>> Narrator: Live, from Las Vegas its theCUBE. Covering NetApp Insight 2017. Brought to you by NetApp. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to our live coverage, exclusive coverage at NetApp Insight 2017, it's theCUBE's coverage. I'm John Furrier, co-host, theCUBE co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, with my co-host, Keith Townsend at CTO Advisor. Our next two guests is Gabe Chapman, Senior Manager, NetApp HCI, and Sidney Sonnier, who's the IT consultant at 4th and Bailey, also a member of the A-Team, a highly regarded, top-credentialed expert. Welcome to theCUBE, guys. Good to see you. >> Hey >> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you, good to be here. >> So love the shirt, by the way, great logo, good font, good, comes up great on the camera. >> Thank you. >> We're talking about the rise of the cloud and everything in between, kind of the segment. As a NetApp, A-Team member, and customer. It's here, cloud's here. >> Sidney: Yes >> But it's not yet big in the minds of the Enterprise because they got, it's a path to get there. So, there's public cloud going on, >> Sidney: Right. >> Hybrid clouds, everyone gets that. >> Sidney: Right. >> There's a lot of work to do at home inside a data center. >> Yes, there is, there's an extreme amount of work. And, like you said, these are very exciting times, because we have a blend of all of the technologies and being at an event like this allows us to look at those technologies, look at that fabric, look at that platform, and how we can merge all of those things into an arena that can allow any customer to dynamically move on-prem, off-prem, public cloud, private cloud, but still be able to manage and securely keep all their data in one specific place. >> Gabe, I want to get your thoughts, as he brings up a good point. Architecture's king, it's the cloud architect. Devop has gone mainstream. Pretty much, we all kind of can look at that and say, okay QED, Don, and everyone else put their plans together, but the Enterprises and the folks doing cloud, cloud service providers and everyone else, they have issues, and their plates are full. They have an application development mandate. Get more developers, new kinds of developers, retrain, re-platforming, new onboarding, open source is booming. They have security departments that are unbundling from IT in a way and fully staffed, reporting to the board of directors, top security challenges, data coverage, and then over the top is IoT, industrial IoT. Man, their plate's full. >> Sidney: Right. >> So architecture's huge, and there's a lot of unknown things going on that need to be automated. So it's a real challenge for architects. What's your thoughts. >> So you know, my thoughts about that is, I like to make this joke that there's no book called, The Joy of Menial Tasks. And there are so many of those menial tasks that we do on a day-in and day-out basis, in terms of the Enterprise, whether it's storage, whether it's virtualization, whether it's, whatever it is, right? And I think we've seen this massive shift towards automation and orchestration, and fundamentally the technologies that we're provisioning in today. APIs are king, and they're going to be kind of the focal point, as we move forward. Everything has to have some form of API in it. We have to be making a shift in a transition towards infrastructure as code. At the end of the day the hardware has relevance. It still does, it always will. But the reality is to abstract away the need for that relevance and make it as simple as possible. That's where we have things like hyper converged infrastructure being so at the forefront for so many organizations, NetApp making a foray into this space, as well, is to push, to simplify as much as possible, the day-to-day minutiae, and the infrastructure provisioning. And then, transition those resources over towards getting those next-generation data center applications up, running, and functional. >> Old adage that's been in the industry around making things simple, as our cubbies like an aircraft carrier. But when you go below the water lines, everyone in little canoes paddling, bumping into each other. These silos, if you will. >> Gabe: Right. >> And this is really the dynamic around cloud architecture, is where the operating model's changing. So, you got to be prepared to handle things differently. And in storage, the old days, is, I won't say, easy, but you guys made it easy. A lot of great customers. NetApp has a long history of, but it's not the storage anymore. It's the data fabric as you guys are talking about. It's the developer enablement. It's getting these customers to drive for themselves. It's not about the engine anymore, although, you've got to have a good engine, call it tech, hardware, software together. But the ultimate outcome is the people driving the solutions are app guys. They're just the lines of businesses are under huge pressure and huge need. >> I think you can look at it this way. It's like we're kind of data-driven. You'll see Gene talk about that as part of our messaging. We can no longer be just a storage company. We need to be a data company and a data management organization as we start to have those conversations. Yes, you're going to go in there and talk to the storage administrations and storage teams, but there are 95% of the other people inside of the Enterprise, inside information technology, within different lines of business. They're the ones that we have the most relevant discussions with. That's where our message probably resonates more strongly in the data-driven aspect, or the management, or analytics, and all those other spaces. And I think that's the white space and growth area potential for NetApp, is the fact that we can go in there and have very authoritative discussions with customers around their data needs, and understanding governance. You have things like GPRD, and AMIA. That's a giant open ecosystem for, it has so many requirements and restrictions around it, and everybody's just now starting to wrap their head around it. So building a program around something like that, as well. So there's challenges for everybody. And there's even challenges for vendors like ourselves, because we had, we were mode one. Now we're mode two. So it's kind of like making that transition. And the old speeds, the speeds were always, hey, how fast can you go, what's the files look like, with replication, blah, blah, blah. Now you've got solid, solid state storage. You got SolidFire. Now people want outcomes as a service. Not outcomes anymore, like a cliché, things are happening very dynamically. And last week at Big Data NYC, our event, around the big data world, you couldn't get anymore clear that there's no more room for hype. They want real solutions now. Realtime is