from for them. It's a 5G capability. It happens to sit in different locations. And that's, it's, it's about how do you abstract and how do you manage all those different workloads in a cohesive way? And that's exactly what EnterpriseWeb is bringing to the table. And what we do is we abstract the underlying infrastructure which is the cloud layer. So if, because AWS operating environment is different then private cloud operating environment then Azure environment, you have the networking is set up is different in each one of them. If there is a way you can abstract all of that and present it in a common operating model it becomes a lot easier than for anybody to be able to consume. >> And what a lot of customers tell me is the way they deal with multicloud complexity is they go with mono cloud, right? And so they'll lose out on some of the best services >> Absolutely >> If best of, so that's not >> that's not ideal, but at the end of the day, agree, developers don't want to muck with all the plumbing >> Dave Duggal: Yep. >> They want to write code. >> Azhar: Correct. >> So like I come back to are the traditional Telcos leaning in on a way that they're going to enable ISVs and developers to write on top of those platforms? Or are there sort of new entrance and disruptors? And I know, I know the answer is both >> Dave Duggal: Yep. >> but I feel as though the Telcos still haven't, traditional Telcos haven't tuned in to that developer affinity, but you guys sell to them. >> What, what are you seeing? >> Yeah, so >> What we have seen is there are Telcos fall into several categories there. If you look at the most mature ones, you know they are very eager to move up the value chain. There are some smaller very nimble ones that have actually doing, they're actually doing something really interesting. For example, they've provided sandbox environments to developers to say "Go develop your applications to the sandbox environment." We'll use that to build an net service with you. I can give you some interesting examples across the globe that, where that is happening, right? In AsiaPac, particularly in Australia, ANZ region. There are a couple of providers who have who have done this, but in, in, in a very interesting way. But the challenges to them, why it's not completely open or public yet is primarily because they haven't figured out how to exactly monetize that. And, and that's the reason why. So in the absence of that, what will happen is they they have to rely on the ISV ecosystem to be able to build those capabilities which they can then bring it on as part of the catalog. But in Latin America, I was talking to one of the providers and they said, "Well look we have a public cloud, we have our own public cloud, right?" What we want do is use that to offer localized services not just bring everything in from the top >> But, but we heard from Ericson's CEO they're basically going to monetize it by what I call "gouge", the developers >> (Azhar laughs) >> access to the network telemetry as opposed to saying, "Hey, here's an open platform development on top of it and it will maybe create something like an app store and we'll take a piece of the action." >> So ours, >> to be is a better model. >> Yeah. So that's perfect. Our second project that we're showing here is with Intel, right? So Intel came to us cause they are a reputation for doing advanced automation solutions. They gave us carte blanche in their labs. So this is Intel Network Builders they said pick your partners. And we went with the Red Hat, Fort Net, Keysite this company KX doing AIML. But to address your DevX, here's Intel explicitly wants to get closer to the developers by exposing their APIs, open APIs over their infrastructure. Just like Red Hat has APIs, right? And so they can expose them northbound to developers so developers can leverage and tune their applications, right? But the challenge there is what Intel is doing at the low level network infrastructure, right? Is fundamentally complex, right? What you want is an abstraction layer where develop and this gets to, to your point Dave where you just said like "The developers just want to get their job done." or really they want to focus on the business logic and accelerate that service delivery, right? So the idea here is an EnterpriseWeb they can literally declaratively compose their services, express their intent. "I want this to run optimized for low latency. I want this to run optimized for energy consumption." Right? And that's all they say, right? That's a very high level statement. And then the run time translates it between all the elements that are participating in that service to realize the developer's intent, right? No hands, right? Zero touch, right? So that's now a movement in telecom. So you're right, it's taking a while because these are pretty fundamental shifts, right? But it's intent based networking, right? So it's almost two parts, right? One is you have to have the open APIs, right? So that the infrastructure has to expose its capabilities. Then you need abstractions over the top that make it simple for developers to take, you know, make use of them. >> See, one of the demonstrations we are doing is around AIOps. And I've had literally here on this floor, two conversations around what I call as network as a platform. Although it sounds like a cliche term, that's exactly what Dave was describing in terms of exposing APIs from the infrastructure and utilizing them. So once you get that data, then now you can do analytics and do machine learning to be able to build models and figure out how you can orchestrate better how you can monetize better, how can how you can utilize better, right? So all of those things become important. It's just not about internal optimization but it's also about how do you expose it to third party ecosystem to translate that into better delivery mechanisms or IOT capability and so on. >> But if they're going to charge me for every API call in the network I'm going to go broke (team laughs) >> And I'm going to get really pissed. I mean, I feel like, I'm just running down, Oracle. IBM tried it. Oracle, okay, they got Java, but they don't they don't have developer jobs. VMware, okay? They got Aria. EMC used to have a thing called code. IBM had to buy Red Hat to get to the developer community. (Lisa laughs) >> So I feel like the telcos don't today have those developer shops. So, so they have to partner. [Azhar] Yes. >> With guys like you and then be more open and and let a zillion flowers bloom or else they're going to get disrupted in a big way and they're going to it's going to be a repeat of the over, over the top in, in in a different model that I can't predict. >> Yeah. >> Absolutely true. I mean, look, they cannot be in the connectivity business. Telcos cannot be just in the connectivity business. It's, I think so, you know, >> Dave Vellante: You had a fry a frozen hand (Dave Daggul laughs) >> off that, you know. >> Well, you know, think about they almost have to go become over the top on themselves, right? That's what the cloud guys are doing, right? >> Yeah. >> They're riding over their backbone that by taking a creating a high level abstraction, they in turn abstract away the infrastructure underneath them, right? And that's really the end game >> Right? >> Dave Vellante: Yeah. >> Is because now, >> they're over the top it's their network, it's their infrastructure, right? They don't want to become bid pipes. >> Yep. >> Now you, they can take OpenShift, run that in any cloud. >> Yep. >> Right? >> You can run that in hybrid cloud, enterprise web can do the application layer configuration and management. And together we're running, you know, OSI layers one through seven, east to west, north to south. We're running across the the RAN, the core and the transport. And that is telco super cloud, my friend. >> Yeah. Well, >> (Dave Duggal laughs) >> I'm dominating the conversation cause I love talking super cloud. >> I knew you would. >> So speaking of super superpowers, when you're in customer or prospective customer conversations with providers and they've got, obviously they're they're in this transformative state right now. How, what do you describe as the superpower between Red Hat and EnterpriseWeb in terms of really helping these Telcos transforms. But at the end of the day, the connectivity's there the end user gets what they want, which is I want this to work wherever I am. >> Yeah, yeah. That's a great question, Lisa. So I think the way you could look at it is most software has, has been evolved to be specialized, right? So in Telcos' no different, right? We have this in the enterprise, right? All these specialized stacks, all these components that they wire together in the, in you think of Telco as a sort of a super set of enterprise problems, right? They have all those problems like magnified manyfold, right? And so you have specialized, let's say orchestrators and other tools for every Telco domain for every Telco layer. Now you have a zoo of orchestrators, right? None of them were designed to work together, right? They all speak a specific language, let's say quote unquote for doing a specific purpose. But everything that's interesting in the 21st century is across layers and across domains, right? If a siloed static application, those are dead, right? Nobody's doing those anymore. Even developers don't do those developers are doing composition today. They're not doing, nobody wants to hear about a 6 million lines of code, right? They want to hear, "How did you take these five things and bring 'em together for productive use?" >> Lisa: Right. How did you deliver faster for my enterprise? How did you save me money? How did you create business value? And that's what we're doing together. >> I mean, just to add on to Dave, I was talking to one of the providers, they have more than 30,000 nodes in their infrastructure. When I say no to your servers running, you know, Kubernetes,running open stack, running different components. If try managing that in one single entity, if you will. Not possible. You got to fragment, you got to segment in some way. Now the question is, if you are not exposing that particular infrastructure and the appropriate KPIs and appropriate things, you will not be able to efficiently utilize that across the board. So you need almost a construct that creates like a manager of managers, a hierarchical structure, which would allow you to be more intelligent in terms of how you place those, how you manage that. And so when you ask the question about what's the secret sauce between the two, well this is exactly where EnterpriseWeb brings in that capability to analyze information, be more intelligent about it. And what we do is provide an abstraction of the cloud layer so that they can, you know, then do the right job in terms of making sure that it's appropriate and it's consistent. >> Consistency is key. Guys, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure really digging through EnterpriseWeb. >> Thank you. >> What you're doing >> with Red Hat. How you're helping the organization transform and Supercloud, we can't forget Supercloud. (Dave Vellante laughs) >> Fight Supercloud. Guys, thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you so much Lisa. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Very nice. >> Lisa: We really appreciate it. >> For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage coming to you live from MWC 23. We'll be back after a short break.

>> Narrator: TheCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies, creating technologies that drive human progress. (upbeat music) (logo background tingles) >> Hey everyone, it's so good to see you, welcome back to theCube's day two coverage of MWC 23. We are live in Barcelona, Lisa Martin with Dave Nicholson, Dave we have had no signage of people dropping out, this conference is absolutely jam packed. There's so much interest in the industry, you've had a lot of interviews this morning, before we introduce our guests and have a great conversation about the industry and challenges and how they're being solved, what are some of the things that stuck out to you in conversations today? >> Well, I think the interesting, kind of umbrella conversation, that seems to be overlapping you know, overlying everything is this question about Open RAN and open standards in radio access network technology and where the operators of networks and the providers of technology come together to chart a better path forward. A lot of discussion of private 5G networks, it's very interesting, I think I've said this a few times, from a consumer's perspective, we feel like 5G has been with us for a long time- >> We do. >> But it's very clear that this, that we're really at the beginning of stages of this and I'm super excited for our guests that we have here because we're going to be able to talk to an actual operator- >> Yes. >> And hear what they have to say, we've heard a lot of people talking about the cool stuff they build, but we're going to get to hear from someone who actually works with this stuff, so- >> Who actually built it, absolutely. Please welcome our two guests, we have Ihab Tarazi CTO and SVP at Dell Technologies, and Juan Carlos Garcia SVP Technology Innovation and Ecosystems at Telephonica, it's great to have you guys on the program. >> So, thank you very much. >> So the buzz around this conference is incredible, 80,000 plus people, 2000 exhibitors, it's standing room only. Lot of opportunity in the industry, a lot of challenges though, Juan Carlos we'd love to get your perspective on, what are some of the industry challenges that Telephonica has faced that your peers are probably facing as well? >> Well we have two kinds of challenges, one is a business challenge, I would say that we may find in other industries, like profitability and growth and I will talk about it. And the second challenge is our technology challenge, we need the network to be ready to embrace a new wave of technologies and applications that are, you know, very demanding in terms of network characteristics and features. On the efficiency and profitability and growth, the solution comes as a challenge from changing the way networks are built and operated, from the traditional way to make them become software platforms. And this is not just at the knowledge challenge, it's also changing the mindset of network operators from a network and service provider to a digital service provider, okay? And this means several things, your network needs to become software-based so that you can manage it digitally and on top of it, you need to be able to deliver detail services digitally, okay? So there are three aspects, making your network so (indistinct) and cloud and cloud waste and then be able to sell in a different way to our customers. >> So some pretty significant challenges, but to your point, Juan Carlos, you share some of those challenges with other industries so there's some commonality there. I wanted to bring Ihab into the conversation, from Dell's perspective, we're seeing, you know, the explosion of data. Every company has to be a data company, we expect to have access to data in real time, if it's a new app, whatever it is. What are some of the challenges that you're seeing from your seat at Dell? >> Yeah, I think Juan Carlos explained that really well, what all the operators are talking about here between new applications, think metaverse, think video streaming, going all the way to the edge, think all the automation of factories and everything that's happening. It's not only requiring a whole new model for delivery and for building networks, but it's throwing out enormous amount of data and the data needs to be acted on to get the value of it. So the challenge is how do I collect the data? How do I catalog it? How do I make it usable? And then how do I make it persistent? So you know, it's high performance data storage and then after that, how do I move it to where I want to and be able to use it. And for many applications that has to happen in milliseconds for the value to come out. So now we've seen this before with enterprise but now I would say this digital transformation is happening at very large scale for all the telcos and starting to deal with very familiar themes we've seen before. >> So Juan Carlos, Telephonica, you hear from partners, vendors that they've done this before, don't worry, you're in good hands. >> Juan Carlos: Yeah, yeah. >> But as a practical matter, when you look at the challenges that you have and you think about the things you'll do to address them as you move forward, what are the immediate short term priorities? >> Okay. >> Versus the longer term priorities? What's realistic? You have a network to operate- >> Yeah. >> You're not just building something out of nothing, so you have to keep the lights on. >> Yeah. >> And you have to innovate, we call that by the way, in the CTO trade, ambidextrous, management using both hands, so what's your order of priorities? >> Well, the first thing, new technologies you are getting into the network need to come with a detail shape, so being cloud native, working by software. On the legacies that you need to keep alive, you need to go for a program to switch (indistinct) off progressively, okay? In fact, in Spain we are going to switch up the copper network in two years, so in 2024, Telephonica will celebrate 100 years and the celebration will be switching up the copper network and we'll have on the fixed access only fiber, okay. So more than likely, the network is necessary, all this digitalization may happen only on the new technologies because the new technologies are cloud-based, cloud native, become already ready for this digitalization process. And not only that, so you need also to build new things, we need an abstraction layer on top of the physical infrastructure to be able to manage the network by software, okay. This is something that happened in the computing world, okay, where the servers, you know, were covered with a cloud stack layer and we are doing the same thing in the network. We are trained to abstract the network services and capabilities and be able to offer them digitally to our customers. And this is a process that we are ongoing with many initiatives in the market, so one was the CAMARA community that was opened in Linux Foundation and the other one was the announcement we made yesterday of the open gateway initiative here at Mobile World Congress where all telecom operators have agreed to launch in this year a set of service APIs that are common worldwide, okay. This is a similar thing to what we did with 2G 35 years ago, to agree on a standard way of delivering a service and in this case is digital services based on APIs. >> What's the net result of? What are the benefits of having those open standards? Is it a benefit that myself as a consumer would enjoy? It seems, I mean, I've been, I'm old enough to remember, you know, a time before cellular telephones and I remember a time when it was very, very difficult to travel from North America to Europe with a cell phone. Now I land and my provider says, "Hey, welcome-" >> Juan Carlos: Yes. >> "Welcome, we're going to charge you a little extra money." And I say, "Hallelujah, awesome." So is part of that interoperability a benefit to consumers or, how, what? >> Yeah, you touch the right point. So in the same way you travel anywhere and you want to still make a call and send an SMS and connect to the internet, you will like your applications in your smartphone to work being them edge applications, okay, and these applications, each application will have to work to be executed very close to where you are, in a way that if you travel abroad the visitor network is serving you, okay. So this means that we are somehow extending the current interconnection and roaming agreements between operators to be able also to deliver edge applications wherever you are, in whatever network, with whatever technology. >> We have that expectation on the consumer side, that it's just going to work no matter where we are, we want apps to be updated, whether I'm banking or I'm shopping for groceries, I want to make sure that they know who I am, the data's got to be there, it's got to be real time, it's got to be right, it's got to serve me personally, but it just has to work. You guys talked about some of the big challenges, but also the opportunities in terms of the future of networking, the data turning companies in the data companies. Walk us through the future of networking from Telephonica's lens, you talked about some of the big initiatives that you have by 2024. >> Yes. >> But if you had a crystal ball and you could look in there and go it looks like this for operators, what would you say? And I'd love to get your feedback too. >> Yeah, I liked how Juan Carlos talked about how the future is, I think I want to add one thing to it, to say, a lot of times the user is no longer a consumer, it's an automated thing, you know, AI think robots, so a lot of times, more and more the usage is happening by some autonomous thing and it needs to always connect. And more and more these things are extending to places where even cellular coverage doesn't exist today, so you have edge compute show up. So, and when you think about it, the things we have to solve as a community here and this is all the discussions is, number one, how you make it a fully open standard model, so everything plugs and play, more and more, there's so many pieces coming, software, hardware, from different components and the integration of all of that is probably one of the biggest challenges people want solved. You know, how it's no longer one box, you buy from one person and put it away, now you have a complex combination of hardware and software. Also the operational model is very important and that is one of the areas we're focused on at Dell, is that while the operational model works inside the data centers for certain application, for telcos, it looks different when you're out at the cell tower and you're going to have these extended temperature changes. And sometimes this may not be inside a cabinet, maybe outside and the person servicing it is not an IT technician. This is somebody that needs to know exactly how to plug it, to be able to place equipment quickly and add capacity, those are just two of the areas, the cloud, making it work like a cloud, where it's intuitive, automated and you can easily add capacity, you can, you know, get a lot of monitoring, a lot of metrics, those are some of the things that we're all solving in this community. >> Let's talk about exactly how you're achieving this, Telephonica and Dell have been working together for a couple of years, you said before we went live. Talk about, you're doing this, you talked about the challenges, the opportunities how are you solving them and why with Dell? >> Okay, well you need to go with the right partners, not to this kind of process of transforming your network into a digital platform. There are big challenges on creating the cloud infrastructure that you need to support the complex, functionality and network requires. And I think you need to have with you, companies that know about the processors, that know about the hardware, the server, that know about how to make an abstraction of that hardware layer so that you can manage that digitally and this is not something any company can do, so you need companies that are very specialized. Telecom operators are changing the way to work, we work in the past with traditionally, with network equipment vendors, now we need to start working with technology providers, hardware (indistinct) providers with cloud providers with an ecosystem that is probably wider than what we had in the past. >> Yes. >> So I come from a background, I call myself a "knuckle dragging hardware engineer" sort of guy, so I'm almost fascinated by the physical part of this. You have a network, part of that network includes towers that have transmitters, receivers, at the base of those towers and like you mentioned, they're not all necessarily in urban areas or easy to access. There's equipment there, let's say that, that tower has been there for 5 years, 10 years, in the traditional world of IT, we have this this concept of the "refresh cycle" >> Juan Carlos: Yeah. >> Where a server may have a useful life of 36 months before it's consuming more power than it should based on the technology. How do you move from, kind of a legacy more proprietary, all-inclusive stack to an open system? I mean, is this a, "Okay, we're planning for an outage for the tower and you're wheeling out old equipment and wheeling in new equipment?" >> Juan Carlos: Yeah. >> I mean that's not, that's what we say as a non-trivial exercise, it's something that isn't, it's not something that's just easy to do, but is that what progress looks like? Sort of, methodically one site at a time? >> Yeah, well, I mean, you have touched an important point. In the technology renewal cycles, we were taking an appliance and replacing that by another one. Now with the current technology, you have the couple, the hardware from the software and the hardware, you need to replace it only when you run out of processing capacity to do what you want, okay? So then we'll be there 2, 3, 4, 5 years, whatever, when you need additional capacity, you replace it, but on the software side you can make the replacement every hour, every week. And this is something that the new technologies are bringing, a flexibility for the telecom operator to introduce a new feature without having to be physically there in the place, okay, by software remotely and this is the kind of software network we want to build. >> Lisa Martin: You know- >> Yeah, I want to add to that if I can- >> Please. >> Yeah. >> I think this is one of the biggest benefits of the open model. If the stack is all integrated as one appliance, when a new technology, we all know how quickly selecon technology comes out and now we have GPU's coming out for AI more increasingly, in an appliance model it may take you two years to take advantage of some new selecon that just came out. In this new open model, as Juan Carlos was saying, you just swap out, you know, you have time to market CPUs launched, it can be put out there at the cell tower and it could double capacity instantly and we're going to need that in that world, that easily going to be AI enabled- >> Lisa Martin: Right. >> So- >> So my last question to you, we only got a minute left or so, is given everything that we've talked about, the challenges, the opportunities, what you're doing together, how would you Juan Carlos summarize how the business is benefiting from the Dell partnership and the technologies that you're enabling with this new future network? >> Well, as I said before, we will need to be able to cover all the characteristics and performance of our network. We will need the right kind of processing capacity, the right kind of hardware solutions. We know that the functionality of the network is a very demanding one, we need hardware acceleration, we need a synchronization, we need time-sensitive solutions and all these can only done by hardware, so you need a good hardware partner, that ensures that you have the processing capacity you need to be able then to run your software, you know, with the confidence that it will work and with the performance that you need. >> That confidence is key. Well it sounds like what Telephonica and Dell have achieved together has been quite successful. Congratulations on the first couple of years, sounds like it's really helping Telephonica's business move in the strategic direction that it wants. We appreciate you joining us on the program today, describing all this, thank you both so much for your time. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, this was fun. >> A pleasure. >> Good, our pleasure. For our guests and for Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live day two from Barcelona, MWC 23. Don't go anywhere, Dave and I will be right back with our next guests. (cheerful bouncy music)

