>> Live from San Diego, California It's the queue covering Sisqo Live US 2019 Tio by Cisco and its ecosystem. Barker's >> Welcome Back to the Q. We are running out Day two of our coverage of Sisqo Live 2019 from San Diego. Finally. Smartened. Joining Me with David Dante, David Ayer welcoming Carl Hobart to the queue for the first time. Director of product management for network service orchestration from Cisco. Welcome, Carl. >> Thank you so much. Thanks for having you guys >> wearing the Definite Zone. This area has been completely jammed. So buzzy, so full of excitement. For the last two full days, 95% we've been talking about all of the news, the announcement. But network automation is something that we've also been talking about. I was looking at some stats from this Cisco website. I think it was an infographic the other day where of network management is still manual, and I think what hit toe optics alone does that create talk to us about network automation and orchestration? In 2019 what's thie state of the art >> A LL. That's a big topic, but let me see if we can feel some of the layers >> off feeling you can. >> I do spend equated with quite a bit of time with this. And I also have the pleasure of having this conversation with many, many customers because, let me tell you, as uncomfortable as it may feel, you know, for a company like Cisco that is actually the number one topic that customers bring to us. They trust us on so many other dimensions in terms, in terms of the infrastructure that we bring. But the one thing that they really don't want to bring to the front is how can we help them automate their networks? Right? And there's a couple of pressure points going for them. I mean, it's the obvious basic stuff. That manual steps introduce an insane amount of outages and lowers equality. But it's also preparing for what's going to come. So it's that perfect mix between unavoidable and somewhat tedious. It is truly somewhat tedious. It's about cleaning up in front of your door, right? So they're turning to us to try to understand, and this is where it gets really interesting. What are others doing around this? Right, so we get to build a very nice and interesting body of experience working with a number of us, you can imagine large network owners going through the motions towards natural automation because that's number. The observation number one is that it's a long journey. It involves a whole lot of rolls inside of the organization, and it just takes time. So it's not one of these things you can buy yourself out of or you can, you know, hardware yourself out of. It's literally a big a turning point for how they organize themselves, how they hire people, which is huge. We've even had example. So they had to rethink the interior decoration off some of their some of their sight because with the emergence of software people of automation experts, they don't work the same way as traditional network engineers, right? They need another type of building, and that's how it really daunts on some of our customers that okay, way have to step back. So I was coming back to your actual question. Question is that the state of the art right now is the insight that it's a big, big I wouldn't say revolution but evolution towards the software centric world and that it permeates the entire life off people that owns large networks. That insight is actually >> what I saw that the light bulb goes off, okay, but it's it's a maturity curve. It's a bell curve it is for so do you still have? Sure you do. You see complacency. You see fear. What's that? What's that mix look like right now? Is it just a tip of the spear leaning in? Or is it the fat middle is now going for it >> from a vendor perspective. I am, after all, representative with Vova vendor. What's really unique at this place in time is that customers are open and front, loading the conversation with their problems. In many other faces off technology turn, they don't want to talk about their problems. Even even worse, They don't want us to remind them about their problems. They take a front now that's what they want to do, and they want to talk about how bad it is, right, Dave? It's almost like they're competing Now. I'll tell you about it is for me compared to how the others are. So that's huge, because that's true. The tip of the iceberg, like you said on the Insight that they actually have a big honking issue and that time is against them, right? So they are reaching out to vendors wanting to talk about the problems that that's pretty unique. So I think most of the fear and most of the, you know, rationalizing whether in a bad spot that's actually behind them Now it's about getting to solutions. Now it's about opening up, asking for help, sharing the problem with other vendors and other players in the field, and actually kind of almost like huddling around the problem and trying to move it forward as an industry. >> Now is it because you saw that the hyper scale er's had so much success with automation? Is it because of digital transformation? Trying to, you know, grow global scale? They they want to take cost out and shift Resource is why now? Why is it so total mind? >> So not one big thing, but a certain number of incremental pressures that has bean, you know, building up towards a breaking point. I'd say the one thing maybe that comes around mostly is that everybody's very excited about to see what virtualization Khun do for them, right, But virtualization assumes a certain type of the frame roll asset management in a sort of type of automation that blind the assumes, humans or other group, Right? So a big pressure point is to understand, as long as we're doing things manually, there is no virtual ization to be had or actually, virtualization will just make it more complex, and there are no