>>From around the globe. It's the cube presenting cube on cloud brought to you by Silicon angle. >>Welcome back to coupon cloud I'm Paul Gillan enterprise editor of Silicon angle. You know, as we look ahead at what is in store for the cloud this year, one of the intriguing possibilities that has emerged is the rise of vertical clouds. IBM has been a leader in this area with its launch in late 19 of the IBM financial services cloud. That's a services ready public cloud with exceptional security, as well as Polly, a policy framework for certifying compliance and services from the IBM subsidiary. Promintory now with the IBM financial services cloud, uh, that has been a major focus of our next guest, Hillary Hunter. She is the vice president and CTO of IBM cloud and IBM fellow and a veteran of, I believe, three previous appearances on the cube. Am I right Hillary? >>Yep. Sounds about right. Great to be back here today. >>Thanks for joining us. So let's start with getting an update on the IBM financial services cloud. What progress have you made in signing up customers and your ecosystem of partners? >>Yeah, you know, we've made really significant progress, uh, progress in advancing the IBM cloud for financial services since we last talked, you know, and, and we're really at that place of establishing a trusted platform for the industry, just in, you know, some specifics in addition to bank of America, which we had talked about as our us anchor partner for the program. Um, we've announced several global banks, um, that are partnering with us for the global expansion of the program, including BNP party, you know, which is one of Europe's largest banks. Um, more than 70 ASVs are signed up with us now as part of the program and adopting IBM cloud for financial services, this level of sort of ecosystem is, is exciting because it means that, you know, banks will have the opportunity to, to transform what they're doing, but do so in a way, which is driven by security and compliance, um, so that they can be confident in those deployments on IBM cloud for financial services. >>We also released the IBM cloud policy framework for financial services. This is both the sort of security and compliance posture of the environment, as well as, you know, guidance on controls, reference architectures automation to help people on board. And so both ISBNs and banks now are able to, um, onboard to this environment and offer their wares and deploy their workloads. So it's a really exciting state for us on the program. And we're really in a place where there'll be, you know, an ongoing cadence of, you know, additional releases and announcements of additional partnerships and clients. So it's an exciting time in the program. >>Uh, one of the distinctive features I think of this, uh, of this launch is that you're working actively with your customers. They're working with you on building policy frameworks, as well as I imagined the features that you're offering on the cloud. How do you orchestrate all of these different customers and get them involved and actually co-development >>Yeah. You know, it's the ecosystem conversation and the partnership conversation are two of the fundamental aspects of the program. Like you said, this isn't, you know, just us sitting off in a bubble, inventing the future. Um, you know, we're working internally with partners, uh, within IBM like IBM Promintory, um, which is a consultancy that has deep, deep regulatory expertise and in jurisdictions globally with IBM security services. And then with these individual partners and banks and clients, one of the ways that we bring everything together is through our councils. So our council, our cloud council for financial services, um, it's where we have global systemically important financial institutions partnered with us and, and working together with one another. And, and that covers, you know, CIO is it covers chief security officers, risk officers, et cetera. Um, so we have some formality around how we work with, um, all of these partners, uh, really as a body and as a group. >>And what have you learned from this experience? I mean, if you were to go into the, uh, into other vertical clouds, what have been the lessons >>Ecosystem is so important, right? It's as I look at this space, I see that, you know, everyone has an existing business, they have a platform they're running, they have clients they're trying to service. Um, but those, the software providers into this space are looking themselves to transform their they're looking to transform from being a software vendors, to being SAS providers, the banks and financial institutions themselves are looking to transform from working on their own premises to benefit from the Alaska city and the scale and the optionality of, you know, that being in public cloud provides. So there's a lot of, um, parties themselves that are trying to transform and a lot of vendors into the financial space that are looking to transform. And in that time of a lot of change ecosystem is, is absolutely key. And so, um, the ISE and SAS providers, you know, providing their wares on the cloud for financial services is, is really just as important as those financial services institutions so that everyone can make that transition together. Um, and so that banks that are looking to digitally transform can, can leverage partners that are really at the forefront of that change in that innovation and in platforms for