>>The Cube presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi everybody. We're back at UI path forward to five. This is Dave Ante with Dave Nicholson. Derek Mu is here. He's automation product line lead for Merck. Thank you, by the way, for, you know, all you guys do, and thank you Dave for having in the, in the, in the vaccine area, saving our butts. And Bill Engel is back on the cube. He's the director at cgi. Guys, good to see you again. >>Good to see you. Thank >>You. So Merrick, Wow, it's been quite a few years for you guys. Take us through Derek, what's happening in sort of your world that's informing your automation strategy? >>Well, Dave, I mean as you know, we just came out of the pandemic. We actually have quite a few products like Gabriel Antiviral Pill. Obviously we worked, you know, continue to drive our products through a difficult time. But, you know, is during these can last few years that, you know, we've accelerated our journey in automation. We're about four years plus in our journey, you know, so just like the theme of this conference we're we're trying to move towards, you know, bigger automations, transformational change, continue to drive digital transformation in our company. >>Now Bill, you've been on before, but CGI tell people about the firm. It's not computer graphics imaging. >>Sure. No, it's, it's definitely not. So cgi, we're a global consultancy about 90,000 folks across the world. We're a, we're both a product company and a services company. So we have a lot of different, you know, software products that we deliver to our clients, such as CGI Advantage, which is a state local government EER P platform. And so outside of that, we, my team does automation and so we wrap automation around R IP and deliver that to our clients. >>So you guys are automation pros, implementation partners, right? So, so let's go back. Yep. Derek said four years I think. Yep. Right, You're in. So take us through what was the catalyst, how did you get started? Obviously it was pre pandemic, so it's interesting, a lot of companies pre pandemic gave lip service to digital transformation. Sounds like you guys already started your journey, but I'll come back to that. But take us back to the Catalyst four years ago. Why automation? We'll get into why UI path, >>Right. So I, I would say it started pretty niche in our company. Started first in our finance area. Of course, you know, we were looking in technology evaluating different companies, Blue Prism, ui P. Ultimately we chose UI p did it on-prem to start to use automation in sort of our invoice processing, sort of our financial processes, right? And then from there, after it was really when the pandemic hit, that's when sort of we all went to remote work. That's when the team, the COE continued to scale up, especially during pandemic. We were trying to automate more and more processes given the fact that more and more of our workers are remote, they reprocesses. How, how do you do events? You know, part of our livelihood is, is meeting with engaging with customers. Customers in this case is, are doctors and physicians, right? How do you engage with them digitally? How do you, you know, you know, a lot of the face to face contact now have to kind of shift to more digital, digital way. And so automation was a way to kind of help accelerate that, help facilitate that. >>You, you, I think you mentioned COE as in center of excellence. Yep. So, so describe your approach to implementing automation. It's, that sounds like when you say center, it sounds like something is centralized as, as opposed to a bunch of what we've been hearing a lot about citizen developers. What does that interaction >>Look like? We do have both. I would say in the beginning was more decentralized, but over time we, over the few years as, as we built more and more bots, we're now at maybe somewhere between four to 500 bots. We now have sort of internal to the company functional verticals, right? So there's an animal health, we have an animal health function. So there's, there's a team building engaging with the animal health business to build animal health box. There's human health, which is what I work on as well as hr, finance, manufacturing, research. And so internally there's engagement leads, one of the engagement leads that interact with the business. Then when there's an engineering squads that help build and design, develop and support and maintain those as well as sort of a DevOps team that supports the platform and maintains all the bot infrastructure. >>So you started in finance common story, right? I'm sure you hear this a lot Belt, How did you decide what to target? Was it, was it process driven decision? Was it, was it data oriented? Like some kind of combination? How did you decide, Do you remember? Or do you, could you take >>Us back to Oh yeah. So for, for cgi how we started to engage with MER is, you know, we, we do a lot of other business with Merck. We work on all their different business lines and we, we understand the business process. So we, we knew where there was potential for automation. So we brought those ideas to Merck and, and really kind of landed there and helped them realize the value from automation from that standpoint. And then from there the journey just continued to expand, you know, looking for those use cases that, that, you know, fit the mold for, for, for RPA to start. And now the evolution is to go to broader hyper automation. >>And, and was it CFO led into the finance department and then, or was it sort of more bottoms >>Up? Yeah, so, so I think it started in, in finance and, and, but we actually really started out in the business line. So out in regulatory clinical, that's, that's where we, we have the life science expertise that are embedded. And so I partnered with them to come up with, hey, here's a real solution we could do to help streamline, say submission archiving. So when, when submissions come back from the fda, they need to be archived into, you know, the, their system of record. So that's, those are the types of use cases that, that we helped automate. >>Okay. Cause you're saying a human had to sort physically archive that and you were able to sort of replicate that. Okay. And you started with software robots, obviously rpa and now you're expanding into, we we're hearing from UI this the platform message. How does that coincide Derek, with what you guys are doing? Are you sort of adding