(upbeat music) >> Hello, brilliant humans and welcome back to theCUBE. We're live from Detroit, Michigan. My name is Savannah Peterson. Joined here with John Furrier, John, so exciting, day three. >> Day three, cranking along, doing great, final day of KubeCon, it wraps up. This next segment's going to be great. It's about WebAssembly, the hottest trend here, at KubeCon that nobody knows about cause they just got some funding and it's got some great traction. Multiple players in here. People are really interested in this and they're really discovering it. They're digging into it. So, we're going to hear from one of the founders of the company that's involved. So, it'll be great. >> Yeah, I think we're right at the tip of the iceberg really. We started off the show with Scott from Docker talking about this, but we have a thought leader in this space. Please welcome Matt Butcher the CEO and co-founder of Fermyon Thank you for being here. Welcome. >> Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Favorite thing to talk about is WebAssembly after that is coffee but WebAssembly first. >> Hey, it's the morning. We can talk about both those on the show. (all chuckles) >> It might get confusing, but I'm willing to try. >> If you can use coffee as a metaphor to teach everyone about WebAssembly throughout the rest of the show. >> All right. That would be awesome. >> All right I'll keep that in mind. >> So when we were talking before we got on here I thought it was really fun because I think the hype is just starting in the WebAssembly space. Very excited about it. Where do you think we're at, set the stage? >> Honestly, we were really excited to come here and see that kind of first wave of hype. We came here expecting to have to answer the question you know, what is WebAssembly and why is anybody looking at it in the cloud space, and instead people have been coming up to us and saying, you know this WebAssembly thing, we're hearing about it. What are the problems it's solving? >> Savannah: Yeah. >> We're really excited to hear about it. So, people literally have been stopping us in restaurants and walking down the street, hey, "You're at KubeCon, you're the WebAssembly people. Tell us more about what's going on." >> You're like awesome celeb. I love this. >> Yeah, and I, >> This is great >> You know the, the description I used was I expected to come here shouting into the void. Hey, you know anybody, somebody, let me tell you about WebAssembly. Instead it's been people coming to us and saying "We've heard about it. Get us excited about it," and I think that's a great place to be. >> You know, one of the things that's exciting too is that this kind of big trend with this whole extraction layer conversation, multicloud, it reminds me of the old app server days where, you know there was a separation between the back end and front end, and then we're kind of seeing that now with this WebAssembly Wasm trend where the developers just want to have the apps run everywhere and the coding to kind of fall in, take a minute to explain what this is, why it's important, why are people jazzed about there's other companies like Cosmonic is in there. There's a lot of open source movement behind it. You guys are out there, >> Savannah: Docker. >> 20 million in fresh funding. Why is this important? What is it and why is it relevant right now? Why are people talking about it? >> I mean, we can't... There is no penasia in the tech world much for the good of all of us, right? To keep us employed. But WebAssembly seems to be that technology that just sort of arose at the right time to solve a number of problems that were really feeling intractable not very long ago. You know, at the core of what is WebAssembly? Well it's a binary format, right? But there's, you know, built on the same, strain of development that Java was built on in the 90's and then the .net run time. But with a couple of little fundamental changes that are what have made it compelling today. So when we think about the cloud world, we think about, okay well security's a big deal to us. Virtual machines are a way for us to run other people's untrusted operating systems on our hardware. Containers come along, they're a... The virtual machine is really the heavyweight class. This is the big thing. The workhorse of the cloud. Then along come Containers, they're a little slimmer. They're kind of the middleweight class. They provide us this great way to sort of package up just the application, not the entire operating system just the application and the bits we care about and then be able to execute those in a trusted environment. Well you know, serverless was the buzzword a few years ago. But one thing that serverless really identified for us is that we didn't actually have the kind of cloud side architecture that was the compute layer that was going to be able to fulfill the promise of serverless. >> Yeah. >> And you know, at that time I was at Microsoft we got to see behind the curtain and see how Azure operates and see the frustration with going, okay how do we get this faster? How do we get this startup time down from seconds to hundreds of milliseconds, WebAssembly comes along and we're able to execute these things in sub one millisecond, which means there is almost no cost to starting up one of these. >> Sub one millisecond. I just want to let everyone rest on that for a second. We've talked a lot about velocity and scale on the show. I mean everyone here is trying to do things faster >> Yep >> Obviously, but that is a real linchpin that makes a very big difference when we're talking about deploying things. Yeah. >> Yeah, and I mean when you think about the ecological and the cost impact of what we're building with the cloud. When we leave a bunch of things running in idle we're consuming electricity if nothing else. The electricity bill keeps going up and we're paying for it via cloud service charges. If you can start something in sub one millisecond then there's no reason you have to leave it running when nobody's using it. >> Savannah: Doesn't need to be in the background. >> That's right. >> So the lightweight is awesome. So, this new class comes up. So, like Java was a great metaphor there. This is kind of like that for the modern era of apps. >> Yeah. >> Where is this going to apply most, do you think? Where's it going to impact most? >> Well, you know, I think there are really four big categories. I think there's the kind of thing I was just talking about I think serverless and edge computing and kind of the server class of problem space. I think IOT is going to benefit, Amazon, Disney Plus, >> Savannah: Yes, edge. >> And PBS, sorry BBC, they all use WebAssembly for the players because they need to run the same player on thousands of different devices. >> I didn't even think about that use case. What a good example. >> It's a brilliant way to apply it. IOT is a hard space period and to be able to have that kind of layer of abstraction. So, that's another good use case >> Savannah: Yeah. >> And then I think this kind of plugin model is another one. You see it was Envoy proxy using this as a way to extend the core features. And I think that one's going to be very, very promising as well. I'm forgetting one, but you know. (all chuckles) I think you end up with these kind of discreet compartments where you can easily fit WebAssembly in here and it's solving a problem that we didn't have the technology that was really adequately solving it before. >> No, I love that. One of the things I thought was interesting we were all at dinner, we were together on Tuesday. I was chatting with Paris who runs Deliveroo at Apple and I can't say I've heard this about too many tools but when we were talking about WebAssembly she said "This is good for everybody" And, it's really nice when technologies come along that will raise the water level across the board. And I love that you're leading this. Speaking of you just announced a huge series aid, 20 million dollars just a few days ago. What does that mean for you and the team? >> I mean there's a little bit of economic uncertainty and it's always nice, >> Savannah: Just a little bit. >> Little bit. >> Savannah: It's come up on the show a little bit this week >> Just smidge. and it's nice to know that we're at a critical time developing this kind of infrastructure layer developing this kind of developer experience where they can go from, you know, blinking cursor to deployed application in two minutes or less. It would be a tragedy if that got forestalled merely because you can't achieve the velocity you need to carry it out. So, what's very exciting about being able to raise around like that at this critical time is that gives us the ability to grow strategically, be able to continue releasing products, building a community around WebAssembly as a whole and of course around our products at Fermyon is a little smaller circle in the bigger circle, and that's why we are so excited about having closed around, that's the perfect one to extend a runway like that. >> Well I'm super excited by this because one I love the concept. I think it's very relevant, like how you progress heavyweight, middleweight, maybe this is lightweight class. >> I know, I'm here for the analogy. No, it's great, its great. >> Maybe it's a lightweight class. >> And we're slimming, which not many of us can say in these times so that's awesome. >> Maybe it's more like the tractor trailer, the van, now you got the sports car. >> Matt: Yeah, I can go.. >> Now you're getting Detroit on us. >> I was trying for a coffee, when I just couldn't figure it out. (all chuckles) >> So, you got 20 million. I noticed the investors amplify very good technical VC and early stage firm. >> Amazing, yeah. >> Insight, they do early stage, big early stage like this. Also they're on the board of Docker. Docker was intent to put a tool out there. There's other competition out there. Cosmonic is out there. They're funded. So you got VC funded companies like yourselves and Cosmonic and others. What's that mean? Different tool chains, is it going to create fragmentation? Is there a common mission? How do you look at the competition as you get into the market >> When you see an ecosystem form. So, here we are at KubeCon, the cloud native ecosystem at this point I like to think of them as like concentric rings. You have the kind of core and then networking and storage and you build these rings out and the farther out you get then the easier it is to begin talking about competition and differentiation. But, when you're looking at that core piece everybody's got to be in there together working on the same stuff, because we want interoperability, we want standards based solutions. We want common ways of building things. More than anything, we want the developers and operators and users who come into the ecosystem to be able to like instantly feel like, okay I don't have to learn. Like you said, you know, 50 different tools for 50 different companies. "I see how this works", and they're doing this and they're doing this. >> Are you guys all contributing into the same open source? >> Yep, yeah, so... >> All the funding happens. >> Both CNCF and the ByteCode Alliance are organizations that are really kind of pushing forward that core technology. You know, you mentioned Cosmonic, Microsoft, SOSA, Red Hat, VMware, they're all in here too. All contributing and again, with all of us knowing this is that nascent stage where we got to execute it. >> How? >> Do it together. >> How are you guys differentiating? Because you know, open source is a great thing. Rising Tide floats all boats. This is a hot area. Is there a differentiation discussion or is it more let's see how it goes, kind of thing? >> Well for us, we came into it knowing very specifically what the problem was we wanted to solve. We wanted this serverless architecture that executed in sub one millisecond to solve, to really create a new wave of microservices. >> KubeCon loves performance. They want to run their stuff on the fastest platform possible. >> Yeah, and it shouldn't be a roadblock, you know, yeah. >> And you look at someone like SingleStore who's a database company and they're in it because they want to be able to run web assemblies close to the data. Instead of doing a sequel select and pulling it way out here and munging it and then pushing it back in. They move the code in there and it's executing in there. So everybody's kind of finding a neat little niche. You know, Cosmonic has really gone more for an enterprise play where they're able to provide a lot of high level security guarantees. Whereas we've been more interested in saying, "Hey, this your first foray into WebAssembly and you're interested in serverless we'll get you going in like a couple of minutes". >> I want to ask you because we had Scott Johnston on earlier opening keynote so we kind of chatted one-on-one and I went off form cause I really wanted to talk to him because Docker is one of the most important companies since their pivot, when they did their little reset after the first Docker kind of then they sold the enterprise off to Mirantis they've been doing really, really well. What's your relationship to Docker? He was very bullish with you guys. Insights, joint investor. Is there a relationship? You guys talk, what's going on there? >> I mean, I'm going to have to admit a little bit of hero worship on my part. I think Scott is brilliant. I just do, and having come from the Kubernetes world the Fermyon team, we've always kind of kept an eye on Docker communicated with a lot of them. We've known Justin Cormack for years. Chris Cornett. (indistinct) I mean yeah, and so it has been a very natural >> Probably have been accused of every Docker Con and we've did the last three years on the virtual side with them. So, we know them really well. >> You've always got your finger on the pulse for them. >> Do you have a relationship besides a formal relationship or is it more of pass shoot score together in the industry? >> Yeah. No, I think it is kind of the multi-level one. You come in knowing people. You've worked together before and you like working with each other and then it sort of naturally extends onto saying, "Hey, what can we do together?" And also how do we start building this ecosystem around us with Docker? They've done an excellent job of articulating why WebAssembly is a complimentary technology with Containers. Which is something I believe very wholeheartedly. You need all three of the heavyweight, middleweight, lightweight. You