(upbeat techno music) >> From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of Postgres Vision 2021. Brought to you by EBD. >> Hello everyone, this is David Vellante, for the CUBE. And we're here covering Postgres Vision 2021. The virtual version, thCUBE virtual, if you will. And welcome to our power-panel. Now in this session, we'll dig into database modernization. We want to better understand how and why customers are tapping open source to drive innovation. But at the same time, they've got to deliver the resiliency and enterprise capabilities that they're used to that are now necessary to support today's digital business requirements. And with me are three experts on these matters. Abdul Sheik, is Global CTO and President of Cintra. Young Il Cho, aka Charlie, is High Availability Cluster Sales Manager, at Daone CNS. And Alan Villalobos, is the Director of Development Partnerships, at IBM. Gentlemen, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, Dave, nice to be here. >> Thank you, Dave. >> All right, let's talk trends and frame the problem. Abdul, I want to start with you? Cintra you're all about this topic. Accelerating innovation using EDB Postgres helping customers move to modern platforms. And doing so, you got to do it cost-effectively but what's driving these moves? What are the problems that you're seeing at the organizations that you serve? >> Oh, so let me quickly introduce, Abdul Sheik, CTO. I'll quickly introduce Cintra. So we are a multicloud and database architecture MSP. And we've been around for 25 plus years. Headquartered in New York and the UK. But as a global organization, we're serving our SMB customers as well as large enterprise customers. And the trends we're seeing certainly in this day and age is transformation and modernization. And what that means is, customers looking to get out of the legacy platforms, get out of the legacy data centers and really move towards a modern strategy with a lower cost base, while still retaining resiliency and freedom. Ultimately, in terms of where they're going. The key words that really I see driving this, number one is choice. They've been historically locked into vendors. With limited choice with a high cost base. So choice, freedom to choose in terms of what database technologies they apply to which workloads and certainly EDB and the work that has been done to closely marry what enterprise RD platforms offer with EDBs in a work that they've done in terms of filling those gaps and addressing where the resiliency monitoring performance and security requirements are, are certainly are required from an enterprise customer perspective. Choice is driving the move that we see and choice towards a lower cost platform that can be deployed anywhere. Both on-prem modernization customers are looking to retain on premise platforms or moving into any multi clouds whether it's an infrastructure cloud play or a platform cloud play. And certainly with EDBs offering in terms of, you know the latest cloud native offerings also very interesting. And lastly, aside from just cost and the freedom to choose where they deploy those platforms the SLA, the service level model where is the resiliency requirement where the which system is going to bronze, silver, gold? Which ones are the tier one revenue platform revenue generating platforms which are the lower, lower utility platforms. So a combination of choice, a combination of freedom to deploy anywhere and while still maintaining the resiliency and the service levels that the customers need to deliver to their businesses >> Abdul that was a beautiful setup. And, and we've got so much to talk about here because customers want to move from point A to point B but getting there and they, they need help. It's sometimes not trivial. So Charlie Daone is a consultancy. You've got a strong technical capabilities. What are you seeing in this space? You know, what are the major trends? Why are organizations considering that move? And what are some of the considerations there? >> Well, like in other country in South Korea or so our a lot of customers, banking's a manufacturing distributor. They are 90, over 90%. They are all are using Oracle DB and a rack system. But as the previous presenters pointed out, a lot of customers that are sick of the Oracle and they have to undergo the huge cost of a maintenance costs. They want to move away from this cost stress. And secondly, they can think about they're providing service to customer on their cloud base which is a private or the public. So we cannot imagine running on database, Oracle database running on the cloud the system that's not matches on this cloud. And first and second, and finally the customer what they want is the cost and they want to move away from the Oracle locking. They cannot be just a slave at Oracle for a long time and the premium for the new cloud the service for the customer. >> Great. Thank you for that. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Did you have something else to add Charlie go ahead and please. >> No that's all. >> Okay, great. Yeah, Allen, welcome to theCUBE. You know, it's very interesting to us. IBM, you, you, of course, you're a big player in database. You have a lot of expertise here. And you partner with EDB, you're offering Postgres to customers, you know, what are you seeing? Charlie was talking about Oracle and RAC. I mean, the, the, the thing there is obviously, we talked about the maintenance costs but there's also a lot of high availability capabilities. That's something that IBM really understands well. Do you see this as largely a cloud migration trend? Is it more modernization? Interested in what's IBM's perspective on this? >> I think modernization is the right word. The points that the previous panelists brought up or are on point, right? You know, lower TCO or lower costs in general but that