>> Narrator: Live, from Las Vegas, it's The Cube. Covering InterConnect 2017. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back, everyone. Live here in Las Vegas, this is The Cube's coverage of IBM's Interconnect 2017. I'm John Furrier with my co-host Dave Vellante. Our next guest is Eric Herzog, Cube alumni, Vice President of Product Market at IBM storage. Welcome back to The Cube. Good to see you with the shirt on. You got the IBM tag there, look at that. >> I do. Well, you know, I've worn a Hawaiian shirt now, I think, ten Cubes in a row, so I got to keep the streak going. >> So, pretty sunny here in Vegas, great weather. Storage is looking up as well. Give us the update. Obviously, this is never going away, we talk about it all the time, but now cloud, more than ever, a lot of action happening with storage, and data is a big part of it. >> Yeah, the big thing with us has been around hybrid cloud. So our software portfolio, the spectrum family, Spectrum Virtualize, Spectrum Protect, our backup package, Spectrum Scale, our scale out NAS, IBM Cloud Object Storage, all will move data transparently from on-premises configurations out to multiple cloud vendors, including IBM Bluemix. But also other vendors, as well. That software's embedded on our array products, including our VersaStack. And just two weeks ago, at Cisco Live in Melbourne, Australia, we did a announcement with Cisco around our VersaStack for the hybrid cloud. >> So what's the hybrid cloud equation look like for you guys right now, because it is the hottest topic. It's almost like brute force, everywhere you see, it's hybrid cloud, that's what people want. How does it change the storage configurations? What's the solutions look like? What's different now than it was a year ago? >> I think the key thing you've got to be able to do is to make sure the data can move transparently from an on-premise location, or a private cloud, you could have started as a private cloud config and then decid it's OK to use a public cloud with the right security protocols. So, whether you've got a private cloud moving to a public cloud provider, like Bluemix, or an on-premises configuration moving to a public cloud provider, like Bluemix, the idea is they can move that data back and forth. Now, with our Cisco announcement, Cisco, with their cloud center, is also providing the capability and moving applications back and forth. We move the data layer back and forth with Spectrum Virtualize or IBM's copy data management product, Spectrum Copy Data Management, and with Cloud Center, or the ECS, Enterprise Cloud Sweep, from Cisco, you can move the application layer back and forth with that configuration on our VersaStacks. >> So this whole software-defined thing starts, it started when people realized, hey, we can run our data centers kind of the way the big hyper-scalers do. IBM pivoted hard toward software-defined. What's been the impact that you've seen with customers? Are they actually, I mean, there was a big branding announcement with Spectrum and everything a while back. What's been the business impact of that shift? >> Well, for us, it's been very strong. So if you look at the last couple quarters, according to the analysts that track the numbers, from a total storage perspective, we've moved into the number two position, and have been, now for the last two years. And for software-defined storage, we're the number one provider of software-defined storage in the world, and have been for the last three years in a row. So we've been continuing to grow that business on the software-defined side. We've got scale-up block configurations, scale-out block configurations, object storage with IBM Cloud Object Storage, and scale-out NAS and file with our IBM Spectrum Scale. So if you're file, block, or object, we've got you covered. And you can use either A, our competitor's storage, we work with all our competitor's gear, or you could go with your reseller, and have them, or your distributor provide the raw infrastructure, the servers, the storage, flash or hard drives, and then use our software on top to create essentially your own arrays. >> So when you say competitor's gear, you're talking about what used to be known as the SAN Volume Controller, and now is Spectrum Virtualize, right? Did I get that right? >> Yes, well, we still sell the SAN Volume Controller. When you buy the Spectrum Virtualize, it comes as just a piece of software. When you buy the SAN Volume Controller as well as our FlashSystem V9000, and our Storwize V7 and V5000, they come with Spectrum Virtualize pre-loaded on the array. So we have three ways where the array is pre-loaded: SAN Volume Controller, FlashSystems V9000, and then the Storwiz products, so it's pre-loaded. Or, you can buy the stand-alone software Spectrum Virtualize and put it on any hardware you want, either way. >> So, I know we're at an IBM conference, and IBM hates, they don't talk about the competition directly, but I have to ask the competitive questions. You've had a lot of changes in the business. Obviously, cloud's coming in in a big way. The Dell EMC merger has dislocated things, and you still see a zillion starups in storage, which is amazing to me, alright? Everybody says, oh, storage is dead, but then all this VC money still funneling in and all this innovation. What's happening in the storage landscape from your perspective? >> Well, I think there's a couple things. So, first of all, software-defined has got its legs, now. When you look at it from a market perspective, last quarter ended up at almost 400 million, which put it on a, let's say, a 1.6 to 2 billion dollar trajectory for calendar 2017, out of a total