critical. And, now watching the keynotes here at NetApp, it's not speed that's featured, although there's a lot of work going on under the hood, it's really about competitive advantage. You're hearing words like data as a competitive advantage. >> Sidney: Yes. >> Sidney, you're in the field, you're in the front lines. Make sense of this. >> The sense that we have to make is, we made up some great points. >> Gabe: Yes. >> Getting the business engaged is one thing, because you still, with the cloud and the cloud architecture, you still have a lot of individuals who are not necessarily sold on it, all the way. So even from a technical perspective. So those guys that are down in the bottom of the boat, so to speak, you still have to kind of convince them because they feel somewhat uncomfortable about it. They have not all the way accepted it. The business is kind of accepted it in pockets. So being, having been on a customer's side and then going to more of a consulting side of things, you understand those pain points. So by getting those businesses engaged and then also engaging those guys to say, listen, it's freeing, the relevance of cloud architecture is not to eliminate a position, it's more to move the mundane tasks that you were more accustomed to using and move you closer to the business so that you can be more effective, and feel more of a participant, and have more value in that business. So that's-- >> So it's creating a value role for the-- >> Right, Right. >> The nondifferentiated tasks >> Absolutely. >> That were being mundane tasks, as you called them. >> Yes. >> You can then put that person now on, whether analytics or ... >> All those IoT things like you were mentioning on those advance projects, and use and leverage the dynamic capability of the cloud being able to go off-prem or on-prem. >> Alright, so what's the guiding principle for a cloud architecture? We'll have to get your thoughts on this because we talked about, in a segment earlier, with Josh, around a good devops person sees automation opportunities and they jump on it like a grenade. There it is, take care of that business and automate it. How do you know what to automate? How do you architect around the notion of we might be continually automating things to shift the people and the process to the value? >> I think what it boils down to is the good cloud architect looks and sees where there are redundancies, things that can be eliminated, things that can be minimized, and sees where complexity is, and focuses to simplify as much of it as possible, right? So my goal has always been to abstract away the complexity, understand that it's there and have the requirements and the teams that can functionally build those things, but then make it look to you as if it were your iPhone, right? I don't know how the app store works. I just download the apps and use it. A good cloud architect does the same thing for their customers. Internally and externally, as well. >> So where does NetApp fit in there, from a product perspective? As a cloud architect, you're always wondering what should I build versus what should I buy? When I look at the open source projects out there, I see a ton of them. Should I go out and dive head deep into one of these projects? Should I look towards a vendor like NetApp to bring to bear that simplified version? Where is the delineation for those? >> So the way we see it is traditionally, there's kind of four consumption models that exists. There's an as-a-service model, or just-in-time model. There are, we see converged, hyper converged as a consumption continuum that people leverage and utilize. There are best-of-breach solutions. Because if I want an object store, I want an object store, and I want it to do exactly what it does. That's an engineering solution. But then there's the as-a-service, I mean, I'm sorry, there's a software-defying component, as well. And those are the, kind of the four areas. If you look at the NetApp product lines, we have an ONTAP set of products, and we have an Element OS set of products, and we have solutions that fit into each one of those consumption continuums, based on what the customer's characteristics are like. You may have a customer that likes configurability. So they would look at a traditional FlexPod with a FAS and say that that's a great idea for me for, in terms of provisioning infrastructure. You may get other customers that are looking at, I want the next-generation data center. I want to provide block storage as a service. So they would look at something like SolidFire. Or, you have the generalist team that looks at simplicity as the key running factor, and time-to-value. And they look at hyper converged infrastructure. So there's a whole set. For me, when I have a conversation with a customer around build versus buy, I want to understand why they would like to build it versus buy it. Because I think that a lot of times, people think, oh, I just download the software and I put it on a box. I'm like, well, right, that's awesome. Now you're in the supply-chain management business. Is that your core competency? Because I don't think it is, right? And so there's a whole bunch of things. It's like firmware management and all these things. We abstract away all of that complexity. That's the reason we charge up for a product, Is the fact that we do all that heavy lifting for the customer. We provide them with an engineered solution. I saw a lot of that when we really focused significantly on the OpenStack space, where we would come up and compete against SEP. And I'm like, well how many engineers do you want to dedicate to keeping SEP up and running? I could give you a turnkey solution for a price premium, but you will never have to dedicate any engineers to it. So that's the trade-off. >> So on that point, I just want to followup. A followup to that is you vision OpenStack, which, big fans of, as you know, we love OpenStack. In the beginning, the challenge with the dupe in OpenStack early on, although that kind of solved, the industry's evolved, is that the early stage was the cost of ownership problem. Which means you had the early tire kickers. Early pioneers doing to work. And they iterated through it. So the question around modernization, which came up as a theme here, what are some modernization practices that I could take as a potential customer, or customer of NetApp, whether I'm an existing customer or a future customer, I want to modernize but I don't want to, I want to manage cost of ownership. And I want to have an architect that's going to allow me to manage my data for that competitive advantage. So I want the headroom of know that it's not just about putting a data link out there, I got to make data realtime, and I don't know when and where it's going to be available. So I need kind of like a fabric