>>Oh, welcome back to theCube coverage of AWS re:Invent Executive Summit presented by Accenture. I'm John,  your host of theCube. We're joined by two great guests, Leo Barella, Chief Technology Officer of Takeda and Don Heiliger Managing Director at Accenture. Gentlemen, welcome to theCube. >> Thank you. Great to be here.  >>Last year, Karl Hick joined us to discuss Takeda's cloud journey. I know a lot's gone by the pandemic. Didn't go away as fast as we hoped, but we're starting to see visibility of the future with cloud at narrow and seeing cloud scale. Um, it's refactoring of business models, new opportunities. How's it gone? >>Well, I think it's a, it's going wonderful, as planned actually.  I can, I can share with you that there are definitely some lessons learned, uh, what the plan was quite structured. We definitely discovered that  maybe we should have actually had about 50% of our time, uh, in the planning for organizational change management and communication. And because we definitely, uh, want to, uh, be able to kind of explain why, uh, moving to cloud is actually important to, to our business. Uh, and so, so if you were to actually do it again, uh, I think we would have probably put a lot more time in communicating the value of the program and wild visibly. Now, uh, we're going to be able to move a lot faster than a, than a year ago. Uh, seeing that the community of the Qaeda is, uh, is already, you know, kind of come around, uh, to, to truly understand the value of, uh, of, uh, moving to cloud >>No last year, any Jessie gave up on stage the keys to success for the cloud journey, you guys were in the middle of it. Um, what was the big takeaway, um, on the, on, on your, your journey, because a lot of people are having real situational awareness and doubling down on successes, identifying what's not working and being real agile. This has been the big aha. What's the big aha moments you had, uh, this year? >>Well, I can tell you that. I say from the, the migration of our applications to cloud, which, which is basically table stakes for elimination of our data centers. So at the end of the program, we're likely gonna retain only few application in our data centers, but move more than 80% of our application workloads to cloud. What actually most excited about is, uh, is really our new strategy around data as a digital platform enabler. Uh, so from now on we're, we're really going to be focusing on the value stream of the Qaeda at the understanding of, of digital platforms that we actually want to able to, to, to further consolidate, um, and, um, uh, you know, and globally expand, uh, the, the, the technologies that we have, but old built on a data foundation, uh, that, that is actually governed across the community of the Qaeda. So data actually becomes the center of our strategy. Uh, and then digital is basically just a way for us to actually interact with data, uh, which includes applications, such as machine learning and AI, which we were heavily investing in. And, uh, and we definitely plan on now leveraging more and more. >>And just to real quick, before we go to a central for a second, I want you to double down on that journey dynamics because we're seeing and maybe reporting, and the theme here this year at reinvent is multiple workloads in the cloud changing workloads. You have evolution of workloads, data as the center of it. And then this cultural shifts where you got the, you know, these modern applications at the top of the stack. So you were AIS contributing. So you've got three major innovation theaters kind of exploding. I mean, this is pretty, I mean, one of those is, is mindblowing. Nevermind, all three. >>Yeah. And I can tell you that, uh, you know, um, I'd like to achieve further expand the circle, uh, beyond the Qaeda. We don't necessarily believe that the digital transformation is just about, I don't want enterprise. That is definitely a fundamental, uh, but the digital transformation is truly about, um, connecting the Qaeda as a digital, uh, pharmaceutical company to the overall healthcare ecosystem and be able to basically transact with our partners, uh, in real time, which is the reason why we actually put data at the center because at the end of the day, uh, when other partners wants to interact with our data, the should in real time be able to transact as if they were transacting on their own systems with our own data, especially DCPS and patients, >>Don your, your reaction, because a lot of learnings, new opportunities, you're at the center of essentially doing a lot of great work. We've been documented a lot of it as well. What's your reaction? >>I mean, I just to amplify a lot of Leo's comments already, I think if I, if I think back and on this journey with, with the Qaeda and AWS and Accenture as the power of three, I think, you know, leaning in to that has been a recipe for success. So as Leo said, we've definitely had some lessons learned, but you know, being there with this power of three, I think has been, uh, enabling us to, uh, attack those challenges that have, uh, that have come up and, and really gotten ahead of those. I think the other thing you talked about is this, um, you know, all these different things coming together, you know, before the pandemic, we had, uh, done done some research at Accenture that kind of had two groups of companies with the leader leaders and the laggards. And, uh, it showed, know the difference in revenue growth of the leaders that adopt technology and those that are falling behind and really, um, that gap has widened, but there's a new entrance of companies that have emerged, which is the, leapfroggers the ones that take advantage of all of the things that like AWS has to offer in terms of the AI capabilities, the data capabilities, the foundational elements that are enabling them to really do this compressed transformation journey in a much shorter timeline. >>I think that's been the element that, uh, you know, I think we know you and I have firsthand together with our AWS colleagues of us being able to really do this on a pace that I think has just been on, on the unseen or unmatched in the past. >>Well, we get to the innovation pilots you guys are doing. I want to just jump on that topic for a quick second time. If you don't mind, that's a really important point. I think the people who shifted to the cloud and replatformed, and then learned all the goodness and then refactored their businesses have done great. This notion of leapfrog is people who move and say, Hey, I don't need, I'm going to replatform and refactor at the same time, get the learnings from others. Okay. They get the best practice is so what's the scar tissue from all the pioneers who have been playing in the cloud, who got the benefits are also paving the path for others. This is actually a motivating, cultural and personal kind of impact motivation. People are happier. What's your guys' reaction to this culture of the cloud, this cloud reef, leapfrogging and refactoring. >>Yeah. I mean, uh, w what I'm saying, uh, and, and lovely, or your perspective on this too, but frankly, you know, I think, uh, you know, with, with the, uh, the war on talent right now, that's out there. I think, you know, companies are investing, whether they're leaders, whether they're leapfroggers in this digital, uh, you know, platform I think are attracting the best talent and actually making it a place where people can innovate. And I know we're going to talk about some of the innovations here in a second, but I think that is, um, you know, some, a way to differentiate, uh, right now in the marketplace, given everything that we're seeing around, uh, retention and attraction of talent. I mean, being able to be on the front edge of this is quite critical in any company's view, but, you know, especially when you're trying to attract the best talent in, in, uh, developing, uh, medicines that actually say lots, >>Leo jumping on this wave and moving leapfrogging, what's your perspective on this? >>Yeah. You know, I, I agree to, uh, you know, talent is that talent is key. Uh, and quite frankly, uh, you know, Takeda, we've been at, you know, pharmaceutical company for the past 240 years. Uh, and now what should you really, uh, you know, starting to become a digital, um, pharmaceutical, uh, power. Uh, and, and so, uh, part of the attractiveness of, uh, of joining Takeda for instance, is the fact that, uh, not only you actually get to, uh, you know, uh, be with a company that is investing heavily, uh, in, in, in digital re-skilling and actually training of people, but also you're connecting to the mission of, uh, of literally saving saving lives, right? So basically, uh, the, the, the connection of really this transformation to become a digital superpower, uh, and also, uh, the, the mission of, uh, of really finding new medicines were, uh, for people that actually experienced, you know, for instance, you know, order of disease, uh, it's quite exciting because it's, uh, it's the application of artificial intelligence machine learning, uh, where now you're actually really trying to find someone that is, that is struggling. Uh, and we're now actually connecting them to a cure that, that is drastically changing their lifestyle. >>It's interesting, the agile agility and the speed of innovation really kind of puts away the old analysis of like, what's the payback. I mean, if you, if you can't see the value right away, then you, then you don't know what you're doing. Basically people in the cloud that say I can contribute and leapfrog and get that value. This has been a big part of the business model. And one of the ways people are doing it is just getting involved, starting pilots, doing the projects. Um, so I'd like to have you guys share the project that you guys have got going on with nurse line. Can you share what you're trying to achieve and how has the cloud enabled you to, to innovate, but also capture the value and can, and can you see it, is there, is there a big analysis there's like a big payback it's like you're buying this 20 year project, or how do you guys look at this? >>I mean, the nimbleness of, uh, of cloud, uh, in our ability to come in and fail fast is what's extremely attractive to, uh, to, to the business, right? Because now all of a sudden we can quickly spin up a prototype. We can quickly actually put it out as a product and actually see how effective it is compared to traditional processes. Uh, so for instance, nurse line is actually what we, uh, it's one of the many, uh, innovation initiatives that we actually have going on, but specifically addressing, uh, one of our, um, uh, therapy areas, which is, uh, our plasma derived therapies, uh, plasma and other therapies is actually, uh, the supply chain actually really starts with, uh, the good wheel of a innovative individual like yourself, um, deciding to actually not donate plasma that eventually is being processed and fractionated to deliver medicines that are life savings in most cases is actually the, the literally life savings. >>Um, and, uh, so what we're trying to do is actually really make that experience as flawless as, uh, in, as seamless as possible. Uh, if you, if you, if you have ever experienced, you know, going into Amazon go, uh, where you kind of, you know, walk in, you get some groceries and walk out and don't pass through a register. And, uh, it's the same type of experience that we actually want to provide where, uh, in the past, um, when you're actually donating plasma, obviously it's a, it's a fairly invasive procedure because obviously you need to actually be in a, being a bad and your, your plasma is getting distracted, but there's a lot of paperwork that you need to actually fill in. And, uh, and what we actually did, uh, is now actually enabled that through a digital experience where a donor, uh, they do a short approaching the center can now actually initiate a chat with, uh, with Amazon connect the ILX. >>Uh, and then, uh, depending on the priority, uh, the donor is going to assign to a nurse that can actually be anywhere in the country. Uh, in all of a sudden the nurse can actually initiate, uh, through, through Amazon connect, um, a dialogue with the, you know, with, with the donor, uh, answering some of the questions in the, you know, in the regular questionnaire. So, so now all of a sudden the nurse is actually feeding up the people work for you. Uh, and, uh, and that is actually done through the initiation of a video call. Uh, and we're actually using chime, which is, again, a part of like, you know, the, the, you know, the, the Amazon AWS services. And then basically upon the, the completion of a, of the questionnaire that is action, analytic, Tronic signature, that has been applied to, um, you know, to the form. >>Uh, and so did, this is actually all happening while basically the person is actually walking through the center or walking into the center. Uh, and now all of a sudden, the only thing that they need to do is actually having a signed bat and, uh, and actually initiate the process of, uh, of plasma donation. So all of this is actually done through microservices. Uh, now everything that we do now is actually API enabled and, you know, obviously like many other companies right now, what I should really think about microservices and the usability of, of technology and, and reusable components. So we're extremely excited about the fact that now, uh, that experience can actually be carried on, uh, to, to other parts of the business and that, that, that can actually leverage these technologies. >>That's a great example of refactoring. What's next for you guys, a division Accenture, what's the plans? >>Well, again, uh, the Google got done. >>Well, I was going to say, I mean, I think, you know, we, we started touching on it, uh, experience, right. And, uh, how do we embed more technology experiences that we're all used to? I mean, you know, to get into some of the return to office, the easiest way for me to do some of the COVID testing has been using my, uh, my trusty iPhone. Right. And so, as, as Liam talked about that experience, uh, part of this beyond just the therapies and, and attracting donors is really key for any business to succeed and thrive. Um, yeah, I think it, you know, if you think about, um, you've got the natives that are really more technology-based, you've got the, the Peloton of the world that obviously have, you know, a platform, but also a product you're going to see product and specifically life sciences companies get more into platform enabled, uh, services that they can provide outside, uh, as a, uh, service to others. And I think, um, you know, the, the platform, uh, experience and the user experience, the donor experience, all that I'd say innovating in, in more use cases like, uh, some of the ones you just heard that's what's next, and being able to, uh, use those guys more even externally to, uh, to do even more good for society, >>Leah, your thoughts with that. >>Well, um, you know, what I should really just getting started, right? So it's not a, you know, this transformation is now cloud enabled, uh, but, but w we're systematically actually going through our value chain, uh, and trying to throw the, understand, uh, you know, our customers, you know, again, as a business, we don't actually sell directly to consumers. So we're, we're, we're basically brokering through, but primarily through CPS and hospitals, right, to basically be able to diagnose a disease that can actually be cured with our products. Uh, and we do feel that, uh, you know, there is actually a huge role that we can actually play because obviously we're are experts in the, of, uh, you know, of the disease that we actually cure with our products. So basically the interactions, like the one that I just described nurse line, uh, can actually be directed, uh, not only to the HCPs, but also to the patients, uh, and the access to communities. >>Uh, and so we want to actually continue to provide platforms by which, you know, people that experienced, you know, especially a rare disease can now actually already connect and, uh, and, and, and share, um, you know, th th the sense of community that, that the business is, is so, so very important, right? For someone that physically has, uh, you know, the diseases that we cure. Uh, so again, uh, I think that the systematic approach of API APIs, and actually making sure that the data is actually ready for say the FDA to actually consume, to accelerate the clinical trials or to an hospital to kind of already understand if there is maybe a clinical trial that can be applied to one of the patients that is, that is actually showing some, some side effects that, uh, you know, or, or symptoms that visibly can be cured with, you know, with our, with our products, I think is going to be, uh, you know, ultimately the, the value that we can provide to society. So >>You guys did a great work and a great example. And to me, and this really showcases the management philosophy of cloud and the culture of cloud, where you take something like connect, and you can refactor and reconfigure these existing resources in a way that creates value, that saves lives. And this is the new, this new playbook. Congratulations on an exceptional story. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the cube coverage rapist, reinvent executive summit presented by Accenture I'm John ferry, your host, thanks for watching.

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's the CUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome to the CUBE's digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm Lisa Martin. Next Joining me is Leo LaBranche, director of Global Strategic Initiative at AWS. Leo, welcome to the CUBE. >> Thank you, happy to be here. So talk to me about AWS and IBM, what's going on there with the relationship? What are some of the things that are significant for both partners? >> Yeah, absolutely. You know, IBM's relationship really started with us around 2016, I would say it was a little bit more opportunistic at the time. We knew there was an opportunity to go to market together, we knew there were some great things we could do for our customers, but we hadn't quite cracked crack the code, so to speak, on, on when and where and why we are going to partner at that point. We fast forward into this sort of 2017 to 2019 timeframe. And we became, I'd say a lot more intentional about how we're going to go to market, where we are going to invest areas such as SAP, etc, we're an early one to be identified. And I'd say the ball really started rolling sort of in the 2018 timeframe, combination of a number of different things occurred, you know, the acquisition of Red Hat, obviously, you know, Red Hat is a very significant was a very significant partner with AWS prior to the acquisition. And so, post acquisition, you combine that with ramping up a workforce focused on AWS, combined with a number of different competencies that AWS or IBM really invested in, around migration as an example or SAP. And, you know, the ball really starting to roll quickly. After that, you know, I'd say the last 18 months or so, we both invested significant in the relationship, expansion around the world really, and joint resources and capability to make sure that we're going to market sort of partnered intentional way rather than sort of an opportunistic. >> Oh, go ahead. >> You know, as I was saying, so far, that's absolutely been paying off. In that we are seeing a number of wins all around the world across a broad set of industries, as well as a broad set of technologies. And so, you know, the strength of IBM consulting services in particular, but also their software, combined with the strength of our platform is really proven to be successful for our customers. >> So you said started in 2016, really started taking shape in the last couple of years, that Red Hat acquisition, talk to me about what's in this for customers, I imagine customers that are that are expanding or needing to move workloads into the cloud, or maybe more of a hybrid cloud approach. What are some of the big benefits that customers are going to gain from this partnership? >> Yeah, absolutely. In reality is, IBM has a long history and relationship with their customers, right? They run and manage many of the workloads. They really know the customer's business incredibly well. They have domain expertise and industry, and then the technology expertise from a professional services perspective to really help navigate the waters and determine what the right strategy is around moving to the cloud, right? You combine that with the the depth and breadth of the skills and capabilities and services that AWS provides. And the fact that IBM has invested significantly in making sure that their professional services are deeply steeped in our technology and capabilities. It's a great combination of really understanding the customer's needs plus the art of the possible, honestly, when it comes to technology that we provide, really can accelerate both and mitigate risk when it comes to moving to the cloud. >> That risk mitigation is key. So you guys recently AWS recently launched, I'm going to get this right Red Hat OpenShift service on AWS or ROSA, can you talk to me a little bit about ROSA? >> Yeah, so Red Hat, obviously, very well known and ultimately adopted within the enterprise. We have built a fully managed service around Red Hat on AWS. What that means is, you'll have access to essentially the capabilities that Red Hat would normally provide, but all containerized within a solution that allows you to have access to AWS services, right. The other benefit here is normally you would get sort of a multi vendor for invoicing and cost model, right. Where you get billed from Red Hat, get billed from Amazon, you get billed from IBM. In this case, it's essentially a holistic service in which there's a single sort of invoicing in vendor relationship, right. So the combination of capabilities that normally would be provided via Red Hat combined with access to cloud and all the interfaces and capabilities around OpenShift, etc, that you could do there. Plus a more interesting and beneficial commercial model. >> So streamline pricing models streamlined operating model for customers, talk to me about some of the customers that have adopted it. Give me a look into some of the industries where you've seen good adoption and some of the results that they're gaining so far. >> Yeah, absolutely. So no big surprise, right? The existing customer base that currently uses Red Hat Linux, and some of the options and OpenShift etc, that are out today are then the right customers to potentially look at this when it comes to moving forward. You know, industry wise, certainly their areas in financial services, banking, insurance, et cetera. We're also seeing some around manufacturing. A little so but some in media and Telco as well. So it's a broad swath, I mean, the applicability of Red Hat and OpenShift is somewhat universal, but the early customer basis has largely been sort of in those three areas. >> What I'm curious what the key target audiences are these Red Hat customers, are these AWS customers, IBM, all three? >> If there are existing customers that are currently using Linux or using Red Hat, if there are someone who a customer who currently has a relationship with either AWS or IBM, there's an opportunity to essentially look at it from any of the angles, if you're already on cloud, or you've already experienced AWS in some shape or form. There's an opportunity to potentially to leverage ROSA to further expand that capability and also have some more flexibility so to speak. If you're already using IBM as a professional services provider and advisory firm, then they absolutely have the expertise and understanding of this product set to help you understand how can you best leverage, right, so you can kind of look at it from either of the dimensions. If it's a customer, that's completely new to all of us, then we're happy to talk to you. But it's something that will definitely take a little bit more explanation to understand so why he should or shouldn't consider us with this multi cloud OpenShift type solution. >> Talk me from your opinion about why IBM for SAP on AWS, why should customers go that direction for their projects? >> Yeah, you know, SAP has or sorry SAP, IBM has over 40 years of experience and implementing SAP for their customers, right. And they've done I think it's over 6000 SAP migrations, 40,000 global SAP consultants around the world, right. So from a capability and depth of experience. There's a lot of nuance to doing an SAP implementation, particularly one that's then moving from on-prem to the cloud. You know, they got the experience, right. Beyond that they have industry specific solutions that are pre-configured. So I think there's 12, industry specific industry solutions pre-configured for SAP, it allows, you know, roughly 20 to 30% acceleration when it comes to implementation of platform. So combination of just depth of experience, depth of capability, combined with these solutions to accelerate, are all key reasons for sure. >> The acceleration you bring up, sorry, is interesting, because we saw in the last year, the acceleration of digital transformation projects and businesses needing to pivot again and again and again, to figure out how to survive and be successful in this very dynamic market in which we're still living. Anything industry wise specific that you saw that was really driving the acceleration and the use cases for ROSA in the last year? >> Yeah, so SAP, we saw an interesting trend as a result of what everyone's been experiencing in the last year with COVID and etc. You know, many organizations postponed large URP implementations and large SAP migrations, because of what you just said, right? They weren't entirely sure what would need to be done in order to survive either a competitive threats or more just the global threats that are occurring. So what we saw was, really none of none of the transformations went away. They were put on hold for a period of time, let's say six to nine months ago, maybe even a year ago almost. In lieu of, I would say more top line revenue generating or innovative type solutions that maybe were focused specifically at, you know, the changing dynamic with COVID. Since then we've seen a combination of those new ideas, right. Combination of the new innovation around healthcare, of course, but also public sector and, you know, a lot around employment and the engagement there. We said a combination of those new ideas and new innovations with the original goal of optimizing, transforming SAP, URP, etc. And then combining the two to allow access to the data, right, that sits inside the SAP implementation the SAP, combine the data then SAP with all these new innovations, and then ultimately use that to sort of capitalize on what the future business is going to be. That's been huge. It's been very interesting to see some organizations completely change their business model over the course of the last 12 months, in ways they probably had never intended to before, right. But it's absolutely become an opportunity and a time of a lot of challenges. >> Agree there are silver linings, and we've seen a lot of those interesting opportunities to your point that businesses probably would never have come up with. Had there not been a forcing function like we've been living with. Leo, thank you for joining me today talking to me about what's going on with IBM and AWS. We'll be excited to follow what happens with ROSA as it continues to roll out and we appreciate you joining us on the program. >> Absolutely. Thank you for your time for. >> Palo Alto branch, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the CUBE digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. (gentle music) (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: From around the globe. It's theCUBE. With digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome to theCUBE's digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm Lisa Martin. Next joining me is Leo LaBranche, Director of global strategic initiatives at AWS. Leo, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, happy to be here. >> So talk to me about AWS and IBM what's going on there with their relationship. What are some of the things that are significant for both partners? >> Yeah, absolutely, IBM's relationship really started with us around 2016. I would say it was a little bit more opportunistic at the time. We knew there was an opportunity to go to market together. We knew there were some great things we could do for our customers. But we hadn't quite cracked to crack the code so to speak on when and where and why we were going to partner at that point. You fast forward into this sort of 2017 to 2019 timeframe. And we became, I'd say a lot more intentional about how we were going to go to market, where we were going to invest areas such as SAP, et cetera. Were an early one that we identified and I'd say the ball really started rolling sort of in the 2018 timeframe. A combination of a number of different things occurred, you know, the acquisition of Red Hat, obviously, you know Red Hat is a very significant, was a very significant partner with AWS, prior to the acquisition. And so post acquisition, you combine that with ramping up a workforce, focused on AWS, combined with a number of different competencies that IBM really invested in, around migration as an example, or SAP. And, you know, the, the ball really starting to roll quickly after that, you know, I'd say the last 18 months or so we both invested significantly in the relationship expansion around the world really, and joined resources and capability to make sure that we're going to markets sort of partnered intentional way rather than sort of an opportunistic. >> Oh, go ahead. >> So I'd say so far, that's absolutely been paying off in that we are seeing a number of wins all around the world across a broad set of industries, as well as the broad set of technologies. So, you know, the strength of, of IBM's consulting services in particular, but also their software combined with the strength of our platform has really proven to be successful for our customers. >> So you said started in 2016, really started taking shape in the last couple of years, that Red Hat acquisition. Talk to me about what's in this for customers. I imagine customers that are expanding or needing to move workloads into the cloud, or maybe more of a hybrid cloud approach. What are some of the big benefits that customers are going to gain from this partnership? >> Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is IBM has a long and storied history and relationship with their customers, right? They run and manage many of the workloads. They really know the customer's business incredibly well. They have domain expertise and industry and then the technology expertise from a professional services perspective to really help navigate the waters and determine what the right strategy is around moving to the cloud, right? You combine that with the depth and breadth of the skills and capabilities and services that AWS provides. And the fact that IBM has invested significantly in making sure their professional services are deeply steeped in our technology and capabilities. It's a great combination of really understanding the customer's needs. Plus the art of the possible, honestly, when it comes to technology that we provide, really can accelerate both and mitigate risk when it comes to moving to the cloud. >> That risk mitigation is key. So you guys recently, AWS recently launched if I'm going to get this right. Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS or ROSA. Can you talk to me a little bit about ROSA? >> Yeah so, Red Hat obviously very well known, and ultimately adopted within the enterprise. We have built a fully managed service around Red Hat on AWS. What that means is you'll have access to essentially the capabilities that that Red Hat would normally provide but all containerized within a solution that allows you to get access to AWS services, right. The other benefit here is normally you would get sort of a multi-vendor with invoicing and cost model, right? Where you get billed from Red Hat, get billed from Amazon. You get billed from IBM. In this case, it's essentially a wholistic service in which there's a single sort of invoicing and vendor relationship, right. So it's combination of capabilities that normally would be provided via Red Hat combined with access to cloud and all the interfaces and capabilities around OpenShift, et cetera, that you could do there. Plus a more interesting and beneficial commercial model. >> So streamlined pricing models, streamlined operating model for customers. Talk to me about some of the customers that have adopted it. Give me a look into some of the industries where you've seen good adoption and some of the results that they're gaining so far. (loud engine buzz in background) >> Yeah one second, sorry, it's like insanely loud. >> Man's voice: No worries, let's just take a pause. We can just, so yeah we'll go right as if Lisa just finished the question. So just take a breather as long as it needs. And then whenever you're ready whenever that's died down, just like give it a beat give it like a second and then just right as if she just asked the question. >> Answer the question then. >> Man's voice: Yeah. >> All right. >> Man's voice: I'll cut it out as if nothing happened. >> Give me two minutes. So actually on your question, I know the answer from things that I've done recently, but was there an official answer Theresa I'm supposed to give on this? >> Teresa: No, not really I mean, I think what you're talking about on Red Hat specifically >> Right, ROSA's early adoption. >> Teresa: Yeah, no I mean, there there's a product page and stuff, it's really about just the ability of customers to be able to run those solutions on the AWS console it is really the, the gist of it. And that it's fully integrated. >> I'm not sure some of the examples I know of are publicly refrenceable. >> Lisa: That's okay, you could just say, you know, customer in XYZ industry, that's totally fair. I'm not so worried about that. >> Teresa: Yeah I don't know if so ROSA. Lisa, ROSA was just launched in March and so it's brand new so I don't have the customer stories yet. So that's why I don't have them listed for Leo. >> Lisa: Oh, that's fine, that's totally fine. Maybe we can talk about, you know, since the launch was just around the corner, some of the things that have been going on, the momentum interest from customers, questions conversations can be more like that as you're launching the GTM. >> Yeah, and there's certainly a couple of industries that they have targeted I'm going to go with that as well as a couple of customers, like, >> Teresa: Thank you, Lisa. >> Lisa: Sure, of course. >> I think they went around the corner. (Lisa laughs) >> Lisa: All right, let me know and I'll re-ask the question. I'll tweak it a little bit. