>> It's The Cube covering Fortinet Security Summit brought to you by Fortinet. >> Hey and welcome back to the cubes coverage of Fortinets championship series. Cybersecurity summit here in Napa valley Fortinet is sponsoring the PGA tour event, kicking off the season here, and the cubes here as part of the coverage. And today is cybersecurity day where they bring their top customers in. We got Glenn Katz SVP, general manager, Comcast Enterprise Solutions. Glenn, thanks for coming on The Cube. Thanks for taking time out of your day. - Thank you no This is great. This is great. >> Interviewer: Tell me to explain what you guys do in the Comcast business enterprise group. >> That's our Comcast business. We're a part of Comcast overall. I always like to explain what Comcast really is. If you look at Comcast, it's a technology innovation company by itself that happens to focus on communications and media type of, of markets, right? And if you look at the Comcast side there on the communication side, it's really everything residential with customers. Then there's the us Comcast business and we're the fastest growing entity over the last 15 years within Comcast. And we started in small business, voice, video, and data to small businesses. Then we moved up to provide fiber ethernet type of a transport to mid-market. And then my group started in 2014. And what we do is focus on managed services. It doesn't matter who the transport layer is for enterprise Fortune 1000 type companies. And then when you layer in all these managed wider network services. So that's my business unit. >> Interviewer: Well, we appreciate it we're a customer by the way in Palo Alto >> Glen: Oh great >> So give a shout out to you guys. Let's get into the talk you're giving here about cybersecurity, because I mean, right now with the pandemic, people are working at home. Obviously everyone knows the future of work is hybrid now you're going to see more decentralized defy and or virtual spaces where people are going to want to work anywhere and businesses want to have that extension, right? What people are talking about, and it's not new, but it's kind of new in the sense of reality, right? You've got to execute. This is a big challenge. >> Glen: It is - What's your thoughts on that, >> Well it's a big challenge. And one of the things that I'll try to, I'll speak to this afternoon here, which is at least from the enterprise perspective, which includes the headquarters, the enterprise, the branch locations, the digital commerce, everywhere else, commerce is being done. It's not just at a store anymore. It's everywhere. Even if you only have a store and then you have the remote worker aspect. I mean, they do that to your point earlier. We're not in that fortress sort of security mentality anymore. There's no more DMZs it's done. And so you've got to get down to the zero trust type of network architecture. And how do you put that together? And how does that work? Not just for remote workers that have to access the enterprise applications, but also for simple, you know, consumers or the business customers of these, of these enterprises that have to do business from over the phone or in the store. >> Interviewer: What are the some of the challenges you hear from your customers, obviously, business of the defend themselves now the, the, the attacks are there. There's no parameters. You mentioned no fortress. There's more edge happening, right? Like I said, people at home, what are the top challenges that you're hearing from customers? >> So the biggest challenge, and this is, I would think this is, this is mostly focused on the enterprise side of it is that the is two interesting phenomenons going on. This is sort of beginnings before the pandemic. And then of course the pandemic, the role of the CIO has been elevated to now, they have a real seat at the table. Budgets are increasing to a point, but the expertise needed in these, in these it departments for these large enterprises, it's, it's impossible to do what you were just talking about, which is create a staff of people that can do everything from enterprise applications, e-commerce analytics, the network. How do you secure that network all the way down to the end users? Right? So it's that middle portion. That's the biggest challenge because that takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. And that's where folks like Comcast can come in and help them out. That's their biggest challenge. They can handle the enterprise, they can handle the remote workers. They can handle their own applications, which are continually trying to be, you know, have to be it's competitive out there. It's that middle area, that communications layer that their challenged with. >> Interviewer: Yeah. And John Madison's EVP, CMO Ford. It's always talking about negative unemployment in cybersecurity. Nevermind just the staff that do cyber >> Glen: That's exactly right, that's given. If you're a business, you can't hire people fast enough and you might not have the budget for you want to manage service. So how do you get cyber as a service? >> Glen: Well, so it's even bigger than that. It's not just the cyber as a service because it's now a big package. That's what SASE really is SASE is Secure Access Service Edge. But think of it where I think of it is you've got remote users, remote workers, mobile apps on one side, you've got applications, enterprise or commercial that are now moved into different cloud locations. And in the middle, you've got two real fundamental layers, the network. And, and that includes uh, the actual transport, the software defined wide area, networking components, everything that goes with that, that's the network as a service. And then you've got the secure web gateway portion, which includes everything to secure all the data, going back and forth between your remote laptop, the point of sales. And let's say the cloud based applications, right? So that's really the center stage right there. >> Interviewer: And the cloud has brought more service at the top of the stack. I mean, people