gains to be had. So when I'm thinking about maybe the number one pressure, that's the one thing we have to get humans out of the loop in order to be able to virtual eyes, anything right? Otherwise, well, there will be no gains to be had. And also, I think it's the pressure on the expectations from the customer base. And they don't fundamentally don't understand why networking isn't as agile as workload management applications and all that kind of thing. So we're kind of inheriting the flexibility of the application world on the expectations are kind of falling back on the networking side of things. >> So you talk about virtualization your presume here, including containers in that in that context, right? So that adds another dimension of >> yeah, so the thing you like you want to spend up a container takes, you know, optimized cases below a second. Then go to the phone and call the networking team and ask for a new villain in the top of racks, which simply won't be a good thing, right? So you wanted exactly inside that was fast. Took less than a second. Now let me put a faxing to the networking team so they can go and set the connectivity of said No one. Ever >> right smoke signal that they're never smokes. You go. It makes the string phone carrier pigeons that fly >> little one fly on. Eventually we will have a villa so that that is the thing. They expect the network to respond with the same lightning speed and not only to creating things but moving things, actually tearing down things and removing configurations from the network. That whole lifecycle making the network looked like a malleable resource in the same sense that applications now are through continent generalizations and other things. Is this true at the breaking point, then, for the network engineers? I mean, they've had a uphill battle for a while anyway, but that one really took the price, right? >> Are there any industries in particular that you're seeing were there first or are the first to raise their hands and say, We've got a problem, anything that surprises you Or is it pretty horizontal? Whatyou're saying? >> There's one thing that I really tried to follow and I'll let you in on this secret. You know, between the three of us here, of course, communication service providers and let me spend a couple of seconds on this, mostly the carriers carrier. So there's a whole slew off cos that does nothing but sell Ben with the other carriers. They don't have many end customers themselves, but they passed traffic between the cloud giants and others. Write. It's paper thin margins on enormous amounts of band with, and there's simply no room for humans, right? It's almost like cloud economics, where power is the deciding factor. How cheap you khun game, you can get power. It's the same thing for these people. How how cheap can we produce Massive band with? Those guys were the 1st 1 to do things like connecting their serum system, a sales force or whatever. They're running straight into their network, right? No humans, nothing like that, right? So that's one of my little secrets. I track what they do because they're they're under such extreme margin pressures. >> Yes, right. But because it costs are coming down. And that man, the data volumes or going to the so they're so >> they're they're the probably the first, like, true commodity player in networking, right? So they have to get everything that's not, you know, fixed. Just get it out, get it off the ship, right? Just get it off the shape to win, Right? So there, there, my little secrets. You know, I try to track what they do because they're usually a little bit ahead. >> So what are they doing? >> So they they are again what they're trying to do, You know, normally, in a complication service provider or for that matter, and ambitious enterprise, you have a pretty thick stack of software, right? So at the bottom, obviously, you have the package passing things physical or virtual. Then you have orchestration. Maybe then provisioning, you know? Yeah, layer after layer after layer that has served the services companies really well over the years. Right? But when you step back and look at what you actually do with commodity services, we realized that the little path through that software you can fix with a very, very small set off functions, right? So they're literally just ripping things out and connecting again. They're crn systems straight into the network, and you can hear the pain scream of many. You know, companies that make a whole lot of money and integration, services and and business services and billing and rating in charging and all. That kind of stuff they do is just like like a bear metal implementation ofthe communication, right? So that's what they do. It turns out to be first of all, doable. So they're showing as all that you actually don't have to. Now they have a pretty particular menu off services that they provide. It's pretty short and sweet. It's bad with >> it's a cost for megabit, no frills, exactly >> nothing. No up selling here. But it's what it is, is what it is. So they have having a little easier, but they're really blazing the trail and showing that this can be done with very, very limited amounts off software. But I think that's what they're showing, and the second thing you almost said, it is many of course, enterprises are now extremely application centric that permeates the whole conversation, right? People think of the world in applications apologies, and the network supports the applications. Apologies. So being able to have the network then lock step move with the applications is truly key. I know it sounds simple, but it's it's a It's a big thing for many of our customers >> to ocean. >> It is, well, it is an ocean, and it's it's about making the network come alive for the application owners so it can