>>From around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of Dell technologies, world digital experience brought to you by Dell technologies. >>Hi, welcome to the cubes coverage of Dell technologies, world 2020, the virtual experience. I am Lisa Martin and I've got a couple of guests joining me. One of them is a longtime cube alumni. John Siegel is back the VP of product marketing for Dell technologies. John, it's great to see you. >>Great to be back. Thank you. >>And also joining us is Troy Massey the director of enterprise engagements from iron bow technologies. Troy, welcome to the cube. >>Hi, thank you. Grabbed him. >>So we're going to be talking about VxRail, how it's driving the future of HCI to the edge, but first let's get choice perspective. I would like the audience to understand who iron bow technologies is and what you do. And then we'll kind of look at it as what you're doing with the extra rail, as well as your channel partner business with Dell technologies. So Troy, take it away. >>Hi. Yeah. So, uh, Iron Bow is a global company. We're a value added reseller, uh, having partnered with Dell. Um, we have people physically living from Europe all the way through in Korea, um, from kind of based the globe, uh, primarily in wherever there's DOD or federal government agencies. >>And tell me about from a channel partner perspective, what you guys are doing together. >>Yeah, so we have a lot of efforts going on channel partner together, uh, specifically, uh, Iron target is, is a huge effort to where we're doing together. Uh, it's a on prem cloud, uh, that's uh, it's basis, VxRail VMware Cloud foundation on top, uh, with Intel all throughout. So there's an Intel Xeon processors and, uh, Optane drives. Uh, so just the perfect elegant OnPrem cloud, hybrid cloud solution that Dell and Iron Bow are driving together. >>So let's talk about the edge, cause a big focus of Dell technologies world this year is about the edge. How do you see Troy iron bow extending services to the edge and what do you anticipate from your customers in terms of what their needs are as they're changing? >>Great, great question. So, um, for one, I've gotta talk a little bit about what the edge and what the edges and the edges different things to different people. So I'm going to explain a little bit of the edge and what we're seeing and, and the federal government. So I'll give you one example and that's, um, uh, you know,  the air force reserves. So they have a, uh, an entire squadron that does all of the firefighting, uh, the large fires you see across California or whatever states engulfed in fires that year, um, where they take an entire squadron of airplanes out when they sort of water overall, the whole fire, uh, they don't just bring planes. They entire squatters military personnel to help communicate with the police and with the local fire and all of that takes information. So they need to bring information data with them. Is there a building over there? Do people live over there where we got to actually concentrate on site on fighting that fire priority-wise so it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to do that remotely over satellite it's large, large chunks of data that needs to be local to the customer. So, um, VxRail is, is the power beast of the HCI world VxRail at that edge provides them with the performance they need to get that job done. >>I think that's going to be a new new segment here in Silicon Valley. That thinking about all the fires we've had, and it's really VxRail at the edge, that's helping fight the fires. That's not something I knew. So thanks for sharing that. >>So there's all kinds of workings in that area, same deal. They need to know where to go rescue those people and it's all data. >>Exactly. And it's gotta be data that's that, as you said, it was not delayed sent over the wire, but obviously being able to be transmitted in real time so that actions can be taken, which is one of the things we talk about with data all the time. You have to be able to get the insight and act on it quickly. So, so John, the theme of this year's virtual Dell technologies world is the edge is a big part of the theme. So talk to us about driving the future of HCI at the edge with VxRail, how there's been a lot of growth, I think 9,600 plus customers so far. So talk to us about the future of HCI at the edge with VxRail as a driver. >>Absolutely. So first of all, I want to thank iron bow for being one of our nearly 10,000 customers for VxRail. Um, and you know, absolutely. So, you know, overall the edge is going to be a major theme for Dell tech world this week. Uh, and specifically for VxRail. Um, we of course continue to play with VxRail, a key role in modernizing data centers, uh, as well as hybrid cloud. And this week really wanted to highlight some of the recent innovations we have around extending the simplified operations of VxRail that many like, uh, iron bow and others are experiencing today in the core, uh, are in the cloud and extending those, that automation to the edge. Um, and you heard a lot about what the edge can do in the end and the implications and the value of the edge. Um, while we have lots of customers today, um, including IMO that are using VxRail at their edge locations, uh, we have others like large retail, uh, home improvement chains, financial institutions. Um, we expect the edge to soon explode. Um, we like to think that, uh, we are at the edge of the edge opportunity, um, in >>It in fact, IDC recently stated that by 2023, over 50% of new enterprise data that is generated is going to be generated outside the core data center and outside the cloud. That's up front 10% today. So this is, this is massive, um, edge locations. Um, of course come with their own challenges, whether it's sometimes less than ideal conditions around power and cooling, or they may not have typically, um, skilled it staff at the edge, right? So they, they need, they need new special configuration. They need operational efficiencies. And I think VxRail is uniquely positioned to help address that. >>Let's kind of dig into those operational challenges because in the last seven months, so much of what we all do has become remote and a good amount of that is going to be probably permanent. Right. So when you think about the volume of remote devices that VxRail could potentially manage, John, how, how do you see  VxRail being able to help in this sort of very distributed environment that might be very well much permanent? >>Yeah, I know. And like you said, it's going to just grow and grow the distributed environment and what that means for each company might be slightly different, but regardless what they do need to seamless operations across all of those different edge locations, um, and a, again, a big focus for us. So we're really doing three things to extend the, the automated operations of VxRail to the edge and doing so at scale. Uh, the first thing I want to say, talk about is that we did on avail just two VxRail platforms designed specifically for the edge, uh, the new VxRail E-Series, which is ideal for remote office locations, where space is limited. Um, the remote, uh, the VxRail D series, I think of D as in