>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Okay. Welcome back to the cubes coverage of 80 us. Re-invent 2020 virtual ecentric executive summit. The two great guests here to break down the analysis of the relationship with cloud and essential. Brian bowhead director ahead of Accenture. 80 was a business group at Amazon web services. And Andy T a B G the M is essentially Amazon business group lead managing director at Accenture. Uh, I'm sure you're super busy and dealing with all the action, Brian. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. So thank you. You guys essentially has been in the spotlight this week and all through the conference around this whole digital transformation, essentially as business group is celebrating its 50th anniversary. What's new, obviously the emphasis of next gen post COVID generation, highly accelerated digital transformation, a lot happening. You got your five-year anniversary, what's new. >>Yeah, it, you know, so if you look back it's exciting. Um, you know, so it was five years ago. Uh, it was actually October where we, where we launched the Accenture AWS business group. And if we think back five years, I think we're still at the point where a lot of customers were making that transition from, you know, should I move to cloud to how do I move to cloud? Right? And so that was one of the reasons why we launched the business group. And since, since then, certainly we've seen that transition, right? Our conversations today are very much around how do I move to cloud, help me move, help me figure out the business case and then pull together all the different pieces so I can move more quickly, uh, you know, with less risk and really achieve my business outcomes. And I would say, you know, one of the things too, that's, that's really changed over the five years. >>And what we're seeing now is when we started, right, we were focused on migration data and IOT as the big three pillars that we launched with. And those are still incredibly important to us, but just the breadth of capability and frankly, the, the, the breadth of need that we're seeing from customers. And obviously as AWS has matured over the years and launched our new capabilities, we're Eva with Accenture. Um, and in the business group, we've broadened our capabilities and deepened our capabilities over the, over the last five years as well. For instance, this year with, with COVID, especially, it's really forced our customers to think differently about their own customers or their citizens, and how do they serve as those citizens. So we've seen a huge acceleration around customer engagement, right? And we powered that with Accenture customer engagement platform powered by ADA, Amazon connect. And so that's been a really big trend this year. And then, you know, that broadens our capability from just a technical discussion to one where we're now really reaching out and, and, um, and helping transform and modernize that customer and citizen experience as well, which has been exciting to say, Andy want to get your thoughts here. We've >>Been reporting and covering essential for years. It's not like it's new to you guys. I mean, five years is a great anniversary. You know, check is good relationship, but you guys have been doing the work you've been on the trend line. And then this hits and Andy said on his keynote, and I thought he said it beautifully. And he even said it to me, my one-on-one interview with them was it's on full display right now, the whole digital transformation, everything about it is on full display and you're either were prepared for it or you kind of word, and you can see who's there. You guys have been prepared. This is not new. So give us the update from your perspective, how you're taking advantage of this, of this massive shift, highly accelerated digital transformation. >>Well, I think, I think you can be prepared, but you've also got to be prepared to always sort of, I think what we're seeing in, in, um, in, in, in, in recent times and particularly in two 20, what, what is it I think today there are, um, 4% of the enterprise workloads sits at the cloud. Um, you know, that leaves 96% out there on prem. Um, and I think over the next four to five years, um, we're going to see that sort of, uh, acceleration to the, to the cloud pick up, um, this year as Andy touched on, I think, uh, uh, on Tuesday in his, I think the pandemic is a forcing function, uh, for companies to, to, to really pause and think about everything from, from, you know, how they, um, manage that technology, their infrastructure, to, to clarity to where that data sets to what insights and intelligence that getting from that data. >>And then eventually even to, to the talent, the talent they have in the organization and how they can be competitive, um, that culture, that culture of innovation, of invention and reinvention. And so I think, I think, you know, when you, when you think of companies out there faced with these challenges, it forces us, it forces AWS's forces, AEG to come together and think through how can we help create value for them? How can we help help them move from sort of just causing and rethinking to having real plans in action and that taking them, uh, into, into implementation. And so that's, that's what we're working on. Um, I think over the next five years, we're looking to just continue to come together and, and help these companies get to the cloud and get the value from the cloud. Cause it's, it's beyond just getting to the cloud attached to me and living in the cloud and getting the value from it. >>It's interesting. Andy was saying, don't just put your toe in the water. You've got to go beyond the toe in the water kind of approach. Um, I want to get to that large scale cause that's the big pickup this week that I kind of walked away with was it's large scale. Acceleration's not just toe in the water experimentation. Can you guys share, what's causing this large scale end to end enterprise transformation and what are some of the success criteria have you seen for the folks who have done that? Yeah. And I'll, I'll start in the end. >>You can buy a lawn. So you, it's interesting if I look >>Back a year ago at reinvent and when I did the cube interview, then we were talking about how ABG we're >>Starting to see that shift of customers. You know, we've been working with customers for years on a single of what I call a single-threaded programs, right? We can do a migration, we can do SAP, we can do a data program. And then even last year