follow in an ergonomically nice and robust fashion. That's the other really big pressure. So following people that has a strong application bias and trying to delight them as a networking person, which is by no means easy. Some of them actually don't like as much. You know. Some of them would actually like to get rid of the network if they physically could write, but they can't, so they have to live with it. And it's up to us then, to prove that there's actually value in the network by surfacing all the cool stuff that we have to them on their home turf, so to speak. So that's the kind of the second >> driver here, this gold in that net, then that data that's traveling over that it is it is for sure >> is just We haven't made it really easy for them to love way have to improve on them. That's what we have. >> We'll, Carl, thank you so much for a excited, passionate conversation with David me about network service, orchestration and the opportunities. And I love how you're starting to see customers first step in any problem. Situation is admitting. I have a problem and you're saying that that's awesome. We thank you so much for sharing your time and your energy with us. Thanks >> for having me. >> Our pleasure for day Volante. I'm Lisa Martin. We're wrapping up Day two of our coverage of Sisqo live. Join Dave student Amanda myself tomorrow as we broadcast all day. Our third and final day here and Sisqo live in San Diego. Thanks for watching

>> from San Diego, California It's the queue covering Sisqo live US 2019 Tio by Cisco and its ecosystem Barker's >> We'll get back to the Cube. We are live at Cisco Live in San Diego. Study. San Diego. Lisa Martin with David Lantana and David Ayer. Super geeking out here, Susie, we is with us back with us. SPP in CTO of depth that Suzy Welcome back. Thank you. It's great to be back. So this event is massive. Cisco's been doing customer and partner events for 30 years now. What started as networkers? We? No, no, it's just alive. Something else you might not know that's also 30 years old. Dizzy. The movie, The Field of dreams. >> Wow, uh, kind of feels like the field does kind of feel like that that are one >> years yes, on ly five years. This has been so influential in Cisco's transition and transformation. You've got nearly 600,000 members in this community. Definite zone. It's jam packed yesterday today. Expect tomorrow as well? Yes, and you guys made simple, really exciting announcements. Yes, we didn't tell us >> about it, so it's fantastic. >> So basically what happens is the network has gotten very powerful. It has gotten very capable. You know, you can do intelligence machine learning you Khun Dio Intent based networking. So instead of the network just being a pipe, you can actually now use it to connect users devices applications use policy to make sure they're all connected securely. There's all sorts of new things that you could do. But what happens is, while there's all that new capability, it's in order to take advantage of it. It takes more than just providing new products and new technology. So our announcements are basically in two areas and we call it. It's like unleashing the capabilities of the new network and by doing it in to a So won is by bringing software practices to networking. So now that it really is a software based, programmable network with all of these capabilities, we wantto make sure that practice of software comes into a networking, and then the other is in the area of bringing software skills to networking because you need the right skills to be able to also take advantage of that. So if I just jump right into it, so the 1st 1 in terms of bringing software practices to networking. We've announce something that we call definite automation exchange. And so what happens is, you know, of course, our whole community builds networks. And as businesses have grown, their networks have grown right and they've grown and grown business has grown growing, grown right, and then it's become hardest, become unmanageable. So while you say there's all these great new technologies, but these things have grown in their way, so our customers biggest problem is actually network automation like How do I take my network? How do I bring automation to it? There's all the promise of it and definite automation. Exchange is built to basically help our community work towards network automation, so it's a community based developer center. What we say is that we're helping people walk, run and fly with network automation by walking. We're saying, OK, there's all these cool things you could do, but let's take it in three steps like first of all is let's walk. So first, just do a read only thing like get visibility, get insights from your network, and you can be really smart about it because you can use a lot of intelligence predictive modeling. You can figure out what's going on. So that alone is super valuable. >> Get the data. >> Get the data I learn on DH. Then next is an Okay, I'm ready to take action. Like so. Now I've learned I'm ready to take action, apply a network policy, apply a security policy, put controls into your network. That's you know. So, uh, walk, run, And then when you're ready to fly is when you're saying okay, I'm going to get into the full dev ops soup with my network. I'm going to be gathering the insights. I'm going to be pushing in control. I'm now optimizing managing my network as I go. So that's the whole slice it. So the wing fact, we want to go to them the walk, run, fly. >> And if I understand from reading your blood, Great block, by the way, >> Thank you. >> A lot of executives, right? Blog's and it's kind of short of yours is really substantively like, Wow, that was >> really something on. That's No, >> But if I understood a truck that you're gonna prime Sisko was gonna