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Lisa: All right, so talk to me about, ROSA just launched very recently. Talk to me about customer interest, adoption. Maybe some of the industries in particular if you're seeing any industry that's kind of really leading edge here and taking advantage of this new managed service. >> Yeah, absolutely, so no big surprise, right? The the existing customer base that currently uses Red Hat Linux, and some of the options in OpenShift, et cetera that are out today are then the right customers to potentially look at this when it comes to moving forward. You know, industry-wise certainly there are areas within financial services, banking, insurance, et cetera. We're also seeing some around manufacturing, a little less so, but some in media and telco as well. So it's, it's a broad swath of any applicability of Red Hat and OpenShift is somewhat universal but the early customer bases has largely been sort of in those three areas. >> What I'm curious what are the key target audiences are these, Red Hat customers are these AWS customers. IBM all three? >> Yeah. I mean, there isn't necessarily the perfect customer that we're necessarily looking for, as much as if there are existing customers that are currently using Linux or using Red Hat. If there are someone who, a customer who currently has a relationship with either AWS or IBM there's an opportunity to essentially look at it from any of the angles. If you're already on cloud or you've already experienced AWS in some shape or form there's an opportunity to potentially to leverage ROSA, to further expand that capability and also have some more flexibility so to speak. If you're already using IBM as a professional services provider and advisory firm then they absolutely have the expertise and understanding of this product set to help you understand how it could be best leveraged, right. So you can kind of look at it from either of the dimensions. If it's a customer that's completely new to all of us then we're happy to talk to you. But it's something that will definitely take a little bit more explanation to understand as to why you should, or shouldn't consider us with this multicloud OpenShift type solution. >> Got it, let's shift gears a bit and talk about SAP. When we think about customers looking to migrate SAP workloads to the cloud, looking at the right cloud providers those are really big, challenging strategic decisions for leadership to make. Talk to me about why when you're in those conversations AWS is the best choice. >> Absolutely, I mean, really AWS, let's say with SAP and with with many of our services is really looking to give all the options that you could conceivably need or want in order to engage in cloud migration and transformation. press AP specifically, right? There are a number of different options, right. You could go for a lift and shift or upgrade from many databases to a suite on SAP HANA could potentially look to modernize and leverage cloud services, post migration as well. And then the sort of final pinnacle of that is a complete transformation to S four or S four HANA as far as why AWS specifically beyond just choice, you know, from a cost perspective, it's pretty compelling. And we have some pretty compelling business and use cases around ultimately the cost savings that come when you move from an on-premise SAP implementation to cloud beyond that, usually the cloud migration itself is an opportunity to condense or reduce the number of instances you're paying for, from an SAP perspective, which then further reduces cost. From a reliability perspective, you know, AWS is the world's most secure, extensive reliable cloud infrastructure, right? Any of the instances that you put on AWS are instantly I'd say fairly instantly provisioned in such a way that they are provided across multiple what we call Availability Zones which is giving you sort of the resiliency and the stability that really no other cloud provider can provide. On the security front, I mean this is really a unique position in that AWS plus IBM and the security, the depth in security services you know, numerous years of professional services work that IBM has done in the security space. You know, they have roughly 8,000 or so cybersecurity experts within IBM. So the combination of their expertise in security plus the security of our platform is a great combination. I'd say the final one is around performance, right? AWS offers many more cloud native options around certified SAP instances, specifically all the way from 256 gigabyte option all the way up to 24 terabytes which is the largest of its kind. And as those who have implemented SAP know it's a very resource intensive. So having the ability to do that from a performance perspective is a key differentiator for sure. >> Talk to me from your opinion about why IBM for SAP on AWS, why should customers go that direction for their projects? >> Yeah, you know, IBM has over 40 years of experience in implementing SAP for their customers right. And they've done, I think it's over 6,000 SAP migrations, 40,000 global SAP consultants around the world. Right, so from a capability and depth of experience, you know, there's a lot of nuance to doing it. SAP implementation, particularly one that's then moving from on-prem to the cloud. You know, they've got the experience right. Beyond that they have industry specific solutions that are pre-configured. So I think that there's 12 industry specific solutions pre-configured for SAP, it allows, you know roughly 20 to 30% acceleration when it comes to implementation of platforms. So combination of just depth of experience, depth of capability combined with these solutions to accelerate are all key reasons for sure. >> The acceleration you bring up, sorry is interesting because we saw in the last year the acceleration of digital transformation projects and businesses needing to pivot again and again, and again to figure out how to survive and be successful in this very dynamic market in which we're still living. Anything industry-wise specific that you saw that was really driving the acceleration and the use cases for ROSA in the last year? >> Yeah so, you know SAP, we saw an interesting trend as a result of what's everyone's been experiencing in the last year with COVID, et cetera. You know, many organizations postponed large ERP implementations and large SAP migrations, because of what you just said, right. They weren't entirely sure what would need to be done in order to survive either a competitive threats or more just the global threats that were occurring. So what we saw was, really none of the transformations went away. They, were put on hold for a period of time let's say six to nine months ago maybe even a year ago almost. In lieu of I would say more top line revenue generating or innovative type solutions that maybe were focused specifically at, you know, the changing dynamic with COVID. Since then we've seen a combination of those new ideas, right? Combination of the new innovation around healthcare of course, but also public sector and, you know a lot around employment and then engagement there. We've seen a combination of those new ideas and new innovations with the original goal of optimizing transforming SAP ERP, et cetera. And then combining the two to allow access to the data, that sits inside the SAP implementation the SAP. Combine the data in SAP with all these new innovations and then ultimately use that to sort of capitalize on what the future businesses are going to be. That's been huge, it's been very interesting to see some organizations completely change their business model over the course of the last 12 months. In ways they probably had never intended to before right? But it's, absolutely become an opportunity in a time of a lot of challenges. >> Agreed there are silver linings and we've seen a lot of those interesting opportunities to your point that businesses probably would never have come up with had there not been a forcing function like we've been living with. Leo thank you for joining me today. Talking to me about what's going on with IBM and AWS. We'll be excited to follow what happens with ROSA as it continues to roll out. And we appreciate you joining us on the program. >> Absolutely thank you for your time. >> For Leo Labrunch I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's digital coverage of IBM think 2021. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, It's theCUBE. With digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome to theCUBE's digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm Lisa Martin. Next joining me is Leo LaBranche, Director of global strategic initiatives at AWS. Leo, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, happy to be here. >> So talk to me about AWS and IBM what's going on there with their relationship. What are some of the things that are significant for both partners? >> Yeah, absolutely, IBM's relationship really started with us around 2016. I would say it was a little bit more opportunistic at the time. We knew there was an opportunity to go to market together. We knew there were some great things we could do for our customers. But we hadn't quite cracked to crack the code so to speak on when and where and why we were going to partner at that point. You fast forward into this sort of 2017 to 2019 timeframe. And we became, I'd say a lot more intentional about how we were going to go to market, where we were going to invest areas such as SAP, et cetera. Were an early one that we identified and I'd say the ball really started rolling sort of in the 2018 timeframe. A combination of a number of different things occurred, you know, the acquisition of Red Hat, obviously, you know Red Hat is a very significant, was a very significant partner with AWS, prior to the acquisition. And so post acquisition, you combine that with ramping up a workforce, focused on AWS, combined with a number of different competencies that IBM really invested in, around migration as an example, or SAP. And, you know, the, the ball really starting to roll quickly after that, you know, I'd say the last 18 months or so we both invested significantly in the relationship expansion around the world really, and joined resources and capability to make sure that we're going to markets sort of partnered intentional way rather than sort of an opportunistic. >> Oh, go ahead. >> So I'd say so far, that's absolutely been paying off in that we are seeing a number of wins all around the world across a broad set of industries, as well as the broad set of technologies. So, you know, the strength of, of IBM's consulting services in particular, but also their software combined with the strength of our platform has really proven to be successful for our customers. >> So you said started in 2016, really started taking shape in the last couple of years, that Red Hat acquisition. Talk to me about what's in this for customers. I imagine customers that are expanding or needing to move workloads into the cloud, or maybe more of a hybrid cloud approach. What are some of the big benefits that customers are going to gain from this partnership? >> Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is IBM has a long and storied history and relationship with their customers, right? They run and manage many of the workloads. They really know the customer's business incredibly well. They have domain expertise and industry and then the technology expertise from a professional services perspective to really help navigate the waters and determine what the right strategy is around moving to the cloud, right? You combine that with the depth and breadth of the skills and capabilities and services that AWS provides. And the fact that IBM has invested significantly in making sure their professional services are deeply steeped in our technology and capabilities. It's a great combination of really understanding the customer's needs. Plus the art of the possible, honestly, when it comes to technology that we provide, really can accelerate both and mitigate risk when it comes to moving to the cloud. >> That risk mitigation is key. So you guys recently, AWS recently launched if I'm going to get this right. Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS or ROSA. Can you talk to me a little bit about ROSA? >> Yeah so, Red Hat obviously very well known, and ultimately adopted within the enterprise. We have built a fully managed service around Red Hat on AWS. What that means is you'll have access to essentially the capabilities that that Red Hat would normally provide but all containerized within a solution that allows you to get access to AWS services, right. The other benefit here is normally you would get sort of a multi-vendor with invoicing and cost model, right? Where you get billed from Red Hat, get billed from Amazon. You get billed from IBM. In this case, it's essentially a wholistic service in which there's a single sort of invoicing and vendor relationship, right. So it's combination of capabilities that normally would be provided via Red Hat combined with access to cloud and all the interfaces and capabilities around OpenShift, et cetera, that you could do there. Plus a more interesting and beneficial commercial model. >> So streamlined pricing models, streamlined operating model for customers. Talk to me about some of the customers that have adopted it. Give me a look into some of the industries where you've seen good adoption and some of the results that they're gaining so far. (loud engine buzz in background) >> Yeah one second, sorry, it's like insanely loud. >> Man's voice: No worries, let's just take a pause. We can just, so yeah we'll go right as if Lisa just finished the question. So just take a breather as long as it needs. And then whenever you're ready whenever that's died down, just like give it a beat give it like a second and then just right as if she just asked the question. >> Answer the question then. >> Man's voice: Yeah. >> All right. >> Man's voice: I'll cut it out as if nothing happened. >> Give me two minutes. So actually on your question, I know the answer from things that I've done recently, but was there an official answer Theresa I'm supposed to give on this? >> Teresa: No, not really I mean, I think what you're talking about on Red Hat specifically >> Right, ROSA's early adoption. >> Teresa: Yeah, no I mean, there there's a product page and stuff, it's really about just the ability of customers to be able to run those solutions on the AWS console it is really the, the gist of it. And that it's fully integrated. >> I'm not sure some of the examples I know of are publicly refrenceable. >> Lisa: That's okay, you could just say, you know, customer in XYZ industry, that's totally fair. I'm not so worried about that. >> Teresa: Yeah I don't know if so ROSA. Lisa, ROSA was just launched in March and so it's brand new so I don't have the customer stories yet. So that's why I don't have them listed for Leo. >> Lisa: Oh, that's fine, that's totally fine. Maybe we can talk about, you know, since the launch was just around the corner, some of the things that have been going on, the momentum interest from customers, questions conversations can be more like that as you're launching the GTM. >> Yeah, and there's certainly a couple of industries that they have targeted I'm going to go with that as well as a couple of customers, like, >> Teresa: Thank you, Lisa. >> Lisa: Sure, of course. >> I think they went around the corner. (Lisa laughs) >> Lisa: All right, let me know and I'll re-ask the question. I'll tweak it a little bit. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Lisa: All right, so talk to me about, ROSA just launched very recently. Talk to me about customer interest, adoption. Maybe some of the industries in particular if you're seeing any industry that's kind of really leading edge here and taking advantage of this new managed service. >> Yeah, absolutely, so no big surprise, right? The the existing customer base that currently uses Red Hat Linux, and some of the options in OpenShift, et cetera that are out today are then the right customers to potentially look at this when it comes to moving forward. You know, industry-wise certainly there are areas within financial services, banking, insurance, et cetera. We're also seeing some around manufacturing, a little less so, but some in media and telco as well. So it's, it's a broad swath of any applicability of Red Hat and OpenShift is somewhat universal but the early customer bases has largely been sort of in those three areas. >> What I'm curious what are the key target audiences are these, Red Hat customers are these AWS customers. IBM all three? >> Yeah. I mean, there isn't necessarily the perfect customer that we're necessarily looking for, as much as if there are existing customers that are currently using Linux or using Red Hat. If there are someone who, a customer who currently has a relationship with either AWS or IBM there's an opportunity to essentially look at it from any of the angles. If you're already on cloud or you've already experienced AWS in some shape or form there's an opportunity to potentially to leverage ROSA, to further expand that capability and also have some more flexibility so to speak. If you're already using IBM as a professional services provider and advisory firm then they absolutely have the expertise and understanding of this product set to help you understand how it could be best leveraged, right. So you can kind of look at it from either of the dimensions. If it's a customer that's completely new to all of us then we're happy to talk to you. But it's something that will definitely take a little bit more explanation to understand as to why you should, or shouldn't consider us with this multicloud OpenShift type solution. >> Got it, let's shift gears a bit and talk about SAP. When we think about customers looking to migrate SAP workloads to the cloud, looking at the right cloud providers those are really big, challenging strategic decisions for leadership to make. Talk to me about why when you're in those conversations AWS is the best choice. >> Absolutely, I mean, really AWS, let's say with SAP and with with many of our services is really looking to give all the options that you could conceivably need or want in order to engage in cloud migration and transformation. press AP specifically, right? There are a number of different options, right. You could go for a lift and shift or upgrade from many databases to a suite on SAP HANA could potentially look to modernize and leverage cloud services, post migration as well. And then the sort of final pinnacle of that is a complete transformation to S four or S four HANA as far as why AWS specifically beyond just choice, you know, from a cost perspective, it's pretty compelling. And we have some pretty compelling business and use cases around ultimately the cost savings that come when you move from an on-premise SAP implementation to cloud beyond that, usually the cloud migration itself is an opportunity to condense or reduce the number of instances you're paying for, from an SAP perspective, which then further reduces cost. From a reliability perspective, you know, AWS is the world's most secure, extensive reliable cloud infrastructure, right? Any of the instances that you put on AWS are instantly I'd say fairly instantly provisioned in such a way that they are provided across multiple what we call Availability Zones which is giving you sort of the resiliency and the stability that really no other cloud provider can provide. On the security front, I mean this is really a unique position in that AWS plus IBM and the security, the depth in security services you know, numerous years of professional services work that IBM has done in the security space. You know, they have roughly 8,000 or so cybersecurity experts within IBM. So the combination of their expertise in security plus the security of our platform is a great combination. I'd say the final one is around performance, right? AWS offers many more cloud native options around certified SAP instances, specifically all the way from 256 gigabyte option all the way up to 24 terabytes which is the largest of its kind. And as those who have implemented SAP know it's a very resource intensive. So having the ability to do that from a performance perspective is a key differentiator for sure. >> Talk to me from your opinion about why IBM for SAP on AWS, why should customers go that direction for their projects? >> Yeah, you know, IBM has over 40 years of experience in implementing SAP for their customers right. And they've done, I think it's over 6,000 SAP migrations, 40,000 global SAP consultants around the world. Right, so from a capability and depth of experience, you know, there's a lot of nuance to doing it. SAP implementation, particularly one that's then moving from on-prem to the cloud. You know, they've got the experience right. Beyond that they have industry specific solutions that are pre-configured. So I think that there's 12 industry specific solutions pre-configured for SAP, it allows, you know roughly 20 to 30% acceleration when it comes to implementation of platforms. So combination of just depth of experience, depth of capability combined with these solutions to accelerate are all key reasons for sure. >> The acceleration you bring up, sorry is interesting because we saw in the last year the acceleration of digital transformation projects and businesses needing to pivot again and again, and again to figure out how to survive and be successful in this very dynamic market in which we're still living. Anything industry-wise specific that you saw that was really driving the acceleration and the use cases for ROSA in the last year? >> Yeah so, you know SAP, we saw an interesting trend as a result of what's everyone's been experiencing in the last year with COVID, et cetera. You know, many organizations postponed large ERP implementations and large SAP migrations, because of what you just said, right. They weren't entirely sure what would need to be done in order to survive either a competitive threats or more just the global threats that were occurring. So what we saw was, really none of the transformations went away. They, were put on hold for a period of time let's say six to nine months ago maybe even a year ago almost. In lieu of I would say more top line revenue generating or innovative type solutions that maybe were focused specifically at, you know, the changing dynamic with COVID. Since then we've seen a combination of those new ideas, right? Combination of the new innovation around healthcare of course, but also public sector and, you know a lot around employment and then engagement there. We've seen a combination of those new ideas and new innovations with the original goal of optimizing transforming SAP ERP, et cetera. And then combining the two to allow access to the data, that sits inside the SAP implementation the SAP. Combine the data in SAP with all these new innovations and then ultimately use that to sort of capitalize on what the future businesses are going to be. That's been huge, it's been very interesting to see some organizations completely change their business model over the course of the last 12 months. In ways they probably had never intended to before right? But it's, absolutely become an opportunity in a time of a lot of challenges. >> Agreed there are silver linings and we've seen a lot of those interesting opportunities to your point that businesses probably would never have come up with had there not been a forcing function like we've been living with. Leo thank you for joining me today. Talking to me about what's going on with IBM and AWS. We'll be excited to follow what happens with ROSA as it continues to roll out. And we appreciate you joining us on the program. >> Absolutely thank you for your time. >> For Leo Labrunch I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's digital coverage of IBM think 2021. (upbeat music)

>>From around the globe, it's the Cube with digital coverage of IBM, think 2021 brought to you by IBM. >>Welcome to the cubes, digital coverage of IBM Think 2021 fine lisa martin. Next joining me is Leo Lebron's director of global strategic initiatives at Aws. Leo, Welcome to the cube. >>Thank you. >>So, talk to me about AWS and IBM. What's going on there with the relationship? What are some of the things that are significant for both partners? >>Yeah, absolutely. You know, IBM relationship really started with us around 2016, I would say it was a little bit more opportunistic at the time, we knew there was an opportunity to go to market together. We knew there were some great things we could do for our customers, but we haven't quite cracked, cracked the code, so to speak, on, on when and where and why we're going to partner at that point. Um you fast forward into the sort of 2017 to 2019 timeframe, um and we became a lot more intentional about how we're going to go to market where we were going to invest. Areas such as S. A. P, et cetera, were early, want to be identified. Um and I'd say the ball really started rolling sort of in the 2018 time Frank, a combination of a number of different things occurred. Uh You know, the the acquisition of Red Hat obviously, you know, Red Hat is a very significant, was a very significant partner with a W. S prior to the acquisition. Um And so post acquisition, you combine that with ramping up a workforce focused on AWS, combined with a number of different competencies at A W or IBM really invested in around migration as an example or S. A. P. Um and you know, the ball really started to roll quickly. Um after that, you know, I'd say in the last 18 months or so, we've both invested, significant in the relationship expansion around the world really, and in joint resources and capability to make sure that we're going to mark, it's sort of a partnered intentional way rather than sort of opportunistic. Uh >>Oh God, >>yeah, I'd say so far that's that's absolutely been paying off. Um and that we are seeing a number of winds all around the world across a broad set of industries as well as a broad set of technologies. Um so, you know, the strength of IBM consulting services in particular, but also their software, combined with the strength of our platform, is really proven to be successful for our customers. >>So you said started in 2016, really started taking shape in the last couple of years. That redhead acquisition talk to me about what's in this for customers. I imagine customers that are, that are expanding or needing to move workloads into the cloud or maybe more of a hybrid cloud approach. What are some of the big benefits that customers are going to gain from this partnership? >>Yeah, absolutely. Uh, reality is um, IBM has a long and storied history and relationship with their customers, right? Um, They run and manage many of the workloads. Um, they really know the customer's business incredibly well. Um They have domain expertise and industry, um, and then the technology expertise from a professional services perspective to really help navigate the waters and and determine what the right strategy is around moving to the cloud, right? You combine that with the depth and breadth of the skills and capabilities and services the WS provides. Um and the fact that IBM has invested significantly in making sure their professional services are deeply steeped in our technology and capabilities. Um, it's a great combination of really understanding the customer's needs plus the art of the possible honestly, when it comes to technology that we provide, really can accelerate both and mitigate risk when it comes to move into the club, >>that risk mitigation is key. So you guys, recently a W has recently launched, I'm gonna get this right red hat, open shift service on AWS or Rosa. Can you talk to me a little bit about rosa? >>Yeah, so um Red Hat obviously very well known and ultimately adopted within the enterprise. Um, we have built a fully managed service around red hat on AWS. Um, what that means is um, you'll have access to essentially the capabilities that that red hat would normally provide, but all containerized within a solution that allows you to have access to AWS services, right. Um, the other benefit here is normally you would get sort of a multi vendors with invoicing and cost model right? Where you get built from red hat get built from amazon, you get built from IBM um, in this case it's it's essentially a holistic service in which there is a single sort of invoicing and vendor relationship. Right? Um, so it's a combination of capabilities that normally would be provided the red hat combined with access to cloud and all the interfaces and capabilities around um, open shift etcetera that you could do their um, plus a more interesting and beneficial commercial model. >>So streamlined pricing model, streamlined operating model for customers. Talk to me about some of the customers that have adopted it. Give me a look into some of the industry's where you've seen good adoption and some of the results that they're gaining so far. >>Yeah, one second. Sorry. It's like insanely love uh worries. >>Let's just take it, let's just take a >>pause. Like we can >>just we can just so yeah, we'll go right as if lisa lisa just finish the question. Um so just take a breather. Yeah, as long as it as it needs. Um and then whenever you're ready, whenever that's that's died down, just just give it a beat, give it like a second and then just write as if she >>just yeah. >>Oh cut it out as if nothing happened. >>Give me >>two minutes. Mhm. >>So actually on your question, I know the answer from things that I've done recently, but was there an official answer Teresa, I'm supposed to give them the >>No, not >>really. I mean, I think what you're talking about on Red Hat specifically >>right earlier. >>No, I mean there's a product page and stuff, it's really about just the >>the >>ability of customers to be able to run those solutions on the AWS console is really the gist of it and then it's fully integrated. >>Not sure advantage of the examples I know of are publicly referenced. >>That's okay. You could just say customer in X y z industry. That's totally fair. Not to worry about that. Yeah, >>I don't know if uh, so rosa, lisa rosa was just launched in March and so it's brand new. So I don't know, I'm the customer stories yet, >>so >>that's why I don't have them listed for leo >>that's fine. That's totally fine. Maybe we can talk about, you know, since the launch was just around the corner, some of the things that have been going on the momentum interest from customers questions conversations, you mean more like that as you're launching the GTM >>Yeah, and there's certainly a couple of industries that they have targeted. So as well as a couple of customers. >>Yeah, thank you >>lisa. Of course. I think they went around the corner. >>All right, let me know and I'll re ask the question. I'll tweak it a little >>bit. Alright, >>so talk to me about Rosa just launched very recently. Talked to me about customer interest adoption. Maybe some of the industry's in particular if you're seeing any industry that's kind of really leading edge here and taking advantage of this new manage service. >>Yeah. So no big surprise, right. The existing customer base that currently uses red at Lenox and some of the options and open shift etcetera that are out today are then the right customers to potentially look at this when it comes to moving forward. Um, you know, industry wise, certainly there are areas in financial services, banking, insurance, um, et cetera. We're also seeing some around manufacturing a little a little less so, but some in media and telco as well. Um, So it's, it's a broad swath of the applicability of red hat and open shift is somewhat universal, but the early customer base is larger than sort of in those three areas. >>What I'm curious what the key target audiences are these Red Hat customers are these AWS customers? IBM all three. >>Yeah. I mean there isn't necessarily the perfect customer that we're not necessarily looking for as much as um if there are existing customers that are currently using Lennox for using Red Hat. Um, if there are someone who, a customer who currently has a relationship with either a W. S. Or IBM, um, there's an opportunity to essentially look at it from any of the angles if you're already on cloud or you've already experienced AWS in some shape or form, there's an opportunity to potentially to leverage rosa to further expand that capability and also have some more flexibility, so to speak. Um if you're already using IBM as a professional services provider and advisory firm, then they absolutely have the expertise and understanding of this product set to help you understand how it could be best leverage. Right? So you can kind of look at it from either the dimensions. Um if it's a customer that's completely new to all of us, then we're happy to talk to you. But um, it's uh, it's something that we'll definitely take a little bit more explanation to understand or why why you should or shouldn't consider this multi cloud open shift. Absolution >>got it. Let's shift gears a bit and talk about ASAP when we think about customers looking to migrate ASAP workloads to the cloud, looking at the right cloud provider providers and those are really big challenging strategic decisions for leadership to make. Talk to me about why when you're in those conversations, AWS is the best choice. >>Absolutely. I mean, really AWS and say with S A P N with many of our services is really looking to give all the options that you could conceivably need or want in order to engage in cloud migration and transformation. Um, press safety specifically right, There are a number of different options, right? You could go for a lift and shift or upgrade from many database. Too sweet on safety hana. Um, could potentially look to modernize and leverage cloud services, post post migration as well as the sort of final Pinnacle of that is a complete transformation to S four, S 4 Hana as far as why AWS specifically beyond just choice. Um, You know, from a from a cost perspective, uh it's a pretty, pretty compelling and we have some pretty compelling business and use cases around ultimately the cost savings that come when, when you move from an on premise S A. P implementation to cloud. Beyond that, usually the cloud migration itself as an opportunity to uh condense or reduce the number of instances you're paying for from an S A S a P perspective, which then further reduces cost um from a reliability perspective, you know, AWS is is the world's most secure, extensive, reliable part infrastructure, right? Um, any of the instances that you put on AWS are uh, instantly and say fairly instantly provision in such a way that they're they are provided across multiple what we call availability zones, um, which is giving you for the resiliency and the stability that really no other cloud broke Right. Um On the security front, I mean, this is really a unique position in that AWS plus IBM and the security, the depth and security services, you know, numerous years of professional services work um that IBM has done the security space um you know, they have roughly 8000 or so cybersecurity experts with an IBM so the combination of their expertise and security plus the security of our platform um is a great combination. Um I'd say the final one is around performance. Right. AWS offers many more cloud native options around certified ASAP instances specifically all the way from 256 gigabyte option all the way up to 24 terabytes, which is the largest of its kind. Um and as as those who have implemented ASAP No, it's a very resource intensive so having the ability to do that from a performance perspective is is a key differentiator for sure. >>Talk to me from your opinion about why IBM for S. A. P on AWS, why should customers go that direction for their projects? >>Yeah. You know, ASAP has, sorry, safety, IBM has over 40 years of experience in implementing ASAP for their customers. Right. They've done I think it's over 6000 S. A. P migrations, uh 40,000 global S A. P consultants around the world. Right. So from a capability and depth of experience, uh yeah, there's a lot of nuance to doing a safety implantation, particularly one that's been moving from on prem to the cloud. Um you know, they've got they've got the experience right beyond that, they have industry specific solutions that are pre configured. So I think that is 12 industry specific industry solutions we configured for S. A. P. It allows, you know, roughly 20-30 acceleration when it comes to implementation of platform. So um combination of just depth of experience, death of capability combined with these solutions to accelerate are all key key reasons for sure. >>The acceleration yet you bring up, sorry, is interesting because we saw in the last year the acceleration of digital transformation projects and businesses needing to pivot again and again and again to figure out how to survive and be successful in this very dynamic market in which we're still living anything industry. Why is it specific that you saw that was really driving the acceleration and the use cases for Rosa in the last year? Yeah, >>yeah. So you ASAP we saw an interesting trend as a result of what everyone's been experiencing in the last year with Covid etcetera. Um you know, many organizations postponed large european implementations and large as a few migrations because of what you just said, right, they weren't entirely sure um what would need to be done in order to survive either competitive threats or more? Just the global threats that are occurring. Um so what we saw was really none of, none of the transformations went away. They were put on hold for a period of time, let's say 6-9 months ago, maybe even a year ago almost um in lieu of I would say more um top line revenue generating or innovative type solutions that maybe we're focused specifically at, you know, the changing dynamic with with Covid. Um Since then we've seen a combination of those new ideas, right? Combination of the new innovation around health care of course, but also public sector and um you know, a lower unemployment and you know, the engagement there, we sent a combination of those new ideas and new innovations with the original goal of optimizing transforming ASAP, europe et cetera, And then combining the two to allow access to the data right that sits inside the S. A. P. Implementation ASAP, Combined the data asap with all these new innovations and then ultimately use that to sort of capitalize on what the future business is going to be. Um that's been huge. It's been very interesting to see some organizations completely changed their business model over the course of the last 12 months um in ways they probably had never intended you before. Right? But it's it's absolutely become an opportunity, you know, time with a lot of challenges. >>I agree there are silver linings and we've seen a lot of those interesting opportunities to your point and businesses probably would never have come up with had there not been a forcing function like we've been living with Julio. Thank you for joining me today. Talking to me about what's going on with I. B. M. And A W. S will be excited to follow. What happens with Rosa as a, uh, continues to roll out and we appreciate you joining us on the program. >>Absolutely. Thank you for time. >>Pearly Lebron chime lisa martin. You're watching the cubes digital coverage of IBM think 2021. Mhm.