we were really starting to see customers ask. The question is like, what kind of synergies and what kind of economies of scale do I get when I start bringing these different threads together and also realizing that it's, you know, to innovate for the business and build new applications, new capabilities, well, that, that is going to inform what data you need to, to hydrate those applications, right? Which then informs your data strategy while a lot of that data is then also embedded in your underlying applications that sit on premises. So you should be thinking through how do you get those applications into the cloud? >>So you need to draw that line through all of those layers. And that was already starting last year. And so last year we launched the joint transformation program with AEG. And then, so we were ready when this year happened and then it was just an acceleration. So things have been happening faster than we anticipated, but we knew this was going to be happening. And luckily we've been in a really good position to help some of our customers really think through all those different layers of kind of the pyramid as we've been calling it along with the talent and change pieces, which are also so important as you make this transformation to cloud >>Andy, what's the success factors. Andy Jassy came on stage during the partner day, a surprise fireside chat with Doug Hume and talking about this is really an opportunity for partners to, to change the business landscape with enablement from Amazon. You guys are in a pole position to do that in the marketplace. What's the success factors that you see, >>Um, really from three, three fronts, I'd say, um, w you know, one is the, the people. Um, and, and I, I, again, I think Andy touched on sort of a, uh, success factors, uh, early in the week. And for me, it's these three areas that it sort of boils down to, to these three areas. Um, one is the, the, the, the people, uh, from the leaders that it's really important to set those big, bold visions point the way. And then, and then, you know, set top down goals. How are we going to measure you almost do get what you measure, um, to be, you know, beyond the leaders, to, to the right people in the right position across the company. We're finding a key success factor for these end to end transformations is not just the leaders, but you haven't poached across the company, working in a, in a collaborative, shared, shared success model, um, and people who are not afraid to, to invent and fail. >>And so that takes me to perhaps the second point, which is the culture. Um, it's important, uh, with finding food for the right conditions to be set in the company, not enable people to move at pace, move at speed, be able to fail fast, um, keep things very, very simple, and just keep iterating and that sort of culture of iteration, um, and improvement versus seeking perfection is, is super important for, for success. And then the third part of maybe touch on is, is partners. Um, I think, you know, as we move forward over the next five years, we're going to see an increasing number of players in the ecosystem in the enterprises state. Um, you're going to see more and more SAS providers. And so it's important for companies and our joint clients out there to pick partners like, um, like AWS or, or Accenture or others, but to pick partners who have all worked together and built solutions together. And that allows them to get speed to value quicker. It allows them to bring in pre-assembled solutions, um, and really just drive that transformation in a quicker, it sorts of manner. >>Yeah, that's a great point worth calling out, having that partnership model that's additive and has synergy in the cloud, because one of the things that came out of this this week, this year is reinvented, is there's new things going on in the public cloud, even though hybrid is an operating model, outpost and super relevant. There, there are benefits for being in the cloud and you've got partners, APIs, for instance, and have microservices working together. This is all new, but I got, I got to ask that on that thread, Andy, where did you see your customers going? Because I think, you know, as you work backwards from the customers, you guys do, what's their needs, how do you see them? You know, where's the puck going? Where can they skate to where the puck's going? Because you can almost look forward and say, okay, I've got to build modern apps. I got to do the digital transformation. Everything is a service. I get that, but what do they, what, what solutions are you building for them right now to get there? >>Yeah. And, and of course, with, with, you know, industries blurring and multiple companies, it's always hard to boil down to the exact situations, but you can probably look at it from a sort of a thematic lens. And what we're seeing is as the cloud transformation journey picks up from us perspective, we've seen a material shift in the solutions and problems that we're trying to address with clients that they are asking for us, uh, to, to help, uh, address is no longer just the back office where you're sort of looking at cost and efficiency and, um, uh, driving gains from that perspective. It's beyond that, it's now materially the top line. It's, how'd you get the driving to the, you know, speed to insights, how'd you get them decomposing, uh, their application set in order to derive those insights. Um, how'd you get them, um, to, to, um, uh, sort of adopt leading edge industry solutions that give them that jump start, uh, and that accelerant to winning the customers, winning the eyeballs. >>Um, and then, and then how'd you help drive the customer experience. We're seeing a lot of push from clients, um, or ask for help on how do I optimize my customer experience in order to retain my eyeballs. And then how do I make sure I've got a soft self-learning ecosystem at play, um, where I, you know, it's not just a practical experience, but I can sort of keep learning and iterating, um, how treat my, eat, my customers, um, and a lot of that, um, that's still self-learning that comes from, you know, putting in, uh, intelligence into your, into your systems, getting an AI and ML, uh, in that. And so as a result of that, where it was seeing a lot of push and a lot of what we're doing, uh, is pouring investments into those areas. And then finally, maybe beyond the bottom line and the top line is how do you harden that and protect that with, um, security and resilience? Uh, so I'll probably say those are the