(upbeat funky music) >> From our studios, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California. This is a CUBE conversation. >> Okay, welcome back everyone, we're here at theCUBE studios in Palo Alto for a special CUBE conversation. Talking security, talking about the internet and cloud computing. Martin Bosshardt is the CEO of Open Systems. Martin, great to see you. Last time we chatted was in December you were in Vegas, we had a little on the ground, great to meet your team. Welcome back to theCUBE. >> Thank you so much. It's great to be here. >> So exciting things going on, I want to get a state of the Open Systems and the industry, obviously security's a really big big thing, a lot stuff going on in the industry. Black Hat. Defcon. Amazon had a big event called re:Inforce, which was really kind of the first cloud securities show. Which brings the whole, your kind of value proposition to the table but, you guys have a new office here in Silicon Valley. I saw a video on the internet, trending. >> Yeah. >> Pretty nice place work. Give us the update on the current office and Silicon Valley presence. >> Yeah we are, you know, we are really happy to be now here in the U.S. headquarters in Redwood City and Silicon Valley. So, this really helps us also to be closer to the talents, to be closer to all the going to market activities and also to understand the market better. So, it's really exciting to be here and obviously also our, I mean the people love to work here in Silicon Valley. Weather is always great. >> Yeah, weathers always great and the office has got that good working vibe there. Take a minute to explain Open Systems real quick for the folks not familiar with the video 'cause we did last December in Vegas with your team. Tell them what your companies value propositions is and some of the growth you're experiencing. >> Right, so, Open Systems really is, you know, we operate SD-WAN in a secure way for our customer, so it's really focusing on making a relatively complicated technology, from operational point of view, very easy to consume for our customers. So this is, I think, something we started more than 15 years ago in Europe and I would say Open Systems is very much comparable, or at least the going to market part, is very much comparable to an organic farms. We have a wonderful ecosystems in Switzerland, especially in the financial services industry and our customers just love the way we provided those services and told their neighbors and friends and this is really how we grew on a global scale. Currently Open Systems is operating in more than 180 countries, SD-WAN and security infrastructure for customers and protect approximately 2.5 to three million in users globally. And when we started to enter the U.S. market, we learned that the way we provide SD-WAN in a secure way, really resonates a lot with the U.S. market because we can make complex infrastructures, especially projects going to the cloud, very easy to consume for our customers. So, we are really exciting on the growth side right now, we grow super fast in the U.S., we have been very successful in latest customers, we won Chemers, we won Chemit... >> So you're winning a lot of business. >> We are winning a lot of business and what's exciting about it is those customers give us really very valuable feedback on the difference how we provided services is really exciting... >> You know Martin, I was observing and talking to your team in December when we first met you guys for the first time and you just briefly touched on it on your description of the company success. A lot of the early success and continued success has been word of mouth. >> Right. >> With the organic, not like big marketing splash in the pool, kind of like, you know, banging the drum hard, although you are doing some marketing now but and being in the U.S. That word of mouth has been really a testament to the quality of the product, so I got to ask you, what are they happy about? What's the problem that you're solving? What's the big buzz? Why are they so excited to share, to their peers and colleagues about Open Systems? What's the big revelation? >> Thank you for the credit. I think, you know, everybody goes to the cloud and what you really need is an SD-WAN to access the cloud. What that also means for all those companies, they have to rethink their security posture. So if you add now all those products and then you try to operate those products, it turns out it's relatively complicated compared to an old school MPLS Network we used to operate in the past. So, this is really where Open Systems comes in and helps customers to operate that in very easy ways. So we integrate, all those products needed, to operate the global SD-WAN in a secure way, on a single delivery platform and that allows customers to consume that entire suite in a very very easy way. >> I want to get your vision on the future of Open Systems. I know you guys call it secure SD-WAN. I'm a little bit more radical and controversial in the sense. I think SD-WAN is kind of passe term, I think, it's really cloud connectivity work anywhere, people are working at home more than ever, cloud computing has brought in essentially enterprise cloud. We're calling it