or a layer, but I got to have a modern infrastructure. What do I do, what's the playbook? >> So that's where that data fabric, again, comes in. It's like one of the keynotes we heard earlier in the General Session yesterday. We have customers now who are interested in buying infrastructure like we buy electricity. Or like we buy Internet service at home. So by us having this fabric, and it being associated with a brand like NetApp, we're, it's opening up to the point where, what do you really want to do? That's the question we come to you and ask. And if you're into the modernization, we can provide you all the modernization tools right within this fabric, and seamlessly transition from one provider to the next, or plug into another platform or the next, or even put it on-prem. Whatever you want to do. But this will allow the effective management of the entire platform in one location, where you don't have to worry about a big team. You can take your existing team, and that's where that internal support will come in and allow people to kind of concentrate and say, oh, this is some really interesting stuff. Coming from the engineering side of things, being on that customer side, and when you go into customers, you can connect with those guys and help them to leverage this knowledge that they already have because they're familiar with the products. They know the brand. So that makes it more palatable for them to accept. >> So from the cloud architect's perspective, as you look at it, you look at the data-driven fabric or data fabric, and you're like, wow, this is a great idea. Practically, where's the starting point? Is this a set of products? Is it an architecture? Where do I start to bite into this apple? >> So ultimately, I think, you look at it, and I approach it the same way, I would say, like, I can't just go and buy devops. >> Right. >> Right, but data fabric is still, it's a concept, but it's enabled by a suite of technology products. And we look at NetApp across our portfolio and see all the different products that we have. They all have a data fabric element to them, right? Whether it's a FAS, and Snapmirror and snapping to, and ONTAP cloud, it's running in AWS. Whether it's how we're going to integrate with Azure, now with our NFS service that we're providing in there, whether it's hyper converged infrastructure and the ability to move data off there. Our friend Dave McCrory talked about data having gravity, right, he coined that term. And it does, it does have gravity, and you need to be able to understand where it sits. We have analytics in place that help us craft that. We have a product called OCI that customers use. And what it does, it gives them actionable intelligence about where their data sits, where things may be inefficient. We have to start making that transition to, not just providing storage, but understanding what's in the storage, the value that it has, and using it more like currency. We heard George talk about data as currency, it really is kind of the currency, and information is power, right? >> Yeah, Gabe, I mean Gabe, this is right on the money. I mean cryptocurrency and blockchain is a tell sign of what's coming around the corner. A decentralized and distributed environment that's coming. That wave is way out there, but it's coming fast. So you, I want you to take a minute to talk about the cloud component. >> Sidney: Sure. >> Because you mentioned cloud. Talk about your relationship to the clouds, because multi cloud is coming, too. It's not yet there yet, but just because you have a cloud, something in every cloud means multi cloud in the sense of moving stuff around. And then talk about the customer perspective. Because if I'm a customer, I'm saying to myself, okay, I have NetApp, I got files everywhere, I've got ONTAP, they understand the management game, they know how to manage data on-prem, but now I got this cloud thing going on, and I got this shiny new toy start-up over there that's promised me the moon. But I got to make a decision. You're laughing, I know you're thinking about it. This is the dilemma. Do I stay with what I know? >> Right. >> And what I know, is that relevant for where I'm going? A lot of times start-ups will have that pitch. >> Oh, yeah. >> Right >> So address the cloud and then talk about the impact of the customer around the choice. >> Ultimately, it boils down to me in many respects. When I have a conversation with a customer, if I'm going to go for the bright and shiny, right, there has to be a very compelling business interest to do so. If I've built a set of tools and processes around data governance, management, implementation, movement, et cetera, around a bunch of on-premises technologies and I want that same effect or that same look and feel in the public cloud, then that's how we transition there. I want to make it look like I'm using it here locally but it's not on my site, it's somewhere else. It's being managed by somebody else, from a physical standpoint. I'm just consuming that information. But I also know I have to go back and retool everything I've spent in the last 15 and 20 years building because something new and neat comes along. If that new and neat thing comes along, it abstracts away, or it makes a significant cost reduction or something like that, then obviously, you're going to validate that or look at and vet that technology out. But reality is, is that we kind of have these-- >> Well, they don't want to recode, they don't want to retool, they'll rewrite code, but if you look at the clouds, AWS, Azure, and Google, top three in my mind, >> Sidney: Right. >> They all implement everything differently. They got S3 over there, they got it over here, so like, I got it resting on-prem but then I got to hire a devops team that's trained for Azure, Sidney, this is the reality. I mean, evolution might take care of this, but right now, customers have to know that. >> We're at a point right now where customers, businesses we go to, realtime is very important. Software as a service is the thing now. So if you have a customer who is just clicking on a button, and if they can't see that website or whatever your business is, that's a problem. You're going to lose money. You're going to lose customers, you're going to lose revenue. So what you have to do is, as a business, discover what you have internally. And once you discover that and really understand it as a business, not just the tech team, but the business actually understands that. Move that forward and then blend some cloud technology in that with a data fabric, because you're leveraging what you already have. Most of the time, they usually have some sort of NetApp appliance of some sort. And then some of the new appliances that we do have, you can either say, have a small spin, put it next to an old