>> from the Silicon Angle Media Office in Boston, Massachusetts. It's the cue now Here's your host Day Volonte. >> Hi, buddy. Welcome to the Special Cube conversation. My name is David Dante, and this is our series on partners. How partners and the Channel is adding value to help customers create business capabilities in this digital world. I'm here with John Barker, and he is the co founder and CEO of a company called Versatile Local New England partner of H P Ease. This is sponsored by HP and versatile John. Welcome to the Cube. Thanks for coming >> on. Well, thanks, David. Appreciate you having me here today. >> So tell us more about versatile. You've been business for a couple of decades. Plus, you have, ah, deep background. Tell us about versatile and your background. >> Your, uh, be happy to do that versa was found in 25 years ago. Said 25th anniversary and I probably would be lying if I didn't tell you. I probably would've been out of this business 25 years later, but it's a great business. It was fun about my partner and I, Kevin Meaney, like a lot of those stories have started on a picnic bench in a basement. Actually, so we've grown the company over the years. I think one of the things that's important, I have something important to our customers always had a great basin infrastructure. We've always had a great deal of engineering support from our company. From a company perspective, we feel like it was 25 years ago today. Making sure you've got a complete infrastructure in place for our customers is very important that you can layer on top of those applications that those customs need to run their business. >> Well, you've seen the waves. I mean, we kind of started in the business around the same time, and we sort of we watched that PC era when everything was PC centric. It was all about personal productivity. And we saw the Internet wave. And obviously, now you know, the cloud has been this huge disrupter. And now we've got this digital wave. What are the big trends that you're seeing in the marketplace with your customer? >> Well, clearly, you know, Cloud is not new in anywhere. It has certainly been here for several years now, but in a lot of cases, they're they're they're certainly companies were born in the clown who have gone there 100% right out of the gate. But in a lot of cases are more traditional business. A lot of our customers are taking steps to get there or to build further down there, take advantage of what can be some certainly cost saving opportunities, some convenience aspects associated with the cloud. But I think from a customer's perspective, there's a lot of new technology out there, and not that it wasn't true 10 years ago. But there's so much to understand and understand what makes the most sense for my firm. Might my operation. Can I securely move to the club, right? Can I can I adequately support all of my customers? And I think that's really where a lot of customers are at. They're really looking for guidance. They're trying to understand what all the choices are. How do I move there and who can help me get there? >> Yeah, and the pendulum swings. I mean, after the you know the dot com bust, everybody was focused on cutting costs. You know, the post wide to K of situation. It feels like now people are trying to figure out. How do I get competitive advantage? They C i t. And data a differentiator, and they don't want to get disrupted. They don't want to get uber rise. That's kind of the bromide. Presumably, you see that as well. How our customers looking at that cloud, both public cloud and hybrid cloud as a differentiator. Are they looking at it to cut costs? Are they looking at it, too? Support new APS and be more agile. What are you saying? >> I think it's a lot of those things, you know, I think throughout our history it was all about putting that kind of base infrastructure together and storing a lot of data in a lot of places, making sure it's secure to have a have a proper disaster recovery plan in place. There wasn't a whole lot of thought back then. What is all this data we're storing and how do we take advantage of it? That clearly is changing, right. So with the advent of analytics, we happen to a lot of work in the health care space, which really there's a treasure trove of data out there to kind of help in that space. I think It's from a health care perspective. Technology will be the savior. Despite the fact that I think most doctors certainly conditions that you would talk to you today, almost look at this a burden and that needs to change needs to move forward. >> Well, health care is a real challenge. I mean, obviously you have, you know, hippa considerations. You've got all its highly regulated industry. As you point out, docks have never really embraced technology in a big way. But now you've got you got machine to machine intelligence. You got all kinds of embedded stuff and medical devices, and I think doctors are realizing that while machines can actually help us make better diagnoses, and it's an industry that's ripe for disruption, it really hasn't been heavily disrupted yet. But it's coming, isn't it? >> Definitely is coming on Dhe and again, she only at the hospital level. I think that they're a little bit ahead of the game in terms of how they manage their resource. Is the data the applications down the clinician level? You know much like yourself. I'm sure if you had to visit it, I had an issue related to some kind of elements or injury. A lot of it's not going to hospitals anymore. We're going to clinics. Minute clinics were going to see our doctors and a lot of cases. Those facilities haven't necessarily benefited