(upbeat music) >> Male Voiceover: Live, from San Diego, California it's theCUBE covering Cisco Live US 2019 brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey welcome back to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman. We are day one of our coverage of Cisco Live from San Diego. We're going to be here for three days of coverage but a great day so far and we're pleased to welcome back one of our CUBE alumni Kent Christensen the Practice Director from Insight with the Cloud & Data Center at Transformation Group. Kent, welcome back! >> Thank you. It's been a little while. >> It has been a little while. So give our audience a little overview of Insight your partnership with Cisco and some of the history of how you got to Insight. >> Yeah so you remember us as Data Link we were a smaller company than we are now. Focusing on Cloud and data center transformation. We've talked at Dell events, CFC events things like that. But we were a Cisco partner for about 10 years and recently we were acquired and we did what the name sounds like, Cloud and data center transformation. We've talked about Cloud on the channel and all these other things. Insight acquired us. Insight has kind of four major service solution sets if you would. Some people look at them as a supply chain company and it's a great, large supply chain company. Microsoft's largest global partner. Some people understand it for the device and use the devices that's called Connective Workforce. Each of these are pretty big businesses you know, compared to where we are. What was Data Link is now what's called Cloud and Data Center Transformation. So we're helping people with the journey to the Cloud and the Hybrid Cloud and all that other stuff. And Cisco is right dead center in the middle of that and then the fourth one is really exciting. It's called Data and Digital Innovation and that's a couple of companies. Blue Metal, Cardinal etc. Again, a thousand people. Microsoft ILT and AI partner of the year. So all of that is a pretty large channel organization if you would. >> That's great stuff Kent. We love to talk to the channel as the folks in Wall Street do. It like you know, we do a channel check. Okay, You know, Cisco's got a few areas that have you know, stronger growth in the market over all. Security's doing well, a few other spaces on that are you know growing faster over all than the market and helping >> Kent: Absolutely >> grow where Cisco's going, so give us the reality. What's happening with your customers? What's driving you know the most growth in your business and you know, where is Cisco kind of leading the pack? >> So we're doing really well with Cisco and I don't know if it's because we're helping clients build solutions that truly lead to business outcomes. We're not order takers. So we're actually moving up we're now Cisco's fourth largest partner. We're growing well high single digits growth which is pretty phenomenal on such a big number. We're talking a billion dollars now in growing that level and there's a number of reasons. You know, some of it is there's a lot of great technology we can get into some of those. We see the economy as being pretty good not bad yet. You know everybody's worried about what might happen. You mentioned security, we can get into a little bit of that. That's driving a lot of network refresh and stuff like that. You know and a little bit of intra-company you know that word getting our stuff together so this large company with 15000 customers acquires a company with 2000 customers and now we're getting introduced into the 15000 with less friction. So that's helping us and that's helping our Cisco Business. >> Lisa: See here we are at Cisco Live. The thirtieth time that they had done a customer partner event. The network has not only changed dramatically since their first event in '89 which was called Networkers I believe. >> KENT: Yeah. >> But networking technology has also massively changed you mentioned security. And now in this multi-cloud world no longer can you just put a firewall around a data center right? Obviously that doesn't work. We have this core Cloud edge very amorphous environments. Proliferation of mobile, of mobile data traversing the networks. Talk to us about when you're talking with customers who need to transform their data centers where do you start from a networking conversation perspective? Where automation comes in, where security comes in? >> You know, a lot of the Cloud native transformation tends to be the edge of the network. You know conversion, infrastructure, stuff like that that's on the edge. The network security guys which I'm not, you know, I work with them very closely but we almost separate ourselves out from a data center networking and security. But security's end to end to your point, right? I've got software to find access. I've got mobile access points. I've got you know, Tetration. I've got all of these products that are helping people that in the past they were just patching holes in the dyke. You know, hey this happened let's put this software product in. This happened, let's put this in. We actually built a security practice like the last 3 or 4 years ago, it's growing. You know the number of people that are, whether it's regulation, compliance, you know. "I got some real problem. I think I've got a problem and I don't know what it is." Our ability to come back and