software market of around 16 billion. So it's gone from nothing to roughly 2 billion out of 16 billion for all storage software of all various types, so that's hot. All flash arrays are still hot. You're looking at, right now, last year, all flash arrays end up at roughly 25% of all arrays shipped. They're now in price parity, so an all-flash array is not more expensive. So you see a lot of innovation around that. You're still seeing innovation around backup, right? You've got guys trying to challenge us with our SpectrumProtect with some of these other vendors trying to challenge us, even though backup is the most mature of the storage software spaces, there's people trying to challenge that. So, I'd say storage is still a white-hot space. As you know, the overall market is flat, so it is totally a drag out, knock-down fight. You know, the MMA and the UFC guys got nothing on what goes on in the storage business. So, make sure you wear your flak jacket if you're a storage guy. >> Meaning, you got to gain share to grow, right? >> Yes, and it's all about fighting it out. This Hawaiian shirt looks Hawaiian, but just so you know, this is Kevlar. Just in case there's another storage company here at the show. >> So what are the top conversations now with storage buyers? Because we saw Candy's announcement about the object store, Flex, for the cold storage. It changes the price points. It's always going to be a price sensitive market, but they're still buying storage. What are those conversations that you're having? You mentioned moving data around, do they want to move the data around? Do they want to keep it at the edge? Is it moving the application around? What are some of those key conversations that you're involved in? >> So we've done a couple innovative things. One of the things we've done is worked with our sales team to create what we call, the conversations. You know, I've been doing this storage gig now for 31 years. Seven start-ups, IBM twice, EMC, Maxtor and Seagate- >> John: You're a hardened veteran. >> I'm a storage veteran, that's why this is a Kevlar Hawaiian shirt. But no CIO's a storage guy, I've never met one, in 31 years, ever, ever, ever met a storage guy. So what we have to do is elevate the conversation when you're talking to the customer, about why it's important for their cloud, why it's important for machine learning, for cognitive, for artificial intelligence. You know, this about it, I'm a Star Trek guy. I like Star Wars, too, but in Star Trek, Bones, of course, wands the body. So guess what that is? That's the edge device going through the cloud to a big, giant server farm. If that storage is not super resilient, the guy on the table might not make it. And if the storage isn't super fast, the guys on the table might not make it. And while Watson isn't there, yet, Watson Health, they're getting there. So, in ten years from now, I expect when I go to the doctor, he's just like in Star Trek, waving the wand, and boy, you better make sure the storage that that wand is talking to better be highly resilient and high performing. >> Define resilient, in your terms. >> So, resilient means you really can't have more than 30 seconds, 50 seconds a year of down time. Because whoever's on the table when that thing goes down has got a real problem. So you've got to be up all the time, and if you take it out of the healthcare space and look at other applications, whether you look at trading applications, data is the new gold. Data is the new diamonds. It's about data. Yes, I'd love to have a mound of gold, but you know what, if you have the right amount of data, it worth way more than a mound of gold is. >> You're right about the CIO and storage. They don't want to worry about storage. They don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about it. A CIO once said to me, "I care about storage like this, "I want it to be dirt cheap, lightning fast, and rock solid." Now, the industry has done a decent job with rock solid, I would say, but up until Flash, not really that great with lightning fast, and really not that great with dirt cheap. Price has come down for the hardware, but the management has been so expensive. So, is the industry attacking that problem? And what's IBM doing? >> Yeah, so the big thing is all about automation. So when I talk about moving to the hybrid cloud, I'm talking about transparent migration, transparent movement. That's an automation play. So you want to automate as much as you can, and we've got some things that we're not willing to disclose yet that'll make our storage even more automated whether it be from a predictive analytics perspective, self-healing storage that actually will heal itself, you know, go out and grab a code load and put the new code on because it knows there's a bug in the old code, and do that transparently so the user doesn't have to do anything. It's all about automating data movement and data activity. So we've already been doing that with the Spectrum family, and that Spectrum family ships on our storage systems and on our VersaStack, but automation is the critical key in storage. >> So I wonder, does that bring up new KPIs? Like, I presume you guys dog food your own storage internally, and your own IT. >> Eric: Yes >> Are you seeing, because it used to be, OK, the light's green on the disc drive, and you know, this is our uptime or downtime, planned downtime, you know, sort of standard metrics that we've known for 30-40 years. With automation, are we seeing a new set of metrics in KPIs emerge? You know, self-healing, percentage of problems that corrected themselves, or- >> Well, and you're also seeing things like time spent. So if you go