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto, in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is a CUBE conversation. >> Hi, and welcome back. I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of Amazon Web Services, Public Sector Awards for their partners. Really interesting, we get to talk to people around the globe, we talked to the vendors, the award winners as well as their customers who have some interesting projects. So happy to welcome to the program coming to us from Argentina. I have Leo Bracco. He is the Latin American Executive Director for CloudHesive and joining him, his customer Carolina Tchintian. She is the Director of the Political Institution Program at CIPPEC. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> All right, so Leo, first of all, let's start with you if we could. So CloudHesive first of all, congratulations, you were the Nonprofit Sector award winner for cybersecurity solutions. Of course, anybody that knows public sector, there's the government agencies, there's nonprofits there's education. The cybersecurity of course, went from the top priority to the top, top priority here in 2020. So if you could just give us a snapshot of CloudHesive for our customer. >> Well, CloudHesive is a US based company, started six years ago in 2014. And we decide a couple of years ago to move to Latin America and to start working with Latin America customers. Our offices are in Argentina right now. And one of the focus that we have in the solutions that we give to our customers is security. We work on services to help companies to reduce the cost, increase productivity, and what should the security posture? So we've been working a long time ago to many NPOs, and seeing how they can leverage the solutions and how they can give secure, how to be secure in the world. In the internet. >> All right, Carolina, if you could tell us a little bit about the CIPPEC and maybe then key us up as the project that you're working on. >> Okay, thank you. So CIPPEC is a nonprofit think tank, nonprofit organization, independent organization that aims to deliver better public policies in different areas. In economic development, in social protection and state and government. My particular program, the political institutions program goal is, or the mission is basically to promote evidence based decisions to improve democratic processes and to guarantee civil and political rights across all the countries. So we on issues such as improving election administrations, legislative work, representation, and that's our area of work. >> Wonderful. Sounds like a phenomenal project. Leo, if you could help us understand where did CloudHesive get involved in this project? Was there an existing relationship already, or was it for a specific rollout? that tell us about, obviously the security angles are a big piece? >> No, we didn't have a previous engagement with them. They come to us with a very short time to elections and they need a secure solution. So we first have to analyze the actual solution, how it works, acknowledging well the current infra that they have. Then we have to understand the challenge that they're facing. They have a very public site, they need to go public and they need to be very secure. And the last, we have to develop a fast migration strategy. We knew that AWS was the perfect fit for the need. So we just had to align a good strategy with the customer need. And all these it has been done in less than 72 hours. That was our deadline to elections. >> Wow, talk about fast. Okay, Carolina, help us understand a little bit. Had your organization, had you been using a Cloud before? Seventy-two hours is definitely an aggressive timeline. So help us understand a little bit as to what went into making your decision and obviously, 72 hours super short timeframe. >> Super, super short. Yeah, that was a big challenge. So let me tell you more about what we do and the context. So Argentina holds elections, national elections every two years. In each election year CIPPEC tries to generate and systematize analysis of provincial and national elections with the goal of informing key actors in the electoral processes. This is and decision makers, political parties, media, and general population. So as our first experience in 2017, with informed voter project, we had this collaboration with the National Electoral Authorities in which we created a landing page in our website where you could find as the voter, all of the information you need to go and cast your vote throughout the entire election process. Meaning from the campaign stage, election administration details, polling places, electoral offer, participation et cetera. So that was a landing page hosted in our website. And in 2017, we managed to have a button in every eligible voter in Argentina Facebook feed. So you could go click there and go to our website, right. And have all of the information summarize in a very simple way, straightforward way. So what happened in the 2017 election day is that the button was so successful that the landing page made our server to collapse in the first hours of the election day. So we learned a huge lesson there, which was that we had to be prepared in 2019, if we wanted to repeat this experience. And that is how we get to CloudHesive. >> Wonderful, Leo, if you could, help us understand a little bit architecturally what's going on there, what was CoHesive doing, what AWS services were leveraged? >> Perfect. Well we need great reliability, performance, scalability of course and the main thing security. We have no doubt about the Cloud and all the differentials of AWS. Our main question was about how do we align the right services to give the best solution to the customer? So we did kind of strategy with S3, CloudFront, and we, at the same time being monitorizing everything with CloudTrail and securing the public's access to all of these information. That give us a perfect fit for the solution, a very easy solution and very of course scalable, but more than anything, we could improve the customer experience in very small amount of time. So this is a very simple solution, that fits perfect for the customer. >> Wonderful. Carolina, if you could, tell us how did things go? What lessons have you learned? Anything along the way that you would give feedback to your peers or other organizations that were looking to do something similar? >> Yeah, well, the 2017 experience was a very tough experience for us because we've been preparing for election day during the 2016 and 2017. And the infrastructure was the limit we had in that point. So we couldn't afford ... We have a commitment with informing voters and informing key actors on election process. And these key actors are expecting that information on election day, before, and after. The lesson there is, we cannot be limited by the infrastructure. Assuming that in 2019, that the landing page would receive a similar amount or a huge amount of traffic volume visits on the election day, basically, we knew that traditional hosting service couldn't fulfill those needs so we had to go beyond traditional and the partner was critical to help us to the migration, to the Cloud. >> Yeah, Leo, maybe you could speak a little bit to that, the scalability, and of course, nonprofit's very sensitive to costs involved in these solutions. Help us understand that those underpinnings of leveraging, AWS specifically in CloudHesive. How this meets their needs and still is financially, makes sense. >> Perfect. When you have this kind of solutions, of course, your first concern is, okay, how do I make a scalable solution that fits on the, just on this moment that they need the behavior for so many infrastructure involved. And then at the other day, they need no infra at all, but you have another two big things that you have to focus on. One, is the security, you need to monitor all the behaviors of the content and pay attention to any external menace. You have one 24-hour day, so you need to be very responsibility and high sensitive information that the customer has on the set of data there. It's good to say that we have no security incidents, and no security breach during the most public stage of the operation, so that there was very good for us. The next thing is from the delivery perspective. You have a potential pick of people over the side to usually manage the content delivery network to answer all the requirements. You must be able to share the content in CloudFront, and so you have, and you can achieve your goals, right? And what I can say, it's about numbers, we achieve more than 99.5 efficiency hit rate you over the CDN, that's over CloudFront. And we kept server CPU such below 10% all the time. So this was a major success for us. Like we have no trouble, we use things at the most. And most of anything, the customer has the security, everything look from our perspective. (mumbles) >> Leo, what follow up if I could, if you look at 2020 being able to scale and respond to the changes in workload and be able to stay secure when bad actors, many people are working at home, but doesn't mean the bad actors aren't out there. We've actually seen an increase in security attacks. So just, do you have any commentary overall about what's happening more recently in what you see in your space? >> Yeah, well, we're very focused right now and while security is being each time bigger, right? One of the biggest menace in security is our own team, because we have to keep our teams auto align to the process and understanding the security as a first step doing things from the network perspective. Then we have a very good experience over this last two years, with all the security tools that AWS is seeking to the market. So we now have CloudTrail. We can do many things with WAF we're working towers of new good security solutions. And so I think this will be the future. We have to focus ourself in these two pillars. The first pillar is, okay, what we can do on our own network and the other pillar's, all the tools that AWS is giving us so we can manage security from a new perspective. >> Carolina, last question that I have for you is, look forward a little bit, if you will, are there things that you'll be looking to do in future election cycles or anything else from this project that you could expect going forward? >> Yeah, definitely. We're going to repeat this experience in 2021. Trying to think of the success was the 2019 election cycle. And in this particular informed voter project, we might want to keep doing this for the next election cycles, not only 2023 now, but for the future. >> All right then, Leo, last piece for you, first of all, congratulations, again, winning Best Cyber Security Solution for Nonprofit. Just talk a little bit if you would, about your partnership with AWS and specifically, the requirements and what you see in the nonprofit segment. >> Well, we see that the nonprofit are growing large too, they will need very good scalable solutions. We see that all the focus that we have in on security is the next need because we have been working on these towers to the future. The solutions kept growing each time. The networks are growing each time. And the traffic is growing. The focus on the security will be one of the appendix of our work in the future. And I think that's the biggest issue that we are going to have. Having good engineers, good hard work and manage the challenge and consolidate all the solution as a need. Right now, we're working on many projects with different NGO's and we're working towers that they have the solution that fits them. And of course, we try to keep, in all the public sector, we try to keep the cost at a range level that we can afford that our customers can afford. That's I think, a big problem that we're having. >> Well, Carolina, congratulations on the progress with your project. Thank you so much for joining us. And Leo, thank you again for joining us and congratulations to you and the CloudHesive team for winning the award. >> Thanks. >> Thank you very much. >> All right, stay tuned for more coverage, theCUBE, at the AWS Public Sector Partner Awards. I'm Stu Miniman. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Live, from Miami Beach, Florida, it's theCUBE, covering UiPath Forward Americas. Brought to you by UiPath. >> Welcome back to the former home of Lebron James, I'm Dave Vellante, this is two minimum, we are here at South Beach at the hotel Fontainebleau. This is UiPath Forward Americas, and this is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage Leo Da Silva is here, he is the process excellent leader for Best Day Travel and Arnold Schiemann who's Vice President of Latin America and Spain. You get to go to all the fun places for Symphony. Welcome to theCUBE >> Thank you, thank you guys for your invitation >> You're very welcome, Leo let's start with you Best Day Travel, travel site, specializing in Mexico and other parts of the region tell us about the company >> Well, we have a leadership in Mexico we are, the last year we have five point four million travelers, okay? And there's a lot of people, okay? We've been in the business for 35 years, 34 years actually, okay? So, we're pretty solid, okay? While 75% of the all the transactions we have online, okay? And 25% we have offline, and that's why we're doing, all the transformation that we're doing is under this 25%, alright? Like, just to get the additional transformation and everything. >> So 35 years, so you started before the internet (Leo laughing) >> So I guess you should be 100% offline you obviously successfully made that transition. >> That's correct, that's correct. >> Okay, and Arnold, Symphony is the solution provider right? the implementation partner in this case, right? tell us about symphony and your role. >> Well, Symphony is probably the is particularly, suddenly concentrated on our PA management and our PA design, and our PA process rewardization. We were invited by Best Day Travel Group to look at the process, to look at the project and we embark in a very interesting transformation for them, so that they could move into their PA arena with a clear road map. >> So you guys are both process experts I mean that's, >> Yes >> You've got process in your title talk more about your role, if you would. >> Yeah, well, I'm a green belt, okay? And at least six sigma, and we use this methodology actually, and we are like, two years ago we implemented like a BPM, the department, you know inside the company, just to lead this transformation, okay? So that's what we're seeking right now to lead this transformation and, it's a very good challenge, you know? It's not easy, but we are trying to do our best. >> With your six sigma background, I think it would really tie right into what RPA is, 'cause you can really understand what has variance, and what is pretty standardized and that would seem is that the direct correlation with thing that you can have, the robot and the automation based on, really, the variance piece? >> Yes, totally, you know, well, when you start, all the implementation was right before where start you like to do a benchmark and you're able to see which technology we wanted to use and well, we found UiPath, alright? In which we found Symphony, and but it's not exactly, I think the technology is the last thing, right? So, the technology is the enabling alright? To do all those thing happening but if you don't have, like process management, you know, if you don't have that, it's kind of difficult to reach the target, okay? So, yeah, it's pretty much, I think it's when you, I think the most challenging is let people know what they're doing wrong you know, what they're doing repeating tasks, right so, when you do, like, the process walk through, people just get amazed, you know, like, what? Are you serious, we're doing that? >> When did you start? >> We started in February >> This year? >> Yeah >> Okay, so, take us back to February or January whatever, December, when you were maybe even before that, thinking about the business case. How did it come about, and how'd you guys meet? Take us through the sort of initiative. >> Yeah, well, right before, it was six months before I think it was, on July of last year, we started a conversation, right? And when I found that, within like six months of benchmarking and, we reached that like UiPath, and we start to ... trying to get something different, you know? To do something different enterprise and we had this need, okay? From inside, you know, from back office to tranformate because it's operation sometimes it costs a lot, alright? The first step that we did was like a future of work accelerator, okay? Which is, it's this scan, it's a total scan of the area, okay? And to see how how big are the opportunities, okay? To transformate things, right, so was the first step and after we had the pilot, we have three or four projects ongoing. >> And you were involved from the beginning Arnold, last July? >> Yes, yes >> One thing which was really very interesting about the project is that the client was the C.E.O and the C.F.O was totally the C-suite involvement So, and we believe that our PA is about the business, is about the process, it was ideal. So, we had really I believe it was really not work but, really a good time that we spent together integrating very closely with the team from Best Day Travel Group, to the point that you couldn't tell who was from Best Day and who was from Symphony, and then we were able to present to the C-suite, the result of the road map to move forward with a very clear business case, the process that was going to be robotized. Simultaneously, Best Day wanted approved inside, saying lets develop robotized version of one of the processes, and we did one which had been quite successful, we were just talking that the amount of work that that robot is handling today life, is such that either robot doesn't operate, he wouldn't know what to do because there is so much work to do behind in the past, and he doesn't know what he did, but today, it is almost impossible to recreate that. >> Yeah, that's correct, singularity is here >> One of the things that maybe you can help me understand, 'cause I'm a little bit new to this technology, how do you figure out, how do you size this, like how do you know how many things a robot can do, we heard one of the customers has a thousand robots, how does this scale, and how does this build out inside of a customer? >> Two thing that we do is that we look at the company, we identify those process, with heavy like, say, head count with lots of repetitive tasks that can be partially or totally robotized, and then we present it as a road map because the first question they have is "how do we start?" I mean, this is a company, 3000 people 4 million passengers, where do we start? How we get good advantage of the robots and that's how we did it, and then it's going on, the project we just did the first part, we continue now with the second part which is going to be even more interesting. >> What'd the business case look like? I mean, was it a saving money, making presumably some of this was cost reduction right off the bat, right? >> Yes, yes >> Lets talk about that business case what's that framework look like? >> Well, the action will have a pilot, that we just did, we launched already, alright? The business case was like, to to reduce cost, alright? The operational cost is very high, okay? So, now, we have like, just to have an idea the situation before would have, like six person working, you know, like the eight hour shift, okay? And doing like issuing tickets and you know and right now we have, like, just one robot and we built a capability of, 126% okay? On this, just with one robot, alright, and yeah, it's amazing, its amazing and 24/7, you know, right now it working pretty fine. >> Specifically, where do the cost savings come from? >> Well, the cost savings is not exactly that ease, but it's a customer's experience, okay? And also the capability that you can build alright? To get more sales, okay? And there's another project that, before that we had the first one, we have to to reduce the cost of the operation you, know, for 65 people, alright? And ... the transactions cost a lot of money for us, okay? So that's how we're trying to we're trying to understand that and we're trying to eliminate those costs or reduce, you know like, as much as we can. >> Its a part of that, you redeploy people, you put 'em on other tasks, is that what you're doing? >> Yes, yes, we free them up, you put another, you add value task, right? >> So the C.F.O is one of the stakeholders here, >> It was >> So many C.F.Os might say "okay, well, we're "not going to cut head count, so where do I "get my savings?" so the answer, if I'm hearing it is well we're going to increase revenue because these people are going to be on other tasks, and >> That's it, yes >> And, do you have visibility in line of sight as to how fast that can happen, whether, is it already starting to happen? >> Yeah, it already start to happen, already start to happen, like in, you know, this project was we have the roll back in 15 days >> I was going to ask you what the break even was it was inside of a month? >> You know, its already paid, it all 15 days, it's already paid, right so, yeah, the C.F.O is pretty happy with that. >> The first project was relatively small right? >> Yeah, yeah yeah. >> You proved it out and now you're going to throw gasoline on the fire >> That's it, that's it. >> That's great, so what's next for you guys? >> Well, next, we are go to the customer service you know, like ano-traceability, there's a traceability project that we have to do, alright? Just to ... To have the client in front of everything, you know? So that's our strategy right now and we're going to do, well Symphony is going to help us out with our PA and with implementation and the process, because its going to be a new process, it doesn't exist, alright? So there's going to be a brand new one so we have to create from scratch. >> Arnold, I wonder if you can go a little broader for us on this, it sounds like you've got a perfect partner inside the company with, you know, process in his title you've got the C-suite engaged, is that a typical deployment, what are you finding? >> Is not typical but it is, that is something that we look for all the time. 'cause it's, if the client is not engaged, we can do nothing, if the C-suite is not engaged, there is very little process people can do and by being engaged the C-suite, we're driving the cost reductions, but there is another point besides cost, consistency, and also we are eliminating side loss that had existed for long time, 'cause the companies are starting with one organization then another one, another one and all of them touch the customer what the probably will be doing to them hopefully before the end of the year, early next year, to be able to see the transverse of the customer, one and a half million passengers arriving to Cancún and they are passengers. But you don't know how many people will come back so you better know that these guys came here they like to go to the scuba diving next time he's around, we can offer him a scuba diving, we can pick him up from the airport, we can offer other services and then, the company is structured to be exponentially, so that you can grow from 4 million to 8 million passengers without adding head count, adding, that is the future of Best Day Travel Group and that's why we have engaged the management. >> Okay, so you're looking at the moon shot double the number of passengers served with the same head count, that's a huge productivity boost, so I'm hearing 15 day break even, some of that was hard cost reduction, its revenue increased, its proven, now you're going to invest more consistency, better customer service, cross selling, hey they like to scuba dive, maybe we can make an offer here, and better data allows you to do that that's going to summarizes the the business case and we're talking I mean, I don't want to, you know, squeeze the M.P.V at it, but we're talking millions? Hundreds of thousands? >> Millions >> Hundreds of millions? >> Millions right? >> Yeah, yeah, pretty much, it's a huge number you, know, its a huge number and, we have a lot of opportunities and, I think it's going to be a success, you know? >> And presumably the employees want to be part of this ride, right? They want to get, whether it's re-trained, or become R.P.A experts, deploy this technology, drive their digital automation and service those 8 million customers with the same resources you know, or invest in other resources. >> yes >> New growth areas. >> Yes, yes. >> Great story >> Yeah, it is, it is, >> we're working hard >> (laughs) figuring it out >> We're privileged to have been work with them because they are, I say unique but it was done for us from day one everything was put in place, engagement, people, and then the company itself is very easy to manipulate and transform because of the way that it was structured 30 years ago. >> And why UiPath? I mean, you said I chose them last summer why, why'd they win? >> Well, because of, well during a benchmarking, I can see a lot of difference between them, you know? And we have concluded that, well they actually Symphony recommend us, alright? So, you want this, you want that for this situation, it's going to be the best solution, right? And after that, we're pretty sure that it's it's the best it's the best choice, right? Because of the personalities, because a lot of stuffs that they have they can bring to us, you know? >> Do you worry about, do you worry about shadow R.P.A, like (laughter) >> The divisions going off and doing their own robots, or have you guys got a handle on that? >> Yeah, you know (laughing) no, not worried about that, you know, but yeah it's going to happen. >> It's a good thing. >> Alright, gentlemen, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE it was great to have you. >> Thank you for inviting us >> Alright keep it right there everybody, Stu and I will be back at UiPath Forward Americas right after this short break, you're watching theCube, we'll be right back. (closing music)

>>live from Las Vegas. It's the Cube covering. Inform Attica World 2018 Not you. Buy. Inform Attica. >>Welcome back and run. Live here in Las Vegas at the Venetian Cubes coverage of In From Attica, World 2018. I'm John for the coast to queue with by host the next two days. Peter Barrister, head of research for Wicked Bonds with an Angle and the Cube. Our next two guests from Deloitte. Leo Cabrera, who's senior manager. And Rajeev Krishna, who's the specialist leader on the engineering side. CDO side guys, Thanks for joining us. Thank you, John. Thank you, Lloyd. The leader in a lot of areas, absolutely doing a lot of cutting edge stuff from c'mon, the Blockchain crypto side tax side also in the I t side. You guys have been in a great top customers here in data in from Atticus, leading the charge, looking good with the trends. But the cloud is here. Cloud scale ecosystems developing. How do you guys see in from Attica? Evolving. Going forward, Mostly great messaging. But they still got customers out there that have sold stuff. They want to bring in cloud native new data. What's what's the prospects were in from Attica. >>Foreign Formica, Saudi lawyer. We have this nuanced article data advantage and basically would consider the inflection point between what we call in just 3.0, industry for point. And it's basically now we want to get value out of the data and our data advantage strategy Focus on three pillars. They have engineering wilderness and enable men for as Informatica Isa great component and a great supporter in each of these areas. Right, So, through these study we offer video service is we offer data governance. Studio chief did offer sheet state all of it. Yeah, on. And we partner with Informatica to profile the data to understand what will be the points in which we can find value over the data on off course with the new enterprise catalog to tool to do better governance for our clients. >>I want to get under the hood. I see the catalog is getting a lot of great reviews. Some people think that this is the next big wave in data management, similar to what we've seen in other ways like well, what? Relational databases and every way that comes on cap this catalogue New kind of catalogs emerging. What's your view on this? Is it away? Visit like recycled catalog, is it? >>So get a cataloguing and data. Curation has bean going on for decades, right? But it's never gained traction on, and it's never given Klein's the value because it was so manual takes tons of effort to get it right, right. So what inform Attica is done, which is absolute breakthrough? This embed a i into their enterprise data can log into which kind of accelerates the whole data. Cataloging on basically gives them gives climbs. The value in terms of cutting down on there are packed in terms of how many people, how many data students you need to put together >>So they modernize that. Basically, they exactly all the manual stuff put automation around and put some software to find around at machine learning. Is that kind of the secret to their success? >>Absolutely. And Down Delight has been partnering with Informatica for quite a while. In fact, we are one of the few companies that have a seat on the product advice report s o what we see from the marketplace we cannot feed into in from Attica to say, Hey, here's what you need to build into your products, right? So we be doing that with their MDM solution. For example, we have what we have. Articles indium, elevate. So we build machine learning into their MP and platform and offer. That's a solution similarly, and for America has built the clear platform into their E. D. C s. Oh, that's absolutely driving Valley for clients. And we have a lot of clients that are already leveraging >>a lot of risk and platforms tools, right? I see a lot of data stuff out there that's like like a feature, not a platform, that these guys got a platform, right? So But now the world's changing the cloud. How do you guys take that data advantage program or go to a CDO and saying, Look, you gotta think differently around the data, protect you explain your view on that. >>For us, data is now the center of everything, right? So any business who want to remain competitive in the future needs to get into entire end twin management of the data, getting the value of off data and also understanding what is the data coming from and what is the day they're going to write off course is studded with all the regulations. And now GDP are coming on Friday. It is a big, you know, pusher for companies to realize that over. If >>you have a big party on Friday, a big party or is this what you Katie was a big part. Nothing happened. So you're never mean GDP. Are you guys have a lot going on there? I mean, this is the center of the conversation. >>Yeah. I mean, we do have a lot of clients who need to be compliant on GDP are on informatica is one of the tools that have already pre established the policies, so you can quickly determine where is the data that GPR is gonna be monitoring and looking for compliance on So rather than doing it from a scratch, right? So it takes a lot of it >>for Let's build on this a little bit. So when we talk about different as John was saying, different generations of data management technology, we're coming out of a generation was focused on extract, transform and load where every single application or every single new analytics application wasn't you identify the source is uniquely you build extractions unique. You'd build transformations, you build load scripts. Uniquely all that stuff was done uniquely. Now what we're saying is catalog allows us to think to move into a re use world. We've been reusing code fragments and gets and all these other things for years. In many respects, what we're talking about is the ability to bring a reuse orientation inside the enterprise to data. Have I got that right? You got it >>right. Two minutes. But the most important parties how to get value out of that, right? Because they did >>manage to get value out of using >>it more exactly And understanding, You know, how can improve your operations or you know, the bottom line, or reduce the risk that you have in your data, which is basically CPR is about, >>and one other Salin point is on very scene for America bringing values their completeness of mission. Right. So when you talk about gdp are you need different aspects, right? You need your data integration. Whether it be through cloud around. Promise you need get a governor on top of what you're cataloging, right? You need security data security. Right? So it all comes together in the hole in dramatic solutions. And I think that's very see value is supposed to like pocket pockets >>of guys. I gotta ask you a question. We've seen many ways. I think it's a big way this whole date away. But you guys, you have a term called industry four point. Oh, is what is industry but the Deloitte term. But what is that? What is industry four point? Oh, me. Can you define that? >>You wanna take that door? >>Yeah, sure. So we've seen, you know, revolutions in terms off technology and data on. We've seen people going from kind of the industrial revolution to the dark. Amira, What? Three terms in the street? Four point off where data is annoying, right? So data is an acid that needs to be completely leverage. Not just you look a reactively and retrospectively like How did we do? Right? And not even just for predictive analytics. We've seen that for a few years now. It's also about using data to drive. This is value, right? So are there new ways to monetize data? Are there new ways to leverage data and grow your business? Right? So that's what Industry four. No, no is about. >>That's awesome. Well, we got a lot of things going on here. Thanks for coming on. The Cube had a couple of questions. Got a lot of dishes going on. That preparing for the big opening of the Solutions Expo Hall. We're in the middle of all the action. You're out in the open, accused. What we do. We go out in the open final question, eyes around the CDO. Who should the chief date officer report to the C I O board? What >>do you >>guys seeing? Because the CDO now picking a strategic role if Davis the new oil. That data is the fourth wave of innovation that we've seen over centuries. What does that mean? For the chief Data Officer? More power? Why'd you report to the C i o? Why is the CEO reported the Chief Data officer? What's your take? >>Traditionally our clients in the past, where the mandate for the studios were more in the data governess, right? As of today, it is going more into enablement the data, right? So more than Analytics case. Still, service is so well seen clients going from the studio moving from under the CEO in tow, the CEO and into the CMO in some cases, more about marketing. However, at the lawyer, our proposition is that companies should do a big shift and funded the new data function as a totally new vertical next to H. R next to finance right, which have his own funding and the CDO being the leader of that function, reporting directly to the CEO or >>enablement side CEO handling much of three things engineering, governance and enablement correct. So the CEO will handle Engineering Dept. Which not just its engineering, full stack developers, possibly our cloud native developers. Governance could come into policy, normal stuff. We've seen enablement more tooling, democratization of things. >>Yeah, yeah, >>yeah. I mean, what we've been seeing right in the real world, Liss, you have, for example, finance transformation that CIA full heads, right? So there's a lot of traction at that point to kind of bring the company together. But then that soon fizzles out. Sometimes you have, ah, the CMO bringing on and marketing campaign and, you know, analytics initiative, right? There's a lot of traction. Then it fizzes out. So you need somebody at the chief data officer of the C suite level to maintain that traction that moment, Um, in order freed value. >>But it seems the key issue is someone who is focused on data as an asset generating competitive returns on data as an asset because and the reason why it could be the CEO, it could be somebody else. Historically, an i t. The asset was the hardware on the argument here is that the asset is no longer the hardware now the data data. So whoever whatever you call it, someone and a group who's focused on generating returns out of data, >>Yes. But it has to have that executive level and that new talent mortal that we're proposing right where everybody knows a little bit of data in a sense. >>And the other thing is that I mean, think about this role that's dedicated to creating value of data, right? So you can understand you know how you create value in one function. Take it to the other function and tell them Hey, here's have helped finance right, get more value and then use the same thing marketing our sales. So it's also the cross pollination of ideas across different functions in an organization. S O n roll like that is helpful in terms of >>just to say, the data could very well become the next shared service's organization. That's because you don't want your salespeople to be great with data and your marketing people to be lousy with data. >>Correct. You're totally right on that. That's what we're proposing, right? So data being another vertical in entire business, >>the Lloyd bring all the action here on the Q. With all the data they're sharing here to you. It's the Cuban John for With Peter Burst, more live cover. Stay with us. We're here in Las Vegas. Live for in from Attica, World 2018 day. One of two days of wall to wall comes here out in the open. Bringing you all the data is Thank you. Stay with us.