sit down and say let's evaluate what your situation is. So I was talking to the networking guys and said wow. Enterprise networking's up, way up. What's driving that, the need to transform or is that, you know what is it? And they're like a lot of times it's something along security that's making them step back and re-evaluate and then sometimes that translates into an entire network refresh. >> Stu: So Kent you mentioned Cisco Tetration and that's one I've heard a number of times having some growth. What else, what are some of the you know hot products out there in your customer base? >> ISE, Software to Find, SD Wan, SD Access. >> Stu: Yeah, so one of the things I just want to understand Cisco actually has a few solutions in some of those areas. Any specific products that you call out or you know or that'd be mentioned? >> Kent: In the enterprise networking I wouldn't go through each and every individual one. I think, this is my view as the laymen right? 'Cause I'm the data center guy and here's the security guy and here's the networking guy. I think when Cisco started acquiring all these security companies 3 years ago and you know watched it and it looked like a patchwork quilt and said this stuff doesn't fit together? Now it fits together that story is really solid. And so we've got clients that had the luxury of either saying I'm going to do a refresh because I don't want to keep plugging holes and maybe my technology was ready for it anyway. And there's a lot of reasons to refresh right? My technology's due. Digital transformation, I need to get my network ready for IoT etc. But I keep hearing security over and over right? I've got compliance and regulations and all of this other stuff. >> Yeah but in your core space the data center world and any products that are kind of leading the charge right now? >> You know one of the things that's happening in data center from a Cisco perspective 'cause they're babies right? Ten years old in data center. They didn't really have data center before that. And we were there at the beginning and that's really how CDCT built our data center practice so you know when you talk multi-cloud at the end of the day even if I'm Cloud first I'm going to end up with some of these mission-critical workloads. They might be boring but they're running the company. They're not the innovative Dev-Ops, IoT, AI thing that seems cool. They're running the company and that's still a converged or a hyper-converged play. And some of those you know there's a lot of opportunities we've been talking about all day with the Cisco BU's. Some of those are ready for refresh right so there's a great opportunity to just to go in and say okay what's next? You know, we've added you know the latest server technology. We've added all these things in the server technology. Obviously all flash and the storage technologies and all of that so that's huge. And then you know Cisco continues to innovate in data center solutions with things like HyperFlex which we've talked a little bit about. And it started off a little slow because again just like they were in servers why are they here? Why are they in hyper-converge? So I get it. And now that product is fully improved and improved and improved and we're seeing tremendous growth there and I think the luxury they have on a data center solution is that some of the other guys have to do a or. "Hey, I'm the leading hyper-converge technology but it's me or everybody else." Right? And then Cisco's an end that I can connect those things together. >> So let's talk about some customer examples you can feel free to anonymize these. I'm seeing a smile on your face. When you come into an organization whether it's a 100 year old bank or it's a born of the Cloud or maybe a smaller more nimble organization that needs to undergo transformation data center transformation. What is the conversation like with respect to helping them take all of these disparate presumably disparate solutions? Whether they're 10-15 different security solutions. How does Insight come in and help them I don't want to say integrate but almost plug these things in together to extract value and help them make sure that what they're implementing from a technology perspective is necessary and also an accelerator of their business? >> Yeah, there's a lot there. So we have this... A year ago everybody wanted to talk about Cloud and then you had the security guys but now you have a lot of change agents with transformation in their title right? And so we have this belief. You're not going to digitally transform. Now there are people that are born digital but companies that were buying Cisco 10 years ago need to go through a digital transformation and you can't go through a digital transformation until you have a data center transformation or an IT transformation. So we've done studies. What slows people down? What makes these fail? Legacy stuff, security concerns I mean these are the top 3 things right. Budget. I was just running the company. And so we start there. Where do you want to get to? And then most of it is let's understand what you have. What your objectives are as an organization. "I want to get to this. I want to get to that." Well before we start talking about technologies. It's very, it's very services oriented. I can't just go in there and throw you a bomb and say this is going to fix your problem 'cause everybody's