the industry. >>Would you say that there are, is this the first of many, I mean, are there going to be other vertical financial or other vertical IBM clouds or is the range of industries that really need that kind of specificity limited? >>I think it's, it's actually not limited, you know, though, I will say that within the space of industries that are heavily regulated, there's obviously a deeper need for sort of specific cloud embodiments and cloud implementation. So regulated industries like insurance, like telco healthcare, et cetera. Um, these are the ones I think, where there's the greatest opportunity to do verticals that are specific to industry. Um, but you know, as we look at this, this is absolutely part of an IBM cloud strategy to deliver industry specific clouds. And, and, and this comes from our decades of expertise, right? Even in financial services, being able to leverage, you know, those other entities within IBM that I mentioned, right. You know, our, our regulatory, um, background with companies, you know, having helped them address regulatory needs for specific industries, and then translating that into cloud and cloud technologies. Right. And, and then coming up from the other side, you know, in terms of the technologies themselves, we've partnered with key industries, um, to deliver security and data protection and cryptography technologies and such on premises. And we're contextualizing that now for cloud and public cloud deployments. And so it kind of brings together the pieces of decades of expertise and platforms and technology and regulations and contextualizes it into cloud. And I absolutely think that's, you know, an opportunity for, for other industries as well. >>Can you give us a bit of a preview? I mean, do you have specific industries in mind? Is there a time? >>Yeah, so, so, uh, late last year we did announce a second industry specific cloud initiative and that was IBM cloud for telco. So we have in that ecosystem now over 40 partners that are announced, that are working with IBM and with red hat, especially with, um, clients and partners that are looking to help with that transition into 5g and increasing use of IOT. 5g is really this disruptive opportunity for that industry. And, and also just for many other different types of companies and institutions that are looking to deploy with more efficiency, better operational efficiency, deploy with AI capabilities, really being able to do things that like cellular network edge, um, and the places that they're doing business using IOT devices and 5g will enable much of that to really transform and flourish. So a couple of the partners, initially, in addition to that ecosystem that I mentioned in cloud for telco, um, you know, we've got Samsung working with us, Nokia ATNT, et cetera. Um, and so, you know, these, these partnerships and, and capabilities around network edge, um, and specific capabilities in cloud for telco, um, are sort of that second, you know, public announcement that we've made around industry specific cloud, >>As far as your competitive position is concerned. I mean, are, are you taking away business from your competitors when you partner with these, these telcos and these banks, or is this an entirely new line of business that was not previously in the cloud? >>Yeah. You know, these are really, I think in, by and large new opportunities as we look at, you know, for example, how we as customers expect to engage with, um, you know, our bank, right. You know, we are looking to increasingly engage with a bank in a digital way, use our applications, use mobile devices. We're looking for, you know, individual bank outlets, uh, branch outlets of, of a banking institution to be increasingly smart, to service our needs, you know, more quickly, et cetera. Um, and so as we look at, you know, 5g and telco edge, it's about delivery of sort of smarter capabilities and such. I think much of it really is about in this digital transformation space about, you know, creating new capabilities, creating new experiences, creating new ways of engagement, um, and engagement and an opportunity to customize and personalize. Um, I think most of those are sort of new experiences and new capabilities for most companies. >>So speak about IBM's positioning right now. I mean, you're not one of the big three cloud providers to, to become one. Uh, but you do have as a big cloud business and, uh, you've, you've got the verticals, you've got the multi-cloud, uh, I know IBM is big, has been a big champion of multi-cloud. I mean, how is IBM distinctively positioned in the cloud market right now? >>Yeah. You know, we are all in, on hybrid cloud and AI. And if you listened to our CEO and chairman, you'll hear that it is a really consistent message. And he, since he came into his role as, as our CEO, um, so being all in, on hybrid cloud and AI, you know, we really are looking to help our clients transform into holistic cloud architecture. Right? So, so when I say all in, on hybrid cloud, I mean that, you know, it's, there's been a lot of sort of, I jokingly say random acts of cloud usage, right? People have ended up using cloud because there's some SAS function that they want, or some particular line of business has been highly motivated to pursue some service on a particular cloud. And hybrid cloud is really about taking a step back, having a holistic architecture for cloud consumption. And in that sense, you know, uh, clouds, uh, are