of agility and then availability for developers and data scientists as well. And then of course, you know, hybrid cloud, right? You know, you want to be able to deploy on prem or in the cloud, or both in a mixture of all of that. And I think, I think what ties it together is the customers are looking for insights, right? And, you know, especially in larger organizations there's a myriad of data sources that they're already working with. And, you know, we, you know we want to be able to play in that space. We want to give an offering that is based on Postgres and open source and be able to further what they're strong at at and kind of, you know on top of that, you know, a layer of, of of need that we see is, is seamless data governance across all of those different stores. >> All right, I'm going to go right to the heart of the hard problem here. So if, I mean, I want to, it's just that I want to get from point A to point B, I want to save money. I want to modernize, but if I'm the canary in the coal mine at the customer, I'm saying guys, migration scares me. How do I do that? What are the considerations? And what do I need to know that I don't know. So Abdul, maybe you could walk us through what are some of the concerns that customers have? How do you help mitigate those? Whether it's other application dependencies, you know freezing code, you know, getting, again from that point A to point B without risking my existing business processes how do you handle that? >> Yeah, certainly I think a customer needs to understand what the journey looks like to begin with. So we've actually developed our own methodology that we call Rocket Cloud, which is also part of our cloud modernization strategy that builds in and database modernization strategy built into it starts with an assessment in terms of current state discovery. Not all customers totally understand where they are today. So understanding where the database state is, you know where the risks lie what are the criticality of the various databases? What technologies are used, where we have RAC or we don't have RAC but we have data God, where we have encryption. And so on. That gives the customer a very good insight in terms of the current state, both commercially and technically that's a key point to understand how they're licensed today and what costs could be freed up to free the journey to effectively fund the journey. It's a big, big topic, but once we do that, we get an idea and we've actually developed a tool called rapid discovery. That's able to discover a largest stake without knowing the database list. We just put the scripts at the database servers themselves and it tells us exactly which databases are suited to be you know, effectively migrated to Postgres with in terms of the feature function usage in terms of how heavy they are, would store procedures in the database amount of business logic use of technologies like RAC data guard and how they convert over to to Postgres specifically. That ultimately gives us the ability to give that customer an assessment and that assessment in a short sharp few weeks and get the customer view of all of my hundreds of databases. Here are the subset of candidates for Postgres and specifically than we do the schemer advisor tool the actual assessment tool from EDB, which gives us a sense of how well the schema gets converted and how best to then also look at the stored procedure conversion as well. That gives the customer a full view of their architecture mapping their specific candidate databases and then a cost analysis in terms of what that migration looks like and how we migrate. We also run and maintain those platforms once we're on EDB. >> Thank you for that again, very clear but so you're not replacing, doing an organ transplant. You may, you're you're, you know, this is not I don't mean this as a pejorative, but you're kind of cherry picking those workloads that are appropriate for EDB and then moving those and then maybe, maybe through attrition or, you know over time, sun-setting those other, those other core pieces. >> Exactly. >> Charlie, let me ask you, so we talked about RAC, real application clusters, data guard. These are, you know kind of high profile Oracle capabilities. Can you, can you really replicate the kind of resiliency at lower costs with open source, with EDB Postgres and how do you do that? >> It's my turn? >> yes, please. >> Quite technically, again, I go on in depths and technically the RAC, RAC system is so-called is the best you know, best the tool to protect data and especially in the Unix system, but apart from the RAC by the some nice data replication solution we just stream the application and log shipping and something and then monitor Pam and, and EFM solution which is enterprise failover manager. So even though it be compared to Apple the Apple RAC versus with EDB solution, we can definitely say that RAC is more stable one, but after migration, whatever, we can overcome the, you know, drawbacks of the HA cluster system by providing the EDB tools. So whatever the customer feel that after a successful migration, utilizing the EDB high availability failable solution they can make of themselves at home. So that's, that's how we approach it with the customers. >> So, Alan, again, to me, IBM is fascinating here with your level of involvement because you're the, you guys are sort of historically the master of proprietary the mainframes, VCM, CICF, EB2, all that stuff. And then, you know IBM was the first I remember Steve Mills actually announced we're going to invest a billion dollars in open source with Linux. And that was a major industry milestone. And of course, the, the acquisition of red hat. So you've got now this open source mindset this open source culture. So we, you know, as it's all about recovery in, in database and enterprise database and all the acid properties