appliance, or use some of the OCI, or something of that nature, to help you migrate to a more dynamic, and the thing about it is, is to just make it more a fluid transition. That's what you're looking to do. Uptime is everything. >> Yeah. >> Totally. >> This fabric will allow you to have that uptime so that you can propel your business and sustain your business. Because you want to be able to still use what you have, and still get that ROI out of that technology, but at the same token, you want to be more dynamic than the competition, so that you can increase that business and still grow the business, but now lose any business. >> Sidney, you bring up a good point. In fact, we should do a followup segment on this, because, what I'm hearing you say, and I've heard this many times in theCUBE, but it's happening, and certainly, we're doing our part on theCUBE to help, but the tech guys, whether they're ops or devs, they're becoming more business savvy. They've got to get closer to the business. >> Sidney: You have to. >> But they don't want to get an MBA, per se, but they have to become street MBA. >> Sidney: Right. >> They got to get that business degree through scar tissue. >> Yes. You can't just be the tech anymore, you have to understand why your business is making this effort, why it's investing this technology, why they would look to go to the public cloud, if you can't deliver a service, and try to emulate that. We've seen that time and time again, the concept of shadow IT, and a shift away from resources. And if you want to be relevant longterm, and not just the guy that sits in the closet, and then plugs in the wires, start learning about your business. Learn about how the business is run and how it generates revenue and see what you can do to affect that. >> Yeah, and the jobs aren't going away. This nonsense about automation killing jobs. >> No, it's not. >> And they use the mainframe as an example, not really relevant, but kind of, but there are other jobs. I mean, look at cyber security, huge data aspect, impact story. >> Sure, it's huge. >> That paradigm is changing realtime. So good stuff, a lot of good business conferences we should do a followup on. I'll give you guys a final word in this segment. If you could each weigh in on what cloud architects should be doing right now. I mean, besides watching theCUBE, and watching you guys here. They got to have the 20-mile stare. They got to understand the systems that are in place. It's almost like an operating system model. They got to see the big picture. Architecting on paper seems easy, but right now it's hard. What's your advice for cloud architects? >> I mean, I say continue to follow the trends. Continue to expose yourself to new technologies. I mean, I'm really interested in things like serverless and those type technologies, and how we integrate our platforms into those types of solutions. Because, that's kind of the next wave of things that are coming along, as we become more of an API-driven ecosystem, right? So if it's infrastructure, if it's code, if it's everything is just in time instance of spin up, how do I have the communications between those technologies? You've just got to stay well ahead of the curve and, you know ... >> John: Sidney, your thoughts? >> My thoughts are along those lines. Not only from a technical perspective but also like you were talking about, that business perspective. Understand your business needs. Because even though, and be able to provide a portfolio, or a suite of tools that will help that business take that next step. And that's where that value. So it's kind of like a blend. You're more of a hybrid. Where you're coming in, not only as a technical person, but you're coming in to assist the business and develop it and help it take it's next step. >> John: And IT is not a department, anymore, it's everywhere. >> No it's not, not. >> It's integrated. >> It is the business. >> Yes. >> Guys, great conversation here on the future of the cloud architect, here inside theCUBE at NetApp Insight 2017 here at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, theCUBE's coverage. We'll be right back with more after this short break. (techno music) (fast and furious music)

>> Narrator: At the DataWorks Summit, Europe 2017. Brought to you by Hortonworks. >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here live from Munich, Germany at DataWorks 2017, Hadoop Summit formerly, the conference name before it changed to DataWorks. I'm John Furrier with my cohost Dave Vellante. Our next guest, we're excited to have Alan Nance who flew in, just for the CUBE interview today. Executive Vice President with Virtual Clarity. Former star, I call practitioner of the Cloud, knows the Cloud business. Knows the operational aspects of how to use technology. Alan, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on the CUBE. >> Thank you for having me again. >> Great to see you, you were in the US recently, we had a chance to catch up. And one of the motivations that we talked with you today was, a little bit about some of the things you're looking at, that are transformative. Before we do that, let's talk a little about your history. And what your role is at Virtual Clarity. >> So, as you guys have, basically, followed that career, I started out in the transformation time with ING Bank. And started out, basically, technology upwards. Looking at converged infrastructure, converged infrastructure into VDI. When you've got that, you start to look at Clouds. Then you start to experiment with Clouds. And I moved from ING, from earlier experimentation, into Phillips. So, while Phillips, at that time had both the health care and lighting group. And then you start to look at consumption based Cloud propositions. And you remember the big thing that we were doing at that time, when we identified that 80% of the IT spend was non differentiating. So the thing was, how do we get away from almost a 900 million a year spend on legacy? How do we turn that into something that's productive for the Enterprise? So we spent a lot of time creating the consumption based infrastructure operating platform. A lot of things we had to learn. Because let's be honest, Amazon was still trying to become the behemoth it is now. IBM still didn't get the transition, HP didn't get it. So there was a lot of experimentation on which of the operating model-- >> You're the first mover on the operating model, The Cloud, that has scaled to it. And really differentiated services for your business, for also, cost reductions. >> Cost reductions have been phenomenal. And we're talking about halving the budget over a three year period. We're talking about 500 million a year savings. So these are big, big savings. The thing I feel we still need to tackle, is that when we re-platform your business, it should