(techno music) >> Live, from Las Vegas, It's theCube. Covering the VMworld 2018. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCube, we are live at the VMworld 2018. Day three of coverage, I'm Lisa Martin with John Troyer. John, we've had a phenomenal three days. >> It's been great. >> Biggest, I think two sets, biggest number of guests. A lot of alumni but also some new folks and I'd like to introduce you to a couple of our guests. We have David Boone, staff solutions architect from VMworld. David >> Hi >> You're not only with VMworld, but you have a very cool Twitter handle, @DavidBoone007, pretty awesome and Vijay Banga, technical >> Yes >> Fellow from FedEx services >> we're happy to be here. >> We'll have to well welcome back. you've been on The Cube before >> Yes, I have been on theCube before, yes. >> So, third day both of you still have your voices >> Oh yeah >> that's very impressive. Lot's of announcements lots of momentum lots of people here we're hearing 21,000 or so. >> Stuff >> Vijay tell us before we get into what your doing with VMworld, tell us a little bit about your roll as a technical fellow at FedEx. >> Okay Okay, so, I work in technical architecture and our role for the team is to evaluate new products. We look at all the stack in the data center all the tools that we need to do. We bring them in evaluate them see if they meets our needs. Then put them through our operations and then most important, lifecycle it out. And, so that's really what my role has been. >> See, You've worked with VMware, sorry, with FedEx for a long time now. >> Yes, yeah. >> So, I think John and I we're, you know, talking before we want to talk about your IT transformation, but you've probably seen, a tremendous amount of evolution not just within FedEx but within >> Yes >> you know, coming to events like this >> Yes >> talk to us a little bit about and maybe some of your peers would want to learn, how do you... how do you take it all in? >> Yes, so it's been an impressive pace all this while and then I look back at that and then I look at just this week, the amount of transformation that's going on the announcements that's happening and the pace at which we have to work and react to. It's just a solid mind boggling pace, so... You know, we have pace our energy just to keep up with it. So, very impressive. >> Well David, can you talk a little bit about your role then at VMware and how you work with companies like FedEx and maybe what some of the current challenges, and you know, successes that your having right now. Talking a lot about conversion infrastructure here we're talking a lot about, you know multi-cloud, you know what's going on with with >> Yes >> Your role and how you help Folks like FedEx. >> So I work in our solutions and availability business unit at FedEx, uhhh, at (laugh) VMware and >> Seems like FedEx (laughing) with that works so. >> It's a tight team. >> Please double.... (laughing with chatter) >> tight bunch >> So, I do help our large enterprise customers and our strategic customers with going through the POC process. Particularly with VSAN, and I've worked with Vijay through the entire process of evaluating VSAN at FedEx and working through any issues that we encountered and making sure that it's going to meet their demands when we go into production. >> So, Vijay how's VSAN treating you? >> Wow, you know, this has been a second iteration of software defined storage. So, David has been an immense help at taking us through this and the team behind him that is what we don't see. So I and my team work very hard at this and you know I was telling you about the pace that we saw. If you just look at one topic, VSAN itself, you know we are laying the foundation for all the products on top convergence infrastructure, hyper-converge and even with VSAN, we are covering lots of our used cases and there several more that we need to cover. So it's really pretty intense. >> So let's talk about how you're working with David and VMWare to meet your demands >> Yeah >> you were talking about it but also the customer demands. I think we're all customers of FedEx. >> Yes, right. >> And we have this expectation now in 2018 that we can go to any location and get something shipped overnight allover the world. >> Yes >> So you've got a lot of demand coming from business users consumers, how, what are some of the key demands on the business that your team is responsible for going alright, lets figure out a way with partners like VMware to solve these problems. >> Yes, so that's a very interesting question because, the demand it doesn't stop, you know, you cover one huge case there are several more that come up and so we are trying to address all the needs so when we did the whole test, we made a great plan work with David and his team to make sure that we covered, you know, all the huge cases and we did the whole test plan and we did an evaluation in-house of how they performed, what the requirements are and so you know the key is to make sure that we meet the business requirements. Speed to market is what we try and get to them so we try to do that upfront make sure that we cover the huge cases so when we bring the product out. We've covered at least 80 percent of the huge cases. Then get to 90 then 100. It's impossible but that's our goal. >> So Vijay, David, VSAN good for a lot of things actually >> Yeah >> huge cases keep multiplying, I'm just kind of curious, you know, what were some of the drivers there and was it all CapEx, OpEx, you know what are you finding out now that, are you in production and you know, what've been some of the results you've seen? Both ways. >> You want? >> So yeah, go for it. >> Yeah, so I can tell you from our perspective. What we've seen, is that you know. We looked at. So today we want to try and get off our fabric that we have with our storage we want to try and use an environment with the conversion infrastructure, white space issues, so we convert 80 percent of requirements upfront with the use issues that we have. It's the last 20 percent that are more difficult, I'm not sure where the industry is but that's what we're here to learn this week, find out, talk to the customers, see how they're doing their use cases and experiences and try and cover the width of that. >> We definitely try to tie-in with all aspects of FedEx run in their IT departments so, Vijay is one aspect from an architectural point of view but then we also make sure that we expand that out into operationalizing on VSAN and making sure that the whole process is covered and that we're making sure that FedEx is successful with our product not just you know, worse thing we could do is try to sell them something that they'd have to put on the shelf. >> In terms of partnerships, sorry John, I'm curious, David how