(upbeat instrumental music) >> TheCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies, creating technologies that drive human progress. (uplifting instrumental music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome to Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE Live at MWC '23. I'm Lisa Martin, Dave Vellante, our co-founder, our co-CEO of theCUBE, you know him, you love him. He's here as my co-host. Dave, we have a great couple of guests here to break down day one keynote. Lots of meat. I can't wait to be part of this conversation. Chris Lewis joins us, the founder and MD of Lewis Insight. And Sarbjeet Johal, one of you know him as well. He's a Cube contributor, cloud architect. Guys, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for joining Dave and me today. >> Lovely to be here. >> Thank you. >> Chris, I want to start with you. You have covered all aspects of global telecoms industries over 30 years working as an analyst. Talk about the evolution of the telecom industry that you've witnessed, and what were some of the things you heard in the keynote that excite you about the direction it's going? >> Well, as ever, MWC, there's no lack of glitz and glamour, but it's the underlying issues of the industry that are really at stake here. There's not a lot of new revenue coming into the telecom providers, but there's a lot of adjustment, readjustment of the underlying operational environment. And also, really importantly, what came out of the keynotes is the willingness and the necessity to really engage with the API community, with the developer community, people who traditionally, telecoms would never have even touched. So they're sorting out their own house, they're cleaning their own stables, getting the cost base down, but they're also now realizing they've got to engage with all the other parties. There's a lot of cloud providers here, there's a lot of other people from outside so they're realizing they cannot do it all themselves. It's quite a tough lesson for a very conservative, inward looking industry, right? So should we be spending all this money and all this glitz and glamour of MWC and all be here, or should would be out there really building for the future and making sure the services are right for yours and my needs in a business and personal lives? So a lot of new changes, a lot of realization of what's going on outside, but underlying it, we've just got to get this right this time. >> And it feels like that monetization is front and center. You mentioned developers, we've got to work with developers, but I'm hearing the latest keynote from the Ericsson CEOs, we're going to monetize through those APIs, we're going to charge the developers. I mean, first of all, Chris, am I getting that right? And Sarbjeet, as somebody who's close to the developer community, is that the right way to build bridges? But Chris, are we getting that right? >> Well, let's take the first steps first. So, Ericsson, of course, acquired Vonage, which is a massive API business so they want to make money. They expect to make money by bringing that into the mainstream telecom community. Now, whether it's the developers who pay for it, or let's face it, we are moving into a situation as the telco moves into a techco model where the techco means they're going to be selling bits of the technology to developer guys and to other application developers. So when he says he needs to charge other people for it, it's the way in which people reach in and will take going through those open APIs like the open gateway announced today, but also the way they'll reach in and take things like network slicing. So we're opening up the telecom community, the treasure chest, if you like, where developers' applications and other third parties can come in and take those chunks of technology and build them into their services. This is a complete change from the old telecom industry where everybody used to come and you say, "all right, this is my product, you've got to buy it and you're going to pay me a lot of money for it." So we are looking at a more flexible environment where the other parties can take those chunks. And we know we want collectivity built into our financial applications, into our government applications, everything, into the future of the metaverse, whatever it may be. But it requires that change in attitude of the telcos. And they do need more money 'cause they've said, the baseline of revenue is pretty static, there's not a lot of growth in there so they're looking for new revenues. It's in a B2B2X time model. And it's probably the middle man's going to pay for it rather than the customer. >> But the techco model, Sarbjeet, it looks like the telcos are getting their money on their way in. The techco company model's to get them on their way out like the app store. Go build something of value, build some kind of app or data product, and then when it takes off, we'll take a piece of the action. What are your thoughts from a developer perspective about how the telcos are approaching it? >> Yeah, I think before we came here, like I said, I did some tweets on this, that we talk about all kind of developers, like there's game developers and front end, back end, and they're all talking about like what they're building on top of cloud, but nowhere you will hear the term "telco developer," there's no API from telcos given to the developers to build IoT solutions on top of it because telco as an IoT, I think is a good sort of hand in hand there. And edge computing as well. The glimmer of hope, if you will, for telcos is the edge computing, I believe. And even in edge, I predicted, I said that many times that cloud players will dominate that market with the private 5G. You know that story, right? >> We're going to talk about that. (laughs) >> The key is this, that if you see in general where the population lives, in metros, right? That's where the world population is like flocking to and we have cloud providers covering the local zones with local like heavy duty presence from the big cloud providers and then these telcos are getting sidetracked by that. Even the V2X in cars moving the autonomous cars and all that, even in that space, telcos are getting sidetracked in many ways. What telcos have to do is to join the forces, build some standards, if not standards, some consortium sort of. They're trying to do that with the open gateway here, they have only eight APIs. And it's 2023, eight APIs is nothing, right? (laughs) So they should have started this 10 years back, I think. So, yeah, I think to entice the developers, developers need the employability, we need to train them, we need to show them some light that hey, you can build a lot on top of it. If you tell developers they can develop two things or five things, nobody will come. >> So, Chris, the cloud will dominate the edge. So A, do you buy it? B, the telcos obviously are acting like that might happen. >> Do you know I love people when they've got their heads in the clouds. (all laugh) And you're right in so many ways, but if you flip it around and think about how the customers think about this, business customers and consumers, they don't care about all this background shenanigans going on, do they? >> Lisa: No. >> So I think one of the problems we have is that this is a new territory and whether you call it the edge or whatever you call it, what we need there is we need connectivity, we need security, we need storage, we need compute, we need analytics, and we need applications. And are any of those more important than the others? It's the collective that actually drives the real value there. So we need all those things together. And of course, the people who represented at this show, whether it's the cloud guys, the telcos, the Nokia, the Ericssons of this world, they all own little bits of that. So that's why they're all talking partnerships because they need the combination, they cannot do it on their own. The cloud guys can't do it on their own. >> Well, the cloud guys own all of those things that you just talked about though. (all laugh) >> Well, they don't own the last bit of connectivity, do they? They don't own the access. >> Right, exactly. That's the one thing they don't own. So, okay, we're back to pipes, right? We're back to charging for connectivity- >> Pipes are very valuable things, right? >> Yeah, for sure. >> Never underestimate pipes. I don't know about where you live, plumbers make a lot of money where I live- >> I don't underestimate them but I'm saying can the telcos charge for more than that or are the cloud guys going to mop up the storage, the analytics, the compute, and the apps? >> They may mop it up, but I think what the telcos are doing and we've seen a lot of it here already, is they are working with all those major cloud guys already. So is it an unequal relationship? The cloud guys are global, massive global scale, the telcos are fundamentally national operators. >> Yep. >> Some have a little bit of regional, nobody has global scale. So who stitches it all together? >> Dave: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. >> Absolutely. >> I know that saying never gets old. It's true. Well, Sarbjeet, one of the things that you tweeted about, I didn't get to see the keynote but I was looking at your tweets. 46% of telcos think they won't make it to the next decade. That's a big number. Did that surprise you? >> No, actually it didn't surprise me because the competition is like closing in on them and the telcos are competing with telcos as well and the telcos are competing with cloud providers on the other side, right? So the smaller ones are getting squeezed. It's the bigger players, they can hook up the newer platforms, I think they will survive. It's like that part is like any other industry, if you will. But the key is here, I think why the pain points were sort of described on the main stage is that they're crying out loud to tell the big tech cloud providers that "hey, you pay your fair share," like we talked, right? You are not paying, you're generating so much content which reverses our networks and you are not paying for it. So they are not able to recoup the cost of laying down their networks. By the way, one thing actually I want to mention is that they said the cloud needs earth. The cloud and earth, it's like there's no physical need to cloud, you know that, right? So like, I think it's the other way around. I think the earth needs the cloud because I'm a cloud guy. (Sarbjeet and Lisa laugh) >> I think you need each other, right? >> I think so too. >> They need each other. When they said cloud needs earth, right? I think they're still in denial that the cloud is a big force. They have to partner. When you can't compete with somebody, what do you do? Partner with them. >> Chris, this is your world. Are they in denial? >> No, I think they're waking up to the pragmatism of the situation. >> Yeah. >> They're building... As we said, most of the telcos, you find have relationships with the cloud guys, I think you're right about the industry. I mean, do you think what's happened since US was '96, the big telecom act when we started breaking up all the big telcos and we had lots of competition came in, we're seeing the signs that we might start to aggregate them back up together again. So it's been an interesting experiment for like 30 years, hasn't it too? >> It made the US less competitive, I would argue, but carry on. >> Yes, I think it's true. And Europe is maybe too competitive and therefore, it's not driven the investment needed. And by the way, it's not just mobile, it's fixed as well. You saw the Orange CEO was talking about the her investment and the massive fiber investments way ahead of many other countries, way ahead of the UK or Germany. We need that fiber in the ground to carry all your cloud traffic to do this. So there is a scale issue, there is a competition issue, but the telcos are very much aware of it. They need the cloud, by the way, to improve their operational environments as well, to change that whole old IT environment to deliver you and I better service. So no, it absolutely is changing. And they're getting scale, but they're fundamentally offering the basic product, you call it pipes, I'll just say they're offering broadband to you and I and the business community. But they're stepping on dangerous ground, I think, when saying they want to charge the over the top guys for all the traffic they use. Those over the top guys now build a lot of the global networks, the backbone submarine network. They're putting a lot of money into it, and by giving us endless data for our individual usage, that cat is out the bag, I think to a large extent. >> Yeah. And Orange CEO basically said that, that they're not paying their fair share. I'm for net neutrality but the governments are going to have to fund this unless you let us charge the OTT. >> Well, I mean, we could of course renationalize. Where would that take us? (Dave laughs) That would make MWC very interesting next year, wouldn't it? To renationalize it. So, no, I think you've got to be careful what we wish for here. Creating the absolute clear product that is required to underpin all of these activities, whether it's IoT or whether it's cloud delivery or whether it's just our own communication stuff, delivering that absolutely ubiquitously high quality for business and for consumer is what we have to do. And telcos have been too conservative in the past. >> I think they need to get together and create standards around... I think they have a big opportunity. We know that the clouds are being built in silos, right? So there's Azure stack, there's AWS and there's Google. And those are three main ones and a few others, right? So that we are fighting... On the cloud side, what we are fighting is the multicloud. How do we consume that multicloud without having standards? So if these people get together and create some standards around IoT and edge computing sort of area, people will flock to them to say, "we will use you guys, your API, we don't care behind the scenes if you use AWS or Google Cloud or Azure, we will come to you." So market, actually is looking for that solution. I think it's an opportunity for these guys, for telcos. But the problem with telcos is they're nationalized, as you said Chris versus the cloud guys are still kind of national in a way, but they're global corporations. And some of the telcos are global corporations as well, BT covers so many countries and TD covers so many... DT is in US as well, so they're all over the place. >> But you know what's interesting is that the TM forum, which is one of the industry associations, they've had an open digital architecture framework for quite some years now. Google had joined that some years ago, Azure in there, AWS just joined it a couple of weeks ago. So when people said this morning, why isn't AWS on the keynote? They don't like sharing the limelight, do they? But they're getting very much in bed with the telco. So I think you'll see the marriage. And in fact, there's a really interesting statement, if you look at the IoT you mentioned, Bosch and Nokia have been working together 'cause they said, the problem we've got, you've got a connectivity network on one hand, you've got the sensor network on the other hand, you're trying to merge them together, it's a nightmare. So we are finally seeing those sort of groups talking to each other. So I think the standards are coming, the cooperation is coming, partnerships are coming, but it means that the telco can't dominate the sector like it used to. It's got to play ball with everybody else. >> I think they have to work with the regulators as well to loosen the regulation. Or you said before we started this segment, you used Chris, the analogy of sports, right? In sports, when you're playing fiercely, you commit the fouls and then ask for ref to blow the whistle. You're now looking at the ref all the time. The telcos are looking at the ref all the time. >> Dave: Yeah, can I do this? Can I do that? Is this a fair move? >> They should be looking for the space in front of the opposition. >> Yeah, they should be just on attack mode and commit these fouls, if you will, and then ask for forgiveness then- >> What do you make of that AWS not you there- >> Well, Chris just made a great point that they don't like to share the limelight 'cause I thought it was very obvious that we had Google Cloud, we had Microsoft there on day one of this 80,000 person event. A lot of people back from COVID and they weren't there. But Chris, you brought up a great point that kind of made me think, maybe you're right. Maybe they're in the afternoon keynote, they want their own time- >> You think GSMA invited them? >> I imagine so. You'd have to ask GSMA. >> I would think so. >> Get Max on here and ask that. >> I'm going to ask them, I will. >> But no, and they don't like it because I think the misconception, by the way, is that everyone says, "oh, it's AWS, it's Google Cloud and it's Azure." They're not all the same business by any stretch of the imagination. AWS has been doing loads of great work, they've been launching private network stuff over the last couple of weeks. Really interesting. Google's been playing catch up. We know that they came in readily late to the market. And Azure, they've all got slightly different angles on it. So perhaps it just wasn't right for AWS and the way they wanted to pitch things so they don't have to be there, do they? >> That's a good point. >> But the industry needs them there, that's the number one cloud. >> Dave, they're there working with the industry. >> Yeah, of course. >> They don't have to be on the keynote stage. And in fact, you think about this show and you mentioned the 80,000 people, the activity going on around in all these massive areas they're in, it's fantastic. That's where the business is done. The business isn't done up on the keynote stage. >> That's why there's the glitz and the glamour, Chris. (all laugh) >> Yeah. It's not glitz, it's espresso. It's not glamour anymore, it's just espresso. >> We need the espresso. >> Yeah. >> I think another thing is that it's interesting how an average European sees the tech market and an average North American, especially you from US, you have to see the market. Here, people are more like process oriented and they want the rules of the road already established before they can take a step- >> Chris: That's because it's your pension in the North American- >> Exactly. So unions are there and the more employee rights and everything, you can't fire people easily here or in Germany or most of the Europe is like that with the exception of UK. >> Well, but it's like I said, that Silicone Valley gets their money on the way out, you know? And that's how they do it, that's how they think it. And they don't... They ask for forgiveness. I think the east coast is more close to Europe, but in the EU, highly regulated, really focused on lifetime employment, things like that. >> But Dave, the issue is the telecom industry is brilliant, right? We keep paying every month whatever we do with it. >> It's a great business, to your point- >> It's a brilliant business model. >> Dave: It's fantastic. >> So it's about then getting the structure right behind it. And you know, we've seen a lot of stratification where people are selling off towers, Orange haven't sold their towers off, they made a big point about that. Others are selling their towers off. Some people are selling off their underlying network, Telecom Italia talking about KKR buying the whole underlying network. It's like what do you want to be in control of? It's a great business. >> But that's why they complain so much is that they're having to sell their assets because of the onerous CapEx requirements, right? >> Yeah, they've had it good, right? And dare I say, perhaps they've not planned well enough for the future. >> They're trying to protect their past from the future. I mean, that's... >> Actually, look at the... Every "n" number of years, there's a new faster network. They have to dig the ground, they have to put the fiber, they have to put this. Now, there are so many booths showing 6G now, we are not even done with 5G yet, now the next 6G you know, like then- >> 10G's coming- >> 10G, that's a different market. (Dave laughs) >> Actually, they're bogged down by the innovation, I think. >> And the generational thing is really important because we're planning for 6G in all sorts of good ways but actually what we use in our daily lives, we've gone through the barrier, we've got enough to do that. So 4G gives us enough, the fiber in the ground or even old copper gives us enough. So the question is, what are we willing to pay for more than that basic connectivity? And the answer to your point, Dave, is not a lot, right? So therefore, that's why the emphasis is on the business market on that B2B and B2B2X. >> But we'll pay for Netflix all day long. >> All day long. (all laugh) >> The one thing Chris, I don't know, I want to know your viewpoints and we have talked in the past as well, there's absence of think tanks in tech, right? So we have think tanks on the foreign policy and economic policy in every country, and we have global think tanks, but tech is becoming a huge part of the economy, global economy as well as national economies, right? But we don't have think tanks on like policy around tech. For example, this 4G is good for a lot of use cases. Then 5G is good for smaller number of use cases. And then 6G will be like, fewer people need 6G for example. Why can't we have sort of those kind of entities dictating those kind of like, okay, is this a wiser way to go about it? >> Lina Khan wants to. She wants to break up big tech- >> You're too young to remember but the IT used to have a show every four years in Geneva, there were standards around there. So I think there are bodies. I think the balance of power obviously has gone from the telecom to the west coast to the IT markets. And it's changing the balance about, it moves more quickly, right? Telecoms has never moved quickly enough. I think there is hope by the way, that telecoms now that we are moving to more softwarized environment, and God forbid, we're moving into CICD in the telecom world, right? Which is a massive change, but I