>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas It's The Cube Covering VMworld 2017. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back to The Cube. Continuing coverage of VMworld 2017. Day two of the event, lots of exciting conversations that we've had so far. I'm Lisa Martin with my cohost Dave Vellante-- >> Hey. >> Hey! We're excited to be cohosting together, right Dave? >> That's right. >> Of course! And we have Cube alumni Calline Sanchez, Vice President of IBM Enterprise Storage Systems. Welcome back to The Cube. >> Thank you for inviting me. It's always great to have discussions with you. >> Yeah. So, talk to us, we're at VMworld day two, what's new with IBM and VMware? >> So what was great about working, or walking through the expo floor, is hearing conversations about data backup, like as they say with the IBM Backup Bar-- >> It's hot! >> They have, and also this idea that we work to optimize data within the entire stack. So yeah, you have your base infrastructure, but you layer on top of that things that support the digital experience. >> Why is backup so hot? Why now? >> Well, so my favorite reason is because of tape. Tape allows you to cheaply store data, so it's like about a cent per gig. That's a big deal. And I don't know, I suspect you like really good deals on shoes, bags, et cetera, I know I do. So that's what's great about tape, is it's cost effective as well as it's a high performer, high capacity element that we intend to deliver. >> OK, so I buy that. I've always been a fan of the economic argument for tape. Let me ask you another question, and see if you see this, Calline. It seems like when virtualization came into vogue, people had to re-architect their backup for a variety of reasons, less physical resources, et cetera. Is cloud affecting the way in which people think about backup and if so, how? >> So we support cloud service providers. As they say with tape, if you're cost effective and you can meet certain performance and capacity requirements well, you usually are part of the stack associated with the delivery into the cloud service provider data centers worldwide. So all I'm saying is that it's relevant, it's important that we continue to innovate, associate with what's required with regards to tape. >> Well, while we're on the subject of tape, let's carry that through. The conventional wisdom from the spinning disk and now the flash guys, oh, tape, tape is dead, I've been hearing tape is dead since I've been in this business, which is now quite a long time. What's kept tape alive, it's obviously the economics, but it's got to be more than that. It's got to be easier to use, it's got to be functional, what kind of innovations have occurred around tape to make it continue to be viable? >> So I would say our focus on enhancing spectrum archive. It used to be called a linear tape file system, and really it's this idea of a USB for file access or data access. So we keep working on focusing and delivering data access patterns that are actually efficient for our clients, simple to use, and we enable automation, which has been something that's great based on Ed Walsh's focus or strategy for our storage portfolio, and I know you've just heard that we had two awesome growth quarters within IBM Storage and our goal is to continue that through modernizing our entire portfolio. >> Three would make a trend, I told Ed. And he's like, "Come on, gimme a break." No, but it is awesome to see IBM's storage business growing again and hopefully that can continue. >> So speaking of innovation, and you talked about tape and people think tape's been dead for a long time, but you're talking about it as a core component of cloud strategies for businesses. How has IBM evolved your messaging, your positioning, as technologies have evolved and customers are now going, "We have to keep a ton of data," Michael Dowd talked about the importance of data today being at the CEO agenda level. Talk to us about how some of the innovations IBM is doing to help customers understand the relevance of different types of storage according to data growth but also going from data centers to centers of data. >> Great question. So, one thing that's really interesting, being that I'm from the lab, we have delivered, or our intent is to accelerate the entire roadmap as it relates to tape, so that we stay ahead of the delivery path and meet the requirements based on clients worldwide whether they're scientific clients based on some of the advanced data that is required, as well as cloud service providers. They say, "Hey, we're expecting you to innovate "and deliver as quickly as possible." And sometimes it's like the requests are quite interesting and fascinating based on just even the digital or the analytics of measuring like, temperatures in data centers. And what we're doing with Rocky interface based on ethernet interfaces. The clients are pushing us with regards to improving overall and delivering to meet the cloud economics that they require, as well as the attributes of. >> What's changed at IBM, if anything, I'm inferring something's changed because I've always said, one of the criticisms I've had of IBM storage is the pace with which it was able to get products out of engineering and to the marketplace, and that pace has accelerated quite dramatically. I don't know if it's new leadership, you mentioned Ed Walsh before, or there's been a change in the philosophy, am I dreaming or have I noticed-- >> No, you're completely accurate. So when we're talking about development or delivery, we're so much more agile that we really work to reduce the complexity of delivery, and we're delivering major functions or complex things to more simple, and getting client input sooner, and partner input sooner than later. Where as previously, it was like we worked for over a year sometimes on technologies or advancements and it would take a while for those clients to then adopt. Now, we have to deliver something a heck of a lot faster than we had done before. >> And are customers part of that innovation process? It sounds like-- >> They are. >> That's been a big change-- >> So we're big. Historically, we always talked about betas. Now we're talking about alphas, and some of these original demos in order to grow our understanding of the use case in the very early phases. And usually we did not have this type of discussions prior, at least in my experience, but now it's like it's a requirement. So, with new leadership is a component, as we discussed, but also this idea of really focused agility. Delivering to the marketplace faster, listening to our clients, so that means improvement based on how we go to market as well. Because it's important that we deliver value to our clients or we're not relevant. >> We were talking earlier to another guest, a competitive company, and we were talking about the anatomy of a transaction, and we were going through it and at one point he said that it hits a mainframe in an associated database and he said, "And that's OK." So we know the mainframe, alive and well, we've done a bunch of Cube activities, we were there at the Z13 launch at the Jazz at Lincoln, which was a great event. >> That's awesome. >> And so, give us the update on what's happening there. You guys have made some new announcements there, new DS8000 class systems, new Z systems, what's going on at that transaction world? >> So I would say two, or actually three major things that are part of that announcement to collaborate with Z is improvement based on modernizing our service support structure, which is like remote code load, things like that, so that we can have experts remotely, via a control center, help clients load latest levels of code as well as new feature function. The second element that I would say is, lead with flash. So we've optimized flash storage that complements specifically some of the ZOS, the System Z workload, which is