prime the pump A cz? Well, yeah, with a lot of ideas and code on DH. Yes, and then engineers can share. There's if they so choose. >> Exactly. So the key part of automation exchange beyond helping people take thes areas. The question is, how are we going to help them? Right? So what happens is what we've been doing with Definitive. We've been helping people learned to code, you know, in terms of networkers, we've been helping bring software developers into the community. We've been helping them learn to use a pea eye's all the good stuff a developer a good developer program should do. But what are networkers have said is I need help solving use cases. I need help solving the problems that I'm trying to solve, like how to get telemetry and monetary, how to get telemetry and insights from my network. How do I offer a self serve network service out to my, you know, customers line of business developers, you know, howto I automate it scale. And so what happens is there's a you know there's an opportunity or a gap between the products and AP eyes themselves and then solving these use cases so are now opening up a code repository, Definite Automation exchange, where the community can develop software that actually solves those use cases. Francisco is going to curate it. It's just going to be code on Get Hub. We'll make sure that it has the right, you know, licenses that, you know, we do some tests and it's working well with the FBI's, and then we're hoping it's going to become. We're hoping, you know, kind of the industries leading network automation code repository to solve these problems. >> Well, it's this key because big challenge that customers tell us that they have with automation is they got all these bespoke tools. None of them work together. So do you think something like this exchange can help solve that problem? >> It can. I believe it can. So the reason being is that you know, there are tools that people use and everybody's environments a little different. So some might want Teo integrate in and use answerable terra form, you know, tools like that. And so then you need code that'll help integrate into that. Other people are using service now for tickets. So if something happens, integrate into that people are using different types of devices, hopefully mostly Cisco, but they may be other using others as well way can extend code that goes into that. So it really helps to go in different areas. And what's kind of cool is that our there's an amount of code that where people have the same problems, you know, you know, you start doing something. Everyone has to make the first few kind of same things in software. Let's get that into exchange. And so let's share that there's places where partners are gonna want to differentiate. Keep that to yourselves like use that as your differentiated offer on DH. Then there's areas where people want to solve in communities of interest. So we have way have someone who does networking, and he wants to do automation. He does it for power management in the utilities industry. So he wants a community that'll help write code that'll help for that area, you know, So people have different interests, and, you know, we're hoping to help facilitate that. Because Sisko actually has a great community way, have a great community that we've been building over the last 30 years there the network experts there solving the real problems around the world. They work for partners, they work for customers, and we're hoping that this will be a tool to get them to band together and contribute in a software kind of way. >> So is the community begins to understand never automation and elect your pathway of of walk, run fly swatter. Soothe projected business outcomes that that any industry, whether it's utilities or financial services, will be able to glean from network automation. I can imagine how expensive from topics perspective it is all this manual network management. So what? Oh, that's some of the things that you projecting the future that businesses who adopt this eventually are going to be able to re >> Absolutely, I mean, just, you know, very simple. Well, so many, so many things. So, uh, in the in the case of what's a manufacturing, because you're talking about different industries? So there's a whole opportunity of connected manufacturing, right? So how do I get all of those processes connected, digitized and write. Now write things air being pretty much run in their way. But if you can really connect them in, digitize them. Then you can start to glean business insights from them. Right? Should I speed up? How's my supply chain doing where my parts Where's my inventory? Everything. You get all of that connected. That is like a huge business implications on what you can do. >> You have a kitchen, get start getting the fly will effect around all that data. Akeley. So I've always been fascinated that you see definite zone and there's these engineers ccs saying Okay, I want to learn more. I want to learn how to code numbers keep growing and growing and growing. And so you've got new certifications. Now that you're >> out of that was, >> this's huge. You need to talk about that, >> Yes, so that, you >> know, kind of the second part of our thing is like how we're bringing software skills to networking. So to get you know, the most of all this opportunity, you do need software skills. And of course, that's what Definite was originally founded on is really helping people to build those skills. But we've kind of graduated to the next level because we've teamed up with the Learning and Cisco team, which creates Cisco Start ification program. Cisco has, you know, an amazing certification program. So the C C. A is the gold standard and certifications and you know networkers around the world have that C C I status partners have built