Vmware and Vijay, FedEx, are collaborating because you were saying earlier, you've covered about 80 percent of the use cases but we know in any element of life you can't please all the people all the time. >> Right, right >> So, David are you helping from a consulting perspective Vijay and team decide, okay, what's the priority order of use cases that we can solve now, is that, talk to us about how that partnership evolves. >> Absolutely so, I think over time Vijay and I've established a relationship, a trust and that's really the most valuable thing that we have between us is that we are collaborative, you know, we can talk under nondisclosure about warts and problems and issues and where things may not fit with the FedEx process, what we can do to overcome those or work around those and feed that back into product management and make sure that we're continuing to evolve our product to meet our enterprise customers needs. >> So FedEx is enabling or influencing product development in a good way for VMware, sounds. >> Yeah, we're definitely have a strong draw from our users as to what is needed to be built into the product for the next generations so, yeah people like Vijay are key to us to ensuring our continued success. >> And David made a good point because it's not just the use cases that we can support with VSAN, it's equally important to know what not to venture in now and then venture in as it gets a little more mature and we understand it, so that's really key for us. Yeah. >> Vijay, I'm kind of curious so we talked, this, you've been there at FedEx long time, seen cultural change, how we do projects, how time to value, all that sort of stuff >> Yes >> We're here at VMworld 2018, here in Vegas lots of really I thought this is a really interesting year in terms of product announcements from VMware and others. >> Yes >> A lot of multi-cloud a lot, again, accelerated time to value as a service sorts of things, people who you thought were software providers are actually service providers and vice versa, kind of really, kind of cool stuff What's exciting you as you're looking forward to kind of go to the next level, you know taking FedEx and their infrastructure along? >> It's so, what I see happening is you know, at adoption to trying to get to the cloud as well, I think, you know the speed to market is so important, we don't want to be in the way, we want to be able to enable and or assist to be able to provide the service, the business partner and their requirements drives it, so that's what we see and I think the embracing of that, I think the adoption of it I think we see a good win from our side. >> I'm also curious, speaking of embracing and adopting one of the things Pat Gelsinger talked about in his keynote Monday was this superpowers of AI machine learning IOT... How? Vijay, is FedEx, where are you, I guess on that maybe embracing adoptions journey with embracing and being able to leverage artificial intelligence machine learning to be able to get to market faster. >> I can talk with the IOT first then get to AI because what we've seen in terms of IOT, it's been driven not from the data centers but from our edge, the demand is coming out and that's what we see, coming from the outside and typically we done from the inside out, data centers to the field but we see the drive happening a lot more intense on the field and the data collection and the IOT devices that is driving that in, so that was interesting to us to see. >> About AI, you were also talking about AI? >> Oh yes, and so, you know, FedEx is so huge I think there's lot of development happening on multiple areas on the AI. So, you know, it's just impressive and amazing. What we're doing with it, so. >> Great >> Go ahead >> Well I, so David, if you're working with a customer... You know VSAN stands up, you're working with VSAN the rest of VMware portfolio, you know, what do you, then how do you go, the next steps, like what do you, what does Vijay and his team need to start looking at, right? As the VMware portfolio expands, like how do you help them, Vijay and the executive level, like really thing about this? >> I don't think that it's a matter of what the portfolio brings to the table, it's really more about what is FedEx need from us, what can we do to help them, what gaps can we fill, you know, how do we partner together to make sure that we continue this successful track. >> Nice, nice. >> What we see is, what's important on the road map, cause we said about the 20 percent use cases, state of protection other things that are important to us, which are still being developed, we are okay to partner and work with them test the products with them so, it helps us help them, you know enable us to use the rest of the 20 percent cases. >> Very symbiotic, so I'm curious. FedEx is a massive global customer, >> Yes >> company and customer. >> Yes and customer. I'm curious Vijay what recommendations would you give to your peers, whether they're at a company that's comparable in size >> Right. to FedEx or maybe to some of the smaller companies that VMware works with. What are some of the, you know helping them distill this massive challenge down into some digestible bites. What would you recommend? >> Yeah so are two things that come to mind one is to make sure that you listen to your business partners you know. It's about the business make sure you're meeting their needs and the second thing is you know we build on the foundation that we've laid, I think this is what hit me this morning. It's like, we are all the VMware stack that is there. You know, there are several of the products we could certainly go down those paths and rabbit holes but you know. If we build on the foundations that we have. I think we see a lot of synergy, the operations you know makes it all simple one to do things so, that I think is something that we learn cause we did go down you know some rabbit holes and we are trying to reestablish back and see, build on the foundation that we have. >> And that's just part of it, right? Going down those rabbit holes. >> Yeah it is. >> Try, fail fast, move on. >> Yes, Yeah fail fast. >> Yeah and failure is not a bad F word >> No, I mean in this, if we have failed 6 months. Yeah that's great, but you know, you come out and your product that will lasts you and you know continues on that's awesome, that's our approach. >> Well guys, thanks so much for stopping by and sharing what FedEx and VMware are doing together and your excitement and your ability to advise others. It's great. So, Thank you so much. >> Thank you appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> For my cohost John Troyer, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCube live from Vmworld 2018. Stick around we'll be back with our next guest shortly. (techno music)