think there's hopes for it to change. The mentality is changing, the culture is changing, but to change those old structured organizations from the British telecom or the France telecom into the modern world, it's a hell of a long journey. It's not an overnight journey at all. >> Well, of course the theme of the event is velocity. >> Yeah, I know that. >> And it's been interesting sitting here with the three of you talking about from a historic perspective, how slow and molasseslike telecom has been. They don't have a choice anymore. As consumers, we have this expectation we're going to get anything we want on our mobile device, 24 by seven. We don't care about how the sausage is made, we just want the end result. So do you really think, and we're only on day one guys... And Chris we'll start with you. Is the theme really velocity? Is it disruption? Are they able to move faster? >> Actually, I think invisibility is the real answer. (Lisa laughs) We want communication to be invisible, right? >> Absolutely. >> We want it to work. When we switch our phones on, we want it to work and we want to... Well, they're not even phones anymore, are they really? I mean that's the... So no, velocity, we've got... There is momentum in the industry, there's no doubt about that. The cloud guys coming in, making telecoms think about the way they run their own business, where they meet, that collision point on the edges you talked about Sarbjeet. We do have velocity, we've got momentum. There's so many interested parties. The way I think of this is that the telecom industry used to be inward looking, just design its own technology and then expect everyone else to dance to our tune. We're now flipping that 180 degrees and we are now having to work with all the different outside forces shaping us. Whether it's devices, whether it's smart cities, governments, the hosting guys, the Equinoxis, all these things. So everyone wants a piece of this telecom world so we've got to make ourselves more open. That's why you get in a more open environment. >> But you did... I just want to bring back a point you made during COVID, which was when everybody switched to work from home, started using their landlines again, telcos had to respond and nothing broke. I mean, it was pretty amazing. >> Chris: It did a good job. >> It was kind of invisible. So, props to the telcos for making that happen. >> They did a great job. >> So it really did. Now, okay, what have you done for me lately? So now they've got to deal with the future and they're talking monetization. But to me, monetization is all about data and not necessarily just the network data. Yeah, they can sell that 'cause they own that but what kind of incremental value are they going to create for the consumers that... >> Yeah, actually that's a problem. I think the problem is that they have been strangled by the regulation for a long time and they cannot look at their data. It's a lot more similar to the FinTech world, right? I used to work at Visa. And then Visa, we did trillion dollars in transactions in '96. Like we moved so much money around, but we couldn't look at these things, right? So yeah, I think regulation is a problem that holds you back, it's the antithesis of velocity, it slows you down. >> But data means everything, doesn't it? I mean, it means everything and nothing. So I think the challenge here is what data do the telcos have that is useful, valuable to me, right? So in the home environment, the fact that my broadband provider says, oh, by the way, you've got 20 gadgets on that network and 20 on that one... That's great, tell me what's on there. I probably don't know what's taking all my valuable bandwidth up. So I think there's security wrapped around that, telling me the way I'm using it if I'm getting the best out of my service. >> You pay for that? >> No, I'm saying they don't do it yet. I think- >> But would you pay for that? >> I think I would, yeah. >> Would you pay a lot for that? I would expect it to be there as part of my dashboard for my monthly fee. They're already charging me enough. >> Well, that's fine, but you pay a lot more in North America than I do in Europe, right? >> Yeah, no, that's true. >> You're really overpaying over there, right? >> Way overpaying. >> So, actually everybody's looking at these devices, right? So this is a radio operated device basically, right? And then why couldn't they benefit from this? This is like we need to like double click on this like 10 times to find out why telcos failed to leverage this device, right? But I think the problem is their reliance on regulations and their being close to the national sort of governments and local bodies and authorities, right? And in some countries, these telcos are totally controlled in very authoritarian ways, right? It's not like open, like in the west, most of the west. Like the world is bigger than five, six countries and we know that, right? But we end up talking about the major economies most of the time. >> Dave: Always. >> Chris: We have a topic we want to hit on. >> We do have a topic. Our last topic, Chris, it's for you. You guys have done an amazing job for the last 25 minutes talking about the industry, where it's going, the evolution. But Chris, you're registered blind throughout your career. You're a leading user of assertive technologies. Talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, some of the things you're doing there. >> Well, we should have had 25 minutes on that and five minutes on- (all laugh) >> Lisa: You'll have to come back. >> Really interesting. So I've been looking at it. You're quite right, I've been using accessible technology on my iPhone and on my laptop for 10, 20 years now. It's amazing. And what I'm trying to get across to the industry is to think about inclusive design from day one. When you're designing an app or you're designing a service, make sure you... And telecom's a great example. In fact, there's quite a lot of sign language around here this week. If you look at all the events written, good to see that coming in. Obviously, no use to me whatsoever, but good for the hearing impaired, which by the way is the biggest category of disability in the world. Biggest chunk is hearing impaired, then vision impaired, and then cognitive and then physical. And therefore, whenever you're designing any service, my call to arms to people is think about how that's going to be used and how a blind person might use it or how a deaf person or someone with physical issues or any cognitive issues might use it. And a great example, the GSMA and I have been talking about the app they use for getting into the venue here. I downloaded it. I got the app downloaded and I'm calling my guys going, where's my badge? And he said, "it's top left." And because I work with a screen reader, they hadn't tagged it properly so I couldn't actually open my badge on my own. Now, they changed it overnight so it worked this morning, which is fantastic work by Trevor and the team. But it's those things that if you don't build it in from scratch, you really frustrate a whole group of users. And if you think about it, people with disabilities are excluded from so many services if they can't see the screen or they can't hear it. But it's also the elderly community who don't find it easy to get access to things. Smart speakers have been a real blessing in that respect 'cause you can now talk to that thing and it starts talking back to you. And then there's the people who can't afford it so we need to come down market. This event is about launching these thousand dollars plus devices. Come on, we need below a hundred dollars devices to get to the real mass market and get the next billion people in and then to educate people how to use it. And I think to go back to your previous point, I think governments are starting to realize how important this is about building the community within the countries. You've got some massive projects like NEOM in Saudi Arabia. If you have a look at that, if you get a chance, a fantastic development in the desert where they're building a new city from scratch and they're building it so anyone and everyone can get access to it. So in the past, it was all done very much by individual disability. So I used to use some very expensive, clunky blind tech stuff. I'm now using mostly mainstream. But my call to answer to say is, make sure when you develop an app, it's accessible, anyone can use it, you can talk to it, you can get whatever access you need and it will make all of our lives better. So as we age and hearing starts to go and sight starts to go and dexterity starts to go, then those things become very useful for everybody. >> That's a great point and what a great champion they have in you. Chris, Sarbjeet, Dave, thank you so much for kicking things off, analyzing day one keynote, the ecosystem day, talking about what velocity actually means, where we really are. We're going to have to have you guys back 'cause as you know, we can keep going, but we are out of time. But thank you. >> Pleasure. >> We had a very spirited, lively conversation. >> Thanks, Dave. >> Thank you very much. >> For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live in Barcelona, Spain at MWC '23. We'll be back after a short break. See you soon. (uplifting instrumental music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello and welcome to what is sure to be an insightful conversation about getting business results with cloud transformation. My name is Dave Vellante and I'm here with James Miller, Chief Technologist for Cloud and Infrastructure Services and Jay Dowling, America's Sales Lead for cloud and infrastructure services both with DXC Technology. Gentlemen, thanks for your time today. Welcome to the Cube. >> Great. Thanks for having us. >> Thank you Dave. Appreciate it. >> So let's get right into it. You know, I've talked to a lot of practitioners who've said, look, if you really want to drop zeros, like a lot of zeros to the bottom line, you can't just lift and shift. You really got to think about modernizing the application portfolio, you got to think about your business model and really think about transforming your business particularly the operating model. So my first question Jim is what role does the cloud play in modernization? >> Well, there are really three aspects that the cloud plays in modernization. You mentioned multiple zeros. One is cost optimization and that can be achieved through business operations, through environmental, social and governance. Also being more efficient with your IT investments. But that's not the only aspect. There's also agility and innovation and that can be achieved through automation and productivity, speed to market for new features and functions, improvements in the customer experience and the capability to metabolize a great deal more data in your environment which the end result is an improvement in releasing of new things to the field. And finally, there's resilience and I'm not really talking about IT resilience, but more of business resilience. To be able to handle operational risk, improve your securities and controls, deal with some of the talent gap that's in the industry and also protect your brand reputation. So modernization is really about balancing these three aspects, cost optimization, agility and innovation and resilience. >> So, thank you for that. So Jay, I got to ask you, in the current climate everybody's sort of concerned and there's not great visibility on the macro. So Jim mentioned cost optimization. That seems to be one of the top areas that customers are focused on. The two I hear a lot are consolidating redundant vendors and optimizing cloud costs. So that's, you know, top of mind today. I think everybody really, you know understands the innovation and agility piece at least at a high level, maybe realizing it is different. And then the business resilience piece is really interesting because, you know, prior to the pandemic people you know, they had a DR strategy, but they realized, wow, my business might not be that resilient. So Jay, my question to you is what are you hearing when you talk to customers? What's the priority today? >> You know, priority is often an overused term in digital transformation, you know people want to get ready for next generation environments, customer experience, making sure they're improving, you know, how they engage with their clients and what their branding is. And what we find is a lot of clients don't have the underlying infrastructure in place today to get to where they want to get to. So cloud becomes an important element of that. But, you know, with DXC'S philosophy not everything necessarily needs to go to cloud to be cost optimized for instance, in many cases you can run applications, you know in your own data center or on-prem or in other environments in a hybrid environment or multi-cloud environment and still be very optimized from a cost spend standpoint, and also put yourself in position for modernization and for be able to do the bring the things to the business that the clients are you know, that their clients are looking for like the CMO and the CFO, et cetera, trying to use IT as a lever to drive business and to drive, you know business acceleration and drive profitability, frankly. So there's a lot of dependency on infrastructure, but there's a lot of elements to it. And we advocate for, you know there's not a single answer to that. We'd like to evaluate clients' environments and work with them to get them to an optimal target operating model you know, so that they can really deliver on what the promises are for their departments. >> So let's talk about some of the barriers to realizing value in a context of modernization. We talked about cost optimization, agility and resilience. But there's a business angle and there's a technical angle here. We always talk about people process and technology, technology oftentimes CIOs will tell us, well, that's the easy part, We'll figure that out whether it's true or not but I agree, people and process are sometimes the tough ones. So Jay, why don't you start, what do you see as the barriers, particularly from a business standpoint? >> Well, I think people need to let their guard down and be open to the ideas that are out there in the market from, you know, the standards that are being built by, you know best in class models, and there's many people that have gone on, you know cloud journeys and been very successful with it. There's others that have set high expectations with their business leaders that haven't necessarily met the goals that they need to meet or maybe haven't met them as quickly as they promised. So there's a, you know, there's a change management aspect that you'd need to look at with the, you know, with the environments, there's a, you know, there's a skillset environment that they need to be prepared for. Do they have the people, you know, to deliver with the, you know, with the tools and the skills and the models that they're putting themselves in place for in the future versus where they are now? There's just a lot of, you know there's a lot of different elements. It's not just a this price is better or this can operate better than one environment over the other. I think we like to try to look at things holistically and make sure that, you know, we're being, you know as much of a consultative advocate for the client, for, you know, where they want to go, what their destiny is, and based on what we've learned with other clients, you know and we can bring those best practices forward because we've worked, you know across such a broad spectrum of clients versus them being somewhat contained and sometimes can't see outside of their own, you know their own challenges if you would. So they need advocacy to help, you know bring them to the next level. And we like to translate that through you know, technology advances, which, you know Jim's really good at doing for us. >> Yeah. Jim, is the big barrier a skills issue, you know, bench strength? Are there other considerations from your perspective? >> Well, we've identified a number of factors that inhibit success of customers. One is, thinking it's only a technology change in moving to cloud when it's much broader than that. There are changes in governance, changes in process that need to take place. The other is evaluating the cloud providers on their current pricing structure and performance. And we see pricing and structure changing dramatically every few months between the various cloud providers. And you have to be flexible enough to determine which providers you want, and it may not be feasible to just have a single cloud provider in this world. The other thing is a big bang approach to transformation. I want to move everything and I want to move it all at once. That's not necessarily the best approach. A well thought out cloud journey and strategy and timing your investments, are really important to get maximizing your business return on a journey to the cloud. And finally, not engaging stakeholders early and continuously. You have to manage expectations in moving to cloud on what business factors will get affected, how you will achieve your cost savings and how you will achieve the business impact over the journey and reporting out on that with very strict metrics to all of the stakeholders. >> You know, mentioned multi-cloud just then we had in January 17th we had our Supercloud two event and Supercloud is basically, it's really what multi-cloud should have been, I'd like to say. So it's just creating a common experience across clouds, and you guys were talking about, you know there's different governance, there's different security there's different pricing. So, and one of the takeaways from this event, in talking to customers and practitioners and technologists is you can't go it alone. So I wonder if you could talk about your partnership strategy, what do partners bring to the table and what is DXC's, you know, unique value? >> I'd be happy to lead with that if you'd like. >> Great. >> I, you know, we've got a vast partner ecosystem at DXC given the size and the history of the company. I can use several examples. One of the larger partners in my particular space is Dell technology, right? They're a great, you know, partner for us across many different areas of the business. It's not just a storage and compute play anymore. They're, on the edge. They're, you know, they've got intelligence in their networking devices now and they've really brought, you know a lot of value to us as a partner. And, you know, there's somebody who could look at Dell technology as somebody that might, you know have a victim, you know, effect because of all the hyperscaler activity and all the cloud activity. But they've really taken an outstanding attitude with this and said, listen, not all things are destined for cloud or not all things would operate better in a cloud environment, and they'd like to be part of those discussions to see how they can, you know how we can bring a multi-cloud environment, you know both private and public, you know to clients and let's look at the applications and the infrastructure and, and what's, you know what's the best optimal running environment, you know for us to be able to bring, you know the greatest value to the business with speed, with security, with, you know, and, you know the things that they want to keep closest to the business are often things that you want to kind of you know, keep on your premise or keep in your own data center. So they're an ideal model of somebody that's resourced us well, partners with us well in the market and we continue to grow that relationship day in and day out with those guys. And we really appreciate, you know their support of our strategy and we like to also compliment their strategy and work, you know work together hand in hand in front of our clients. >> Yeah. You know, Jim, Matt Baker, who's the Head of Strategic Planning at Dell talks about it's not a zero sum game. And I think, you know, you're right Jay, I think initially people felt like, oh wow, it is a zero sum game, but it's clearly not. And this idea of whether you call it super cloud or Uber cloud or multi-cloud, clearly Dell is headed in that direction and I've, you know, look at some of their future projects, their narrative. I'm curious from a technology standpoint, Jim, what your role is. Is it to make it all work? Is it to, you know, end to end? I wonder if you could help, you know, us understand that. >> Help us figure this out Jim (all laughing) >> Glad to expand on that. One of my key roles is developing our product roadmap for DXC offerings. And we do that roadmap in conjunction with our partners where we can leverage the innovation that our partners bring to the table, and we often utilize engineering resources from our partners to help us jointly build those offerings that adapt to changes in the market and also adapt to many of our customers changing needs over time. So my primary role is to look at the market, talk to our customers, and work with our partners, to develop a product roadmap for delivering DXC products and services to our clients so that they can get the return on investment on their technology journeys. >> You know, we've been working with these two firms for a while now. Even predates, you know, the name DXC and that transformation. I'm curious as to what's, how you would respond to what's unique. You know, you hear a lot about partnerships, you guys got a lot of competition, Dell has a lot of competition. What's specifically unique about this combination? >> I would say our unique approach, we call it cloud right. And that approach is making the right investments at the right time and on the right platforms. And our partners play a key role in that. So we encourage our customers to not necessarily have a cloud first approach but a cloud right approach, where they place the workloads in the environment that is best suited from a technology perspective, a business perspective and even a security and governance perspective. And the right approach might include mainframe, it might include an on-premises infrastructure, it could include private cloud, public cloud and SaaS components all integrated together to deliver that value. >> Yeah, Jay, please. It's a complicated situation for a lot of customers, but chime in here. >> And now if you were speaking still specifically to Dell here, like they also walk the talk, right? They invest in DXC as a partnership they put people on the ground that their only purpose in life is to help DXC succeed with Dell in, you know, arm in arm in front of clients. And it's not, you know, it's not a winner take all thing at all. It's really true partnership. They've brought solution resources. We have an account CTO, we've got executive sponsorship, we do regular QBR meetings, we have regular executive touchpoint meetings. It's really important that you keep a high level of intimacy with the client with the partners, you know, in the GSI community. And I've been with several GSI's and this is an exceptional example of true partnership and commitment to success with Dell technology. I'm really extremely impressed on the engagement level that we've had there and, you know, continue to show a lot of support, you know, both for them, you know there's other OEM partners of course in the market there's always going to be other technology solutions for certain clients but this has been a particularly strong element for us in our partnership and our go-to-market strategy. >> Well, I think too, just my observation is a lot of it is about trust. You guys have both earned the trust, kind of over the years, taking your arrows, you know, over decades, and you know, that just doesn't happen overnight. So guys, I appreciate it. Thanks for your time. It's all about getting cloud right, isn't it? >> That's right. Thank you Dave. Appreciate it very much. >> Thank you. >> Great to have you on. Keep it right there for more action on the cube right back. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Today more than ever before, organizations are striving to gain a competitive advantage, deliver more value to customers, reduce risk, and respond more quickly to the needs of businesses. Now, to achieve these goals, organizations need easy access to a single view of accurate, consistent and very importantly, trusted data. If it's not trusted, nobody's going to use it and all in near real time. However, the growing volumes and complexities of data make this difficult to achieve in practice. Not to mention the organizational challenges that have evolved as data becomes increasingly important to winning in the marketplace. Specifically as data grows, so does the prevalence of data silos, making, integrating and leveraging data from internal and external sources a real challenge. Now, in this final segment, we'll hear from Joe Lichtenberg who's the global head of product and industry marketing, and he's going to discuss how smart data fabrics can be applied to different industries. And by way of these use cases, we'll probe Joe's vast knowledge base and ask him to highlight how InterSystems, which touts a next gen approach to Customer 360, how the company leverages a smart data fabric to provide organizations of varying sizes and sectors in financial services, supply chain, logistics and healthcare with a better, faster and easier way to deliver value to the business. Joe welcome, great to have you here. >> Thank you, it's great to be here. That was some intro. I could not have said it better myself, so thank you for that. >> Thank you. Well, we're happy to have you on this show now. I understand- >> It's great to be here. >> You you've made a career helping large businesses with technology solutions, small businesses, and then scale those solutions to meet whatever needs they had. And of course, you're a vocal advocate as is your company of data fabrics. We talked to Scott earlier about data fabrics, how it relates to data mesh big discussions in the industry. So tell us more about your perspective. >> Sure, so first I would say that I have been in this industry for a very long time so I've been like you, I'm sure, for decades working with customers and with technology, really to solve these same kinds of challenges. So for decades, companies have been working with lots and lots of data and trying to get business value to solve all sorts of different challenges. And I will tell you that I've seen many different approaches and different technologies over the years. So, early on, point to point connections with custom coding, and I've worked with integration platforms 20 years ago with the advent of web services and service-oriented architectures and exposing endpoints with wisdom and getting access to disparate data from across the organization. And more recently, obviously with data warehouses and data lakes and now moving workloads to the cloud with cloud-based data marts and data warehouses. Lots of approaches that I've seen over the years but yet still challenges remain in terms of getting access to a single trusted real-time view of data. And so, recently, we ran a survey of more than 500 different business users across different industries and 86% told us that they still lack confidence in using their data to make decisions. That's a huge number, right? And if you think about all of the work and all of the technology and approaches over the years, that is a surprising number and drilling into why that is, there were three main reasons. One is latency. So the amount of time that it takes to access the data and process the data and make it fit for purpose by the time the business has access to the data and the information that they need, the opportunity has passed. >> Elapsed time, not speed a light, right? But that too maybe. >> But it takes a long time if you think about these processes and you have to take the data and copy it and run ETL processes and prepare it. So that's one, one is just the amount of data that's disparate in data silos. So still struggling with data that is dispersed across different systems in different formats. And the third, is data democratization. So the business really wants to have access to the data so that they can drill into the data and ask ad hoc questions and the next question and drill into the information and see where it leads them rather than having sort of pre-structured data and pre-structured queries and having to go back to IT and put the request back on the queue again and waiting. >> So it takes too long, the data's too hard to get to 'cause it's in silos and the data lacks context because it's technical people that are serving up the data to the business people. >> Exactly. >> And there's a mismatch. >> Exactly right. So they call that data democratization or giving the business access to the data and the tools that they need to get the answers that they need in the moment. >> So the skeptic in me, 'cause you're right I have seen this story before and the problems seem like they keep coming up, year after year, decade after decade. But I'm an optimist and so. >> As am I. >> And so I sometimes say, okay, same wine new bottle, but it feels like it's different this time around with data fabrics. You guys talk about smart data fabrics from your perspective, what's different? >> Yeah, it's very exciting and it's a fundamentally different approach. So if you think about all of these prior approaches, and by the way, all of these prior approaches have added value, right? It's not like they were bad, but there's still limitations and the business still isn't getting access to all the data that they need in the moment, right? So data warehouses are terrific if you know the questions that you want answered and you take the data and you structure the data in advance. And so now you're serving the business with sort of pre-planned answers to pre-planned queries, right? The data fabric, what we call a smart data fabric is fundamentally different. It's a fundamentally different approach in that rather than sort of in batch mode, taking the data and making it fit for purpose with all the complexity and delays associated with it, with a data fabric where accessing the data on demand as it's needed, as it's requested, either by the business or by applications or by the data scientists directly from the source systems. >> So you're not copying it necessarily to that to make that you're not FTPing it, for instance. I've got it, you take it, you're basically using the same source. >> You're pulling the data on demand as it's being requested by the consumers. And then all of the data management processes that need to be applied for integration and transformation to get the data into a consistent format and business rules and analytic queries. And with Jess showed with machine learning, predictive prescriptive analytics all sorts of powerful capabilities are built into the fabric so that as you're pulling the data on demand, right, all of these processes are being applied and the net result is you're addressing these limitations around latency and silos that we've seen in the past. >> Okay, so you've talked about you have a lot of customers, InterSystems does in different industries supply chain, financial services, manufacturing. We heard from just healthcare. What are you seeing in terms of applications of smart data fabrics in the real world? >> Yeah, so we see it in every industry. So InterSystems, as you know, has been around now for 43 years, and we have tens of thousands of customers in every industry. And this architectural pattern now is providing value for really critical use cases in every industry. So I'm happy to talk to you about some that we're seeing. I could actually spend like three hours here and there but I'm very passionate about working with customers and there's all sorts of exciting. >> What are some of your favorites? >> So, obviously supply chain right now is going through a very challenging time. So the combination of what's happening with the pandemic and disruptions and now I understand eggs are difficult to come by I just heard on NPR. >> Yeah and it's in part a data problem and a big part of data problem, is that fair? >> Yeah and so, in supply chain, first there's supply chain visibility. So organizations want a real time or near real time expansive view of what's happening across the entire supply chain from a supply all the way through distribution, right? So that's only part of the issue but that's a huge sort of real-time data silos problem. So if you think about your extended supply chain, it's complicated enough with all the systems and silos inside your firewall, before all of your suppliers even just thinking about your tier one suppliers let alone tier two and tier three. And then building on top of real-time visibility is what the industry calls a control tower, what we call the ultimate control tower. And so it's built in analytics to be able to sense disruptions and exceptions as they occur and predict the likelihood of these disruptions occurring. And then having data driven and analytics driven guidance in terms of the best way to deal with these disruptions. So for example, an order is missing line items or a cargo ship is stuck off port somewhere. What do you do about it? Do you reroute a different cargo ship, right? Do you take an order that's en route to a different client and reroute that? What's the cost associated? What's the impact associated with it? So that's a huge issue right now around control towers for supply chain. So that's one. >> Can I ask you a question about that? Because you and I have both seen a lot but we've never seen, at least I haven't the economy completely shut down like it was in March of 2020, and now we're seeing this sort of slingshot effect almost like you're driving on the highway sometimes you don't know why, but all of a sudden you slow down and then you speed up, you think it's okay then you slow down again. Do you feel like you guys can help get a handle on that product because it goes on both sides. Sometimes you can't get the product, sometimes there's too much of a product as well and that's not good for business. >> Yeah, absolutely. You want to smooth out the peaks and valleys. >> Yeah. >> And that's a big business goal, business challenge for supply chain executives, right? So you want to make sure that you can respond to demand but you don't want to overstock because there's cost associated with that as well. So how do you optimize the supply chains and it's very much a data silo and a real time challenge. So it's a perfect fit for this new architectural pattern. >> All right, what else? >> So if we look at financial services, we have many, many customers in financial services and that's another industry where they have many different sources of data that all have information that organizations can use to really move the needle if they could just get to that single source of truth in real time. So we sort of bucket many different implementations and use cases that we do around what we call Business 360 and Customer 360. So Business 360, there's all sorts of ways to add business value in terms of having a real-time operational view across all of the different GOs and parts of the business, especially in these very large global financial services institutions like capital markets and investment firms and so forth. So around Business 360, having a realtime view of risk, operational performance regulatory compliance, things like that. Customer 360, there's a whole set of use cases around Customer 360 around hyper-personalization of customers and in realtime next best action looking to see how you can sell more increase share of wallet, cross-sell, upsell to customers. We also do a lot in terms of predicting customer churn. So if you have all the historical data and what's the likelihood of customers churning to be able to proactively intercede, right? It's much more cost effective to keep assets under management and keep clients rather than going and getting new clients to come to the firm. A very interesting use case from one of our customers in Latin America, so Banco do Brasil largest bank in all of Latin America and they have a very innovative CTO who's always looking for new ways to move the needle for the bank. And so one of their ideas and we're working with them to do this is how can they generate net new revenue streams by bringing in new business to the bank? And so they identified a large percentage of the population in Latin America that does no banking. So they have no banking history not only with Banco do Brasil, but with any bank. So there's a fair amount of risk associated with offering services to this segment of the population that's not associated with any banks or financial institutions. >> There is no historical data on them, there's no. >> So it's a data challenge. And so, they're bringing in data from a variety of different sources, social media, open source data that they find online and so forth. And with us running risk models to identify which are the citizens that there's acceptable risk to offer their services. >> It's going to be huge market of unbanked people in vision Latin America. >> Wow, that's interesting. >> Yeah, yeah, totally vision. >> And if you can lower the risk and you could tap that market and be first >> And they are, yeah. >> Yeah. >> So very exciting. Manufacturing, we know industry 4.0 which is about taking the OT data, so the data from the MES systems and the streaming data, real-time streaming data from the machine controllers and integrating it with the IT data, so your data warehouses and your ERP systems and so forth to have not only a real-time view of manufacturing from supply and source all the way through demand but also predictive maintenance and things like that. So that's very big right now in manufacturing. >> Kind of cool to hear these use cases beyond your healthcare, which is obviously, your wheelhouse, Scott defined this term of smart data fabrics, different than data fabrics, I guess. So when we think about these use cases what's the value add of so-called smart data fabrics? >> Yeah, it's a great question. So we did not define the term data fabric or enterprise data fabric. The analysts now are all over it. They're all saying it's the future of data management. It's a fundamentally different approach this architectural approach to be able to access the data on demand. The canonical definition of a data fabric is to access the data where it lies and apply a set of data management processes, but it does not include analytics, interestingly. And so we firmly believe that most of these use cases gain value from having analytics built directly into the fabric. So whether that's business rules or predictive analytics to predict the likelihood of a customer churn or a machine on the shop floor failing or prescriptive analytics. So if there's a problem in the supply chain, what's the guidance for the supply chain managers to take the best action, right? Prescriptive analytics based on data. So rather than taking the data and the data fabric and moving it to another environment to run those analytics where you have complexity and latency, having tall of those analytics capabilities built directly into the fabric, which is why we call it a smart data fabric, brings a lot of value to our customers. >> So simplifies the whole data lifecycle, data pipelining, the hyper-specialized roles that you have to have, you can really just focus on one platform, is that? >> Exactly, basically, yeah. And it's a simplicity of architecture and faster speed to production. So a big differentiator for our technology, for InterSystems, Iris, is most if not all of the capabilities that are needed are built into one engine, right? So you don't need to stitch together 10 or 15 or 20 different data management services for relational database in a non-relational database and a caching layer and a data warehouse and security and so forth. And so you can do that. There's many ways to build this data fabric architecture, right? InterSystems is not the only way. >> Right? >> But if you can speed and simplify the implementation of the fabric by having most of what you need in one engine, one product that gets you to where you need to go much, much faster. >> Joe, how can people learn more about smart data Fabric some of the use cases that you've presented here? >> Yeah, come to our website, intersystems.com. If you go to intersystems.com/smartdatafabric that'll take you there. >> I know that you have like probably dozens more examples but it would be cool- >> I do. >> If people reach out to you, how can they get in touch? >> Oh, I would love that. So feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's Joe Lichtenberg I think it's linkedin.com/joeLichtenberg and I'd love to connect. >> Awesome. Joe, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it. >> It was great to be here. Thank you, Dave. >> All right, I hope you've enjoyed our program today. You know, we heard Scott now he helped us understand this notion of data fabrics and smart data fabrics and how they can address the data challenges faced by the vast majority of organizations today. Jess Jody's demo was awesome. It was really a highlight of the program where she showed the smart data fabrics inaction and Joe Lichtenberg, we just heard from him dug in to some of the prominent use cases and proof points. We hope this content was educational and inspires you to action. Now, don't forget all these videos are available on Demand to watch, rewatch and share. Go to theCUBE.net, check out siliconangle.com for all the news and analysis and we'll summarize the highlights of this program and go to intersystems.com because there are a ton of resources there. In particular, there's a knowledge hub where you'll find some excellent educational content and online learning courses. There's a resource library with analyst reports, technical documentation videos, some great freebies. So check it out. This is Dave Vellante. On behalf of theCUBE and our supporter, InterSystems, thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Hello and welcome to what is sure to be an insightful conversation about getting business results with cloud Transformation. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with James Miller, Chief Technologist for cloud and Infrastructure Services and Jay Dowling, America's Sales Lead for cloud and Infrastructure Services, both with DXC Technology. Gentlemen, thanks for your time today, welcome to The Cube. >> Great, thanks for having us. >> Thank you, Dave, appreciate it. >> So let's get right into it. You know, I've talked to a lot of practitioners who've said, look, if you really want to drop zeros, like a lot of zeroes to the bottom line, you can't just lift and shift. You really got to think about modernizing, the application portfolio, you got to think about your business model, and really think about transforming your business, particularly the operating model. So my first question, Jim, is what role does the cloud play in modernization? >> Well there are really 3 aspects that the cloud plays in modernization. You mentioned multiple zeroes. One is cost optimization. And that can be achieved through business operations, through environmental, social, in governance. Also being more efficient with your IT investments. But that's not the only aspect. There's also agility and innovation. And that can be achieved through automation and productivity, speed to market for new features and functions, improvements in the customer experience, and the capability to metabolize a great deal more data in your environment. Which, the end result is an improvement in releasing of new things to the field. And finally, there's resilience. And I'm not really talking about IT resilience, but more of business resilience. To be able to handle operational risk, improve your securities and controls, deal with some of the talent gap that's in the industry, and also protect your brand reputation. So modernization is really about balancing these 3 aspects. Cost optimization, agility and innovation, and resilience. >> So, thank you for that, so, Jay, I got to ask you, the current climate, ever body's sort of concerned, and there's not great visibility on the macro. So, Jim mentioned cost optimization, that seems to be one of the top areas that customers are focused on. The two I hear a lot are, consolidating redundant vendors, and optimizing cloud costs. So that's, you know, top of mine today. I think everybody really, you know, understands the innovation and agility piece. At least at a high level, maybe realizing it is different. >> Sure >> And then the business resilience piece is really interesting, because, you know, prior to the pandemic, people, you know, they had a DR strategy, but they realized, wow my business may not be that resilient. So, Jay, my question to you is, what are you hearing when you talk to customers, what's the priority today? >> You know, the priority is an often overused term of digital transformation. You know, people want to get ready for next generation environments, customer experience, making sure they're improving, you know, how they engage with their clients, and what their branding is. What we find is a lot of clients don't have the underlying infrastructure in place today to get to where they want to get to. So cloud becomes an important element of that, but, you know, with DXC's philosophy, not everything necessarily needs to go to cloud to be cost optimized, for instance. In many cases you can run applications, you know, in your own data center, or on Pram or, in other environments, in the hybrid environment or multi cloud environment, and still be very optimized from a cost/spend standpoint. And also put yourself in position for modernization and be able to bring the things to the business that the clients are, you know their clients are looking for like the CMO and the CFO etc. trying to use IT as a leverage to drive business and to drive business acceleration and to drive profitability, frankly. So there's a lot of dependency on infrastructure, but there's a lot of elements to it and we advocate for, you know, there's not a single answer to that. We like to evaluate clients, environments, and work with them to get them to an optimal target operating model so that they can really deliver on what the promises are for their departments. >> So, lets talk about some of the barriers to realizing value in the context of modernization. We talked about cost optimization, agility, and resilience. But there's a business angle and there's a technical angle here. We already talked about people, process, and technology. Technology oftentimes CIO's will tell us 'Well that's the easy part. We'll figure that out.' Whether it's true or not; but I agree. People and process is sometimes the tough one. So Jay, why don't you start. What do you see as the barriers particularly from a business standpoint? I think people need to let their guard down and be open to the ideas that are out there in the market from the standards that are being built by Best in Class models. And there's many people who that have got on cloud juries have been very successful with it. There's others that have set high expectations with their business leaders that haven't necessarily met the goals that they need to meet, or maybe haven't met them as quickly as they promised. So there's a change management aspect that you need to look at with the environments. There's a skillset environment that they need to be prepared for. Do they have the people to deliver with the tools and the skills and the models that they're putting themselves in place for in the future versus where they are now. There's just a lot of different elements. It's not just that this price is better or this can operate better than one environment over the other. I think we like to try and look at things holistically and make sure that we're being as much of a consultative advocate for the client for where they want to go, what their destiny is and based on what we've learned with other clients and we can bring those best practices forward because we've worked across such a broad spectrum of clients versus them being somewhat contained and sometimes can't see outside of their own challenges, if you would. So they need advocacy to help bring them to the next level. And we like to translate that through technology advances which Jim is really good at doing for us. >> Yeah Jim, is the big barrier a skills issue? You know, bench strength? Are their other considerations from your perspective? >> We've identified a number of factors that inhibit success of customers. One is thinking it's only a technology change; in moving to cloud. When it's much broader than that. There are changes in governance, changes in process that need to take place. The other is evaluating the other cloud providers on their current pricing structure and performance. And we see pricing and structure changing dramatically every few months between the various cloud providers. And you have to be flexible enough to determine which providers you want; and it may not be feasible to just have a single cloud provider in this world. The other thing is a big bang approach to transformation. I want to move everything and I want to move it all at once. That's not necessarily the best approach. A well thought out cloud journey and strategy, and timing your investments are really important to maximizing your business return on the journey to the cloud. And finally, not engaging stakeholders early and continuously. You have to manage expectations in moving to cloud on what business factors will get affected, how you will achieve your costs savings, and how you will achieve the business impact over the journey and reporting out on that with very strict metrics to all of the stakeholders. >> You mentioned multi-cloud just then. On January 17th we had our Super Cloud 2 event. And Super Cloud is basically what multi-cloud should have been I like to say. So it's creating a common experience across clouds. You guys were talking about you know, there's different governance, different securities, different pricing. So, and one of the takeaways from this event and talking to customers and practitioners and technologists is you can't go it alone. So