cloud 2.0, where, it's not just public cloud and having workloads in there, taking advantage of the greatest of cloud 1.0. It's enterprises, this is hybrid, it's multi-cloud, you seeing a, really a distributed computing, a networking problem and a security problem being at the center of this new work environment. >> Yeah. >> Essentially, people connected to something. >> Right. >> It's cloud right, I mean. We can call it SD-WAN because it used to be an office, campus, remote office, very static dynamic. What's your vision? >> You're absolutely right. I mean, this is really where it all goes. Let's say, a network was a network and it was very clear what a network does, right now it's more like, we want to just connect users to cloud services and it's not so clear where those services are coming from and it's not so clear where those users are sitting, where you consume from. And, it results in a phenomenal opportunity to be much more agile, much more, much faster, also to set-up new services, but it also is a challenge for IT operations. Because you know, you might have a group of users saying, well this and this service doesn't work well and now you have to debug. Why is not performing, why isn't Germany maybe, a service coming from the U.S., not performing well? Or you have an IoT device suddenly not really collecting data in a right way and this is really where SD-WAN becomes an orchestration layer. SD-WAN really helps you to orchestrate all those services and make sure you have the SLA available, at all times, everywhere. And also, understand if it's not delivering right and this is really rare where I believe... Ya, we need new solutions to make these easy because... >> You know, a lot of companies talk about digital transformation, that becomes the office, you know, the top CEO, board conversation, let's transform and be digital. But the underlying infrastructure, which is very complex, you can talk about distributing computing, you got networking, all these things in place and old, new, all kind of mashed together with cloud. It's easy to say digital transformation but you're talking about digital transformation of the business on top of existing complex hardware, which comes out the networking, moving packets from A to B, storing it on drives and now you have people working at home, so you have people working globally. >> Right. >> It's not that simple. >> No. >> It's complicated. >> It is really... >> It's not just a U.S. problem, it's like a have a team in, an engineering team in the U.K. and Germany, wherever, business... So it's a global problem. >> Exactly and also it's about, you know, how do you process all the data in an efficient way. And where we see a lot of iteration power released is right now in the Cloud. It's really exciting how easy it gets to consume all that computing power out of the cloud but you need to make sure it is available and you need to understand what is happening if it's not available and how to fix that. And this is really where, I think networking became more demanding, more challenging but also, obviously offers a tremendous opportunity for innovation. >> And I think the security industry has gotten much broader scope to it, used to be, hey you know, I'm a nerd, I'm Black Hat, I'm a blue team, red team, secure the environment, get a perimeter and okay that's gone, we'll take care of threats, malware, all this stuff's going on. But when you think about like cloud 2.0, cloud 1.0 is compute storage, great applications can load up at the cloud, all this great stuffs happening, hooray, yeah, rah-rah. Now cloud 2.0 is networking and security. >> Right. >> Independent of everything right so, what's your take on that? How is Open Systems, you know, helping companies? And what do you say to your customers when you say, hey, you know, compute networking, the storage is good, the cloud on premise no problem, there's operating models for that but you got networking and you got security to deal with on top of all the complexity. What's your story? >> I think the most important thing is, you know, we have to live with the fact that some device system tools are not secure. So I think IoT's a very good example. If you want to have all those sensors out there and be close to the customer, be close to some business processes, you need IoT. But, it's just not possible to have these very cheap devices built in a secure way. So, it's a lot about how do you design a network, to design it in a resilient secure way and that means that you have to think in cells, you have to think in compartments and that makes it relatively easy, secure again, but, it is from operational point of view, quite a challenge because you do not operate any more one network, you suddenly operate maybe any networks. >> On that point, just to kind of wrap up here. The the security challenges around IoT, Machine Learning and AI, which is clearly becoming part of the fabric of, a company's going to leverage that... >> Right. What are some of the big challenges that companies are having and what do you do to solve it? >> You know, in the old network world, you had a network where everything was connected based on one network. So, when you introduce SD-WAN and you introduce all these