can't do all the with just one, and to have someone like that sort of with a voice profoundly be able to express, look we're going to start integrating it to show you how it works this way and prevent this sort of like needless drama where people are going, oh Dockers dead, now everything's WebAssembly, and that's been a great.. >> This fight that's been going on. I mean, Docker, Kubernetes, WebAssembly, Containers. >> Yeah. >> We've seen on the show and we both know this hybrid is the future. We're all going to be using a variety of different tools to achieve our goals and I think that you are obviously one of them. I'm curious because just as we were going on you mentioned that you have a PhD in philosophy. (Matt chuckles) >> Matt: Yeah. >> Which is a wild card. You're actually our second PhD in philosophy working in a very technical role on the show this week, which is kind of cool. So, how does that translate into the culture at Fermyon? What's it like on the team? >> Well, you know, a philosophy degree if nothing else teaches you to think in systems and both human systems and formal systems. So that helps and when you approach the process of building a company, you need to be thinking both in terms of how are we organizing this? How are we organizing the product? How do we organize the team? We have really learned that culture is a major deal and culture philosophy, >> Savannah: Why I'm bringing it up. >> We like that, you know, we've been very forward. We have our chip values, curiosity, humility inclusivity and passion, and those are kind of the four things that we feel like that each of us every day should strive to be exhibiting these kinds of things. Curiosity, because you can't push the envelope if you don't ask the hard questions. Humility, because you know, it's easy to get cocky and talk about things as if you knew all the answers. We know we don't and that means we can learn from Docker and Microsoft >> Savannah: That's why you're curious. >> And the person who stops by the booth that we've never met before and says, "hey" and inclusivity, of course, building a community if you don't execute on that well you can't build a good community. The diversity of the community is what makes it stronger than a singular.. >> You have to come in and be cohesive with the community. >> Matt: Yeah. >> The app focus is a really, I think, relevant right now. The timing of this is right online. I think Scott had a good answer I thought on the relationship and how he sees it. I think it's going to be a nice extension to not a extension that way, but like. >> It probably will be as well. >> Almost a pun there John, almost a pun. >> There actually might be an extension, but evolution what we're going to get to which I think is going to be pure application server, like. >> Yep, yep. Like performance for new class of developer. Then now the question comes up and we've been watching developer productivity. That is a big theme and our belief is that if you take digital transformation to its conclusion IT and developers aren't a department serving the business they are the business. That means the developer workflows will have to be radically rebuilt to handle the velocity and new tech for just coding. I call it architectural list. >> I like that. I might steal that. >> It's a pun, but it's also brings up the provocative question. You shouldn't have to need an architecture to code. I mean, Java was great for that reason in many ways. So, if that happens if the developers are running the business that means more apps. The apps is the business. You got to have tool chains and productivity. You can't have fragmentation. Some people are saying WebAssembly might, fork tool chains, might challenge the developer productivity. what's your answer to that? How would you address that objection? >> I mean the threat of forking is always lurking in the corner in open source. In a way it's probably a positive threat because it keeps us honest it keeps us wanting to be inclusive again and keep people involved. Honestly though, I'm not particularly worried about it. I know that the W-3 as a standards body, of course, one of the most respected standards bodies on the planet. They do html, they do cascading style sheets. WebAssembly is in that camp and those of us in the core are really very interested in saying, you know, come on in, let's build something that's going to be where the core is solid and you know what you got and then you can go into the resurgence of the application server. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with you on that, and we can only get there if we say, all right, here are the common paradigms that we're all going to agree to use, now let's go build stuff. >> And as we've been saying, developers are setting, I think are going to set the standards and they're going to vote with their code and their feet, if you will. >> Savannah: A hundred percent. >> They will decide if you're not aligning with what they want to do. okay. On how they want to self-serve and or work, you'll figure that out. >> Yep, yep. >> You'll get instant feedback. >> Yeah. >> Well, you know, again, I tell you a huge fan of Docker. One of the things that Docker understood at the very outset, is that they had an infrastructure tool and developers were the way to get adoption, and if you look at how fast they got adoption versus many, many other technologies that are profoundly impacted. >> Savannah: Wild. >> Yeah. >> Savannah: It's a cool story. >> It's because they got the developers to go, "This is amazing, hey infrastructure folks, here's an infrastructure tool that we like" and the infrastructure folks are used to code being tossed over the wall are going, "Are you for real?" I mean, and that was a brilliant way to do it and I think that what.. >> John: Yeah, yeah. >> We want to replay in the WebAssembly world is making it developer friendly and you know the kind of infrastructure that we can actually operate. >> Well congratulations to the entire community. We're huge fans of the concept. I kind of see where it's going with connect the dots. You guys getting a lot of buzz. I have to ask you, my final question is the hype is beyond all recognition at this point. People are super pumped and enthusiastic about it and people are looking at it maybe some challenging it, but that's all good things. How do you get to the next level where people are confident that this is actually going to go the next step? Hype to confidence. We've seen great hype. Envoy was hyped up big time before it came in, then it became great. That was one of my favorite examples. Hype is okay, but now you got to put some meat on the bone. The sizzle on the stake so to speak. So what's going to be the stake for you guys as you see this going forward? What's the need? >> Yeah, you know, I talk about our first guiding story was, you know, blinking cursor to deployed application in two minutes. That's what you need to win developers initially. So, what's the next story after that? It's got to be, Fermyon can run real world applications that solve real world problems. That's where hype often fails. If you can build something that's neat but nobody's quite sure what to do with it, to use it, maybe somebody will discover a good use. But, if you take that gambling asset, >> Savannah: It's that ending answer that makes the difference. >> Yeah, yeah. So we say, all right, what are developers trying to build with our platform and then relentlessly focus on making that easier and solving the real world problem that way. That's the crucial thing that's going to drive us out of that sort of early hype stage into a well adopted technology and I talk from Fermyon point of view but really that's for all of us in the WebAssembly. >> John: Absolutely. >> Very well stated Matt, just to wrap us up when we're interviewing you here on theCUBE next year, what do you hope to be able to say then that you can't say today? >> All this stuff about coffee we didn't cover today, but also.. (all chuckles) >> Savannah: Here for the coffee show. Only analogies, that's a great analogy. >> I want to walk here and say, you know last time we talked about being able to achieve density in servers that was, you know, 10 times Kubernetes. Next year I want to say no, we're actually thousands of times beyond Kubernetes that we're lowering people's electricity bill by making these servers more efficient and the developers love it. >> That your commitment to the environment is something I want to do an entirely different show on. We learned that 7-8% of all the world's powers actually used on data centers through the show this week which is jarring quite frankly. >> Yeah, yeah. Tragic would be a better way of saying that. >> Yeah, I'm holding back so that we don't go over time here quite frankly. But anyways, Matt Butcher thank you so much for being here with us. >> Thank you so much for having me it was pleasure.. >> You are worth the hype you are getting. I am grateful to have you as our WebAssembly thought leader. In addition to Scott today from Docker earlier in the show. John Furrier, thanks for being my co-host and thank all of you for tuning into theCUBE here, live from Detroit. I'm Savannah Peterson and we'll be back with more soon. (ambient music)

>>Mhm. Hey, welcome to the cubes coverage of HP discover 2021. I'm lisa martin. I have two guests with me here today. We're gonna be talking to the walt. Disney company. Jason Abrahamson is here. The Director of infrastructure engineering. Jason. Welcome to the program. >>Hi, how you doing >>doing well. And James Irvine is here as well. Account chief technologist at H P. D. James. Welcome to the program. >>Yeah, I like to thank you. >>Okay, so we're gonna be talking about all things the HP supporting Disney relationship. But you know, things have been changing so much in technology, things have been very different for technologists in the last few years, Jason talked to us about how Disney has adapted as business needs have evolved. >>Uh you know, I think not just Disney but in general, as we've we've had to evolve, evolve as technologists. Right. And one of the ways we've done that is to focus a lot on automation and self service, enabling developers to move faster to meet the shift in business demand, business moves at the speed of light. Uh anybody that's been this business long enough knows. Uh There were years ago you could have email servers down for three hours and nobody would notice. Now if email went down for more than, you know, 35 seconds, everybody notices. Right? So in order to meet the change in demand, we've had to focus heavily on automation and self service, which has been a key strategy, is keep a key driver for as as part of private cloud. >>So Jason with infrastructure as such, a large part of your responsibilities and your job title, how has Disney been thinking about private cloud in the last few years? >>So I would say that we were probably one of the uh I don't wanna see bleeding edge, but certainly out in front when it came to private cloud, we had embarked on a cloud first strategy overall across the enterprise, uh, the goal there was to figure out how we could do more with less and be more agile and be able to flex for application developers and meet our shifts in demand. However, there are, you know, systems that for whatever reasons, business purpose or otherwise need to either span hybrid cloud or multi cloud or stay on premise. So in order to uh get a cloud like environment for application developers and whatnot, we decided to build out a robust, private cloud environment that allowed all of our application developers to be able to just bring their code or get a server and try to get as much of the public cloud functionality on premise as we possibly could >>James. Let's bring you into the conversation, talk to us about the H P E WAlt Disney company relationship and how HP is supporting walt. Disney. >>Yeah, HP and Disney have had a long standing relationship dating all the way back to HP and Disney as far as the audio oscillators concerned. So we've had an extraordinarily long history, the technology and co innovation partnership that we've worked on together through the years. And as Jason mentioned, you know, the journey around private cloud and working together in that technology relationship is just has been fantastic. And we've supported them with all the innovation and technology is needed for them to meet their bulls. >>Excellent. All right, Jason, let's go back to you. I want to dig into this private cloud strategy a little bit more. You mentioned this a minute ago, but as we look at and here so many discussions and strategies revolving around public, multi cloud, Why is private cloud so important to Disney? >>Well, we have a tremendous amount of applications. We are application portfolio as massive as you can imagine. And we find ourselves in unique situations because of all of the different uh, business challenges that we have that are unique to Disney, that we have to develop applications from the ground up far more often than we probably like to admit. So, uh, private cloud allows us to uh take advantage of the public cloud, like services and technology scalability and flexibility and agility, right? And bring those on premise and be close to the business where it's absolutely critical to our business. I don't want to comment on what specific, because their services that we have to run close to the business. But you can imagine with the uh, expansive footprint of our business and how we have to interact with guests, um whether it's from a movie or at a theme park, we do have to have some services that are close to our business. And so by having private cloud, we complement our public cloud strategy uh, and and allow us to keep those most critical services very close to the business. >>Got it. You just mentioned a number of the elements of Disney. There's been a lot going on, so much going on. It's actually kind of easy to forget how new Disney Plus is, but sitting in the center of a company that's doing so much digitally, how does the shared services play a part in the overall digital transformation of the business? >>Uh, that's a great question. So obviously technology is key to our business. If you look at all the different lines of business we have and you look at all the different technology that we have. It's absolutely critical in order for us to continue to invest in technology to meet all of our business demands. Were shared services comes in is we enable the