three areas. John >>Brian on the business model side, obviously the enablement is what Amazon has. Um, we see things like SAS factory coming on board and the partner network I've see a, is a big, huge partner of you guys. Um, the business models there. You've got I, as, as doing great with chips, you have this data modeling this data opportunity to enable these modern apps. We heard about the partner strategy from Andy. I'm talking about yesterday now about how can partners within even a center. What's the business model side on your side that you're enabling this. Can you just share your thoughts on that? >>Yeah. And so it's, it's interesting. And again, I'm kind of build it in a build a little bit on some of the things that Andy really talked about there, right? And that we, if you think of that from the partnership, we are absolutely helping our customers with kind of that it modernization piece and we're investing a lot and that there's hard work that needs to get done there. And we're investing a lot as a partnership around the tools, the assets and the methodology. So in AWS and Accenture show up together as AEG, we are executing off a single blueprint with a single set of assets so we can move fast. So we're going to continue to do that with all the hybrid announcements from this past week, those get baked into that, that migration modernization theme, but the other really important piece here as we go up the stack, Andy mentioned it, right? >>The data piece, like so much of what we're talking about here is around data and insights. Right? I did a cube interview last week with, uh, Carl hick. Um, who's the CIO from Takeda. And if you hear Christophe Weber from Takeda talk, he talks about Takeda being a data company, data and insights company. So how do we, as a partnership, again, build the capabilities and the platforms like with Accenture's applied insights platform so that we can bootstrap and really accelerate our client's journey. And then finally, on the innovation on the business front, and Andy was touching on some of these, we are investing in industry solutions and accelerators, right? Because we know that at the end of the day, a lot of these are very similar. We're talking about ingesting data, using machine learning to provide insights and then taking action. So for instance, the cognitive insurance platform that we're working together on with Accenture, if they get about property and casualty claims and think about how do we enable touchless claims using machine learning and computer vision that can assess based on an image damage, and then be able to triage that and process it accordingly, right? >>Using all the latest machine learning capabilities from AWS >>With that deep, um, AI machine learning data science capability from Accenture, who knows all those algorithms that need to get built and build that library by doing that, we can really help these insurance companies accelerate their transformation around how they think about claims and how they can speed those claims on behalf of their policy holder. So that's, what's an example of a, kind of like a bottom to top view of what we're doing in the partnership to address these new needs. >>That's awesome. Andy, I want to get back to your point about culture. You mentioned it twice now. Um, challenge is a big part of the game here. Andy Jassy referenced Lambda. Next generation developers were using Lambda. He talked about CIO stories around, they didn't move fast enough. They lost three years. A new person came in and made it go faster. This is a new, this is a time for a certain kind of, um, uh, professional and individual, um, to, to be part of, um, this next generation. What's the talent strategy you guys have to attract and attain the best and retain the best people. How do you do it? >>Um, you know, it's, it's, um, it's an interesting one. It's, it's, it's oftentimes a, it's, it's a significant point and often overlooked. Um, you know, people, people really matter and getting the right people, um, in not just in AWS or, but then on our customers is super important. We often find that much of our discussions with, with our clients is centered around that. And it's really a key ingredient. As you touched on, you need people who are willing to embrace change, but also people who are willing to create new, um, to invent new, to reinvent, um, and to keep it very simple. Um, w we're we're we're seeing increasingly that you need people who have a sort of deep learning and a deep, uh, or deep desire to keep learning and to be very curious as, as they go along. Most of all, though, I find that, um, having people who are not willing or not afraid to fail is critical, absolutely critical. Um, and I think that that's, that's, uh, a necessary ingredient that we're seeing, um, our clients needing more off, um, because if you can't start and, and, and you can't iterate, um, you know, for fear of failure, you're in trouble. And I think Andy touched on that you, you know, where that CIO, that you referred to last three years, um, and so you really do need people who are willing to start not afraid to start, um, and, uh, and not afraid to lead. Yeah. >>It takes a gut-check there. I just said, you guys have a great team over there. Everyone at the center I've interviewed strong, talented, and not afraid to lean in and, and into the trends. Um, I got to ask on that front cloud first was something that was a big strategic focus for Accenture. How does that fit into your business group? That's, uh, Amazon focus, obviously their cloud, and now hybrid everywhere, as I say, um, how does that all work it out? >>We're super excited about our cloud first initiative, and I think it fits it, um, really, uh, perfectly it's it's, it's what we needed. It's, it's, it's a, it's another accelerant. Um, if you think of first, what we're doing is we're, we're putting together, um, a capability set that will help enable him to and translations as Brian touched on your help companies move, you know, from just, you know, migrating to, to, to modernizing, to driving insights, to bringing in change, um, and, and, and helping on that, on that talent. So that's sort of component number one is how does Accenture bring the best, uh, end to end transformation capabilities to our clients? Number two is perhaps, you know, how do we, um, uh, bring together pre-assembled as Brian touched on preassembled industry offerings to help as an accelerant, uh, for our, for our customers three, as, as we touched on earlier, is, is that sort of