platform? What aspects of the platform are, are you adding? >>Yeah, no, I mean we are, we are on-premise, right? So we have the platform, but some of the cool things we just had, another colleague of mine presented earlier today. Some of the cool things we're, we're doing ephemeral infrastructure. So infrastructure as code, which essentially means instead of having all these dedicated bot machines, that that, you know, cuz these bots only in some cases run 10 minutes and they're done. So we're, we're soon of doing all on demand, you know, start up a server, run the bot when it's finished, you know, kill the server. So we only pay for the servers that we use, which allows us to save a whole >>Lot of money. Serverless bots. So you, but you're doing that OnPrem, so you >>No, >>No, but >>That's >>Cloud. We, >>We, we we're doing it OnPrem, but our, our bot machines that actually run the, let's say SAP process, right? We spin that machine up, it's on the cloud, it runs it finish, Let's say it's processed in one hour and then when it's done, we kill that machine. So we only play for that one hour usage of that bot machine. >>Okay. So you mentioned SAP earlier you mentioned Blue Prism when you probably looked at other competitors too. You pull the Gartner Magic quadrant, blah, blah, you know, with the way people, you know, evaluate technology, but SAP's got a product. Why UI path mean? Is it that a company like SAP two narrow for their only sap you wanted to apply it other ways? Maybe they weren't even in the business that back then four years ago they probably weren't. Right? But I'm curious as to how the decision was made for UiPath. >>Well, I think you hit it right on the nail. You know, SAP sort of came on a little later and they're specific to sort of their function, right? So UiPath for us is the most flexible tool can interact by UI to our sales and marketing systems, to, to workday, to service Now. It's, it cuts across every function that we have in the company as well as you're the most mature. I mean, you're the market leader, right? So Right. Definitely you, you continue to build upon those capabilities and we are exploring the new capabilities, especially being announced today. >>And what do you see Bill in the marketplace? Are you, are you kind of automation tool agnostic? Are you more sort of all in on? I >>Would say we are, we are agnostic as a company, but obviously as part of a, as an automation practice lead, you know, I want to deliver solutions to my clients that are gonna benefit them as a whole. So looking at UI path, you know, that this platform is, it covers the end to end spectrum of, of automation. So I can go really into any use case and be able to provide a solution that, that delivers value. And so that's, that's where I see the value in UI path and that's why CGI is, is a customer as well. We automate our internal processes. We actually have, we just launched probably SALT in the, in the market last week, expanded partnership with UiPath. We launched CGI, Excel 360. That's our fully managed service around automation. We host our clients whole UI path infrastructure and bots. It's completely hands off to them and they just get the value outta >>Automation. Nice, nice. Love >>It. Derek, you mentioned, you mentioned this ephemeral infrastructure. Yeah. Sounds like it's also ethereal possibility possibly you're saying, you, you're saying you have processes that are running on premises, right? But then you reach out to have an automation process run that's happening off pre and you're, and you're sort of, >>It's on the cloud, so, so yeah, so we have a in-house orchestrator, so we don't, we're not using your sort of on the cloud orchestrator. So, so we brought it in-house for security reasons. Okay. But we use, you know, so inside the vpn, you know, we have these cloud machines that run these automations. So, so that's, that's the ephemeral side of the, of the >>Infrastructure. But is there a financial angle to that in terms of when you're spinning these things up, are you, is it a, is it a pay by the drink or by the, by the CPU >>Hours, if you can imagine like we, you know, like I mentioned where somewhere between four to 500 bots and every bot has a time slot to run and takes a certain amount of time. And so that's hundreds and hundreds of bot machines that we in the old days have to have to buy and procure and, you know, staff and support and maintain. So in this new model, and we're just beginning to kind of move from pilot into implementation, we're moving all, all of bots this in ephemeral infrastructure, right? So these, okay, these machines, these bot machines are, you know, spun up. They run the, they, they run their automation and then they spin >>Down. But just to be clear, they're being spun up on physical infrastructure that is in your >>Purview and they spun up on aws. Yeah. Okay. And then they spin down. Okay, got >>It. Got it. Interesting. Four >>To 500 bots. You know, Daniel one point play out this vision of a bot chicken in every pot, I called it a bot for every employee. Is that where you're headed or is that kind of in this new ephemeral world, not necessary, it's like maybe every employee has access to an ephemeral bot. How, how are you thinking about that? >>That's a good question. So obviously the, the four to 500 is a mix of unattended bonds versus attended bonds, right? That, that we also have a citizen developer, sort of a group team. We support that as well from a coe. So, you know, we see the future as a mix. There's, there's a spectrum of, we are the professional development team. There's also, we support and nurture the personal automation and we provide the resources to help them build smaller scale automations that help, you know, reduce the, you know, the mundaneness and the hours of their own tasks. But you know, for us, we want to focus more and more on building bigger and bigger transfer transformational automations that really drive process efficiencies and, and savings. >>And what's the, what's the business impact been? You mentioned savings and maybe there's other sort of productivity. How do you measure the benefit, the ROI and, and >>Quantify that we, you know, I, I don't, I don't profess I don't think we have all the right answers, but yeah, simple metrics like number of hours saved or other sort of excitement sort of in like an nps, internal NPS between the different groups that we engage. But we definitely see