capabilities, it is very dangerous if you think just, in the old school of one network because suddenly you have IoT working on the same network as maybe your finance department. Or you have productivity facilities working the same network as your network department. So, it just doesn't make sense to have those very different functionalities on exactly the same network because if you have a compromised situation, you suddenly have your entire company compromised and this is really where compartments become very very important. I think this also something you in every industry, historically as well. Security and safety starts also with compartments. So, if you think fire, fire security, it has a lot to do with fire compartments. In case you have a fire, you don't lose the entire building or the same goes with ship building. I mean, Titanic was the last very big ship that sunk but the reason was the compartments haven't been pressurized. A modern ship doesn't sink anymore. And I think this really what we have to do now also in IT. We have to think in compartments. We have to think in layers and that's easy to do with SD-WAN but it's not so easy to operate. >> Final question for you real quick, you know, people talk about hybrid cloud, multi-clouds, the big conversation in this cloud 2.0. But you guys as being successful in outside the United States and now in the U.S., there's also multi-geo work environment. >> Right. What should people think about when they kind of want to frame that debate or conversation? I'm a multinational, I'm operating in the U.S., now I have regions, clouds have regions. There's also all kind of of now regulatory pressure coming across those areas. >> I would say around 2,000 companies really started to globalize their value chains. You know, in the past, maybe you had a production facility in one country and then you sold your products globally but if you want to be competitive, you have to globalize your value chain. So it doesn't make sense to produce everything in one place. Your product usually, or your service, is produced on a global scale and that means that networks also have to help you to really produce that global value chain. But, it means also that you are operating in different jurisdictions, in different regions and you have to respect those different regulations and laws. And this is, obviously then and also a challenge for network operators because privacy in Germany is different than in the U.S., access rights are different, China's again very different, but all those multinationals, we operate in all those countries and we have to respect the local law. >> And the provide the security they need. >> Exactly. >> Martin, thanks for coming in and sharing your insights. Appreciate, good to see you, we'll follow up with and keep of the progress. Thanks for coming in. >> Thank so much. >> I'm John Furrier for CUBE Conversation in Palo Alto, at theCUBE Studios, thanks for watching. (upbeat funky music)

(upbeat instrumental music) >> From Las Vegas it's the CUBE. Covering Open Systems, the future is crystal clear with security and SD-WAN. Brought to you by Open Systems. >> Hello everyone and welcome back to the CUBE. We are here in Las Vegas in the Cosmo hotel in the Chandelier bar. Part of Open Systems get together, kind of session of smart people gathered. All part of big week here in Vegas. Garden is having a big event, a lot of things happening. We have Martin Bosshardt who is the CEO of Open Systems who's hosting the event. Thanks for coming on the CUBE. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for joining me. Okay so, I got to get this out there. You guys are in Switzerland headquarters. You've just established big presence in Silicon Valley. >> Right. >> And you've expanding rapidly in Silicon Valley, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Explain what you guys do, how you started, where you come from and what's the story of Open Systems? >> Well, originally we started as managed security service provider and I managed security infrastructure. We learned, especially if you are doing financial services, security infrastructure, if you try to update you need to go into those data centers. And that is harder to get in there, it's like entering North Korea. So we learned to operate that stuff remotely and that really brought us in more than 180 countries, especially with industry companies. Industry they manufacturing, they started to globalize their value chains, and that really helped us to globalize our foot print. And obviously to do that we used SD-WAN. So we definitely came from the security space, but today we are the largest SD-WAN, standardize SD-WAN platform we a fully integrated security staff. >> So how big is the company roughly people-wise? What's a... >> We are 200 plus people currently, and a 50 plus million revenue this year. >> How big, sounds like the customers are really large complex data centers with a lot of offices and facilities. Is that your makeup of your customer base right now? >> Our customer base really is, I think, I mean obviously financial services that's always if you start in Switzerland a company, the financial services is very important. But then also, industry, manufacturing