partnership with the ecosystem. >>We're going to see an increasing number of SAS providers in an estate in the enterprises States out there. And so, you know, parts of our cloud first and our AEG strategy is to increase our touchpoints and our integrations and our solutions and our offerings where the ecosystem partners out there, the ISV partners out there, and the SAS providers out there. And then number four is really about, you know, how do we, um, extend the definition of the cloud? I think oftentimes people thought of the cloud just as sort of on-prem and prem. Um, but, but as Andy touched on earlier this week, you know, you've, you've got this, the concept of hybrid cloud and that in itself, um, uh, is, is, is, uh, you know, being redefined as well, you know, where you've got the intelligent edge and you've got various forms of the edge. Um, so that's the fourth part of, of our, of our cloud first strategy. And, and, and for us was super excited because all of that is highly relevant for ABG, as we look to build those capabilities as industry solutions and others, and as we look to enable our customers, but also how we, you know, as we, as we look to extend how we go to market, uh, I joined tally PS, uh, in, uh, in our respective skews and products. >>Well, what's clear now is that people now realize that if you contain that complexity, the upside is massive. And that's great opportunity for you guys. We got to get to the final question for you guys to weigh in on, as we wrap up next five years, Brian, Andy weigh in, how do you see that playing out? What do you see this exciting, um, for the partnership and the cloud first cloud, everywhere cloud opportunities share some perspective. >>Yeah, I, I, they, you know, just kinda building on that cloud first, right? What cloud first. And we were super excited when cloud first was announced and you know, what it signals to the market and what we're seeing in our customers, which is cloud really permeates everything that we're doing now. Um, and, and so all aspects of the business will get infused with cloud in some ways, you know, it, it touches on all pieces. And I think what we're going to see is just a continued acceleration and getting much more efficient about pulling together the disparate, what had been disparate pieces of these transformations, and then using automation using machine learning to go faster. Right? And so, as we start thinking about the stack, right, well, we're going to get, I know we are, as a partnership is we're already investing there and getting better and more efficient every day as the migration pieces and the moving assets, the cloud are just going to continue to get more automated, more efficient, and those will become the economic engines that allow us to fund the differentiated, innovative app activities up the stack. >>So I'm excited to see us, you know, kind of invest to make those, those, um, those bits accelerated for customers so that we can free up capital and resources to invest where it's going to drive the most outcome for their end customers. Um, and I think that's going to be a big focus and that's going to have the industry, um, you know, focus. It's going to be making sure that we can consume the latest and greatest of AWS has capabilities and, you know, in the areas of machine learning and analytics, but then Andy's also touched on it bringing in ecosystem partners, right? I mean, one of the most exciting wins we had this year, and this year of COVID is looking at the universe, uh, looking at Massachusetts, the COVID track and trace solution that we put in place is a partnership between Accenture, AWS, and Salesforce, right? So again, bringing together three really leading partners who can deliver value for our customers. I think we're going to see a lot more of that. As customers look to partnerships like this, to help them figure out how to bring together the best of the ecosystem to drive solutions. So I think we're going to see more of that as well. >>All right, Andy final word, your take >>Of innovation is, is picking up. Um, the split things are just going faster and faster. I'm just super excited and looking forward to the next five years as, as you know, the technology invention, um, comes out and continues to sort of set new standards from AWS. Um, and as we, as Accenture bringing our industry capabilities, we marry the two, we, we go and help our customers super exciting times. >>Well, congratulations on the partnership. I want to say thank you to you guys, because I've reported a few times some stories around real successes around this COVID pandemic that you guys worked together on with Amazon that really changed people's lives. Uh, so congratulations on that too as well. I want to call that out. Thanks for coming >>Up. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. >>Okay. This is the cubes coverage, Accenture AWS partnership, part of the center's executive summit at Avis reinvent 2020. I'm John for your host. Thanks for watching.

>> From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of a special announcement, brought to you by Nutanix. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman. And I want to welcome you to this special event that we are doing with Nutanix. Of course, in 2020 many things have changed and that has changed some of the priorities for many companies out there, acceleration of cloud adoption, absolutely has been there. I've talked to many companies that were dipping their toe or thinking about where they were going to the cloud and of course it's rapidly moved to accelerate to be able to leverage work from home, remote contact centers and the like. So we have to think about how we can accelerate what's happening and make sure that our workforce and our customers are all taken care of. So at one of the front seats of this is of course companies working to help modernize customers out there and Nutanix is part of that discussion. So I want to welcome to join us for this special discussion of cloud and Nutanix, I've two of our CUBE alumnis. First of all, we have Monica Kumar, she's the Senior vice President of Product with Nutanix and Tarkan Maner, who's a relative newcomer, second time on theCUBE in his new role, many-time guest previously. Tarkan is the Chief Commercial Officer with Nutanix. Monica and Tarkan, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you so much. So happy to be back on theCUBE. >> Yeah, Thank you. >> All right, so Tarkan as I was teeing up, we know that IT staffs in general, CIO