significant for us to deliver to the marketplace as well. And then third, is this idea of Z hyperlink. Z hyperlink is this idea of, like, synch iO. It's a different structure that, yes, it'll take a while for adoption, we have a number of our alphas that are working in partnership with us to solution. Well, we're going to be doing replication, and also some of the iO streams differently than we had in the past. >> Question for you on the alphas. >> Yeah. >> From a business perspective, since so much has changed, lots of announcements just in the last 36 hours, as technology changes rapidly and stop-run tech companies are, like you said, poised to deliver agility faster, when you're talking with alphas, as you said, kind of in the nascent stages of a use case being developed, what are some of the key business metrics that your alpha clients are articulating to you that, when we get to x stage of this alpha, we need to be able to demonstrate x, y, z back to the business, thinking of cost reductions, resource allocations, faster time to market, what are some of those business KPI's that you're hearing from your clients? >> Yeah. So I would say it's price performance as well as capacity based on the amount of data growth. So those three things are fundamental components that come up quite often. Now, it usually is made very clear to us that things like security, like quality, that's job one. That's table stakes. Like, if we want to have fine dining, we'll just assume there's going to be this nice handkerchief as well as tablecloth. Well, security and quality are just fundamental. So they want to think about those things less. Because they're just naturally being delivered via whatever technology we're putting out or delivering from the lab. >> Alright, let's bring it back to VMworld. We're here. VMware, VMworld, what do you guys got going here, what's the relevance of all the activity that you have going to this event? >> So what's great about the event is we have the data backup bar that's associated with what we're doing with Spectrum Protect Plus. What I personally like and love about the Spectrum Protect Plus is simplicity. It's delivering this idea of usability. Which is important because we received feedback from our clients in very early stages on how we deliver. So we have a data backup bar to discuss some of that technology and actually run through specific downloads which I think is great, cause you get feedback out on the floor immediately to ensure that we're improving. The other aspect of our booths is discussing things, some of the fundamental infrastructure just like we talked previously on tape, as well as DS8000, cause DS8000 is not only a mainframe attach, but it's attachment agnostic. So we support aspects of distributive storage as well. For instance, we have some of the VMware enhancements that will allow us to more efficiently capture or reclaim data in thin provision volumes, and VMware has been fundamental in partnering with us to deliver. >> So continue to go to market approaches with VMware on the backup side, also on the cloud foundation side for IBM? >> Yes. >> Excellent. Thank you so much for stopping by The Cube again and sharing your thoughts and what's going on with the industry and how IBM is moving forward with respect to innovation and working with clients together. >> Right. Wonderful. Thank you. >> For my cohost Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. >> Stick around, you're watching day two of The Cube's coverage of VMworld 2017, we'll be right back. [Upbeat Synth Music]

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM Think 2018. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back to IBM Think 2018. My name is Dave Vellante and you're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. Day three of our wall-to-wall coverage of IBM Think. IBM took a number of conferences, Interconnect, World of Watson, Edge, which was the infrastructure conference, brought them together. We're here to talk to Calline Sanchez, who is the Vice President of IBM Enterprise System Storage. Edge was your show? >> Yes. >> Dave: Welcome to the new world. >> Great! No, it's been exciting to be a part of the Think conference. >> Yeah. >> And what I think is great about it is we're talking solutions and the full stack. The full stack based on hardware, MinuteWare applications, software, all of the feeders associated with delivering end users a solution. >> Well, I was talking to Ed Walsh earlier actually yesterday he came on, we weren't talking a lot of speeds and feeds, even though he's capable of it. But he's was talking more about the adjacencies in IBM's businesses and Cloud, and artificial intelligence that are helping, sort of, uplift the storage business. I have observed that having been an observer of the storage business for years I've been hearing from big systems companies for decades that they're going to do that. They've had trouble succeeding but it seems like it's finally taking hold. What's your perspective? >> I would agree. So the good comments associated with Ed is, he's built a great team, we enjoy working together, he is fair, pragmatic in general. So we work to build collaboration within the IBM company to deliver solid solutions to end users, so, he's done a great job. >> So, you guys have reported four straight quarters of growth, not just like, half a percent growth either, some high single digit growth in some cases. What are the factors that are driving that? You mentioned, sort of, teamwork, culture, leadership. I'm sure there's some product stuff too. From your perspective. >> Yes. >> What's driving that? >> So. I actually, within our, my portfolio I partner with Jeff Barber on is, like, DS8000 Enterprise storage and we see significant growth in that area based on our focus on flash and our investment with regards to flash optimization. The other aspect to really highlight is, what we're doing in tape, and I know we've talked about tape before. >> Tape? >> Yeah, I know. >> Come on. Alright let's talk about tape. >> Alright, well there's two components in that tactically we're about to deliver a drive that's about the size of my hand that is called the LTO8, it's part of the LTO line. 12 terabytes for rawest capacity. >> Yeah so tape is interesting. I mean the investment that used to be, you know back in the 80s, disc drive investments, all the VCs were pouring money into disc drives and heads and media and a lot of those investments have dried up. You're not seeing the same types of investments. Tape, it's easier to do sort of funky things. Multiple heads, drive super high bandwidths, you know do some sort of anticipatory indexing. >> Calline: Yeah. >> Where do you see the use cases for tape? It got blown out of backup. Where is it being used today? Is it archiving? Is it media? You know the NAB show's coming up. Probably see a lot of tape there, but where are you seeing momentum for tape? >> So you are correct from a media and entertainment perspective in A/V, that's a great industry we partner with. A few years back for LTFS, now Spectrum Archive rebranded as part of the Spectrum family, we won an Emmy. That's like... >> No kidding. I didn't know that. >> Yeah we won an Emmy so it's great in partnership with media and entertainment. We're relevant there and our technology was relevant there. Now the other area for significant growth, which helped feed those four quarters you referenced before is what we're doing with cloud service providers. We're relevant from a hardware infrastructure perspective based on tape. Tape is cool again and there's a lot of companies worldwide who really believe that because it's all about big data storage for the right economic price as well as energy efficiency. >> Well the gap between cost per bit for disc and tape is still enormous. >> Calline: It is. >> Tape is much, much, much cheaper and that's not going to change any time soon