in two phase commits, and we're talking about, you know the things that Charlie just talked about. So what's your perspective here? IBM knows a lot about this. How do you help customers get there? >> Yeah, well, I mean the main, the main thrust right now IBM has a offering called IBM cloud Pak for data which from here, which runs EDB, right? EDB, Postgres runs on top of cloud Pak for Data But the, you know I think going back to Abdul's points about, you know migrating whatever's needed and whatever can be migrated to Postgres and maybe migrating other things other places, we have data virtualization and autoSQL, right? So once you have migrated those parts of your database or those schemes that can be, having, you know a single point where you can query across them and by the way, being able to query across them you know, before, during and after migration as well. Right? So we're kind of have that seamless experience of layer of SQL. And now with autoSQL of spark SQL as well, as you're, as you're migrating and after is, I'd say, you know, key to this. >> What, what's the typical migration look like? I know I'm sorry, but it's a consultant question but thinking about the, you know, the average, in terms of timeframe, what are the teams look like? You know who are the stakeholders that I need to get involved? If I'm a customer to really make this a success? maybe Abdul, you could talk about that and Charlie and Alan can chime in. >> Well, I think, well, number one you knew the exact sponsors bought into it in terms of the business case, supporting the business case an architect has got a big picture understanding not only database technology but also infrastructure that they're coming from as well as the target cloud platforms and how you ensure that the infrastructure can deliver the performance. So the architect role is important, of course the core DBA that lives within the scope of the database understands the schema of the data model the business logic itself, and the application on it. That's key specifically around the application certification testing connectivity and the migration of the code. And specifically in terms of timeline just to touch on that quickly. I mean, in our experience so far and we're seeing the momentum really really take off the last 18 months, a small project with limited business logic within the database itself can we migrate it in a couple of months but typically with all the testing and rigor around that you typically say three months timeline a medium-sized complexity projects, a six month timeline and a large complex project could be anything from nine months and beyond, but it really comes down to how heavy the database is with business logic and the database and how much effort it will take to re-engineer effectively migrate that PLC code, business logic into EDB given the compatibility level between Oracle and EDB it's relatively certainly an easier path than any other target platform in terms of options. Yeah. Not perspective. That's certainly looks like the composition of a team and timeline >> Charlie or Alan, anything you guys would add. >> Yeah. So, so I think all those personas make sense. I think you might, on the consumer side of the consumer the consumer of the data side the data scientists often we see, you know during migrations and then obviously the dev ops, I think or any operations, right, have to be heavily involved. And then lastly, you know, you see more and more data steward role or data steward type persona, CDO office type type person coming in there make sure that, you know, whatever data governance that is already in place or wants to be in place after the migration is also part of the conversation. >> Why EDB? You know, there's a lot of databases out there you know, it's funny, I always say like, you know, 10, 15 years ago databases were kind of sort of a boring market, right? It was like, okay, you're going to work or whatever. And now it's exploded. You got open source databases, you got, you know not only sequel databases, you got graph databases you know, you get cloud databases, it's going crazy. Why EDB? You wonder if you guys could address that? >> Allan why don't you go first this time? I'll compliment your answers. >> Yeah. I mean, again, I think it goes back to, to the, the I guess varying needs and, and enterprises. Right. And I think that's, what's driven this explosion in databases, whether it's a document store like you're saying, or, or new types of RDBMS, the needs that we talked about at the beginning, like lower TCO, and the push to open source. But you know, the fact of the matter is that that yes, there is a myriad, an ecosystem of databases, pretty much any organization. And so, yeah, we want to tap into that. And why EDB? EDB has done a great job of taking Postgres and making it enterprise ready, you know, that's what they're, they're good at and that, you know fits very nicely with the IBM story obviously. And, and so, you know, and they've they've worked with us as well. They have an operator on, on the runs on red hat OpenShift. So that makes it portable as well but also part of the IBM cloud Pak for data story. And, and yeah, you know, we want to break down those silos. We realized that that need is there for all of these, you know, there's this ecosystem of databases. And so, you know, we're, we see our role as being that platform, whether it's red hat OpenShift, or IBM cloud Pak for data that, that unifies, and kind of gives you that single pane of glass across all of those sources. >> And Charlie, you're obviously all in, you've got EDB in your background. Why EDB for you? >> Before talking about EDB you asked about the previous question about how the migration was different from Oracle to EDB. We had a couple of success story in Korea telecom and some banking area, and it was easier. So EDB provide MTK