IBM's partners. >>Um, and we're really looking to enable our clients to have consistency in their deployments to consolidate across their it estate and across their cloud deployments so that they can have, um, a common platform, so they can have efficiency in how their developers to like capabilities. So they can deploy more quickly with security and compliance patterns and have oversight over everything that's going on in a consistent way that really enables them to have that velocity in their business. And so when we then, you know, positioned things like industry cloud, we're leveraging IBM specific technologies to deliver differentiated capabilities and data privacy, data protection, security compliance, where these industries in public cloud. Yes. But it's in the context of helping our clients overall across all the different things. Some of which may not need all of that data privacy or, or, or be leveraging particular SAS content we're looking to help them really have cloud architecture have a holistic conversation across hybrid cloud. Um, and yet to still be able to choose particular cloud deployments on our cloud for industries, um, that enables data protection and policy for the most sensitive and, and enterprise grade things that they're looking to do at the core of their business. >>So speaking of hybrid hybrid cloud, I mean the major cloud providers, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and other one all have on premises offerings right now. Uh, several of them are working with telcos to expand their reach out into, uh, into co-location and into telecom, uh, data centers. Uh, all of these things were to enable is this distributed cloud fabric kind of a hybrid cloud fabric what's, IBM's play in this area. Uh, do you have a similar strategy or is it different? >>I really think, and I think you maybe wanted to get a little bit into sort of, you know, trends and predictions here in this conversation and, and, and, you know, we, we absolutely see that need for distributed cloud for cloud to really kind of be alive in all the places where it needs to be in, in all the places that someone is doing business and in a consistent way across cloud environments, um, to be one of those major trends, that's emerging as a really hot conversation. We have introduced IBM cloud satellite, um, that is IBM's hybrid cloud as a service platform, um, and enables our clients to leverage, um, uh, OpenShift and Kubernetes environments, developer tooling, uh, consistency in a cloud catalog, visibility and control over all their resources, um, across different environments. And to be able to run end, to end with consistency from on-premises to edge to different public cloud providers. >>Um, and this is absolutely something that across industries, but, you know, within also those industries that we're focused on in particular, um, that we're seeing a lot of interesting conversations emerge because if cloud is sort of everywhere, if cloud is distributed and can be on premises and in public cloud, it enables this consistency in this parody, um, really that sort of brings together that, that seamlessness, not just the random acts cloud usage, right? I mean, it means that using cloud, um, can be something that, that drives, you know, speed of release of new product. It means that you can deliver more capability and functionality into, you know, a retail outlet where you're doing business or a banking, you know, brick and mortar location. Um, you can have, you know, AI for it ops and understand what's going on across those different environments and ensure things are kept secure and patched and updated, and you're responding to incidents in efficient ways. Um, and so really having a consistent cloud environment and a distributed cloud environment across different locations, um, it's really key to leveraging the promises of what everyone had originally hoped to get out of out of cloud computing. >>Of course, one of IBM's distinctive, uh, advantages of this area is you've got a huge hardware install base out there. I mean, how do all those three 60 mainframes figuring it out, figure into this, >>Um, with the OpenShift capabilities in our Clara operations with red hat in this area, we are able to actually help our clients leverage Kubernetes and Linux and all those things, even on the mainframe. So across the mainframe family, the IBM power family, um, you know, where folks may also have AIX or IBMI deployments, people can now do Lennox, they can do open shifts, they can do Coopernetti's. Um, and we have core technologies that enable that really to be stitched together. And I think that's one of the unique perspectives that IBM has in this whole conversation about hybrid cloud. Um, there are many different definitions of hybrid cloud, but we really view it as stretching from the traditional enterprise. It, like you said, there's a lot of it out there and being able to also incorporate OpenShift and Kubernetes in a common cloud platform, um, on traditional enterprise, it on private cloud, on fresh deployments, on private cloud, Amazon public cloud, that really is the whole it estate. So when we talk about hybrid cloud, when we talk about distributed cloud, really talking about the entirety of VIT state, not just sort of new deployments of, of SAS or something like that. >>So as someone who's on the front lines of, you know, what customers are asking about cloud, do you see customer