specifically, and companies overall, are under a lot of pressure in general, but in 2020, there are new pressures on them. So why don't you explain to us the special cloud announcement, tell us what's Nutanix's launching and why it's so important today. >> So first of all, thank you. Glad to be here with Monica. Basically, you and I spent some time with a few customers in the past few weeks and months. I'll tell you the things in our industry are changing at a pace that we've never seen before, especially with this pandemic backdrop as we're going through. And obviously all the economic challenges that creates beyond the obviously health challenges and across the globe, all the pain it creates, but also create some opportunities for our customers and partners to deliver solutions to our enterprise customers and commercial customers and public sector customers in multiple industries. From healthcare, obviously very importantly, to manufacturing, to supply chains and to all the other industries, including financial services and public sector again. So in that context and Monica knows this well as she's our leader in our strategy, we're putting lots of effort in this new multi-cloud strategy as a company. As you know Stu well, Nutanix wrote the book in digital infrastructures with its own hyperconverged infrastructure story. Now they're taking that next level via our data center solutions, via DevOps solutions and end user computer solutions now in multi-cloud fashion, working with partners like AWS. So in this launch, we have our new hybrid cloud infrastructure, Nutanix Clusters product now available on AWS. We are super excited. We have more than 20 tech firms and customers and partners at senior executive level support in this big launch. Timing is usually important because of this pandemic backdrop. And the goal is obviously to help our customers save money, focus on what's important for them, save money for them and making sure they streamline their IT operations. So it's a huge launch for us and we're super excited about it. >> Yeah, and the one thing I would add to what Tarkan said Stu is, look, we talked to a lot of customers and obviously cloud is the constant in terms of enabling innovation. But I think more with COVID, what's on top of mind is also how do we use cloud for innovation, but really be intelligent about cost optimization. So with this new announcement, what we're excited about is we're making really a hybrid cloud a reality across public and private cloud, but also making sure customers get the cost efficiency they need when they're deploying the solution. So we are super excited to bring true hybrid cloud offering with AWS to the market today. Well, I can tell you Nutanix Clusters is absolutely one of the exciting technologies I've enjoyed watching and getting ready for. And of course, a partnership with the largest public cloud player out there, AWS, is really important. When I think about Nutanix from the earliest days, the word that we always used for the HCI space in Nutanix specifically, was simplicity. Anybody in the tech space know that true simplicity is really hard to do. When I think about cloud, when I think about multi-cloud, simplicity's not the first thing that I think of. So Tarkan, help us connect, how is Nutanix going to extend the simplicity that it's done for so long now in the data center into places like AWS with this solution? >> So, Stu, you're right on, spot on. Look, Monica and I spend a lot of time with our customers. One thing about an Nutanix executive team we're very customer driven, and I'm not just saying this to make a point. We really spent tons of time with them because our solutions are basically so critical for them to run their businesses. So just recently, I was with a senior executive of an airline right before that Monica and I spent time with one of the largest banks in the world in France, in Paris, right before pandemic, we were actually traveling, talking to not only the CIO, the Chief Operating Officer on one of these huge banks, and the biggest issue was how these companies are trying to basically adjust their plans, business plans. I'm not talking about tech plans, IT plans, the business plans around this backdrop that the economic stress and obviously now pandemic is in a big way. One of the CIOs told me, it was an airline executive, "Look, Tarkan, in the next 12 months, my business might be half of what it is today. And I need to do more with less in so many different ways, while I'm cutting cost." So it's a tough time. So in that context is to, you're actually right, multi-cloud is a difficult proposition, but it's critical for these companies to manage their cost structures across multiple operating models. Cloud to us is not a destination. It's a means to an end. It is an operating model. At the end of the day, the differentiation is through the software. The unique software that we provide from digital infrastructures to deliver end to end discreet data center solutions, DevOps solutions for developers, as well as for end user computing individuals, to make you sure to take advantage of these VDI desktop-as-a-service capability. So in that context, what we're providing now, to these CIOs who are going through this difficult time is a platform in which they can move their workloads from cloud to cloud based on their needs, the freedom of choice. Look, one of these big banks that Monica and I visited in France, huge global bank, they have a workloads on AWS, they have workloads on Azure, they have workloads on Google, they have workloads on Trans Telecom, the local SP, they have workloads in Germany, they have workloads on cloud service providers in Asia, in Taiwan and other locations, On top of that, they're also using Nutanix on-prem as well as Nutanix cloud, our own cloud services for DR. And for them, this is not just a destination, this is an operating model. So the biggest request from them is, "Look, can you guys make this cost effective? Can we use all these operating models and move our data and applications from cloud to cloud?" In simple terms, can we get some flexibility with commits as well as with the credits they paid for so far? And those are the things we're working on, and I'm sure Monica is going to get a little bit more into detail as we talk though this. We're super excited to start this journey with AWS with this launch, but we're not going to stop there. Our goal is, we just discussed it with Monica earlier, provide freedom of choice across multiple clouds both