by technology refreshes over over the last several years. And so they're really right to come into the kind of the 21st century here, along with things like Tele Medicine. So you talk about from a physician standpoint who struggled with just any HR application, which continues to be somewhat of a burden for a lot of folks. Now they've got compliancy issues they need to worry about. They've got to be offering new service is to their customers into their patients like telemedicine creates. Even Maur issues on the back end. From a data perspective, storage perspective, compliance, accessibility and ease of use don't necessarily go together, right? Tough balance, right? And so I think that, you know, from an enforcement perspective, it's only really starting to start in the health care space where is maybe the commercial? Certainly the financial markets have had no choice over the last 10 to 12 years to really hard down their facilities, their applications and their access to data. This is a whole new challenge for the health care space to tackle here. Going forward. >> So versatile are experts at at infrastructure and architecture and architectures obviously changed a lot over the past 25 years, right? Usedto have a nap. And you, you'd put down infrastructure might have been, you know, Unix or a V M s or whatever it was. You build a hardened system around that security and boom. There was your your stovepipe. It worked. It was rock solid. How are architectures, you know, changing today? How would you describe that today? Today's architecture? >> Well, way we do a lot of work with Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We've been a platinum partner. There's for close to 20 years. And so we certainly gotten very engaged with them on their product sets around how they could manage data and certainly in the storage space around their intelligence data platform, which makes ah great deal of sense for us for our customers. We do several things in terms of how we manage data. We also do private cloud hosting for medical applications use. You know as well as we obviously put together solutions for our customers to be in the club, and so making sure that we're securing those those platforms in >> putting the proper >> infrastructure in place from storage perspective from a compute perspective than honesty from a network accessibility perspective is really, really quite important. I think in a lot of cases, both commercial and in the healthcare space especially there are so many new technologies that can saved customers money and provide better security over what they may have been doing in the past and sometimes in health care is not alone. Some of those changes are taking longer than they probably should. And that kind of the promise of what technique you can do to get to deliver to those verticals is here. It just takes a great deal of time to some degree to sit down on. The customers have to understand what your options are. What makes the most sense get them comfortable, obviously that the decisions they make the date is gonna be available, it's gonna be secure. It's gonna be easily accessible. >> So you guys come in with a holistic whole house view, obviously, so you're trying to help a customer achieve an outcome. So my question is what are you looking for? From, Ah, storage system partner. What? What's the ideal storage infrastructure? What do you need from storage? >> Sure. I mean, really, I think Intelligent analytics, which is really obviously something that Hewlett Packard enterprise has been, has really come on strong with especially were initially engaged with that animal product line. Which is to say that the machine itself is starting to take care of a lot of the things you would expect for your I t. Folks to have tea, either worry about or manage on. I think, part of the problem for all our customers. There's so many data points now. We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that the coyote is everywhere, whether it's commercial or in health care. You've got all sorts of devices. Now they're on the network that are providing some level of data back somewhere. How do you manage all that? And I think with info site tools from from HP Enterprise in the storage side, you're starting to get some analysts that they're taking it a much more proactive look at what the infrastructure is doing. Potential issues where you can make intelligent changes to improve performance obviously keep things secure. Those kinds of technologies really are gonna be the I think that a bit of the hope for if you will, whether it's health care, commercial, the amount of one I t cost I t personnel, they're very expensive. Obviously those resource is. And so if you could get intelligent deployments of solution, she's like that, then it can kind of take a huge bird. Enough of the I T department. They could go about working on project worked to a to a man to a woman. All the customers that we work with always feel like they're spending too much time kind of managing their infrastructure on. I do think that we're finally getting to the point where we've got tools that can help us really do that and reduce the amount of effort and somewhat costs that goes into that. ONDA also allow those resource is to start to work in the more strategic projects for the company's right. You know where the activity should be spent trying to either improve patient care and the health care side improved profitability in the commercial space. This is really you know, this is groundbreaking kind of tools that we just haven't seen in this industry. >> Yeah, this is key. I mean, 10 years ago, people were