>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering VMworld 2018. (upbeat music) Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's continuing coverage of VMworld 2018, I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante. Hey Dave! >> Hey Lisa, how's it going? >> Good, day two. >> Good to see you back here again. >> Exactly! >> Bouncin' between the sets. >> I am. >> 94 guests, it's good. >> In three days, yeah. We've learned a lot already and we're nearing the end of day two. Excited to welcome two new guys to theCUBE, we've got Colin Durocher, Project Manager from Dell EMC, and Sandro Bercelli, Global Product Manager at Telefonica. Gentlemen, it's nice to have you here. >> Great to be here, first time on theCUBE. >> So first time on theCUBE, 20th anniversary of VMware, lots to celebrate, lots going on. From an announcement perspective, momentum perspective, Colin, let's start with you. What are some of the market trends, the customer voices that you were hearing regarding data protection and it's criticality in this multi-cloud world, in which all these enterprises now live? >> Sure, I think we have to put it into context with the growth of the cloud. The cloud is growing exponentially and data protection is one of the leading use cases. I think IDC did a survey recently, 58% of people using the cloud are doing data protection in the cloud. Backup and recovery is the number one use case. So that's one trend. Another trend is more specific to VMworld and VMware. Their vCloud provider program is, or the business unit is one of the fastest growing business units at VMware. They're having incredible success built on the back of fantastic products. And so what we've done is, about a year ago actually, at VMworld last year we formed a three-way partnership between Telefonica, VMware and Dell EMC, to provide a turnkey solution for cloud providers to deliver data protection as a service. >> So I wonder if we can talk a little bit about Telefonica and your business and how it's evolved, say, over the last, I don't know, pick a time frame, decade, better part of a decade. How is it evolving and changing? >> It's a long partnership that you have between Dell EMC and Telefonica and VMware. So we start many years ago, launching new versions of it to see 2.0, 3.0, and now moving to 4.0. So was not so easy doing this journey to improve our service catalog to our customers. And right now, with the VDC 4.0 with the new interface of the cloud director 9.x (mumbles) in data protection software of VMC, but increasing a lot the functionalities show our customers, increasing the user experience of our customers. It is our very valuable to our customers in this new approach of the VDC 4.0. >> So if you think about, if you go back to the early days of virtualization, everybody sort of, you know, took 10 servers, and brought them down to one, which is great, because all the compute power was under-utilized. But of course the one job that needed all that compute power was backup. >> [Colin And Sandro] Sure. >> Then you saw data protection change to accommodate that. Okay, and customers re-architected, et cetera. Now we enter the cloud era, we're knee-deep in it. How is data protection changing, whether it's architecturally, or processes to accommodate multi-cloud? Maybe Colin, you can start. >> Well, so I think another trend that we're seeing is the move from managed services to more of a self service delivery. So providers like Telefonica want to enable their tenants to access data protection as a service, and that has certainly some architectural impacts to it. And, you know, I think that's what's really behind this announcement that we're making here at VMworld. >> The most important part you mentioned is talking about the VDC. It's not just infrastructure as a service platform, it's everything as a service platform. So more than this, you're putting to our customers they're developed services, for example, data protection. Data protection is very important. So our idea in the user experience is to change the customer's life easy. So with the new port, self-serve support or for data protection, the customers right now can do everything in the VDC. This was possible with the partnership between VMworld and WMC. Developing together the new integration of a mod integration using the API for the cloud director, for the new version, is very valuable to us. >> So in terms of impact, give us an example, Sandro, of how this three-way partnership that Telefonica has with Dell EMC and VMware, how is it impacting, not just your customers business, but Telefonica's business? How is it enabling your transformation, from a top line perspective? >> Sure. I think that what we are thinking right now, with Dell EMC and VMware, is a model that must be followed by the other manufacturers. Because they're creating the future, if there's integration between data protection software of Dell EMC and VMware, it impacts directly to our customer, because now our oldest versions, the customer needs to require some... For example, historic procedures, you just talk to someone in Telefonica to asking them. So right now, is immediately through the self-service portal. And this is very important to us to increase the user experience and our customer experience, which is very valuable to us. >> So customer experience improves. How have you been able to expand your customer base globally leveraging this partnership. >> For example, VDC and Telefonica talking about our business. We are the most important deployments of VM around the world. We are more than 80 countries around the world, in South America and Europe, running the VDC software. This is very valuable to us because if opening our global catalog and using the VMware data protection software producing the TCO to us and to our customers using for example the data duplication and the new functions in the solution is very good to us and to our customers. >> So vCloud director, maybe we could drill into that a little bit in terms of how it's impacted your business. Talk more about the value that it brings to not just you, but your customers. >> Jesus Christ, it was not so easy during that time, you know, we are using vCloud director since the beginning of our global brothers and global structures, so following, during these years, we have the oldest version, we have a lot of limits in the vCloud directory interface. So right now, using the vCloud director nine in the cloud's extension, the cloud director availability, so this is very valuable to us because the VMware changes a lot, the user exchange interface. The old user interface was very ugly to our customers. So right now, vCloud director 9.1 and 9.x is very good interface. In the same way, improving the user experience in the quality of our services. >> So the business impact is that it's simpler to manage, so saving time so people can... >> Sure. And integration. >> Well, I think you have to think about how do service providers like Telefonica differentiate themselves, right? A