on-prem and off-prem for our customers to cut costs and to focus on what's important for them. >> Yeah, and I would just add to sum it up, we are really simplifying the multi-cloud complexity for our customers. And I can go into more details but that's really the gist of it. Is what Nutanix is doing with this announcement and more coming up in the future. >> Well, Monica, when I think about customers and how do they decide what stays in their data center, what goes into the public cloud, it's really their application portfolio. I need to look at my workloads, I need to look at my skillset. So when I look at the Cluster solution, what are some of the key use cases? What workloads are going to be the first ones that you expect or you're having customers use with it today? >> Sure, and as we talk to customer too, there's clearly few key use cases that they've been trying to build a hybrid strategy around. The first few ones are bursting into cloud. In case of sudden demand, how do I burst and scale my, let's say, VDI environment or database environment into the cloud? So that's clearly one that many of our customers want to be able to do simply and without having to incur this extreme complexity of managing these environments. Number two, it's about DR. And we saw it with COVID, business continuity became a big deal for many organizations. They weren't prepared for it. So the ability to actually spin up your applications and data in the cloud seamlessly in case of a disaster, that's another big use case. The third one, which many customers talk about is can I lift and shift my applications as is into the cloud without having to rewrite a single line of code or without having to rewrite all of it? That's another one. And last but not least, the one that we're also hearing a lot about is how do I extend my current applications by using cloud native services that are available on public cloud? So those are four, there's many more, of course, but in terms of workloads, I mentioned two examples, VDI, which is virtual desktop infrastructure, end user computing and also databases. More and more of our customers don't want to invest, in again, having on premises data center assets, sitting there idly and wait for when the capacity surges, the demand for capacity surges, they want to be able to do that in the cloud. So I'd say those are the few use cases and workloads. One thing I want to go back to, what Tarkan was talking about, really there are three key reasons why the current hybrid cloud solutions haven't really panned out for customers. Number one, it's having a unified management environment across public and private cloud. There's a few solutions out there, but none of them have proved to be simple enough to actually put into real execution. With Nutanix, the one thing you can do is literally build a hybrid cloud within under an hour. Under an hour, you can spin up Nutanix Clusters which you have on premises, the same exact Cluster in Amazon. Under one hour. There you go. And you have the same exact management plane that we offer on-prem that now can manage your AWS Nutanix Clusters. It's that easy, right? And then you can easily move your data and applications across, if you choose to. You want to move and burst into cloud, public cloud? Do it. You want to keep some stuff on-prem? Do it. If you want to develop in the cloud, do it. Want to keep production on-prem, do it. Single management plane, seamless mobility. And the third point is about cost. Simplicity of managing the costs making sure you know how are you going to incur costs? How about if you can hibernate your AWS cluster when you're not using it? We have the capability now in our software to do that. How about knowing where to place, which workload, which workload goes into public node, which stays on-premises. We have an amazing tool called Beam that gives the customers that ability to assess which is the right cloud for the right workload. So I can go on and on about this, we've talked to so many customers, but this is in a nutshell, the use cases and workloads that we are delivering to customers right out the gate. >> Well, Monica, I'd love to hear a little bit about the customers that have had an early access to this. What customer stories can you share? Understand, of course, you're probably going to need to anonymize, but I'd like to understand how they've been leveraging Clusters, the value that they're getting from it. >> Absolutely. We've been working with a number of customers. And I'll give you a few examples. There's a customer in Australia. I'll start with that. And they basically run a big event that happens every five years for them. And that they have to scale something to 24 million people. Now imagine if they have to keep capacity on site, anticipating the needs for five years in a row. Well, they can't do that. And the big event is going to happen next year for them. So they're getting ready with our Clusters to really expand the VDI environments into the cloud in a big way with AWS. So from Nutanix on-prem to AWS and expand VDI and burst into the cloud. So that's one example. That's obviously when you have an event driven capacity bursting into the cloud. Another customer who is in the insurance business. For them DR Is of course very important. I mean, DR is important for every industry and every business, but for them they realize that they need to be able to transparently run their applications in the case of a disaster on the cloud. So they've been using Nutanix Clusters with AWS to do that. Another customer is looking at lifting and shifting some of their database applications into AWS with Nutanix, for example. And then we have yet another customer who's looking at retiring a part of the data center estate and moving that completely to AWS with Nutanix as a backbone, Nutanix Clusters as the backbone. I mean, and we have tons of examples of customers who during COVID, for example, were able to burst capacity and spin up remote, hundreds and thousands of remote employees using Clusters into AWS cloud, using Citrix also by the way, as the desktop provider. So again, I can go on, we have tons of customers. There's obviously a big demand for this solution because now it's so easy to use. We have customers really surprised going, "Wait, I have built a whole hybrid cloud within an hour? And I was able to scale from six nodes to 16 nodes just like that on AWS cloud from on prem six nodes to 16 and AWS cloud? Our customers are really, really pleasantly surprised with the ease of use