>>Okay, welcome back everyone. This is the Cube's coverage here. Monaco took a trip all the way out here to cover the Monaco crypto summit. I'm John feer, host of the cube, a lot of action happening presented by digital bits and this ecosystem that's coming together, building on top of digital bits and other blockchains to bring value at the application. These new app, super apps are emerging. Almost every category's gonna be decentralized. This is our opinion and the world believes it. And they're here as well. We've got Oscar ballet CEO co-founder of Agora verse ago is a shopping metaverse coming out soon. We'll get the dates, Oscar. Welcome to the cube. >>Thank you very much for having me. >>We were just talking before you came on camera. You're a young gun, young entrepreneur. You're a gamer. Yeah, a little bit too old to miss the eSports windows. You said, you know, like 25. It's great until that's you missed the window. I wish I was 25 gaming the pandemic with remote work, big tailwind acceleration around the idea of this new digital VI virtual hybrid world. We're living in where people want to have experiences that are similar to physical and virtual. You're doing something really cool around shopping. Yeah. Take a explain. What's going on when the, I know it's not out yet. It's in preview. Yeah. Take a minute to explain. >>Absolutely. So a goers really is a way to create those online storefront environments, virtual environments that are really much inspired by video games in their usage and kind of how the experience goes forward. We want to recreate the brand's theme, aesthetic storytelling or the NFT project as well. All of that created in a virtual setting, which is way more interesting than looking at a traditional webpage. And also you can do some crazy stuff that you can't do in real life, in a real life store, you know, with some crazy effects and lighting and stuff. So it's, it's a whole new frontier that we are trying to cover. And we believe that there is a real use case for shopping centric S experiences and to actually make the S a bit more than a buzzword than that. It is at the moment. >>Okay. So a Agora is the shopping. Metaverse a Agora verse is the company name and product name. You're on the Solona blockchain. Got my notes here, but I gotta ask you, I mean, people are trying to do this right now. We see a lot of high end clients like Microsoft showroom, showroom vibes. Yeah. Not so much. E-commerce per se, but more like the big, I mean it's low hanging fruit. Yeah. How do you guys compare to some other apps out there? Other metaverses? >>I think compared to the bigger companies, we are way more flexible and we can act way more quickly than they can. They still have a lot of ground to cover. And a lot of convincing to do with their communities of users metaverse is not really the most popular topic at the moment. It's still very much kind of looked at as a trend, as something that is just passing and they have to deal with this community interaction that is not really favorable for them. There are other questions about the metaverse that are not being talked about as often, but the ecological costs, for example, of running a metaverse like Facebook envisions it, of running those virtual headsets, running those environments. It's very costy on, on, on the ecological side of things and it's not as often mentioned. And I think that's actually their biggest challenge. >>Can you get an example for folks that don't are in the weeds on that? What's the what's what do you mean by that? The cost of build the headsets? Is it the >>Servers? It's more of the servers, really? You need to run a lot of servers, which is really costly on the environment and environmental questions are at the center of public debates. Anyways, and companies have to play that game as well. So they will have to find kind of this balance between, well, building this cool metaverse, but doing it in an ecological friendly manner as well. I think that's their toughest challenge. >>And what's your solution just using the blockchain? Well, an answer to that, cause some people say, Hey, that's not that's, that's not. So eco-friendly either, >>That's part of it. And it's also part of why we're choosing an ecosystem such as Lana as a starter. It's not limited to only Salana, but Salala is, is known as a blockchain. That is very much ecological. Inclined transactions are less polluting. And definitely this problem is, is tackled in the fact that we are offering this product on a case by case scenario brands come to us, we build this environment and we run something that is proper to them. So the scale of it is also way less important that what Facebook is trying to build. >>Yeah. They're trying to build the all encompassing. Yeah. All singing old dancing, as we say system, and then they're not getting a lot of luck. They just got slammed dunked this week on the news, I saw the, you know, FTC moved against them on the acquisition of the exercise app. >>It's it's a tough, it's a tough battle for them. Let's say they >>Still have, they got a headwind. I wouldn't say tailwind. They broke democracy. So they gotta pay for it. Right. Exactly. I always say definitely revenge going on there. I'm not a big fan of what they did. The FTC. I think that's bad move. They shouldn't block acquisitions, but they do buy, they don't really build much. That's well documented. Facebook really hasn't built anything except for Facebook. That's right. Mean what's the one thing Facebook has done besides Facebook. >>I mean, >>It's everything they've tried is failed except for Facebook. Yeah. >>So we'll see what's going on with the Methodist side. >>Well, so successful, not really one trick bony. Yeah. They bought Instagram. They bought WhatsApp, you know, and not really successful. >>That's true. They do have the, the means though, to maybe become successful with something. So >>You're walking out there, John just said, Facebook's not successful. I meant they don't. They have a one product company. They use their money to buy everything. Yeah. And that's some people don't like that, but anyway, the startups like to get bought out. Yeah. Okay. So let's get back to the metaverse it's coming out is the business model to build for others. Are you gonna have a system for users? What's what's the approach? How do you, how are we view viewing this? What's the, the business you're going after? >>So we are very much a B2B type of service where we can create custom kind of tailor made virtual environments for brands, where we dedicate our team to building those environments, which has been what we have been at the start to really kickstart the initiative. But we're also developing the tool that will allow antibody to develop their own shop themselves, using what we give them to do something kind of like the Sims for those that know, building their environment and building their shop, which will they, they, they will then be to put online and for anybody of their user base customers to have a look at. So it's, it's kind of, yeah, the tailor made experience, but also the more broader experience where we want to create this tool, develop this tool, make it accessible to the public with a subscription based model where any individual that has an idea and maybe a product that is interesting for the metaverse be able to create this virtual storefront and upload it directly. >>How long does it take to build an environment? Let's say I was, I wanna do a cube. Yeah. I go to a lot of venues all around the world. Yeah. MOSCON and San Francisco, the San convention center in Las Vegas, we're here in Monaco. How do I replicate these environments? Do I call you up and say, Hey, I need some artists. Do you guys render it? What's the take us through the process. >>Yeah. It's, it's basically a case by case scenario at the moment, very much. We're working with our partners that find brands that are interested in getting into the metaverse and we then design the shops. Well, it depends on the brands. Some have a really clear idea of what they want. Some are a bit more open to it and they're like, well, we have this and this, can you build something? >>I mean, I mean, I can see the apple store saying, Hey, you know, they're pretty standard apple stores. You got cases of iWatches. Yeah. I mean that's easily to, replicateable probably good ROI for them. >>Exactly. It's it's is that what you're thinking? Their team. Exactly. Yeah. It depends. And we, we want to add a layer of something cuz just replicating the store simply. Yeah. It's it's maybe not as interesting, you know, it just, oh, okay. I'm in the store. It's white, everywhere. It's apple. Right. It's like, oh I'm in at the dentist, but we want to add some video game elements to the, to those experiences. But very subtle ones, ones that won't make you feel, oh, I'm playing one of these games, you know? It's yeah. Very supple. >>You can, you can jump into immersive experience as defined by the brand. Yeah. I mean the brand will control the values. So you're say apple and you're at the iWatch table. Yeah. You could have a digital assistant pop in there with an avatar. Exactly. You can jump down a rabbit hole and say, Hey, I want this iWatch. I'm a bike mountain biker. For example, I could get experience of mountain biking with my watch on I fall off, ambulance sticks me up. I mean, all these things that they advertise is what goes >>On. Yeah. And we can recreate these experiences and what they're advertising and into a more immersive experience is what we're trying to our, our goal is to create experiences. We know that, you know, why does someone is someone spend so much at Disneyland? It's like triple the price of whatever, because you know, it's Mickey mouse around you. It's, that's the experience that comes around. And often the experience is more important than the product. Sometimes >>It's hard. It's really hard to get that first class citizen experience with the event or venue physical. Yeah. Which is a big challenge. I know the metaverse are gonna try to solve this. So I gotta ask you what's your vision on solving that? Okay. Cause that's the holy grail. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah. I got a physical event or place. I wanna replicate it in the metaverse but create that just as good first party citizen like experience. >>Yeah. I mean that's the whole event event type of business side of the metaverse is also a huge one. It's one that we are choosing to tackle after the e-commerce one. But it's definitely something that has been asked a lot by the brands where like we want to create, like, we want to release this store for an event that is in real life, but we want to make it accessible to the largest number. That's why we saw with Fortnite as well. All those events, the fashion week in the central land. And >>Sand's a Cub in the Fortnite too. >>There you go. And so the, the event aspect is super important and we want those meta shops to be places where a brand can organize an event. Let's say they want to make the entrance paid. They can do an NFD for that if they want. And then they have to, the user has to connect the NFD to access the event with an idea. Right. But that's definitely possible. And that's how we leverage blockchain as well with those companies and say, you know, you're not familiar with >>This method. You're badging, you know, you're the gaming where we were talking earlier. Yeah. Badging and credentials and access methods. A tech concept can be easily forwarded to NFTs. Yeah, >>Exactly. Exactly. And brands are interested in that. >>Sure. Of course. Yeah. By being the NFT. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So I gotta ask you the origination story. Take me through the, the, how this all started. Yeah. Was it a seat of an idea you and your friends get together? Yeah. It was an it scratch. And when you're really into this, what's the origination story and where you're at now. >>So we started off in January really with a, quite a, a different idea. It was called the loft business club. It's an NFT collection on the Salina blockchain. And the whole idea beyond it is that NFT holders would have access to their virtual apartments that we called the lofts. It got very popular. We got a really big following at the start. It was really the trend back in January, February. And we managed to, to sell out successfully the whole collection of 5,000 NFTs. And yeah, we started as a group of friends, really like-minded friends from my hometown in, in, met in France who are today, the co-founders and the associates with different backgrounds. Leo has the marketing side of things. A club has the 3d designing. We had all our different skills coming into it. Obviously my English was quite helpful as well cause French people in English it's, it's not often the best French English. Yeah. And I was, the COO has been doing amazing on the kind of the serious stuff. You know, the taxis lawyers >>Operational to all of trains running on time. >>Exactly >>Sure. People get their jobs done. >>Yeah, exactly. So >>It's well too long of a lunch cuz you know, French would take what, two hour lunches. Yeah. You >>Have to enjoy it. Yeah. >>Coffee and stuff. That's wine, you know about creative, >>But yeah, it's, it's a friend stuff that started as a, as a passion project and got so quick. And today I'm here talking to you in this setting. It's like, >>You're pretty excited. >>I mean it's super excited. It's such a we're you know, we feel like we're building something that's new and our developer team, we're now a team of 15 in total with developers based in Paris, mostly. And everybody is, is feeling like, you know, they're contributing to something new and that's, what's exciting about it. You know, it's something that's not really done or it's trying to be done, but nobody really knows the way >>It's pioneering days. But the, but the pandemic has shifted the culture faster because people like certainly the gen Zs are like, I don't wanna reuse that old stuff. Yeah. And, but they still want to go to like games or events or go to stores. Yeah. But once to go to a store, I mean, I go to apple store all the time where I live in Palo Alto, California. And it's like, yeah, I love that store. And I know it by heart. I don't, I don't have to go there. Yeah. Walking into the genius bar virtually I get the same job done. Yeah, >>Exactly. That's that's what we want to do. And the other pandemic is just it's it's been all about improving, you know, people's condition, life conditions at home, I think. And that's what kind of boosted the whole metaverse conversation and Facebook really grabbing onto it as well. It's just that people were stuck at home and for gamers, that's fine. We used to be stuck at home playing video games all day. Yeah. We survived the pandemic fine. But for other people it was a bit more of a new >>Experience. Well, Oscar, one of the cool things is that you said like mind you and your founding team, always the secret to success. But now you see a lot of old guys like me and gals coming in too, your smart people are like-minded they get it. Especially ones that have seen the ways before, when you have this kind of change, it's a cultural shift and technology shift and business model shift at the same time. Yeah. And to me there's gonna be chaos, but at the end of the day, >>I mean there's fun and >>Chaos. That's opportunity. There's a fun and fun and opportunity. >>It's fun and chaos, you know, and yeah. Likeminded people and the team has really been the driving factor with our company. We are all very much excited about what we're doing and it's been driving us forward. >>Well, keep in touch. Thanks for coming on the cube and sharing, sharing a story with us in the world. We really appreciate we'll keep in touch with you guys. Do love what you do. Oscar ballet here inside the cube Argo verse eCommerce shop. The beginning of this wave is happening. The convergence of physical virtual is a hybrid mode. It's a steady state. It is not gonna go away. It's only gonna get bigger, more cooler, more relevant than ever before. Cube covering it like a blanket here in Monaco, crypto summit. I'm John furrier. We'll be right back after this short break.

>> Welcome back to theCUBE's covering of AWS Public Sector Summit. In-person here in Washington, DC. I'm John Furrier, your host, great to be back face to face. We've got a great, special guest Clint Crosier, who is the Director of AWS' Aerospace & Satellite. Major General of The Air Force/Space Force. Retired. Great to see you in person again. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. >> First of all, props to you for doing a great job at Amazon, bringing all your knowledge from Space Force and Air Force into the cloud. >> Thank you. >> So that's great, historical context. >> It's been valuable and it's provided a whole lot of insight into what we're building with the AWS space team, for sure. >> So number one question I get a lot is: We want more space content. What's the coolest thing going on in space? Is there a really a satellite behind the moon there, hidden there somewhere? What's the coolest thing going on in space? >> Well, the coolest thing that's going on in space, I think is you're seeing the rapid growth of the space industry, I mean, to me. I've been in the space industry for 34 years now, and there have been periods where we projected lots of growth and activity and it just didn't really come about, especially in the 80's and the 90's. But what we're seeing today is that growth is taking place. Whether it's the numbers of satellites that are being launched around the globe every year, there's some 3,000 objects on orbit today. Estimates are that there'll be 30,000 objects at the end of the decade, or the number of new companies, or the number of global spinning. It is just happening right now, and it's really exciting. >> So, when people say or hear space, there's a lot of economic changes in terms of the cost structures of how to get things deployed into space. That brings up the question of: Is space an opportunity? Is it a threat vector? What about congestion and security? >> Yeah, well three great things, absolutely an opportunity. We're seeing the rapid growth of the space industry, and we're seeing more commercialization than ever before. In my whole career, The Air Force or, NASA, or the NRO would sort of, hold things and do them themselves Today, you're seeing commercial contracts going out from the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA, from The Air Force, from the Space Force. So lots of opportunity for commercial companies. Security. Absolutely, priority number one should be security is baked into everything we do at AWS. And our customers, our Government classified customers tell us the reason they came to AWS is our security is top notch and certified for all their workloads. And as you well know, we have from unclassified all the way up to top secret capabilities on the AWS cloud. So just powerful opportunities for our customers. >> Yeah. And a lot of competitors will throw foot on that. I know, I've reported on some of that and not a lot of people have that same credential. >> Sure. >> Compared to the competition. >> Sure. >> Now I have to ask you, now that you have the top secret, all these clouds that are very tailorable, flexible with space: How are you helping customers with this Aerospace Division? Is it is a commercial? In the public sector together? What's the... >> All of the above. >> Take us through the value proposition. >> Yeah, happy to do this. So what we recognized over the last two years or so we, at AWS, recognized all this rapid growth that we're talking about within the space industry. Every sector from launch to on-orbit activities, to space exploration, all of it. And so AWS saw that and we looked at ourselves and said: "Do we have the right organization and expertise in place really to help our customers lean into that?" And the answer was: we decided to build a team that had deep experience in space, and that was the team that we grew because our thesis was: If you have a deep experience in space, a deep experience in cloud, you bring those two together and it's a powerful contribution. And so we've assembled a team with more than 500 years of collective hands-on experience, flying satellites, launching rockets. And when we sit down with our customers to innovate on their behalf, we're able to come up with some incredible solutions and I'm happy to talk about those. >> I'd love to, but tell you what, first of all, there's a lot of space nerds out there. I love space. I love space geeking out on the technology, but take us through the year you had, you've had a pretty incredible year with some results. You have that brain trust there. I know you're hiring. I know that people want to work for you. I'm sure the resumes are flying in, a lot of action. >> There is. >> What are the highlights from this year? >> So the highlights I think is, we've built a team that the industry is telling us was needed. Again, there was no organization that really served the space cloud industry. And so we're kind of building this industry within the industry, the space cloud industry. And so number one, just establishing that team and leaning into that industry has been valuable. The other thing that we're real proud of is we built a global team, because space is a global enterprise. We have teams in Europe and in Asia and South America here in the U.S., so we built a global team. One of the things that we did right up front, we weren't even six months old, when we envisioned the idea of doing the AWS Space Accelerator. And some of the folks told me: "Clint, six months under your belt, maybe you ought to get your feet under you." And I said: "No, no. We move fast to support our customers." And so we made a call for any space startup that wanted to come on board with AWS and go through our four week Space Accelerator. We partnered with Sarah from Capital. And the idea was: if you're a small company that wants to grow and build and learn how you can use the cloud to gain competitive advantage, come with us. And so John, I would have been happy if we had 50 companies applied, we had 194 companies across 44 countries that applied to our accelerator. We had to down select a 10, but that was a tremendous accomplishment, two of those are speaking this afternoon, where they met each other at our accelerator and now have formed a partnership: Ursa Space and HawkEye 360 on how they build on the cloud together. Fascinating. >> Well, I love that story. First of all, I love the military mindset. No, we're not going to wait. >> Move it out. >> It's not take that hill, it's take that planet. >> Our customers won't wait, innovation, doesn't wait, the future doesn't wait. We have to move out. >> So, this brings up the entrepreneurship angle. We got there a little early, but I want to talk about it because it's super important. There's an entrepreneurial culture happening right now in the space community >> There is. At large, and it's getting bigger and wider. >> Bigger every day. >> What is that? What if someone says: "Hey, what's going on with entrepreneurship in this space? What are the key dynamics? What's the power dynamics?" It's not money, there's money out there, but like what's the structural thing happening? >> The key dynamic, I think, is we're seeing that we can unlock things that we could never do before. And one of our goals is: the more space data we can make more accessible to more people around the world. It unlocks things we couldn't do. We're working with space companies who are using space data to track endangered whales off the coast of California. We're working with companies that are using space data to measure thermal and greenhouse emissions for climate change and climate management. We're working with one company, Edgybees, who has a small satellite constellation, and they're using it to build satellite based, augmented reality, to provide it to first responders as they go into a disaster response area. And they get a 3D-view of what they're going into. None of those workloads were possible five years ago. And the cloud and cloud-based technologies are really what opens those kinds of workloads up. >> What kind of higher level services do you see emerging from space cloud? Because you know, obviously you have to have some infrastructure. >> Absolutely. Got to put some stuff into space. That's a supply chain, reliability, also threat. I mean, I can have a satellite attack, another satellite, or I'm just making that up, but I'm sure there's other scenarios that the generals are thinking about. >> So space security and cyberspace security is critical. And as I said, it's built into everything we do in all of our platforms, so you're absolutely right about that, but when we think about the entrepreneurship, you know, what we're seeing is, and I'll give you a good example of why the industry is growing so fast and why cloud. So one company we work with, LeoLabs. So Leo identified the growth in the LEO: Low Earth Orbit segment. 3,000 objects on orbit today, 30,000 tomorrow. Who's going to do the space traffic management for 30,000 objects in space that are all in the same orbital regime? And so LeoLabs built a process to do space traffic management, collision avoidance. They were running it on premises. It took them eight hours to do a single run for a single satellite conjunction. We got them to help understand how to use the cloud. They moved all that to AWS. Now that same run they do in 10 seconds. Eight hours to 10 seconds. Those are the kind of workloads as space proliferates in and we grow, that we just can't execute without cloud and cloud-based technologies. >> It's interesting, you know, the cloud has that same kind of line: move your workloads to the cloud and then refactor. >> Yeah. So space workloads are coming to the cloud. >> They are. >> Just changing the culture. So I have to ask you, I know there's a lot of young people out there looking for careers and interests. I mean, Cal poly is going into the high school now offering classes. >> Yeah So high school, there's so much interest in space and technology. What is the cultural mindset to be successful? Andy Jassy last year, reading and talk about the mindset of the builder and the enterprise CXO: "Get off your butt and start building" There's a space ethos going on. What is the mindset? Would you share your view on it? >> The mindset is innovation and moving fast, right? We, we lived, most of my career, in the time where we had an unlimited amount of money and unlimited amount of time. And so we were really slow and deliberate about how we built things. The future won't wait, whether it's commercial application, or military application, we have to move fast. And so the culture is: the faster we can move, The more we'll succeed, and there's no way to move faster than when you're building on the AWS cloud. Ground station is a good example. You know, the proposition of the cloud is: Don't invest your limited resources in your own infrastructure that doesn't differentiate your capability. And so we did that same thing with ground station. And we've said to companies: "Don't spend millions of dollars on developing your own ground station infrastructure, pay by the minute to use AWS's and focus your limited resources back in your product, which differentiate your space mission." and that's just been power. >> How is that going from customer perspective? >> Great. It's going great. We continue to grow. We added another location recently. And just in the last week we announced a licensed accelerator. One of the things our customers told us is it takes too long to work with global governments to get licensed, to operate around the world. And we know that's been the case. So we put together a team that leaned in to solve that problem, and we just announced the licensed accelerator, where we will work with companies to walk them through that process, and we can shave an 18 month process into a three or four month process. And that's been... we've gotten great response on that from our company. >> I've always said: >> I remember when you were hired and the whole space thing was happening. I remember saying to myself: "Man, if democratization can bring, come to space" >> And we're seeing that happening >> You guys started it and you guys, props to your team. >> Making space available to more and more people, and they'll dazzle us with the innovative ways we use space. 10 years ago, we couldn't have envisioned those things I told you about earlier. Now, we're opening up all sorts of workloads and John, real quick, one of the reasons is, in the past, you had to have a specific forte or expertise in working with space data, 'cause it was so unique and formatted and in pipeline systems. We're making that democratized. So it's just like any other data, like apps on your phone. If you can build apps for your phone and manage data, we want to make it that easy to operate with space data, and that's going to change the way the industry operates. >> And that's fundamentally, that's great innovation because you're enabling that. That's why I have to ask you on that note Of the innovation trends that you see or activities: What excites you the most? >> So a lot of things, but I'll give you two examples very quickly: One is high-performance compute. We're seeing more and more companies really lean in to understanding how fast they can go on AWS. I told you about LeoLabs, eight hours to 10 seconds. But that high-performance computes going to be a game changer. The other thing is: oh, and real quick, I want to tell you, Descartes Labs. So Descartes Labs came to us and said: "We want to compete in the Annual Global Top 500 supercomputer challenge" And so we worked with them for a couple of weeks. We built a workload on the AWS standard platform. We came in number 40 in the globe for the Top 500 super computer lists, just by building some workloads on our standard platform. That's powerful, high-performance compute. But the second example I wanted to give you is: digital modeling, digital simulation, digital engineering. Boom Aerospace is a company, Boom, that we work with. Boom decided to build their entire supersonic commercial, supersonic aircraft, digital engineering on the AWS cloud. In the last three years, John, they've executed 6,000 years of high-performance compute in the last three years. How do you do 6,000 years in compute in three years? You spin up thousands of AWS servers simultaneously, let them do your digital management, digital analysis, digital design, bring back a million different perturbations of a wing structure and then pick the one that's best and then come back tomorrow and run it again. That's powerful. >> And that was not even possible, years ago. >> Not at that speed, no, not at that speed. And that's what it's really opening up in terms of innovation. >> So now you've done it so much in your career, okay? Now you're here with Amazon. Looking back on this past year or so, What's the learnings for you? >> The learning is, truly how valuable cloud can be to the space industry, I'll admit to you most people in the space industry and especially in the government space industry. If you ask us a year ago, two years ago: "Hey, what do you think about cloud?" We would have said: "Well, you know, I hear people talk about the cloud. There's probably some value. We should probably look at that" And I was in the same boat, but now that I've dug deeply into the cloud and understand the value of artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced data analytics, a ground station infrastructure, all those things, I'm more excited than ever before about what the space industry can benefit from cloud computing, and so bringing that, customer by customer is just a really fulfilling way to continue to be part of the space industry. Even though I retired from government service. >> Is there a... I'm just curious because you brought it up. Is there a lot of people coming in from the old, the space industry from public sector? Are they coming into commercial? >> Absolutely. >> Commercial rising up and there's, I mean, I know there's a lot of public/private partnerships, What's the current situation? >> Yeah, lots of partnerships, but we're seeing an interesting trend. You know, it used to be that NASA led the way in science and technology, or the military led the way in science and technology, and they still do in some areas. And then the commercial industry would follow along. We're seeing that's reversed. There's so much growth in the commercial industry. So much money, venture capital being poured in and so many innovative solutions being built, for instance, on the cloud that now the commercial industry is leading technology and building new technology trends that the military and the DOD and their government are trying to take advantage of. And that's why you're seeing all these commercial contracts being led from Air Force, Space Force, NASA, and NRO. To take advantage of that commercialization. >> You like your job. >> I love my job. (laughing) -I can tell, >> I love my job. >> I mean, it is a cool job. I kind of want to work for you. >> So John, space is cool. That's our tagline: space is cool. >> Space is cool. Space equals ratings in the digital TV realm, it is really, super exciting a lot of young people are interested, I mean, robotics clubs in high schools are now varsity sports, eSports, all blend together. >> Space, robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics. It's all becoming a singular sector today and it's open to more people than ever before, for the reasons we talked about. >> Big wave and you guys are building the surf boards, everyone a ride it, congratulations. Great to see you in person. >> Thank you. Again, thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate that. >> Thanks for having us. >> Clint Crosier is the Director of AWS Aerospace & Satellite. Legend in the industry. Now at AWS. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) >> In 1946, the acerbic manager of the Dodgers, Leo the Lip Durocher famously said of baseball, great Mel Ott who was player manager of the Giants at the time. You know what happens to nice guys. They finished in last place. The phrase nice guys finish last was born. It became popular outside of baseball. Well joining me today is someone who was a consummate gentlemen and a nice guy who proves that idiom absolutely isn't true at all. He's also written a new book "Play nice and Win" Michael Dell chairman and CEO of Dell technologies, welcome back to the CUBE. >> Thank you very much, Dave, always great to be with you. Wonderful to be on the CUBE and thanks for your great coverage of Dell technologies world. >> Yeah. We're very excited to be covering the virtual version this year, next year we're back face to face I'm Sure. And we're going to talk about your book but I want to start by asking you to comment on the past 12 months, how are you going to remember 2020? >> I'm going to remember it by the resiliency of the world and our team, the adaptability the acceleration of digital transformation which is pretty amazing around the world. The vital role that technology played in addressing some of the biggest challenges, whether it was the creation of vaccines or, you know, decoding the virus itself or just addressing all the challenges that the world had. You know, I think it's a game changer in terms of disease identification and how we prevent these kinds of things going forward. You know, there's still a long way to go in terms of how do we get 7.5 billion people vaccinated and safe. I also think it exposed, you know some of the fault lines in our society. And that's a great learning for all of us in terms of access to healthcare and education and, you know, the digital resources that power the world. And so, yeah, those are some of the things that really stand out for me. >> Well, I mean, I think leaders like yourself and position of influence, absolutely passionate about some of those changes that we see coming in society. So hopefully we'll have time to talk about that but I wanted to get into the business. I think a lot of people, myself included felt that 2020 was going to be a down year for big tech companies like yours and that relied heavily on selling products that data centers and central offices but the remote work trend and the laptop, boom offset, some of those on-prem softness and headwinds combined with VMware the financial performance of Dell technologies was actually quite amazing. Why were you able to do so well last year? >> Well, first of all, you're right. We did, we had record pretty much everything record revenues, record operating income, record cashflow and be also paid down a record amount of debt. And so I think the strength and resiliency of our supply chain, as well as the broad diversified nature of what we provide our customers continue to serve us very well as they moved to this sort of do anything from anywhere in the world. And it continues the first part of this year, business is very strong >> You know, a few weeks ago, of course you officially announced the spinoff of Dell technologies. Wasn't a huge surprise but the 81% equity ownership of VMware are you worried about untethering VMware from Dell or maybe you can share more on what this means for the future of, your two companies and your customers. >> Right? So, I think this will drive additional growth opportunities for both Dell Tech and VMware, while it unlocks a lot of value for our stakeholders. What we've done is to formalize the commercial relationship into a series of agreements and those are unique and differentiated and they provide lots of flexibility and we've driven a tremendous amount of innovation together and that's going to continue and it will, one of the things we said back in 2015 you'll remember is our commitment to keep the VMware ecosystem open and independent and working across the whole industry. We've done that. You'll continue to see us innovate together with Edge solutions, certainly all the great work we've done with VxRail SD LAN, you know Tanzu creates this platform to modernize applications and VMware Cloud and Dell technologies are the easy path to a multi-cloud architecture. And, that continues to work super well and is not going to be slowed down at all. So... and of course, I'll continue to be a chairman of both companies and we're not selling VMware we're distributing our ownership to our shareholders. >> Well, of course, Dell is the largest sort channel if you will, for VMware. So that's ... you guys got a tight relationship but I want to ask you about digital transformation and everybody talked about it pre COVID but nobody really knew exactly what it was but COVID sort of brought that into focus very quickly. If you weren't a digital business, you were out of business. So going forward, how do you see that whole digital transformation playing out? >> You know I think the plot of any company is to figure out how it can use its data and turn that into insights and outcomes and better results and ultimately competitive advantage faster. And as you said, you know, if it's not able to do that, it's probably going to go out of business. And that agenda just got massively accelerated because it was kind of digital was sort of the only thing that worked during this, this past period. So every organization has figured out that technology is not the IT department, it's actually the fulcrum of progress in the entire company. And so we're seeing sort of across the board a dramatic acceleration in the investment in digital technologies, you know, Edge is growing very fast. I think 5G just accelerates this and, you know you're seeing it in all the demand trends. It's quite positive and, you know, I think you'll see even a more rapid separation from those companies that are able to take advantage of this and quickly adjust their businesses their organizations, and those that are >> You better hop on board or get left behind, you know, the Edge. You mentioned the Edge it's a little bit like digital transformation, you know kind of pre COVID and even post COVID. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people but the telecoms transformation and 5G they have there certainly real. How do you see the Edge? >> You know, the Edges is ... think of it as actually the real world, right? It's, not a data center sitting in the center of the universe somewhere. And look today, you know only 10% of data is processed outside of the data center, but, you know, it's estimated by 2025 you got 75% of enterprise data will be processed outside of a traditional data center or a Cloud. And so as everything becomes intelligent connected 5G accelerates that it's going to be a huge acceleration of this whole process of digital transformation. And you know, again, think about this. I mean, the cost of making something intelligent used to be really expensive. Now it's asymptotically approaching zero. And of course all those things are connected. They're talking to each other and exactly what does this mean for every industry. Nobody's really quite sure and not everything is going to work, but, you know we're seeing it in manufacturing, in retail, in healthcare and the growth on the Edge is really accelerating in a meaningful way. And it's not so much about, you know people talking people with machines, we know how to do that. Now it's about the thing right And, you know you've got like 200 billion arm processors, you know out there in the last couple of years, all those things talking to the other things, generating data it happens in the real world. That's what the Edge is. >> Yeah as you know, we're a big fans of the arm model. And I think it just presents huge opportunities for companies like Dell. I want to ask you about Cloud. And I have to say, I think, you know companies like Dell have been maybe a little bit defensive over the last several years when it comes to Cloud but I think you starting to see the Cloud as a gift with all that CAPEX that's being built out by these hyperscalers. You know, thank you. It seems to me, you can build on top of that. How are you thinking about the Cloud as an opportunity for you and your customers especially as the definition of Cloud evolves? >> Well, first, you know, what we see is and the Edge is kind of the third place or the third premise, right? You got Clouds in the public form, you've got the Colo which is really growing fast and, you know the private hybrid Clouds, and now you've got the Edge. And so you've got infrastructure all over the place with Edge being the fastest growing. You know, one of the big things we see is that customers want a consistent way to operate and execute across that whole platform. And, you know, one of the other things that we've been focused on at Dell technologies is how can we move our business to more of a service and subscription on demand and provide customers that flexibility to to pay as they consume. And so, to some extent this is an evolution of, you know, products to services to managed services, to everything as a service. And so, you know, looking at our balance sheet you'll see over $40 billion in remaining performance obligations as we moved the business to that kind of model and it's been growing double digits for several quarters in a row. And so, you know, we're embracing Cloud and on-demand, and as a service, and obviously here at Dell technologies world we're talking a lot about Apex and our continuing initiatives to move our whole business in that direction. >> Yeah. Apex is a real accelerator for that model. I want to switch topics a little bit. I got a long list of things I want to talk about ESG, sustainability, inclusion, you know, is another topic that, that I'm interested in. I want it. And I said before, people like yourself in a position of influence to influence public policy and obviously the employees and your ecosystem why is it not just the right thing to do? Why is... why are those things good business, Michael? >> Well, it's good business because people want to be part of something that is important and purposeful. You know, it's not just make a profit and earn a living right? You know, people want to be inspired and feel that they're part of something special. And look, I think if you look at the positive changes that have occurred in the world certainly you could turn on the news and see the horrible things that happened in the last 24 hours or something like that. But if you step back and think about the amazing progress that's happened in the last several decades, you know a lot of it's been driven by technology and by businesses that have stepped up and made a difference and made commitments. And, you know, we're one of those companies that has made a series of commitments you know, 10 years ago, we set out with our 2020 goals. We accomplished significant majority of those retired those. Now we set out our progress made real 2030 goals all around the ESD themes. And it's not only the right thing to do but it is good for business. It inspires our team members, our customers and I think initiatives like progress made real at Dell and thousands of other companies. Ultimately, those are the things that are going to drive progress forward. I believe, you know, more so than government edicts or regulation, those can play a role. But I think, companies voluntarily driving things like the circular economy and how we include everyone in our business and provide opportunities for everyone to succeed no matter where they come from. I think those are the things that are really going to drive the world forward. >> Well, I want to ask you about public policy because as you say, it's not just the government, but of course sometimes the government can get in the way. You're seeing a lot of vitriol around Val break up big tech but the same time, you're seeing the US government and the EU very willing to help out with the semiconductor competitiveness in the like I know you were tapped with the new administration President Biden, tapping, you know, the best minds in tech and you were asked to part sort of participate give feedback. What can you tell us about, you know your advice to the US government? >> Well, you know, lots of great discussion with the new administration and it's a delight to see that they're focused on semiconductors and sort of the industries of the future. This is a big deal. I mean, you know, we've got some big global competitors out there other nations that are with a deterministic strategy very focused on the industries of the future. But US, you know if you think about the atomic age and, you know the Apollo missions that created the whole semiconductor industry ARPANET and ultimately the Internet and that kind of stopped right there, you know, there wasn't as much government investment in some of those big R and D initiatives that really drove an enormous creation of industries and success for the United States and its citizens. And so I think focusing on semiconductors and how you build the infrastructure of the future really important for the United States to continue to be a leader in that you know, we were, you know, producing a one point about 37% of the world's semiconductors. It's now down to 12% and dropping and really important that more investments are made in that area. It's a combination of capital, talent, you know education knowledge, and also, you know, the policies that promote the development of these kinds of businesses. >> Yah well, Pat's got a very big challenge ahead of them. And so that's why but we've said Intel's too strategic to fail in our view but I wanted to plug your book a little bit. My former boss, you and I have talked about this. He was also a gentleman who proved Leo Durocher wrong. He was very nice guy, but also a winner, Play Nice But Win, why did you decide to write another book? >> Well, you know, Dave, a lot has happened in the last 20 years and especially the last nine or so years since we went private and, you know merged with EMC and VMware and went public again. And, you know, I'd say we... first of all, you know when I wrote the first book in 1998 I wasn't comfortable disclosing a lot. And, and I wasn't vulnerable enough and didn't feel, you know, able to do that. Now I do, you know, I'm older, you know hopefully a little wiser. And so I think everybody's going to like hearing some of the fun stories about not only my childhood but you know, the dorm room and beyond, and leading up to, you know the pivotal changes that have occurred the last decade my alligator wrestling with Carl Icahn and other, you know there's lots of fun stories in there. I got arrested one time. It was only for speeding tickets, don't worry but you know, lots of fun. I'm really looking forward to the book coming out and being able to talk about it. >> I can't wait. You know, I've said many times anybody who could beat the great icon is interesting to me. I wanted to ask you, I mentioned my old boss, Pat McGovern. I used to say to them all the time, "Pat how come you don't buy more companies?" And he'd say," Dave, you know the vast majority of acquisitions and mergers they failed to meet their objectives." Did you ever imagine, I mean... I did the EMC acquisition. Did... how could it not have exceeded your expectations? I wonder if you could give us your final thoughts on that. >> You know, and I talk about this a lot in the book. I mean, these are kind of the ultimate considered decisions. And in the case of the EMC combination it was something that we had thought about going back to 2008, 2009. And then, you know, started thinking about it in 2014 worked on it for a full year before it got announced in 2015 and finally closed in 2016. But yeah, I mean, you know, we thought it would be great. It turned out to be even better than We thought the revenue synergies were far greater. The teams were quite energized. Customers liked what we were providing and you know it's ... and, of course the markets were supportive Right? You know, we were paying close attention to interest rates and how we could structure the merger in a attractive way. And, you know, thank goodness, lots of hard work lots of determination, you know, it's worked out quite well. >> Yeah, great commitment from the Dell team as well. Congratulations on that. Go ahead, please. >> And any adventure continues right? It's...( both chuckles) >> I can't wait to see the next chapter and I can't wait to get the book, but congratulations on that, all your tremendous success you're you are a winner and a gentleman and a friend of the CUBE, Michael Dell. Thanks so much. >> Thank you so much Dave. >> And thank you for watching. And this is the CUBE continuous coverage of Dell tech world 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there, right back. (upbeat music)

from around the globe it's thecube covering space and cyber security symposium 2020 hosted by cal poly hello and welcome to thecube's coverage we're here hosting with cal poly an amazing event space in the intersection of cyber security this session is defending satellite and space infrastructure from cyber threats got two great guests we've got major general john shaw combined four space component commander u.s space command and vandenberg air force base in california and roland cuello who's the ceo of maverick space systems gentlemen thank you for spending the time to come on to this session for the cal poly space and cyber security symposium appreciate it absolutely um guys defending satellites and space infrastructure is the new domain obviously it's a war warfighting domain it's also the future of the world and this is an important topic because we rely on space now for our everyday life and it's becoming more and more critical everyone knows how their phones work and gps just small examples of all the impacts i'd like to discuss with this hour this topic with you guys so if we can have you guys do an opening statement general if you can start with your opening statement we'll take it from there thanks john and greetings from vandenberg air force base we are just down the road from cal poly here on the central coast of california and uh very proud to be part of this uh effort and part of the partnership that we have with with cal poly on a number of fronts um i should uh so in in my job here i actually uh have two hats that i wear and it's i think worth talking briefly about those to set the context for our discussion you know we had two major organizational events within our department of defense with regard to space last year in 2019 and probably the one that made the most headlines was the stand-up of the united states space force that happened uh december 20th last year and again momentous the first new branch in our military since 1947 uh and uh it is a it's just over nine months old now as we're making this recording uh and already we're seeing a lot of change uh with regard to how we're approaching uh organizing training and equipping on a service side or space capabilities and so i uh in that with regard to the space force the hat i wear there is commander of space operations command that was what was once 14th air force when we were still part of the air force here at vandenberg and in that role i'm responsible for the operational capabilities that we bring to the joint warfighter and to the world from a space perspective didn't make quite as many headlines but another major change that happened last year was the uh the reincarnation i guess i would say of united states space command and that is a combatant command it's how our department of defense organizes to actually conduct warfighting operations um most people are more familiar perhaps with uh central command centcom or northern command northcom or even strategic command stratcom well now we have a space com we actually had one from 1985 until 2002 and then stood it down in the wake of the 9 11 attacks and a reorganization of homeland security but we've now stood up a separate command again operationally to conduct joint space operations and in that organization i wear a hat as a component commander and that's the combined force-based component command uh working with other all the additional capabilities that other services bring as well as our allies that combined in that title means that uh i under certain circumstances i would lead an allied effort uh in space operations and so it's actually a terrific job to have here on the central coast of california uh both working the uh how we bring space capabilities to the fight on the space force side and then how we actually operate those capabilities it's a point of joint in support of joint warfighters around the world um and and national security interests so that's the context now what el i i also should mention you kind of alluded to john you're beginning that we're kind of in a change situation than we were a number of years ago and that space we now see space as a warfighting domain for most of my career going back a little ways most of my my focus in my jobs was making sure i could bring space capabilities to those that needed them bringing gps to that special operations uh soldier on the ground somewhere in the world bringing satellite communications for our nuclear command and control bringing those capabilities for other uses but i didn't have to worry in most of my career about actually defending those space capabilities themselves well now we do we've actually gone to a point where we're are being threatened in space we now are treating it more like any other domain normalizing in that regard as a warfighting domain and so we're going through some relatively emergent efforts to protect and defend our capabilities in space to to design our capabilities to be defended and perhaps most of all to train our people for this new mission set so it's a very exciting time and i know we'll get into it but you can't get very far into talking about all these space capabilities and how we want to protect and defend them and how we're going to continue their ability to deliver to warfighters around the globe without talking about cyber because they fit together very closely so anyway thanks for the chance to be here today and i look forward to the discussion general thank you so much for that opening statement and i would just say that not only is it historic with the space force it's super exciting because it opens up so much more challenges and opportunities for to do more and to do things differently so i appreciate that statement roland your opening statement your your job is to put stuff in space faster cheaper smaller better your opening statement please um yes um thank you john um and yes you know to um general shaw's point you know with with the space domain and the need to protect it now um is incredibly important and i hope that we are more of a help um than a thorn in your side um in terms of you know building satellites smaller faster cheaper um you know and um definitely looking forward to this discussion and you know figuring out ways where um the entire space domain can work together you know from industry to to us government even to the academic environment as well so first would like to say and preface this by saying i am not a cyber security expert um we you know we build satellites um and uh we launch them into orbit um but we are by no means you know cyber security experts and that's why um you know we like to partner with organizations like the california cyber security institute because they help us you know navigate these requirements um so um so i'm the ceo of um of maverick space systems we are a small aerospace business in san luis obispo california and we provide small satellite hardware and service solutions to a wide range of customers all the way from the academic environment to the us government and everything in between we support customers through an entire you know program life cycle from mission architecture and formulation all the way to getting these customer satellites in orbit and so what we try to do is um provide hardware and services that basically make it easier for customers to get their satellites into orbit and to operate so whether it be reducing mass or volume um creating greater launch opportunities or providing um the infrastructure and the technology um to help those innovations you know mature in orbit you know that's you know that's what we do our team has experienced over the last 20 years working with small satellites and definitely fortunate to be part of the team that invented the cubesat standard by cal poly and stanford uh back in 2000 and so you know we are in you know vandenberg's backyard um we came from cal poly san luis obispo um and you know our um our hearts are fond you know of this area and working with the local community um a lot of that success um that we have had is directly attributable um to the experiences that we learned as students um working on satellite programs from our professors and mentors um you know that's you know all you know thanks to cal poly so just wanted to tell a quick story so you know back in 2000 just imagine a small group of undergraduate students you know myself included with the daunting task of launching multiple satellites from five different countries on a russian launch vehicle um you know many of us were only 18 or 19 not even at the legal age to drink yet um but as you know essentially teenagers we're managing million dollar budgets um and we're coordinating groups um from around the world um and we knew that we knew what we needed to accomplish um yet we didn't really know um what we were doing when we first started um the university was extremely supportive um and you know that's the cal poly learn by doing philosophy um i remember you know the first time we had a meeting with our university chief legal counsel and we were discussing the need to to register with the state department for itar nobody really knew what itar was back then um and you know discussing this with the chief legal counsel um you know she was asking what is itar um and we essentially had to explain you know this is um launching satellites as part of the um the u.s munitions list and essentially we have a similar situation you know exporting munitions um you know we are in similar categories um you know as you know as weapons um and so you know after that initial shock um everybody jumped in you know both feet forward um the university um you know our head legal counsel professors mentors and the students um you know knew we needed to tackle this problem um because you know the the need was there um to launch these small satellites and um you know the the reason you know this is important to capture the entire spectrum of users of the community um is that the technology and the you know innovation of the small satellite industry occurs at all levels you know so we have academia commercial national governments we even have high schools and middle schools getting involved and you know building satellite hardware um and the thing is you know the the importance of cyber security is incredibly important because it touches all of these programs and it touches you know people um at a very young age um and so you know we hope to have a conversation today um to figure out you know how do we um create an environment where we allow these programs to thrive but we also you know protect and you know keep their data safe as well thank you very much roland appreciate that uh story too as well thanks for your opening statement gentlemen i mean i love this topic because defending the assets in space is is as obvious um you look at it but there's a bigger picture going on in our world right now and generally you kind of pointed out the historic nature of space force and how it's changing already operationally training skills tools all that stuff is revolving you know in the tech world that i live in you know change the world is a topic they use that's thrown around a lot you can change the world a lot of young people we have just other panels on this where we're talking about how to motivate young people changing the world is what it's all about with technology for the better evolution is just an extension of another domain in this case space is just an extension of other domains similar things are happening but it's different there's a huge opportunity to change the world so it's faster there's an expanded commercial landscape out there certainly government space systems are moving and changing how do we address the importance of cyber security in space general we'll start with you because this is real it's exciting if you're a young person there's touch points of things to jump into tech building hardware to changing laws and and everything in between is an opportunity and it's exciting and it's truly a chance to change the world how does the commercial government space systems teams address the importance of cyber security so john i think it starts with with the realization that as i like to say that cyber and space are bffs uh there's nothing that we do on the cutting edge of space that isn't heavy reliant heavily reliant on the cutting edge of cyber and frankly there's probably nothing on the cutting edge of cyber that doesn't have a space application and when you realize that you see how how closely those are intertwined as we need to move forward at at speed it becomes fundamental to to the to answering your question let me give a couple examples we one of the biggest challenges i have on a daily basis is understanding what's going on in the space domain those on the on the on the surface of the planet talk about tyranny of distance across the oceans across large land masses and i talk about the tyranny of volume and you know right now we're looking out as far as the lunar sphere there's activity that's extending out to the out there we expect nasa to be conducting uh perhaps uh human operations in the lunar environment in the next few years so it extends out that far when you do the math that's a huge volume how do you do that how do you understand what's happening in real time in within that volume it is a big data problem by the very definition of that that kind of effort to that kind of challenge and to do it successfully in the years ahead it's going to require many many sensors and the fusion of data of all kinds to present a picture and then analytics and predictive analytics that are going to deliver an idea of what's going on in the space arena and that's just if people are not up to mischief once you have threats introduced into that environment it is even more challenging so i'd say it's a big data problem that we'll be enjoying uh tackling in the years ahead a second example is you know we if i if i had to if we had to take a vote of what were the most uh amazing robots that have ever been designed by humans i think that spacecraft would have to be up there on the list whether it's the nasa spacecraft that explore other planets or the ones that we or gps satellites that that amazingly uh provide a wonderful service to the entire globe uh and beyond they are amazing technological machines that's not going to stop i mean all the work that roland talked about at the at the even even that we're doing it at the kind of the microsoft level is is putting cutting-edge technology into smaller packages you can to get some sort of capability out of that as we expand our activities further and further into space for national security purposes or for exploration or commercial or civil the the cutting edge technologies of uh artificial intelligence uh and machine to machine engagements and machine learning are going to be part of that design work moving forward um and then there's the threat piece as we try to as we operate these these capabilities how these constellations grow that's going to be done via networks and as i've already pointed out space is a warfighting domain that means those networks will come under attack we expect that they will and that may happen early on in a conflict it may happen during peace time in the same way that we see cyber attacks all the time everywhere in many sectors of of activity and so by painting that picture you kind of get you we start to see how it's intertwined at the very very base most basic level the cutting edge of cyber and cutting edge of space with that then comes the need to any cutting edge cyber security capability that we have is naturally going to be needed as we develop space capabilities and we're going to have to bake that in from the very beginning we haven't done that in the past as well as we should but moving forward from this point on it will be an essential ingredient that we work into all of our new capability roland we're talking about now critical infrastructure we're talking about new capabilities being addressed really fast so it's kind of chaotic now there's threats so it's not as easy as just having capabilities because you've got to deal with the threats the general just pointed out but now you've got critical infrastructure which then will enable other things down down the line how do you protect it how do we address this how do you see this being addressed from a security standpoint because you know malware these techniques can be mapped in as extended into into space and takeovers wartime peacetime these things are all going to be under threat that's pretty well understood i think people kind of get that how do we address it what's your what's your take yeah you know absolutely and you know i couldn't agree more with general shaw you know with cyber security and space being so intertwined um and you know i think with fast and rapid innovation um comes you know the opportunity for threats especially um if you have bad actors um that you know want to cause harm and so you know as a technology innovator and you're pushing the bounds um you kind of have a common goal of um you know doing the best you can um and you know pushing the technology balance making it smaller faster cheaper um but a lot of times what entrepreneurs and you know small businesses and supply chains um are doing and don't realize it is a lot of these components are dual use right i mean you could have a very benign commercial application but then a small you know modification to it and turn it into a military application and if you do have these bad actors they can exploit that and so you know i think the the big thing is um creating a organization that is you know non-biased that just wants to kind of level the playing field for everybody to create a set standard for cyber security in space i think you know one group that would be perfect for that you know is um cci um you know they understand both the cybersecurity side of things and they also have you know at cal poly um you know the the small satellite group um and you know just having kind of a a clearinghouse or um an agency where um can provide information that is free um you know you don't need a membership for and to be able to kind of collect that but also you know reach out to the entire value chain you know for a mission and um making them aware um of you know what potential capabilities are and then how it might um be you know potentially used as a weapon um and you know keeping them informed because i think you know the the vast majority of people in the space industry just want to do the right thing and so how do we get that information free flowing to you know to the us government so that they can take that information create assessments and be able to not necessarily um stop threats from occurring presently but identify them long before that they would ever even happen um yeah that's you know general i want to i want to follow up on that real quick before we go to the next talk track critical infrastructure um you mentioned you know across the oceans long distance volume you know when you look at the physical world you know you had you know power grids here united states you had geography you had perimeters uh the notion of a perimeter and the moat this is and then you had digital comes in then you have we saw software open up and essentially take down this idea of a perimeter and from a defense standpoint and that everything changed and we had to fortify those critical assets uh in the u.s space increases the same problem statement significantly because it's you can't just have a perimeter you can't have a moat it's open it's everywhere like what digital's done and that's why we've seen a slurge of cyber in the past two decades attacks with software so this isn't going to go away you need the critical infrastructure you're putting it up there you're formulating it and you've got to protect it how do you view that because it's going to be an ongoing problem statement what's the current thinking yeah i i think my sense is a mindset that you can build a a firewall or a defense or some other uh system that isn't dynamic in his own right is probably not heading in the right direction i think cyber security in the future whether it's for our space systems or for other critical infrastructure is going to be a dynamic fight that happens at a machine-to-machine um a speed and dynamic um i don't think it's too far off where we will have uh machines writing their own code in real time to fight off attacks that are coming at them and by the way the offense will probably be doing the same kind of thing and so i i guess i would not want to think that the answer is something that you just build it and you leave it alone and it's good enough it's probably going to be a constantly evolving capability constantly reacting to new threats and staying ahead of those threats that's the kind of use case just to kind of you know as you were kind of anecdotal example is the exciting new software opportunities for computer science majors i mean i tell my young kids and everyone man it's more exciting now i wish i was 18 again it's so so exciting with ai bro i want to get your thoughts we were joking on another panel with the dod around space and the importance of it obviously and we're going to have that here and then we had a joke it's like oh software's defined everything it says software's everything ai and and i said well here in the united states companies had data centers and they went to the cloud and they said you can't do break fix it's hard to do break fix in space you can't just send a tech up i get that today but soon maybe robotics the general mentions robotics technologies and referencing some of the accomplishments fixing things is almost impossible in space but maybe form factors might get better certainly software will play a role what's your thoughts on that that landscape yeah absolutely you know for for software in orbit um you know there's there's a push for you know software-defined radios um to basically go from hardware to software um and you know that's that that's a critical link um if you can infiltrate that and a small satellite has propulsion on board you could you know take control of that satellite and cause a lot of havoc and so you know creating standards and you know that kind of um initial threshold of security um you know for let's say you know these radios you know communications and making that um available um to the entire supply chain to the satellite builders um and operators you know is incredibly key and you know that's again one of the initiatives that um that cci is um is tackling right now as well general i want to get your thoughts on best practices around cyber security um state of the art today uh and then some guiding principles and kind of how the if you shoot the trajectory forward what what might happen uh around um supply chain there's been many stories where oh we outsourced the chips and there's a little chip sitting in a thing and it's built by someone else in china and the software is written from someone in europe and the united states assembles it it gets shipped and it's it's corrupt and it has some cyber crime making i'm oversimplifying the the statement but this is what when you have space systems that involve intellectual property uh from multiple partners whether it's from software to creation and then deployment you get supply chain tiers what are some of the best practices that you see involving that don't stunt the innovation but continues to innovate but people can operate safely what's your thoughts yeah so on supply chain i think i think the symposium here is going to get to hear from lieutenant general jt thompson uh from space missile system center down in los angeles and and uh he's a he's just down the road from us there uh on the coast um and his team is is the one that we look to really focus on as he acquires and develop again bake in cyber security from the beginning and knowing where the components are coming from and and properly assessing those as you as you put together your space systems is a key uh piece of what his team is focused on so i expect we'll hear him talk about that when it talks to i think she asked the question a little more deeply about how do the best practices in terms of how we now develop moving forward well another way that we don't do it right is if we take a long time to build something and then you know general general jt thompson's folks take a while to build something and then they hand it over to to to me and my team to operate and then they go hands-free and and then and then that's you know that's what i have for for years to operate until the next thing comes along that's a little old school what we're going to have to do moving forward with our space capabilities and with the cyber piece baked in is continually developing new capability sets as we go we actually have partnership between general thompson's team and mine here at vandenberg on our ops floor or our combined space operations center that are actually working in real time together better tools that we can use to understand what's going on the space environment to better command and control our capabilities anywhere from military satellite communications to space domain awareness sensors and such and so and we're developing those capabilities in real time it's a dev and and with the security pieces so devsecops is we're practicing that in in real time i think that is probably the standard today that we're trying to live up to as we continue to evolve but it has to be done again in close partnership all the time it's not a sequential industrial age process while i'm on the subject of partnerships so general thompson's and team and mine have good partnerships it's part partnerships across the board are going to be another way that we are successful and that uh it means with with academia in some of the relationships that we have here with cal poly it's with the commercial sector in ways that we haven't done before the old style business was to work with just a few large um companies that had a lot of space experience well we need we need a lot of kinds of different experience and technologies now in order to really field good space capabilities and i expect we'll see more and more non-traditional companies being part of and and organizations being part of that partnership that will work going forward i mentioned at the beginning that um uh allies are important to us so everything that uh that role and i've been talking about i think you have to extrapolate out to allied partnerships right it doesn't help me uh as a combined force component commander which is again one of my jobs it doesn't help me if the united states capabilities are cyber secure but i'm trying to integrate them with capabilities from an ally that are not cyber secure so that partnership has to be dynamic and continually evolving together so again close partnering continually developing together from the acquisition to the operational sectors with as many um different sectors of our economy uh as possible are the ingredients to success general i'd love to just follow up real quick i was having just a quick reminder for a conversation i had with last year with general keith alexander who was does a lot of cyber security work and he was talking about the need to share faster and the new school is you got to share faster and to get the data you mentioned observability earlier you need to see what everything's out there he's a real passionate person around getting the data getting it fast and having trusted partners so that's not it's kind of evolving as i mean sharing is a well-known practice but with cyber it's sensitive data potentially so there's a trust relationship there's now a new ecosystem that's new for uh government how do you view all that and your thoughts on that trend of the sharing piece of it on cyber so it's i don't know if it's necessarily new but it's at a scale that we've never seen before and by the way it's vastly more complicated and complex when you overlay from a national security perspective classification of data and information at various levels and then that is again complicated by the fact you have different sharing relationships with different actors whether it's commercial academic or allies so it gets very very uh a complex web very quickly um so that's part of the challenge we're working through how can we how can we effectively share information at multiple classification levels with multiple partners in an optimal fashion it is certainly not optimal today it's it's very difficult even with maybe one industry partner for me to be able to talk about data at an unclassified level and then various other levels of classification to have the traditional networks in place to do that i could see a solution in the future where our cyber security is good enough that maybe i only really need one network and the information that is allowed to flow to the players within the right security environment um to uh to make that all happen as quickly as possible so you've actually uh john you've hit on yet another big challenge that we have is um is evolving our networks to properly share with the right people at the right uh clearance levels as at speed of war which is what we're going to need yeah and i wanted to call that out because this is an opportunity again this discussion here at cal poly and around the world is for new capabilities and new people to solve the problems and um it's again it's super exciting if you you know you're geeking out on this it's if you have a tech degree or you're interested in changing the world there's so many new things that could be applied right now roland will get your thoughts on this because one of the things in the tech trends we're seeing this is a massive shift all the theaters of the tech industry are are changing rapidly at the same time okay and it affects policy law but also deep tech the startup communities are super important in all this too we can't forget them obviously the big trusted players that are partnering certainly on these initiatives but your story about being in the dorm room now you got the boardroom and now you got everything in between you have startups out there that want to and can contribute and you know what's an itar i mean i got all these acronym certifications is there a community motion to bring startups in in a safe way but also give them a ability to contribute because you look at open source that proved everyone wrong on software that's happening now with this now open network concept the general is kind of alluding to which is it's a changing landscape your thoughts i know you're passionate about this yeah absolutely you know and i think um you know as general shaw mentioned you know we need to get information out there faster more timely and to the right people um and involving not only just stakeholders in the us but um internationally as well you know and as entrepreneurs um you know we have this very lofty vision or goal uh to change the world and um oftentimes um you know entrepreneurs including myself you know we put our heads down and we just run as fast as we can and we don't necessarily always kind of take a breath and take a step back and kind of look at what we're doing and how it's touching um you know other folks and in terms of a community i don't know of any formal community out there it's mostly ad hoc and you know these ad hoc communities are folks who let's say have you know was was a student working on a satellite um you know in college and they love that entrepreneurial spirit and so they said well i'm gonna start my own company and so you know a lot of the these ad hoc networks are just from relationships um that are that have been built over the last two decades um you know from from colleagues that you know at the university um i do think formalizing this and creating um kind of a you know clearinghouse to to handle all of this is incredibly important yeah um yeah there's gonna be a lot of entrepreneurial activity no doubt i mean just i mean there's too many things to work on and not enough time so i mean this brings up the question though while we're on this topic um you got the remote work with covid everyone's working remotely we're doing this remote um interview rather than being on stage works changing how people work and engage certainly physical will come back but if you looked at historically the space industry and the talent you know they're all clustered around the bases and there's always been these areas where you're you're a space person you're kind of working there and there's jobs there and if you were cyber you were 10 in other areas over the past decade there's been a cross-pollination of talent and location as you see the intersection of space general start with you you know first of all central coast is a great place to live i know that's where you guys live but you can start to bring together these two cultures sometimes they're you know not the same maybe they're getting better we know they're being integrated so general can you just share your thoughts because this is uh one of those topics that everyone's talking about but no one's actually kind of addressed directly um yeah john i i think so i think i want to answer this by talking about where i think the space force is going because i think if there was ever an opportunity or inflection point in our department of defense to sort of change culture and and try to bring in non-traditional kinds of thinking and and really kind of change uh maybe uh some of the ways that the department of defense has does things that are probably archaic space force is an inflection point for that uh general raymond our our chief of space operations has said publicly for a while now he wants the us space force to be the first truly digital service and uh you know what we what we mean by that is you know we want the folks that are in the space force to be the ones that are the first adopters or the early adopters of of technology um to be the ones most fluent in the cutting edge technological developments on space and cyber and and other um other sectors of the of of the of the economy that are technologically focused uh and i think there's some can that can generate some excitement i think and it means that we probably end up recruiting people into the space force that are not from the traditional recruiting areas that the rest of the department of defense looks to and i think it allows us to bring in a diversity of thought and diversity of perspective and a new kind of motivation um into the service that i think is frankly is is really exciting so if you put together everything i mentioned about how space and cyber are going to be best friends forever and i think there's always been an