different. So it is very custom and very services oriented. >> Lisa: But you're saying... >> Stu: I was just going to say it's a pattern I've seen quite a bit for the last couple of years. Step 1 is modernize the platform and then step 2 you can worry about your data and application story on top of that in that multi-cloud world that you live in. >> And step 1 admit you have a problem. >> Yeah. >> (Lisa laughs) >> So we actually did a study you know we do this and we're like. Why does everybody keep stalling why have we been stuck in this nobody's refreshing things and stuff like that? Well there's a lot of new technology they don't get it. But you know do you want to digitally transform? Understand what you need to do. But we ask questions like rate your IT infrastructure just rate it B-minus. Across a lot of large companies that was the grade they gave themselves. So there's a lot of opportunity to say: Okay where do you want to be and where do we start? >> Yeah, 90 percent of people think they are above average drivers. So... >> Drivers? But they think they have a B-Minus in IT infrastructure and it's like Do you consider that a problem? >> Yeah. >> So once you as we wrap here in the next minute or so. Once you get them to admit yeah there's problems here that Insight and other partners come in and improve. Data center transformation, modernizing that infrastructure but it's got to be concurrent with starting to modernize and transform other areas right? >> Absolutely. So you know there's so many places you could start. Sometimes you just go and say well what's your appetite? Every once in a while you get somebody who's ready to go through an entire transformational process. You know 20 million dollars or more of whatever and we get those opportunities those are awesome. Now we get to start back and figure out where you want to be and how to get there most efficiently. A lot of people have to pick and choose. You know, what's your concern right now? And so we'll help them figure that out and again it could be security it could be you know how many people... We have over a thousand enterprise customers running Sequel 2008. That's a problem right? Because that's end of support within a year. That's a problem that's an opportunity. You know so they are still trying to figure out these things. And then a picture of where I want to get to. Which we've kind of always said and that's where that Digital Innovation Group they've got all these AI projects and as we sit here and talk about those things that are kind of born in the Cloud but they're coming towards the infrastructure. It was easy to get a GPU in the Cloud but I'm going to have to start... And so we have actually have all the latest Cisco technology and storage technology of AI stuff in our labs and stuff like that so there's a lot going on. Our CEO would say "It's a really exciting time to be in this business." >> It sounds like it! I wish we had more time to start digging through that but you'll have to come back Kent. >> Okay. >> Alright thanks for joining us. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> With Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live. Day 1 of our coverage of Cisco Live from San Diego. Thanks for watching.

>> Announcer: You are CUBE Alumni. Live from Munich, Germany, it's theCUBE. Covering, DataWorks Summit Europe 2017. Brought to you by Hortonworks. >> Hello, everyone, welcome back to live coverage at DataWorks 2017, I'm John Furrier with my cohost, Dave Vellante. Two days of coverage here in Munich, Germany, covering Hortonworks and Yahoo, presenting Hadoop Summit, now called DataWorks 2017. Our next guest is Carlo Vaiti, who's the HPE chief technology strategist, EMEA Digital Solutions, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, John. >> So we were just chatting before we came on, of your historic background at IBM, Oracle, and now HPE, and now back into the saddle there. >> Don't forget Sun Microsystems. >> Sun Microsystems, sorry, Sun, yeah. I mean, great, great run. >> It was a long run. >> You've seen the computer revolution happen. I worked at HP for nine years, from '88 to '97. Again, Dave was a premier analyst during that run of client-server. We've seen the computer revolution happen. Now we're seeing the digital revolution where the iPhone is now 10 years old, Cloud is booming, data's at the center of the value proposition, so a completely new disruptive capability. >> Carlo: Sure, yes. >> So what are you doing as the CTO, chief technologist for HPE, how are you guys bringing this story together? 'Cause there's so much going on at HPE. You got the services spit, you got the software split, and HP's focusing on the new style of IT, as Meg Whitman calls it. >> So, yeah. My role in EMEA is actually all about having basically a visionary kind of strategy role for what's going to be HP in the future, in terms of IT. And one of the things that we are looking at is, is specifically to have, we split our strategy in three different aspects, so three transformation areas. The first one which we usually talk is what I call hybrid IT, right, which is basically making services around either On-Premise or on Cloud for our customer base. The second one is actually power the Intelligent Edge, so is actually looking after our collaboration and when we acquire Aruba components. And the third one, which is in the middle, and