is especially companies with globalized value chains are very interested in our services. Because you have serious complexity from regulatory point of view, but also from operational point of view to operate SD-WAN in a secured way. So this is really our sweet spot. >> So explain the difference between SD-WAN old way and the new way, because SD-WAN was simply connecting branch offices together, basic networking stuff. Mean its like connectivity. So today is much more complex. What's the difference between the SD-WAN environment thing, because there is a resurgence with SD-WAN. With cloud computing, with the internet, obviously with secure issues, it's a whole different ball game. Explain the difference between the old way and the new way. >> Well the old way was it just connected occasions and then you piped traffic through a VPN, right. And I think we learned a lot about what SD-WAN is really capable to do when we start to work for the NGO Space, when you use a lot of satellite traffic. It's very expensive to pipe everything through the satellites, so you need to slice the traffic into important stuff, less important stuff and then you decide what are you going to route through the satellite and what you going to route terrestric. And this is really where the whole magic of SD-WAN comes from. You certainly have to, the freedom to route traffic application based in a very different way. So, you're not bound to protocols anymore, so you really can route your Office 365 traffic different than your Facebook traffic. You can route, you can priortize. >> So you can differentiate between the traffic types first. That was a first, discovery. >> That was important for us, because we managed infrastructure and obviously you don't want to create congestion by managing infrastructure. So, it is really about, what traffic is important? What traffic is time critical? >> Yeah. >> And route, depending on the application needs, traffic differently. >> Yes, cost is always a big motivator. But for innovation. >> Cost performance. It's always cost performance, right? >> So, I get that's awesome and by the way that's how startups figure out innovations that don't have a lot of capital. They figure it out by being effective and making things work. When did the security piece click in for you guys? When you guys saw SD-WAN, when was the moment you said, "Okay we are going to do all these things to save costs and do this kind of routings and these kinds of policy based". I'm over simplifying, but you know what I'm saying. When did security become important? Was it from the beginning? Was it a discovery? Was it something that was a, you just caught the wave? Explain how you guys became so prolific in your product with security. >> We definitely, we came sort of from the security space and the SD-WAN was something we used to operate security infrastructure. So it's maybe, we looked at it a little bit different, but at the end of the day, SD-WAN creates so much opportunities for companies. And I believe the whole cloud movement is creating so many opportunities for companies to move fast, to create growth. Also, if you think IoT, it creates whole different business models for almost all enterprise organizations. >> Talk about the business model, that's important, because go ahead finish your thoughts. >> And now the question is, How can you embrace all that growth and managing the risks? And that's what's happening right now. We help customers to combine the security. >> So one of the things we were here last week for Amazon re:Invent big event for Amazon web services and they announce a non-premise product. No one thought they were ever going to do that. So I asked the CEO there why they were doing that, essentially he said, "latency kills". Certain latency is now the new problem. You learned that from the satellite situation where cost and latency are really important factors in determining how you architect things. But then you realize that the business models are shifting. So, I ask you, as you have need for security and low latency, people are looking for direct connections. They don't want to route traffic through internet. Who knows where it's going to go though, China? It's all these hidden problems. >> Yeah, and you know I agree basically. Latency kills, but I also disagree, because there are applications where latency is not an issue, like email. I mean you couldn't care less about latency in email. >> In fact don't deliver it. (laughs) >> But at the same time it's really important that a network understands not only how it routes, it also understands what it routes. And that is the power of SD-WAN, so you really can route different applications in different routes. >> Right time, right place kind of thing. >> Exactly and then it depends where it's consumed, where it's delivered and where do you route those >> Talk about your business model now, you got a U.S. Why the U.S. expansion? Is it right for growth? Is it a natural progression? What's the strategy, Why U.S. expansion? >> Actually, what we see the U.S. is moving very fast to the cloud right now and this is an opportunity for us to really support that, I would call it transformation. It's really an industry transformation is