right? >> That is correct. It is much cheaper. So I'll give you an example. So basically less than a cent per gig per year. Now, I would actually even say it's less than a half cent. So it's just the economies of it. So a lot of what we do in talking about tape is the value from a cost perspective and the value you can provide a client where it's like hey they have big data, we can help serve it and we do that with tape. >> But is it, Calline, is it the sleep at night factor? Like okay, I'm going to put it in tape. Hopefully I never have to recover from it but it's my last, my media of last resort. I'm in compliance if I put it there. Is that right? Or are people actually recovering from tape? >> Yes, both. >> Yes, okay. >> So we're recovering from tape based on worth fundamental tertiary storage for some of these enterprise clients where I have to discuss like tier management across primary, secondary, and tertiary storage. So people think tape classically is an archive. Well actually there's use cases that are fed by tape that can attach all the components of tier management so I think it's more, it's more than just archive. It's big data. >> Now let's talk about cloud. I thought cloud was going to take the on prem business and wipe it out. What happened? >> Well it depends. That's what I like about IBM's perspective is hybrid. So we can serve both private as well as public clouds. And we also focus on optimizers. And what do I mean by an optimizer? For example, DS8000 in 2017, we delivered transparent cloud tiering which allows you to basically take a primary device and treat every other storage component as a target to like push data. Oh, by the way, you can push data to whatever cloud store in the sky that would be public or in some cases private. Based on security requirements associated with enterprise clients. >> So the criterion is largely security not performance is that right? Or both? >> Both, it's a combination. And it really depends on the use case that a client comes to bear or talks to us about. >> So I forget what you call it, but you guys had, early on, you had some automated capabilities and did some magic heuristics to match data and device characteristics to put the right data on the right device. And you've extended that to cloud is that right? So it's like policy based. >> Yeah. See, you are correct so what you were referring to is easy tier management. >> Easy tier, right. >> So easy tier allowed you to move data to like a hotspot. Think of it as like a temperature reading. If it's hot data, it stays on flash or media types like that. If it's cold data, it goes off to ship off to cheap disc or possibly tape. Now our extension to that is transparent cloud tiering. >> I remember when you guys first announced easy tier. I'm thinking about it now. I talked to some customers and they said eh, you know I want some knobs to be able to turn. I like to be able to manually move things around. And then this sort of machine intelligence wave comes through and people whose primary expertise was loan management realizing that that's probably not the best career path for them. So have you seen customers become much more comfortable with that automation? >> Yes. There is an autopilot mode with regards to data management. But for some enterprise clients, I'm going to steal your word. They have to feel comfortable. They have to see that the right data was moved to the next tier and it's being managed appropriately. So some people like to like for instance your temperature reading in your house. Some people like that your dial is like 72.3, right. And you just know that temperature, right. Which is mental, right. Though so clients were like that before, but with this idea of efficiency, and we talked about flash efficiency based on one of our last interviews is that it gives you more time. More time to think about other things. And so easy tier provided us the capability, especially if you go autopilot. Those end users can think about something different within their data centers to manage things differently, more efficiently. So it gives you time. And all I know is every Christmas, I pray to the lord that I want 25 hours in a day. >> Yeah. So hear hear. So the storage industry, for years, has been famous for doing more with less. You know constantly taking cost out. Guys are whipping boys of customers and just squeezing every dime out of you as possible. You made, IBM's made a lot of statements about Moore's Law, Moore's Law is you know waning, it can't be as aggressive anymore. Got to play different tricks. How has that applied to storage? How do you keep wringing costs out of storage? >> So I fundamentally believe everything old is new again. So we have to pay attention the history or the legacy to really determine what the future roadmap is. And so what's nice that we partner with Ed Walsh on is talking about our building materials across our entire solutions set. And insuring we provide for exceptional efficiency. We definitely want, within IBM, to be the Toyota production system for storage. >> So, reminds me you say everything old is new. Or new is old. I remember a head of IBM storage one time who didn't know anything about storage. He admitted I don't know anything about storage, but I know this. It needs to be lightning fast, rock solid, and dirt cheap. Has that changed? And what's new in storage? >> So no it has not changed, right. Though what we've been talking about is some really dirt cheap technology with regards to like tape, right? And last I checked, less than a cent per gig per year for storage management? That's huge right? So that helps the wallet. But at the same time, there's some new future items like we're wanting to play in the nanotechnology space. Specifically to partnering with Sony, Sony Media with regards to sputter media. So what people can go out and see when they have time is watch YouTube videos about what sputter media is about. Now, some of the deployment associated with sputter media was 220 terrabytes for a single drive. That's our goal. So when clients come to us and say hey we want to serve or be served with data capabilities of like two x per year, we're at a point where we're going to blow their socks off because we're going to have an offering on the table tactically to be north of 220 terrabytes per drive? Pretty exceptional. >> What are some of the other kind of cool techs that we should be watching? I mean we've seen advancements in file systems, obviously saw the Hadoop and big data craze. Flash has completely changed not only storage, but application development. You really couldn't be doing all this AI stuff without flash storage. NVME, NVME over fabric is coming in hot. You guys have done things like cappy to get sort of atomic rights. >> Yes. >> And capabilities like that. Again, game changing geeky things that have business outcomes that completely change the application development paradigm. What should we be watching for from IBM, some of the cool tech? >> So the other aspect that you've asked me in a prior conversation is about quantum computing. So we just need enough bits so they store those bits on us. So those are some of the early discussions about how IBM storage is going to play in quantum. >> Yeah, you've got some cool demos here on quantum. It's kind of blow your mind demos so check those out. Calline I'll give you last word. IBM Think, put a bumper sticker on it. >> So, tape is not dead, it's sexy. And then also this other aspect of, I don't know, we can grow and so IBM storage is where it's at. And that's the reason why I remain here. >> Tape is sexy. Tape is big and sexy. >> I know, big and sexy. >> Calline thanks very much for coming back on theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> It's great to see you again. >> It's great to see you. >> Alright keep it right there everybody. We'll be back after this short break. (upbeat music)