back to the downturn of seven, eight, and nine, IT was devastated, right? And, as you know, you've seen a lot of surveys that IT spend is basically back up to '08, OK, the pre-08 crash. When you open up that envelope, they're not hiring storage guys anymore, and usually not infrastructure guys. They're hiring guys to do devops and testdev, and do cloud-based applications, which means there's not a lot of guys to run the storage. So one of the metrics we're seeing is, how much guys do I have managing my storage, or, my infrastructure? I used to have 50, now I'm a big bank, can I do it with 25? Can I do it with 20? Can I do it with 15? And then, how much time do they spend between the networking, the storage, the facilities themselves. These data center guys have to manage all of that. So there are new metrics about, what is the workload that my actual human beings are doing? How much of that is storage versus something else? And there's way less guys doing storage as a full-time job, anyway, because what happened in the downturn? And, so automation is critical to a guy running a datacenter, whether he's a cloud guy, whether he's a small shop. And clearly in the Fortune, global 2500, those guys, where they've got in-house IT, they've cut back on the infrastructure team and the storage team, so it's all about automation. So, part of the KPIs are not just about the storage itself, such as uptime, cost per Gig, cost per transaction, the bandwidth, you know, those sorts of KPIs. But it's also about how much time do I really spend managing the storage? So if I've only got five guys, now, and I used to have 15 guys, those five guys are managing, usually, three, to four, to five times more storage than they did in 2008 and 2009. So now you've got to do it with five guys instead of 15, so there's a KPI, right there. >> So, what about cloud? We heard David Kinney talk today about the object store with that funny name, and then he talked about this cloud-tiering thing, and I couldn't stay. I had to get ready for theCube. How do you work with those guys? How do you sell a hybrid story, together, because cloud is eating away at the traditional infrastructure business, but it's all sort of one big, happy family, I'm sure. But how do you work with a cloud group to really drive, to make the water level higher for IBM? >> So, all of our products from the Spectrum family, not all, but almost all our products from the Spectrum family, will automatically move data to the cloud, including IBM Bluemix/SoftLayer. So our on-premises can do it. If you buy our software only, and don't buy our storage arrays, or don't buy a Storwize, or don't buy a flash system, you still can automatically move that data to the cloud, including the IBM cloud object store. Our Spectrum Scale product, for example, ScaleOut NAS, and file system, which is very highly used in big data analytics and cognitive workloads, automatically, by policy, will tier-data to IBM cloud object storage. Spectrum Protect can be set up to automatically take data and back it up from on-premises to IBM cloud object storage. So we've automated those processes between our software and our array family, and IBM cloud object storage, and Bluemix and SoftLayer. And, by the way, in all honesty, we also work with other cloud vendors, just like they work with other storage vendors. All storage vendors can put data in Bluemix. Well, guess what, we can put data in clouds that are not Bluemix, as well. Of course, we prefer Bluemix. We all have IBM employee stock purchase, so of course we want Bluemix first, but if the customer, for whatever reason, doesn't see the light and doesn't go to Bluemix and goes with something else, then we want to make sure that customer's happy. We want to get at least some of the PO, and our Spectrum family, and our VersaStack family, and all of our array family can get that part of the PO. >> You need versatility to be on any cloud. >> Eric: We can be on any cloud. >> So my question for you is, the thing that came out of our big data, Silicon Valley event last week was, Hadoop was a great example, and that's kind of been, now, a small feature of the overall data ecosystem, is that batch and real time are coming together. So that conversation you're having, that you mentioned earlier, is about more real time than there is anything else more than ever. >> Well, and real time gets back to my examples of Bones on Star Trek wanding you over healthcare. That is real time, he's got a phaser burn, a broken leg, a this and that, and then we know how to fix the guy. But if you don't get that from the wand, then that's not real time analytics. >> Speaking of Star Trek, just how much data do you think the Enterprise was throwing off, just from an IOT standpoint? >> I'm sure that they had about a hundred petabytes. All stored on IBM Flash Systems arrays, by the way. >> Eric, thanks for coming on. Real quick, in the next 30 seconds, just give the folks a quick update on why IBM storage is compelling now more than ever. >> I think the key thing is, most people don't realize, IBM is the number two storage company in the world, and it has been for the last several years. But I think the big thing is our embracing of the hybrid cloud, our capability of automating all these processes. When they've got less guys doing storage and infrastructure in their shop, they need something that's automated, that works with the cloud. And that's what IBM storage does. >> All right, Eric Herzog, here, inside theCube, Vice President of Product Market for IBM Storage. I'm John Furrier, and Dave Velante. More live coverage from IBM InterConnect after this short break. Stay with us. (tech music)