and how quickly they can scale using Clusters in AWS. >> Yeah, Tarkan, I have to imagine that this is a real change for the conversations that you have with customers. I mean, Nutanix has been partnering with AWS for a number of years. I remember the first time that I saw Nutanix at the re:Invent show, but cloud is definitely front and center in a lot of your customer's conversations. So with your partners, with your customers, has to be just a whole different aspect to the conversations that you can have. >> Absolutely, Stu. As you heard from Monica too, as I mentioned earlier, this is not just a destination for the customers. I know you using these buzzwords, at the end of day, it's an operating model. It's an operating model they want to take advantage of to cut costs and do more with less. So in that context, as you heard even in this conversation, there isn't any pain point in this. Like, again, being able to move the workloads from location to location, cost-optimize those things, provide a streamlined operations, again, as Monica suggested, making the apps and the data related to those apps mobile, and obviously provide built-in networking capabilities, all those capabilities make it easier for them to cut costs. So what we're hearing constantly from the enterprises is, small and large, private sector and public sector, nothing different, clearly they have options, they want to have the freedom of choice, some of these workloads are going to run on-prem, some of them off-prem and off-prem is going to have tons of different variations. So in that context, as I mentioned earlier, we have our own cloud as well. We provide 20 plus SKUs to 17,000 customers around the world. There's a $2 billion software business run rate as you know and a lot of those customers, on-prem customers, now are also coming to our own cloud services with cloud partners we have our own cloud services with our own billing, payments, logistics, and service capabilities, fit a credit card, you can do DR it's actually come with this service to Nutanix itself. But some of these customers also want to be able to go to AWS or Azure or to a local service provider. Sometimes as US companies we think US only, but think about this, this is a global phenomenon. I have customers in India. We have customers in Australia as Monica talked about. In China, in Japan, in Germany. And some of these enterprise customers, public sector customers, they want a DR, Disaster Recovery as a service to a local service provider within the country. Because of the new data governance laws and security concerns, they don't want the data and apps to go outside of the boundaries of the country, in some cases in the same town. If you're in Switzerland, forget about the country, the same city. So we want to make sure we give capabilities to customers, use the cloud as an operating model the way they want. And as part of this, Stu, we're not alone on this. We can not do this alone. We have tremendous level of partner support as you're going to see the announcements from HP as one of our key partners, Lenovo, AMD, Intel, Fujitsu, Citrix for end user computing, we're partnering with Palo Alto Networks for security, a slew of partners, as you know we support VMware ESXi. We have partners like Red Hat who's done tons of work in the Linux front, we partnered with IBM, we partnered with Dell. So the ecosystem makes it so much easier for our customers, especially in this pandemic backdrop. And I think what you're going to see from Nutanix, more partners, more customer proof points to help the customers at end of the day to cut costs in this typical backdrop. Especially for the next 24 months, I think what you're going to see is tremendous, so to speak, adoption of this multi-cloud approach that we're focusing on right now. >> Yeah. And let me add, I know a partner list is long. So, Tarkan also we have the global size, of course, the Wipro and HCL and TCS and Capgemini and Zensar, you name it all. We're working with all of them to bring Clusters based solutions to market. And for the entire Nutanix stack, also partners like Equinix and Yotta. So it's a long list of partnerships. The one thing I did want to bring up Stu which I forgot to mention earlier and Tarkan reminded me, is our superior architecture. So why is it that Nutanix can deliver this now to customers? I mean, our customers have been trying to build hybrid cloud for a little while now and work across multiple clouds and we know it's been complex. The reason why we are able to deliver this in the way we are, is because of our architecture. The way we've architected Clusters with AWS it's a built-in native network integration. And what that means is if your customer and end user who's a practitioner, you can literally see the Nutanix VMs in the same space as Amazon VMs. So for a customer, it's in the exact same space, it's really easy to then use other AWS services and we bypass any complex and latency issues with networking because we're exactly part of AWS VPC for the customer. And also, the customers can use by the way, their Amazon credits with the way we've architected this. We allow for bringing your own license, by the way, that's the other true part about, simplicity is same license that our customers use on-premises today for Nutanix can be brought exactly the same way to AWS, if they choose to. And, of course, we do also offer other licensing models that are cloud only, but I want to point out that BYOL is, is something that we're very proud of. It's truly enabling bring your own license to AWS cloud in this case. >> Well, it's interesting, Monica. Of course, one of the things everybody's watched of Nutanix over the last few years is that move from an appliance primarily to a software model and as an industry as a whole, it's much more moving to the cloud model for pricing. And it sounds like that's the primary model with some flexibility and options that you have when you're talking about the Clusters solution here, is that correct? >> Yeah, we also offer the pay as you go model of course, on cloud it's popular. So customers can decide they just want to pay for the amount they use, that's fine, or they can bring their existing on-prem license to AWS, or we also have a commit model where they commit for a certain capacity for the year and they go with that. So we have two or three different kinds of models. Again, going with the freedom of choice for our customers, we offer them different models they can choose from. But to me, the best part is to bring