(upbeat techno music) >> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering InterConnect 2017, brought to you by IBM. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. We are here live in Las Vegas for IBM InterConnect 2017. This is theCUBE's coverage of IBM InterConnect. I'm John Furrier, my cohost, Dave Vellante. We have Calline Sanchez, Vice President of IBM Enterprise, Storage Development at IBM. We had an interview at VMworld last year about tape, making tape cool. Great to see you again. >> Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me back, so I guess I wasn't too bad last time. >> No, you're good. >> Calline: Right? >> We love tapes. The tape culture out there, there's a tape community. >> Calline: Yes! >> Tape has been dead forever. It's going to die this year is what everyone always predicted. They're going to die next year. It never dies. Tape it always around, and Dave and I, you know, we see this all the time. >> Calline: Yeah, it's back. >> It's cool. It's relevant, and it's the east expensive storage... >> That is correct. >> Out there. So what's the update? What's cool about tape this year? >> So, I think when I was speaking to you earlier, you talked about flape, what we're doing with Flash and actual tape. So in partnership with our micro-coders, our engineers and scientists we partner with in Tucson, Arizona, with a team in Zurich in research, to really figure out what we're doing with flape. And by the way, flape is a cool name, right? It's a very developer name. >> Well, you know, Wikibon coined that term. That was David Floyer. >> Oh, really. >> The Flash plus tape. Yes. But the premise was that there's not a lot of innovation going on in disc drive heads. >> Calline: Correct. >> And they're hermetically sealed, whereas in tape, you can do a lot more, more bandwidth, and you can do some cool stuff with search, right? >> Yes. >> And new tape formats. >> Calline: Right. >> Right, so that's all coming together, and are you... Is there software now associated with that index so you can more quickly search? >> So we have created a management layer that supports what we intend with flape, and also across the tape portfolio to really consume applications at a higher level to enable what we need to do with our consumability, not only from a tape perspective, but also with Flash. >> Right, so the economics really still favor tape. Flape, Flash supports the speed, so it starts to encroach on some of that long-term archiving. >> Which is important based on archive, 'cause, well, aren't we all data hoarders? We like to keep our data and archive it and stage it off, whatever it is. It could be based on what we're doing with tape and also, you know, hard disc drives. Some clients that I work with substantiate archive data to cheap drives as well. So hopefully, eventually, the transition will be to enable what we want to do with Flash, once Flash of course is a cheaper or a stronger price competitive thing. So, bridging though to, from our last conversation, believe me, tape is sexy, so I'm telling the audience here, it's like, hello, if you're not talking about tape, well, where have you been? But at the same time, I want to talk about Flash, and what we do with DS8000. So we have an enterprise monolithic system that covers like six nines of availability, that substantiates what we do in the Flash market, and we just recently announced, from enterprise down to entry, so mid-range as well as entry devices, that are all Flash. So we care more, from an IBM perspective, on what we're doing associated with the Flash investment. Friends of mine like Erik Herzog, I'm sure, get on stage with you to talk about like, IBM is focusing on Flash. It's relevant to us. It's relevant to our clients. >> And the software, too. Very software-driven. Flash is key, but you're bringing this capacity at this... What was it, six nines? >> Yep. >> I mean... >> It's reliability. >> I mean that's just like, just dump all the data. That's a perfect scenario. >> Yes, and it's a beautiful thing. In addition to what Flash does, from an engineering perspective... Forgive me, I'm going to be a geek for a moment, is that it allows us to in the lab to focus on other things, so basically, that latency or the chase for performance equals more, more meaning that we can focus more on what it means to develop optimizers, like, for instance, EasyTier, et cetera, to really enable a better benefit. Also some of those engineers and scientists allow us to focus more on flape as well. >> So explain that concept. Okay, latency equals more. What specifically do you mean, like the latency on the devices, \the data movement, just double down on that for a second. >> So, from a performance perspective, we have to work around bottlenecks. That was where our focus was, but now, with Flash, we worry less about those individual components from a reliability perspective as well as chasing latency or performance measurements based on IOPS, and in order to do that, we don't have to worry about it as much anymore from an engineering standpoint. So it allows us the time to really focus on what matters next, like the value that we could think of that we could benefit clients with regards to advanced technologies, technologies of value. >> Like what? What does that free you? It liberates both creativity... >> Calline: Data and analytics. >> Really, okay. >> Calline: So like, for instance, the expo floor associated with Interconnect, you meet all these people that talk about how data matters. Well, it's the intelligence around data, and so we want to figure out how to harness that data and drive out the intelligence so that the smarts associated with the data, and that's what it allows us to talk about. >> Yeah, so let's keep on that theme of business impact, we were talking about latency before. Everybody knows Flash is fast. You're implying, or I'm inferring from your statements that it's still more expensive. >> Calline: Correct. >> However, you got data reduction technologies and you have this data sharing notion. In other words, I can share much more data with the same copy out of a Flash. That has an impact on developer productivity, which ripples through on innovation. >> Calline: Yes, correct. >> Are you seeing that have business impacts within your client base? >> Yes. So, for instance, at first, we started to talk about, from an engineering perspective, compression and deduplication, how to be much more efficient with that data storage. And then afterwards, we started to talk about, well, you know, we had to move quickly to serve our clients associated with those feature functions, and now we're about talking about how we harness or archive, you know, how we enable big data, and also the IT aspect, the intelligence of the data, and how we can translate that to improving client value. For example, I just saw on the expo floor, partnered with Glassbeam, and with the... I did basically a meeting with Glassbeam on the floor to talk about what we've done with them in partnership to harness the power of data. >> Dave: What is Glassbeam? >> So Glassbeam is basically makes sense of the mess of data that we just have out there and makes it much more intelligent. So, it allows their system, their algorithms, to ingest data and better understand where we're at with that data, no different than what we do with Watson as well. So, that, from a Watson perspective, you ingest the data and you can provide additional smartness about that data as well as the intelligence of. >> And what kind of data are we talking about here? Structured data, unstructured data? >> Structured data, and specifically associated with Glassbeam, it was all about really bringing in the plumbing of data for our clients worldwide. So, clients experience our systems worldwide associated DS8000, and we wanted to better be in a position to serve our clients adequately, and what I mean by that is they could