business to focus on what is critical to their business. Right? We allow resorts and even the immediate media partners to just focus solely on the technology that is critical to driving those businesses to enabling the guest experience and keeping it great. We are focused on uh everything else that is not critical for their business. The underlying infrastructure, the underpinning infrastructure right? Such as the global network, global servers, emails and so on and so forth. So it's a great compliment where it freezes the business up to focus on what's really critical for them and we can get economies of scale and synergy across our entire enterprise by delivering core services at a much more efficient costs throughout the company >>and James. I want to ask you a question. You've been working as a with the walt Disney company for a long time. We've we've seen the evolution of h p e and we've seen the evolution of Disney. Can we ask you anything about kind of, give us your perspectives on how both companies have evolved in this relationship together? >>I would say that it's been it's been a great relationship. I would say that the uh, we have continued to lean on HP from an investment perspective for our servers in certain areas storage, but mostly servers, what are the big investments we've made recently was hB synergy which is composed all infrastructure, which has allowed us to continue to uh invest in our automation strategy and allows us deliver physical servers much, much faster James. Did you want to add anything there? >>Yeah, of course, Jason. Uh it's been great to partner with with Jason and the team walt. Disney company in particular and and through this experience of them trying to achieve their private cloud goals, we've been able to bring the right technology, the right set of services to achieve these technology outcomes that they've been after and the use of automation to improve life cycle management day to operations, all the goals and aspirations that they need to really automate infrastructure and make it intelligent and started achieving the goal of the intelligent data center. So it's it's been a great technology partners of relationship we've had there, >>Jason back to you. Let's, we've talked about Disney's private cloud strategy. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about how that integrates with the rest of Disney's cloud strategy. What can you share with us? >>Well, uh >>like, like anything you want the right tool for the right job And uh, certainly the multi cloud strategy in the public cloud strategy is a huge part of our overall strategic roadmap. Where again, we use the private cloud is to complement that for applications that need to either span or stay on premise. You know, one of the things that we're just getting into now is hybrid cloud while you have application teams that are like, hey, we really just need to focus on premises where we need to be close to the business, but we have workloads that need to burst to the public cloud or need to scale out to the public cloud, uh, and you really take advantage of that. So again, we don't look at it as it used to be, not just within Disney, but in general, and most cloud strategies, it was, it's kind of like an either or now we look at it as the right tool for the right job. What's the right fit for your application? And as we continue to look at how the application stack modernizes, right used to be. How do you get servers faster? Well, now I don't want to serve. I want a container. Now. It's, I just want to bring my coat and I don't even know if I need a container. Right. The application developers really want sort of this, They really want to just focus on application development and they want to focus more on what makes their applications great. Right. We want to focus more on commoditization and blurring the lines between public and private. Really, where does the workload run best? Where is it most efficient? And where is the best for the business? And so when we look at how we build out our private cloud environment, it was really to complement our existing public cloud strategy. >>Let's talk about people now, Jason for a second. I know, I love that. Disney calls there folks, Cast members, I see the pin on your lapel there. How are the cast members at the center of this technology strategy and how does the private cloud strategy play into that? >>Well, it's one of those things where our cast members are the most important aspect of our, of our brand. If you, if you were to look at what is r one of the most valuable asset, it would certainly be our cast members right there. The front line, whether it's helping a guest, whether it's working on a movie and our overall technology strategy is all about enabling cast members to do their job as most efficiently and effectively as possible. Um, uh, when it comes to how private cloud fits into that, it's again creating an environment where the application developers and our business partners can accelerate their application growth and the delivery of their services to support our back of house operations for our cast members. So that way it doesn't impact the guest experience. There's nothing more frustrating for a cast member is when they're impeded or have issues trying to get to a resource or unable to efficiently do their job. And so by having the private cloud, by having access to resources on premise. At times it gives them the ability to deliver those and consume those applications even faster, >>which I'm sure the guests love. One of the things that you mentioned, Jason and I want to James at your opinion on this too. It's a, it's a statement that we hear very often you need to do more with less in that situation. How does Disney navigate that? And a strategy that is cost effective while you're growing your public, your private cloud strategy? >>Uh huh automation, Right? Automate automation and self service. It really it's always comes back to, I know it's a buzzword, I know people go automate this, automate that you know, what are you automating if you look at just the investments we're making right now in the HP synergy line and having proposal infrastructure combined with pockets of three tier architecture as well as hyper converge. You are we're bringing a delivery model to application teams and business teams that they haven't that is just like public cloud, Right? But that they haven't seen before. So in order to manage massive scale, uh you you need to automate more and you need to automate more in order to make sure that you have self healing, right? So you can see you can look at things and understand things and see where you're having problems and try to predict them before they happen and increase your uptime and availability. I mean it all comes back to again, automation automation, automation uh >>James. Do you have the similar opinion when you talk with customers similar to the walt Disney company that are told we've got to do more but we've got less to work with is automation one of your key go to recommendations. >>Automation is at the center of everything that we're trying to achieve today, both on premise and in the public cloud. And hyper automation is really kind of where everybody is driving to the ability to be incredibly they are incredibly efficient um using infrastructure as code api driven and using all the tools to really automate that and make the seamless delivery of new products and services just that much quicker. And, and we've been focused on that, both not only from a technology and infrastructure standpoint, but also from a consulting and delivery standpoint. So we're able to really kind of meat all the different needs as it relates to automation, both in a private cloud, hybrid cloud or multi cloud scenario with all of the partnerships that we have across all the hyper scale hours. >>James sticking with you with that. Looking through that consultant lens, I want to get some thought leadership from you. What are some of the principles that you'd recommend for businesses that really are working hard to make their private cloud investment work as efficiently as possible for them? >>A lot of that comes down >>to >>consulting and understanding. So really kind of driving to what we referred to as the right mix, what is that right mix of hybrid cloud, private cloud um applications that have gravity that need to remain on premise and there's just no reason to move them. So, working with somebody and partnering with somebody that has the ability to be able to advise and consult in that capacity across the continuum of private public as well as Edge um is vitally important for people to consider as a part of their strategy. >>Jason Edge is absolutely in critical we're hearing about it more and more, especially as so much more data and machine data is generated there. I want to get your advice for the audience the same question that I asked James, what principles would you recommend for making the private cloud investment work as hard as possible? As efficiently as possible. >>I would say that, you know, it's gonna be a unique journey for every single company, but the number one advice is remember, right tool for the right job. Right, What is your application stack? What are the types of in that? What is the type of needs of the application owners? And when you start thinking about it, you start dissecting, Are you going to be investing more microservices? Can you go with more of a serverless, container based type of environment? Are you using shrink wrap software? You're gonna need more. I as right. It all comes down to the right tool for the right job. My father was an auto mechanic and I remember as a kid, he had 8000 tools and they say no, dad, why do you have five screwdrivers? To me? They all look the same right in the heart of mechanic because no, no, no, Jason you don't understand. It's the right tool for the right job. That was always his mantra. That would be my advice. >>I like that. I think my dad would have said the same thing, right tool for the right job. Absolutely critically important. So when we think about Disney, we know, generate a ton of data, how does the growth of the private cloud, Jason support that massive data growth? >>Well, as you can imagine, we have ebbs and flows in our data. There's times where we're taking a tremendous amount of data in and there's times where we're purging a tremendous amount of data for various different reasons. Right? So one of the beauties of private cloud and how it complements the public cloud is when you go to you think about data ingestion, right? And then storage and being able to efficiently can get it on premise and what not having the private cloud there to do those types of things to use more of those B I type of work clothes there, you're just Truncheon a bunch of data. Uh it's really nice to have the private cloud. So that way the application, he can add nodes at collectors of, you know, other other log aggregation type tools, right? Whatever the tool is, you know, being able to have the flexibility to add notes very quickly, just like they can in public cloud, public cloud but have it on premise so that you can do cost control and get the data in a more timely, more efficient manner. Again though, it comes down to the type of workload and what was best for that business. I would I would be remiss if I tried to sit here and tell you that all of our big data stuff were to only reside or only use on premise technology is of course it spans like I said, we've got hybrid cloud and multi cloud, so >>it kind of goes with the right tool for the right job. One more question for both of you and I want to go back to that thought leadership angle Jason when you are talking with peers of yours, what do you recommend that technology leaders look for when they're going to be partnering with a company on any type of cloud, initiative management or implementation project? >>I was a understand you understand the problem, trying to solve, understand the technology that you want to use and understand again, your application portfolio and perhaps because I'm insured services, a large company, I have a unique perspective of having to deal with very different problems at any given day on any given week. And you know, sometimes we forget about those, especially as technologists, we tend to forget that the decisions we make have wide and far reaching impact within our application stacks and within the individual businesses. And I think if if you uh look at what is my application stack, what are the types of technologies? How how is it going to be if you are doing just shrink wrap, then you probably shouldn't be investing in cloud technologies that are heavily focused on container ization. Right. If your custom developing applications, then your entire strategy should probably be focused on how do you build container farms? And if you're doing big data, you probably should bring deep use into the conversation with something nobody's talking about really yet. So, you know, Mhm >>Sounds like collaboration is really key. James the same question. Last question of our conversation. I'd love to get your perspective on what technology leaders should look for when you're talking with prospective customers when they're looking to partner for cloud implementation, growth management. What are some of those things that you say the technology leaders look for this? >>You really need to be working with people who understand your business that are passionate about your success and really having access to not only the advisory capabilities but the technology portfolio to help you realize all of your business and technology outcomes. And I think those are super important attributes that we HP can provide, you know, across the entire portfolio of technologies and services that most customers need to do. And I think that the business outcome, the business transformation is really key to what what the future holds for us. And having the visionary perspective of not only the customer but US in joint partnership allows for these great goals to be achieved. >>Its great goals in this business outcomes. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining me on the program today. Talking to me about what Disney is doing with technology. How HP is supporting the Disney relationship. Jason and James. I appreciate your time. Thank >>you. Thank you lisa >>For Jason, Abrahamson and James Irvine. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of HP Discover 2021. Uh huh. >>Yeah.

(upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome to the Cube's coverage of HPE Discover 2021. I'm Lisa Martin. I have two guests with me here today. We're going to be talking to the Walt Disney company. Jason Abraham sent us here, the director of infrastructure engineering. Jason, welcome to the program. >> Hi, how are you doing? >> Doing well and James Irvine is here as well. Account chief technologist at HPE. James, welcome to the program. >> Yeah hi Lisa, thank you. >> Good, so we're going to be talking about all things the HPE supporting Disney relationship, but you know things have been changing so much in technology. Things have been very different for technologists in the last few years. Jason talk to us about how Disney has adapted as business needs have evolved. >> You know, I think not just Disney, but in general, as we've, we've had to evolve, evolve as technologists, right? And one of the ways we've done that is to focus a lot on automation and self-service, enabling developers to move faster to meet the shift in business demand. Business moves at the speed of light. Anybody that's been in this business long enough knows there were years ago, you could have email servers down for three hours and nobody would notice. Now if email went down for more than, you know, 35 seconds, everybody notices, right? So in order to meet the change in demand we've had to focus heavily on automation and self-service which has been a key strategy, a key driver for us as part of private cloud. >> So Jason, with infrastructure as such a large part of your responsibilities and your job title, how has Disney been thinking about private cloud in the last few years? >> So I would say that we were probably one of the, I don't want to say bleeding edge, but certainly out in front when it came to private cloud. We had embarked on a cloud first strategy overall across the enterprise. The goal there was to figure out how we could do more with less and be more agile and be able to flex for our application developers and meet our shifts in demand. However, there are, you know systems that for whatever reasons, business purpose or otherwise need to either span a hybrid cloud or multi-cloud or stay on premise. So in order to get a cloud-like environment for our application developers and whatnot, we decided to build out a robust private cloud environment that allowed all of our application developers to be able to just bring their code or get a server and try to get as much of the public cloud functionality on premise as we possibly could. >> James, let's bring you into the conversation. Talk to us about the HPE Walt Disney company relationship and how HPE is supporting Walt Disney. >> Yeah. The HPE and Disney have had a longstanding relationship dating all the way back to HPE and Disney as far as the audio oscillator is concerned. So we've had an extraordinarily long history in technology and co-innovation partnership that we've worked on together through the years. And as Jason mentioned, you know, the journey around private cloud and working together in that technology relationship is just, has been fantastic and we've supported them with all the innovation and technologies needed for them to meet their goals. >> Excellent. All right, Jason, let's go back to you. I want to dig into this private cloud strategy a little bit more. You mentioned this a minute ago, but as we look at and hear so many discussions and strategies revolving around public multi-cloud, why is private cloud so important to Disney? >> Well, we have a tremendous amount of applications. We, our application portfolio is massive as you can imagine. We find ourselves in unique situations because of all of the different business challenges that we have that are unique to Disney, that we have to develop applications from the ground up far more often than we'd probably like to admit. So- private cloud allows us to take advantage of the public cloud-like services and technology scalability and flexibility and agility, right? And bring those on premise and be close to the business where it's absolutely critical to our business. I don't want to comment on what specific things or services that we have to run close to the business but you can imagine with the expansive footprint of our business and how we have to interact with guests, whether it's from a movie or at a theme park, we do have to have some services that are close to our business. And so, by having private cloud we compliment our public cloud strategy and allow us to keep those, those critical services very close to the business. >> Got it. You just mentioned a number of the elements of Disney. There's been a lot going on, so much going on. It's actually kind of easy to forget how new Disney Plus is, but sitting in the center of a company that's doing so much digitally, how does that shared services play a part in the overall digital transformation of the business? >> That's a great question. So obviously technology is key to our business. If you look at all the different lines of businesses we have and you look at all the different technology that we have, it's absolutely critical in order for us to continue to invest in technology to meet all of our business demands. Where shared services comes in is we enable the business to focus on what is critical to their business, right? We allow resorts and even the immediate media partners to just focus solely on the technology that is critical to driving those businesses, to enabling the guest experience and keeping it great. We are focused on everything else that is not critical for their business, the underlying infrastructure, the underpinning infrastructure, right, such as the global network, global servers, emails and so on and so forth. So it's a great compliment where it frees the business up to focus on what's really critical for them. And we can get economies of scale and synergy across our entire enterprise by delivering core services at a much more efficient cost throughout the company. >> And James, I want to ask you a question and we'll see if this gets approved. I just would love to understand, you've been working as a, with the Walt Disney company for a long time. We've, we've seen the evolution of HPE and we've seen the evolution of Disney. Can we ask you anything about, kind of give us your perspectives on how both companies have evolved in this relationship together? >> I- (laughter) I would, I would say that it's been it's been a great relationship. I would say that the, the, we have continued to lean on HPE from an investment perspective for our servers in certain areas, storage, but mostly servers. One are the big investments we've made recently was HP synergy, which is a composable infrastructure which has allowed us to continue to- invest in our automation strategy and allows us to deliver physical servers much faster, much faster. James, did you want to add anything there? >> Yeah of course Jason, it's been great to partner with Jason and the team, Walt Disney company in particular. And through this experience of them trying to achieve their private cloud goals, we've been able to bring the right technology, the right set of services to achieve these technology outcomes that they've been after and the use of automation to improve life cycle management, day two operations, all the goals and aspirations that they need to really automate infrastructure and make it intelligent and start achieving the goal of the intelligent data center. So it's been a great technology partnership and relationship we've had there. >> Jason back to you, let's, we've talked about Disney's private cloud strategy. I want to talk a little bit more about how that integrates with the rest of Disney's cloud strategy. What can you share with us? >> Well, like anything you'd want the right tool for the right job. And certainly the multi-cloud strategy and the public cloud strategy is a huge part of our overall strategic roadmap, where again we use the private cloud is to compliment that for applications that need to either span or stay on premise. You know, one of the things that we're just getting into now is hybrid cloud, where you have application teams that are like, hey, we really just need to focus on premise. It's where we need to be close to the business, but we have workloads that need to burst to the public cloud or need to scale out to the public cloud. And you really take advantage of that. So again, we don't look at it as, it used to be, not just within Disney, but in general in most cloud strategies, it was, is kind of like an either or. Now we look at it as the right tool for the right job. What's the right bid for your application? And as we continue to look at how the application stack modernizes right? Used to be how do you get servers faster? Well, now it's I don't want a server, I want a container. Now it's I just want to bring my code. I don't even know if I need a container, right? The application developers really want servers that compute. They really want to just focus on application development and they want to focus more on what makes their applications great, right? We want to focus more on commoditization and blurring the lines between public and private. Really, where does the workload run best? Where is it most efficient and where is it best for the business? And so when we look at how we built out our, our private cloud environment, it was really to compliment our existing public cloud strategy. >> Let's talk about people now, Jason, for a second. I know I love that Disney calls their folks, the cast members. I see the pin on your lapel there. How are the cast members at the center of this technology strategy and the how does the private cloud strategy play into that? >> Well, it's one of those things where our cast members are the most important aspect of our, of our brand. If you, if you were to look at what is our what is our most valuable asset? It would certainly be our cast members, right? They are the frontline, whether it's helping a guest, whether it's working on a movie, and our overall technology strategy is all about enabling cast members to do their job as most efficiently and effectively as possible. When it comes to how private cloud fits into that, it's again creating an environment where the application developers and our business partners can accelerate their application growth and the delivery of their services to support our back of house operations for our cast members. So that way it doesn't impact the guest experience. There's nothing more frustrating for a cast member is when they're impeded or have issues trying to get to a resource or unable to efficiently do their job. And so by having the private cloud, by having access to resources on premise, at times it gives them the ability to deliver those and consume those applications even faster. >> Which I'm sure that the guests love. One of the things that you mentioned, Jason, and I want to, James, get your opinion on this too. It's a, it's a statement that we hear very often. You need to do more with less. In that situation, how does Disney navigate that and, and a strategy that is cost-effective while you're growing your public, your private cloud strategy? >> Automation. Right? Automate automation and self-service. It, it really, it's always comes back to, I know it's a buzzword. I know people go, oh, automate this, automate that, you know, what are you, what are you automating? If you look at just the investments we're making right now in the HP synergy line and having composable infrastructure combined with pockets of three-tier architecture as well as hyperconverge, you are, we're bringing a delivery model to application teams and business teams that they haven't that is just like public cloud, right? But that they haven't seen before. So in order to manage massive scale, you need to automate more and you need to automate more in order to make sure that you have self healing, right? So you can, so you can look at things and understand things and see where you're having problems and try to predict them before they happen and increase your uptime and availability. I mean, it all comes back to, again, automation, automation, automation. >> James, do you have the similar opinion when you talk with customers similar to the Walt Disney company that are told we've got to do more but we've got less to work with? Is automation one of your key go-to recommendations? >> Yeah. Automation is at the center of everything that we're trying to achieve today both on-premise and in the public cloud and hyper automation is really kind of where everybody is driving to. The ability to be incredibly big, incredibly efficient using infrastructure as code API driven and using all the tools to really automate that and make the seamless delivery of new products and services just that much quicker. And we've been focused on that