tool as a people know but it was an appropriate, like a 90%. So we are the channel partner of the EDB for four years. So what we have done was to hire the Oracle expert. So we train Oracle export as as EDB expert at the same time so that they can approach customer and make it easy. So you have no worry about that. Just migrating EDB, Oracle to EDB. There is a no issue. Those telltales include all the tasks, you know Stratus test and trainee, and a POC that we there. So by investing that Oracle expert that we could overcome and persuade the customer to adopt EDB. So, why EDB? Simply I can say there, is there any database they can finally replaced Oracle in the world? Why is the, it's the interoperability between Oracle to EDB as the many experts pointed out there is no other DBE. They can, you know, 90, 90% in compatibility and intercooperability with EDB. That's why, of course, there's the somewhat, you know budget issues or maintenance issue cost the issue escape from Oracle lock-in. But I think the the number one reason was the interoperability and the compatibility with database itself, Oracle database. That was a reason, I guess >> Great Abdul we've talked about, we all know the, as is, you've got a high maintenance costs. You got a lot of tuning, and it's just a lot of complexity. What about the 2B maybe you could share with us sort of the outcome some of the outcomes you've seen what the business impact has been of some of these migrations? >> Sure. I mean, I'll give you a very simple example then just the idea of running Oracle on prem a lot of customer systems teams, for example will drive a virtualization VMware strategy. We know some of the challenges of running Oracle MBM where from a license perspective. So giving the business the ability where I want to go customer in the financial services market in New York, heavy virtualization strategy the ability for them to move away from Oracle on, you know expensive hardware on to Postgres EDB on virtualization just leverage existing skillsets, leveraging existing investment in terms of infrastructure, and also give them portability in AWS. The other clouds, you know, in terms of a migration. More from a business perspective as well, I would say about some of the Allan's points in terms of just freeing up the ability for data scientists and data consumers, to, you know, to consume some of that data from an Postgres perspective more accessibility spinning up environments quicker less latency in terms of the agility is another key word in terms of the tangible differences, the business, lower cost agility, and the freedom to deploy anywhere at the end of the day. Choices, I think the key word that we could come back to and knowing that we can do that to Charlie's point specifically around maintaining service levels. And as architects, we support some of the big, big names out there in terms of airlines, online, cosmetic retailers, financial services, trading applications, hedge funds, and they all want one thing as architect: for us to deliver that resiliency and stand behind them. And as the MSP we're accountable to ensure those systems are up and running and performing. So knowing that the EDB is provided the compatibility but also plugged the specific requirements around performance management, security availability that's fundamentally been key. >> [Dave I mean, having done a lot of TCO studies in this area, it's, it's it Oracle's different. You know, normally the biggest component of TCO is labor with Oracle. The biggest component of TCO is licensed and maintenance costs. So if you can virtualize and reduce those costs and of course, of course the Oracle will fight you and say we won't support it in a VMware environment. Of course, you know, they will, but, but you got to really, you got to battle. But, so here's my last question. So if I'm a customer in that state that you described you know, a lot of sort of Oracle sprawl a lot of databases out there, high maintenance costs, the whole lock-in thing. I got to choices. I, you know, a lot of choices out there. One is EDB. You guys have convinced me that you've got the expertise If I can partner with firms like yours, it's safer route. Okay, cool. My other choice is Oracle is going to, The Oracle sales reps is going to get me in a headlock and talk about exit data and how their Oracle cloud, and how it's, they've invested a lot there. And they have, and, I can pay by the drink all this sort of modern sort of discussion, you know, Oracle act like they invented it late to the game. And then here we are. So, so help me. What's the pitch as to, well, that's kind of compelling. It's maybe the safe bet they're there. They're working with my CIO, whatever. Why should I go with the open source route versus that route? It sounds kind of attractive to me, help me understand that each of you maybe take me through that. Abdul, why don't you start. >> Yeah. I'd say, you know, Oracle's being the defacto for so many years that people have just assumed and defaulted saying, high availability, RAC, DR. Data guard, you know, and I'll apply to any database need that I have. And at the end of the day customers have a three tier database requirement: the lowest, less critical, bronze level databases that really don't need RAC or a high availability, silver tier that are departmental solutions. That means some level of resiliency. And then you've got your gold revenue producing brand impact databases that are they're down. And certainly they won. You see no reason why the bronze and silver databases can be targeted towards EDB. Admittedly, we have some of our largest customers are running platforms, are running $5 million an hour e-commerce platform or airlines running large e-commerce platforms. And exit data certainly has a place. RAC has a place in those, in those scenarios. Were not saying that the EDB is a