have an error that occurred or we want to be proactive with them based on Call Home, and also some of the heartbeat information we get based on the systems, and we want to adequately share with them that. So, you as a client could, I could send you a really beautiful, simple email or communication, maybe it's a tweet that basically says, hey, there's something we're worried about, and we've got to proactively address it, ASAP. >> Well, and there's all kinds of metrics buried in those files, right? There's utilization data, there's data on the effectiveness of thin provisioning, you mentioned compression, deduplication... >> Calline: Yes. >> I mean, I don't know what else is in there. It's probably a ton more stuff, obviously problems that occur. So have you been able to get to the point where you could be anticipatory and head off, you know, front run some of those problems? >> So our end goal is to build an autonomic system, an autonomic system that has the brain to self-heal, and that's what we want to focus on in the future. Now, are we there yet? No, we're not, but what we're doing with Watson or Glassbeam or some of these optimizers, these tools, to build better systems, it something that we're doing associated with building the future of an autonomic system. >> I mean, one of the things John and I have been talking about with this, you know, Jenny was talking about cognitive to the core this morning... >> Yep. >> And this cognitive world we live in. >> Just a whole new set of metrics emerging and KPIs. I mean, you mentioned self-healing. We still, to this day track, availability, and okay, the light on the server versus the application, things like that. >> Calline: Yeah. >> We see, and I wonder if you could comment on this, a whole new set of KPIs emerging from the infrastructure standpoint of, you know, what percent of the problems were self-healed... >> Calline: Yes. >> How can we affect that and increase that and what are we doing with that free time? Are you hearing from that clients, that they're changing or adding to the metrics, KPIs that they're entering? >> Yes, so first, am I hearing from clients on that? Yes. So it's always these questions of like, okay, so from a cognition perspective, cognitive focus, what are you going to do to help us to self-heal as well as how do you build in the intelligence based on artificial intelligence to really self-heal, and that's one of the focuses we're working on. >> So what's the coolest thing happening now, 'cause last time, I loved the conscious we had about capacity and stuff that I learned was all the engineering, just to squeeze more out of... 'Cause the tape is a great thing, but reliability is killer. You got some great reliability, so it's a good solution, but there's always the engineering side of it that's science. What's going on that you guys are kind of digging away at, pounding away at for tech that people might not know about for tape? >> So, using the cognitive systems or AI as the foundation, we're thinking about how to build in intelligence within our systems, and the way to do that is the reason why I keep focusing on this word, autonomic. How do we build a true autonomic system? It's almost like a system that has its own brain, right? And that chip set that exists inside associated with DS8000 is like power devices, right, whether it's six-core, eight-core, whatever, how big of a brain do you want is kind of a discussion to have, but what's important about that is we really want to figure out how to be smart enough to self-heal, and we don't know how to do that just yet, and it's going to be, just like you had mentioned, all this information and pulling it in to really determine how we go about doing so. >> So that's kind of near-term, those are sort of... Maybe in the binoculars you can start to see how you can utilize analytics and cognitive to do some of that self-healing. I wanted to ask you a sort of telescope question. We heard Jenny talk today about quantum. What are your thoughts on that in terms of the implications for storage? >> My thoughts on quantum. So first of all, let's figure out how to harness the science of quantum computing, right? So that's the first fundamental step, like, I don't know, first step of the twelve-step problem, realizing you have a challenge, right? (Dave laughs) So, from that, it's like really realize that and recognize that, and IBM is working on what we're doing with quantum computing. As far as how it relates specifically to storage, so, we think it could be a benefit with relates to DS8000 tape as well, because think about it. Tape, as far as the library side, that's what we did is we built out infrastructure that really harnessed this aspect of data and did it in the cheapest way possible, energy-efficient way possible, so I think quantum, from our perspective, is like a leapfrog into the future of what we enable with some of our thinking there. And Jenny and team as well as her senior leadership are influencing how we should think about quantum computing as it relates to storage. So, I say the next time that we meet, you should probably ask that question of me again, like how far along are you? >> Dave: Deal. >> Step one and a half or two of the twelve-step program? >> I would say one and a half. >> Dave: Go ahead, sorry. >> No, go ahead. >> I wanted to ask you about when Ed Walsh took over. >> By the way, I like the two of you competing on questions. (all laugh) >> We both like to talk. >> We can't get enough tape. (all laugh) >> We have tape everywhere, look at it. Taping down the lights... >> So, here's my question, Calline. So when Ed Walsh took over the GM of the Storage Division, I asked him this. IBM's always had a rich heritage of R&D and development. However, my comment was, sometimes it was sort of development for development's sake, and I feel like, and he sort of said this. One of my missions is to get, you know, align engineering with, you know, go to market, get stuff out of the pipeline, into the market sooner. From an engineering perspective, have you guys begun to do that? What changes have you affected? Are you seeing the effects of that sort of initiative? >> So, when have an agility process within IBM Development that was, basically Ed Walsh was a huge advocate for that, supported it, and his intent is for us the push all of this wonderful IP that we build in-house to the marketplace as quickly as possible. So I say at this moment, we're there. I just, right now, he's, in the nicest way possible, and the most charming way, telling me, it's like, you're not fast enough. (men laugh) Right? And that's a good thing. That means that there's more innovation, more intellectual property we can put into the marketplace, faster, quicker whatever that means, in larger increments, versus it being me... Previously, I would tell you, it's like, so DS8000, I may deliver that to you, target-wise, 12 months from now. That's not good enough anymore. >> So Ed's coming on tomorrow, so we'll ask him how Calline's doing maybe. (all laugh) We'll put him on the spot and you on the spot at the same time, if you don't mind. >> Oh yeah, no problem. >> Calline, it's always great to chat with you, love these conversations, thanks for coming on theCUBE, sharing the insights on the tape, the DS8000. Appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> And it's theCUBE live here in Las Vegas for IBM InterConnect. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. You're watching theCUBE. Stay with us, we've got more great interviews for the rest of the day and all day tomorrow. We'll be right back. (upbeat techno music)