happening right now and we just in Europe maybe to bring down the cost of connectivity. That's still more of a business driver, and obviously, that's always exciting to bring down costs. But if you move to cloud, you really have to rethink your network structure and also you have to rethink your security posture. So this is just a way of opportunity. >> Martin, I got to ask you honestly, I've been kind of checking around Silicon Valley and you guys have a good vibe and good buzz. Certainly great reputation in Switzerland, great product, great work, but you are attracting kind of new talent from the Bay area, Cisco in particular. A lot of these high-powered people. Networking guys, developers. Who are you guys looking to attract into your office as you expand, I know you got a lot of openings. It's not a recruiting plug, but I mean as you look to put the team together, What are you guys looking for? What's the kind of individual? What's the culture of your company? What's the kind of things people can expect if they work there? >> I mean we are focused on, we just want to create the most amazing networks in a secured way. And I believe this is very attractive, what we've created the last couple of years. And that is also attractive for talent in Silicon Valley. But obviously, it's a competitive market. But it's all over the world, it's competitive market. And I believe, especially going to the market and understanding what the world needs. That's very powerful in Silicon Valley. The eco-system is very powerful, so for us is clear. We want to be there, we want to play a role. >> That's awesome, we look forward to doing more content. Final question for you, If you could have to nail down the core problem that you guys are trying to solve. As the world evolves, the landscape continues, the world gone global. You're seeing all kinds of needs, all kinds of intelligence. What have the top problems that your team is working on, to continue to iterate and solve, What are the big things you are trying to nail down? >> We want to make it for a customer very easy to consume a secure SD-WAN. And that sounds maybe simple, but it's not. To operate an SD-WAN in a secure way is really challenge. So most companies operate like 40, 50 different products to achieve that. >> Yeah. >> And we us it's like subscribing a service. >> Quick plug last minute, What's your product? 'Cause you have a deal with multiple vendors. Is this a SAS product, on-premise, cloud? >> It's a SAS, on prem available and it's availa6ble in all major cloud (mumbles), like Azuren and Amazon. So it's in all clouds premises working. >> You're literally Switzerland, for the cloud. (laughs) >> Yeah. >> They use that expression in the United States a lot. >> Yeah. >> We're Switzerland, we're neutral. >> Yeah, we're Switzerland, we're neutral. We're actually very neutral and also... >> But seriously, you can work with, if I'm the customer >> Right. >> I have multiple clouds, I have multiple vendors. I have a ton of security products. Can I use you guys? >> Right, yeah it's simple. I mean we are already a platform so we use many security products and orchestrate so they work together. >> What are the common things you get from customers that have been successful with you. And I don't want to say single (mumbles) lessons that is an old IT expression, but the world has to be smarter, faster, dashboard oriented, AP harden, APIs, a lot of data traversal. What's the ideal end state for your customers, when you guys are successful? >> You have to repeat that question. >> From a customer, what's the value purchase to me? Am I saving time? Am I integrating multiple devices? >> You save a lot of time, you save a lot of money. And I believe the most important thing is, we see ourself as weapon in a war for talent. It's just impossible for our customers to find the talents to really operate that stuff in a good way. And we make that much easier. So obviously, you cannot outsource security, but you can make security easy, manageable and that's where we... >> And operational, make it work. >> And operational, make it work, and that's I believe the key already. >> Well Martin, congratulations on the expansion strategy. Real quick, What's going on in Vegas for you guys here? What are you guys here talking about? What's the big story here for you guys? >> Well basically, obviously, we grow very fast so we also use this to bring together people. But then also, everybody is here right now. It's great to see winners, it's great to see partners. It's great to see competitors, so it's just important to understand the market. It's also, there are worst place in the world to be. >> Yeah. >> In Las Vegas. >> Build those relationships, thanks so much for coming on the CUBE, really appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. >> I'm here with the CEO of Open Systems from John Furrier the CUBE, we are here at the Chandelier bar at the Cosmo. We are just getting started, we got a couple bunch more interviews still to come. We just had the FBI on, really importa6nt conversations around security, cybersecurity, enterprise security, and how to make SD-WAN work. We'll be right back with more. Stay with us after this short break. (techno music)