the questions that they're asking changing? Are they, are they their decision criteria changing for how they choose a cloud provider? >>Yeah. You know, I think that, um, there's definitely a lot more conversation, especially in this current era where there's an accelerated rate of cloud adoption. Um, there's a lot more conversation around things like security, um, data protection, data, privacy, being able to run in an environment that you trust, not just is it a cloud and what does it do, but can I trust it? Do I understand how my data is protected, how my workloads are secured? Um, you know, that's really why we started cloud for financial services because that industry shepherds such vital data, right? So the reason that they are highly regulated is because of the importance of what they are stewarding very important data and financial information. Um, so, you know, we began there with the cloud for regulated industries there with, with financial services, but I see that across all industries, I was participating on a panel, um, that was, uh, with a bunch of CEOs. >>And I was there interviewing some CEOs who were from a much more sort of consumer facing and also from, from foods industry, et cetera. And their conversation was exactly the same as I have with many other clients, which is that their cloud choices, their efficiency and cloud deployment now are largely driven by the ability to get to a secure posture and the ability to demonstrate their, to their internal security and risk teams that they understand their data protection, data, privacy posture. So we are seeing lots of pickup and, and conversation opportunity around confidential competing specifically. Um, and you know, that's really about enabling, uh, our clients to have full authority and privacy in their computing, in their code and their data, even when running in a cloud environment. And so I do see a shift everyone's more concerned about security, and I think we have great technologies and we've been working with core partners to establish and harden and, and create, um, generations of technology that can really answer those questions. >>I have to ask you about that term confidential computing. I haven't heard that before. What, what does that involve? >>Yeah. You know, it's, it is a buzzword to watch out here for an in 2021. So confidential computing means being able to run in an environment where there are others in a, in a cloud computing environment, for example, um, but still have full privacy and authority over what you're doing. So you are effectively in an enclave, uh, imagine yourself sort of protected and secured. And so our confidential competing technologies, um, we're actually on basically our fourth generation of, of, of the hardware and software technologies to create that strong degree of isolation. Um, this enables us to deliver a really rich portfolio. Um, frankly, the, the, the richest portfolio in the industry of actuals services delivered, um, using confidential, competing and secure enclaves. And so we can enable our customers to solution things in a way, for example, where their data, you know, can not even be visible to our cloud operators or where they, uh, retain, you know, full control over, you know, a database and have full privacy as they're running in that environment. Um, these are really great, um, you know, considerations, but they impact everything from health care financial services. Uh, we have other partners and clients who are working to protect consumer data, um, you know, through these means et cetera. And so, um, across different industries, everyone's really looking at this topic of data, privacy, data protection. Um, and so we have a whole suite and whole family of confidential competing based, uh, services that we're able to offer to, uh, offer those assurances and that privacy to them in their cloud competing. >>I do have to ask you about the multi-cloud because this is a topic of constant debate in the industry of whether customers want to move shift workloads across multiple clouds to protect themselves from lock-in. I mean, is that a fantasy? Is that real? Is that a too restrictive? Uh, this has been a key part of IBM strategy is enabling the multi-cloud. How do you see customer attitudes developing right now? How do they want to use multiple clouds or in fact, do they, are they, are they, uh, concentrating perhaps more of their workloads in one or two? >>Yeah. You know, we believe vendor locking goes against the true spirit of hybrid cloud, right. Um, that desire to have consistency across environments, um, that desire to, uh, and the business need to have, you know, continuity and resiliency and operations, et cetera. Um, and so I do see this as a really important topic, um, from the perspective of, you know, managing environments, I think in multi-cloud, um, I think folks are starting to realize that multicloud isn't necessarily a strategy. It's a reality. Um, people have deployments in lots of different cloud environments, um, that happened somewhat organically in many cases. And so the key question is how to then get to visibility and control over those resources. Um, I think kind of two of the, the, the core topics in that are multicloud management, um, you know, being able to understand, you know, clusters and virtual machines and other things that are deployed across different environments and manage them with a common set of policies, for example. >>Um, and