>> Narrator: Live from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, it's theCube, covering VMworld 2016. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Stu Miniman. >> Hello, welcome back everyone. We're live here at VMworld 2016 in Las Vegas, the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. We're actually in the hang space, broadcast booth It's theCube's SilliconANGLE's flagship program, we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier and my co-host Stu Meneman, our next guest, Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware. Great to see you again. Every VMworld, every year that we've done the VMworld, you've been on theCube. >> Well, it's always a pleasure. You guys are fun. You do your homework. I enjoy our time together, and I can't imagine VMworld without theCube. Look, we are really impressed with the vision you've laid out, because the number one question we get asked on theCube and in backchannels like CrowdChat and Twitter, is VMware ecosystem is looking for the straight and narrow, they want that, they want to see the path, the 90-mile stair if you will, so they can actually accelerate their business. >> Pat: Yeah. >> Can you laid that out, and just quickly review what your key points were for the folks that didn't capture the full keynote. >> Well, clearly we said, boy, we gave clear data with regard to what the cloud market looks like, what it's going to look like today, 2021, 2030, crossover points, and really the key summary of that is it's a complex world. It's going to be a multi-cloud environment for our customers, and they want to know, how do I not only build hybrid clouds, private clouds, and how do I take advantage of public clouds? And we gave a comprehensive view of what that looks like, the cross-cloud architecture. Here's a way that we can bring all cloud embodiments into a common framework. Cross-cloud architecture, two big components are part of it, build your private cloud, enable that as a service, that's a cloud foundation, bring it together, vSAN, vSphere, NSX, along with new lifecycle management capabilities, making that easy, do it as a service with IBM and our partnership that we announced there, but we expect many more of those with other vCloud Air Network partners, and then the cool new Cross-Cloud Services. Make those available, embrace any cloud, and then give our enterprise customers the tools to manage in this cross-cloud or multi-cloud environment. >> John: What's the catalyst for this announcement? Was it an epiphany, was it more that the market was ready for it? Because now, multi-cloud, but how you talk about it, any device anywhere, that's been the previous message. But now it catalyzes around this positioning. What was the moment of truth where you said okay, this is, we're going with this. It doesn't seem like you're betting the ranch on this, but it is betting the ranch on this in a way, because this is, as you said, the future, and it's going to be mostly your journey. So why did it come together? >> A couple of things happened. If you remember last year's VMworld, we did this little NSX demo where it says, we can connect NSX onto the cloud, you remember that? >> Yeah. >> Literally, Guido comes into Raghu and I, about two weeks before VMworld last night, and he says "we've got to work it. And can I demo it in my session?" Right, at the thing. Raghu looked at each other and he says, "Okay, let's do it. Let's see how people respond to it." So that was one catalyst. The second catalyst, we had a couple of customer meetings where the customer said to us, and he says, "This is my best. I'm doing this on Amazon, I'm exploring Azure over here, I've got a boatload of VMware, I'm doing this many- help me solve these problems. So it was clearly customer feedback, and there's a vibrant response we had from this little last-minute demo that we did at last year's VMworld, and sort of out of that, we said, "Let's really take this seriously. Let's go dive deeply into it." And as Guido said in the keynote, we've now talked to about a couple hundred customers and a huge response, and some, you know, usually when you do a cool new product, people say let me try that. In this case, the response we've gotten is, I need that now. I mean, it's a very definitive response. These are the kind of things I need to manage today's problems, so I guess Guido's already late in getting it done, so I've got to crack the whip harder and get this in the market. >> So it's not so much retooling, though we did talk about yesterday at the things, you're kind of mid-flight but you're adjusting to the market. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And clearly our cloud journey's been one where, you know, if you go back and I gave some of the data 2011, no one expected the public cloud to be where it was, where it is today. I mean, it clearly accelerated faster, some of the ease of use, efficiency characteristics, hey, this is a capability that nobody quite expected to grow this rapidly. And it's now permeated Enterprise customers who are starting to take advantage of it. But they don't have the tools to really take advantage of it. >> So some key leads we were reading yesterday in your keynote, you know we always like to read between the lines, kind of like the messaging inside of it. >> Sometimes you get it right, sometimes, you know. >> We get it right most of the time. Your comment, your sit-down with Michael Dell was really interesting, okay. Because this is an open ecosystem play. His first point was about open ecosystem. You've been banging on this from day one since you've been CEO of VMware, since the throw of the first pitch of the NetApp event that got viral with that jersey on. >> I went to the NetApp customer partner event last night, every year I'm there as well. Just like theCube, I go to the NetApp event. >> He could say that you have been hardcore about open ecosystem from day one, and with the merger now set for the 7th, the merger that you can transact on the 7th, you still want to be independent. The open ecosystem is super important to you, and Michael, I heard it right from his mouth. Share some color on why and how that's going to evolve. Will everyone have untempered access to VMware, will all partners have the same level of access and visibility? >> The simple answer is yes. We're going to continue exactly on that strategy as we go forward. And clearly I'm going to do more with Michael and the Dell team, you know, as we see that going forward. But it's incumbent upon us, even as we do more with Dell, that we lean in more aggressively to our HP, to our Lenovo, to our Fujitsu, and our other partners as well. So we see that as a critical part. And I say the VMware ecosystem is evolving. Five years ago, would you have had the cadre of security and networking vendors? No. Would you have expected to have all the system integrators? No. I mean, we're clearly expanding. Service provider partners, our ecosystem has broadened our product portfolio, it's becoming a broader statement as well. So that's a commitment. We're going to remain a platform play, an ecosystem play, and obviously, with Michael's comments onstage, he's cheering us on. He's saying, I'm going to grow my business with VMware faster, and I hope all of the other ecosystem partners grow faster than I do. >> Is this going to be a persona change? Because now, if you look at VMware's ecosystem, which has been robust, there's some good salivation going on, there's a change-up as the ecosystem shifts. vCenter was once the big thing, now you've got NSX and all this other stuff in the cloud. Is there a persona changeover in who the target customers are in the ecosystem? >> Well, clearly, I mean, the customer's the same. It remains sort of that IT buyer, which increasingly, as I talked about in the keynote, is becoming a business buyer, but it's that core IT Enterprise customer. We're not a consumer company, we're not an app company, we're an infrastructure company and we're going to satisfy that broadly across the industry. >> John: Yeah. >> But in that context, I mean, look at it. You know, over here we have the Internet of Things. Wow, you know, we have the NFV zone. We're having a