thought down stack up stack is kind of like a geeky terms. You're talking about innovation. If you're down stack with network and transport, those are problems that you have to solve on behalf of your customers And make that almost invisible. And that's your job >> That's our job. That's our job is to service provider What's interesting is though back in the day, I mean, when, I mean, back in the day, it could have been 10 years ago in 20. You really, you know, you had stable networks, they were ubiquitous, they were expensive and they were slow. That's kind of the MPLS legacy TDM. Yeah. So you just put them in and you walked away and you still did all your enterprise. You still did all of your applications, but you had your own private data centers. Everything was nicer. It was that fortress mentality right now. It's different. Now everybody needs broadband. Well guess what? Comcast is a big company, but we don't have broadband everywhere. ATT doesn't have it. Verizon doesn't have it Charter doesn't have it. Right. So you need, so now to think about that from enterprise, I'm going to go, I'll give you an example. All of our customers to fulfill a nationwide network, just for the broadband infrastructure, that's, you know, redundant. If you want to think of it that way we, we source probably 200 to 300 different providers to provide an ubiquitous network nationwide for broadband. Then we wrap a layer of the SD wan infrastructure for that, as an example, over the top of that, right? You can't do that by yourself. I mean, people try and they fail. And that's the role of a managed service provider like us is to pull all that together. Take that away. We have that expertise. >> Interviewer: I think this is a really interesting point. Let's just unpack that just for a second. Yeah. In the old days, we want to do an interconnect. You had an agreement. You did, you have your own stuff, do an interconnected connect. >> Glen: Yep. >> Now this, all this mishmash, you got to traverse multiple hops, different networks. >> Glen: That's right >> Different owners, different don't know what's on that. So you guys have to basically stitch this together, hang it together and make it work. And you guys put software on the top and make sure it's cool is that how it works? >> Glen: Yeah. Software and different technology components for the SD wan. And then we would deliver the shore and manager all that. And that's, that's where I really like what's happening in the industry, at least in terminology, which is they try, you have to try to simplify that because it's very, very complicated, but I'm going to give you the network as a service mean, I'm going to give you all the transport and you have to don't have to worry about it. I'm going to rent you the, the SD wan technology. And then I'm going to have in my gateways all these security components for a firewall as a service, zero trust network access, cloud brokerage services. So I will secure all of your data as you go to the cloud and do all of that for you. That's really what we, that's what we bring to the table. And that's what is really, really hard for enterprises to do today. Just because they can't, the expertise needed to do that is just not there. >> Interviewer: Well, what's interesting is that first you have to do it now because the reality of your business now is you don't do it. You won't have customers, but you're making it easier for them. So they don't have to think about it. - [Glen] That's right. >> But now you bring in hybrid networking hybrid cloud, they call it or multi-cloud right. It's essentially a distributed computing and essentially what you're doing, but with multiple typologies, >> Glen: that's right. >> Interviewer: I got an edge device. - [Glen] That's right. If I'm a business. - [Glen] That's right. >> That's where it could be someone working at home >> Glen: That's right. - Or it could be my retail >> Or whatever it could be. So edge is just an extension of what you guys already do. And is that right? Am I getting that right? >> Glen: Yeah that's exactly right. And, and, but the point is, is to make it economic and to make it really work for the end user. If you're a branch, you may have a, a application that's still being run via VPN, but you also need wifi internet for your customers because you want to use your mobile device. They've entered into your store and you want to be able to track that right. And push something to them. And then you've got the actual store applications could be point of sales could be back of house comparing that's going up to AWS. Azura whatever. Right. And that all has to be, it all has to come from one particular branch and someone has to be able to manage that capability. >> Interviewer: It's funny, - Its so different >> Interviewer: just as you're talking, I'm just thinking, okay. Facial recognition, high, high bandwidth requirements, >> Glen: Huge high bandwidth requirements >> Processing at the edge becomes huge. >> Glen: It does. >> So that becomes a new dynamic. >> Glen: It does. It's got to be more dynamic. It's not a static IP end point. >> Glen: Well, I'll give you another an example. Let's say it's, it seems silly, but it's so important from a business perspective, your quick service restaurant, the amount of digital sales from applications are just skyrocketing. And if you yourself, and particularly in the pandemic, you order something, or that goes up to the cloud, comes back through, goes to the point of sales. And then the, the back of house network in a particular restaurant, if that doesn't get there, because one line of you only have one internet connection and it's down, which sometimes happens, right? You lose business, you lose that customer. It's so important. So what's being pushed down to the edge is, you know, reliable broadband hybrid networks, where you have a primary wire line and a secondary wire line, maybe a tertiary wireless or whatever. And then a box, a device that can manage between those two so that you can keep that 99.9, 9% availability at your branch, just for those simple