both not only from a technology and infrastructure standpoint, but also from a consulting and delivery standpoint. So we're able to really kind of meet all the different needs as it relates to automation, both in a private cloud hybrid cloud or multi-cloud scenario with all of the partnerships that we have across all the hyperscalers. >> James, sticking with you. With that, looking through that consultant lens I want to get some thought leadership from you. What are some of the principles that you'd recommend for businesses that really are working hard to make their private cloud investment work as efficiently as possible for them? >> A lot of that comes down to consulting and understanding. So really kind of driving to what we've referred to as the right mix. What is that right mix of hybrid cloud, private cloud applications that have gravity that needs to remain on premise. And there's just no reason to move them. So working with somebody and partnering with somebody that has the ability to be able to advise and consult in that capacity across the continuum of private public as well as edge is vitally important for people to consider as a part of their strategy. >> Jason, edge is absolutely incredible. We're hearing about it more and more, especially as it's so much more data and machine data is generated there. I want to get your advice for the audience. Same question that I asked James. What principles would you recommend for making the private cloud investment work as hard as possible, as efficiently as possible? >> I would say that, you know it's going to be a unique journey for every single company, but the number one advice is remember, right tool for the right job, right? What is your application stack? What are the types of in that, what is the type of needs of the application owners? And when you start thinking about it, you start dissecting it, are going to be investing more in microservices? Can you go with a more of a server-less container based type of environment or are you using shrink wrap software and you're going to need more eyes, right? It all comes down to, the right tool for the right job. My father was an auto mechanic and I remember as a kid, he had 8,000 tools. And I used to say to him, dad why do you have five screwdrivers? To me they all looked the same, right? I'm not a mechanic, but he goes, no, no, no, Jason, you don't understand. It's the right tool for the right job. You know, that was always his mantra. That would be my advice. >> I like that. I think my dad would have said the same thing, right tool for the right job. Absolutely critically important. So when we think about Disney, we know you generate a ton of data. How does the, the growth of the private cloud, Jason, support that massive data growth? >> Well, as you can imagine, we have ebbs and flows in our data. There's times where we're taking a tremendous amount of data in, and there's times where we're purging a tremendous amount of data for various different reasons, right? So one of the beauties of private cloud and how it compliments the public cloud is when you, you go to, you think about data ingestion, right? And then storage and being able to efficiently get it on premise and whatnot. Having the private cloud there to do those types of things, to use more of those BI type of workloads. They're, you're, you're just trunching a bunch of data. It's really nice to have the private cloud. So that way the application team can add nodes, add collectors if it's, you know, other log aggregation type tools, right? Whatever the tool is, you know, being able to have the flexibility to add nodes very quickly, just like they can in a public cloud, public cloud, but have it on premise so that you can do cost control and get the data in a more timely, more efficient manner. Again though, it comes down to the type of workload and what was best for that business. I would, I would be amiss if I tried to sit here and tell you that all of our big data stuff, were to only reside or only use on-premise technologies. Of course it spans like I said, we've got hybrid cloud and multi-cloud so. >> Well, it kind of goes with the right tool for the right job. One more question for both of you. And I want to go back to that thought leadership angle. Jason, when you are talking with peers of yours, what do you recommend that technology leaders look for when they're going to be partnering with a company on any type of cloud initiative management or implementation project? >> I would say understand your, understand the problem you're trying to solve, understand the technologies that you want to use and understand again your application portfolio and perhaps because I'm in shared services, a large company, I have a unique perspective of having to deal with very different problems at any given day on any given week. And I, you know, sometimes we forget about those, especially as technologists, we tend to forget that the decisions we make have wide and far reaching impact within our application stacks and within the individual businesses. And I think if, if you look at what is my application stack, what are the types of technologies? How, how is it going to be? If you were doing just shrink wrap, then you probably shouldn't be investing in cloud technologies that are heavily focused on containerization, right? If you're custom developing applications, then your entire strategy should probably be focused on how do you build container farms? And if you're doing big data, you probably should bring GPU's into the conversation with something that nobody's talking about really yet. So, you know. >> Sounds like collaboration is really key. James, same question. Last question of our conversation. I'd love to get your perspective on what technology leaders should look for when you're talking with prospective customers. When they're looking to partner for cloud implementation, growth management, what are some of those things that you say, the technology leaders look for this? >> You really need to be working with people who understand your business, that are passionate about your success and really having access to not only the advisory capabilities, but the technology portfolio to help you realize all of your business and technology outcomes. And I think those are super important attributes that we HPE can provide, you know, across the entire portfolio of technologies and services that most customers need to do. And I, and I think that the business outcome, the business transformation is really key to what the future holds for us and having the visionary perspective of not only the customer, but us in joint partnership allows for these great goals to be achieved. >> Great goals and those business outcomes. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining me on the program today. Talking to me about what Disney's doing with technology, how HPE is supporting that Disney relationship. Jason and James, I appreciate your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Lisa. For Jason Abrahamson and James Irvine, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube's coverage of HPE discover 2021. (upbeat music)

>>Yeah, >>yeah. Hello and welcome to Day two at Beyond. I am so excited that you've chosen to join the building a vibrant data ecosystem track. I might be just a little bit biased, but I think it's going to be the best track of the day. My name is Mallory Lassen and I run partner Marketing here, a thought spot, and that might give you a little bit of a clue as to why I'm so excited about the four sessions we're about to hear from. We'll start off hearing from two thought spotters on how the power of embrace can allow you to directly query on the cloud data warehouse of your choice Next up. And I shouldn't choose favorites, but I'm very excited to watch Cindy housing moderate a panel off true industry experts. We'll hear from Deloitte Snowflake and Eagle Alfa as they describe how you can enrich your organization's data and better understand and benchmark by using third party data. They may even close off with a prediction or two about the future that could prove to be pretty thought provoking. So I'd stick around for that. Next we'll hear from the cloud juggernaut themselves AWS. We'll even get to see a live demo using TV show data, which I'm pretty sure is near and dear to our hearts. At this point in time and then last, I'm very excited to welcome our customer from T Mobile. They're going to describe how they partnered with whip pro and developed a full solution, really modernizing their analytics and giving self service to so many employees. We'll see what that's done for them. But first, let's go over to James Bell Z and Ana Son on the zero to search session. James, take us away. >>Thanks, Mallory. I'm James Bell C and I look after the solutions engineering and customer success teams have thought spot here in Asia Pacific and Japan today I'm joined by my colleague Anderson to give you a look at just how simple and quick it is to connect thought spot to your cloud data warehouse and extract value from the data within in the demonstration, and I will show you just how we can connect to data, make it simple for the business to search and then search the data itself or within this short session. And I want to point out that everything you're going to see in the demo is Run Live against the Cloud Data Warehouse. In this case, we're using snowflake, and there's no cashing of data or summary tables in terms of what you're going to see. But >>before we >>jump into the demo itself, I just like to provide a very brief overview of the value proposition for thought spot. If you're already familiar with thought spot, this will come as no surprise. But for those new to the platform, it's all about empowering the business to answer their own questions about data in the most simple way possible Through search, the personalized user experience provides a familiar search based way for anyone to get answers to their questions about data, not just the analysts. The search, indexing and ranking makes it easy to find the data you're looking for using business terms that you understand. While the smart ranking constantly adjust the index to ensure the most relevant information is provided to you. The query engine removes the complexity of SQL and complex joint paths while ensuring that users will always get thio the correct answers their questions. This is all backed up by an architecture that's designed to be consumed entirely through a browser with flexibility on deployment methods. You can run thought spot through our thoughts about cloud offering in your own cloud or on premise. The choice is yours, so I'm sure you're thinking that all sounds great. But how difficult is it to get this working? Well, I'm happy to tell you it's super easy. There's just forced steps to unlock the value of your data stored in snowflake, Red Shift, Google, Big Query or any of the other cloud data warehouses that we support. It's a simple is connecting to the Cloud Data Warehouse, choosing what data you want to make available in thought spot, making it user friendly. That column that's called cussed underscore name in the database is great for data management, but when users they're searching for it, they'll probably want to use customer or customer name or account or even client. Also, the business shouldn't need to know that they need to get data from multiple tables or the joint parts needed to get the correct results in thought spot. The worksheet allows you to make all of this simple for the users so they can simply concentrate on getting answers to their questions on Once the worksheet is ready, you can start asking those questions by now. I'm sure you're itching to see this in action. So without further ado, I'm gonna hand over to Anna to show you exactly how this works over to you. Anna, >>In this demo, I'm going to go to cover three areas. First, we'll start with how simple it is to get answers to your questions in class spot. Then we'll have a look at how to create a new connection to Cloud Data Warehouse. And lastly, how to create a use of friendly data layer. Let's get started to get started. I'm going to show you the ease off search with thoughts Spot. As you can see thought spot is or were based. I'm simply lobbying. Divide a browser. This means you don't need to install an application. Additionally, possible does not require you to move any data. So all your data stays in your cloud data warehouse and doesn't need to be moved around. Those sports called differentiator is used experience, and that is primarily search. As soon as we come into the search bar here, that's what suggestion is guiding uses through to the answers? Let's let's say that I would wanna have a look at spending across the different product categories, and we want Thio. Look at that for the last 12 months, and we also want to focus on a trending