broader and broader set of who is our ecosystem, and that's absolutely going to continue as we go forward because solutions to things that we do are permeating more and more of the entire business landscape as we go forward. It's a really fun time. You know, even though I like to joke with Michael that he was younger when I first met him. And against that, you know, he and I have both been at this for over three decades. But in many regards, it feels like we're just getting started. It really is a fun period. >> So Pat, the management suite has been a challenge for the industry in general. VMware has, as John said, strong presence with vCenter. As you start reaching out to some of these environments, why does VMware kind of have the right to think that it's going to be at the center of this discussion for some of your customers, especially as they talk about like Microsoft, they've got strong pieces there. Big partners like Intel, Amazon in the play, so why VMware? >> Well, I think there's a couple of aspects to it. And, who is better to be a neutral player, to enable people to have cloud freedom? Right? If you just start with that question, and we'd say hey, we enable people to have hardware freedom. It's in our ethos to have this platform play, to have a broader ecosystem, open APIs, it's what we do. And in the cloud world, hmm, Amazon, okay, they have a legitimate role. But are they going to be the best ones to do private and public, or enable Azure or AliCloud? I think we have a very legitimate position there to say, hey, we're a neutral player, we can be cross-player, cross-industry. Secondly, the technology assets that we have, what we demonstrated on stage yesterday with Guido, think if you didn't have NSX and vRealize and some of the storage assets? That was many, many years of engineering and we pulled all of those pieces together for a comprehensive demonstration of all of those pieces in nine months. That's because we have a rich set of technologies that we can bring to this Cross-Cloud Services. >> So VMware's got a pretty sophisticated stack there, lots of customer options. When we look at the cloud native states, things change a lot. You've got a lot of open source in there, most customers don't buy shrink-wrapped software, they take a lot of components, they tend to put some things together. There's been a little open source, but we've talked for many years about, open source isn't one of the primary revenue drivers for VMware. It's not kind of core to the business. Is that changing? How do you keep making money in the open source world? How do you compete? >> I think there's two different aspects to that that I'd like to, you know, one is, essentially our strategy is, enable these new environments on the VMware franchise. So what's my revenue model? I'm going to keep selling vSphere, I'm going to sell NSX, I'm going to sell vSAN, our management tools, et cetera, even as I add more open source components into those environments. And hey, I'm pretty happy. What's the price point of it going to be? It's free, if you're an Enterprise Plus customer. We're just adding it as another set of capabilities on top of it. It's all open source bits, you've, you know, Stu, have you downloaded it yet off GitHub? >> I have not. >> Pat: You have not? I'm disappointed to hear that. Get on it, right? Get back to work. >> You've got to code tonight, Stu. No party. >> Right? You know. Too much partying for you, Stu. But it's going to be available. We're engaging this open source community, in an open source way, but we're adding our industry rock-hard components, and that's important. Because enterprises are going to start deploying containerized applications. And then you're going to start asking questions. Are they secured? Are they managed? Do you have, like it said onstage, are they monitored? How are you going to network them? And all of the sudden, it's not going to be some lightweight stateless application, you're going to start saying, this is a better way to do stateful applications. What about resilience for that? Get back to the rock-hard questions that infrastructure guys know how to handle. So this is a way to saying yes to those problems but also saying yes to these cool new developer things as well. And in our sense, you know, we think we're well-positioned to go do it, but hey, some of it may be open source projects, and hey, we're showing that we're going to support those, we're going to deliver those, we're going to embrace those as well. So I'm sure that we hired Dirk Hohndel, a longtime friend. I hired him before at Intel, so now we brought him over here to VMware. Because we clearly see, we have to enhance our position overall in the open source community. Not a strong point for VMware in the past, and we're quite committed to changing that perception going forward. >> A lot of great code in the open source, but you mentioned those things about the infrastructure. I want to get back to that point. Those complex things. Automations now playing a big role, we saw the demo today with vSAN,Yanbing was just, one push of a button, a lot of policy, automatic policy automation, that's a great direction. >> Pat: Oh, yeah. >> So, I like that direction. But now I want to bring that back to Cross-Cloud. NSX with security and automation, and protection with the vSphere and then Cross-Cloud. How do you look at this? Because I know you're a strategist, so I think we'll get the strategist angle here. It's like the inter-networking data, I was riffing with Stu earlier about inter-networking has spawned because of all these networks needed to be connected together. And that became >> A whole industry. >> A huge industry. A lot of wealth created, a lot of innovation. Inter-clouding, or Cross-Cloud as you call it, is that dynamic. How do you play well? IBM's onstage, there's no Amazon onstage. I didn't see Microsoft. Are we going to see the other clouds come in to the fold, or are you going to go to them and partner with them? >> So let's, you know, one of the architectural principles of Cross-Cloud is public APIs. So I'm not requiring any unique support from Amazon and Azure, and that's an important statement as well, because now I go to a customer who's taken advantage of Amazon, and they can look at some of those Cross-Cloud Services and then says, well, what if Amazon doesn't support you in the future? And we say, these are standard APIs. They're supporting hundreds of customers on those APIs. It's important, right, that we're engaging with, I'll say, the way that the cloud is being presented to customers and giving them better tools to manage. Now that does not mean I'm not going to do more work in integrating more deeply and partnering with them. >> So does that support like the Amazon S3 API then? >> Pat: Of course. >> Okay. >> John: Well, Sling API's a little bit different. >> Management APIs is actually more appropriate to look at it in that respect as well. How do you spawn, how do you stop, how do you manage VMs, how do you do availability cells, those are the things more appropriate to a management tool in that regard. But those are public API, public interfaces, we're taking advantage of all of those. And we are going to work more closely with the Azures and the Amazons as well, we're going to invest in those partnerships. And there may be areas that we compete with them, but we're going to go do as much as we can, because that's what our customers are asking us to do. Give me better support for those environments, which workloads can I put there? Can I network? Can I secure? Maybe in some cases I don't want my groups using nonpub, or non, you know, multi-cloud APIs. Another case is, hey, I am fully comfortable saying, >> Pick the right cloud for the job kind of thing. >> Absolutely. Right >> Is your philosophy. So slinging APIs is pretty trivial relative to interfacing with the cloud, but the customer might want to go