I wonder if you'd talk about your partnership strategy? What do partners bring to the table? What is DXC's unique value? >> I'd be happy to lead with that if you'd like. >> Great >> We've got a vast partner ecosystem at DXC, given the size and the history of the company. I use several examples. One of the larger partners in my particular space is Dell Technology. They're a great partner for us across many different areas of the business. It's not just storage and compute play anymore. They're on the edge. They've got intelligence in their networking devices now. And they've really brought a lot of value to us as a partner. You can look at Dell Technology as somebody that might have a victim effect because of all of the hyper-scaling activity and all of the cloud activity but they've really taken an outstanding attitude with this and said listen not all things are destined for cloud or not all things would operate better in a cloud environment. And they like to be apart of those discussions to see how they can, how we can bring a multi-cloud environment, both private and public to clients and let's look at the applications and the infrastructure and what's the best optimal running environment for us to be able to bring the greatest value to the business with speed, with security and the the things that they want to keep close to the business are often things that you want to keep on your premise or keep in your own data centers. So they're an ideal model of somebody that's resourced this well, partnered in this well in the market and we continue to grow that relationship day in and day out with those guys. And we really appreciate their support of our strategy and we like to also compliment their strategy and work together hand in hand in front of our clients. >> Yeah you know Jim, Matt Baker who's the Head of Strategic Planning at Dell talks about it's not zero-sum game and I think you're right Jay. I think initially people felt like oh wow, it is a zero-sum game but it's clearly not. And this idea of whether you call it Super Cloud or Uber Cloud or Multi Cloud, clearly Dell is headed in that direction. Look at some of their future projects, their narrative. I'm curious from a technology standpoint Jim, what your role is. Is it to make it all work? Is it to end to end? Wondering if you could help us understand that. >> Help us figure it out Jim, here. >> Glad to expand on that. Well, one of my key roles is developing our product roadmap for DXC offerings. And we do that roadmap in conjunction with our partners where we can leverage the innovation that our partners bring to the table and we often utilize engineering resources from our partners to help us jointly build those offerings that adapt to changes in the market and also adapt to many of our customer's changing needs overtime. So my primary role is to look at the market, talk to our customers, and work with our partners to develop a product roadmap for delivering DXC products and services to our clients so that they can get the return on investment on their technology journeys. >> You know, we've been working with these two firms for a while now; pre-dates the name DXC and that transformation. I'm curious as to what's, how you would respond to what's unique. You know you hear a lot about partnerships, you guys got a lot of competition. Dell has a lot of competition. What's specifically unique about this combination? >> I think- go ahead Jim >> I would say our unique approach is, we call it cloud right. And that approach is making the right investments, at the right time, and on the right platforms. And our partners play a key role in that. So we encourage our customers to not necessarily have a cloud first approach, but a cloud right approach where they place the workloads in the environment that is best suited from a technology perspective, a business perspective, and even a security and governance perspective. And the right approach might include main frame, it might include and on-premises infrastructure it could include private cloud, public cloud and SAS components all integrated together to deliver that value. >> Yeah Jay please. Let me tell you, this is a complicated situation for a lot of customers. But, chime in here. >> Yeah if you're speaking specifically to Dell here like, they also walk the talk right. They invest in DXC as a partnership. They put people on the ground. Their only purpose in life is to help DXC succeed with Dell, arm in arm, in front of clients. And it's not a winner take all thing at all. It's really a true partnership. They've brought solution resources. We have an account CTO, we've got executive sponsorship. We do regular QVR meetings. We have regular executive touch-point meetings. It's really important that you keep high level of intimacy with the clients, with the partners in the GSI community. And I've been with several GSI's and this is an exceptional example of true partnership and commitment to success with Dell Technology. I'm really extremely impressed on the engagement level that we've had there, and continue to show a lot of support both for them. And there's other OEM partners of course in the market. There's always going to be other technology solutions for certain clients, but this has been a particularly strong element for us and our partnership and our go-to-market strategy. >> Well I think too, just my observation is a lot of it is about trust. You guys have both earned the trust over the years. Ticking your arrows over decades, and that just doesn't happen overnight. Guys I appreciate it. Thanks for your time. It's all about getting Cloud Right, isn't it? >> That's right. Thank you Dave. Appreciate it very much. >> Thank you >> Jay, great to have you on. Keep it right there for more action on The CUBE. We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) >> Hey, everyone. Welcome to theCUBE's Special Program Series: Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to welcome Ashley Gaare to the program, Global Extended Executive Board Member and President, North America at SoftwareONE. Ashley, welcome, it's great to have you here. >> Hi Lisa, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. >> Talk to us a little bit about you, about SoftwareONE, about your role, give us that context. >> So SoftwareONE is a global services provider for end-to-end software cloud management. We operate in over 90 countries. Our headquarters globally are in Zurich, Switzerland. Our North American headquarters are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And I run the North American region with scales from the US, Canada, we have parts in Costa Rica, in Mexico. And our primary purpose and to serve our clients is to help them really understand the restraints in cloud management, everything from licensing used rights to financial operations to workload migrations, to help them drive better outcomes for their business. >> It's all about outcomes for the business. Every conversation we have always goes back to outcomes, but I want to learn a little bit more actually about you. Talk a little bit about your career path and then give us some recommendations that you would have for others who are looking to really kind of step the ladder in their tech careers. >> Yeah, so I've been very fortunate and blessed to be able to be at SoftwareONE for 15 years. So I came up through inside sales. I had no idea how the tech world operated, didn't even know what a server was. And I learned on the job, and this was before even cloud was really relevant. And I think for me, I get asked a lot, "How did you work your way up," so to speak, and it's really about understanding where your strengths sit and investing in those strengths, building a brand of yourself and what your identity is like within the workplace. What do you want people to know of you? Do they want to, "Oh, I got to get Ashley on this project because she accelerates and executes cleanly," right? Or, "I need Ashley to do this because she can collaborate with peers and bring people along." So really understanding where you want to sit, what your skills are, and your strengths, and then asking for mentorship, getting career advice, raising your hand, take on more, and don't ever be afraid to ask questions and admit stuff when you don't know, that humble is part of our core value within SoftwareONE, and it's really, really helped me grow in my own career. >> Ashley, I love that you talked about creating your own personal brand. Another thing that I hear often from women in this situation is creating your own personal board of directors, of mentors, and sponsors who can help guide you along that path. You also talk about investing in you, and I think that is such pertinent advice for those to be able to create success stories within their career. I would love to then know about some of the successes that you've had, where you've helped solve problems relating to cloud computing for organizations, internal, external. >> Yeah, it's a great question. That's why we're here, right? Women of the Cloud. Yeah, SoftwareONE in particular, took the approach early on that we were going to go cloud first in our services portfolio offering, right? We saw the writing on the wall. There was no reason to invest backwards and build (indistinct) and data center consulting practices. So for us, everything we built from the ground up has been cloud native. And so some of the amazing client stories that we've had are really I think, I know it's a silver lining coming out of the pandemic when you had industries hit so hard but hit so differently. And technology was at the core on how they address those problems. So you had the healthcare space that had to get protection and be able to meet with their patients face to face but virtual at the same time. So they had to be able to take the data and still governance with HIPAA laws, keep it secure but then move it to the cloud and shift it fast, right? And then you had manufacturing who had employees who had to stay on site, right? To keep the supply chain running, but at the same time you had office workers that had to move home and completely be 100% remote. And so what we've been able to do really with AWS and our certifications in that practice is AWS differentiates itself with its agility, its framework, it allows for true development in the the PaaS space. It provides a really, really secure robust end to end solution for our clients. And when you have to be able to be nimble that quickly it's created this new expectation in the industry that it could happen again. So are you set up for the next recession? Are you set up for the next pandemic? God willing, there isn't one, but you never know. And so investing in the right infrastructure there in the cloud is critical. And then having the framework, to manage it and go it is second in line and importance. >> Being able to be just aware of the situations that can happen. In hindsight, it's, that's a silver lining coming at a COVID cheer point, being able to prepare for disasters of different types or the need to establish business continuity. I mean, we saw so many organ, well every, almost that survived every surviving organization pivot to cloud during the last couple of years that had no choice to one, survive and two, to be able to be competitive in our organization. And so we've seen so many great stories of successes. And it sounds like SoftwareONE has really been at the forefront of enabling a lot of businesses, I would imagine. Can the industry be successful in that migration and that quick pivot to being competitive advantage competitively, competitive? >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think our differentiator which comes from our core strength of this licensing and asset financial management piece. So with COVID, right? When you had this great acceleration to the cloud whether it was remote workplace or it was IaaS you then had no choice but to pay what you had to pay. It was all about keeping the lights on and running the business and thriving as much as you could. And so cost wasn't a concern. And then you had the impact in certain industries where it became a concern pretty quick. And so now we're seeing this over pendulum kind of this pendulum swing back where it's like, okay we're in the cloud, now we got to go back in time and kind of fix the processes and the financial piece and the components and the compliance that we didn't really address or have time to sit and think because we were in survival mode. And that's where SoftwareONE really comes in with this end to end view on everything from what should you move to the cloud? How does it impact your budget, your bottom line should you capitalize it? Can you capitalize it? And so the CFO and the CEO and that CIO suite have to be working end to end on how to do this effectively, right? So that they can continue to thrive in the business and not just run in survival mode anymore. >> Absolutely, we're past that point of running in survival mode. We've got to be able to thrive to be able to be agile and nimble and flexible to develop new products, new services to get them to market faster than our competition. So much has changed in the last couple of years. I'm wondering what your perspective is on diversity. We've talked about it a lot in technology. We talk about DEI often. >> Yeah. >> A lot's gone on in the last couple of years thought there's so much value in thought diversity alone. But talk to me about some of the things that you're seeing through the diversity lens and what are some of the challenges that are still there that organizations need help to eradicate? >> Yeah, topic I'm very passionate about. So there's a couple of big bullets, right? That are big rocks that we have to move. There's a gender gap, we know this. There's a wage gap, we know this. Statistics state, essentially that women make 82 cents for every $1 a man makes. Men hold 75% of the US tech jobs and working mothers, for example. 34% of them do not return to the workforce. It's mind blowing, fun facts and SoftwareONE is we actually have a hundred percent return working mothers come back and stay for at least a year, yeah. And it requires really intentional investment in making sure that they have an environment that they can be successful as they transition back making diligent choices on the benefits that you provide those women so that they don't feel that they have to make some of the tough choices that they feel pressured to do. And then you have this talent shortage, right? So on top of gender, on top of pay, then you have this all up shortage of underrepresented groups, right? And you also have, in the tech space there's just a lack of talent all up. And I think looking back, hindsight's always 2020 but as a community and as a vertical in the tech space, the organizations didn't do enough good job of reaching into high schools, understanding early on in elementary and middle school to provide equal opportunity to make the computer coding classes a requirement and not an elective to give everybody exposure to how tech works in the real world, right? As opposed to offering it as an elective. It should be a requirement. I mean, it's like financial management. It's how the world runs today is on tech. So something that SoftwareONE has done to really address that is we built this academy it's only two years in its infancy, so it's young but we go intentionally to schools and we hand select and we create a program, right? To get them exposed to the industries that they're interested in. Personally though, I think we need to start way earlier on and I think that's something that we all can work better at and is exposing the next generation to setting an expectation that tech is going to be in your life. And so let's learn about it and not be afraid of it and turn it into a career, right? >> Absolutely, every company these days has to be a data company. They have to be a tug company whether it's your grocery store, a retailer, a manufacturer, a car dealer. So that kind of choice isn't really there anymore that's just the direction that these companies have to go in. You mentioned something that I love because I've been hearing it a lot from women in this series. And that is, with respect to diversity organizations need to be intentional. It has to be intentional, really from the get go. And it sounds like SoftwareONE has done a great job with intention about creating the program and looking at how can we go after and solve some of the challenges that we have today but really go after some of these younger groups who might not understand the impact and the influence that tech is having in their lives. >> Yeah, and the only way to be intentional with the right outcome is to ensure that you have diversity of thought in the leadership teams that make those decisions, right? So you can put your best foot forward in being intentional with trying to keep women in the workforce but if you don't have women on your leadership team where are you getting that feedback from? And so it starts by this getting the talent into the company at the very bottom level from an inclusion standpoint, keeping them, but also intentionally selecting the right diversity of thought at the leadership levels where they make decisions. Because that's where the magic happens Where, I have the privilege to be able to choose and work with my HR partner on what benefits we provide. And you have to have a team that's all inclusive in understanding the needs of all the groups, right? Otherwise you end up intentionally in with the best intent of heart creating benefits that don't really help women. I think it takes a lot of work and and time, but it's something that's very important. >> Very, very important. The fact that you mentioned thought diversity, the amount of value that can come from thought diversity alone is huge. I've seen so many different data points that talk about when there are females or people of color in the executive positions at organizations they are x percent say 20% more profitable. So the data is there to demonstrate the power and the business value that can come from thought diversity alone. >> Yep. Exactly. Yep. >> So moving on, we've got a couple minutes left. I want to understand what you are seeing in your crystal ball or maybe it's a magic ball about what's next in cloud. How do you see your role evolving in the industry? >> So, well, what I think what's next in cloud both from an industry and a SoftwareONE standpoint is expanding outside of this infrastructure as a service mindset where cloud was there to run your business. And the beauty of it now is that cloud is there to also drive your business and create new products and capabilities. And so one of the biggest trends we're seeing is all organizations at some form or at some point in time will become a service provider or have an application that they host that they provide to their clients, right? And so they're a tech company. And so it's not just using tech to run it's using tech to build and innovate and be able to create a profit center to be able to drive back those to meet your clients' needs. And in order for you to make the appropriate decisions on financial strategy and budget management you have to know the cost to go into, to building the product, right? And if you don't know the cost to go into the building the product then you don't know the profit margins to set and you don't have a strategy to go sell it, at market value. And so it really becomes this linchpin in all of the areas of the business where you're not only running but you're also developing and building. So you have to have a very good, strong investment in the financial operations component of cloud. And I think that's where FinOps is coming in. You'll hear that phrase a lot, right? And so the end to end ability to financially manage cloud while secure, but also with visibility is that is this next generation, and it's going to include SaaS, right? 'Cause they're going to be plugging in it's going to include governance because it's not just the CIO making decisions anymore. It's business line leaders. And so how do you have this cloud center of excellence to be able to provide the data to the decision makers so that they can drive the business? >> And that's what it's all about, is data being able to be be used, extracting insights from it in a fast real time manner to create those business decisions that help organizations to be successful to pivot when needed and to be able to meet consumer demand. Last question for you, Ashley is, if you think about in the last say five years what are some of the biggest changes in terms of the tech workforce and innovation that you've seen? And what excites you about the direction that we're going in? >> Oh, I think that, well I think the biggest change over the last five years is the criticality of the space. It used to be like, well we're not so mature in cloud. We'll eventually get there, we'll dabble in it, we'll dip our toes in it, eventually, we'll move everything. And it's like, well, we're there.(laughs) So if you're not in it, you're behind. And I think what is really important for people who want to get into this space is it doesn't mean you have to be super techy, right? The number of times people are like can you help me with my computer? And I'm like, "No, I don't even know how." Like, "No, I not can help you with your computer." I consult and I help drive, business decisions with clients. And so there's all these peripheral roles that people can get involved in, whether it's marketing or it's sales or it's product design. It's not just engineering anymore. And I think that's what's really exciting about what's to come in this space. >> The horizon is infinite. Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on the program, talking about your role, what you're doing at SoftwareONE, some of the great successes that you've had in the cloud and some of your recommendations for organizations and people to grow their careers and really increase diversity in tech. We so appreciate your time. >> Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for having me. >> My pleasure. For Ashley Gaare, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE special program series; Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. Thanks so much for watching. (soft upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Cloud Native SecurityCon North America 2023. Its first inaugural event. It's theCUBE's coverage. We were there at the first event for a KubeCon before CNCF kind of took it over. It was in Seattle. And so in Seattle this week is Cloud Native SecurityCon. Of course, theCUBE is there covering via our Palo Alto Studios and our experts around the world who are bringing in Bassam Tabbara who's the CEO and founder of upbound.io. That's the URL, but Upbound is the company. The creators of Crossplane. Really kind of looking at the Crossplane, across the abstraction layer, across clouds. A big part of, as we call supercloud trend. Bassam, great to see you. You've been legend in the open source community. Great to have you on. >> Thanks, John. Always good to be on theCUBE. >> I really wanted to bring you in 'cause I want to get your perspective. You've seen the movie, you've seen open source software grow, it continues to grow. Now you're starting to see the Linux Foundation, which has CNCF really expanding their realm. They got the CloudNativeCon, KubeCon, which is Kubernetes event. That's gotten so massive and so successful. We've been to every single one as you know. I've seen you there and all of them as well. So that's going great. Now they got this new event that's spins out dedicated to security. Everybody wants to know why the new event? What's the focus? Is it needed? What will they do? What's different from KubeCon? Where do I play? And so there's a little bit of a question mark in the ecosystem around this event. And so we've been reporting on it. Looking good so far. People are buzzing, again, they're keeping it small. So that kind of managing expectations like any good event would do. But I think it's been successful, which I wanted like to get your take on how you see it. Is this good? Are you indifferent? Are you excited by this? What's your take? >> I mean, look, it's super exciting to see all the momentum around cloud native. Obviously there are different dimensions of cloud native securities, an important piece. Networking, storage, compute, like all those things I think tie back together and in some ways you can look at this event as a focused event on the security aspect as it relates to cloud native. And there are lots of vendors in this space. There's lots of interesting projects in the space, but the unifying theme is that they come together and probably around the Kubernetes API and the momentum around cloud native and with Kubernetes at the center of it. >> On the focus on Kubernetes, it seems this event is kind of classic security where you want to have deep dives. Again, I call it the event operating system 'cause you decouple, make things highly cohesive, and you link them together. I don't see a problem with it. I kind of like this. I gave it good reviews if they stay focused because security is super critical. There was references to bind and DNS. There's a lot of things in the infrastructure plumbing that need to be looked at or managed or figured out or just refactored for modernization needs. And I know you've done a lot with storage, for instance, storage, networking, kernel. There's a lot of things in the old tech or tech in the cloud that needs to be kind, I won't say rebooted, but maybe reset or jump. Do you see it that way? Are there things that need to get done or is it just that there's so much complexity in the different cloud cluster code thing going on? >> It's obviously security is a very, very big space and there are so many different aspects of it that people you can go into. I think the thing that's interesting around the cloud native community is that there is a unifying theme. Like forget the word cloud native for a second, but the unifying theme is that people are building around what looks like a standardized play around Kubernetes and the Kubernetes API. And as a result you can recast a lot of the technologies that we are used to in the past in a traditional security sense. You can recast them on top of this new standardized approach or on Kubernetes, whether it's policy or protecting a supply chain or scanning, or like a lot of the access control authorization, et cetera. All of those things can be either revived to apply to this cloud native play and the Kubernetes play or creating new opportunities for companies to actually build new and interesting projects and companies around a standardized play. >> Do you think this also will help the KubeCon be more focused around the developer areas there and just touching on security versus figuring out how to take something so important in KubeCon, which the stakeholders in KubeCon have have grown so big, I can see security sucking a lot of oxygen out of the room there. So here you move it over, you keep it over here. Will anything change on the KubeCon site? We'll be there in in Amsterdam in April. What do you think the impact will be? Good? Is it good for the community? Just good swim lanes? What's your take? >> Yeah, I still think KubeCon will be an umbrella event for the whole cloud native community. I suspect that you'll see some of the same vendors and projects and everything else represented in KubeCon. The way I think about all the branched cloud native events are essentially a way to have a more focused discussion, get people together to talk about security topics or networking topics or things that are more focused way. But I don't think it changes the the effect of KubeCon being the umbrella around all of it. So I think you'll see the same presence and maybe larger presence going forward at Amsterdam. We're planning to be there obviously and I'm excited to be there and I think it'll be a big event and having a smaller event is not going to diminish the effect of KubeCon. >> And if you look at the developer community they've all been online for a long time, from IRC chat to now Slack and now new technologies and stuff like Discord out there. The event world has changed post-pandemic. So it makes sense. And we're seeing this with all vendors, by the way, and projects. The digital community angle is huge because if you have a big tent event like KubeCon you can make that a rallying moment in the industry and then have similar smaller events that are highly focused that build off that that are just connective tissue or subnets, if you will, or communities targeted for really deeper conversations. And they could be smaller events. They don't have to be monster events, but they're connected and traverse into the main event. This might be the event format for the future for all companies, whether it's AWS or a company that has a community where you create this network effect, if you will, around the people. >> That's right. And if you look at things like AWS re:Invent, et cetera, I mean, that's a massive events. And in some ways it, if it was a set of smaller sub events, maybe it actually will flourish more. I don't know, I'm not sure. >> They just killed the San Francisco event. >> That's right. >> But they have re:Inforce, all right, so they just established that their big events are re:Invent and re:Inforce as their big. >> Oh, I didn't hear about re:Inforce. That's news to me. >> re:Inforce is their third event. So they're doing something similar as CloudNativeCon, which is you have to have an event and then they're going to create a lot of sub events underneath. So I think they are trying to do that. Very interesting. >> Very interesting for sure. >> So let's talk about what you guys are up to. I know from your standpoint, you had a lot of security conversations. How is Crossplane doing? Obviously, you saw our Supercloud coverage. You guys fit right into that model where clients, customers, enterprises are going to want to have multiple cloud operating environments for whatever the use case, whether you're using ChatGPT, you got to get an Azure instance up and running for that. Now with APIs, we're hearing a lot of developers doing that. So you're going to start to see this cross cloud as VMware calls, what we call it supercloud. There's more need for Crossplane like thinking. What's the update? >> For sure, and we see this very clearly as well. So the fact that there is a standardization layer, there is a layer that lets you converge the different vendors that you have, the different clouds that you have, the different hype models that you have, whether it's hybrid or private, public, et cetera. The unifying theme is that you're literally bringing all those things under one control plane that enables you to actually centralize and standardize on security, access control, helps you standardize on cost control, quota policy, as well as create a self-service experience for your developers. And so from a security standpoint, the beauty of this is like, you could use really popular projects like open policy agent or Kyverno or others if you want to do policy and do so uniformly across your entire stack, your entire footprint of tooling, vendors, services and across deployment models. Those things are possible because you're standardizing and consolidating on a control plane on top of all. And that's the thing that gets our customers excited. That we're seeing in the community that they could actually now normalize standardize on small number of projects and tools to manage everything. >> We were talking about that in our summary of the keynote yesterday. Dave Vellante and I were talking about the idea of clients want to have a redo of their security. They've been, just the tooling has been building up. They got zero trust in place, maybe with some big vendor, but now got the cloud native opportunity to refactor and reset and reinvent their security paradigm. And so that's the positive thing we're hearing. Now we're seeing enterprises want this cross cloud capabilities or Crossplane like thinking that you guys are talking about. What are your customers telling you? Can you share from an enterprise perspective where they're at in this journey? Because part of the security problems that we've been reporting on has been because clients are moving from IT to cloud native and not everyone's moved over yet. So they're highly vulnerable to ransomware and all kinds of other crap. So another attacks, so they're wide open, But people who are moving into cloud native, are they stepping up their game on this Crossplane opportunity? Where are they at? Can you share data on that? >> Yeah, we're grateful to be talking to a lot of customers these days. And the interesting thing is even if you talked about large financial institutions, banks, et cetera, the common theme that we hear is that they bought tools for each of the different departments and however they're organized. Sometimes you see the folks that are running databases, networking, being separated from say, the computer app developers or they're all these different departments within an organization. And for each one of those, they've made localized decisions for tooling and services that they bought. What we're seeing now consistently is that they're all together, getting together, and trying to figure out how to standardize on a smaller one set of tooling and services that goes across all the different departments and all different aspects of the business that they're running. And this is where this discussion gets a lot very interesting. If instead of buying a different policy tool for each department, or once that fits it you could actually standardize on policy or the entire footprint of services that they're managing. And you get that by standardizing on a control plane or standardizing on effectively one point of control for everything that they're doing. And that theme is like literally, it gets all our customers excited. This is why they're engaging in all of this. It's almost the holy grail. The thing that I've been trying to do for a long time. >> I know. >> And it's finally happening. >> I know you and I have talked about this many times, but I got to ask you the one thing that jumps into everybody's head when you hear control plane is lock-in. So how do you discuss that lock-in, perception from the reality of the situation? How do you unpack that for the customer? 'Cause they want choice at the end of the day. There's the preferred vendors for sure on the hyperscale side and app side and open source, but what's the lock-in? What does the lock-in conversation look like? Or do they even have that conversation? >> Yeah. To be honest, I mean, so their lock-in could be a two dimensions here. Most of our customers and people are using Crossplane or using app on product around it. Most of our do, concentrated in, say a one cloud vendor and have others. So I don't think this is necessarily about multicloud per se or being locked into one vendor. But they do manage many different services and they have legacy tooling and they have different systems that they bought at different stages and they want to bring them all together. And by bringing them all together that helps them make choices about consulting or even replacing some of them. But right now everything is siloed, everything is separate, both organizationally as well as the code bases or investments and tooling or contracts. Everything is just completely separated and it requires humans to put them together. And organizations actually try to gather around and put them together. I don't know if lock-in is the driving goal for this, but it is standardization consolidation. That's the driving initiative. >> And so unification and building is the big driver. They're building out >> Correct, and you can ask why are they doing that? What does standardization help with? It helps them to become more productive. They can move faster, they can innovate faster. Not as a ton of, like literally revenue written all over. So it's super important to them that they achieved this, increase their pace of innovation around this and they do that by standardizing. >> The great point in all this and your success at Upbound and now CNCF success with KubeCon + CloudNativeCon and now with the inaugural event of Cloud Native SecurityCon is that the customers are involved, a lot of end users are involved. There's a big driver not only from the industry and the developers and getting architecture right and having choice. The customers want this to happen. They're leaning in, they're part of it. So that's a big driver. Where does this go? If you had to throw a dart at the board five years from now Cloud Native SecurityCon, what does it look like if you had to predict the trajectory of this event and community? >> Yeah, I mean, look, I think the trajectory one is that we have what looks like a standardization layer emerging that is all encompassing. And as a result, there is a ton of opportunity for vendors, projects, communities to build around within on top of this layer. And essentially create, I think you talked about an operating system earlier and decentralized aspect of this, but it's an opportunity to actually, what it looks like for the first time we have a convergence happening industry-wide and through open source and open source foundations. And I think that means that there'll be new opportunity and lots of new projects and things that are created in the space. And it also means that if you don't attach this space, you'll likely be left out. >> Awesome. Bassam, great to have you on, great expert commentary, obviously multi CUBE alumni and supporter of theCUBE and as you become successful we really appreciate your support for helping us get the content out there. And best of luck to your team and thanks for weighing in on Cloud Native SecurityCon. >> Awesome. It's always good talking to you, John. Thank you. >> Great stuff. This is more CUBE coverage from Palo Alto, getting folks on the ground on location, getting us the stories in Seattle. Of course, Cloud Native SecurityCon, the inaugural event, which looks like will be the beginning of a series of multi-year journey for the CNCF, focusing on security. Of course, theCUBE's here to cover it, every angle of it, and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> John Furrier: Hello, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Cloud Native Security Con 2023 North America the inaugural event. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE, along with Dave Alonte and Lisa Martin covering from the studio. But we have on location Emmy Eide, who is with Red Hat, director of Supply Chain Security. Emmy, great to have you on from location. Thanks for joining us. >> Emmy Eide: Yeah, thank you. >> So everyone wants to know this event is new, it's an aural event, cloud native con, coup con. Very successful. Was this event successful? They all want to know what's going on there. What's the vibe? What's the tracks like? Is it different? Why this event? Was it successful? What's different? >> Yeah, I've really enjoyed being here. The food is wonderful. There's also quite a few vendors here that are just some really cool emerging technologies coming out and a lot from open source, which is really cool to see as well. The talks are very interesting. It's really, they're very diverse in subject but still all security related which is really cool to see. And there's also a lot of different perspectives of how to approach security problems and the people behind them, which I love to see. And it's very nice to hear the different innovative ideas that we can go about doing security. >> We heard from some startups as well that they're very happy with the, with the decision to have a dedicated event. Red Hat is no stranger to open source. Obviously coup con, you guys are very successful there in cloud native con, Now the security con. Why do you think they did this? What's the vibe? What's the rationale? What's your take on this? And what's different from a topic standpoint? >> For non-security specific like events? Is that what you mean? >> What's different from coup con, cloud native con, and here at the cloud native security con? Obviously security's the focus. Is it just deeper dives? Is it more under the hood? Is it root problems or is this beyond Kubernetes? What's the focus, I guess. People want to know, you know, why the new event? >> I mean, there's a lot of focus on supply chain security, right? Like that's the hot topic in security right now. So that's been a huge focus. I can't speak to the differences of those other conferences. I haven't been able to attend them. But I will say that having a security specific conference, it really focuses on the open community and how technology is evolving, and how do you apply security. It's not just talking about tools which I think other conferences tend to focus on just the tools and you can really, I think, get lost in that as someone trying to learn about security or trying to even implement security, but they talk about what it takes to implement those tools, What's behind the people behind implementing those tools? >> Let's get into some of the key topics that we've identified and get your reaction. One, supply chain security, which I know you'll give a lot of commentary on 'cause that's your focus. Also we heard, like, Liz Rice talking about the extended Berkeley packet filtering. Okay, that's big. You know, your root kernel management, that's big. Developer productivity was kind of implied around removing the blockers of security, making it, you know, more aligned with developer first mentality. So that seems to be our takeaway. What's your reaction to those things? You see the same thing? >> I don't have a specific reaction to those things. >> Do you see the same thing happening on the ground there? Are they covering supply? >> Oh, yeah. >> Those three things are they the big focus? >> Yeah. Yeah, I think it's all of those things kind of like wrapped into one, right? But yeah, there's... I'm not sure how to answer your question. >> Well, let's jump into supply chain for instance. 'Cause that has come up a lot. >> Sure. >> What's the focus there on the supply chain security? Is it SBOMs? Is it the container security? What's the key conversations and topics being discussed around supply chain security? >> Well, I think there's a lot of laughter around SBOM right now because no one can really define it, specifically, and everyone's talking about it. So there's, there's a lot more than just the SBOM conversation. We're talking about like full end-to-end development process and that whole software supply chain that goes with it. So there's everything from infrastructure, security, all the way through to like signing transparency logs. Really the full gambit of supply chain, which is is really neat to see because it is such a broad topic. I think a lot of folks now are involved in supply chain security in some way. And so just kind of bringing that to the surface of what are the different people that are involved in this space, thinking about, what's on the top of their mind when it comes to supply chain security. >> How would you scope the order of magnitude of the uptick in supply chain attacks? Is it pretty heavy right now or is it, you know, people with the hair on fire or is it... What's the, give us the taste of the temperature in the room on the supply chain attacks? >> I think most of the folks who are involved in the space understand just that it's increasing. I mean, like, what is it? A 742% increase average annual year, year over year in supply chain attacks. So the amount of attacks increasing is a little daunting, right, for most of us. But it is what it is. So I think most of us right now are just trying to come together to say, "What are you doing that works? This is what I'm doing that works." And in all the different facets of that. 'cause I think we try to throw, we try to throw tools at a lot of problems and this problem is so big and broad reaching that we really are needing to share best practices as a community and as a security community. So this has been, this conference has been really great for that. >> Yeah, I've heard that a lot. You know, too many tools, not enough platform thinking, not enough architecture, needs some structure. Are you seeing any best practice around frameworks and structure around how to start getting in and and building out more of a better approach or posture? I mean, what's that, what's the, what's the state of the union for supply chain, how to handle that? >> Well, I talked about that a little bit in my my keynote that I gave, actually, which was about... And I've heard other other leaders talk about it too. And obviously it keyed my ear just because I'm so passionate about it, about partnership. So you know, empathetic security where the security team that's enforcing the policies, creating the policies, guidelines is working with the teams that are actually doing the production and the development, hand-in-hand, right? Like I can sit there and tell you, "Hey, you have all these problems and here's your security checklist or framework you need to follow." But that's not going to do them any good and it's going to create a ton of holes, right? So actually partnering with them helping them to understand the risks that are associated with their very specific need and use case, because every product has a different kind of quirk to it, right? Like how it's being developed. It might use a different tool and if I sit there and say, "Hey, you need to log on to this, you need to like make your tool work this platform over here and it's not compatible." I'm going to have to completely reframe how I'm doing productization. I need to know that as a security practitioner because me disrupting productization is not something that I should be doing. And I've heard a couple a couple of folks kind of talking about that, the people aspect behind how we implement these tools, the frameworks and the platforms, and how do we draw out risk, right? Like how do we talk about risk with these teams and really make them understand so it's part of their core culture in their understanding. So when they go back to their, when they go back and having to make decisions without me in the room they know they can make those business decisions with the risk as part of that decision. >> I love that empathetic angle because that's really going to, what needs to happen. It's not just, "Hey, that's your department, see you later." Or not even having a knowledge of the information. This idea of team construction, team management is a huge cultural shift. I'm sure the reaction was very positive. How do you explain that to an organization that's out there? Like how do you... what's the first three steps you got to take? Is there anything that you can share for advice people watch you saying, "Yeah we need to we need to change how our teams operate and interact with each other." >> Yeah, I think the first step is to take a good hard look at yourself. And if you are standing there on an ivory tower with a clipboard, you're probably doing it wrong. Check the box security is never going to be any way that works long term. It's going to take you a long time to implement any changes. At Red Hat, we did not look ourselves. You know, we've been doing a lot of great things in supply chain security for a while, but really taking that look and saying, "How can we be more empathetic leaders in the security space?" So we looked at that, then you say, "Okay, what is my my rate of change going to happen?" So if I need to make so many security changes explaining to these organizations, you're actually going to go faster. We improved our efficiency by 2000% just by doing that, just by creating this more empathetic. So why it seems like it's more hands-on, so it's going to be harder, it's easy to send out an email and say, "Hey, meet the security standard, right?" That might seem like the easy way 'cause you don't have time to engage. It's so much faster if you actually engage and share that message and have a a common understanding between the teams that like, "I'm here to deliver a product, so is the security team. The security team's here to deliver that same product and I want to help you do it in a trusted way." Right? >> Yeah. Dave Alonte, my co-host, was just on a session. We were talking together about security teams jumping on every team and putting a C on their jersey to be like the captain of the intramural team, and being involved, and it goes beyond just like the checklist, like you said, "Oh, I got the SBOM list of materials and I got a code scanning thing." That's not enough, is what we're hearing. >> No. >> Is there a framework or a methodology to go beyond that? You got the empathetic, that's really kind of team issue. You got to go beyond some of the tactical things. What's next beyond, you got the empathy and what's that framework structure when you say where you say anything there? >> So what do you do after you have the empathy, right? >> Yeah. >> I would say Salsa is a good place to start, the software levels. Supply chain levels for software artifacts. It's a mouthful. That's a really good maturity framework to start with. No matter what size organization you have, they're just going to be coming out here soon with version one. They release 0.1 a few months back. That's a really good place to give yourself a gut check of where you are in maturity and where you can go, what are best practices. And then there's the SSDF, which is the Secure Software Development framework. I think NIST wrote that one. But that is also a really, a really good framework and they map really well to each other, actually, When you work through Salsa, you're actually working through the SSDF requirements. >> Awesome. Well, great to have you on and great to get that that knowledge. I have to ask you like coup con, I remember when it started in Seattle, their first coup con events, right? Kind of small, similar to this one, but there's a lot of end user activities. Certainly the CNCF kind of was coming together like right after that. What's the end user activity like there this week? That seems to always been the driver of these events. It's a little bit organic. You got some of the key experts coming together, focus. Have you observed any end user activity in terms of contributions, participation? What's the story on the end user piece there? Is it heavy? Is it light? What's the... >> Um, yeah... It seems moderate. I guess somewhere in the middle. I would say largely heavy, but there's definitely participation. There is a lot of communing and networking happening between different organizations to partner together, which is important. But I haven't really paid attention much to like the Twitter side of this. >> Yeah, you've been busy doing the keynotes. How's Red Hat doing all this? You guys have been great positioned with the cloud native movement. Been following the Red Hat's moves since OpenStack days. Really good, good line of product, good open source, Mojo, of course. Good product mix, right, and relevant. Where's the security focus here? Obviously, you guys are clearly focused on security. How's the Red Hat story going on over there? >> There was yesterday a really good talk that explains that super well. It was given by a Red Hatter, connecting all of the open source projects we've been a part of and kind of explaining them. And obviously again, I'm keying in 'cause it's a supply chain kind of conversation, but I'd recommend that anyone who's going to go back and watch these on YouTube to check that one out just to see kind of how we're approaching the security space as well as how we contribute back to the community in that way. >> Awesome. Great to have you on. Final word, I'll give you the final word. What's the big buzz on supply chain? How would you peg the progress there? Feeling good about where things are? What's the current progress on supply chain security? >> I think that it has opened up a lot of doors for communication between security organizations that have tended to be closed. I'm in product security. Product securities, information securities tend to not speak externally about what we're doing. So you don't want to, you know, look bad or you don't want to expose any risk that we have, right? But it is, I think, necessary to open those lines of communication, to be able to start tackling this. It's a big problem throughout all of our industries, and if one supply chain is attacked and those products are used in someone else's supply chain, that can continue, right? So I think it's good. We have a lot of work to do as an industry and the advancements in technology is going to make that a little bit more complicated. But I'm excited for it. >> You can just throw AI at it. That's the big, everyone's doing AI. Just throw AI at it, it'll solve it. Isn't that the new thing? >> I do secure AI though. >> Super important. I love what you're doing there. Supply chain, open source needs, supply chain security. Open source needs this big time. It has to be there. Thank you for the work that you do. Really appreciate you coming on. Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> Yeah, good stuff. Supply chain, critical to open source growth. Open source is going to be the key to success in the future with automation and AI right around the corner. And that's important. This theCUBE covers from cloud native con, security con in North America, 2023. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) >> Hello everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Cloud Native SecurityCon North America 2023. Obviously, CUBE's coverage with our CUBE Center Report. We're not there on the ground, but we have folks and our CUBE Alumni there. We have entrepreneurs there. Of course, we want to be there in person, but we're remote. We've got Ben Hirschberg, CTO and Co-Founder of Armo, a cloud native security startup, well positioned in this industry. He's there in Seattle. Ben, thank you for coming on and sharing what's going on with theCUBE. >> Yeah, it's great to be here, John. >> So we had written on you guys up on SiliconANGLE. Congratulations on your momentum and traction. But let's first get into what's going on there on the ground? What are some of the key trends? What's the most important story being told there? What is the vibe? What's the most important story right now? >> So I think, I would like to start here with the I think the most important thing was that I think the event is very successful. Usually, the Cloud Native Security Day usually was part of KubeCon in the previous years and now it became its own conference of its own and really kudos to all the organizers who brought this up in, actually in a short time. And it wasn't really clear how many people will turn up, but at the end, we see a really nice turn up and really great talks and keynotes around here. I think that one of the biggest trends, which haven't started like in this conference, but already we're talking for a while is supply chain. Supply chain is security. I think it's, right now, the biggest trend in the talks, in the keynotes. And I think that we start to see companies, big companies, who are adopting themselves into this direction. There is a clear industry need. There is a clear problem and I think that the cloud native security teams are coming up with tooling around it. I think for right now we see more tools than adoption, but the adoption is always following the tooling. And I think it already proves itself. So we have just a very interesting talk this morning about the OpenSSL vulnerability, which was I think around Halloween, which came out and everyone thought that it's going to be a critical issue for the whole cloud native and internet infrastructure and at the end it turned out to be a lesser problem, but the reason why I think it was understood that to be a lesser problem real soon was that because people started to use (indistinct) store software composition information in the environment so security teams could look into, look up in their systems okay, what, where they're using OpenSSL, which version they are using. It became really soon real clear that this version is not adopted by a wide array of software out there so the tech surface is relatively small and I think it already proved itself that the direction if everyone is talking about. >> Yeah, we agree, we're very bullish on this move from the Cloud Native Foundation CNCF that do the security conference. Amazon Web Services has re:Invent. That's their big show, but they also have re:Inforce, the security show, so clearly they work together. I like the decoupling, very cohesive. But you guys have Kubescape of Kubernetes security. Talk about the conversations that are there and that you're hearing around why there's different event what's different around KubeCon and CloudNativeCon than this Cloud Native SecurityCon. It's not called KubeSucSecCon, it's called Cloud Native SecurityCon. What's the difference? Are people confused? Is it clear? What's the difference between the two shows? What are you hearing? >> So I think that, you know, there is a good question. Okay, where is Cloud Native Computing Foundation came from? Obviously everyone knows that it was somewhat coupled with the adoption of Kubernetes. It was a clear understanding in the industry that there are different efforts where the industry needs to come together without looking be very vendor-specific and try to sort out a lot of issues in order to enable adoption and bring great value and I think that the main difference here between KubeCon and the Cloud Native Security Conference is really the focus, and not just on Kubernetes, but the whole ecosystem behind that. The way we are delivering software, the way we are monitoring software, and all where Kubernetes is only just, you know, maybe the biggest clog in the system, but, you know, just one of the others and it gives great overview of what you have in the whole ecosystem. >> Yeah, I think it's a good call. I would add that what I'm hearing too is that security is so critical to the business model of every company. It's so mainstream. The hackers have a great business model. They make money, their costs are lower than the revenue. So the business of hacking in breaches, ransomware all over the place is so successful that they're playing offense, everyone's playing defense, so it's about time we can get focus to really be faster and more nimble and agile on solving some of these security challenges in open source. So I think that to me is a great focus and so I give total props to the CNC. I call it the event operating system. You got the security group over here decoupled from the main kernel, but they work together. Good call and so this brings back up to some of the things that are going on so I have to ask you, as your startup as a CTO, you guys have the Kubescape platform, how do you guys fit into the landscape and what's different from your tools for Kubernetes environments versus what's out there? >> So I think that our journey is really interesting in the solution space because I think that our mode really tries to understand where security can meet the actual adoption because as you just said, somehow we have to sort out together how security is going to be automated and integrated in its best way. So Kubescape project started as a Kubernetes security posture tool. Just, you know, when people are really early in their adoption of Kubernetes systems, they want to understand whether the installation is is secure, whether the basic configurations are look okay, and giving them instant feedback on that, both in live systems and in the CICD, this is where Kubescape came from. We started as an open source project because we are big believers of open source, of the power of open source security, and I can, you know I think maybe this is my first interview when I can say that Kubescape was accepted to be a CNCF Sandbox project so Armo was actually donating the project to the CNCF, I think, which is a huge milestone and a great way to further the adoption of Kubernetes security and from now on we want to see where the users in Armo and Kubescape project want to see where the users are going, their Kubernetes security journey and help them to automatize, help them to to implement security more fast in the way the developers are using it working. >> Okay, if you don't mind, I want to just get clarification. What's the difference between the Armo platform and Kubescape because you have Kubescape Sandbox project and Armo platform. Could you talk about the differences and interaction? >> Sure, Kubescape is an open source project and Armo platform is actually a managed platform which runs Kubescape in the cloud for you because Kubescape is part, it has several parts. One part is, which is running inside the Kubernetes cluster in the CICD processes of the user, and there is another part which we call the backend where the results are stored and can be analyzed further. So Armo platform gives you managed way to run the backend, but I can tell you that backend is also, will be available within a month or two also for everyone to install on their premises as well, because again, we are an open source company and we are, we want to enable users, so the difference is that Armo platform is a managed platform behind Kubescape. >> How does Kubescape differ from closed proprietary sourced solutions? >> So I can tell you that there are closed proprietary solutions which are very good security solutions, but I think that the main difference, if I had to pick beyond the very specific technicalities is the worldview. The way we see that our user is not the CISO. Our user is not necessarily the security team. From our perspective, the user is the DevOps and the developers who are working on the Kubernetes cluster day to day and we want to enable them to improve their security. So actually our approach is more developer-friendly, if I would need to define it very shortly. >> What does this risk calculation score you guys have in Kubscape? That's come up and we cover that in our story. Can you explain to the folks how that fits in? Is it Kubescape is the platform and what's the benefit, what's the purpose? >> So the risk calculation is actually a score we are giving to clusters in order for the users to understand where they are standing in the general population, how they are faring against a perfect hardened cluster. It is based on the number of different tests we are making. And I don't want to go into, you know, the very specifics of the mathematical functions, but in general it takes into account how many functions are failing, security tests are failing inside your cluster. How many nodes you are having, how many workloads are having, and creating this number which enables you to understand where you are standing in the global, in the world. >> What's the customer value that you guys pitching? What's the pitch for the Armo platform? When you go and talk to a customer, are they like, "We need you." Do they come to you? Is it word of mouth? You guys have a strategy? What's the pitch? What's so appealing to the customers? Why are they enthusiastic about you guys? >> So John, I can tell you, maybe it's not so easy to to say the words, but I nearly 20 years in the industry and though I've been always around cyber and the defense industry and I can tell you that I never had this journey where before where I could say that the the customers are coming to us and not we are pitching to customers. Simply because people want to, this is very easy tool, very very easy to use, very understandable and it very helps the engineers to improve security posture. And they're coming to us and they're saying, "Well, awesome, okay, how we can like use it. Do you have a graphical interface?" And we are pointing them to the Armor platform and they are falling in love and coming to us even more and we can tell you that we have a big number of active users behind the platform itself. >> You know, one of the things that comes up every time at KubeCon and Cloud NativeCon when we're there, and we'll be in Amsterdam, so folks watching, you know, we'll see onsite, developer productivity is like the number one thing everyone talks about and security is so important. It's become by default a blocker or anchor or a drag on productivity. This is big, the things that you're mentioning, easy to use, engineering supporting it, developer adoption, you know we've always said on theCUBE, developers will be the de facto standards bodies by their choices 'cause developers make all the decisions. So if I can go faster and I can have security kind of programmed in, I'm not shifting left, it's just I'm just having security kind of in there. That's the dream state. Is that what you guys are trying to do here? Because that's the nirvana, everyone wants to do that. >> Yeah, I think your definition is like perfect because really we had like this, for a very long time we had this world where we decoupled security teams from developers and even for sometimes from engineering at all and I think for multiple reasons, we are more seeing a big convergence. Security teams are becoming part of the engineering and the engineering becoming part of the security and as you're saying, okay, the day-to-day world of developers are becoming very tangled up in the good way with security, so the think about it that today, one of my developers at Armo is creating a pull request. He's already, code is already scanned by security scanners for to test for different security problems. It's already, you know, before he already gets feedback on his first time where he's sharing his code and if there is an issue, he already can solve it and this is just solving issues much faster, much cheaper, and also you asked me about, you know, the wipe in the conference and we know no one can deny the current economic wipe we have and this also relates to security teams and security teams has to be much more efficient. And one of the things that everyone is talking, okay, we need more automation, we need more, better tooling and I think we are really fitting into this. >> Yeah, and I talked to venture capitalists yesterday and today, an angel investor. Best time for startup is right now and again, open source is driving a lot of value. Ben, it's been great to have you on and sharing with us what's going on on the ground there as well as talking about some of the traction you have. Just final question, how old's the company? How much funding do you have? Where you guys located? Put a plug in for the company. You guys looking to hire? Tell us about the company. Were you guys located? How much capital do you have? >> So, okay, the company's here for three years. We've passed a round last March with Tiger and Hyperwise capitals. We are located, most of the company's located today in Israel in Tel Aviv, but we have like great team also in Ukraine and also great guys are in Europe and right now also Craig Box joined us as an open source VP and he's like right now located in New Zealand, so we are a really global team, which I think it's really helps us to strengthen ourselves. >> Yeah, and I think this is the entrepreneurial equation for the future. It's really great to see that global. We heard that in Priyanka Sharma's keynote. It's a global culture, global community. >> Right. >> And so really, really props you guys. Congratulations on Armo and thanks for coming on theCUBE and sharing insights and expertise and also what's happening on the ground. Appreciate it, Ben, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you, John. >> Okay, cheers. Okay, this is CUB coverage here of the Cloud Native SecurityCon in North America 2023. I'm John Furrier for Lisa Martin, Dave Vellante. We're back with more of wrap up of the event after this short break. (gentle upbeat music)

(energetic music plays) >> Lisa: Hey everyone, we're so glad you're here with us. theCUBE is covering Cloud Native Security Con 23. Lisa Martin here with John Furrier. This is our second day of coverage of the event. We've had some great conversations with a lot of intellectual, exciting folks, as you know cuz you've been watching. John and I are very pleased to welcome back one of our alumni to theCUBE Taylor Dolezal joins us the head of ecosystem at CNCF. Taylor, welcome back to theCUBE. Great to see you. >> Taylor: Hey everybody, great to see you again. >> Lisa: So you are on the ground in Seattle. We're jealous. We've got fomo as John would say. Talk to us about, this is a inaugural event. We were watching Priyanka keynote yesterday. Seemed like a lot of folks there, 72 sessions a lot of content, a lot of discussions. What's the buzz, what's the reception of this inaugural event from your perspective? >> Taylor: So it's been really fantastic. I think the number one thing that has come out of this conference so far is that it's a wonderful chance to come together and for people to see one another. It's, it's been a long time that we've kind of had that opportunity to be able to interact with folks or you know, it's just a couple months since last Cube Con. But this is truly a different vibe and it's nice to have that focus on security. We're seeing a lot of folks within different organizations work through different problems and then finally have a vendor neutral space in which to talk about all of those contexts and really raise everybody up with all this new knowledge and new talking points, topics, and different facets of knowledge. >> John: Taylor, we were joking on our yesterday's summary of the keynotes, Dave Vellante and I, and the guests, Lisa and I, about the CNCF having an event operating system, you know, very decoupled highly cohesive events, strung together beautifully through the Linux Foundation, you know, kind of tongue in cheek but it was kind of fun to play on words because it's a very technical community. But the business model of, of hackers is booming. The reality of businesses booming and Cloud Native is the preferred developer environment for the future application. So the emphasis, it's very clear that this is a good move to do and targeting the community around security's a solid move. Amazon's done it with reinforce and reinvent. We see that Nice segmentation. What's the goal? Because this is really where it connects to Cube Con and Cloud Native Con as well because this shift left there too. But here it's very much about hardcore Cloud Native security. What's your positioning on this? Am I getting it right or is there is that how you guys see it? >> Taylor: Yeah, so, so that's what we've see that's what we were talking about as well as we were thinking on breaking this event out. So originally this event was a co-located event during the Cube Con windows in both Europe and North America. And then it just was so consistently popular clearly a topic that people wanted to talk, which is good that people want to talk of security. And so when we saw this massive continued kind of engagement, we wanted to break this off into its own conference. When we were going through that process internally, like you had mentioned the events team is just phenomenal to work with and they, I love how easy that they make it for us to be able to do these kinds of events too though we wanted to talk through how we differentiate this event from others and really what's changed for us and kind of how we see this space is that we didn't really see any developer-centric open source kinds of conferences. Ones that were really favoring of the developer and focus on APIs and ways in which to implement these things across all of your workloads within your organization. So that's truly what we're looking to go for here during these, all of these sessions. And that's how it's been playing out so far which has been really great to see. >> John: Taylor, I want to ask you on the ecosystem obviously the built-in ecosystem at CNCF.IO with Cube Cons Cloud Cons there, this is a new ecosystem opportunity to add more people that are security focused. Is their new entrance coming into the fold and what's been the reaction? >> Taylor: So short answer is yes we've seen a huge uptick across our vendor members and those are people that are creating Cloud offerings and selling those and working with others to implement them as well as our end users. So people consuming Cloud Native projects and using them to power core parts of their business. We have gotten a lot of data from groups like IBM and security, IBM security and put 'em on institute. They gave us a cost of data breach report that Priyanka mentioned and talked about 43% of those organizations haven't started or in the early stages of updating security practices of their cloud environments and then here on the ground, you know, talking through some best practices and really sharing those out as well. So it's, I've gotten to hear pieces and parts of different conversations and and I'm certain we'll hear more about those soon but it's just really been great to, to hear everybody with that main focus of, hey, there's more that we can do within the security space and you know, let's let's help one another out on that front just because it is such a vast landscape especially in the security space. >> Lisa: It's a huge landscape. And to your point earlier, Taylor it's everyone has the feeling that it's just so great to be back together again getting folks out of the silos that they've been operating in for such a long time. But I'd love to get some of your, whatever you can share in terms of some of the Cloud Native security projects that you've heard about over the last day or so. Anything exciting that you think is really demonstrating the value already and this inaugural event? >> Taylor: Yes, so I I've been really excited to hear a lot of, personally I've really liked the talks around EBPF. There are a whole bunch of projects utilizing that as far as runtime security goes and actually getting visibility into your workloads and being able to see things that you do expect and things that you don't expect and how to remediate those. And then I keep hearing a lot of talks about open policy agents and projects like Caverno around you know, how do we actually automate different policies or within regulated industries, how do we actually start to solve those problems? So I've heard even more around CNCF projects and other contexts that have come up but truly most of them have been around the telemetry space EBPF and, and quite a few others. So really great to, to see all those projects choosing something to bind to and making it that much more accessible for folks to implement or build on top of as well. >> John: I love the reference you guys had just the ChatGPT that was mentioned in the keynote yesterday and also the reference to Dan Kaminsky who was mentioned on the reference to DNS and Bind, lot of root level security going on. It seems like this is like a Tiger team event where all the top alpha security gurus come together, Priyanka said, experts bottoms up, developer first practitioners, that's the vibe. Is that kind of how you guys want it to be more practitioners hardcore? >> Taylor: Absolutely, absolutely. I think that when it comes to security, we really want to help. It's definitely a grassroots movement. It's great to have the people that have such a deep understanding of certain security, just