own license model. That's again, a true hybrid pricing model here. They can choose to use Nutanix where they want to. >> Yeah, well, and, and Monica, I'm glad you brought up some of the architectural pieces here. Because you talked about all the partners that you have out there, if I'm sitting in the partner world, I've been heard nothing over the last few years, but I've been inundated by all the hybrid solutions. So every public cloud provider, including AWS now, is talking about hybrid solutions. You've got virtualization players, infrastructure players, all talking out there. So architecture, you talked a bit about, anything else, key differentiators that you want people to understand as what sets Nutanix apart from the crowd when it comes to hybrid cloud? >> Well, like I said, it's because of our architecture, you can build a hybrid cloud in under an hour. I mean, prove to me if you can do with other providers. And again, I don't mean that, having that ego, but really, honestly for our customers, it's all about how can we speed up a customer's experience to cloud. So building a cloud under an hour, being able to truly manage it with a single plane, being able to move apps and data with one click in many cases and last but not least the license portability, all of that together, I think the way, Dheeraj our CEO sums it and Tarkan have talked about this is, we may not have been the first to market, but we believe we're the best to market in this space today. That's what I would say. >> Now, Tarkan, I'd love to hear a little bit of the vision. So as Monica alluded to, anybody that digs underneath the covers it's bare metal offerings from the cloud providers that are enabling this technology. There was a certain partnership that AWS had that enabled this and now you're taking advantage of it. When you look at Clusters going forward, give us a little bit, what should we be looking for when it comes to AWS and maybe even beyond? >> Thank you, Stu, actually spot on question. Most companies in this space, they follow these buzzwords like, "Oh, multi-cloud." And when you drill-down and you find out, okay, you support two cloud services and you actually own some kind of a marketplace and you're one of the 19,000 services, you don't see this as a multi-cloud. Our view is complete freedom of choice. So our vision includes a couple of our private clouds, government cloud success with our customers, with enterprise, commercial and public sector customers also delivered to them choice with Nutanix's own cloud, as I mentioned earlier, with our own billing payment, logistics capabilities starting with DR as a service, disaster recovery as a service. But take that next level, the database as a service, VDI, desktop as a service and other services that we deliver. But on top of that, also as Monica talked about earlier, partnerships we have with service providers like Yotta in India, work going on with SoftBank in Japan, work going on with OVH in France and multiple countries that we're building this XSP service provider- customer relationships, give those international customers choice within their own local region in their own country, in some cases, even in their city where they are making sure the network latency is not an issue, security, data governance is not an issue. And obviously, third leg of this multi legged stool is hyperscalers themselves, like AWS. AWS has been a phenomenal partner working with Doug Hume, Matt Garmin, the executive team under Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos they're just super partners, obviously that bare metal service capability is huge differentiator and typical AWS simplicity, and obviously data simplicity coming together, but giving choice to our customers has we move forward, obviously our customers have a multi-cloud strategy. So I'm reading an amazing book called "Silk Roads." It's an amazing book. I strongly suggest you all read it. It's all talking about partnerships. Throughout history, those empires, those countries who've been successful, partnered well, connect dots well. So that's what we're trying to learn from our own history, connecting the dots with the customers and partners as we talked about earlier, working with companies like Wipro and we all deliver an end user computing service called desktop-as-a-service virtual desk, database as a service, digital data services we have, few other new services started in HCL and others. So all these things come up together as a complete end to end strategy with our partners. So we want to make sure as we move forward, in upcoming weeks and months, your going to see these announcements coming up one partner at a time and obviously we're going to measure success one customer at a time as we move forward with this strategy. >> All right, so Monica, you mentioned that if you were an existing Nutanix customer, you can spin up in the public cloud in under an hour, I guess final the question I have for you is number one, if I'm not yet a Nutanix customer, is this something I could start in the public cloud and leverage some capabilities and whether I'm an existing customer or a prospect, how do I get started with Nutanix Clusters? >> Absolutely, we're all about making it easy for our customers to get started. So in fact, I know seeing is believing, so if you go to nutanix.com today, you'll see we have a link there for something called a test drive. So we are giving our prospects and customers the ability to go try this out, either just take a tour or even do a 30 day free trial today. So they can try it out, they can just get spun up in the cloud completely and then connect on premises if they choose to, or if they just sustain public cloud only with Nutanix, that's absolutely the customer choice. And I would say, this is really only the beginning for us as Tarkan saying. Our future, I mean, I'm just really super excited about our feature and how we're going to enable customers to use cloud for innovation going forward in a really simple manner that's cost efficient for our customers. >> All right. Well, Monica and Tarkan, thank you so much for sharing the updates. Congratulations to the team on bringing this solution out. And as you said, just the beginning so we look forward to talking to you, your partners and your customers going forward. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Stu, thank you, Monica. >> All right, for Tarkan and Monica, I'm Stu Miniman with theCUBE. Thank you as always for watching this special Nutanix announcement. (upbeat music)