leave to agile acceleration of your growth path. And I think that's something that we still haven't conquered. So I think we're getting better and better at using platforms to save money, to suppress the expenditure. What we now need to do is to convert that into growth platform business. >> So, how about the data component? Because you were CIO of infrastructure at Phillips. But lately, you've been really spending a lot of time thinking about the data, how data adds value. So talk about your data journey. >> Well if I look at the data journey, the journey started for me, with, basically, a meeting with Tom Ritz in 2013. And he came with a very, very simple proposition. "You guys need to learn how to create "and store, and reason over data, "for the benefit of the Enterprise." And I think, "Well that's cool." Because up until that point, nobody had really been talking about data. Everyone was talking about the underlying technologies of the Cloud, but not really of the data element. And then we had a session with JP Rangaswami, who was at Salesforce, who basically, also said, "Well don't just think "about data lakes, but think also "about data streams and data rivers. "Because the other thing that's "going to happen here is that data's "not going to be stagnant in a company like yours." So we took that, and what happened, I think, in Phillips, which I think you see in a lot of companies, is an explosion across the Enterprise. So you've got people in social doing stuff. You got CDO's appearing. You've got the IOT. You've got the old, legacy systems, the systems of record. And so you end up with this enormous fragmentation of data. And with that you get a Wild West of what I call data stewardship. So you have a CDO who says, "Well I'm in charge of data." And you got a CMO who says, "Well I'm in charge of marketing data." Or you've got a CSO, says, "Yeah, "but I'm the security data guy." And there's no coherence, in terms of moving the Enterprise forward. Because everybody's focused on their own functionality around that data and not connecting it. So where are we now? I think right now we have a huge proliferation of data that's not connected, in many organizations. And I think we're going to hybrid but I don't think that's a future proof thing for most organizations. >> John: What do you mean by that? >> Well, if I look at what a lot of those suppliers are saying, they're really saying, "The solution "that you need, is to have a hybrid solution "between the public Cloud and your own Cloud." I thought, "But that's not the problem "that we need to solve." The problem that we need to solve is first of all, data gravity. So if I look at all the transformations that are running into trouble, what do they forget? When we go out and do IOT, when we go out and do social media analysis, it all has to flow back into those legacy systems. And those legacy systems are all going to be in the old world. And so you get latency issues, you get formatting issues. And so, we have to solve the data gravity issue. And we have to also solve this proliferation of stewardship. Somebody has to be in charge of making this work. And it's not going to be, just putting in a hybrid solution. Because that won't change the operating model. >> So let me ask the question, because on one of the things you're kind of dancing around, Dave brought up the data question. Something that I see as a problem in the industry, that hasn't yet been solved, and I'm just going to throw it out there. The CIO has always been the guy managing IT. And then he would report to the CFO, get the budget, blah, blah, blah. We know that's kind of played out its course. But there's no operational playbook to take the Cloud, mobile data at scale, that's going to drive the transformative impact. And I think there's some people doing stuff here and there, pockets. And maybe there's some organizations that have a cadence of managers, that are doing compliance, security, blah, blah, blah. But you have a vision on this. And some information that you're tracking around. An architecture that would bring it to scale. Could you share your thoughts on this operational model of Cloud, at a management level? >> Well, part of this is also based on your own analyst, Peter Boris. When he says, "The problem with data "is that its value is inverse to its half life." So, what the Enterprise has to do is it has to get to analyzing and making this data valuable, much, much faster then it is right now. And Chris Sellender of Unifi recently said, "You know, the problem's not big data. "The problem's fast data." So, now, who is best positioned in the organization to do this? And I believe it's the COO. >> John: Chief Operating Officer? >> Chief Operating Officer. I don't think it's going to be the CIO. Because I'm trying to figure out who's got the problem. Who's got the problem of connecting the dots to improving the operation of the company? Who is in charge of actually creating an operating platform that the business can feed off of? It's the C Tower. >> John: Why not the CFO? >> No, I think the CFO is going to be a diminishing value, over time. Because a couple of reasons. First of all, we see it in Phillips. There's always going to be a fiduciary role for the CFO. But we're out of the world of capex. We're out of the world of balancing assets. Everything is now virtual. So really, the value of a CFO, as sitting on the tee, if I use the racquetball, the CFO standing on the tee is not going to bring value to the Enterprise. >> And the CIO doesn't have the business juice, is your argument? Is that right? >> It depends on the CIO. There are some CIO's out there-- >> Dave: But in general, we're generalizing. >> Generally not. Because they've come through the ranks of building applications, which now has to be thrown away. They've come through the ranks of technology, which is now less relevant. And they've come through the ranks of having huge budgets and huge people to deploy certain projects. All of that's going away. And so what are you left with? Now you're left with somebody who absolutely has to understand how to communicate with the business. And that's what they haven't done for 30 years. >> John: And stream line business process. >> Well, at least get involved in the conversation. At least get involved in the conversation. Now if I talk to business people today, and you probably do too, most of them will still say there's this huge communication gulf. Between what we're trying to achieve and what the technology people are doing with our goals. I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day. And this lady heads up the sales for a global financial institution. She's sitting on the business side of this. And she's like, "The conversation should be "about, if our company wants to improve "our cost income