cloud provider that only offers infrastructure as a service, they're getting their margins squeezed, right? So they have to bring in these value added services. How do they do that better than the others? They differentiate themselves through a better user experience, which means, you know, the way the user interacts with the product. Also it means, it comes down to the cost, right? So that goes directly to the service provider's bottom line. They're able to pass that on to their customers. Then also, performance and scale. Right, so these are really very, very, important points, and that's what I think our partnership is all about. >> How do you guys go to market? Is it a three way? Two way? What's the go-to-market strategy? >> So, our strategy do not compete for the hyperscale providers. >> Right. >> Our VDC, you have our own services running in our own data centers and combining with our global network infrastructure. We can provide a better service to our customers in local perspective, local billing, local support. In this partnership with Dell EMC, consuming the software and technologies many years ago, so we are evolving our services this way and this is the right thing to do right now, to differentiate us from the hyperscale providers. >> And you were.. I'm sorry, go ahead, Colin. >> Well, I was just going to add to that that in terms of our go-to-market, we've made a very big announcement here at VMworld 2018, which is that VMware, the VCPP business unit is actually selling Dell EMC data protection to their service providers. So this is actually our goal, is to really make it a native feature of vCloud director built right in. >> So the VMware cloud, provider business unit is essentially OEM-ing, reselling, your product... >> Yep. >> Which ultimately makes it into Telefonica. >> Sure. And the way that they're doing that, is actually really interesting because it adds value for us in the sense that they allow service providers to pay by the drip. So the way that we sell it is very different than other routes to market that we have and something that I think is of a lot of value to service providers like Telefonica. >> So it's paid by the drip, by that you mean it's a monthly service? >> It's a monthly per-protected VM, very simple, very simple business model. They pay a certain number of cloud provider points for one offering, a different amount for the other offering, and it's paid in arrears on a monthly basis based on what they've consumed. >> And I can cancel any time, it's not like I got to buy three years in advance, or? >> No, absolutely. >> Absolutely. >> So we've been hearing a lot, we hear this a lot, "better together," right, David? At every event and every aspect of life, there's a lot of things that are better together. What, I'm curious, Colin, from your perspective, Dell EMC, VMware, lots of change in the last few years... >> Absolutely. >> How is this, you know, we talked about value streams that go to market, how are you seeing your customers embracing and feeling what Dell EMC and VMware are doing as really better together? How do you simplify the complexities that all these customers are living in with this partnership? >> So, I can say that over the course of history we've had a lot of co-engineering partnerships. Right, between Dell EMC and VMware. I mean, I could probably name five or six of them, and there's a number of them happening right now. This partnership, this aspect of it, is a little bit different because there's a sales and marketing aspect to it, so that's taking the partnership to the next level. Never before has VMware sold Dell EMC product. Right, so that's.... >> Pretty groundbreaking. >> Yeah. This is the next step in better together. For our customers, I mean, there's been an incredible response. We had service provider round tables on Sunday. Lot of excitement about this and actually, I heard two service providers have actually decided to go with this, based on the fact that we have this partnership. So, that's amazing for us. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> And then in terms of the evolution of the partnership of the technology, what's the customer feedback loop, if you will, how are they helping to influence the direction the technology goes. >> I think that evolving the catalog and making the customer's life easy and providing the new functionalities, the new features, in the easiest mold, is very valuable to our customers. It's more than providing the (mumbles) in platform service. For more added value of service to the customers, the (mumbles) services, the multi-cloud environments. So our goal is to put all together, providing the hybrid cloud ship, multi-cloud solutions to our customers, is valuable, just as our customers asking to us and claiming to us today. Around the world. >> Well you mentioned your presence in 80 countries? >> Our virtual data centers are present in 80 countries, serving the Americas and Europe. >> Was this possible before the VMware, Dell EMC, Telefonica? >> No, no, we are evolving together. It was not built easy before. Not possible to doing alone before. >> So a lot of growth, what's next? Where do you go from there? You got 80! >> (laughs) >> Where do you go from there? >> I believe that our strategy should evolve in the cataloging freezing the partnership with Dell EMC and VMware, and increasing the... Putting together this new ecosystem and the integration between vCloud director API, ecologic stations in the protection software. I think that is the way, this is the goal, this is our... The processes that are moving now should do... Manufactures are the big parts of our ecostystem is the VDC 4.0. >> So you got a couple of breakout sessions tomorrow? >> Yeah. (laughs) >> Give us the top three takeaways that the attendees will glean from your session. >> Oh gosh. The attendances? >> The key takeaways. What are they going to learn? >> So I think at least one of the sessions that Sandro's participating in is a data protection session. So it's a general session covering all of our recent announcements, our technology, kind of a thought leadership type of thing, and using Telefonica's experience with the vCloud director extensions as a testimonial, an example, to share with the... >> The validation. >> The validation to share with the other customers. >> Bringing together some of the hot topics at the show, obviously, cloud, data protection, walk around the floor, everybody's talking about data protection. >> That's what it's all about, yeah. >> Great! Congratulations! >> Thank you so much. >> Colin, Sandro, thanks so much for joining Dave and me on theCUBE and sharing with us what you guys are doing with this partnership. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you! >> Thank you so much, thank you. >> Thank you, Dave. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. We are continuing day two of VMworld 2018, I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante. Stick around, we'll be right back. (upbeat music)