durable, uh, this is our ruggedized platform, uh, built from the ground up for harsh environments, you know, such as the DOD environments, like in the, um, in the desert. >>Um, and both of these VxRail platforms are fully automated. They automate everything from deployment to expansions to, to lifecycle management overall. Um, and now what we're doing now with extending that automation is the second thing we doing, uh, you know, to the edge from an operational perspective. And what we're doing first and foremost is we are introducing a new software as a service multi cluster management. Uh, this is part of the VxRail HCI system software that we deliver today as part of the VxRail. Uh, this not only provides a global view of the infrastructure performance, um, and capacity analysis across all the locations, but even more importantly, it actively ensures that all the clusters and the remote locate locations always stay in a continuously validated state. This means that it can automatically determine which software components need to be upgraded. Um, you know, and also automatically execute the full stack upgrades, right? >>Without any technical expertise at the site, it can be done centrally, further automating the lifecycle management process and process that we do, uh, at the core and the cloud, and now extending to the edge. So, yeah, imagine the operational efficiencies for customers with tens or hundreds or even thousands of edge sites. So this is we think truly a game changer from that perspective. And then in addition to that, we're also adding, uh, the support for BCS on VxRail. So, uh, just at VM world just a couple of weeks ago, uh, VMware announced, uh, remote edge cluster support for VCF. Uh, so those customers that run run BCF on VxRail now can get the, the, they can enjoy a consistent cloud operating model, um, you know, for those edge locations. So, you know, in summary, you're getting consistency, you're getting automation regardless of where your VxRail is located. >>And this is something that I saw in the notes. John is described as a curated experience. Can you describe what that is if I think of reference architectures and things of that, what is a curated experience and how is it different? >>Yeah,  a curated experience for VxRail...  really what it is it's about seamless. Uh, it it's about we, we have taken the burden if you will, of integrating infrastructure off of the customer's shoulders and onto ours, right? So what we do is we ensure VxRail is in fact, the only, um, jointly engineered HCI system in the market, that's doing the engineering with VMware, for VMware to enhance VMware environments. Uh, and so what we've done is we, uh, we have a pre-integrated, uh, full stack experience that we're providing the customer from deployment, uh, to, uh, again, to everyday operations, to making changes, et cetera. Uh, we've essentially what we've done here, um, is that we've, we've taken again, that, that burden off of customers, uh, and allowed them to spend more time innovating, uh, and less, you know, less time integrating >>That sounds good to everyone, right? Simplifying less time to troubleshoot more time to be able to be strategic and innovative, especially in such a rapidly changing world toy overview now, Oh, go ahead, John, >>To add to that, you know, we've seen a real acceleration this year to digital transformation, to your point earlier, just with remote everything. And I think a lot of the projects, and so including a shift that we've seen to consuming infrastructure overall, whether, you know, and that's, that's the, the onset of the cloud and wherever that cloud might be, right. It could be on prem, could it be on premises, could be off premises. Um, and so, you know, that focused on consuming infrastructure versus in that preference for consuming infrastructure versus building and maintaining it, that's something that we're going to continue to see accelerate over time. >>You're right. That digital transformation acceleration has been one of the biggest topics in the last seven months and looking at which businesses really are set up and have the foundation and the culture to be able to make those changes quickly, to not just survive in this environment, but win tomorrow. So talk over to you for a second, in terms of, of the edge. What are your thoughts on as a partner, with VxRail, you've got a solution built on it. What are your thoughts about what VxRail is going to be able to deliver, enable you to deliver at the edge? You know, you gave us that great example of the air force reserve, but what our iron bows thoughts there, what do you envision going forward? >>He talks about tens, hundreds, thousands of different sites that all need their data, they all need process and compute but those types of sites don't necessarily need to have and IT on staff at those sites, a great example is the army Corps of engineers. They have to have one or two people out at every dam to monitor the dam, but that mean it justifies an IT staffer out there with them. So the idea to remotely manage that VxRail, they're just industry leaders in the ability to deploy this  somewhere where there's not an it person and be able to manage it, but not just manage it, predictive analysis on when they're starting to run out of storage , give alerts so that we can start the upgrade. >>John talked to us about the engagement that you're expecting your customers to have with Dell technologies during this virtual event. >>Absolutely. I think so. First of all, um, yeah, virtual is different, but there's lot of advantages to that. Um, one of them is that we can have, um, an ongoing dialogue during, uh, a number of the sessions that we have, why some of the sessions might be prerecorded. There are alive chats all the way through, including a number of breakouts on VxRail, specifically, uh, as well as the edge, as well as a number of different, um, topics that you can imagine. Um, we've also just launched a new game, a fun game, uh, from mobile called data center sin, um, where, uh, customers can have some fun, uh, learning about VxRail, uh, the experience that takes and balancing the budget and staffing and capacity, uh, to address the needs of the business. So, uh, we're always looking for fun and engaging ways to experience, experience the real life benefits of our HCI platforms, such as VxRail. And, um, so customers can, uh, check that out as well, um, by searching their app store of choice for Dell technologies, data center, sin, uh, and have at it and have some fun. But again, whether it's playing the game online through it, I've met the reality experience or it's, um, you know, connecting directly with any of our subject matter experts. Um, there's going to be a lot of opportunity, uh, to learn more about how VxRail and ACI can help our customers thrive. >>Excellent. I like that game idea. Well, Troy, John, thank you for joining me today and letting me know what you guys are doing with the VxRail what's coming with the edge and the fact that they use cases are just going to proliferate. We appreciate your time. Thank you as well for my guests. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of Dell technologies world 2020.