ratio, and they ask me, "as sales to do it, I have to sell 10 times "more to make a difference. "Then if IT would save money. "So for every Euro they save. "And give me an agile platform, "is straight to the bottom line. "Every time I sell, because of our "cost income ratio, I just can't sell against that. "But I can't find on the IT side, "anybody who, sort of, gets my problem. "And is trying to help me with it." And then you look at her and what? You think a hybrid solution's going to help her? (laughs) I have no idea what you're talking about. >> Right, so the business person here then says, "I don't really care where it runs." But to your point, you care about the operational model? >> Alan: Absolutely. >> And that's really what Cloud should be, right? >> I think everybody who's going to achieve anything from an investment in Cloud, will achieve it in the operating world. They won't just achieve it on the cost savings side. Or on making costs more transparent, or more commoditized. Where it has to happen is in the operating model. In fact, we actually have data of a very large, transportation, logistics company, who moved everything that they had, in an attempt to be in a zero Cloud. And on the benchmark, saved zero. And they saved zero because they weren't changing the operating model. So they were still-- >> They lifted and shifted, but didn't change the operational mindset. >> Not at all. >> But there could have been business value there. Maybe things went faster? >> There could have been. >> Maybe simpler? >> But I'm not seeing it. >> Not game changing. >> Not game changing, certainly yes. >> Not as meaningful, it was a stretch. >> Give an example of a game changing scenario. >> Well for me, and I think this is the next most exciting thing. Is this idea of platforms. There's been an early adoption of this in Telco. Where we've seen people coming in and saying, "If you stock all of this IT, as we've known it, "and you leverage the ideas of Cloud computing, "to have scalable, invisible, infrastructure. "And you put a single platform on top of it "to run your business, you can save money." Now, I've seen business cases where people who are about to embark on this program are taking a billion a year out of their cost base. And in this company, it's 1/7th of their total profit. That's a game changer, for me. But now, who's going to help them do that? Who's going to help them-- >> What's the platform look like? >> And a million's a lot of money. >> Let's go, grab a sheet of paper how we-- >> So not everybody will even have a billion-- >> But that gets the attention of certainly, the CEO, the COO, CFO says, "Tell me more." >> You're alluding to it, Dave. You need to build a layer to punch, to doing that. So you need to fix the data stewardship problem. You have to create the invisible infrastructure that enables that platform. And you have to have a platform player who is prepared to disrupt the industry. And for me-- >> Dave: A Cloud player. >> A Cloud player, I think it's a born in the Cloud player. I think, you know, we've talked about it privately. >> So who are the forces to attract? You got Microsoft, you got AWS, Google, maybe IBM, maybe Oracle. >> See, I think it's Google. >> Dave: Why, why do you think it's Google? >> I think it's because, the platforms that I'm thinking of, and if I look in retail, if I look in financial services, it's all about data. Because that's the battle, right. We all agree, the battle's on data. So it's got to be somebody who understands data at scale, understands search at scale, understands deep learning at scale. And understands technology enough to build that platform and make it available in a consumption model. And for me, Google would be the ideal player, if they would make that step. Amazon's going to have a different problem because their strategy's not going down that route. And I think, for people like IBM or Oracle, it would require cannibalizing too much of their existing business. But they may dally with it. And they may do it in a territory where they have no install base. But they're not going to be disrupting the industry. I just don't think it's going to be possible for them. >> And you think Google has the Enterprise chops to pull it off? >> I think Google has the platform. I would agree with Alan on this. Something, I've been very critical on Google. Dave brings this up because he wants me to say it now, and I will. Google is well positioned to be the platform. I am very bullish on Google Cloud with respect to their ability to moon shot or slingshot to the future faster, than, potentially others. Or as they say in football, move the goal posts and change the game. That being said, where I've been critical of Google, and this is where, I'll be critical, is their dogma is very academic, very, "We're the technology leader, "therefore you should use Google G Suite." I think that they have to change their mindset, to be more Enterprise focused, in the sense of understand not the best product will always win, but the B chip they have to develop, have to think about the Enterprise. And that's a lot of white glove service. That's a lot of listening. That's not being too arrogant. I mean, there's a borderline between confidence and arrogance. And I think Google crosses it a little bit too much, Dave. And I think that's where Google recognizes, some people in Google recognize that they don't have the Enterprise track record, for sure on the sales side. You could add 1,000 sales reps tomorrow but do they have experience? So there's a huge translation issue going on between Google's capability and potential energy. And then the reality of them translating that into an operational footprint. So for them to meet the mark of folks like you, you can't be speaking Russian and English. You got to speak the same language. So, the language barrier, so to speak, the linguistics is different. That's my only point. >> I sense in your statements, there's a frustration here. Because we know that the key to some really innovative, disruption is with Google. And I think what we'd all like to do, even while I was addressing the camera. I'd love to see Diane, who does understand Enterprise, who's built a whole career servicing Enterprises extremely well, I'd like to see a little bit of a glimpse of, "We are up for this." And I understand when you're part of the bigger Google, the numbers are a little bit skewered against you to make a big impact and carry the firm with you. But I do believe there's an enormous opportunity in the Enterprise space. And people are just waiting for this. >> Well Diane Greene knows the Enterprise. So she came in, she's got to change the culture. And I know she's doing it. Because I have folks at Google, that I know that work there, that tell me privately, that it's happening, maybe