on monthly. And just like that, we get our answer straightaway without alive from Snowflake. Now let's say we want to focus on 11 product category here. We want to have a look at the performance for finished goods. As I started partially typing my search them here, Thoughts was already suggesting the data value that's available for me to use as a filter. The indexing behind the scene actually index everything about the data which allowed me to get to my data easily and quickly as an end user. Now I've got my next to my data answer here. I can also go to the next level of detail in here. In third spot to navigate on the next level of detail is simply one click away. There's no concept off drill path, pre defined drill path in here. That means we've ordered data that's available to me from Snowflake. I'm able to navigate to the level of detail. Allow me to answer those questions. As you can see as a business user, I don't need to do any coding. There's no dragon drop to get to the answer that I need right here. And she can see other calculations are done on the fly. There is no summary tables, no cubes building are simply able to ask the questions. Follow my train or thoughts, and this provides a better use experience for users as anybody can search in here, the more we interact with the spot, the more it learns about my search patterns and make those suggestions based on the ranking in here and that a returns on the fly from Snowflake. Now you've seen example of a search. Let's go ahead and have a look at How do we create a connection? Brand new one toe a cloud at a warehouse. Here we are here, let me add a new connection to the data were healthy by just clicking at new connection. Today we're going to connect Thio retail apparel data step. So let's start with the name. As you can see, we can easily connect to all the popular data warehouse easily. By just one single click here today, we're going to click to Snowflake. I'm gonna ask some detail he'd let me connect to my account here. Then we quickly enter those details here, and this would determine what data is available to me. I can go ahead and specify database to connect to as well, but I want to connect to all the tables and view. So let's go ahead and create a connection. Now the two systems are talking to each other. I can see all the data that's available available for me to connect to. Let's go ahead and connect to the starter apparel data source here and expanding that I can see all the data tables as available to me. I could go ahead and click on any table here, so there's affect herbal containing all the cells information. I also have the store and product information here I can make. I can choose any Data column that I want to include in my search. Available in soft spot, what can go ahead and select entire table, including all the data columns. I will. I would like to point out that this is important because if any given table that you have contains hundreds of columns it it may not be necessary for you to bring across all of those data columns, so thoughts would allow you to select what's relevant for your analysis. Now that's selected all the tables. Let's go ahead and create a connection. Now force what confirms the data columns that we have selected and start to read the medic metadata from Snowflake and automatically building that search index behind the scene. Now, if your daughter does contain information such as personal, identifiable information, then you can choose to turn those investing off. So none of that would be, um, on a hot spots platform. Now that my tables are ready here, I can actually go ahead and search straight away. Let's go ahead and have a look at the table here. I'm going to click on the fact table heat on the left hand side. It shows all the data column that we've brought across from Snowflake as well as the metadata that also brought over here as well. A preview off the data shows me off the data that's available on my snowflake platform. Let's take a look at the joints tap here. The joint step shows may relationship that has already been defined the foreign and primary care redefining snowflake, and we simply inherited he in fourth spot. However, you don't have toe define all of this relationship in snowflake to add a joint. He is also simple and easy. If I click on at a joint here, I simply select the table that I wanted to create a connection for. So select the fact table on the left, then select the product table onto the right here and then simply selected Data column would wish to join those two tables on Let's select Product ID and clicking next, and that's always required to create a joint between those two tables. But since we already have those strong relationship brought over from Snow Flag, I won't go ahead and do that Now. Now you have seen how the tables have brought over Let's go and have a look at how easy is to search coming to search here. Let's start with selecting the data table would brought over expanding the tables. You can see all the data column that we have previously seen from snowflake that. Let's say I wanna have a look at sales in last year. Let's start to type. And even before I start to type anything in the search bar passport already showing me all those suggestions, guiding me to the answers that's relevant to my need. Let's start with having a look at sales for 2019. And I want to see this across monthly for my trend and out off all of these product line he. I also want to focus on a product line called Jackets as I started partially typing the product line jacket for sport, already proactively recommending me all the matches that it has. So all the data values available for me to search as a filter here, let's go ahead and select jacket. And just like that, I get my answer straight away from Snowflake. Now that's relatively simple. Let's try something a little bit more complex. Let's say I wanna have a look at sales comparing across different regions, um, in us. So I want compare West compared to Southwest, and then I want to combat it against Midwest as well as against based on still and also want to see these trending monthly as well. Let's have look at monthly. If you can see that I can use terms such as monthly Key would like that to look at different times. Buckets. Now all of these is out of the box. As she can see, I didn't have to do any indexing. I didn't have to do any formulas in here. As long as there is a date column in the data set, crossbows able to dynamically calculate those time bucket so she can see. Just by doing that search, I was able to create dynamic groupings segment of different sales across the United States on the sales data here. Now that we've done doing search, you can see that across different tables here might not be the most user friendly layer we don't want uses having to individually select tables. And then, um, you know, selecting different columns with cryptic names in here. We want to make this easy for users, and that's when a work ship comes in. But those were were sheet encapsulate all of the data you want to make available for search as well as formulas, as well as business terminologies that the users are familiar with for a specific business area. Let's start with adding the daughter columns we need for this work shape. Want to slack all of the tables that we just brought across from Snowflake? Expanding each of those tables from the facts type of want sales from the fax table. We want sales as well as the date. Then on the store's table. We want store name as well as the stay eating, then expanding to the product we want name and finally product type. Now that we've got our work shit ready, let's go ahead and save it Now, in order to provide best experience for users to search, would want to optimize the work sheet here. So coming to the worksheet here, you can see the data column that we have selected. Let's start with changing this name to be more user friendly, so let's call it fails record. They will want to call it just simply date, store name, call it store, and then we also want state to be in lower case product name. Simply call it product and finally, product type can also further optimize this worksheet by adding, uh, other areas such as synonyms, so allow users to use terms of familiar with to do that search. So in sales, let's call this revenue and we all cannot also further configure the geo configuration. So want to identify state in here as state for us. And finally, we want Thio. Also add more friendly on a display on a currency. So let's change the currency type. I want to show it in U. S. Dollars. That's all we need. So let's try to change and let's get started on our search now coming back to the search here, Let's go ahead. Now select out worksheet that we have just created. If I don't select any specific tables or worksheets, force what Simply a search across everything that's available to you. Expanding the worksheet. We can see all of the data columns in heat that's we've made available and clicking on search bar for spot already. Reckon, making those recommendations in here to start off? Let's have a look at I wanna have a look at the revenue across different states for here today, so let's use the synonym that we have defined across the different states and we want to see this for here today. Um yesterday as well. I know that I also want to focus on the product line jacket that we have seen before, so let's go ahead and select jacket. Yeah, and just like that, I was able to get the answer straight away in third spot. Let's also share some data label here so we can see exactly the Mount as well to state that police performance across us in here. Now I've got information about the sales of jackets on the state. I want to ask next level question. I want to draw down to the store that has been selling these jackets right Click e. I want to drill down. As you can see out of the box. I didn't have to pre define any drill paths on a target. Reports simply allow me to navigate to the next level of detail to answer my own questions. One Click away. Now I see the same those for the jackets by store from year to date, and this is directly from snowflake data life Not gonna start relatively simple question. Let's go ahead and ask a question that's a little bit more complex. Imagine one. Have a look at Silas this year, and I want to see that by month, month over month or so. I want to see a month. Yeah, and I also want to see that our focus on a sale on the last week off the month. So that's where we see most. Sales comes in the last week off the month, so I want to focus on that as well. Let's focus on last week off each month. And on top of that, I also want to only focus on the top performing stores from last year. So I want to focus on the top five stores from last year, so only store in top five in sales store and for last year. And with that, we also want to focus just on the populist product types as well. So product type. Now, this could be very reasonable question that a business user would like to ask. But behind the scenes, this could be quite complex. But First part takes cares, or the complexity off the data allow the user to focus on the answer they want to get to. If we quickly have a look at the query here, this shows how forceful translate the search that were put in there into queries into that, we can pass on the snowflake. As you can see, the search uses all three tables as well shooting, utilizing the joints and the metadata layer that we have created. Switching over to the sequel here, this sequel actually generate on the fly pass on the snowflake in order for the snowflake to bring back to result and presented in the first spot. I also want to mention that in the latest release Off Hot Spot, we also bringing Embraced um, in the latest version, Off tosspot 6.3 story Q is also coming to embrace. That means one click or two analysis. Those who are in power users to monitor key metrics on kind of anomalies, identify leading indicators and isolate trends, as you can see in a matter of minutes. Using thought spot, we were able to connect to most popular on premise or on cloud data warehouses. We were able to get blazing fast answers to our searches, allow us to transform raw data to incite in the speed off thoughts. Ah, pass it back to you, James. >>Thanks, Anna. Wow, that was awesome. It's incredible to see how much committee achieved in such a short amount of time. I want to close this session by referring to a customer example of who, For those of you in the US, I'm sure you're familiar with who, Lou. But for our international audience, who Lou our immediate streaming service similar to a Netflix or Disney Plus, As you can imagine, the amount of data created by a service like this is massive, with over 32 million subscribers and who were asking questions of over 16 terabytes of data in snow folk. Using regular B I tools on top of this size of data would usually