(electronic music) >> From Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Covering WTG Transform 2018. Brought to you by Winslow Technology Group. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. I'm Stu Miniman, and we're at WTG Transform 2018, happy to be welcoming one of the users at this show, Jerry Flick, who's with Belmond. He's the Divisional Director of I.T. Thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> All right, and welcome to the Boston area. You're from Charleston, South Carolina. >> I live in Charleston now, yeah. But I'm familiar with the area. I'm from the Northeast, but I love being here. Boston's a great town. >> Yeah, we had a lovely weather. It's in the low '70s, you know, the Sox should have a nice game here, so. Have you been to this event before? >> I have, this is my third year. >> Okay, excellent. You've been to more of 'em than me. >> Okay. >> So, let's start with Belmond. Tell us a little bit about the organization, for those that don't know. >> Absolutely, so Belmond is a worldwide luxury hotel experience, hospitality industry. So we have hotels, we have restaurants, there's train excursions, river cruises, and really, the focus on Belmond is providing a superior level of service to the guests that take part in our experiences. >> Well Jerry, the great thing I love talking about users is, their lives are pretty stable. There's not these things like Airbnb, and you know, other technologies left that are just saying oh yeah, we'll spin up an app and just put your company that's been around for decades out of business, right? It's nice and stable. >> Yeah, that sounds like a little sarcasm, but. (laughs) >> I've been known to be a little sarcastic. So yeah, Jerry, tell us how long has Belmond been in business? You said it's worldwide, how many employees, and how does Belmond deal with the digital transformation? >> Oh, absolutely. >> That's, you know, coming down? >> Well, they took the name five years ago. They used to be Orient Express prior to that, and many people know the Orient Express from the Agatha Christie novels. >> My wife loved the new movie, so. >> Yes, so did mine actually. But what they do is, we have over 50 properties worldwide. I joined about seven months ago, and one of the initiatives they have now is to double the amount of properties and experiences they have by 2020. So, as part of what I do in the division I manage, I have North America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, and I have about eight properties under my belt, and we have to make sure that we coordinate with corporate for our company policies, our I.T. structure, which is kind of complicated because you're dealing with multiple countries, and different technologies that people like, different flavors, so it certainly presents its own challenges. >> All right, so Jerry, when you say you've got those properties, and really the I.T., what does that mean? What's under your purview from an I.T. perspective? >> Sure, so each property has either an I.T. director or a manager, and then depending on the size of the property they have different I.T. personnel that handle everything from the infrastructure, the servers, as well as through user support and even interfacing with the clients. Guest wifi is a big thing, so people want to come to our properties and make sure that they can get on the internet well, they can watch T.V., and they can do that, and that all comes down to what we have to provide them. >> Yeah, I love that. Yeah, help connect us a little bit, you know, the role of I.T. and the pressures put on you, versus wow, we've got lots of challenges from the business side these days. I'm sure cost pressure are there, you need to able to know when things are available, know that the client is getting great service when they're at your facilities. >> Yeah, actually they like to use the term, we need to be cost neutral. >> Okay. >> So everything that we do, of course I.T. is a cost within itself, but when the clients come in, and again, they expect that high quality of service, that internet connectivity, and really just whatever it is that the technology can drive to make their experience better, they look to us. But from a standpoint of support, we're 24/7. We have to keep the systems running, we have to make sure that everything from property management is going, and that we keep them moving, we keep business running. >> Yeah, so in my career in I.T., I've gotten to get under the covers sometimes in hospitality. When you've got hundreds or thousands of rooms, just even the basic phone system, let alone the internet and everything, there's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of gear, maintaining. People talk about their data centers, but boy, you've got so many properties to deal with. What are some of the challenges there, and you know, bring us inside that infrastructure as to, how you have to build and architect it to fit that cost neutral mandate that you have. >> Yeah, we definitely want to be innovative, so for example with our Charleston facility, we recently deployed a Nutanix cluster on a Dell XC series, and we did that through Winslow Technology. And some of the things that we look to that for is, we don't have a lot of data, we don't have big data. And recently, we had to implement a GDPR policy, because we are worldwide, so that really kind of limits, you know, we're going to have even less data within our system. So having an implementation of Nutanix is really a great way to provision the service we need. We do have a mix of Cloud systems, as well as on-prem, so definitely a hybrid Cloud model would be something that I would like to see moving forward, as well as within the division, try to synchronize everything. Make everybody synergized, so that we can try to be like a flagship to the brand, and really set the standard for what is the best in technology. >> Yeah, so a lot of conversation in the keynote this morning about hybrid cloud. Want to get your reaction as to what you heard, as well as, you know, the big question is, how do you figure out what to put where? >> Yeah, that's a good question, and I've had a lot of sessions with Rick. I think he's really in tune with what's going on, so, pretty much the whole Winslow staff. You can reach out to them, and if you don't specialize in something, you know, you're not going to know everything in I.T., especially when you're dealing with as you mentioned, what's underneath. But to be able to reach out to a partner like that and say hey, do you have a subject matter expert in this? It really gives you a good idea of where the industry's going, and that's my goal is to make sure we stay ahead of that, so that we can provide the business what's a cost neutral way to make it better, and continue to provide that superior service. >> Okay. You said that you've deployed the OEM Nutanix solution with Dell. Can you give us a little bit of insight, you know, what applications sit there? What kind of scale do you go to with that? Is it something that mostly just runs, and you don't need to touch it, or is it something that's growing over time? >> Yeah, I mean, we recently did it within the last month. So what we did, fortunately we were able to just build it, and not initially have to migrate anything over. But for our use, property management, we have an Opera property management system, and that's going to be key to keeping that running, and we are looking to keep that on-prem. Everything else, like our point of sale service, they do need a cached systems within the infrastructure. And then we're looking to upgrade our phone system which depending on if we do that Cloud based or not, having a Nutanix cluster in play like that, and really just the reactions I'm getting from my team that's working with it, they've used other systems. They've used the huge SAN systems of the past, and to be able to spin up a Windows server in less than six minutes, you know, they really love it. We're using the Acropolis Hypervisor, and the simplivity of it, it's easy to use. The buttons, it's real, it's just very simple. It's not as layered as a lot of the systems, so I think as we move forward the performance of it, we're really going to see a quick turnaround, and it's going to make the employees happy working with it, as well. >> Awesome, Jerry. Last thing I want to ask you, you've been to this show for three years. What bring you up besides, you know, the beautiful Boston weather. You mentioned talking to Rick and the team, maybe checking out the Red Sox. What's the value of coming to events like this? >> Well, you know, and again, Winslow's a unique company. They're smaller, and they have a certain niche in an area, but you know, I've worked with several of the account reps, I've worked with the engineers, and they really have a good foothold on technology, but their process of getting to know the customers, and being able to really anticipate what they need, as well as they're not going to oversell you. They're not going to sell you something you don't need, and even if they present something and you're not interested, there's no pressure there. So, they really make it easy to work with them. And so, aside from being here in Boston and loving it, I do enjoy being with the Winslow team, and being treated so nicely by them. >> All right. Jerry, pleasure meeting you. Thanks so much, and congrats on the progress with Belmond. >> Awesome, thank you. >> All right, always love talking to the users, and we'll be back with lots more coverage. Thanks for watching theCUBE. (electronic music)