solution for everything in all scenarios, but apply the technology where it's appropriate where it's required and, you know, generally wherever Oracle has being the defacto and it's being applied across the estate, that's fundamentally what's changed. It doesn't have to be the only answer you have multiple choices now. EDB provides us with the ability to probably address, you know more than 50% of the databases' state, and comfortably cope with that and just apply that more expensive kind of gold tier one cost-based but also capability, you know from the highest requirements of performance and availability where it's appropriate. >> Yeah. Very pragmatic approach. Abdul, thank you for that. And Charlie. Charlie, what's your perspective? Give us your closing thoughts. >> Well, it has been, Oracle has been dominating in Asia in South Korea has market or over many years. So customers got tired of this, continuous spending money for the maintenance costs and there is no discount. There is no negotiation. So they want to move away from expensive stuff. And they were looking for a flexible platform with the easygoing and the high speed and performance open source database like a possibly as career. And now the EDB cannot replace a hundred percent of existing legacy worker, but 10%, 20% 50% as time goes on the trend that will continue. And it will be reaching some high point or replacing the existing Oracle system. And it can, it can also leading to good business chance to a channel partner and EDB steps and other related business in open source. >> Great. Thank you, Charlie and Allen, bring us home here. Give us your follow up >> I think my, co- panelists hit the nail on the head, right? It's a menu, right? That's as things become more diverse and as people make more choices and as everybody wants more agility, you have to provide, I mean, and so that, that's where that's coming in and I liked the way that Andul I kind of split it into gold silver and bronze. Yeah. And I think that that's where, we're going, right? I mean you should ask your developers right? Are your developers like pining to start up a new instance of Oracle every time you're starting a new project? Probably not reach for their Postgres right? And so, because of that, that's where this is coming from and that's not going to change. And, and yeah, that that ecosystem is going to continue to, to thrive. And there'll be lots of different flavors in the growing open source ecosystem. >> Yeah. I mean, open source absolutely is the underpinning you know, the, the bedrock of innovation, these days. Gentlemen, great power panel. Thanks so much for bringing your perspectives and best of luck in the future. >> Thank you, next time we'll try and match our backgrounds >> Next time. Well, we'll up our game. Okay. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volante for theCUBE. Stay tuned for more great coverage. Postgres vision, 21. Be right back. (upbeat techno music)

(upbeat techno music) >> Live from Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Okay welcome back everyone, we are here in Bahrain for exclusive coverage for AWS Summit, part of Amazon's new region being launched here in the Middle East. I'm John Furrier, your host, we have two great guests from C5 Accelerator in Washington D.C., now kicking it out in Bahrain. Hadyah Fathalla, executive director C5 Accelerate and Eva Dimitriadis, good to see you again. >> Thank you. >> Chief operating officer. >> Great to be here. >> Guys, congratulations. Bahrain, D.C. >> The world. >> The world, it's global. >> Thank you, yeah. >> C5 Global. >> It's great to be here. >> It's an exciting time. I mean, I got to ask you Eva, because we had previously met, talked about interviews in D.C. Smart people that known Amazon, because Teresa and Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos always say, "We're going to be misunderstood for a while." Come on, that's not true. (laughing) A region in this area is going to explode the entrepreneurial scene. What's your take? >> I think that's absolutely true. As we see today at the Summit, there's just such a growing number of entrepreneurs and people who are excited to embrace digital innovation. Three years ago I think the story would have been different but ever since we set up the accelerator here, which was the first once in Bahrain, we've just seen an explosion of interest and not just from Bahrain but from around the GCC. Even start ups from abroad coming and setting up here as their Middle East practice. >> Talk about C5 for a second. Let's take a minute, to explain what you guys do. I jumped ahead a little bit because I'm excited because I just love the entrepreneurial energy. This is a really important thing happening and you guys are playing a role. Talk about C5 Accelerate, what are you guys doin'? What's your business model? Just take a minute to explain as a set up. >> So I'll let Eva talk maybe more about our global operations but really C5 Accelerate a few years ago, branch the business which was largely an investment business, including innovation business and we built Bahrain's first and one the regions, in fact, first cloud enabled accelerators and Bahrain's very first technology accelerator and we did that in partnership with the Economic Development Board, the labor firm Tamkeen and obviously with AWS. Really we benefited from the first mover advantage and the thinking around that was that as Amazon grows it's geographic footprint there is great opportunity to build on the cloud in places like the Middle East where the ecosystem is nascent and there is an amazing first mover advantage. >> Yeah. >> So when we partnered with the government to build this, we realized as we do that, we also need to contribute to building a healthy ecosystem so we built this first accelerator and we have felt-- >> When was that, by the way? >> 