that's why I'm here at the DataWorks Summit, is actually the data-analytics aspects. And we have a couple of solution in there. One is the Enterprise great Hadoop, which is part of this. This is actually how we generalize all the figure and the strategy for HP. >> It's interesting, Dave and I were talking yesterday, being in Europe, it's obviously a different sideshow, it's smaller than the DataWorks or Hadoop Summit in North America in San Jose, but there's a ton of Internet of things, IoT or IIoT, 'cause here in Germany, obviously, a lot of industrial nations, but in Europe in general, a lot of smart cities initiatives, a lot of mobility, a ton of Internet of things opportunity, more than in the US. >> Absolutely. >> Can you comment on how you guys are tackling the IoT? Because it's an Intelligent Edge, certainly, but it's also data, it's in your wheelhouse. >> Yes, sure. So I'm actually working, it's a good question, because I'm actually working a couple of projects in Eastern Europe, where it's all about Industrial IoT Analytics, IIoTA. That's the new terminology we use. So what we do is actually, we analyze from a business perspective, what are the business pain points, in an oil and gas company for example. And we understand for example, what kind of things that they need and must have. And what I'm saying here is, one of the aspects for example, is the drilling opportunity. So how much oil you can extract from a specific rig in the middle of the North Sea, for example. This is one of the key question, because the customer want to understand, in the future, how much oil they can extract. The other one is for example, the upstream business. So doing on the retail side and having, say, when my customer is stopping in a gas station, I want go in the shop, immediately giving, I dunno, my daughter, a kind of campaign for the Barbie, because they like the Barbie. So IoT, Industrial IoT help us in actually making a much better customer experience, and that's the case of the upstream business, but is also helping us in actually much faster business outcomes. And that's what the customer wants, right? 'Cause, and was talking with your colleague before, I'm talking to the business guy. I'm not talking to the IT anymore in these kind of place, and that's how IoT allow us a chance to change the conversation at the industry level. >> These are first-time conversations too. You're getting at the kinds of business conversations that weren't possible five years ago. >> Carlo: Yes, sure. >> I mean and 10 years ago, they would have seemed fantasy. Now they're reality. >> The role of analytics in my opinion, is becoming extremely key, and I said this morning, for me my best center is that the detail, is the stone foundation of the digital economy. I continue to repeat this terminology, because it's actually where everything is starting from. So what I mean is, let's take a look at the analytic aspect. So if I'm able to analyze the data close to the shop floor, okay, close to the shop manufacturing floor, if I'm able to analyze my data on the rig, in the oil and gas industry, if I'm able to analyze doing preprocessing analytics, with Kafka, Druid, these kind of open-source software, where close to the Intelligent Edge, then my customers going to be happy, because I give them very fast response, and the decision-maker can get to decision in a faster time. Today, it takes a long time to take these type of decision. So that's why we want to move into the power Intelligent Edge. >> So you're saying, data's foundational, but if you get to the Intelligent Edge, it's dynamic. So you have a dynamic reactive, realtime time series, or presences of data, but you need the foundational pre-data. >> Perfect. >> Is that kind of what you're getting at? >> Yes, that's the first step. Preprocessing analytics is what we do. In the next generation of, we think is going to be Industrial IoT Analytics, we're going to actually put massive amount of compute close to the shop manufacturing floor. We call internally or actually externally, convergent planned infrastructure. And that's the key point, right? >> John: Convergent plan? >> Convergent planned infrastructure, CPI. If you look at in Google, you will find. It's a solution we bring in the market a few months ago. We announce it in December last year. >> Yeah, Antonio's smart. He also had a converged systems as well. One of the first ones. >> Yeah, so that's converge compute at the edge basically. >> Correct, converge compute-- >> Very powerful. >> Very powerful, and we run analytics on the edge. That's the key point. >> Which we love, because that means you don't have to send everything back to the Cloud because it's too expensive, it's going to take too long, it's not going to work. >> Carlo: The bandwidth on the network is much less. >> There's no way that's going to be successful, unless you go to the edge and-- >> It takes time. >> With a cost. >> Now the other thing is, of course, you've got the Aruba asset, to be able to, I always say, joke, connect the windmill. But, Carlo, can we go back to the IoTA example? >> Carlo: Correct, yeah. >> I want to help, help our audience understand, sort of, the new HP, post these spin merges. So perviously you would say, okay, we have Vertica. You still have partnership, or you still own Vertica, but after September 1st-- >> Absolutely, absolutely. It's part of the