deeper, and, because that might create a complexity issue around, and also functionality might not be as robust as, say, deeper stack integration for data management and whatnot. Are you worried, or we're watching, certainly, like Microsoft, if they feel the proprietary aspect of their stack around data for instance, that's the holy grail, it can get sticky, but still be quote 'open' but not proprietary. >> Yeah. >> So the lock inspect is the lack of openness, per se, to say with data. >> And by the way, you know, I mean, in that respect, what we want to do is present to customers the tools that they can manage those decisions. For instance, a customer may say, hey, I love that machine learning API that Google offers. It's giving me a great competitive advantage, it's not available on any other cloud, and we're going to say, hey, it's proprietary API, if you use it and your data's there, you've picked that service, but we're still going to help you manage and secure it. Another workload, the customer might say, Hey, this workload, I want to make sure has multi-cloud landing zones associated with it. So we're going to help him manage those decisions as well, because if you stay in this domain, I can make it run anywhere, I'll be able to do cross-optimize it, maybe geo-optimize it, et cetera. So it's giving them the tools to manage those decisions. Because I think, hey, you know, Microsoft, they're going to do really well with things related to collaboration of 365. I think Google, I think they're going to do really well around data machine learning. IBM Enterprise, great cloud. Amazon, hey, they've won this round of the developer cloud. Each of them has sort of staked turfs that are very clear, they're going to present value to customers, and our view is, we're going to make those all more readily consumer, suitable for enterprises to run, manage, secure, and connect their workloads into those environments. And build the connectivity into their private clouds, their vCloud Air Networks, their manage clouds as well, that's what we can uniquely do. >> Amazon is going strong in the enterprise. I agree they've won the developer cloud, but they're aggressively going after the enterprise. Mainly Oracle for now, but I'm sure they might think about speech ed that you have. >> Oh, sure. Sure, absolutely. But, you know, in that space, moving a lightweight application, okay, done. Right, you do an OEF conversion, you're done, man, you sell it like that. Oh, you've got to move the full network configuration, IP address ability, right? I've got to deal with different- oh my gosh. Those are hard things to do. The easy stuff moves pretty easy. The hard stuff, okay, that's where we're at now as we address Enterprise customers, and you just don't pick those up and relocate those onto Amazon, Azure, or anyplace else. You know, that's really where the strength of VMware lies. >> So Pat, Dave Vellante is, you know, just at this point, he can't be here for the interview, so I'm a surrogate for him. >> I refuse this interview, not having Dave here. >> John: He says, Pat, I love you forever. That's what he says. >> He asked me to have your commentary on the new era of IT. Officially announced today, the Dell EMC deal, September 7th it will go down, you know, of course that has ramifications on VMware. HP split recently. Lots of, I mean, major signal changes to the industry. What's your take? >> Yeah, you know, as I described before, this is a very disruptive period of the IT industry. Consolidation of portions of it, we think as the hardware industry has matured, stabilized, you know, not growing, still cashflow rich but not growing, we think consolidation is a very natural phase of that industry's maturation. And against that, the Dell move, it's a very bold move given the size of it, but if you look at the cashflows of the companies, as Michael says, it's pretty easy math. It wasn't that hard to, you know, this is how much the cashflow is, this is how much the debt payment is, the math works. Do the deal. >> And Michael said, if you don't understand that VMware is hugely important to that, you don't understand the math. >> Right. For that, you know, clearly, having a controlling interest there, he gets it. We have a lot of growth potential as well, evaluation increase, potential strategic role, but he also realizes that the independence of VMware is critical as well. A software company is very different than a hardware company and our position in the industry, the ecosystem, he respects that greatly. We also think that we're far from done with disruptions elsewhere. We just saw Rackspace go private. Wow, you know, that's another structured shift. Changes in the structure of Citrix as a company, at Five, as they go through their transitions in this next phase of growth, Palo Alto, a good friend Mark McLaughlin, they're driving their software and service revenue growth from hardware. Lots of changes in the industry. Collectively, we look at those and we say, boy, this period of change, disruption, radical growth, consolidation of different places, VMware sits now at a very stable and comfortable place. I've got a great battle sheet, I've got a clear path in front of me, going back to the beginning of the interview, and, right, behind my battle sheet, is this huge turbo-charged engines that is cheering for our growth, distributing us, and even a bigger battle sheet behind us. So we sit in a very uniquely wonderful position. >> I have a final question for what a great, I know you've got another point, and thanks for, first of all, thanks for your time again. What's the biggest disruption that you're watching that's motivating you, whether it's lighting a fire under your feet, or just something that you see that's so epic, and get out for that next week, as you said, if you're not out for that next week, you're driftwood. >> Can I give you two? >> John: Yeah. >> So the one that I think is clearly the biggest is the shift to the public cloud. And I'll just say, that's why the Cross-Cloud announcement was so critical. Also, I wanted to demystify some of the numbers in the keynote. So we went out there and said, very specifically, this is where it's going to be, SaaS, and IaaS, and where it's going to be at different points in time, because I think there's been all sorts of numbers floating around the industry of what it's going to look like over time. But clearly, this public cloud's becoming a big deal. If we have to present ourselves as relevant and critical to our customers in that transition, so I'll say that's the one that we have to navigate through to really position VMware for the next couple decades. The other one that I point out is really, as we talked about, the IoT and the device picture. Wow, we're going to have more machine-connected devices in 2019, >> Love that stat, by the way. >> Than human-connected devices. And that presents enormous business opportunity, right, security threats and opportunities, data infrastructure to go with it, IT, as I would say, IT has left the nest. It's now permeated, >> And software's, a primary function of all the new software that has to be written to handle those situations. >> And in that sense, you want to say, even though I'm three and a half decades in the industry, it sort of feels like we're just getting started. >> You had a spring in your step until you had a cast on it, so you still, you've got to be careful you don't break down. As you get older, your bones get a bit more hard to recover. >> That's right. >> Pat, thanks so much for spending the time, great to see you again. >> Always a pleasure. >> Pat Gelsinger, inside theCube, here in VMworld 2016 in Las Vegas. >> Mr. Vellante must be here next year. >> Dave, man date. Stu Miniman and I, Stu, you did good. You held your own. Pat, as usual, great. This is theCube, you're watching theCube at VMworld, I'm John Furrier and Stu Miniman. (techno beat)