2016. >> Great, thank you. >> Actually September marks our two year. We've since graduated five cohorts. We're gearing up for six and we have 34 start ups under our belt. Our first cohort was an all Bahraini cohort and today we're very proud to say that actually half of the start ups that have graduated from this program that is based out of Bahrain are international start ups. That's what we're doing locally. Maybe Eva can tell you a little bit more about what we're doing on a global scale. >> You know and that's important. I want to make sure you got that out about having a bunch of start ups under your belt because when I went to the start up Bahrain session yesterday I was really, really impressed by two things. One is, just the smart energy, the smart people who like understand entrepreneurship. Either went to school for it or have learned through the scar tissue of trial and tribulations like myself. And then the entrepreneurs were there themselves. >> Mm-hmm. >> And you know a healthy entrepreneurial community when they start bitchin' and moanin', they're all chirping away, they're hungry. There's a hungry appetite for entrepreneurship here and creating but it's not fake entrepreneurship. They're really hungry. They're, where's the cash? Where's the capital? So this is really a positive sign. >> It is and I want to add something really quick before Eva jumps in, I think in the past two years what's great about a small ecosystem and the ability to pivot and build fast is you actually see the impact that you can have as an individual and as a company and as a community really on the landscape. But also regionally we've had great collaborative efforts across the GCC and in the region with partners in Saudi and Kuwait and Egypt and in Jordan so I think there's a lot of momentum that we're riding on now, and I think it's a great time to be building in the tech space. >> Well Eva, before you get to your comments. I just want to follow up on the comment around Saudi and different regions because this is a trend that has been happening for a while in Silicon Valley, as you know. People have been leaving Silicon Valley, because it's cost to live there, but people have been putting engineering teams outside of Silicon Valley. I mean, 20 years ago, you only went outside of Silicon Valley or the US to outsource which is not really product development, it's just coding. Then the trend became real engineering and product development, real chops outside. We just had Abdul on from Saudi and he was talking about his shape of his team, the psychology, the make up of the people, it's just not in Saudi Arabia. It's in China, it's all over the world. As developers are working across the world, this is a really big deal. I mean this is the new dynamic. >> Yep. >> Diverse teams, geo located, no borders, this is going to change the political landscape. It's a cultural shift. >> Definitely, I mean I think it's a while before we have here the same secret sauce that exists in Silicon Valley or that has existed there for the past decade or so. But the emphasis on training and upscaling is huge and as we've heard a number of times today, there are so many incentives to do so for free so you can actually learn to code, you can become a certified AWS coder for free in Bahrain. Which is a phenomenal advantage and step up. I mean, no one would pay me to do that in the UK. I think that, along with a number of other initiatives are really going to leap frog the development here. And in terms of what you talk about, the sort of the landscape and geo location, it goes in so many different directions now. There's no single focus so we had a Swiss company last year come and incorporate in Bahrain, and hire developers here to grow their business. It can go in so many different directions. >> Yeah, the winner take all business model is an old business model and now it's everyone's winning so it's a little bit of flattening of the wealth and the opportunities but the pie is getting bigger. >> Yes. >> I think this is the dynamic that cloud and Amazon continues to demonstrate that the Oracles, for instance, of the world, we got to win it all, lock everyone in and we got to own it. That ethos is not, that dog's not hunting, as they say. This is changing the entrepreneurial landscape and the other thing I observe is the younger generation. Leveling up is very easy to them. It's like a video game, right? Leveling up is AI, blockchain, I think one of your companies I talked to, oh we're doing a blockchain implementation. They will eat up the cloud. >> Mm. >> I mean it's going to be like, pretty fast. >> You mentioned-- >> So I'm expecting some accelerated. >> Definitely. I mean you mentioned hungry but they're also fearless. The entrepreneurs that we work with have that perfect mix of a super smart idea and an understanding of a niche sector of the market but also this resilience and recklessness that you need to embrace the opportunity. And all the scary stuff that comes with it. >> And I think adding to that, I think what's great with Amazon coming to Bahrain, with us working across the globe, it's a cross pollination that happens because whether we like it or not, like Eva said, we are not Silicon Valley yet and maybe we don't aspire to be specifically Silicon Valley and we want to build our own unique ecosystem but the lessons learned from the likes of Silicon Valley and London and Singapore and China and everywhere else in the world. >> Yeah. >> Really helps build, not just the skills required but the grit that could otherwise be absent. >> The grit's key, yeah. >> And it can engender the kind of cultural shift that's necessary so you need, so you can develop these robust and resilient qualities that are necessary for a founder. >> Well, that's a really great point. I moved from the east coast in the US to California with my first