mean using summary or aggregate level data, but with thoughts. What? Who are able to get granular insights into the data, allowing them to understand what they're subscribes of, watching how their campaigns of performing and how their programming is being received, and take advantage of that data to reduce churn and increase revenue. So thank you for your time today. Through the session, you've seen just how simple it is to get thought spot up and running on your cloud data warehouse toe. Unlock the value of your data and minutes. If you're interested in trying this on your own data, you can sign up for a free 14 day trial of thoughts. What cloud? Right now? Thanks again, toe Anna for such awards and demo. And if you have any questions, please feel free to let us know. >>Awesome. Thank you, James and Anna. That was incredible. To see it in action and how it all came together on James. We do actually have a couple of questions in our last few minutes here, Anna. >>The first one will be >>for you. Please. This will be a two part question. One. What Cloud Data Warehouses does embrace support today. And to can we use embrace to connect to multiple data warehouses. Thank you, Mallory. Today embrace supports. Snowflake Google, Big query. Um, Red shift as you assign that Teradata advantage and essay Bahana with more sources to come in the future. And, yes, you can connect on live query from notable data warehouses. Most of our enterprise customers have gotta spread across several data warehouses like just transactional data and red Shift and South will start. It's not like, excellent on James will have the final question go to you, You please. Are there any size restrictions for how much data thought spot can handle? And does one need to optimize their database for performance, for example? Aggregations. >>Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, as we've just heard from our customer, who there's, there's really no limits in terms of the amount of data that you can bring into thoughts Ponant connect to. We have many customers that have, in excess of 10 terabytes of data that they're connecting to in those cloud data warehouses. And, yeah, there's there's no need to pre aggregate or anything. Thought Spot works best with that transactional level data being able to get right down into the details behind it and surface those answers to the business uses. >>Excellent. Well, thank you both so much. And for everyone at home watching thank you for joining us for that session. You have a few minutes toe. Get up, get some water, get a bite of food. What? You won't want to miss this next panel in it. We have our chief data strategy off Officer Cindy, Housing speaking toe experts in the field from Deloitte Snowflake and Eagle Alfa. All on best practices for leveraging external data sources. See you there

>> Narrator: From the Cube studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a Cube conversation. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE, coming to you from our Palo Alto studios today for a Cube conversation. I'm really excited to have our next guest on. You see them all over on social, a very active community member. And we have not heard from him for a little while, so I'm psyched to have him on. He's Bobby Allen. He is a tech and Cloud evangelist. Bobby, how you doing? >> I'm good, Jeff, how are you? >> Good, so, I'm just to have the obligatory check-in. So, you're getting through this madness of COVID, and family's good, everything's good? >> Yeah, everybody's good. I've got a teen and a twin. They haven't driven us crazy yet. So, so far, everybody's healthy and everybody's good. >> Good, good. So, let's jump into it, Bobby. You know, people talk about Cloud as being, there's a lot of great benefits to Cloud, you know, kind of, cost savings, and agility, and more importantly, really as a driver of innovation which I think most people are kind of late to the party there, they think really more on cost savings versus innovation, but now, it's been around, you know, AWS has been around kind of, broke open the door in terms of public Cloud, and then everything was a public Cloud and not because of public Cloud, and then we have hybrid Cloud and we have multicloud. And now, things are kind of, settling down. So, when you talk to people about Cloud, how should they think about the reality of it once they kind of, leave the trade show and they're getting back to their desk, and they actually have to start implementing some things? >> So, great question, Jeff, First of all, thank you for giving me that opportunity to answer that. This is how I think about Cloud. So, we often talk about Cloud in terms of gym memberships, right? Like going to the Cloud is like buying a gym membership. I actually argue that the Cloud is actually more like weights. If you apply weights to a good form you're going to get stronger, if you apply weights to a bad form you're going to hurt yourself. And what we found is that a lot of these companies, Jeff, are applying Cloud and automation to things that really didn't make a lot of sense. And so, they're wasting more money, they're getting more frustrated, and they're wondering why Cloud was not this magic bullet that just solved everything. It didn't fix world peace and global hunger, and now, they're worse off than they were before. There are a couple of reasons I can go into about that but hopefully, that answers the question at first. We're training the wrong way, Jeff. We're adding weight to things that don't make sense and we're hurting ourselves. >> So, it it just I picked the wrong application or are they operating it in a way as they operated it when it was on-prem? 'Cause the thing I always think of, which is interesting, right? Is everybody always talks about spinning up capacity, right? Spin up capacity. You're running a promotion on the Superbowl, and you're going to have a bunch of people hitting your coupon but they'd never talk about spinning it down. And I went to a really interesting presentation one time where a guy talked about their application. He's like, we like when you turn it off, when you turn off our application, we're not making any money, but it tells that you know, kind of how to operate this thing, which is turn it on, but don't forget to turn it off. And I think, you know, we had a situation on one of our little applications that we left open and let something run and ended up with a bill that we weren't necessarily anticipating, not because we did anything wrong, but we just didn't do the right thing, which was to turn off that particular service when we didn't need it. So, what's the wrong way, what's the wrong exercise? Why are people screwing this up? >> So, I think the problem, Jeff, is actually more upstream. So, my personal mantra for 2020 has been, tech is the easy part, data and behavior are the hard parts. And I think you nailed it, right? That Cloud is only about what you need to buy, not what you need to change, then you're going to be woefully disappointed with the results. And so, when I'm saying go upstream, what I'm finding is, missed expectations, Jeff, sink more projects than bad code broken APIs or large bills? The thing that we're missing is, we're thinking that technology replaces the need to have a conversation. So, for example, when we say we want to do something better in the Cloud, what does better actually mean? So, let's talk about food for a second. Hopefully, I don't make your people hungry 'cause it's around lunchtime. But if we think about Cloud application like a recipe, are we tryna make a mediocre recipe better or make a good recipe at scale, right? 'Cause if you take a nasty recipe and scale it out, you're just going to go broke faster. So, really the question is, which problem are we trying to solve? What is the issue that we're really wrestling with? And so, we need to have a better vocabulary, more descriptive conversations. And so, let me give you one that I often talk to customers about, right? We talk about technical debt a lot of times. And technical debt, Jeff, in my opinion, is being used as a misnomer. So, they're kind of, different sorts of debt that I see often in the C-suite. So, there's technical debt where I don't like what we're running, there's data debt where I don't know what we're running, and there's brain debt where I don't know what we want. And Jeff, I would argue that a lot of things that are masquerading as technical debt in the C-suite are really brain debt. I haven't figured out what we want to do, I haven't thought about what we're willing and able to change. And so, that's why the Cloud is a disappointment because we haven't figured out what we want for lunch. (laughs) >> So, it's a classic like people process technology program, you know, problem. And we hear about it all the time, right? And everyone loves to focus on the technology. I haven't heard it really explained that well, but that's what you're saying. It's like, we'll just jump to that part so we don't have to actually ask the hard questions, right? And the thing that makes me think of it when you talked about that is it's kind of like the whole data aggregation problem and all the big data adventures when half the time people don't know what data is where, so, even just going through the exercise of cataloging, finding, organizing, cleansing, all that kind of stuff before you really start to think about what can you do with the big data project? You got to get the baseline down before you can get into the fancy stuff. Sounds kind of like, what you're talking about. >> You nailed it, Jeff. And I'm actually going to piggyback on something you said. This is actually the problem that I think we're wrestling with in Cloud and in life. There it is, right? And we're got to put a fine point in it for the listeners. We are struggling, Jeff, with how to evaluate better versus different. And so, what Cloud has done more importantly, Cloud has shortened the amount of time that we're willing to spend on something before we just start over again. And so, the question that we wrestle with is, do I need to do the same thing a little bit differently? Do I need to tweak it or is there something better that's come along where I need to throw everything away, start all over again, and wipe the slate clean. And so, here's what ends up happening, right? The challenge that we have building on that is how we choose, Jeff, is more important than what we choose because a lot of us are making choices but we're not developing a framework to choose in a world where different things are pushed at us really every day and every night, right? Amazon and Azure are changing literally thousands of things every night. And if I feel like there's something new out there, I have to understand, is this noise, or is this something I pay attention to? Is this a size for a project or is this something that helps my value? If you don't have a way to choose, Jeff, every new option is going to just lead to more confusion and more decommitment. >> Right, well, I mean, you raised a really interesting point which is how do CIOs keep up with all this stuff? I mean, how do they possibly keep the lights on, you know, run digital transformation, kind of, keep up with the, Lord knows, how many changes like you said, get made at Amazon every single day I mean, the feature set when Andy stands on stage at re-invent and lists all the services. I think he's using like a two-and-a-half point font on a 200 foot video screen. I mean, there's so much there. So, how do you help people take a step back from, it's like driving, you know, a car with headlights through snow at night. You know, it's just like kuchu chu chu. How do you help people take a step back and be a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit more intentional, a little bit more circumspect to lay a good foundation which is going to be what the rest of the house is built on. If you don't have it, it's just going to crumble, if you have it, then at least you have a chance of success. How do you help guide them and get out of that snow storm? >> So, I'm going to give you a new acronym, Jeff, but I think it starts with humility. It starts with us admitting that we don't have this all figured out yet. I often tell a lot of customers, Cloud is that best a teenager that just learned how to drive. And Cloud similar to teenagers, the ability of what it can do is, kind of, in conflict with what it can comprehend in terms of unintended consequences. And so, if Cloud is changing all the time, let's not talk about, we crushed it, we nailed it, we knocked it out of the park. Let's raise our hand and say, you know what? I humbly need some help, because here's what we do, Jeff. In this industry, we throw around acronyms and terms all the time. IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, BDaaS, DBaaS, whatever. I'm going to introduce the term CaaS, but