>>Welcome to this cube conversation. I'm Lisa Martin learn Dubois joins me next VP of product management at Dell technologies. Laura, welcome back to the program. >>Yeah. Thank you so much, Lisa. It's just fantastic to be here and talking about data protection. Um, you know, now that we're coming out of COVID, it's just wonderful to be here. Thank you so much. >>Isn't it so refreshing. So you're going to provide some updates on Dell's data protection software, some of the innovation, how you're working with customers and prospects on that. So let's go ahead and dig right in. Let's talk about some of the innovation and the enhancements that Dell is making to its data protection suite of software, and also how customers are influencing that. >>Yeah, so it's a great question, Lisa and you're right. We have driven a lot of innovation and enhancements in our data protection suite. And let me just level set a second. So data protection suite, you know, is a solution that is deployed by really tens of thousands of customers. And we continue to innovate and enhance that data protection suite data protection suite is comprised primarily of three main data protection, software capabilities, so longstanding capabilities and customer adoption of Avamar, which continues to be a central capability on our portfolio. The second one is networker. Um, so networker is also an enterprise grade, highly scalable and performance data protection solution. And then a couple of years ago, um, we launched a new data protection capability called power protect data manager. So all three of these capabilities were really the foundation of our data protection suite. And as I said, you know, enterprises around the world rely on these three capable sets of capabilities to protect their data, regardless of wherever it resides. And, um, it's really central now more than ever in the face of, you know, increasing security, um, you know, risks and compliance and the need to be able to have an always kind of available environment that customers rely on the capabilities and data protection suite to really make sure their enterprises resilient. Absolutely. >>And make sure that that data is recoverable. If anything happens, you mentioned cybersecurity. We'll get into that in a second, but so thousands of Avamar and networker customers, what are some of the key workloads and data that these customers are protecting with these technologies? >>Yeah, I mean, so actually tens of thousands, tens of thousands, tens of thousands of customers that rely on data protection suite and you know, it really, I think the, the, the strength and advantage of our portfolio is its breadth, breadth and Kip terms with client operating environments in terms of applications and databases in terms of workloads and, and, and specifically use cases. So, I mean, the breadth that we offer is unparalleled. Um, you know, pretty much when a windows, Linux, um, open VMs, NetWare, you know, kind of, you know, going back in time, a long tail of kind of operating environments and then databases, right? So everything from SQL and Oracle and Sybase and DB two to new types of databases, like, you know, the no SQL or, or content store and, and, and, um, key value store types of types of, um, no SQL, uh, schema was if you will. >>And so, and then lastly is the, the use cases, right? So being able to protect data, whether that be data that's in a data center, out in remote or branch locations or data that's out in the cloud, right. And of course, create increasingly customers are placing their data, um, in a variety of locations, on edge, on core data centers and in cloud environments. And, um, we actually have over, uh, six exabytes of capacity on our management, across public cloud environments. So, um, pretty extensive deployment of our, our data protection suite in public clouds, you know, the leading hyperscalers, um, uh, cloud environments on premises as well. >>So let's talk a little bit about the customer influence because obviously there's a very cooperative relationship that Dell has with its customers that help you achieve things. Like, for example, I saw that according to IDC, Dell technologies is number one and data protection, appliances, and software leader in the Gartner magic quadrant for data center, backup and recovery for over 20 years. Now, talk to us a little bit more about that symbiotic customer Dell. >>Yeah. So it's a great question. We see our customers and strategic partners, and we really want to understand their business, their requirements. We engage on a quarterly basis with customers and partners in, um, it advisory councils. And then of course, we are always engaging with customers outside of those cycles on a kind of a one-on-one basis. And so we're really driving the innovation and the backlogs and the roadmap for data protection suite based upon customer feedback and, um, uh, approximately 79% of the fortune 100 customers, our Dell data, Dell technologies, data protection customers. Now that's not to say that that's our only customer base. We have customers in commercial accounts in mid-market and in, uh, federal agencies. Um, but you know, we take our customer relationships really, really seriously, and we engage with them, uh, on a regular basis, both in a group forum to provide feedback as well as in a one-on-one basis. And we're building our roadmaps and our, and our, our, our product releases based on feedback from customers. And, um, again, you know, large customer base that we take very seriously, >>Right to the customer listening obviously is critical for Dell. So you talked a little bit about what that cycle looks like in terms of quarterly meetings, and then those individual meetings, what are some of the enhancements and advancements that customers have actually influenced? >>Yeah, so we, I mean, we, I think, um, continuing, continuing to provide simplicity and ease of use is a key, uh, element of our portfolio and our in our strategy, right? So continuing to modernize and update the software in terms of workflows, in terms of, uh, know common experiences, also increasingly customers want to automate their data protection process. So really taking an API first strategy for how we deliver capabilities to customers, you know, continuing to expand our client, um, database hypervisor environments, continue to extend out our cloud support. Um, you know, things like, um, protection of cloud, native applications with, uh, increasingly customers containerizing, um, and building scale-out applications. We want to be able to protect Kubernetes environment. So that's kind of an area