afraid a lot of this automation, I often joke, but it's really not a joke. If your expertise is managing lungs, you probably want to rethink your career. And so but But again, 10 years ago, people were afraid that that the automation was gonna take their jobs. We think today they realized, Wow, this train of digital transformation is left the station, and they want to shift their activities from things that air, not adding value to the business to your point, things that are more strategic. So from an infrastructure standpoint, how are you helping customers? You achieve those outcomes? >> I think from our perspective, we take a very consultative approach, right? And often times I think sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees. And a lot of these organizations, right? The too busy in their day to day jobs, trying to manage the day to day efforts to actually take a strategic view of you know what I got here? How do I improve all this? What kinds of technology should I really be? looking at, I think it's almost impossible, right? You know, we had a lot of very high end engineers who a lot of cases, wouldn't be comfortable going to a small or medium business to spend their career there because it would be that only set of infrastructure they would set up and then manage right. It becomes boring for those guys. A lot of cases, a lot of the ways that we've been able to retain our talents because we're looking at noon challenges every day. New companies with new challenges for for, for their corporations, for their health care organizations to kind of understand one of the issues. How do we come up with some solutions? How to implement a phased approach to get them where they need to be? >> You're talking really about your partnership with HP Previously, HP What is it about that partnership that is unique? How do you guys differentiate in the marketplace on why HP? >> Well, I think for us it was an easy decision. You know, HP Enterprise has always been very partner friendly, which is important. We've worked together for about 20 years on dhe, certainly from a technology perspective and I think for our customers there's a bit of leapfrogging that goes all of all of these vendors, right? So to some degree of somebody might have the best d'oh gizmo for this year, and someone's gonna have something six months later. But there's consistency there. The strategic kind of view of of how they see the world unraveling and how we how we support I t going forward is really, I think, a notch above some of their competitors. I think hybrid is very important. Everybody you know, I mentioned early there, some certainly some companies that make sense that could really almost go completely club. But in most cases, it's just not possible several several certainly of our customer base. That is not gonna be comfortable ever to some degree putting everything in the cloud, but the ability to take advantage of the cloud and keep their their some of their I p, if you will locally to them make some sense. And so I think, you know, for for hybrid cloud in hybrid storage and compute HPD really got advance HB Well, >> in a lot of that to John, I think, is bringing the cloud operating model to your data wherever it exists, especially in health care. People aren't just gonna throw all the healthcare data into the cloud. I mean, there's so many issues they're not, not the least of which is. There's a lot of data on Prem that you just don't want to move into the clouds. Too expensive is too time consuming. So then to me and I look youto comment on this, a lot of that is around the simplicity of managing that infrastructure and three part kind of years ago said a gold standard on simplicity. And now Nimble comes in with a lot of intelligent automation. Your thoughts on being able to bring that cloud model to on Prem or in a hybrid situation, Is that a sort of valid way to think about? >> Oh, absolutely, I think it is. And I think again I go back to health care a little bit. But every 18 months there's storage requirements double on top of that because of compliancy issues, they have to hang on to the data indefinitely. I mean, that's gotta be a frightening aspect for any storage manager who's trying to manage Ah health care organization, a large health care organization. I need to hang on absolutely everything. Email all my files. It's not 10 years, 15 years, it's indefinitely. So that's a a major, a major undertaking in terms of Hattaway. Manage all that, right? So So H P certainly got an array of ways. Thio help with that, whether it's all flash right for the applications that require that kind of speed, this multi multi layers of storage of deployment, backup solutions, right and D r options that obviously a lot to take advantage of cloud where it makes a lot of sense. So there's a multitude of things that they need to think about on. I do believe HP is addressing those quite well. >> How are you changing the way in which you're hiring people today versus you know of 10 15 years ago? What's the skill set profile today? >> It really has changed and, you know, as we talked about earlier, we've been in business for 25 years, and and I think our ability to stay in business for that long has really been our ability to adapt and change on your right. You are hiring practices and who we hire is very different than it was maybe even five years ago. Where I've got to get cloud level architects involved. Expensive but very worthwhile resource is to be able to help customers with all of this. I do think what we get to deliver to our customers, the fact that we've got a multitude hundreds and hundreds of