that's not containers as a service job. I think what we're getting is confusion as a service. (laughs) There's so many things that are changing that people are overwhelmed but because we want to act so much like we're crushing it on social media, we really need to say, I need help, I can't do this in a spreadsheet anymore. Please are there solutions out there that can help me automate some of this stuff so that I'm not a victim of my own ignorance. So, humility, right? Embrace other people that have solved some of this problem before, somebody has solved this problem. There are companies out there that are taking in the data, that are automating the decision-making, and that can help you, right? Bring people in, bringing outside help. >> Right, well, the other piece you just talked on is automation, and it goes back to your earlier comment about, you know, scale, bad things at scale are not good. So, if you don't get things dialed in now, and you start applying automation, and you start applying machine speed, you know, then things can get really squirrely really quick. So, that's even another kind of, you know, danger zone coming ahead, start to plan and make sure you've got your stuff organized or now you're going to automate it at machine speed, IOT, 5G, and really run things ragged super quickly. >> Jeff, I agree a hundred percent with that. I want to go back to something you talked about before. People process technology. I want to tweak that. I think we really need to evolve into people, process, product, or people, process, problem. It's got to go back to what am I creating or what am I solving this helping someone? And the technology is something that I will use or not if that helps me meet that outcome. But as technologists, Jeff, a lot of us are getting lazy. I want to play with Kubernetes. I want to play with containers. I want to play with serverless. I want to play with IOT. Who is that actually solving a problem for? Is what we've got to come back to because if I'm not doing that, the less you submit that I'm playing with this, but I'm not really making something better for a customer or adding more value to the business. >> So, again, what are your tips and tricks? 'Cause things are not going to get less complicated, right? As we've talked about Amazon's rolling out new services all the time. Google is really starting, you know, Google Cloud is really starting to rage. Obviously, Satya has done an amazing job with Microsoft, and then there's Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud, and all these secondary Clouds, Equinix, and that acceleration is only going up. So, how do you, you know encourage people, coach people, tell people to make sure that they're taking a step back and being organized and thoughtful, and not just racing ahead at the next bright shiny object? >> So, great question again, Jeff. I think people have to have to be careful that just because you hear about something a lot doesn't mean it's proven to scale. Social media is dangerous in the sense that we think that we hear something a hundred times then a means that is polished. And I think that as enterprises and as businesses, you know, go with something that's proven, but dip a toe in the water, if you're not sure about it. So, maybe you are experimenting with some things in DevTests, but here's some practical tips that I'll give. Three things, right? I recommend that people typically start here with Cloud strategy, the three D's of data are what I recommend people begin with. Don't begin with the widgets, the shiny objects, begin with data storage, begin with data transport and begin with data organization. We know that data is the lifeblood of the enterprise, right? That's what all of us are focused on right now, right? Data is collected from watches, from websites, from things like self-driving cars, eventually. So, how is my data going to be stored? 'Cause that's the most important part of likely what we're doing as a corporation. How is it going to be transported? Am I okay with spending X amount of dollars on Egress? Do I have latency issues? And then when it comes to data organization, databases, data warehouses, data lakes, I would start with my philosophy, Jeff, on how I plan to leverage that information across any of the multi or hybrid providers that I plan to spin up, because if I start with the data that connects me better to the customer, how am I going to leverage this data then make something better for them? And then any venue honestly, Jeff, that I choose to execute in we'll have tools and utilities and packages that I can leverage to make something better for someone. >> The piece you didn't mention though, was the application. So, where's the application? Say you still start with the data foundationally, and then go to the application or? >> Yes. >> But most of the initiatives driven kind of, at the application level layer? >> They are, and I'm glad you mentioned that. So, practically speaking, let me go down a level to double-click on stuff. Well, people want to be Cloud native, right? 'Cause we don't want to run servers. We don't want to run boxes, we don't even really want to do VMS anymore. One thing that I recommend, that I believe is high reward and low risk is that people strongly consider adopting database as a service, and this is the reason why. It gives us a format to go to something that's Cloud native that doesn't have to be totally rewritten. So, the juice is worth the squeeze there because I'm reducing labor, I'm reducing maintenance, I'm reducing cycles, the DBaaS that people like that have to do, but I'm not paying to refactor an application. Where we struggle, Jeff, and maybe this is another topic, we really struggle with the value of applications, and because we don't know the value of an app, we're using the cost of an app as a proxy. And so, if you don't know the value of something, you're always going to be at risk of over or under improving it. This is why I like database as a service. I can be more nimble, I can reduce labor, and I'm not rewriting an application and spending more to rewrite it than the app is worth. If I totally refactor, or if I totally replatform, the cost may outstrip the value. DBaaS is almost always a slam dunk, 'cause I'm going to reduce manual things that my people are doing that freeze them up, to focus more on customers and evolve in the end. That's what I see pretty consistently in the enterprise. >> That is really scary. That statement that you said that people don't necessarily know the value of the app and using cost as a proxy is not good. You know, I had Butch Rizzo on recently, and he did a study on, you know, trying to figure out the value of data, versus the the value of an app. And he did some research of that UCSF, and what they did is they basically said the value of the data is dependent on the business process that you can improve, or the business project that you want to do. You make an estimate as to what the ROI in that process is, and then you basically see if it's worthwhile to do. And that case and point was, you know, running a promotion at Chipola 'cause bill loves Chipola, but he had a real concrete way that, you know, if we can increase sales at the target stores by, you know, 10%, or we can increase the average ticket by 20 cents or we can increase the average number of items ordered by 0.5 or whatever. So, you know, real far metrics that tie back to real numbers, that tie back to value that you can make an assessment of that project, and that project is enabled by data. So, I hope people are doing that far applications 'cause cost is not the way to figure out value >> The challenge that we have, Jeff, when we look at a lot of the things in the Cloud, there's a big difference between if I have "big C" customers, someone who's literally pulling out a wallet or a credit card to pay for my service or product versus "little C" customers like internally. If I'm paying for a streaming service, and the cost of the streaming service goes up the value of that's likely also going up because I'm serving more big C customers. If the cost of a password reset manager goes up and internal application that nobody was likely paying for, and that's really the dilemma that a lot of folks have in the enterprise, Jeff. Am I going to take something that has limited value like a password application, and put it in a place that can have unlimited spend. Now, if I'm a Netflix or Disney plus, if my spend is going up, my value is going up because I'm serving more big C people that are going to pull out their credit card and give me money. So, a lot of the struggle is when we drill down into this in the enterprise is the people that have the little C customers that don't have anybody paying them 'cause they're tryna understand this is like funny money in our houses job. My kids are teenagers. If I was to charge them, right? For room and board or for dinner, they don't have any money. So, the value of what they think about my cooking on the weekend, right? It's hard to put a value on that because they're not paying me, but if I had a food truck, it's easy to put a value on that, are people buying it or not? So, again, the challenges between internal or external customers and asked me to get any things I charged back and show back, we need a model to understand, is this something that you're tolerating or something that you're actually choosing and are you willing to spend money on it? >> Yeah, and it's a complicated issue, right? Because the other thing is you'd say, you take this conversation over to the security space, which I always find fascinating 'cause investigating security is kind of like investing in insurance and you can't use all your money to insure everything a hundred percent or else you just, why would you even do it? But you have to have some, and it's not a real clear ROI, but the potential downside is pretty huge. So, it's this kind of, balancing act, as you said, it's not really clean as to what the true value of that is unless you tie it back to some specific event, a breach, you know, some type of pins getting stolen, et cetera. So, these are not hard questions, but it's funny 'cause they're not technology questions, right? They're business value questions, and they're priority questions, and they're trade off questions. That's the other thing, right? You don't have infinite resources. So, even if you solve the model here you need to solve it within a portfolio of challenges, opportunities to then, as you said, you know, kind of rank order, where do you spend that next version of dollar? 'Cause it really can have a very a huge difference on the return. >> Okay, I think if I was going to give a, maybe a final piece of advice to the audience, Jeff, it would be to not confuse planning and analysis. That's something that I've talked about before. There's a big difference between those two things, and I often use the analogy of tax planning versus tax preparation. Jeff, when we collect our receipts, and our W-2s and 1099s, and go to our CPA at the beginning of the next year, we can't call that tax planning. That's tax preparation. It's already kind of done and dusted as long as you don't mess it up, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. And the enterprise is doing a lot of analysis and a lot of preparation, but really we need to do more planning. We need to look at the tools and the companies that are helping us simulate and plan for the future that's coming because then when we're talking about it, right? When you're sitting with your CPA and you're saying, what if I do this with my retirement or 401k, or real estate assets, when they can talk to you about what might happen, right? You're not in crisis, it's not a fire drill, it's not a dumpster fire, you can have a very easy conversation around the pros and cons of that. So, I think that's one thing we really have to embrace is press ahead, talk to those consultants and those solution providers, is this really planning or is this just analysis? Is this looking backwards or is it really looking forward and giving me some insight into the things that are coming so that I feel smarter going into the next season? >> And the opportunity to make a change before you hit December 31st. I mean, I think that's a really great analogy. Well, Bobby, a lot of great stuff squeezed in in a few short minutes, it's super fun to catch up, and I just love all your analogies and your stories because at the end of the day, it is about people, and it's about priorities, and it's about business, it's not about the technology. So, thank you so much for sharing your insight. >> Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for having me. >> Oh, absolutely, all right. He's Bobby Allen, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE from our Palo Alto studio. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. (bright music)