excitement in them you know from the very beginning in the american psyche about space you start to put all these ingredients together and i think you see where i'm going with this that really changed that cultural uh mindset that you were describing it's an exciting time for sure and again changing the world and this is what you're seeing today people do want to change world they want a modern world that's changing roy look at your thoughts on this i was having an interview a few years back with a tech entrepreneur um techie and we were joking we were just kind of riffing and we and i said everything that's on star trek will be invented and we're almost there actually if you think about it except for the transporter room you got video you got communicators so you know not to bring in the star trek reference with space force this is digital and you start thinking about some of the important trends it's going to be up and down the stack from hardware to software to user experience everything your thoughts and reaction yeah abs absolutely and so you know what we're seeing is um timeline timelines shrinking dramatically um because of the barrier to entry for you know um new entrants and you know even your existing aerospace companies is incredibly low right so if you take um previously where you had a technology on the ground and you wanted it in orbit it would take years because you would test it on the ground you would verify that it can operate in space in a space environment and then you would go ahead and launch it and you know we're talking tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to do that now um we've cut that down from years to months when you have a prototype on the ground and you want to get it launched you don't necessarily care if it fails on orbit the first time because you're getting valuable data back and so you know we're seeing technology being developed you know for the first time on the ground and in orbit in a matter of a few months um and the whole kind of process um you know that that we're doing as a small business is you know trying to enable that and so allowing these entrepreneurs and small small companies to to get their technology in orbit at a price that is sometimes even cheaper than you know testing on the ground you know this is a great point i think this is really an important point to call out because we mentioned partnerships earlier the economics and the business model of space is doable i mean you do a mission study you get paid for that you have technology you can get stuff up up quickly and there's a cost structure there and again the alternative was waterfall planning years and millions now the form factors are different now again there may be different payloads involved but you can standardize payloads you got robotic arms all this is all available this brings up the congestion problem this is going to be on the top of mind the generals of course but you got the proliferation okay of these constellation systems you have more and more tech vectors i mean essentially that's malware i mean that's a probe you throw something up in space that could cause some interference maybe a takeover general this is the this is the real elephant in the room the threat matrix from new stuff and new configurations so general how does the proliferation of constellation systems change the threat matrix so i i think the uh you know i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna be a little more optimistic john than i think you pitched that i'm actually excited about these uh new mega constellations in leo um i'm excited about the the growing number of actors that are that are going into space for various reasons and why is that it's because we're starting to realize a new economic engine uh for the nation and for human society so the question is so so i think we want that to happen right when uh um when uh we could go to almost any any other domain in history and and and you know there when when air traffic air air travel started to become much much more commonplace with many kinds of uh actors from from private pilots flying their small planes all the way up to large airliners uh you know there there was a problem with congestion there was a problem about um challenges about uh behavior and are we gonna be able to manage this and yes we did and it was for the great benefit of society i could probably look to the maritime domain for similar kinds of things and so this is actually exciting about space we are just going to have to find the ways as a society and it's not just the department of defense it's going to be civil it's going to be international find the mechanisms to encourage this continued investment in the space domain i do think the space force uh will play a role in in providing security in the space environment as we venture further out as as economic opportunities emerge uh wherever they are um in the in the lunar earth lunar system or even within the solar system space force is going to play a role in that but i'm actually really excited about the those possibilities hey by the way i got to say you made me think of this when you talked about star trek and and and space force and our technologies i remember when i was younger watching the the next generation series i thought one of the coolest things because being a musician in my in my spare time i thought one of the coolest things was when um commander riker would walk into his quarters and and say computer play soft jazz and there would just be the computer would just play music you know and this was an age when you know we had we had hard uh um uh media right like how will that that is awesome man i can't wait for the 23rd century when i can do that and where we are today is is so incredible on those lines the things that i can ask alexa or siri to play um well that's the thing everything that's on star trek think about it almost invented i mean you got the computers you got the only thing really is the holograms are starting to come in you got now the transporter room now that's physics we'll work on that right right so there's a there is this uh a balance between physics and imagination but uh we have not exhausted either well um personally everyone that knows me knows i'm a huge star trek fan all the series of course i'm an original purist but at that level but this is about economic incentive as well roland i want to get your thoughts because you know the gloom and doom you got to think about the the bad stuff to make it good if i if i put my glass half full on the table there's economic incentives just like the example of the plane and the air traffic there's there's actors that are more actors that are incented to have a secure system what's your thoughts to general's comments around the optimism and and the potential threat matrix that needs to be managed absolutely so and you know one of the things that we've seen over the years um as you know we build these small satellites is a lot of the technology you know that the general is talking about um you know voice recognition miniaturized chips and sensors um started on the ground and i mean you know you have you know your iphone um that about 15 years ago before the first iphone came out um you know we were building small satellites in the lab and we were looking at cutting-edge state-of-the-art magnetometers and sensors um that we were putting in our satellites back then we didn't know if they were going to work and then um a few years later as these students graduate they go off and they go out to under you know other industries and so um some of the technology that was first kind of put in these cubesats in the early 2000s you know kind of ended up in the first generation iphone smartphones um and so being able to take that technology rapidly you know incorporate that into space and vice versa gives you an incredible economic advantage because um not only are your costs going down um because you know you're mass producing you know these types of terrestrial technologies um but then you can also um you know increase you know revenue and profit um you know by by having you know smaller and cheaper systems general let's talk about that for real quickly it's a good point i want to just shift it into the playbook i mean everyone talks about playbooks for management for tech for startups for success i mean one of the playbooks that's clear from in history is investment in r d around military and or innovation that has a long view spurs innovation commercially i mean just there's a huge many decades of history that shows that hey we got to start thinking about these these challenges and you know next you know it's in an iphone this is history this is not like a one-off and now with space force you get you're driving you're driving the main engine of innovation to be all digital you know we we riff about star trek which is fun but the reality is you're going to be on the front lines of some really new cool mind-blowing things could you share your thoughts on how you sell that people who write the checks or recruit more talent well so i first i totally agree with your thesis that the that you know national security well could probably go back an awful long way hundreds to thousands of years that security matters tend to drive an awful lot of innovation and creativity because um you know i think the the probably the two things that drive drive people the most are probably an opportunity to make money uh but only by beating that out are trying to stay alive um and uh and so i don't think that's going to go away and i do think that space force can play a role um as it pursues uh security uh structures you know within the space domain to further encourage economic investment and to protect our space capabilities for national security purposes are going to be at the cutting edge this isn't the first time um i think we can point back to the origins of the internet really started in the department of defense and with a partnership i should add with academia that's how the internet got started that was the creativity in order to to meet some needs there cryptography has its roots in security but we use it uh in in national security but now we use it in for economic reasons and meant and a host of other kinds of reasons and then space itself right i mean we still look back to uh apollo era as an inspiration for so many things that inspired people to to either begin careers in in technical areas or in space and and so on so i think i think in that same spirit you're absolutely right i guess i'm totally agreeing with your thesis the space force uh will be and a uh will have a positive inspirational influence in that way and we need to to realize that so when we are asking for when we're looking for how we need to meet capability needs we need to spread that net very far look for the most creative solutions and partner early and often with those that that can that can work on those when you're on the new frontier you've got to have a team sport it's a team effort you mentioned the internet just anecdotally i'm old enough to remember this because i remember the days that was going on and said the government if the policy decisions that the u.s made at that time was to let it go a little bit invisible hand they didn't try to commercialize it too fast and but there was some policy work that was done that had a direct effect to the innovation versus take it over and next you know it's out of control so i think you know i think this this just a cross-disciplinary skill set becomes a big thing where you need to have more people involved and that's one of the big themes of this symposium so it's a great point thank you for sharing that roland your thoughts on this because you know you got policy decisions we all want to run faster we want to be more innovative but you got to have some ops view now mostly ops people want things very tight very buttoned up secure the innovators want to go faster it's the yin and yang that's that's the world we live in how's it all balanced in your mind yeah um you know one of the things um that may not be apparently obvious is that you know the us government and department of um of defense is one of the biggest investors in technology in the aerospace sector um you know they're not the traditional venture capitalists but they're the ones that are driving technology innovation because there's funding um you know and when companies see that the us governments is interested in something businesses will will re-vector um you know to provide that capability and in the i would say the more recent years we've had a huge influx of private equity venture capital um coming into the markets to kind of help augment um you know the government investment and i think having a good partnership and a relationship with these private equity venture capitalists and the us government is incredibly important because the two sides you know can can help collaborate and kind of see a common goal but then also too on um you know the other side is you know there's that human element um and as general shaw was saying it's like not you know not only do companies you know obviously want to thrive and do really well some companies just want to stay alive um to see their technology kind of you know grow into what they've always dreamed of and you know oftentimes entrepreneurs um are put in a very difficult position because they have to make payroll they have to you know keep the lights on and so sometimes they'll take investment um from places where they may normally would not have you know from potentially foreign investment that could potentially you know cause issues with you know the you know the us supply chain well my final question is the best i wanted to say for last because i love the idea of human space flight i'd love to be on mars i'm not sure i'll be able to make it someday but how do you guys see the possible impacts of cyber security on expanding human space flight operations i mean general this is your wheelhouse this is urine command putting humans in space and certainly robots will be there because they're easy to go because they're not human but humans in space i mean you're starting to see the momentum the discussion uh people are are scratching that itch what's your take on that how do we see making this more possible well i i think we will see we will see uh commercial space tourism uh in the future i'm not sure how wide and large a scale it will become but we'll we will see that and um part of uh i think the mission of the space force is going to be probably to again do what we're doing today is have really good awareness of what's going on the domain to uh to to to ensure that that is done safely and i think a lot of what we do today will end up in civil organizations to do space traffic management and safety uh in in that uh arena um and uh um it is only a matter of time uh before we see um humans going even beyond the you know nasa has their plan the the artemis program to get back to the moon and the gateway initiative to establish a a space station there and that's going to be an exploration initiative but it is only a matter of time before we have um private citizens or private corporations putting people in space and not only for tourism but for economic activity and so it'll be really exciting to watch it would be really exciting and space force will be a part of it general roland i want to thank you for your valuable time to come on this symposium i really appreciate it final uh comment i'd love to you to spend a minute to share your personal thoughts on the importance of cyber security to space and we'll close it out we'll start with you roland yeah so i think that the biggest thing um i would like to try to get out of this you know from my own personal perspective is um creating that environment that allows um you know the the aerospace supply chain small businesses you know like ourselves be able to meet all the requirements um to protect um and safeguard our data but also um create a way that you know we can still thrive and it won't stifle innovation um you know i'm looking forward um to comments and questions um you know from the audience um to really kind of help um you know you know basically drive to that next step general final thoughts the importance of cyber security to space i'll just i'll go back to how i started i think john and say that space and cyber are forever intertwined they're bffs and whoever has my job 50 years from now or 100 years from now i predict they're going to be saying the exact same thing cyber and space are are intertwined for good we will always need the cutting edge cyber security capabilities that we develop as a nation or as a as a society to protect our space capabilities and our cyber capabilities are going to need space capabilities in the future as well general john shaw thank you very much roland cleo thank you very much for your great insight thank you to cal poly for putting this together i want to shout out to the team over there we couldn't be in person but we're doing a virtual remote event i'm john furrier with thecube and siliconangle here in silicon valley thanks for watching

>>Hi. Um, and thank you for inviting me to speak at the Entity Research Summit. And congratulations for NTT for setting up the neuroses club in the area. Okay, so I'm gonna talk about fully by deniable encryption and multiply the competition. And, uh, this is joint work with park from Harvard. And Santa will bring a, uh, she structurally right now in Russia during the rest. Um, so So so consider thesis, uh, two kids, which maybe some of you still remember its violence for check the incredible kids. And they are want they want to talk to each other privately without her mother learning what talking about. So here they are using this lead pipe, which is that cannot be secure Channel and and violent can say to that track that she doesn't want to do her homework and check it was the watch movie. And she knows that the judge will understand what she says. We hear what she says, but her mother, their mother, is not going to anything because it z this lead pipe. She doesn't know what they're talking about. Um and and and we know how to implement this actually in without lead pipes in the software will Do you have encryption, which, you know, you know, for I know, uh, 40 for the last 40 years or so, but actually for many more s. Oh, this is great. Encryption gives us private communication against, uh, eavesdropping adversary. So passive adversaries s but But you know that mothers can be more than passives. What if the mother he goes and asks Pilot that? What did you talk? What do you say to judge it So you know, if valid, really said, you know, used this'll end pipe. She can say whatever she wants to say. I actually said that I was study, and then the mother goes to judge. I can ask him what did about tell you, and she said that she was studied and the mother still cannot tell anything about what happened. She doesn't know trillions. Death was sent or not. Um, in fact, even if violence said that she was studying and and Jackson said something else that you know, she said she was she rather watch movie. Even then the mother doesn't know who was right. I mean, not from the pipe music. Look them in the eye and not this way, but not from the communication she doesn't. Andi. In fact, we could go on like this, and, you know, the lead type doesn't help at all to understand what really have. And this is really another very important form off this really secure channels that it doesn't allow external parties. Course, there's, uh, certain what really happened. Even when they asked to see all the internals of all the parties. In fact, even further, the Violet Jack Jack have no way to actually convince the mother that this is what happened. Even if you want, right, they have no way of actually proving to the mother that they said this and not the other thing with this lead pipe. So the question is can be obtained a similar effects with, you know, software encryption. Uh, can we have an encryption scheme that has the same sort of properties? So we know that Peoria, the total encryption doesn't have this property. That encryption leaves traces. So there's this cipher text that that the mother of the course of seized. Then when the mother goes toe the parties and you know the ballot judge, you can ask him uh, give me. Show me your randomness. Show me all the internals. I want to see what really? How you generated the text and how you decrypted it with no money. Encryption is only one way that, but inject, checking opened the suffer text, and therefore, there is no real privacy anymore. Um, so So this is the case. So so really to do to address this issue? The this this concept of deniable encryption that was considered, uh, you know, many years ago. Andi idea here is that you wanted encryption scheme that provides, uh, protection of privacy. Uh, on ability, toe keep private. You really, really, really value. And maybe, ah, fake or lie about what you say in a convincing way, even against such a course. Uh huh. So and so? So the idea is that, you know, So they actually do you think of three types here, So there is centered in apple. So we're just going us to center off the off the message. You know how How did you encrypt the message? Show me your encryption. Andalus Suing The decryption key is public. Um, and if you go to the receiver and ask him show me your decryption key. I want to see how you decrypted. And you can also think about natural case where the course actually goes to both parties and ask them for the for the internals and compares one against the other. Right? So this is the bite inability concept. Andi, you can, of course, naturally generalize it. Not just to encryption to, say, two party competition soon here, Violent and Jack. Jack. You know, uh, maybe not even trust each other fully, But they want toe compute together, you know? Or, you know, do they actually know a kid they both know and rapes in school, Right. So, So, So violent has her own list of kids, and she knows grapes and injection to, and they want to do this to Paris ST secure competition to figure out if they keep the both. And so if they have this ideal trusted party or stay for somewhere where they can actually do the security applications uh um, securely then they can, of course, learned the answer without learning anything else. And also, if the mother comes in after the fact and ask them, you know who I see that you were trying to figure out who very school, you know. So tell me what you did. Tell me your inputs them you are supposed to give me all the randomness. And And I want to know for the kids that you know, that vaping school. So if they were using such such a physically, I didn't secure gadget then, uh, then they can say You know why? You know? So So what is the state of, I don't know, anybody Invasion did Jack this theater and I got nothing into something or nothing. Jake Jackson. Consistency and off course. Mother has no way of knowing if this is true. No. And even if, uh, injected decides to tell the truth and actually tells is really important. Really put real randomness. And, uh, no randomness here and violent tells still here. Nothing. Nothing that the mother has no way of knowing which one is like. She clearly some of one of them is language. Doesn't know which one. I mean, chicken again looked deep in the eye, but not from the communication. She cannot figure out. Um, so s so we want to get something like that for for two party competition. Uh, and and and again, eso again, again, again. The case that, you know, one is like going to the truth is still don't know. Um, so the question is there a protocol that that one is still behavior, and, uh, incredible. How do you define us? Uh, and the point is that, you know, Okay, 11 further thing toe. Think about, you know, this doesn't shouldn't end with two parties can think about three or more parties on, uh, and the same thing happens. You know, just maybe the trust structure, the consistency structure becomes more complicated. Uh, you know, you could buy groups of people which is consistent with each other and not without, um Okay, so So what are our results here? So first result is regarding encryption. So we come up with the first bite, the novel communication protocol. It's not encryption because it's three messages. Uh, so it is three messages, and it is this way need a reference string, which is like, programs in the sky. And but it's a short registering. I mean, one short programs that everybody in the world uses for the encryptions for the entire duration of time. and our assumptions are some expansion, Leo in one functions, uh, and on. But just to say that what was done previously? It was just senator deniable or receiver deniable, um, And then and nothing that we do is that actually way define and also obtained this extra property, which we call off the record inability which talks with you about the case where, as I said before, that one party, uh uh, is saying one thing and the other practicing nothing they insisted. So they cannot. There is no way for them to frame each other. Um, and the way the other result is regarding a multiparty function evaluation on Dhere, we come up with the first all deniable secure function evaluation for quote Well, you know, I mean, I mean that the protocol with the adversary or the coarser expect to see all off the transcript of the competition, including all the randomness in all the internal state of all the parties eso superiors results in this area always assumed that you know, either the course only can concourse on some of the parties or if you can force all the parties and there is some some physical gadget, uh, which is crucial information about the personnel puts and you know, nobody can see inside, so no, here, we actually that the Attackers see everything. Uh, because they think they see everything on we can still provide inability onda protocol. Also, our protocols also withstand inconsistencies. Mean the case off this off the record style that one party says one thing partisans don't think. But this is only in the case of two parties and only for functions where the input size is polynomial in play. Put size. Uh, domain. Um, so in this actually interested open question how to extend it beyond that. Uh, so just to say that this is kind of it's a surprising thing that you can even do such thing, because what it allows you to do is actually such to completely rewrite history. Eso you during your competition on. Then somebody comes, and that will show me everything that happened. All the runners, all the entire transcript, the competition from beginning to the end. And you can now tell them something else. Not something that really happened. I mean, they see, you know, the public messages they see it on thistle is un contestable, but you can show different internals that there are very different than what really happened. And still nobody can catch you. So it's really some sense. Uh, who knows what's really happened? Um, so anyway, so So this is the, uh this is the result. Let's just say a few words about fully deniable encryption. Uh, just toe give a more detailed So So So So, how do you define this? Fully deniable encryption. So first I want to say that, you know, if you just, uh if the parties have appreciate key then, uh, deniability is with these because what you know, you just in orderto cryptic message just want some part of the key. And this one temple is completely deniable, right? Because you can just take this self a text and claim that it was any message encryption off any message off your choice. But just, you know, extra it. But just coming up with the key, which is the Solvents Architects as a message of futures. So this is completely diamond by both parties, and even it's off the record because if the two parties say different things, there's no way to know what's right. So Eh, so what? But it means that, you know, the hard part is actually had to come up with this shirt key, uh, in a deniable way. So you can actually later argued that this key was an, um so s so we need kind of deniable key exchange, and then this is what we do. So we come up with this idea by by the application of what? This what this means. So it's a protocol, you know, for two parties, uh, change, keep with messages and which gives you the ability to life. Somebody asked you which was key and claim it was anything, uh, later. So more formally. So we have two parties. One You know, this is the key change protocol for one party, and this is the kitchen for the other party in each party also is equipped with this faking algorithm. This is s faking arctic. I keep, you know, Senator, receiver, Even though it's not teach change, it's affecting and breaking. Allows you to come up with fake randomness. That demonstrate kills anything and we want correctly since semantic security as usual and we want toe this s fake takes a transcript and the randomness and the old key in the nuclear that you want. Andi comes up with fake randomness such that, uh um and this is you know, that that consistent with this new key, k prime and the same for the receiver. It comes up with a new randomness. The assistant to the crime and the requirement is that, uh, the attack. I cannot tell the difference between the experiment when you know the key key was exchanged. These transcripts respecto the real key or the case where the key was exchanged, and then the faking accurately going folk What? The adversary seizes the actual transcript, but then opening to a different. So there's a distinguished group. Um, And then what if the parties that were okay then there is another requirement there that says that even if the parties you know, one of them face, the other one doesn't and they then you can't tell which one will effect in which one wants to tell the truth. Onda point is that this to this to produce properties together really give you what you would like for my dearly your channel, even with respect toe courses. Um, so just to point out that you know this, this properties hold only if the parties in the follow the protocol during the execution actually choose randomness is they should. Otherwise things does work. In fact, otherwise, there's nothing that could work because the party's chief from the beginning and just use the terroristic protocol instead of randomized or just, you know, just randomness, which is predetermined. And, of course, nothing you can do. Uh, however, you know, there are, of course, interesting situations where it is. You know, it's reasonable to trust that the parties are actually using the randomness Aziz instructed during the execution of the protocol, for instance, we're thinking about voting this something can be forced, uh, by the voting booth, but you know, other situations. But this is kind of like essentially eso maybe another minute to say a few words about, you know, just like construction. How it kind of works in, you know, in general. So So we have, like, a three months, three rounds protocols. So we have four programs, you know, two from each party don't to deal with the three messages. Then we have a faking program for each party, so the way it works, you know, first, the violent here is has this is Harris randomness and actually chooses the key that they're going Thio agree ahead of time. It inputs to the first program which is going to think of it is the office care program black box program. And there's the message. First message is basically a harsh appear f off the K and then the, uh and then the responder gets this message has its own randomness and outputs. Another message, which is the hash off the first message agronomists. And then the third message now is going to be a new encryption off the key on the hashes and the end to a previous messages. This is, ah, company encryption off this one long spring and then the fourth with the fourth program just takes the randomness off the receiver and the two messages and put it in. And then I'll put the key, which is decrypted essentially the Crips, the subtextual from here in the old checks, right? And then the faking programs. What they do, they just take those. The transcript and the cookie and the new key and the striking program here are puts a new randomness for the senator and this one There's a new randomness for the receiver and the way it does near random estrogen offering work eyes, uh, is again It's kind of fact natural a t least the face of it. It uses the seeking hidden triggers idea off, off, so high in waters for descending on the inability that, you know, trigger each one of those programs toe put actually write message even when you get this, uh, crime on eventually this k problems are Well, the problem is that this scene in triggers, you know, give you local consistency for each problem by itself. This was this was the east their goal. But there is no global consistency about those six programs together and and get the six programs together to be consistent with the fact that the key would actually keep prominent K is high in contribute. And this is something that we become the main challenge of this work. This also, I did this three messages because if you have only to then there is no way to get a double consistency. Ah, s O s. So this is, uh this is the test on just to say about, you know, the future. So definitely we want stronger than ability for for MPC. As I said, we just give partial results there on. Then there is kind of, like some very interesting questions. One is like in general, You know, we know that your is very nice, but in many cases, we actually can do things without, uh but in this situation with prosecution, but maybe the inability of one of the very few cases where actually, we don't have any other way to do things out of the Neo. Is it really essential? Can we prove it? You know, and if not, can we do without? Can we get around CRS? Can you actually do with public friend of mysterious? Uh, you know, and more generally? Uh, no. We actually, uh, sweated a lot. You know, spit blood. In order to make this thing work with Leo and because I always really hard to work with, you know, would agree toe, find some some some general set of tools to work more easily. I was there. Um, Louis, thank you very much on death's

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's "theCUBE" covering Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly. >> I want to welcome to theCUBE's coverage, we're here hosting with Cal Poly an amazing event, space and the intersection of cyber security. This session is Defending Satellite and Space Infrastructure from Cyber Threats. We've got two great guests. We've got Major General John Shaw of combined force space component commander, U.S. space command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Roland Coelho, who's the CEO of Maverick Space Systems. Gentlemen, thank you for spending the time to come on to this session for the Cal Poly Space and Cybersecurity Symposium. Appreciate it. >> Absolutely. >> Guys defending satellites and space infrastructure is the new domain, obviously it's a war-fighting domain. It's also the future of the world. And this is an important topic because we rely on space now for our everyday life and it's becoming more and more critical. Everyone knows how their phones work and GPS, just small examples of all the impacts. I'd like to discuss with this hour, this topic with you guys. So if we can have you guys do an opening statement. General if you can start with your opening statement, we'll take it from there. >> Thanks John and greetings from Vandenberg Air Force Base. We are just down the road from Cal Poly here on the central coast of California, and very proud to be part of this effort and part of the partnership that we have with Cal Poly on a number of fronts. In my job here, I actually have two hats that I wear and it's I think, worth talking briefly about those to set the context for our discussion. You know, we had two major organizational events within our Department of Defense with regard to space last year in 2019. And probably the one that made the most headlines was the standup of the United States Space Force. That happened December 20th, last year, and again momentous, the first new branch in our military since 1947. And it's just over nine months old now, as we're makin' this recording. And already we're seein' a lot of change with regard to how we are approaching organizing, training, and equipping on a service side for space capabilities. And so, with regard to the Space Force, the hat I wear there is Commander of Space Operations Command. That was what was once 14th Air Force, when we were still part of the Air Force here at Vandenberg. And in that role, I'm responsible for the operational capabilities that we bring to the joint warfighter and to the world from a space perspective. Didn't make quite as many headlines, but another major change that happened last year was the reincarnation, I guess I would say, of United States Space Command. And that is a combatant command. It's how our Department of Defense organizes to actually conduct war-fighting operations. Most people are more familiar perhaps with Central Command, CENTCOM or Northern Command, NORTHCOM, or even Strategic Command, STRATCOM. Well, now we have a SPACECOM. We actually had one from 1985 until 2002, and then stood it down in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and a reorganization of Homeland Security. But we've now stood up a separate command again operationally, to conduct joint space operations. And in that organization, I wear a hat as a component commander, and that's the combined force-based component command working with other, all the additional capabilities that other services bring, as well as our allies. The combined in that title means that under certain circumstances, I would lead in an allied effort in space operations. And so it's actually a terrific job to have here on the central coast of California. Both working how we bring space capabilities to the fight on the Space Force side, and then how we actually operate those capabilities in support of joint warfighters around the world and national security interests. So that's the context. Now what also I should mention and you kind of alluded to John at your beginning, we're kind of in a changed situation than we were a number of years ago, in that we now see space as a war-fighting domain. For most of my career, goin' back a little ways, most of my focus in my jobs was making sure I could bring space capabilities to those that needed them. Bringing GPS to that special operations soldier on the ground somewhere in the world, bringing satellite communications for our nuclear command and control, bringing those capabilities for other uses. But I didn't have to worry in most of my career, about actually defending those space capabilities themselves. Well, now we do. We've actually gone to a point where we're are being threatened in space. We now are treating it more like any other domain, normalizing in that regard as a war-fighting domain. And so we're going through some relatively emergent efforts to protect and defend our capabilities in space, to design our capabilities to be defended, and perhaps most of all, to train our people for this new mission set. So it's a very exciting time, and I know we'll get into it, but you can't get very far into talking about all these space capabilities and how we want to protect and defend them and how we're going to continue their ability to deliver to warfighters around the globe, without talking about cyber, because they fit together very closely. So anyway, thanks for the chance to be here today. And I look forward to the discussion. >> General, thank you so much for that opening statement. And I would just say that not only is it historic with the Space Force, it's super exciting because it opens up so much more challenges and opportunities to do more and to do things differently. So I appreciate that statement. Roland in your opening statement. Your job is to put stuff in space, faster, cheaper, smaller, better, your opening statement, please. >> Yes, thank you, John. And yes, to General Shaw's point with the space domain and the need to protect it now is incredibly important. And I hope that we are more of a help than a thorn in your side in terms of building satellites smaller, faster, cheaper. Definitely looking forward to this discussion and figuring out ways where the entire space domain can work together, from industry to U.S. government, even to the academic environment as well. So first, I would like to say, and preface this by saying, I am not a cybersecurity expert. We build satellites and we launch them into orbit, but we are by no means cybersecurity experts. And that's why we like to partner with organizations like the California Cybersecurity Institute because they help us navigate these requirements. So I'm the CEO of Maverick Space Systems. We are a small aerospace business in San Luis Obispo, California. And we provide small satellite hardware and service solutions to a wide range of customers. All the way from the academic environment to the U.S. government and everything in between. We support customers through an entire program life cycle, from mission architecture and formulation, all the way to getting these customer satellites in orbit. And so what we try to do is provide hardware and services that basically make it easier for customers to get their satellites into orbit and to operate. So whether it be reducing mass or volume, creating greater launch opportunities, or providing the infrastructure and the technology to help those innovations mature in orbit, that's what we do. Our team has experience over the last 20 years, working with small satellites. And I'm definitely fortunate to be part of the team that invented the CubeSat standard by Cal Poly and Stanford back in 2000. And so, we are in VandenBerg's backyard. We came from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and our hearts are fond of this area, and working with the local community. A lot of that success that we have had is directly attributable to the experiences that we learned as students, working on satellite programs from our professors and mentors. And that's all thanks to Cal Poly. So just wanted to tell a quick story. So back in 2000, just imagine a small group of undergraduate students, myself included, with the daunting task of launching multiple satellites from five different countries on a Russian launch vehicle. Many of us were only 18 or 19, not even at the legal age to drink yet, but as essentially teenagers we were managing million-dollar budgets. And we were coordinating groups from around the world. And we knew what we needed to accomplish, yet we didn't really know what we were doing when we