customers and experiences that go along with that that we could bring to the table it just couldn't possibly do in their own. It's quite impossible mission in the largest of the largest organizations. You're not going to expose the kinds of challenges in putting together kinds of solutions that gonna solve customers problems without doing that. So it's been quite a different higher than it has been in the past. >> My last question for you. Think of a healthcare use case or any any customer. So they're struggling. They've got, you know, everybody's got budget constraints. The market's moving super fast. You got this cloud thing coming, Adam The edge I ot you know, machine intelligence A. I a same time they they've got an existing business to runner and 80% of their time, and their investment is on keeping the lights on. We hear that all the time. What's your advice to the customer? I'm sure this is a common story. They want to go from point A to point B transformed their business. They don't want to go broke doing it. They might not have. The resource is so what do you D'oh, How would you advise them? >> Well, look, I think and we struggle like a lot of use. A lot of partners in this world in this country, right? Even in this region. And so trying to differentiate yourself. And we like to think that we're better than everybody else and so does the other two or 3000. Probably surrounded here in the 50 mile radius is really do need to find a trusted advisor that can help you through that. I think one of the places that we start there are there's opportunity to get some fairly immediate return on investment. I think that's important because to your point there were challenges, their their budget constraints. How am I gonna do all that? That those two things kind of go in two different directions. But there are many of our customers, really, Whether it's in health care and even the commercial side who may be doing some old things, some old I t. Things that could be replaced, including the cloud in terms of how they may be. They may be using an old disaster recovery of method, right that you're paying a lot of money for lease lines. It's really kind of a cold site, you know. They might go there once a year to try to see if they can recreate all their applications and get the thing up and running. There's clearly a cloud opportunity in there to save them. >> A lot of money >> reinvest that. Maybe not sit on idle equipment that obviously costs money is under some kind of maintenance, and you need to obviously resource to sport that. So I think that's a good conversation. When you guys get in with a customer and start to talk about Look, there's probably some areas here. We could save you money. So, yes, we're gonna charge you some money to get there. But the return on that is gonna be gonna be much better than where you want today. >> I love that answer. So look, look for quick hits. Try to demonstrate some some savings and generate some cash. If you will think like a business person, use that as a gain share approach. Maybe go to the CFO and say, Hey, if we can save this money can be reinvested in innovation. Drive more business value than you get that flywheel effect and you can build up credibility in your organization. And that's how you get from Point A to point B. Without going broke, he actually can make money for the organization that >> absolutely it's a very good point because, you know, we talked about earlier. You know, I t has been under constraint for quite a while, right? And so again, back to the ability for those people to think and have enough time to get into shitty strategic conversations all by themselves. It's difficult, if not impossible. So they need. They need help, They need consultants and they need trusted advisors. But obviously you need to prove your worth. I do think if you could start someplace where you can demonstrate Look, we could save you some real money here over the next year. 18 months, Two years is a great place to start. >> John, thanks so much for coming in and sharing your insights and best of luck out there. >> Well, thank you. I appreciate it very much. >> You're welcome. All right. Thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volante with the Cube. Will see you next time.

hi buddy welcome is cute conversation we're here with John Barker who's the co-founder and CEO of versatile a partner of H Pease and John tell us about versatile what's your particular niche and expertise sure Dave yeah I appreciate you having me here today Versalles been around for 25 years and we had talked earlier about oh boy you know a lot of companies don't make 25 years and so you know what's our kind of value proposition and we really believe they're working serious consultants and advisors to our customers that sounds overused it sounds simplified but it's absolutely that it has served as well for past 25 years and its really continues to serve as well as we move forward surely into this whole cloud world I think the technology choices the changes the opportunities have never been greater but customers are confused I really believe that they they need some guidance given all the choices that may be out there for them so our ability to really get in with our customers and talk about what their business issues are on how we can solve them has really got a lot to do with our success over the past 25 years so versatile and HPE have sponsored this technology series we're really getting into understanding how storage is contributing to digital transformations how architectures are changing so watch this video brought to you by HPE and versatile thanks for watching