(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)