columnar side-- >> Right, yes, absolutely, but, so. But the new strategy is to be more of a platform for a variety of technology. So how for instance would you solve, or did you solve, that problem that you described? What did you actually deliver? >> So again, as I said, we're, especially in the Industrial IoT, we are an ecosystem, okay? So we're one element of the ecosystem solution. For the oil and gas specifically, we're working with other system integrator. We're working with oil and the industry gas expertise, like DXC company, right, the company that we just split a few days ago, and we're working with them. They're providing the industry expertise. We are a infrastructure provided around that, and the services around that for the infrastructure element. But for the industry expertise, we try to have a kind of little bit of knowledge, to start the conversation with the customer. But again, my role in the strategy is actually to be a ecosystem digital integrator. That's the new terminology we like to bring in the market, because we really believe that's the way HP role is going to be. And the relevance of HP is totally depending if we are going to be successful in these type of things. >> Okay, now a couple other things you talked about in your keynote. I'm just going to list them, and then we can go wherever we want. There was Data Link 3.0, Storage Disaggregation, which is kind of interesting, 'cause it's been a problem. Hadoop as a service, Realtime Everywhere, and then Analytics at the Edge, which we kind of just talked about. Let's pick one. Let's start with Data Link 3.0. What is that? John doesn't like the term data link. He likes data ocean. >> I like data ocean. >> Is Data Link 3.0 becoming an ocean? >> It's becoming an ocean. So, Data Link 3.0 for us is actually following what is going to be the future for HDFS 3.0. So we have three elements. The erasure coding feature, which is coming on HDFS. The second element is around having HDFS data tier, multi-data tier. So we're going to have faster SSD drives. We're going to have big memory nodes. We're going to have GPU nodes. And the reason why I say disaggregation is because some of the workload will be only compute, and some of the workload will be only storage, okay? So we're going to bring, and the customer require this, because it's getting more data, and they need to have for example, YARN application running on compute nodes, and the same level, they want to have storage compute block, sorry, storage components, running on the storage model, like HBase for example, like HDFS 3.0 with the multi-tier option. So that's why the data disaggregation, or disaggregation between compute and storage, is the key point. We call this asymmetric, right? Hadoop is becoming asymmetric. That's what it mean. >> And the problem you're solving there, is when I add a node to a cluster, I don't have to add compute and storage together, I can disaggregate and choose whatever I need, >> Everyone that we did. >> based on the workload. >> They are all multitenancy kind of workload, and they are independent and they scale out. Of course, it's much more complex, but we have actually proved that this is the way to go, because that's what the customer is demanding. >> So, 3.0 is actually functional. It's erasure coding, you said. There's a data tier. You've got different memory levels. >> And I forgot to mention, the containerization of the application. Having dockerized the application for example. Using mesosphere for example, right? So having the containerization of the application is what all of that means, because what we do in Hadoop, we actually build the different clusters, they need to talk to each other, and change data in a faster way. And a solution like, a product like SQL Manager, from Hortonworks, is actually helping us to get this connection between the cluster faster and faster. And that's what the customer wants. >> And then Hadoop as a service, is that an on-premise solution, is that a hybrid solution, is it a Cloud solution, all three? >> I can offer all of them. Hadoop is a service could be run on-premise, could be run on a public Cloud, could be run on Azure, or could be mix of them, partially on-premise, and partially on public. >> And what are you seeing with regard to customer adoption of Cloud, and specifically around Hadoop and big data? >> I think the way I see that option is all the customer want to start very small. The maturity is actually better from a technology standpoint. If you're asking me the same question maybe a year ago, I would say, it's difficult. Now I think they've got the point. Every large customer, they want to build this big data ocean, note the delay, ocean, whatever you want to call it. >> John: Love that. (laughs) >> All right. They want to build this data ocean, and the point I want to make is, they want to start small, but they want to think very high. Very big, right, from their perspective. And the way they approach us is, we have a kind of methodology. We establish the maturity assessment. We do a kind of capability maturity assessment, where we find that if the customer is actually a pioneer, or is actually a very traditional one, so it's very slow-going. Once we determine where is the stage of the customer is, we propose some specific proof of concept. And in three months usually, we're putting this in place. >> You also talked about