types of applications. >> Interviewer: You know Glenn, you as you're talking most people, when we talk tech, like this is mostly inside the ropes, Hey, I can get it. But most people can relate with the pandemic because they've ordered with their phone on - [Glen] Exactly right >> With the QR code. - [Glen] That's exactly right >> They see the menu - [Glen] That's right >> They get now what's happening - [Glen] That's right that their phone is now connected to the service. >> Glen: That's right >> This is not going away. The new normal. >> Glen: No, it's absolutely here. And what I've seen are there are many, many companies that already knew this and understood this pre pandemic. And they were, they had already changed their infrastructure to really fit what I was calling that network as a service in the SASE model, in different ways. Then there were a bunch that didn't, and I'm not going to name names, but you can look at those companies and you can see how they're, they're struggling terribly. But then there was this. Now there's a, a much bigger push and privatization again, see, I was sending, Hey, I asked for this before. It's not like the CIO didn't know, but management said, well, maybe it wasn't important. Now it is. And so you're seeing this actual amazing surge in business requests and requirements to go to the model that we're all talking about here, which is that SASE type of implementation high-speed broadband. That's not going away for the same reason. And you need a resilient network, right? Yes. >> Interesting. Best practice. Let's just take that advice to the, to the audience. I want to get your thoughts because people who didn't do any R and D or experimentation prior to the pandemic, didn't have cloud. Wasn't thinking about this new architecture got caught flat-footed. -Exactly. >> And they're hurting and or out of business. >> Correct. >> If people who were on the right side of that took advantage as a tailwind and they got lifts. >> That's exactly right. >> So what is the best practice? How should a business think about putting their toe in the water a little bit or jumping in and getting immersed in the new, new architecture? What advice would you give? Because people don't want to be in the wrong side of history. >> No, they don't. >> What's your guy's best practice? >> I may sound biased, but I'm really not trying to be biased. And this'll be some of the I'll speak about here later today. You have to try it. You, as the end user, the enterprise customer, to, to fulfill these types of needs, you've got to really probe your managed service providers. You've got to understand which ones, not just can give you a nice technology presentation and maybe a POC, but who's going to be there for the longterm who has the economic wherewithal to be able to give the resources needed to do what I was talking about, which is you're going to outsource your entire network to me and your sh, and a good portion of your security for the network to a service provider. that service provider has to be able to provide all that has to be able to have the financial capabilities, to be able to provide you with an operating type of model, not you have to buying equipment all the time. That service provider has to be able to have teams that can deliver all of that 200 to 300 different types of providers aggregate all that, and then be there for day two. Simple thing. Like if you know, most companies, if you're not a really large location, you can't afford to, you know, double types of routers that are connected. And if one fails you have fail over, right, most of them will have one router and they'll have, but they'll have two backup paths. Well, what happens is that router or switch, single switch fails? You need to have a meantime to repair a four hours. I mean, that's kind of basic and well do that. How do you do that? You've got to have depots around the entire country. These are the types of questions that any enterprise customers should be probing their managed service provider, right? It's not just about the technology. It's about how can you deliver this and assure this going forward. >> And agility too cause when, if, if things do change rapidly, being agile... >> Exactly >> means shifting and being flexible with your business. >> That's exactly right. And that's important. That's a really important question. And the agility comes from this financial agility, right? Like new threat, new box. I want, I want this old one. I'm going to upgrade to a different type of service. The service providers should be able to do that without me having to force you to go get some more CapEx and buy some more stuff. Cause that's number one. But the other agility is every enterprise is different. Every enterprise believes that its network is the only network in the world and they have opinions and they've tested different technologies. And you're going to have to adapt a little bit to that. And if you don't, you're not going to get out of this. >> It's funny. The old days non-disruptive operations was like a benefit, we have non-disrupt- now it's a table stakes. You can't disrupt businesses. - You can't. You can't at the branch at the remote worker. If you're on a zoom call or whatever, or you're on a teams call, we've all been there. We're still doing it. If it breaks in the middle of a presentation to a customer that's problem. >> Glenn thanks for coming on the cube with great insight. >> Oh great. This was fun. >> Are you exciting and plays golf? You're going to get out there on the range? >> I played, I played golf a lot when I was younger, but I haven't. And so I have a few other things I do, but I guess I'm going to have to learn now that we're also a sponsor of PGA, so yeah, for sure. >> Great. Well, great to have you on - All right thank you and great talk. Thanks for coming on and sharing your insight. >> This was great. I appreciate okay. >> Keep coverage here. Napa valley with Fortinet's Cybersecurity Summit as part of their PGA tour event, that's happening this weekend. I'm John for the Cube. Thanks for watching.