up. They pay people for that. You know any customer who's deploying now, which they will hire the CCS. So that was founded in 1993. The first see CIA, and that program in the next 26 years has grown to what it is. And what we've done is we've teamed up with them to now add a definite certification. So we're bringing in software skills along with the networking skills so that we have the Cisco certifications, the Cisco definite certifications sitting side by side and you know we believe it. You know, right now the people who you've seen in the definite Zone are the ones who know what's important. They come in there doing it. But they said, I want credit for what I'm doing. Like I get credit, I get a raise, I get bonuses. My job level depends on my networking sort of occasions. I'm doing this on my nights and weekends, but I know it's important. And now, by bringing this into the program, my company can recognise this. I'm recognized as a professional for my skills. It helps in all sorts of ways. >> So go ahead. Please >> think this just sounds way more to me than the next step. In Definite. It sounds like it's a revolution. >> It's a revolution. >> First addition in 26 years, that's bay >> now. I mean, there have been changes in the program, but it's the biggest change in those 26 years. Absolutely. And you know, like we'll see what what happens. But I think it is, Ah, step change in a revolution for the industry because we're recognizing that networking skills are important and software skills are important and critical. And if you want to build a team that can compete, that can really help your companies succeed, you're gonna want both of these skills together in your organization. And I believe that that's goingto help accelerate the industry, because then they can use all of these tools, right? So right now on it department can either hold the company down or accelerate a company to success because the question is, how quickly can you help someone adopt cloud? How can they do multi cloud? How convey innovative software speeds? And now we're here, hopefully catalyzing the network industry to be ableto work at that speed. >> I was joking. You wanna be the department of No or the Department of Go? Let's go. So is being a C C. A prerequisite to the definite certificate is not okay, so is not linear. So you're getting CC eyes obviously lining up to get certified to see him here So you could get kids out of college saying, Okay, I want in. >> Absolutely. And so the way that it works is that, um so actually you could. So what we have with the Cisco certifications for both the definite as well as the original Cisco started Take bath is that there's an associate level, which means you have about a years working experience. You know enough. So see CNN, Cisco Certified Network associate. They know enough about networking so that they can learn the fundamentals of networking and then be effective as part of a team that runs networks. So that's what that certification does for you. Way also now have a definite associate, which is ensuring that you have the software skills that you can also enter a team that's writing software applications or doing automated work flows for a network. And we have to know that all developers are not created equally. So just cause you wrote a mobile app doesn't mean that you can write software for, you know, running operational network. So the definite association is more like you need to be able to securely use AP eyes, right? So there's a lot of things that are within that. And then we have the professional in the expert levels. Um, and we have it on both sides now. Originally, way were thinking that there's the network engineer path. We're going to sprinkle a little software in there, and we'll have the definite path for a software developer, and it would be its own path. But we got feedback as we started presenting to our partners into our customers. And then they're like, No, this cannot be separate people. It's like it needs to come together. And so then we changed our how we thought about it, and we said that there's a set of engineering certifications and there's a set of software certifications. Anybody can get what they want, and you can start to combine them in very interesting ways. >> I could put together my own career, Mosaic. >> Absolutely so if you said, You know what? I am going to be that tick ass networker. And if we have the unicorn of like and I'm goingto you know over time, we're going to offer definite expert in the future. I said, I'm going to be a CC expert in the future. Be a definite expert. That's awesome. But we're not forcing folks to do it, because maybe you're going to be a CC. I get a definite associates so that you can speak the language of software and know what it does. But then you'll sit alongside a developer, and you guys will be able to speak the same language together. And we also make sure that our developers learn a bit about networking. So if you look at that associate, it's kind of 80 20 networking software, the other one's 80 20 software and networking so that they can actually work and talk to each other. >> So looking at these big waves that were writing right now and compute in network with G WiFi six s edge a prize anywhere, how is definite and the certification that you've just unleashed into the world? How is it going to enable not just the community members. Yes, who helped accelerate Companies take advantage of some of these big ways. But how is it going? Helps drive Cisco's evolution? >> And so and you bring up a great distinction, which is as we talk about a new set of applications. And we talked about this that create a definite create when you're there. Is that APP developers? If they understand the capabilities of the network, they can actually write an entirely new