start up because that's where the action was and I can tell ya, I've been there 20 years and I've been an entrepreneur doing things ever since. And there's a fallacy of trying to emulate Silicon Valley. Every i dotted, t crossed and trying to take the playbook. There's no direct match, however, there's some consistencies in there. That's grit, creativity, openness, capital markets and community and this is something that you guys kind of have in place. And then adapting that to your culture. Now I will say that my impression here is it feels a little bit Silicon Valley because it's a little bit more open and loose. People like to go fast. Fast and loose is the Silicon Valley way. Dubai's a little bit more like New York to me. So I can feel more, valley-like here. I'm not saying that Dubai's bad, I'm just saying it's different cultures. Bigger, its more ... >> There's definitely a lot of agility here. I think one of the other advantages which leads back into what C5 is as a whole, we're primarily an investment business. We have a venture capital fund based in the UK. What we're really looking for is investible, scalable business models where we're de risking the cost of capital with cloud computing because that is how ultimately these start ups scale. Another benefit that we really see in this market is value for money. If you're a start up in Silicon Valley and you get to the stage that some of our start ups get to when they finish their program, your valuation is pretty much always triple what we would see here, so valuation's a very sensitive subject. Our start ups hate talking about it. We structure our deals with them in a way that generally avoids having a valuation. >> It's very easy to do business here. You just keep on increasing the valuation, all the stars will come dropping to your doorstep. >> It's a nuanced area. >> Yeah. >> But that being said, you can get really good value for money businesses but more importantly you're investing in the teams and the entrepreneurs and there's no shortage of that here. >> Let's talk about the ecosystem here and then let's talk about the women in tech because one of the things that blew me away yesterday was Teresa Carlson held a women breakfast and for the first time I got kicked off a table because they wanted to make room for the workshop. >> Sorry about that. (laughing) >> I'm like, wait a minute. This is not an inclusive environment. Sorry, no, we need the table. Okay, I know, I was happy to tap out. But I wasn't expecting that and the energy and the, just really, again, this event, they had to lock the doors for the keynote so there's really a big interest across the board. Talk about the ecosystem and then the women in tech situation. >> So I think the ecosystem is an interesting question because, I mean, we work very collaboratively. Like I said, even though this initiative largely was kind of envisioned by the government and mainly by the Economic Development Board and I'm sure you got a chance to speak to Khalid Humaidan, he might have given you a bit of an idea of how this started off but really the EBD threw this idea of start up Bahrain to the community and said, "Look, you guys lead on it." And it took a little bit of time for the community to figure out what that really means and what it's going to look like but it really made the community and ourselves also think pragmatically about what we want this ecosystem to look like. So even though it's not as mature, like I said, as other ecosystems further away and especially in the west, it is coming together very nicely because it's coming together as a collaborative effort. You see a very good continuous consultative work between private sector, public sector, the start ups and then the other stakeholders, including ourselves, and academia. We still have a long way to go, I think specially in areas and this is something that I always emphasize, is to shift the culture you really need to start at a much younger age so at schools, at universities. We engage with them and are keen to do more on that front but I think we are laying the foundation for what I hope in the next five, 10 years will be a pretty competitive entrepreneurial and start up-- >> It might be sooner. >> Hopefully sooner. >> Yeah. >> I think we have the right recipe now to build a robust ecosystem. >> Yeah, I can say I can attest to that after what I saw yesterday. Your thoughts? >> Yeah I mean our team in Bahrain is 100% Bahraini. I'm based in London, but Hadyah here leads a phenomenal team who are all Bahraini citizens. Being the island that it is, we know everybody so Hadyah's done an excellent job of engaging with everyone from schools to universities to post grads to public sector, private sector. So really all the stakeholders in the ecosystem are engaged and everyone from the oil and gas industry to the finance sphere are thinking about how innovation can advance their businesses so that they don't get left behind at the train station. >> Yeah. >> It's really top of mind and top of agenda which is a very invigorating scenario. I think, going back to some of the initiatives, from bankruptcy laws to having a fintech bay with the Central Bank of Bahrain, there's just so much, like they're constantly pushing the envelope to make this a friendly environment for entrepreneurs to come and do business. >> And I want to add one thing. There's always this question of, does government have a role to drive innovation and create an ecosystem? >> They do. >> I think Bahrain is a good example for others in the region and even beyond to say actually government does have an important role. >> They do. >> If you look at Bahrain, it's government that has been very flexible and nimble in terms of moving to accommodate. Whether it's the new bankruptcy laws or allowing for the fintech sandbox and a cloud first policy and shaping the start