of focus for us. Um, another area of focus for us is going deeper with our key strategic partners, you know, whether that'd be a, a cloud partner, a hypervisor partner, and then of course, customers, in fact, one of the top three things that we consistently hear from, from these councils that we do is the, the criticality of security security and or data protection environment, but the criticality of being able to be resilient from, and, and in the event of a, of a cyber attack to be able to resilient recover from that cyber attack. >>So that is an area where we continue to make, uh, innovations and investments, uh, in the data protection suite. >>And that's so critical. One of the things that we saw in the last year, 15 months, plus Laura, is this massive rise in ransomware. It's now a household word, the colonial pipeline, for example, that meat plan, it's, it's now many businesses knowing it's not if we get attacked, but it's when, so having the ability to be resilient and recover that data is table stakes for, I imagine a business in any organization, I want to understand a little bit more. So you talked about tens of thousands of customers using Avamar and networker. So now they have the capability of also expanding and using more of, of the suite. Talk to me a little bit about that. >>Yeah, so, I mean, I think it starts with the customer environment and what workloads and use cases they have and because of the breadth of capabilities and Dave, the data protection suite, you know, we really optimize the solution based upon their needs, right? So if they have, um, a large portfolio of, of applications that they need to maintain, but they're also building applications or, or, or systems for the future, we have S you know, solution there. If they have a single hypervisor strategy or a multiple hypervisor strategy, we have a, you know, a strategy there, if they have data that's on premise and across a range of public clouds, you know, one large customer we have as a, you know, kind of, uh, uh, uh, three-plus one strategy around cloud. So there's, they, there's, they're, they're leveraging, you know, three different, um, uh, public cloud, I as environments. And then they're also have their on-premise cloud environment. So, you know, we, it really starts with the customer workload and the data and where it lives, whether that's be out in an edge location in a row remote or branch office on an end point somewhere, they need to protect whether it be in a core data center or multiple data centers, or rather that be in the cloud. Um, you know, that's how we think about optimizing the solution for the, for the customers. >>Curious if you can give me any examples of customers, maybe by industry that were, have been with Dell for a long time with Avamar networker and how they've expanded, being able to pick, as you say, as their, or as their environment grows. And we've got, um, now as this blur, right, it's now work from anywhere data centers, edge. Talk to me about some customers, examples that you think really articulate the value of what Dell is doing. >>Yeah, so, I mean, I think one customer, um, in the financial services sector comes to mind. They have a large, uh, um, amount of unstructured data that they need to protect, you know, petabytes, petabytes, and petabytes of data they need to protect. And so I think that's one customer that comes to mind is someone we've been with for a long time, uh, you know, been partnering with for a long time, >>A lot of, of, um, flexibility and choice for Avamar, a networker customers, as things change the world continues to pivot. And we know it's absolutely essential to be able to recover that data. You mentioned 70, I think 79% of the fortune 100 are using, uh, Dell technologies for data protection software. That's probably something that's only going to continue to grow. Um, lots of stuff coming up, as you mentioned, but what are some of the things that you're personally excited about as the world starts to open up and you get to actually go out and engage with customers >>I'm in just looking forward to like in-person meetings, right? I mean, I just love going and trying to understand what problems the customers are trying to solve and how we can help address those. Um, I think, you know, what I see customers sort of struggling with is how do they kind of manage their current environment while they're building for the future? Um, so there's a lot of interest in questions around, you know, the, how do they protect some of these new types of workloads, whether they're deployed on premise or in the public cloud. Um, so that continues to be an area where we, you know, we continue to engage with customers. Um, I'm also really personally excited about, you know, the extensions that we're doing and our cyber recovery capabilities socio can expect to hear more about some of those in the, in the next 12 months, because we're really, um, you know, seeing that as a key, uh, driver to kind of increase, um, you know, increased policies around and, and implementations around data protection, uh, is, is because of these, you know, the, the need to be able to re be resilient from cyber attacks. >>Um, I would say we're also doing some very interesting integrations with VMware. Um, we're going to have some first and only announcements around VMware and managing protection for VMware, uh, you know, VM environments. So we can look forward to hearing more about that. And, you know, we have customers that are deployed our data protection solutions at scale. Um, you know, one customer has 150,000 clients they're protecting with our data protection offerings. Wow. 150,000. And so, you know, we're continuing to improve the, and enhance the products to meet those kinds of scale requirements. And, um, you know, I'm excited by the fact that, that we've had this long standing relationship with this one particular customer and, you know, continue to, to help and, and flow an edge where, where their needs go. >>And that's something that even a great job of talking about is just not just a longstanding relationships, but really that dedication that Dell has to innovating with its customers. Laura, thank you for sharing some of the updates of what's new, what you're continuing to do with customers and what you're looking forward to in the future. It sounds like we might hear some news around the VMworld timeframe. Yes. All right, Laura, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate your time. >>It's been great to be here. Thanks so much. >>Excellent for Laura Dwight and Lisa Martin, you're watching this cube conversation.