then in addition to multicloud management, um, I, for it, operations is another really important topic in, in multi-cloud being able to respond to incidents, understand and analyze and leverage AI, um, for what's going on for understanding what's going on across those environments, um, is another really core topic. And then as you said, you know, distributed cloud is a means of getting that consistency, having a common, you know, control and deployment plane across those different environments, um, can help it not just be sort of accidental usage of multiple cloud environments, but very intentional deployment based on the needs of particular workloads to the environment that they're best suited to. Um, and, and that's really what you want to aim for. Um, not that multi-cloud is necessarily, um, you know, uh, uh, I guess I would say is, is it is a, um, it is a complexity that is manageable, um, through these, you know, new types of technologies and multicloud management and such like that, and cloud >>Well, uh, Hillary TIS, the season for predictions is January, uh, everyone's prognostic table of what the future will look like. What do you think are going to be the main trend lines in cloud this year? Yeah, >>You know, I, I sort of sprinkled a few in there as we were talking, but I really do think that, um, the conversation around hybrid cloud number one, how to have an open innovation ecosystem for cloud, where, um, you have a consistency across environments, you know, not just random acts of cloud usage, but intentional and holistic architecture. Um, I really see that as the transition to sort of the second wave of, of cloud adoption. Um, and then secondly, as we were talking earlier about security, right, everyone is wondering about data policy and data privacy. Um, we've always taken a strong stance that, you know, our client's data is, is, is their data. We are not going to be using their data to, you know, further develop our, um, you know, AI services on our cloud or something. Um, we have deployed technologies and confidential computing that enabled them to keep full control over their keys so that, you know, even our caught operators center have access to data, um, competing in secure enclaves, where they have a strong degree of isolation and full privacy and authority over their workload. >>I really think, you know, these two topics open and secure hybrid computing and with consistency across environments, but distributed cloud technology. Um, and secondly, security, I think these are really important topics for 2021, and they may seem a little bit obvious, but I think it's important as people look at this to look for technologies that are multiple generations into this journey, right. Um, you know, partner with, um, folks who, um, are, you know, committed, uh, very clearly to an open ecosystem and open source innovation on the one hand. Um, and secondly, you know, um, when we talk about security and data protection, you want to know that that provider is several generations into that journey. Um, you know, so you really know that that technology has been vetted out is that production scale and has the stable basis. And so I think this is the year when folks are transitioning from cloud adoption, uh, to consistency in cloud and security and privacy in cloud >>Final question. And it has nothing to do with cloud. You're an IBM fellow. And I see that term, uh, turn up occasionally with other other people I've spoken to from IBM, what is it? IBM fellow, how do you become one and what right. Privileges and responsibilities as an entail. >>Yeah. You know, it's an exciting opportunity to be an IBM fellow. There's about a hundred active IBM fellows, um, right now. Um, so there aren't too many of us, but there is a small community of us. Um, IBM fellow is IBM's highest technical designation within our technical population. Um, so I do have a role within our cloud business. Um, but as one of our technical leaders, um, get to interact with the other fellows, um, you know, work on strategy for IBM in technology overall as a company. Um, and I also get to sort of be a trusted advisor to many of our clients. And so, um, I get to with CTOs and CEOs and VP of application development, um, you know, kind of, kind of profiles and VP of, of it and things like that, um, in our different clients and really help them wrestle through those struggles, um, of, you know, future it transformation. >>And so, um, you know, part of what I enjoy most about sort of the role and, and the fellow role is, is being able to kind of be that trusted advisor to many of our clients. There's been so much change in this last year for everyone. Um, and being able to, you know, also, you know, help our technical population through that, you know, in various means and then help our clients, um, through all of that change and really being able to take and grasp onto the opportunities, um, that this last year has had in the way that we work has changed. And the way that companies are looking to deliver capabilities has changed. Um, so that's, for me, the exciting part of, of the role, >>Or you're wondering a hundred then, and you do a great job of articulating the IBM strategy and also the, uh, the cloud landscape, Hillary Hunter, VP and CTO, excuse me, CTO of IBM cloud. Thank you so much for joining us today on Cuban cloud. >>Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure. >>I'm Paul Gillan stick with us.