first started. The university was extremely supportive and that's the Cal Poly learn-by-doing philosophy. I remember the first time we had a meeting with our university chief legal counsel, and we were discussing the need to register with the State Department for ITAR. Nobody really knew what ITAR was back then. And discussing this with the chief legal counsel, she was asking, "What is ITAR?" And we essentially had to explain, this is, launching satellites is part of the U.S. munitions list. And essentially we had a similar situation exporting munitions. We are in similar categories as weapons. And so, after that initial shock, everybody jumped in both feet forward, the university, our head legal counsel, professors, mentors, and the students knew we needed to tackle this problem because the need was there to launch these small satellites. And the reason this is important to capture the entire spectrum of users of the community, is that the technology and the innovation of the small satellite industry occurs at all levels, so we have academia, commercial, national governments. We even have high schools and middle schools getting involved and building satellite hardware. And the thing is the importance of cybersecurity is incredibly important because it touches all of these programs and it touches people at a very young age. And so, we hope to have a conversation today to figure out how do we create an environment where we allow these programs to thrive, but we also protect and keep their data safe as well. >> Thank you very much Roland. Appreciate that a story too as well. Thanks for your opening statement. Gentlemen, I mean I love this topic because defending the assets in space is obvious, if you look at it. But there's a bigger picture going on in our world right now. And general, you kind of pointed out the historic nature of Space Force and how it's changing already, operationally, training, skills, tools, all that stuff is evolving. You know in the tech world that I live in, change the world is a topic they use, gets thrown around a lot, you can change the world. A lot of young people, and we have other panels on this where we're talkin' about how to motivate young people, changing the world is what it's all about technology, for the better. Evolution is just an extension of another domain. In this case, space is just an extension of other domains, similar things are happening, but it's different. There's huge opportunity to change the world, so it's faster. There's an expanded commercial landscape out there. Certainly government space systems are moving and changing. How do we address the importance of cybersecurity in space? General, we'll start with you because this is real, it's exciting. If you're a young person, there's touch points of things to jump into, tech, building hardware, to changing laws, and everything in between is an opportunity, and it's exciting. And it is truly a chance to change the world. How does the commercial government space systems teams, address the importance of cybersecurity? >> So, John, I think it starts with the realization that as I like to say, that cyber and space are BFFs. There's nothing that we do on the cutting edge of space that isn't heavily reliant on the cutting edge of cyber. And frankly, there's probably nothing on the cutting edge of cyber that doesn't have a space application. And when you realize that and you see how closely those are intertwined as we need to move forward at speed, it becomes fundamental to answering your question. Let me give a couple examples. One of the biggest challenges I have on a daily basis is understanding what's going on in the space domain. Those on the surface of the planet talk about tyranny of distance across the oceans or across large land masses. And I talk about the tyranny of volume. And right now, we're looking out as far as the lunar sphere. There's activity that's extending out there. We expect NASA to be conducting perhaps human operations in the lunar environment in the next few years. So it extends out that far. When you do the math that's a huge volume. How do you do that? How do you understand what's happening in real time within that volume? It is a big data problem by the very definition of that kind of effort and that kind of challenge. And to do it successfully in the years ahead, it's going to require many, many sensors and the fusion of data of all kinds, to present a picture and then analytics and predictive analytics that are going to deliver an idea of what's going on in the space arena. And that's just if people are not up to mischief. Once you have threats introduced into that environment, it is even more challenging. So I'd say it's a big data problem that we'll enjoy tackling in the years ahead. Now, a second example is, if we had to take a vote of what were the most amazing robots that have ever been designed by humans, I think that spacecraft would have to be up there on the list. Whether it's the NASA spacecraft that explore other planets, or GPS satellites that amazingly provide a wonderful service to the entire globe and beyond. They are amazing technological machines. That's not going to stop. I mean, all the work that Roland talked about, even that we're doin' at the kind of the microsat level is putting cutting-edge technology into small a package as you can to get some sort of capability out of that. As we expand our activities further and further into space for national security purposes, or for exploration or commercial or civil, the cutting-edge technologies of artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine engagements and machine learning are going to be part of that design work moving forward. And then there's the threat piece. As we operate these capabilities, as these constellations grow, that's going to be done via networks. And as I've already pointed out space is a war-fighting domain. That means those networks will come under attack. We expect that they will and that may happen early on in a conflict. It may happen during peace time in the same way that we see cyber attacks all the time, everywhere in many sectors of activity. And so by painting that picture, we start to see how it's intertwined at the very, very most basic level, the cutting edge of cyber and cutting edge of space. With that then comes the need to, any cutting edge cybersecurity capability that we have is naturally going to be needed as we develop space capabilities. And we're going to have to bake that in from the very beginning. We haven't done that in the past as well as we should, but moving forward from this point on, it will be an essential ingredient that we work into all of our capability. >> Roland, we're talkin' about now, critical infrastructure. We're talkin' about new capabilities being addressed really fast. So, it's kind of chaotic now there's threats. So it's not as easy as just having capabilities, 'cause you've got to deal with the threats the general just pointed out. But now you've got critical infrastructure, which then will enable other things down the line. How do you protect it? How do we address this? How do you see this being addressed from a security standpoint? Because malware, these techniques can be mapped in, extended into space and takeovers, wartime, peace time, these things are all going to be under threat. That's pretty well understood, and I think people kind of get that. How do we address it? What's your take? >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more with General Shaw, with cybersecurity and space being so intertwined. And, I think with fast and rapid innovation comes the opportunity for threats, especially if you have bad actors that want to cause harm. And so, as a technology innovator and you're pushing the bounds, you kind of have a common goal of doing the best you can, and pushing the technology bounds, making it smaller, faster, cheaper. But a lot of times what entrepreneurs and small businesses and supply chains are doing, and don't realize it, is a lot of these components are dual use. I mean, you could have a very benign commercial application, but then a small modification to it, can turn it into a military application. And if you do have these bad actors, they can exploit that. And so, I think that the big thing is creating a organization that is non-biased, that just wants to kind of level the playing field for everybody to create a set standard for cybersecurity in space. I think one group that would be perfect for that is CCI. They understand both the cybersecurity side of things, and they also have at Cal Poly the small satellite group. And just having kind of a clearing house or an agency where can provide information that is free, you don't need a membership for. And to be able to kind of collect that, but also reach out to the entire value chain for a mission, and making them aware of what potential capabilities are and then how it might be potentially used as a weapon. And keeping them informed, because I think the vast majority of people in the space industry just want to do the right thing. And so, how do we get that information free flowing to the U.S. government so that they can take that information, create assessments, and be able to, not necessarily stop threats from occurring presently, but identify them long before that they would ever even happen. Yeah, that's- >> General, I want to follow up on that real quick before we move to the next top track. Critical infrastructure you mentioned, across the oceans long distance, volume. When you look at the physical world, you had power grids here in the United States, you had geography, you had perimeters, the notion of a perimeter and a moat, and then you had digital comes in. Then you have, we saw software open up, and essentially take down this idea of a perimeter, and from a defense standpoint, and everything changed. And we have to fortify those critical assets in the U.S. Space increases the same problem statement significantly, because you can't just have a perimeter, you can't have a moat, it's open, it's everywhere. Like what digital's done, and that's why we've seen a surge of cyber in the past two decades, attacks with software. So, this isn't going to go away. You need the critical infrastructure, you're putting it up there, you're formulating it, and you got to protect it. How do you view that? Because it's going to be an ongoing problem statement. What's the current thinking? >> Yeah, I think my sense is that a mindset that you can build a firewall, or a defense, or some other system that isn't dynamic in its own right, is probably not headed in the right direction. I think cybersecurity in the future, whether it's for space systems, or for other critical infrastructure is going to be a dynamic fight that happens at a machine-to-machine speed and dynamic. I don't think that it's too far off where we will have machines writing their own code in real time to fight off attacks that are coming at them. And by the way, the offense will probably be doing the same kind of thing. And so, I guess I would not want to think that the answer is something that you just build it and you leave it alone and it's good enough. It's probably going to be a constantly-evolving capability, constantly reacting to new threats and staying ahead of those threats. >> That's the kind of use case, you know as you were, kind of anecdotal example is the exciting new software opportunities for computer science majors. I mean, I tell my young kids and everyone, man it's more exciting now. I wish I was 18 again, it's so exciting with AI. Roland, I want to get your thoughts. We were joking on another panel with the DoD around space and the importance of it obviously, and we're going to have that here. And then we had a joke. It's like, oh software's defined everything. Software's everything, AI. And I said, "Well here in the United States, companies had data centers and then they went to the cloud." And then he said, "You can do break, fix, it's hard to do break, fix in space. You can't just send a tech up." I get that today, but soon maybe robotics. The general mentions robotics technologies, in referencing some of the accomplishments. Fixing things is almost impossible in space. But maybe form factors might get better. Certainly software will play a role. What's your thoughts on that landscape? >> Yeah, absolutely. You know, for software in orbit, there's a push for software-defined radios to basically go from hardware to software. And that's a critical link. If you can infiltrate that and a small satellite has propulsion on board, you could take control of that satellite and cause a lot of havoc. And so, creating standards and that kind of initial threshold of security, for let's say these radios, or communications and making that available to the entire supply chain, to the satellite builders, and operators is incredibly key. And that's again, one of the initiatives that CCI is tackling right now as well. >> General, I want to get your thoughts on best practices around cybersecurity, state-of-the-art today, and then some guiding principles, and kind of how the, if you shoot the trajectory forward, what might happen around supply chain? There's been many stories where, we outsource the chips and there's a little chip sittin' in a thing and it's built by someone else in China, and the software is written from someone in Europe, and the United States assembles it, it gets shipped and it's corrupt, and it has some cyber, I'm making it up, I'm oversimplifying the statement. But this is what when you have space systems that involve intellectual property from multiple partners, whether it's from software to creation and then deployment. You got supply chain tiers. What are some of best practices that you see involving, that don't stunt the innovation, but continues to innovate, but people can operate safely. What's your thoughts? >> Yeah, so on supply chain, I think the symposium here is going to get to hear from General JT Thompson from space and missile system center down in Los Angeles, and he's just down the road from us there on the coast. And his team is the one that we look to to really focus on, as he fires and develops to again bake in cybersecurity from the beginning and knowing where the components are coming from, and properly assessing those as you put together your space systems, is a key piece of what his team is focused on. So I expect, we'll hear him talk about that. When it talks to, I think, so you asked the question a little more deeply about how do the best practices in terms of how we now develop moving forward. Well, another way that we don't do it right, is if we take a long time to build something and then General JT Thompson's folks take a while to build something, and then they hand it over to me, and my team operate and then they go hands free. And then that's what I have for years to operate until the next thing comes along. That's a little old school. What we're going to have to do moving forward with our space capabilities, and with the cyber piece baked in is continually developing new capability sets as we go. We actually have partnership between General Thompson's team and mine here at Vandenberg on our ops floor, or our combined space operation center, that are actually working in real time together, better tools that we can use to understand what's going on in the space environment to better command and control our capabilities anywhere from military satellite communications, to space domain awareness, sensors, and such. And we're developing those capabilities in real time. And with the security pieces. So DevSecOps is we're practicing that in real time. I think that is probably the standard today that we're trying to live up to as we continue to evolve. But it has to be done again, in close partnership all the time. It's not a sequential, industrial-age process. While I'm on the subject of partnerships. So, General Thompson's team and mine have good partnerships. It's partnerships across the board are going to be another way that we are successful. And that it means with academia and some of the relationships that we have here with Cal Poly. It's with the commercial sector in ways that we haven't done before. The old style business was to work with just a few large companies that had a lot of space experience. Well, we need a lot of kinds of different experience and technologies now in order to really field good space capabilities. And I expect we'll see more and more non-traditional companies being part of, and organizations, being part of that partnership that will work goin' forward. I mentioned at the beginning that allies are important to us. So everything that Roland and I have been talking about I think you have to extrapolate out to allied partnerships. It doesn't help me as a combined force component commander, which is again, one of my jobs. It doesn't help me if the United States capabilities are cybersecure, but I'm tryin' to integrate them with capabilities from an ally that are not cybersecure. So that partnership has to be dynamic and continually evolving together. So again, close partnering, continually developing together from the acquisition to the operational sectors, with as many different sectors of our economy as possible, are the ingredients to success. >> General, I'd love to just follow up real quick. I was having just a quick reminder for a conversation I had with last year with General Keith Alexander, who does a lot of cybersecurity work, and he was talking about the need to share faster. And the new school is you got to share faster to get the data, you mentioned observability earlier, you need to see what everything's out there. He's a real passionate person around getting the data, getting it fast and having trusted partners. So that's not, it's kind of evolving as, I mean, sharing's a well known practice, but with cyber it's sensitive data potentially. So there's a trust relationship. There's now a new ecosystem. That's new for government. How do you view all that and your thoughts on that trend of the sharing piece of it on cyber? >> So, I don't know if it's necessarily new, but it's at a scale that we've never seen before. And by the way, it's vastly more complicated and complex when you overlay from a national security perspective, classification of data and information at various levels. And then that is again complicated by the fact you have different sharing relationships with different actors, whether it's commercial, academic, or allies. So it gets very, very complex web very quickly. So that's part of the challenge we're workin' through. How can we effectively share information at multiple classification levels with multiple partners in an optimal fashion? It is certainly not optimal today. It's very difficult, even with maybe one industry partner for me to be able to talk about data at an unclassified level, and then various other levels of classification to have the traditional networks in place to do that. I could see a solution in the future where our cybersecurity is good enough that maybe I only really need one network and the information that is allowed to flow to the players within the right security environment to make that all happen as quickly as possible. So you've actually, John you've hit on yet another big challenge that we have, is evolving our networks to properly share, with the right people, at the right clearance levels at the speed of war, which is what we're going to need. >> Yeah, and I wanted to call that out because this is an opportunity, again, this discussion here at Cal Poly and around the world is for new capabilities and new people to solve the problems. It's again, it's super exciting if you're geeking out on this. If you have a tech degree or you're interested in changin' the world, there's so many new things that could be applied right now. Roland, I want to get your thoughts on this, because one of the things in the tech trends we're seeing, and this is a massive shift, all the theaters of the tech industry are changing rapidly at the same time. And it affects policy law, but also deep tech. The startup communities are super important in all this too. We can't forget them. Obviously, the big trusted players that are partnering certainly on these initiatives, but your story about being in the dorm room. Now you've got the boardroom and now you got everything in between. You have startups out there that want to and can contribute. You know, what's an ITAR? I mean, I got all these acronym certifications. Is there a community motion to bring startups in, in a safe way, but also give them ability to contribute? Because you look at open source, that proved everyone wrong on software. That's happening now with this now open network concept, the general was kind of alluding to. Which is, it's a changing landscape. Your thoughts, I know you're passionate about this. >> Yeah, absolutely. And I think as General Shaw mentioned, we need to get information out there faster, more timely and to the right people, and involving not only just stakeholders in the U.S., but internationally as well. And as entrepreneurs, we have this very lofty vision or goal to change the world. And oftentimes, entrepreneurs, including myself, we put our heads down and we just run as fast as we can. And we don't necessarily always kind of take a breath and take a step back and kind of look at what we're doing and how it's touching other folks. And in terms of a community, I don't know of any formal community out there, it's mostly ad hoc. And, these ad hoc communities are folks who let's say was a student working on a satellite in college. And they loved that entrepreneurial spirit. And so they said, "Well, I'm going to start my own company." And so, a lot of these ad hoc networks are just from relationships that have been built over the last two decades from colleagues at the university. I do think formalizing this and creating kind of a clearing house to handle all of this is incredibly important. >> And there's going to be a lot of entrepreneurial activity, no doubt, I mean there's too many things to work on and not enough time. I mean this brings up the question that I'm going to, while we're on this topic, you got the remote work with COVID, everyone's workin' remotely, we're doin' this remote interview rather than being on stage. Work's changing, how people work and engage. Certainly physical will come back. But if you looked at historically the space industry and the talent, they're all clustered around the bases. And there's always been these areas where you're a space person. You kind of work in there and the job's there. And if you were cyber, you were generally in other areas. Over the past decade, there's been a cross-pollination of talent and location. As you see the intersection of space, general we'll start with you, first of all, central coast is a great place to live. I know that's where you guys live. But you can start to bring together these two cultures. Sometimes they're not the same. Maybe they're getting better. We know they're being integrated. So general, can you just share your thoughts because this is one of those topics that everyone's talkin' about, but no one's actually kind of addressed directly. >> Yeah, John, I think so. I think I want to answer this by talkin' about where I think the Space Force is going. Because I think if there was ever an opportunity or an inflection point in our Department of Defense to sort of change culture and try to bring in non-traditional kinds of thinking and really kind of change maybe some of the ways that the Department of Defense does things that are probably archaic, Space Force is an inflection point for that. General Raymond, our Chief of Space Operations, has said publicly for awhile now, he wants the U.S. Space Force to be the first truly digital service. And what we mean by that is we want the folks that are in the Space Force to be the ones that are the first adopters, the early adopters of technology. To be the ones most fluent in the cutting edge, technologic developments on space and cyber and other sectors of the economy that are technologically focused. And I think there's some, that can generate some excitement, I think. And it means that we'll probably ended up recruiting people into the Space Force that are not from the traditional recruiting areas that the rest of the Department of Defense looks to. And I think it allows us to bring in a diversity of thought and diversity of perspective and a new kind of motivation into the service, that I think is frankly really exciting. So if you put together everything I mentioned about how space and cyber are going to be best friends forever. And I think there's always been an excitement from the very beginning in the American psyche about space. You start to put all these ingredients together, and I think you see where I'm goin' with this. That this is a chance to really change that cultural mindset that you were describing. >> It's an exciting time for sure. And again, changing the world. And this is what you're seeing today. People do want to change the world. They want a modern world that's changing. Roland, I'll get your thoughts on this. I was having an interview a few years back with a technology entrepreneur, a techie, and we were joking, we were just kind of riffing. And I said, "Everything that's on "Star Trek" will be invented." And we're almost there actually, if you think about it, except for the transporter room. You got video, you got communicators. So, not to bring in the "Star Trek" reference with Space Force, this is digital. And you start thinking about some of the important trends, it's going to be up and down the stack, from hardware to software, to user experience, everything. Your thoughts and reaction. >> Yeah, absolutely. And so, what we're seeing is timelines shrinking dramatically because of the barrier to entry for new entrants and even your existing aerospace companies is incredibly low, right? So if you take previously where you had a technology on the ground and you wanted it in orbit, it would take years. Because you would test it on the ground. You would verify that it can operate in a space environment. And then you would go ahead and launch it. And we're talking tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. Now, we've cut that down from years to months. When you have a prototype on the ground and you want to get it launched, you don't necessarily care if it fails on orbit the first time, because you're getting valuable data back. And so, we're seeing technology being developed for the first time on the ground and in orbit in a matter of a few months. And the whole kind of process that we're doing as a small business is trying to enable that. And so, allowing these entrepreneurs and small companies to get their technology in orbit at a price that is sometimes even cheaper than testing on the ground. >> You know this is a great point. I think this is really an important point to call out because we mentioned partnerships earlier, the economics and the business model of space is doable. I mean, you do a mission study. You get paid for that. You have technology that you get stuff up quickly, and there's a cost structure there. And again, the alternative was waterfall planning, years and millions. Now the form factors are doing, now, again, there may be different payloads involved, but you can standardize payloads. You've got robotic arms. This is all available. This brings up the congestion problem. This is going to be on the top of mind of the generals of course, but you've got the proliferation of these constellation systems. You're going to have more and more tech vectors. I mean, essentially that's malware. I mean, that's a probe. You throw something up in space that could cause some interference. Maybe a takeover. General, this is the real elephant in the room, the threat matrix from new stuff and new configurations. So general, how does the proliferation of constellation systems change the threat matrix? >> So I think the, you know I guess I'm going to be a little more optimistic John than I think you pitched that. I'm actually excited about these new mega constellations in LEO. I'm excited about the growing number of actors that are going into space for various reasons. And why is that? It's because we're starting to realize a new economic engine for the nation and for human society. So the question is, so I think we want that to happen. When we could go to almost any other domain in history and when air travel started to become much, much more commonplace with many kinds of actors from private pilots flying their small planes, all the way up to large airliners, there was a problem with congestion. There was a problem about, challenges about behavior, and are we going to be able to manage this? And yes we did. And it was for the great benefit of society. I could probably look to the maritime domain for similar kinds of things. And so this is actually exciting about space. We are just going to have to find the ways as a society, and it's not just the Department of Defense, it's going to be civil, it's going to be international, find the mechanisms to encourage this continued investment in the space domain. I do think that Space Force will play a role in providing security in the space environment, as we venture further out, as economic opportunities emerge, wherever they are in the lunar, Earth, lunar system, or even within the solar system. Space Force is going to play a role in that. But I'm actually really excited about those possibilities. Hey, by the way, I got to say, you made me think of this when you talked about "Star Trek" and Space Force and our technologies, I remember when I was younger watchin' the Next Generation series. I thought one of the coolest things, 'cause bein' a musician in my spare time, I thought one of the coolest things was when Commander Riker would walk into his quarters and say, "Computer play soft jazz." And there would just be, the computer would just play music. And this was an age when we had hard media. Like how will that, that is awesome. Man, I can't wait for the 23rd century when I can do that. And where we are today is so incredible on those lines. The things that I can ask Alexa or Siri to play. >> Well that's the thing, everything that's on "Star Trek," think about it, it's almost invented. I mean, you got the computers, you got, the only thing really is, holograms are startin' to come in, you got, now the transporter room. Now that's physics. We'll work on that. >> So there is this balance between physics and imagination, but we have not exhausted either. >> Well, firstly, everyone that knows me knows I'm a huge "Star Trek" fan, all the series. Of course, I'm an original purist, but at that level. But this is about economic incentive as well. Roland, I want to get your thoughts, 'cause the gloom and doom, we got to think about the bad stuff to make it good. If I put my glass half full on the table, this economic incentives, just like the example of the plane and the air traffic. There's more actors that are incented to have a secure system. What's your thoughts to general's comments around the optimism and the potential threat matrix that needs to be managed. >> Absolutely, so one of the things that we've seen over the years, as we build these small satellites is a lot of that technology that the General's talking about, voice recognition, miniaturized chips, and sensors, started on the ground. And I mean, you have your iPhone, that, about 15 years ago before the first iPhone came out, we were building small satellites in the lab and we were looking at cutting-edge, state-of-the-art magnetometers and sensors that we were putting in our satellites back then. We didn't know if they were going to work. And then a few years later, as these students graduate, they go off and they go out to other industries. And so, some of the technology that was first kind of put in these CubeSats in the early 2000s, kind of ended up in the first generation iPhone, smartphones. And so being able to take that technology, rapidly incorporate that into space and vice versa gives you an incredible economic advantage. Because not only are your costs going down because you're mass producing these types of terrestrial technologies, but then you can also increase revenue and profit by having smaller and cheaper systems. >> General, let's talk about that real quickly, that's a good point, I want to just shift it into the playbook. I mean, everyone talks about playbooks for management, for tech, for startups, for success. I mean, one of the playbooks that's clear from your history is investment in R&D around military and/or innovation that has a long view, spurs innovation, commercially. I mean, just there's a huge, many decades of history that shows that, hey we got to start thinking about these challenges. And next thing you know it's in an iPhone. This is history, this is not like a one off. And now with Space Force you're driving the main engine of innovation to be all digital. You know, we riff about "Star Trek" which is fun, the reality is you're going to be on the front lines of some really new, cool, mind-blowing things. Could you share your thoughts on how you sell that to the people who write the checks or recruit more talent? >> First, I totally agree with your thesis that national security, well, could probably go back an awful long way, hundreds to thousands of years, that security matters tend to drive an awful lot of innovation and creativity. You know I think probably the two things that drive people the most are probably an opportunity to make money, but beating that out are trying to stay alive. And so, I don't think that's going to go away. And I do think that Space Force can play a role as it pursues security structures, within the space domain to further encourage economic investment and to protect our space capabilities for national security purposes, are going to be at the cutting edge. This isn't the first time. I think we can point back to the origins of the internet, really started in the Department of Defense, with a partnership I should add, with academia. That's how the internet got started. That was the creativity in order to meet some needs there. Cryptography has its roots in security, in national security, but now we use it for economic reasons and a host of other kinds of reasons. And then space itself, I mean, we still look back to Apollo era as an inspiration for so many things that inspired people to either begin careers in technical areas or in space and so on. So I think in that same spirit, you're absolutely right. I guess I'm totally agreeing with your thesis. The Space Force will have a positive, inspirational influence in that way. And we need to realize that. So when we are asking for, when we're looking for how we need to meet capability needs, we need to spread that net very far, look for the most creative solutions and partner early and often with those that can work on those. >> When you're on the new frontier, you got to have a team sport, it's a team effort. And you mentioned the internet, just anecdotally I'm old enough to remember this 'cause I remember the days that it was goin' on, is that the policy decisions that the U.S. made at that time was to let it go a little bit invisible hand. They didn't try to commercialize it too fast. But there was some policy work that was done, that had a direct effect to the innovation. Versus take it over, and the next thing you know it's out of control. So I think there's this cross-disciplinary skillset becomes a big thing where you need to have more people involved. And that's one of the big themes of this symposium. So it's a great point. Thank you for sharing that. Roland, your thoughts on this because you got policy decisions. We all want to run faster. We want to be more innovative, but you got to have some ops view. Now, most of the ops view people want things very tight, very buttoned up, secure. The innovators want to go faster. It's the ying and yang. That's the world we live in. How's it all balance in your mind? >> Yeah, one of the things that may not be apparently obvious is that the U.S. government and Department of Defense is one of the biggest investors in technology in the aerospace sector. They're not the traditional venture capitalists, but they're the ones that are driving technology innovation because there's funding. And when companies see that the U.S. government is interested in something, businesses will revector to provide that capability. And, I would say the more recent years, we've had a huge influx of private equity, venture capital coming into the markets to kind of help augment the government investment. And I think having a good partnership and a relationship with these private equity, venture capitalists and the U.S. government is incredibly important because the two sides can help collaborate and kind of see a common goal. But then also too, on the other side there's that human element. And as General Shaw was saying, not only do companies obviously want to thrive and do really well, some companies just want to stay alive to see their technology kind of grow into what they've always dreamed of. And oftentimes entrepreneurs are put in a very difficult position because they have to make payroll, they have to keep the lights on. And so, sometimes they'll take investment from places where they may normally would not have, from potentially foreign investment that could potentially cause issues with the U.S. supply chain. >> Well, my final question is the best I wanted to save for last, because I love the idea of human space flight. I'd love to be on Mars. I'm not sure I'm able to make it someday, but how do you guys see the possible impacts of cybersecurity on expanding human space flight operations? I mean, general, this is your wheelhouse. This is your in command, putting humans in space and certainly robots will be there because they're easy to go 'cause they're not human. But humans in space. I mean, you startin' to see the momentum, the discussion, people are scratchin' that itch. What's your take on that? How do we see makin' this more possible? >> Well, I think we will see commercial space tourism in the future. I'm not sure how wide and large a scale it will become, but we will see that. And part of the, I think the mission of the Space Force is going to be probably to again, do what we're doin' today is have really good awareness of what's going on in the domain to ensure that that is done safely. And I think a lot of what we do today will end up in civil organizations to do space traffic management and safety in that arena. And, it is only a matter of time before we see humans going, even beyond the, NASA has their plan, the Artemis program to get back to the moon and the gateway initiative to establish a space station there. And that's going to be a NASA exploration initiative. But it is only a matter of time before we have private citizens or private corporations putting people in space and not only for tourism, but for economic activity. And so it'll be really exciting to watch. It'll be really exciting and Space Force will be a part of it. >> General, Roland, I want to thank you for your valuable time to come on this symposium. Really appreciate it. Final comment, I'd love you to spend a minute to share your personal thoughts on the importance of cybersecurity to space and we'll close it out. We'll start with you Roland. >> Yeah, so I think the biggest thing I would like to try to get out of this from my own personal perspective is creating that environment that allows the aerospace supply chain, small businesses like ourselves, be able to meet all the requirements to protect and safeguard our data, but also create a way that we can still thrive and it won't stifle innovation. I'm looking forward to comments and questions, from the audience to really kind of help, basically drive to that next step. >> General final thoughts, the importance of cybersecurity to space. >> I'll go back to how I started I think John and say that space and cyber are forever intertwined, they're BFFs. And whoever has my job 50 years from now, or a hundred years from now, I predict they're going to be sayin' the exact same thing. Cyber and space are intertwined for good. We will always need the cutting edge, cybersecurity capabilities that we develop as a nation or as a society to protect our space capabilities. And our cyber capabilities are going to need space capabilities in the future as well. >> General John Shaw, thank you very much. Roland Coelho, thank you very much for your great insight. Thank you to Cal Poly for puttin' this together. I want to shout out to the team over there. We couldn't be in-person, but we're doing a virtual remote event. I'm John Furrier with "theCUBE" and SiliconANGLE here in Silicon Valley, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe. It's theCUBE covering space in cybersecurity symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly. >> Hello, everyone. Welcome to the space and cybersecurity symposium, 2020 hosted by Cal Poly where the intersection of space and security are coming together. I'm John Furrier, your host with theCUBE here in California. I want to welcome our featured guest, Lieutenant General, John F. Thompson with the United States Space Force approach to cybersecurity. That's the topic of this session. And of course he's the commander of the space and missile system center in Los Angeles Air Force Base. Also heading up Space Force. General, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate to you kicking this off. Welcome to the symposium. >> Hey, so thank you very much, John, for that very kind introduction. Also very much thank you to Cal Poly for this opportunity to speak to this audience today. Also a special shout out to one of the organizers, Dustin Debrun, for all of his work, helping get us to this point. Ladies and gentlemen as a John mentioned, I'm JT Thompson. I lead the 6,000 men and women of the United States Space Force's Space and Missile System Center, which is headquartered here at Los Angeles Air Force Base and El Segundo. If you're not quite sure where that's at, it's about a mile and a half from LAX. This is our main operating location, but we do have a number of other operating locations around the country. We're about 500 people at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and an about another 500 people on the front range of the Rockies between Colorado Springs and Denver plus a smattering of other much smaller operating locations nationwide. We're responsible for acquiring, developing and sustaining the United States Space Force's, critical space assets. That includes the satellites in the space layer and also on the ground layer our ground segments to