not fast enough. But here's the thing. If you walked in the front door at Google, Alan Nance, this is my point, and he said, "I have experience and I have a plan "to build a platform, to knock a billion "dollars off seven companies, that I know, personally. "That I can walk in and win. "And move a billion dollars to their "bottom line with your platform." They might not understand what that means. >> I don't know, you know I was at Google Next a few weeks ago, last month. And I thought they were more, to your point, open to listening. Maybe not as arrogant as you might be presenting. And somewhat more humble. Still pretty ballsy. But I think Google recognizes that it needs help in the Enterprise. And here's why. Something that we've talked about in the past, is, you've got top down initiatives. You've got bottom up initiatives. And you've got middle out. What frequently happens, and I'd love for you to describe your experiences. The leaders say, the top CXO's say, "Okay we're going." And they take off and the organization doesn't follow them. If it's bottoms up, you don't have the top down in premature. So how do you address that? What are you seeing and how do you address that problem? >> So I think that's a really, really good observation. I mean, what I see in a lot of the big transformations that I've been involved in, is that speed is of the essence. And I think when CEO's, because usually it's the CEO. CEO comes in and they think they've got more time than they actually have to make the impact in the Enterprise. And it doesn't matter if they're coming in from the outside or they've grown up. They always underestimate their ability to do change, in time. And now what's changed over the past few years, is the average tenure of a CEO is six years. You know, I mean, Jack Welch was 20 years at GE. You can do a lot of damage in 20 years. And he did a lot of great things at GE over a 20 year period. You've only got six years now. And what I see in these big transformation programs is they start with a really good vision. I mean Mackenzie, Bain, Boston. They know the essence of what needs to happen. >> Dave: They can sell the dream. >> They can sell the dream. And the CEO sort of buys into it. And then immediately you get into the first layer, "Okay, okay, so we've got to change the organization." And so you bring in a lot of these companies that will run 13 work streams over three years, with hundreds of people. And at the end of that time, you're almost halfway through your tenure. And all you've got is a new design. Or a new set of job descriptions or strategies. You haven't actually achieved anything. And then the layer down is going to run into real problems. One of the problems that we had at the company I worked at before, was in order to support these platforms you needed really good master data management. And we suddenly realized that. And so we had to really put in an accelerated program to achieve that, with Impatica. We did it, but it cost us a year and 1/2. At a bank I know, they can't move forward because they're looking at 700 million of technology debt, they can't get past. So they end up going down a route of, "Maybe one of these big suppliers "can buy our old stuff. "And we can tag on some transformational "deal at the back end of that." None of those are working. And then what happens is, in my mind, if the CEO, from what I see, has not achieved escape velocity at the end of year three. So he's showing the growth, or she's showing the digital transformation, it's kind of game over. The Enterprise has already figured out they've stalled it long enough, not intentionally. And then we go back into an austerity program. Because you got to justify the millions you've spent in the last three years. And you've got nothing to show for it. >> And you're preparing three envelopes. >> So you got to accelerate those layers. You got to take layers out and you've got to have a really, I would say almost like, 90 day iteration plans that show business outcomes. >> But the technology layer, you can put in an abstraction layer, use APIs and infrastructure as code, all that cool stuff. But you're saying it's the organizational challenges. >> I think that's the real problem. It is the real problem, is the organization. And also, because what you're really doing in terms of the Enterprise, is you're moving from a more traditional supply chain that you own. And you've matriculated with SAP or with Oracle. Now you're talking about creating a digital value chain. A digital value chain that's much more based on a more mobile ecosystem, where you would have thin text in one area or insurance text, that have to now fit into an agile supply chain. It's all about the operating model. If you don't have people who know how to drive that, the technology's not going to help you. So you've got to have people on the business side and the technology side coming together to make this work. >> Alan, I have a question for you. What's you're prediction, okay, knowing what you know. And kind of, obviously, you have some frustrations in platforms with trying to get the big players to listen. And I think they should listen to you. But this is going to happen. So I would believe that what you're saying with the COO, operational things radically changing differently. Obviously, the signs are all there. Data centers are moving into the Cloud. I mean this is radical stuff, in a good way. And so, what's your prediction for how this plays out vis a vis Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform Azure, IBM Cloud SoftLayer. >> Well here's my concern a little bit. I think if Google enters the fray I think everybody will reconfigure. Because if we'd assume that Google plays to its strengths and goes out there and finds the right partners. It's going to reconfigure the industry. If they don't do that, then what the industry's going to do is what it's done. Which means that the platforms are going to be hybrid platforms that are dominated by the traditional players. By the SOPs, by the Oracles, by the IBMs. And what I fear is that there may actually be a disillusionment. Because they will not bring the digital transformation and all the wonderful things that we all know, are out there to be gained. So you may get, "We've invested all this money." You see it a little bit with big data. "I've got this huge layer. "I've got petabytes. "Why am I not smarter? "Why is my business not going so much better? "I've put everything in there." I think we've got to address the operating problem. And we have to find a dialogue at the C Suite. >> Well to your point, and we talked about this. You know, you look at the core of Enterprise apps, the Oracle stuff is not moving in droves, to the Cloud. Oracle's freezing the market right now. Betting that it can get there before the