set of applications. Because you know, five g y fi six are better. If you understand EJ computing in the opportunity there, you know a networker will install a network that can host apse that makes edge computing riel. So there's another reason for the app developer a community to come together with the networkers. So when we talk about now, how does this help? Cisco is Well, first of all, it takes all of the networkers that are out there, and it insures that they're getting to that next level so that you're really fully using those capabilities and that worked, which can then accelerate business, you know. So it really is. The new capabilities are entirely different. Wayto look at networking that really do Tie and Dr Business On the other is the other part we're talking about is those APP developers that come in and write great applications can come in and now really be connected and actually use that whole network infrastructure and all its capabilities. So that really ties us to more kind of, you know, instead of a networker going in instead of going in and selling network kit and then figuring out the line of business things separately, you Khun, bring those applications into our ecosystem and into our offerings. So it's an integrated offering like here's a connected manufacturing offering that includes what you need to connect as well a CZ third party applications that are great for the manufacturing industry. And now you're looking at selling that whole solution >> and applications that we haven't even thought of a member in Barcelona walking into the i o. T Zone and seeing some programmable device from a police car on a camera. And, yes, some of these guys could just they're going to create things that we definite create, haven't even conceived, so you're creating sort of this new role. To me, it's like D B A You know, CC, it's now this new definite creator in a role that is going to have a lot of influence in the organization because they're driving value right there, going toe, bring people with them. People going to say, Oh, I want that. So now you think you're going to stand in Barcelona? The number of people that you've trained, I don't know, make many tens of thousands. I mean, where we have today with >> hundreds of thousands, wait half 1,000,000 5 100,000 Last year were at six >> 100,000. This was going 100,000 organic new members over the last year. So >> people here over half 1,000,000 now. >> Yeah. Yeah. So unbelievable. Yep, definitely So I know it's great. And just people are interested, right? So people are interested. People are learning, you know? And that's what makes it, you know, interesting to me is people are finding value in it, and they're coming. So s O. I think that, you know, kind of definite in the last five years has been kind of like an experiment, right? So it's just like, is the industry ready? Like do networkers really want to learn about software. What air? That we've been kind of prime ing it. And, you know, by now getting to this next level, you know, just the certifications. What we have learned from all of that is that it's really and that, you know, with the new capabilities in the network, we can really take our community and our bring new people into our community to make that opportunity really into Dr Business from the network. >> Everybody wants the code >> had they dio and some >> people >> are scared. Actually, some people are very scared. >> You mean intimidated, >> intimidated, intimidated. Yes. So there's the set of people who've come in early, right? And they're the ones who you've seen in the definite Zone. But everybody, of course, they start out scared. But then right after they get over that fear, they realize this really is a new future. And so then they start jumping in, and so it's both beer and then opportunity. >> Then they're on strike. That's what it's all about, Yang. And absolutely, I could do this for my business and >> absolutely, I would love to know the end that near future, how many different products and services and Maybe even companies have been created from the definite community for springing all these different Pittsburgh folks together. Imagine the impact >> it is. I mean, like, one really small things. You've been with us at our little definite create conference is we have something there that's called Camp Create, which is where they spend a week hacking, right? So and this It's kind of sometimes our most serious attendees because they're choosing Teo Code for the weak is what you know as well as to attend way. Didn't really add it all up yet. But what we found is there's about 25 to 30 people who attend. Met a bunch of them got promoted in that year. Wow. So in different ways, you know, not in ways that are necessarily connected but in their own ways, like in their company. This person got promoted to this to this one area. This other person, one person was a contractor. They got converted to a, you know, full time employee. So you know, we have to go and do the math on it. But what's amazing is that you know it just you know that bring that fills our hearts. >> It's organic too. Well, Susie, we Thank you so much for joining David. Me on the clean. You're going back with me tomorrow. And some guests. I'm looking forward to that. Excellent. Yes, Absolutely. More, More great stars. >> Your duel Co hosting a >> way. I didn't know that. No way. But I'll turn. I'll be the host is Well, I try something new. Way we're >> gonna have fun. I am looking forward to it. Thank you >> so much. And thank you for being with us in our whole vision of definite from the beginning. So thank you. >> It's been awesome. All right. We want to thank you for watching the Cube for David. Dante. I'm Lisa Martin. We will catch you right back with our last guest from Cisco Live in San Diego.