bits of knowledge really when it comes to EBPF. You know, we have high surveillance here that we're talking things through. Falco is here with Sysdig and so it it's great to have all of these people here, though I have seen a good spread of folks that are, you know, most people have started their security journey but they're not where they want to be. And so people that are starting at a 2 0 1, 3 0 1, 4 0 1 level of understanding definitely seeing a good spread of knowledge on that front. But it's really, it's been great to have folks from all varying experiences, but then to have the expertise of the folks that are writing these specifications and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with security to to ensure that we're all okay and updated on that front too, I think was most notable yesterday. Like you had said >> Lisa: Sorry Taylor, when we think of security, again this is an issue that, that organizations in every industry face, nobody is immune to this. We can talk about the value in it for the hackers in terms of ransomware alone for example. But you mentioned a stat that there's a good amount of organizations that are really either early in their security journeys or haven't started yet which kind of sounds a bit scary given the landscape and how much has changed in the last couple of years. But it sounds like on the good news front it isn't too late for organizations. Talk a little bit about some of the recommendations and best practices for those organizations who are behind the curve knowing that the next attack is going to happen. >> Taylor: Absolutely. So fantastic question. I think that when it comes to understanding the fact that people need to implement security and abide by best practices, it's like I I'm sure that many of us can agree on that front, you know, hopefully all of us. But when it comes to actually implementing that, that's I agree with you completely. That's where it's really difficult to find where where do I start, where do I actually look at? And there are a couple of answers on that front. So within the CNTF ecosystem we have a technical action group security, so tag security and they have a whole bunch of working groups that cover different facets of the Cloud Native experience. So if you, for example, are concerned about runtime security or application delivery concerns within there, those are some really good places to find people knowledgeable about, that even when the conference isn't going on to get a sense of what's going on. And then TAG security has also published recently version two of their security report which is free accessible online. They can actually look through that, see what some of the recent topics are and points of focus and of interest are within our community. There are also other organizations like Open SSF which is taking a deeper dive into security. You know, initially kind of having a little bit more of an academic focus on that space and then now getting further into things around software bill materials or SBOMs supply chain security and other topics as well. >> John: Well we love you guys doing this. We think it's very big deal. We think it's important. We're starting to see events post COVID take a certain formation, you know joking aside about the event operating systems smaller events are happening, but they're tied together. And so this is key. And of course the critical need is our businesses are under siege with threats, ransomware, security challenges, that's IT moves to Cloud Native, not everyone's moved over yet. So that's in progress. So there's a huge business imperative and the hackers have a business model. So this isn't like pie in the sky, this is urgent. So, that being said, how do you see this developing from who should attend the next one or who are you looking for to be involved to get input from you guys are open arms and very diverse and great great culture there, but who are you looking for? What's the makeup persona that you hope to attract and nurture and grow? >> Taylor: Absolutely. I, think that when it comes to trying the folks that we're looking for the correct answer is it varies you know, from, you know, you're asking Priyanka or our executive director or Chris Aniszczyk our CTO, I work mostly with the end users, so for me personally I really want to see folks that are operating within our ecosystem and actually pulling these down, these projects down and using them and sharing those stories. Because there are people creating these projects and contributing to them might not always have an idea of how they're used or how they can be exploited too. A lot of these groups that I work with like Mercedes or Intuit for example, they're out there in the world using these, these projects and getting a sense for, you know, what can come up. And by sharing that knowledge I think that's what's most important across the board. So really looking for those stories to be told and novel ways in which people are trying to exploit security and attacking the supply chain, or building applications, or just things we haven't thought about. So truly that that developer archetype is really helpful to have the consumers, the end users, the folks that are actually using these. And then, yeah, and I'm truly anywhere knowledgeable about security or that wants to learn more >> John: Super important, we're here to help you scale those stories up whatever you need, send them our way. We're looking forward to getting those. This is a super important movement getting the end users who are on the front lines bringing it back into the open, building, more software, making it secure and verified, all super important. We really appreciate the mission you guys are on and again we're here to help. So send those stories our way. >> Taylor: Cool, cool. We couldn't do it without you. Yeah, just everyone contributing, everyone sharing the news. This is it's people, people is the is the true operating system of our ecosystem. So really great to, really great to share. >> Lisa: That's such a great point Taylor. It is all about people. You talked about this event having a different vibe. I wanted to learn a little bit more about that as we, as we wrap up because there's so much cultural change that's required for organizations to evolve their security practices. And so people of course are at the center of culture. Talk a little bit about why that vibe is different and do you think that yeah, it's finally time. Everyone's getting on the same page here we're understanding, we're learning from each other. >> Taylor: Yes. So, so to kind of answer that, I think it's really a focus on, there's this term shift left and shift right. And talking about where do we actually put security in the mix as it comes to people adopting this and and figuring out where things go. And if you keep shifting at left, that meaning that the developers should care more deeply about this and a deeper understanding of all of these, you know, even if it's, even if they don't understand how to put it together, maybe understand a little bit about it or how these topics and, and facets of knowledge work. But you know, like with anything, if you shift everything off to one side or the other that's also not going to be efficient. You know, you want a steady stream of knowledge flowing throughout your whole organization. So I think that that's been something that has been a really interesting topic and, and hearing people kind of navigate and try to get through, especially groups that have had, you know, deployed an app and it's going to be around for 40 years as well. So I think that those are some really interesting and unique areas of focus that I've come up on the floor and then in a couple of the sessions here >> Lisa: There's got to be that, that balance there. Last question as we wrap the last 30 seconds or so what are you excited about given the success and the momentum of day one? What excites you about what's ahead for us on day two? >> Taylor: So on day two, I'm really, it's, there's just so many sessions. I think that it was very difficult for me to, you know pick which one I was actually going to go see. There are a lot of favorites that I had kind of doubled up at each of the time so I'm honestly going to be in a lot of the sessions today. So really excited about that. Supply chain security is definitely one that's close to my heart as well but I'm really curious to see what new topics, concepts or novel ideas people have to kind of exploit things. Like one for example is a package is out there it's called Browser Test but somebody came up with one called Bowser Test. Just a very simple misname and then when you go and run that it does a fake kind of like, hey you've been exploited and just even these incorrect name attacks. That's something that is really close and dear to me as well. Kind of hearing about all these wild things people wouldn't think about in terms of exploitation. So really, really excited to hear more stories on that front and better protect myself both at home and within the Cloud Community as I stand these things up. >> Lisa: Absolutely you need to clone yourself so that you can, there's so many different sessions. There needs to be multiple versions of Taylor that you can attend and then you can all get together and talk about and learn. But that's actually a really good problem to have as we mentioned when we started 72 sessions yesterday and today. Lots of great content. Taylor, we thank you for your participation. We thank you for bringing the vibe and the buzz of the event to us and we look forward as well to hearing and seeing what day two brings us today. Thank you so much for your time Taylor. >> Taylor: Thank you for having me. >> John: All right >> Lisa: Right, for our guest and John Furrier, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCube's Day two coverage of Cloud Native Security Con 23. (energetic music plays)

(upbeat music) >> Hey, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's day one coverage of Cloud Native SecurityCon 2023. This has been a great conversation that we've been able to be a part of today. Lisa Martin with John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Dave and John, I want to get your take on the conversations that we had today, starting with the keynote that we were able to see. What are your thoughts? We talked a lot about technology. We also talked a lot about people and culture. John, starting with you, what's the story here with this inaugural event? >> Well, first of all, there's two major threads. One is the breakout of a new event from CloudNativeCon/KubeCon, which is a very successful community and events that they do international and in North America. And that's not stopping. So that's going to be continuing to go great. This event is a breakout with an extreme focus on security and all things security around that ecosystem. And with extensions into the Linux Foundation. We heard Brian Behlendorf was on there from the Linux Foundation. So he was involved in Hyperledger. So not just Cloud Native, all things containers, Kubernetes, all things Linux Foundation as an open source. So, little bit more of a focus. So I like that piece of it. The other big thread on this story is what Dave and Yves were talking about on our panel we had earlier, which was the business model of security is real and that is absolutely happening. It's impacting business today. So you got this, let's build as fast as possible, let's retool, let's replatform, refactor and then the reality of the business imperative. To me, those are the two big high-order bits that are going on and that's the reality of this current situation. >> Dave, what are your top takeaways from today's day one inaugural coverage? >> Yeah, I would add a third leg of the stool to what John said and that's what we were talking about several times today about the security is a do-over. The Pat Gelsinger quote, from what was that, John, 2011, 2012? And that's right around the time that the cloud was hitting this steep part of the S-curve and do-over really has meant in looking back, leveraging cloud native tooling, and cloud native technologies, which are different than traditional security approaches because it has to take into account the unique characteristics of the cloud whether that's dynamic resource allocation, unlimited resources, microservices, containers. And while that has helped solve some problems it also brings new challenges. All these cloud native tools, securing this decentralized infrastructure that people are dealing with and really trying to relearn the security culture. And that's kind of where we are today. >> I think the other thing too that I had Dave is that was we get other guests on with a diverse opinion around foundational models with AI and machine learning. You're going to see a lot more things come in to accelerate the scale and automation piece of it. It is one thing that CloudNativeCon and KubeCon has shown us what the growth of cloud computing is is that containers Kubernetes and these new services are powering scale. And scale you're going to need to have automation and machine learning and AI will be a big part of that. So you start to see the new formation of stacks emerging. So foundational stacks is the machine learning and data apps are coming out. It's going to start to see more apps coming. So I think there's going to be so many new applications and services are going to emerge, and if you don't get your act together on the infrastructure side those apps will not be fully baked. >> And obviously that's a huge risk. Sorry, Dave, go ahead. >> No, that's okay. So there has to be hardware somewhere. You can't get away with no hardware. But increasingly the security architecture like everything else is, is software-defined and makes it a lot more flexible. And to the extent that practitioners and organizations can consolidate this myriad of tools that they have, that means they're going to have less trouble learning new skills, they're going to be able to spend more time focused and become more proficient on the tooling that is being applied. And you're seeing the same thing on the vendor side. You're seeing some of these large vendors, Palo Alto, certainly CrowdStrike and fundamental to their strategy is to pick off more and more and more of these areas in security and begin to consolidate them. And right now, that's a big theme amongst organizations. We know from the survey data that consolidating redundant vendors is the number one cost saving priority today. Along with, at a distant second, optimizing cloud costs, but consolidating redundant vendors there's nowhere where that's more prominent than in security. >> Dave, talk a little bit about that, you mentioned the practitioners and obviously this event bottoms up focused on the practitioners. It seems like they're really in the driver's seat now. With this being the inaugural Cloud Native SecurityCon, first time it's been pulled out of an elevated out of KubeCon as a focus, do you think this is about time that the practitioners are in the driver's seat? >> Well, they're certainly, I mean, we hear about all the tech layoffs. You're not laying off your top security pros and if you are, they're getting picked up very quickly. So I think from that standpoint, anybody who has deep security expertise is in the driver's seat. The problem is that driver's seat is pretty hairy and you got to have the stomach for it. I mean, these are technical heroes, if you will, on the front lines, literally saving the world from criminals and nation-states. And so yes, I think Lisa they have been in the driver's seat for a while, but it it takes a unique person to drive at those speeds. >> I mean, the thing too is that the cloud native world that we are living in comes from cloud computing. And if you look at this, what is a practitioner? There's multiple stakeholders that are being impacted and are vulnerable in the security front at many levels. You have application developers, you got IT market, you got security, infrastructure, and network and whatever. So all that old to new is happening. So if you look at IT, that market is massive. That's still not transformed yet to cloud. So you have companies out there literally fully exposed to ransomware. IT teams that are having practices that are antiquated and outdated. So security patching, I mean the blocking and tackling of the old securities, it's hard to even support that old environment. So in this transition from IT to cloud is changing everything. And so practitioners are impacted from the devs and the ones that get there faster and adopt the ways to make their business better, whether you call it modern technology and architectures, will be alive and hopefully thriving. So that's the challenge. And I think this security focus hits at the heart of the reality of business because like I said, they're under threats. >> I wanted to pick up too on, I thought Brian Behlendorf, he did a forward looking what could become the next problem that we really haven't addressed. He talked about generative AI, automating spearphishing and he flat out said the (indistinct) is not fixed. And so identity access management, again, a lot of different toolings. There's Microsoft, there's Okta, there's dozens of companies with different identity platforms that practitioners have to deal with. And then what he called free riders. So these are folks that go into the repos. They're open source repos, and they find vulnerabilities that developers aren't hopping on quickly. It's like, you remember Patch Tuesday. We still have Patch Tuesday. That meant Hacker Wednesday. It's kind of the same theme there going into these repos and finding areas where the practitioners, the developers aren't responding quickly enough. They just don't necessarily have the resources. And then regulations, public policy being out of alignment with what's really needed, saying, "Oh, you can't ship that fix outside of Germany." Or I'm just making this up, but outside of this region because of a law. And you could be as a developer personally liable for it. So again, while these practitioners are in the driver's seat, it's a hairy place to be. >> Dave, we didn't get the word supercloud in much on this event, did we? >> Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I think security is the big single, biggest challenge for supercloud, securing the supercloud with all the diversity of tooling across clouds and I think you brought something up in the first supercloud, John. You said, "Look, ultimately the cloud, the hyperscalers have to lean in. They are going to be the enablers of supercloud. They already are from an infrastructure standpoint, but they can solve this problem by working together. And I think there needs to be more industry collaboration. >> And I think the point there is that with security the trend will be, in my opinion, you'll see security being reborn in the cloud, around zero trust as structure, and move from an on-premise paradigm to fully cloud native. And you're seeing that in the network side, Dave, where people are going to each cloud and building stacks inside the clouds, hyperscaler clouds that are completely compatible end-to-end with on-premises. Not trying to force the cloud to be working with on-prem. They're completely refactoring as cloud native first. And again, that's developer first, that's data first, that's security first. So to me that's the tell sign. To me is if when you see that, that's good. >> And Lisa, I think the cultural conversation that you've brought into these discussions is super important because I've said many times, bad user behavior is going to trump good security every time. So that idea that the entire organization is responsible for security. You hear that all the time. Well, what does that mean? It doesn't mean I have to be a security expert, it just means I have to be smart. How many people actually use a VPN? >> So I think one of the things that I'm seeing with the cultural change is face-to-face problem solving is one, having remote teams is another. The skillset is big. And I think the culture of having these teams, Dave mentioned something about intramural sports, having the best people on the teams, from putting captains on the jersey of security folks is going to happen. I think you're going to see a lot more of that going on because there's so many areas to work on. You're going to start to see security embedded in all processes. >> Well, it needs to be and that level of shared responsibility is not trivial. That's across the organization. But they're also begs the question of the people problem. People are one of the biggest challenges with respect to security. Everyone has to be on board with this. It has to be coming from the top down, but also the bottom up at the same time. It's challenging to coordinate. >> Well, the training thing I think is going to solve itself in good time. And I think in the fullness of time, if I had to predict, you're going to see managed services being a big driver on the front end, and then as companies realize where their IP will be you'll see those managed service either be a core competency of their business and then still leverage. So I'm a big believer in managed services. So you're seeing Kubernetes, for instance, a lot of managed services. You'll start to see more, get the ball going, get that rolling, then build. So Dave mentioned bottoms up, middle out, that's how transformation happens. So I think managed services will win from here, but ultimately the business model stuff is so critical. >> I'm glad you brought up managed services and I want to add to that managed security service providers, because I saw a stat last year, 50% of organizations in the US don't even have a security operations team. So managed security service providers MSSPs are going to fill the gap, especially for small and midsize companies and for those larger companies that just need to augment and compliment their existing staff. And so those practitioners that we've been talking about, those really hardcore pros, they're going to go into these companies, some large, the big four, all have them. Smaller companies like Arctic Wolf are going to, I think, really play a key role in this decade. >> I want to get your opinion Dave on what you're hoping to see from this event as we've talked about the first inaugural standalone big focus here on security as a standalone. Obviously, it's a huge challenge. What are you hoping for this event to get groundswell from the community? What are you hoping to hear and see as we wrap up day one and go into day two? >> I always say events like this they're about educating, aspiring to action. And so the practitioners that are at this event I think, I used to say they're the technical heroes. So we know there's going to be another Log4j or a another SolarWinds. It's coming. And my hope is that when that happens, it's not an if, it's a when, that the industry, these practitioners are able to respond in a way that's safe and fast and agile and they're able to keep us protected, number one and number two, that they can actually figure out what happened in the long tail of still trying to clean it up is compressed. That's my hope or maybe it's a dream. >> I think day two tomorrow you're going to hear more supply chain, security. You're going to start to see them focus on sessions that target areas if within the CNCF KubeCon + CloudNativeCon area that need support around containers, clusters, around Kubernetes cluster. You're going to start to see them laser focus on cleaning up the house, if you will, if you can call it cleaning up or fixing what needs to get fixed or solved what needs to get solved on the cloud native front. That's going to be urgent. And again, supply chain software as Dave mentioned, free riders too, just using open source. So I think you'll see open source continue to grow, but there'll be an emphasis on verification and certification. And Docker has done a great job with that. You've seen what they've done with their business model over hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from a pivot. Catch a few years earlier because they verify. So I think we're going to be in this verification blue check mark of code era, of code and software. Super important bill of materials. They call SBOMs, software bill of materials. People want to know what's in their software and that's going to be, again, another opportunity for machine learning and other things. So I'm optimistic that this is going to be a good focus. >> Good. I like that. I think that's one of the things thematically that we've heard today is optimism about what this community can generate in terms of today's point. The next Log4j is coming. We know it's not if, it's when, and all organizations need to be ready to Dave's point to act quickly with agility to dial down and not become the next headline. Nobody wants to be that. Guys, it's been fun working with you on this day one event. Looking forward to day two. Lisa Martin for Dave Vellante and John Furrier. You're watching theCUBE's day one coverage of Cloud Native SecurityCon '23. We'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music)