realtime everywhere. We in our research, we talk about the, historically, you had batchy of interactive, and now you have what we call continuous, or realtime streaming workloads. How prevalent is that? Where do you see it going in the future? >> So I think is another train for the future, as I mentioned this morning in my presentation. So and Spark is actually doing the open-source memory engine process, is actually the core of this stuff. We see 60 to 70 time faster analytics, compared to not to use Spark. So many customer implemented Spark because of this. The requirement are that the customer needs an immediate response time, okay, for a specific decision-making that they have to do, in order to improve their business, in order to improve their life. But this require a different architecture. >> I have a question, 'cause you, you've lived in the United States, you're obviously global, and spent a lot of time in Europe as well, and a lot of times, people want to discuss the differences between, let's make it specific here, the European continent and North America, and from a sophistication standpoint, same, we can agree on that, but there are still differences. Maybe, more greater privacy concerns. The whole thing with the Cloud and the NSA in the United States, created some concerns. What do you see as the differences today between North America and Europe? >> From my perspective, I think we are much more for example take IoT, Industrial IoT. I think in Europe we are much more advanced. I think in the manufacturing and the automotive space, the connected car kind of things, autonomous driving, this is something that we know already how to manage, how to do it. I mean, Tesla in the US is a good example that what I'm saying is not true, but if I look at for example, large German manufacturing car, they always implemented these type of things already today. >> Dave: For years, yeah. >> That's the difference, right? I think the second step is about the faster analytic approach. So what I mentioned before. The Power the Intelligent Edge, in my opinion at the moment, is much more advanced in the US compared to Europe. But I think Europe is starting to run back, and going on the same route. Because we believe that putting compute capacity on the edge is what actually the customer wants. But that's the two big differences I see. >> The other two big external factors that we like to look at, are Brexit and Trump. So (laughs) how 'about Brexit? Now that it's starting to sort of actually become, begin the process, how should we think about it? Is it overblown? It is critical? What's your take? >> Well, I think it's too early to say. UK just split a few days ago, right, officially. It's going to take another 18 months before it's going to be completed. From a commercial standpoint, we don't see any difference so far. We're actually working the same way. For me it's too early to say if there's going to be any implication on that. >> And we don't know about Trump. We don't have to talk about it, but the, but I saw some data recently that's, European sentiment, business sentiment is trending stronger than the US, which is different than it's been for the last many years. What do you see in terms of just sentiment, business conditions in Europe? Do you see a pick up? >> It's getting better, it is getting better. I mean, if I look at the major countries, the P&L is going positive, 1.5%. So I think from that perspective, we are getting better. Of course we are still suffering from the Chinese, and Japanese market sometimes. Especially in some of the big large deals. The inclusion of the Japanese market, I feel it, and the Chinese market, I feel that. But I think the economy is going to be okay, so it's going to be good. >> Carlo, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your insight, final question for you. You're new to HPE, okay. We have a lot of history, obviously I was, spent a long part of my career there, early in my career. Dave and I have covered the transformation of HP for many, many years, with theCUBE certainly. What attracted you to HP and what would you say is going on at HP from your standpoint, that people should know about? >> So I think the number one thing is that for us the word is going to be hybrid. It means that some of the services that you can implement, either on-premise or on Cloud, could be done very well by the new Pointnext organization. I'm not part of Pointnext. I'm in the EG, Enterprise Group division. But I am fan for Pointnext because I believe this is the future of our company, is on the services side, that's where it's going. >> I would just point out, Dave and I, our commentary on the spin merge has been, create these highly cohesive entities, very focused. Antonio now running EG, big fans, of where it's actually an efficient business model. >> Carlo: Absolutely. >> And Chris Hsu is running the Micro Focus, CUBE Alumni. >> Carlo: It's a very efficient model, yes. >> Well, congratulations and thanks for coming on and sharing your insights here in Europe. And certainly it is an IoT world, IIoT. I love the analytics story, foundational services. It's going to be great, open source powering it, and this is theCUBE, opening up our content, and sharing that with you. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante. Stay with us for more great coverage, here from Munich after the short break.