operate those satellites. And we also are in charge of procuring launch services for the US Space Force and a number of our critical mission partners across the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. Just as a couple of examples of some of the things we do, if you're unfamiliar with our work we developed and currently sustain the 31 satellite GPS constellation that satellite constellation, while originally intended to help with global navigation, those GPS signals have provided trillions of dollars in unanticipated value to the global economy over the past three decades. GPS is everywhere. I think everybody realizes that. Agriculture, banking, the stock market, the airline industry, separate and distinct navigation systems. It's really pervasive across both capabilities for our Department of Defense and capabilities for our economy and individuals, billions of individuals across our country and the planet. Some of the other work we do for instance, in the communications sector, secure communications satellites that we designed and build that link America's sons and daughters serving in the military around the world and really enable real time support and comms for our deployed forces. And those of our allies. We also acquire infrared missile warning satellites that monitor the planet for missile launches that provide advanced warning to the US Homeland and to our allies in case some of those missile launches are nefarious. On a note, that's probably a lot closer to home, maybe a lot closer to home than many of us want to think about here in the state of California. In 2018, SMC jumped through a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy to partner with the US Forest Service during two of the largest wildfires in the state's history, the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern California. As those fires spread out of control, we created processes on the fly to share data from our missile warning satellites. Those are satellites that are systems that are purpose built to see heat sources from thousands of miles above the planet. And we collaborated with the US Forest Service so that firefighters on the ground could track those fires more in real time and better forecast fires and where they were spreading, thereby saving lives and property by identifying hotspots and flareups for firefighters. That data that we were able to working with our contractors pass to the US Forest Service and authorities here in California, was passed in less than an hour as it was collected to get it into the hands of the emergency responders, the first responders as quickly as possible and doing that in an hour greatly surpassed what was available from some of the other assets in the airborne and ground-based fire spotters. It was really instrumental in fighting those fires and stopping their spread. We've continued that involvement in recent years, using multiple systems to support firefighters across the Western US this fall, as they battled numerous wildfires that unfortunately continue. Working together with the US Forest Service and with other partners we'd like to think that we've made a difference here, but there's still a lot more work to go. And I think that we should always be asking ourselves what else can space data be used for and how can we more rapidly get that space data to stakeholders so that they can use it for purposes of good, if you will. How else can we protect our nation? How else can we protect our friends and allies? I think a major component of the discussion that we will have throughout this conference is that the space landscape has changed rapidly and continues to change rapidly. Just over the past few years, John and I were talking before we went live here and 80 nations now have space programs. Nearly 80 space faring nations on the planet. If you just look at one mission area that the Department of Defense is interested in, and that's small launch, there are currently over 100 different small launch companies within the US industrial base vying for commercial DoD and civil payload capabilities, mostly to lower earth orbit. It's truly a remarkable time. If you factor in those things like artificial intelligence and machine learning, where we're revolutionizing really, the ways that we generate process and use data. It's really remarkable. In 2016, so if you think about this four years ago, NASA estimated that there were 28 terabytes of information transiting their space network each day. And that was four years ago. Obviously we've got a lot of desire to work with a lot of the people in the audience in this conference, we need to work with big thinkers, like many of you to answer questions on how best we apply data analytics to extract value and meaning from that data. We need new generations of thinkers to help apply cutting edge theories of data mining, cyber behaviorism, and Internet of Things 2.0, it's just truly a remarkable time to be in the space business and the cyber aspects of the space business are truly, truly daunting and important to all of us. Integrating cyber security into our space systems, both commercial and government is a mandate. it's no longer just a nice to have as the US Space Force and Department of the Air Force leadership has said many times over the past couple of years, space is becoming congested and contested. And that contested aspect means that we've got to focus on cyber security in the same way that the banking industry and cyber commerce focus on cybersecurity day in and day out. The value of the data and services provided is really directly tied to the integrity and availability of that data and services from the space layer, from the ground control segments associated with it. And this value is not just military, it's also economic and it's not just American, it's also a value for the entire world, particularly our allies, as we all depend upon space and space systems. Your neighbors and friends here in California that are employed at the space and missile system center work with network defenders. We work with our commercial contractors and our systems developers, our international allies and partners to try and build as secure and resilient systems as we can from the ground up that keep the global comments of space free and open for exploration and for commerce as John and I were talking earlier, before we came online, there's an aspect of cybersecurity for space systems, especially for some of our legacy systems, that's more, how do we bolt this on? Cause we fielded those space systems a number of years ago, and the challenges of cybersecurity in the space domain have grown. So we have a part that we have to worry about, bolting it on, but then we have to worry about building it in as we field new systems and build in a flexibility that realizes that the cyber threat or the cybersecurity landscape will evolve over time. It's not just going to be stagnant. There will always be new vulnerabilities and new threat vectors that we all have to look at. Look, as Secretary Barrett, who is our secretary of the air force likes to say most Americans use space before they have their first cup of coffee in the morning. The American way of life really depends on space. And as part of the United States Space Force, we work with defense leaders, our Congress joint, and international military teammates and industry to ensure American leadership in space. I really thank you for this opportunity to address the audience today, John, and thanks so much to Cal Poly for letting me be one of the speakers at this event. I've really looked forward to this for several months. And so with that, I look forward to your questions as we kind of move along here. >> General, thank you very much for those awesome introductory statement. For the folks watching on the stream, Brigadier General Carthan's going to be in the chat, answering any questions, feel free to chat away. He's the vice commander of Space and Missile System Center, he'll be available. A couple of comments from your keynote before I get to my questions. Cause it just jumped into my head. You mentioned the benefits of say space with the fires in California. We're living that here. That's really realtime. That's a benefit. You also mentioned the ability for more people launching payloads into space. I'm only imagined Moore's law smaller, faster, cheaper applies to rockets too. So I'm imagining you have the benefits of space and you have now more potential objects flying out sanctioned and maybe unsanctioned. So is it going to be more rules around that? This is an interesting question cause it's exciting Space Force, but for all the good there is potentially bad out there. >> Yeah. So John, I think the basics of your question is as space becomes more congested and contested, is there a need for more international norms of how satellites fly in space? What kind of basic features satellites have to perhaps de orbit themselves? What kind of basic protections should all satellites be afforded as part of a peaceful global commons of space? I think those are all fantastic questions. And I know that US and many allied policy makers are looking very, very hard at those kinds of questions in terms of what are the norms of behavior and how we field, and field as the military term. But how we populate using civil or commercial terms that space layer at different altitudes, lower earth orbit, mid earth orbit, geosynchronous earth orbit, different kinds of orbits, what the kind of mission areas we accomplished from space. That's all things that need to be definitely taken into account as the place gets a little bit, not a little bit as the place gets increasingly more popular day in and day out. >> I'm super excited for Space Force. I know that a new generation of young folks are really interested in it's an emerging, changing great space. The focus here at this conference is space and cybersecurity, the intersection. I'd like to get your thoughts on the approach that a space force is taking to cybersecurity and how it impacts our national goals here in the United States. >> Yeah. So that's a great question John, let me talk about it in two basic ways. At number one is an and I know some people in the audience, this might make them a little bit uncomfortable, but I have to talk about the threat. And then relative to that threat, I really have to talk about the importance of cyber and specifically cyber security, as it relates to that threat. The threats that we face really represented a new era of warfare and that new era of warfare involves both space and cyber. We've seen a lot of action in recent months from certain countries, notably China and Russia that have threatened what I referred to earlier as the peaceful global commons of space. For example, it threw many unclassified sources and media sources. Everybody should understand that the Russians have been testing on orbit anti-satellite capabilities. It's been very clear if you were following just the week before last, the Department of Defense released its 2020 military and security developments involving the People's Republic of China. And it was very clear that China is developing ASATs, electronic jammers, directed energy weapons, and most relevant to today's discussion, offensive cyber capabilities. There are kinetic threats that are very, very easy to see, but a cyber attack against a critical command and control site or against a particular spacecraft could be just as devastating to the system and our war fighters in the case of GPS and important to note that that GPS system also impacts many civilians who are dependent on those systems from a first response perspective and emergency services, a cyber attack against a ground control site could cause operators to lose control of a spacecraft or an attacker could feed spoofed data to assist them to mislead operators so that they sent emergency services personnel to the wrong address. Attacks on spacecraft on orbit, whether directly via a network intrusion or enabled through malware introduced during the system's production while we're building the satellite can cripple or corrupt the data. Denial-of-service type attacks on our global networks obviously would disrupt our data flow and interfere with ongoing operations and satellite control. If GPS went down, I hesitate to say it this way, cause we might elicit some screams from the audience. But if GPS went down a Starbucks, wouldn't be able to handle your mobile order, Uber drivers wouldn't be able to find you. And Domino's certainly wouldn't be able to get there in 30 minutes or less. So with a little bit of tongue in cheek there from a military operations perspective, it's dead serious. We have become accustomed in the commercial world to threats like ransomware and malware. And those things have unfortunately become commonplace in commercial terrestrial networks and computer systems. However, what we're seeing is that our adversaries with the increased competition in space these same techniques are being retooled, if you will, to use against our national security space systems day in and day out. As I said, during my opening remarks on the importance of cyber, the value of these systems is directly tied to their integrity. If commanders in the field, firefighters in California or baristas in Starbucks, can't trust the data they're receiving, then that really harms their decision making capabilities. One of the big trends we've recently seen is the move towards proliferated LEO constellations, obviously Space X's Starlink on the commercial side and on the military side, the work that DARPA and my organization SMC are doing on Blackjack and Casino, as well as some space transport layer constellation work that the space development agency is designing are all really, really important types of mesh network systems that will revolutionaries how we plan and field war fighting systems and commercial communications and internet providing systems. But they're also heavily reliant on cybersecurity. We've got to make sure that they are secured to avoid an accident or international damage. Loss of control of these constellations really could be catastrophic from both a mission perspective or from a satellites tumbling out of low earth orbit perspective. Another trend is introductions in artificial intelligence and machine learning, onboard spacecraft are at the edge. Our satellites are really not so much hardware systems with a little software anymore in the commercial sector and in the defense sector, they're basically flying boxes full of software. And we need to ensure that data that we're getting out of those flying boxes full of software are helping us base our decisions on accurate data and algorithms, governing the right actions and that those systems are impervious to the extent possible to nefarious modifications. So in summation, cybersecurity is a vital element of everything in our national security space goals. And I would argue for our national goals, writ large, including economic and information dimensions, the Space Force leadership at all levels from some of the brand new second lieutenants that general Raymond swore in to the space force this morning, ceremonially from the air force associations, airspace and cyberspace conference to the various highest levels, General Raymond, General DT Thompson, myself, and a number of other senior leaders in this enterprise. We've got to make sure that we're all working together to keep cyber security at the forefront of our space systems cause they absolutely depend on it. >> You mentioned hardware, software threats, opportunities, challenges. I want to ask you because you got me thinking of the minute they're around infrastructure. We've heard critical infrastructure, grids here on earth. You're talking about critical infrastructure, a redefinition of what critical infrastructure is, an extension of what we have. So I'd love to get your thoughts about Space Force's view of that critical infrastructure vis-a-vis the threat vectors, because the term threat vectors has been kicked around in the cyberspace. Oh you have threat vectors. They're always increasing the surface area. If the surface area is from space, it's an unlimited service area. So you got different vectors. So you've got new critical infrastructure developing real time, really fast. And you got an expanded threat vector landscape. Putting that in perspective for the folks that aren't really inside the ropes on these critical issues. How would you explain this and how would you talk about those two things? >> So I tell you, just like, I'm sure people in the security side or the cybersecurity side of the business in the banking industry feel, they feel like it's all possible threat vectors represent a dramatic and protect potentially existential threat to all of the dollars that they have in the banking system, to the financial sector. On the Department of Defense side, we've got to have sort of the same mindset. That threat vector from, to, and through space against critical space systems, ground segments, the launch enterprise, or transportation to orbit and the various different domains within space itself. Like I mentioned before, LEO, MEO and GEO based satellites with different orbits, all of the different mission areas that are accomplished from space that I mentioned earlier, some that I did mention like a weather tactical or wide band communications, various new features of space control. All of those are things that we have to worry about from a cyber security threat perspective. And it's a daunting challenge right now. >> Yeah, that's awesome. And one of the things we've been falling on the hardware side on the ground is the supply chain. We've seen, malware being, really put in a really obscure hardware. Who manufactures it? Is it being outsourced? Obviously government has restrictions, but with the private sector, you mentioned China and the US kind of working together across these peaceful areas. But you got to look at the supply chain. How does the supply chain in the security aspect impact the mission of the US space Force? >> Yeah. Yeah. So how about another, just in terms of an example, another kind of California based historical example. The very first US Satellite, Explorer 1, was built by the jet propulsion laboratory folks, not far from here in El Segundo, up in Pasadena, that satellite, when it was first built in the late 50s weighing a little bit, over 30 pounds. And I'm sure that each and every part was custom made and definitely made by US companies. Fast forward to today. The global supply chain is so tightly coupled, and frankly many industries are so specialized, almost specialized regionally around the planet. We focus every day to guarantee the integrity of every component that we put in our space systems is absolutely critical to the operations of those satellites and we're dependent upon them, but it becomes more difficult and more difficult to understand the heritage, if you will, of some of the parts that are used, the thousands of parts that are used in some of our satellites that are literally school bus sized. The space industry, especially national security space sector is relatively small compared to other commercial industries. And we're moving towards using more and more parts from non US companies. Cybersecurity and cyber awareness have to be baked in from the beginning if we're going to be using parts that maybe we don't necessarily understand 100% like an Explorer one, the lineage of that particular part. The environmental difficulties in space are well known. The radiation environment, the temperature extremes, the vacuum, those require specialized component. And the US military is not the only customer in that space. In fact, we're definitely not the dominant customer in space anymore. All those factors require us along with our other government partners and many different commercial space organizations to keep a very close eye on our supply chains, from a quality perspective, a security perspective and availability. There's open source reporting on supply training intrusions from many different breaches of commercial retailers to the infectious spread of compromised patches, if you will. And our adversaries are aware of these techniques. As I mentioned earlier, with other forms of attack, considering our supply chains and development networks really becomes fair game for our adversaries. So we have to take that threat seriously. Between the government and industry sectors here in the US. We're also working with our industry partners to enact stronger defenses and assess our own vulnerabilities. Last fall, we completed an extensive review of all of our major contracts here at Space and Missile System Center to determine the levels of cyber security requirements we've implemented across our portfolio. And it sounds really kind of businessy geeky, if you will. Hey, we looked at our contracts to make sure that we had the right clauses in our contracts to address cybersecurity as dynamically as we possibly could. And so we found ourselves having to add new language to our contracts, to require system developers, to implement some more advanced protective measures in this evolving cyber security environment. So that data handling and supply chain protections from contract inception to launch and operations were taken into account. Cyber security really is a key performance parameter for us now. Performance of the system, It's as important as cost, it's as important as schedule, because if we deliver the perfect system on time and on cost, it can perform that missile warning or that communications mission perfectly, but it's not cyber secure. If it's doesn't have cyber protections built into it, or the ability to implement mitigations against cyber threats, then we've essentially fielded a shoe box in space that doesn't do the CA the war fighter or the nation any good. Supply chain risk management is a major challenge for us. We're doing a lot to coordinate with our industry partners. We're all facing it head on to try and build secure and trusted components that keep our confidence as leaders, firefighters, and baristas as the case may be. But it is a challenge. And we're trying to rise to that challenge. >> This is so exciting this new area, because it really touches everything. Talk about geeking out on the tech, the hardware, the systems but also you put your kind of MBA hat on you go, what's the ROI of extra development and how things get built. Because the always the exciting thing for space geeks is like, if you're building cool stuff, it's exciting, but you still have to build. And cybersecurity has proven that security has to be baked in from the beginning and be thought as a system architecture. So you're still building things, which means you got to acquire things, you got to acquire parts, you got acquire build software and sustain it. How is security impacting the acquisition and the sustainment of these systems for space? >> Yeah. From initial development, through planning for the acquisition, design, development, our production fielding and sustainment, it impacts all aspects of the life cycle, John. We simply, especially from the concept of baking in cybersecurity, we can't wait until something is built and then try and figure out how to make it cyber secure. So we've moved way further towards working side by side with our system developers to strengthen cybersecurity from the very beginning of a systems development, cyber security, and the resilience associated with it really have to be treated as a key system attribute. As I mentioned earlier, equivalent with data rates or other metrics of performance. We like to talk in the space world about mission assurance and mission assurance has always sort of taken us as we technically geek out. Mission assurance has always taken us to the will this system work in space. Can it work in a vacuum? Can it work in as it transfers through the Van Allen radiation belt or through the Southern hemisphere's electromagnetic anomaly? Will it work out in space? And now from a resiliency perspective, yeah, it has to work in space. It's got to be functional in space, but it's also got to be resistant to these cybersecurity threats. It's not just, I think a General D.T Thompson quoted this term. It's not just widget assurance anymore. It's mission assurance. How does that satellite operator that ground control segment operate while under attack? So let me break your question a little bit, just for purposes of discussion into really two parts, cybersecurity, for systems that are new and cybersecurity for systems that are in sustainment are kind of old and legacy. Obviously there's cyber vulnerabilities that threatened both, and we really have to employ different strategies for defensive of each one. For new systems. We're desperately trying to implement across the Department of Defense and particularly in the space world, a kind of a dev sec ops methodology and practice to delivering software faster and with greater security for our space systems. Here at SMC, we have a program called enterprise ground services, which is a toolkit, basically a collection of tools for common command and control of different satellite systems, EGS as we call it has an integrated suite for defensive cyber capabilities. Network operators can use these tools to gain unprecedented insight to data flows and to monitor space network traffic for anomalies or other potential indicators of a bad behavior, malicious behavior, if you will, it's rudimentary at this point, but because we're using DevSecOps and that incremental development approach, as we scale it, it just becomes more and more capable. Every product increment that we feel. Here at LA Air Force Base, we have the United Space Force's West Coast Software Factory, which we've dubbed the Kobayashi Maru. They're using those agile DevOps software development practices to deliver a space awareness software to the combined space operations center. Affectionately called the CSpock that CSpock is just on the road from Cal Poly there in San Luis Obispo at Vandenberg Air Force Base. They've so securely linked the sea Spock with other space operation centers around the planet, our allies, Australia, Canada, and the UK. We're partnering with all of them to enable secure and enhanced combined space operations. So lots of new stuff going on as we bake in new development capabilities for our space systems. But as I mentioned earlier, we've got large constellations of satellites on orbit right now. Some of them are well in excess of a decade or more or old on orbit. And so the design aspects of those satellites are several decades old. But we still have to worry about them cause they're critical to our space capabilities. We've been working with an air force material command organization called CROWS, which stands for the Cyber Resiliency Office for Weapon Systems to assess all of those legacy platforms from a cyber security perspective and develop defensive strategies and potential hardware and software upgrades to those systems to better enable them to live through this increasingly cybersecurity concerned era that we currently live in. Our industry partners have been critical to both of those different avenues. Both new systems and legacy systems. We're working closely with them to defend and upgrade national assets and develop the capabilities to do similar with new national assets coming online. The vulnerabilities of our space systems really kind of threatened the way we've done business in the past, both militarily and in the case of GPS economically. The impacts of that cybersecurity risk are clear in our acquisition and sustainment processes, but I've got to tell you, as the threat vectors change, as the vulnerabilities change, we've got to be nimble enough, agile enough, to be able to bounce back and forth. We can't just say, many people in the audience are probably familiar with the RMF or the Risk Management Framework approach to reviewing the cyber security of a system. We can't have program managers and engineers just accomplish an RMF on a system. And then, hey, high five, we're all good. It's a journey, not a destination, that's cybersecurity. And it's a constant battle rhythm through our weapon systems lifecycle, not just a single event. >> I want to get to this commercial business needs and your needs on the next question. But before I go there, you mentioned agile. And I see that clearly because when you have accelerated innovation cycles, you've got to be faster. And we saw this in the computer industry, mainframes, mini computers, and then we started getting beyond maybe when the internet hit and PCs came out, you saw the big enterprises, the banks and government start to work with startups. And it used to be a joke in the entrepreneurial circles is that, there's no way if you are a startup you're ever going to get a contract with a big business enterprise. Now that used to be for public sector and certainly for you guys. So as you see startups out there and there's acquisition involved, I'm sure would love to have a contract with Space Force. There's an ROI calculation where if it's in space and you have a sustainment view and it's software, you might have a new kind of business model that could be attractive to startups. Could you share your thoughts on the folks who want to be a supplier to you, whether they're a startup or an existing business that wants to be agile, but they might not be that big company. >> John, that's a fantastic question. We're desperately trying to reach out to those new space advocates, to those startups, to those what we sometimes refer to, within the Department of Defense, those non traditional defense contractors. A couple of things just for thinking purposes on some of the things that we're trying to highlight. Three years ago, we created here at Space and Missile System Center, the Space Enterprise Consortium to provide a platform, a contractual vehicle, really to enable us to rapidly prototype, development of space systems and to collaborate between the US Space Force, traditional defense contractors, non traditional vendors like startups, and even some academic institutions. SPEC, as we call it, Space Enterprise Consortium uses a specialized contracting tool to get contracts awarded quickly. Many in the audience may be familiar with other transaction agreements. And that's what SPEC is based on. And so far in just three years, SPEC has awarded 75 different prototyping contracts worth over $800 million with a 36% reduction in time to award. And because it's a consortium based competition for these kinds of prototyping efforts, the barrier to entry for small and nontraditional, for startups, even for academic institutions to be able to compete for these kinds of prototyping has really lowered. These types of partnerships that we've been working through on spec have really helped us work with smaller companies who might not have the background or expertise in dealing with the government or in working with cyber security for their systems, both our developmental systems and the systems that they're designing and trying to build. We want to provide ways for companies large and small to partner together in support kind of mutually beneficial relationships between all. Recently at the Annual Air Force Association conference that I mentioned earlier, I moderated a panel with several space industry leaders, all from big traditional defense contractors, by the way. And they all stressed the importance of building bridges and partnerships between major contractors in the defense industry and new entrance. And that helps us capture the benefits of speed and agility that come with small companies and startups, as well as the expertise and specialized skill sets of some of those larger contractors that we rely on day in and day out. Advanced cyber security protections and utilization of secure facilities are just a couple of things that I think we could be prioritizing more so in those collaborations. As I mentioned earlier, the SPEC has been very successful in awarding a number of different prototyping contracts and large dollar values. And it's just going to get better. There's over 400 members of the space enterprise consortium, 80% of them are non traditional kinds of vendors. And we just love working with them. Another thing that many people in the audience may be familiar with in terms of our outreach to innovators, if you will, and innovators that include cyber security experts is our space pitch day events. So we held our first event last November in San Francisco, where we awarded over a two day period about $46 million to 30 different companies that had potentially game changing ideas. These were phase two small business innovative research efforts that we awarded with cash on the spot. We're planning on holding our second space pitch day in the spring of 2021. We're planning on doing it right here in Los Angeles, COVID-19 environment permitting. And we think that these are fantastic venues for identifying and working with high-speed startups, and small businesses who are interested in really, truly partnering with the US Air Force. It's, as I said before, it's a really exciting time to be a part of this business. And working with the innovation economy is something that the Department of Defense really needs to do in that the innovation that we used to think was ours. That 80% of the industrial base innovation that came from the Department of Defense, the script has been flipped there. And so now more than 70%, particularly in space innovation comes from the commercial sector, not from the defense business itself. And so that's a tsunami of investment and a tsunami of a capability. And I need to figure out how to get my surfboard out and ride it, you know what I mean? >> Yeah, It's one of those things where the script has been flipped, but it's exciting because it's impacting everything. When you're talking about systems architecture? You're talking about software, you're talking about a business model. You're talking about dev sec opsx from a technical perspective, but now you have a business model innovation. All the theaters are exploding in innovation, technical, business, personnel. This brings up the workforce challenge. You've got the cyber needs for the US Space Force, It's probably great ROI model for new kinds of software development that could be priced into contracts. That's a entrepreneurial innovation, you've got the business model theater, you've got the personnel. How does the industry adopt and change? You guys are clearly driving this. How does the industry adjust to you? >> Yeah. So I think a great way to answer that question is to just talk about the kind of people that we're trying to prioritize in the US Space Force from an acquisition perspective, and in this particular case from a cybersecurity perspective. As I mentioned earlier, it's the most exciting time to be in space programs, really since the days of Apollo. Just to put it in terms that maybe have an impact with the audience. From 1957 until today, approximately 9,000 satellites have been launched from the various space varying countries around the planet. Less than 2000 of those 9,000 are still up on orbit and operational. And yet in the new space regime players like Space X have plans to launch, 12,000 satellites for some of their constellations alone. It really is a remarkable time in terms of innovation and fielding of space capabilities and all of those space capabilities, whether they're commercial, civil, or defense are going to require appropriate cybersecurity protections. It's just a really exciting time to be working in stuff like this. And so folks like the folks in this audience who have a passion about space and a passion about cybersecurity are just the kind of people that we want to work with. Cause we need to make sure our systems are secure and resilient. We need folks that have technical and computing expertise, engineering skills to be able to design cyber secure systems that can detect and mitigate attacks. But we also, as you alluded to, we need people that have that business and business acumen, human networking background, so that we can launch the startups and work with the non traditional businesses. Help to bring them on board help, to secure both their data and our data and make sure our processes and systems are free as much as possible from attack. For preparation, for audience members who are young and maybe thinking about getting into this trade space, you got to be smart on digital networking. You got to understand basic internet protocols, concepts, programming languages, database design. Learn what you can for penetration or vulnerability testing and a risk assessment. I will tell you this, and I don't think he will, I know he will not mind me telling you this, but you got to be a lifelong learner and so two years ago, I'm at home evening and I get a phone call on my cell phone and it's my boss, the commander of Air Force Space command, General, J. Raymond, who is now currently the Chief of Space Operations. And he is on temporary duty, flying overseas. He lands where he's going and first thing he does when he lands is he calls me and he goes JT, while I was traveling, I noticed that there were eBooks available on the commercial airliner I was traveling on and there was an ebook on something called scrumming and agile DevSecOps. And I read it, have you read it? And I said, no, sir. But if you tell me what the title of the book is, I will read it. And so I got to go to my staff meeting, the very next week, the next time we had a staff meeting and tell everybody in the staff meeting, hey, if the four star and the three star can read the book about scrumming, then I'm pretty sure all of you around this table and all our lieutenants and our captains our GS13s, All of our government employees can get smart on the scrumming development process. And interestingly as another side, I had a telephone call with him last year during the holidays, where he was trying to take some leave. And I said, sir, what are you up to today? Are you making eggnog for the event tonight or whatever. And the Chief of Space Operations told me no, I'm trying to teach myself Python. I'm at lesson two, and it's not going so well, but I'm going to figure this out. And so that kind of thing, if the chief of staff or the Chief of Space Operations can prioritize scrumming and Python language and innovation in his daily schedule, then we're definitely looking for other people who can do that. And we'll just say, lower levels of rank throughout our entire space force enterprise. Look, we don't need people that can code a satellite from scratch, but we need to know, we need to have people that have a basic grasp of the programming basics and cybersecurity requirements. And that can turn those things into meaningful actions, obviously in the space domain, things like basic physics and orbital mechanics are also important spaces, not an intuitive domain. So under understanding how things survive on orbit is really critical to making the right design and operational decisions. And I know there's probably a lot, because of this conference. I know there's probably a whole lot of high speed cybersecurity experts out in the audience. And I need those people in the US Space Force. The country is counting on it, but I wouldn't discount having people that are just cyber aware or cyber savvy. I have contracting officers and logisticians and program managers, and they don't have to be high end cybersecurity experts, but they have to be aware enough about it to be able to implement cyber security protections into our space systems. So the skill set is really, really broad. Our adversaries are pouring billions of dollars into designing and fielding offensive and destructive space, cybersecurity weapons. They repeatedly shown really a blatant disregard of safety and international norms for good behavior on orbit. And the cyber security aspects of our space systems is really a key battleground going forward so that we can maintain that. As I mentioned before, peaceful global comments of space, we really need all hands on deck. If you're interested in helping in uniform, if you're interested in helping, not in uniform, but as a government employee, a commercial or civil employee to help us make cyber security more important or more able to be developed for our space systems. And we'd really love to work with you or have you on the team to build that safe and secure future for our space systems. >> Lieutenant General John Thompson, great insight. Thank you for sharing all that awesome stories too, and motivation for the young next generation. The United States Space Force approach to cybersecurity. Really amazing talk, thank you for your time. Final parting question is, as you look out and you have your magic wand, what's your view for the next few years in terms of things that we could accomplish? It's a super exciting time. What do you hope for? >> So first of all, John, thanks to you and thanks to Cal Poly for the invitation and thanks to everybody for their interest in cybersecurity, especially as it relates to space systems, that's here at the conference. There's a quote, and I'll read it here from Bernard Schriever, who was the founder, if you will, a legend in a DoD space, the founder of the Western development division, which was a predecessor organization to Space and Missile System Center, General Schriever, I think captures the essence of how we see the next couple of years. "The world has an ample supply of people "who can always come up with a dozen good reasons "why new ideas will not work and should not be tried, "but the people who produce progress are breed apart. "They have the imagination, "the courage and the persistence to find solutions." And so I think if you're hoping that the next few years of space innovation and cybersecurity innovation are going to be upon a pony ride at the County fair, then perhaps you should look for another line of work, because I think the next few years in space and cybersecurity innovation are going to be more like a rodeo and a very dynamic rodeo as it goes. It is an awesome privilege to be part of this ecosystem. It's really an honor for me to be able to play some small role in the space ecosystem and trying to improve it while I'm trying to improve the chances of the United States of America in a space war fighting environment. And so I thank all of you for participating today and for this little bit of time that you've allowed me to share with you. Thank you. >> Sir, thank you for your leadership and thank you for the time for this awesome event, Space and Cyber Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, I'm John Furrier on behalf of Cal Poly, thanks for watching. (mellow music)