industry gets there. And if it does-- >> Alan: It's not. >> And it might, but if it does, it's not going to be that radical transformation you're prescribing. >> They have too much to lose. Let's be honest, right. So Oracle is a victim of it's own success, pretty much like SAP. It has to go to the Cloud as a defensive play. Because the last thing either of those want is to be disintermediated by Amazon. Which may or may not happen anyway. Because a lot of companies will disintermediate if they can. Because the licensing is such a painful element for most enterprises, when they deal with these companies. So they have to believe that the platform is not going to look like that. >> And they're still trying to figure out the pricing models, and the margin models, and Amazon's clearly-- >> You know what's driving the pricing models is not the growth on the consumer side. >> Right, absolutely. >> That's not what's driving it. So I think we need another player. I really think we need another player. If it's not Google, somebody else. I can't think who would have the scale, the money to-- >> The only guys who have the scale, you got 10 cents, maybe a couple China Clouds, maybe one Japan Cloud and that's it. >> To be honest, you raise a good point. I haven't really looked at the Ali Baba's and the other people like that who may pick up that mantle. I haven't looked at them. Ali Baba's interesting, because just like Amazon, they have their own business that runs on platforms. And a very diverse business, which is growing faster than Amazon and is more profitable than Amazon. So they could be interesting. But I'm still hopeful. We should figure this out. >> Google should figure it out. You're absolutely right. They're investing, and I thought they put forth a pretty good messaging at the Google Next. You covered it remotely but I think they understand the opportunity. And I think they have the stomach for it. >> We had reporters there as well, at the event. We just did, they came to our studio. Google is self aware that they need to work on the Enterprise. I think the bigger thing that you're highlighting is the operational model is shifting to a scale point where it's going to change stewardship and COO meaning to be, I like that. The other thing I want to get your reaction to is something I heard this morning, on the CUBE from Sean Connelly. Which that goes with some of the things that we're seeing where you're seeing Cloud becoming a more centralized view. Where IOT is an Edge case. So you have now, issues around architectural things. Your thoughts and reaction to this balance between Edge and Cloud. >> Well I think this is where you're also going to have your data gravity challenge. So, Dave McCrory has written a lot about the concept of data gravity. And in my mind, too many people in the Enterprise don't understand it. Which is basically, that data attracts more data. And more data you have, it'll attract more. And then you create all these latency issues when you start going out to the Edge. Because when we first went out to the Edge I think, even at Phillips, we didn't realize how much interaction needed to come back. And that's going to vary from company to company. So some company's are going to want to have that data really quickly because they need to react to it immediately. Others may not have that. But what you do have is you have this balancing act. About, "What do I keep central? "And what do I put at the Edge?" I think Edge Technology is amazing. And when we first looked at it, four years ago, I mean, it's come such a long way. And what I am encouraged by is that, that data layer, so the layer that Sean talks about, there's a lot of exciting things happening. But again, my problem is what's the Enterprise going to do with that? Because it requires a different operating model. If I take an example of a manufacturing company, I know a manufacturing company right now that does work in China. And it takes all the data back to its central mainframes for processing. Well if you've got the Edge, you want to be changing the way you process. Which means that the decision makers on the business need to be insitu. They need to be in China. And we need to be bringing, systems of record data and combining it with local social data and age data, so we get better decisions. So we can drive growth in those areas. If I just enable it with technology but don't change the business model the business is not going to grow. >> So Alan, we always loved having you on. Great practitioner, but now you've kind of gone over to the dark side. We've heard of a company called Virtual Clarity. Tell us about what you're doing there. >> So what we're vested in, what I am very much vested in, with my team at Virtual Clarity, is creating this concept of precision guided transformation. Where you work on the business, on what are the outcomes we really need to get from this? And then we've combined, I would say it's like a data nerve center. So we can quickly analyze, within a matter of weeks, where we are with the company, and what routes to value we can create. And then we'll go and do it. So we do it in 90 day increments. So the business now starts to believe that something's really going to happen. None of these big, insert miracle here after three year programs. But actually going out and doing it. The second thing that I think that we're doing that I'm excited about is bringing in enlightened people who represent the Enterprise. So, one of my colleagues, former COO of Unilever, we just brought on a very smart lady, Dessa Grassa, who was the CDO at JP Morgan Chase. And the idea is to combine the insights that we have on the demand side, the buy side, with the insights that we have on the technology side to create better operating models. So that combination of creating a new view that is acceptable to the C Suite. Because these people understand how you talk to them. But at the same time, runs on this concept of doing everything quickly. That's what we're about right now. >> That's awesome, we should get you hooked up with our new analyst we just hired, James Corbelius, from IBM. Was focusing on exactly that. The intersections of developers, Cloud, AI machine learning and data, all coming together. And IOT is going to be a key application that we're going to see coming out of that. So, congratulations. Alan thank you for spending the time to come in. >> Thanks for allowing me. >> To see us in the CUBE. It's the CUBE, bringing you more action. Here from DataWorks 2017. I'm John Furrier with my cohost Dave Vallante, here on the CUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's flagship program. Where we've got the events, straight from SiliconANGLE. Stay with us for more great coverage. Day one of two days of coverage at DataWorks 2017. We'll be right back.