up Bahrain. The government has taken the lead on a lot of these initiatives so it's a good example of how there can be a top down approach to building an entrepreneurial landscape but also where the bottom needs to come and meet the top so I think Bahrain a good example. >> Just to reiterate, my observation is that they know how to get things going and sponsor but they're also listening and self aware and even on theCUBE here, we heard comments like, we'll get out of the way. >> Mm-hmm. >> Now that's the difference between good judgment. >> Mm-hmm. >> You know? And, no, no I funded you, I own you, I mean I've seen that in the public sector or, we're going to fund you as an NGO and then I kind of own you so come to my receptions and be my show horse-- >> Mascot. >> Show all of my people how good I am, donating money. So there's a little bit of a balance between enabling. >> Yep. >> But at the end of the day, this is going to be a fast pace and that's where I think the speed, knowing when to get out of the way and letting the community go. I mean, people like speed here. Cars are driving fast, you got a Formula 1 race track up at 14 months. >> They like speed but sometimes things are surprisingly slow. >> Yes. >> So it's incredible that we are where we are. You asked about women in tech and I think there's something there that we're really proud of. C5 globally, 43% of the start up founders that we've supported through our accelerators are women. In terms of diversity, we're thrilled about that statistic. We'd like it be 50%. >> Yep. >> And I think that the Middle East, we're seeing so much hunger from women entrepreneurs and women who want to learn to code to be founders and we want to do everything in our power to enable that. >> Computer science degrees coming out of the university? >> Absolutely. Hadyah here had this fantastic idea a year ago to found what we call C5 Nebula. I'll let Hadyah talk about why we came up with that name and how it relates to our business but this is now a new stream of our business which really it's a membership platform where all women globally are invited to join and we provide education, upscaling, jogs, connectivity, mentorships and through this network we are allowing a complete globalization of the talent and skills that we have. >> Yeah. >> So you can be a student in D.C. wanting to come and volunteer to work for a company here and we will make that match happen. I think it's a very exciting phase for us and we've seen so much demand for this program. Maybe Hadyah can talk about why we came up with this name? >> Yeah, so like Eva said, we, I'm Bahraini, we've always had, we've been lucky to have been pioneering and have work very closely men and have had really equal opportunity but in industries like tech, globally, women's representation is lower than that of men and there are areas where there's still work to be done. >> A lot of work to be done, yeah. >> So last year, actually, with the first AWS Summit, when Teresa was out here, we figured we do a women in tech breakfast. When we were curating that guest list we couldn't find that many women and we didn't know if wasn't that we didn't know them or that they didn't exist and we realized really we need to put together something to bring all the women together and work more closely so we built Nebula, really to, like Eva said, do three things and a little more. One is the connectivity side of things and then the upscaling but also to raise awareness and appreciation. >> What is Nebula? >> What is? >> What is Nebula? >> So Nebula, scientifically it's an astrological, astronomical phenomenon-- >> But it's your network group, is that what it's called? >> It's a platform. >> Okay. >> So it's actually been officially launched three weeks ago, you can go online and visit it and it's a platform that allows you to become a member of Nebula and gives you access to mentorship, to opportunities to upscale and train but also to raise awareness and appreciation for the amazing opportunities for women in the tech space. >> Is there a URL? >> There is a URL, it's-- >> We've been debating what is is today. (laughing) >> It's www.c5nebula.com. >> Okay, I'll put it up, publish it with the video. >> And what it means, it's the Latin word for cloud and it's where stars are born. >> Yeah. It's also, what's important, is it's a compilation of a bunch of different clouds and electrons and it's a mess, it's a bit of a mess but it's a lot of forces working together and I guess the moral of the story is, we can create stars in the space but we all have to work together and it all has to come together to-- >> And it's powerful when you work together. >> Only 10% of VC funding worldwide goes to women founder companies and 1% of that goes to women of color so there's some staggering statistics there. Globally, this is not a Middle East problem, this is globally a real big area of disparity that we're trying to help address. >> Well you guys know our door's open in California and Boston, and certainly the women in tech, we got a big network, we can merge them into the Nebula connect our networks. >> We would love that. >> We would love that. >> We're open and anything you guys have to share with us we love co-creating with the communities, that's what we do at theCUBE. Thanks for coming on and sharing. >> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you, John. It's been a pleasure. >> You got a great mission. Big supporter. C5 Accelerate, they're the ones on the ground, making things happen, gettin' those sparks of entrepreneurship and helping them capture them into one community, create some energy and some momentum and help people create value and also capture the value, that's what it's all about here. You got Amazon Web Services' region in the Middle East, CUBE coverage continues after this short break. (upbeat techno music)