automation demand coming from our, our functional teams going up, driving up. So it's, it's continued to be a hot area and hopefully we, we can, you know, like, like what the key message and theme of this, of this conference. Essentially we want to take and build upon the, the good work that we've done in terms of rpa and we want to drive it more towards digital transformation. >>So Bill, what are you seeing across the, your customer base in terms of, of, of roi? I'm not looking for percentages there. I'm sure they're off the charts, but in terms of, you know, you can optimize for fast payback, you know, maybe lower the denominator, you know, or you can optimize for, you know, net benefit over time, right? You know, what are you seeing? What are customers after they want fast payback and little quick hits? Or are they looking for sort of a bigger enterprise wide impact? >>Yeah, I think it's, it's the latter. It's that larger impact, right? Obviously they, you know, they want an roi and just depending upon the use case, that's gonna vary in terms of the, the benefits delivered. And a lot of our clients, depending on the industry, so in in life sciences it may be around, you know, compliance like GXP compliance is huge. And so that may may not be much of a time saver, but it ensures that they're, they're running their processes and they're being compliant with, you know, federal standards. So that's, that's one aspect to it. But you know, to, you know, a bank, they're looking to reduce their overall costs and and so on. But yeah, I think, I think the other, the other part of it is, you know, impacting broader business processes. So taking that top down approach versus kind of bottom up, you know, doing ta you know, the ones you choose the tasks is not as impactful as looking at broader across the entire business process and seeing how we can impact >>It. Now, Derek, when you guys support a citizen developer, how does that work? So, hey, I got this task I want to automate, I'm gonna go write a, you know, software robot. I'm gonna go do an automation. Do I just do it and then throw her to the defense? You guys, you guys send me a video on how to do it. Hold my hand. How's that work? >>Yeah, I mean, good question. So, so we obviously direct them to the UI path Academy, get some training. We also have some internal training materials to how to build a bot sort of internal inside Merck. We, we go through, we have writeups and SOPs on using the right framework for automations, using the right documentation, PDD kind of materials, and then ultimately how do we deploy bot inside the MER ecosystem. But I, I, maybe I'll just add, I think you asked the point about ROI before. Yeah. I'll also say because we're, we're a pharmaceutical company. I think one of the other key metrics is actually time saved, right? So if, if, if we have a bot that helps us get through the clinical process or even the getting a, a label approved faster, even if it's eight days saved, that's eight days of a product that can get out to the market faster to, to our patients and, and healthcare professionals. And that's, that, that's immeasurable benefit. >>Yeah, I bet if you compress that ELAP time of, of getting approval and so forth. All right guys, we've gotta go. Thanks so much. Congratulations on all the success and appreciate you sharing your story. Thank >>You so much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. >>Appreciate it. All right. Thank you for watching this Dave Ante for Dave Nicholson, The cubes coverage, two day coverage. We're here in day one, UI path forward, five. We'll be right back right after the short break. Awesome. >>Great.

>>Welcome to the cubes coverage of VMworld 2021. I'm Lisa Martin VJ ramen. Shannon joins me next VP of product management at VMware VJ. Welcome back to the program. >>Thank you. So >>We're going to be talking about disaster recovery, VMware cloud. Dr. We've had a lot of challenges with respect to cybersecurity, but the world has in the last 18 months, I'd like to get your, your thoughts on the disaster recovery as a service, the dearest market. What are some of the key trends? Anything that you've noticed have particular interest in the last year and a half? >>Yeah, actually you're right. I mean that the last one year, since the pandemic, you know, the whole, um, lot of industries want to, uh, deploy DLR systems and want to protect themselves in France, somewhere and other, uh, other areas of the Amazon predicting that the disaster service market is going to reach about $10 billion by 2025. And so we, uh, we introduced bandwidth disaster recovery, you know, the last beam work with an acquisition of a company called atrium. And since then we've had tremendous success and it was really largely driven by two key trends that we seen in the market. One is that a lot of our customers have regulatory and mandates to do have a PR plan in place. And second is ransomware and ransomware a lot more in this interview, but ransomware is top of mind for a lot of customers. So those, these two combined together is really making a huge push to, uh, to protect all the data against, uh, disasters. >>What type of customers and any particular industries that you see that are really keenly adopting VMware cloud and D anything that you think is interesting. >>Yeah, it's actually interesting that you say it's actually not a single vertical or a size of the customer. What we have again, what we're finding is that a lot of the regulated industries, I, you know, having 92 to do the art, but the existing VR and data production systems are extremely complex and not cost effective. So, you know, customers are asked to do more with less. And so a lot of our customers, a lot of those customers are asking for, uh, looking for a cost-effective way to protect all the data. And, you know, and ransomware is not something that, that impacts, you know, any single vertical or, or any single size of customer. It impacts everyone. So we're seeing interest from all different verticals, different sizes of customers, uh, across, uh, the, you know, the B cell this, >>Yeah, you're right. The ransomware is a universal problem. And as we saw in the last few months, a problem that is really one of national public health and safety and security concerns. So you mentioned that customers from a regulatory perspective, those that need to implement Dr. Ransomware, as we talked about, are there, and then you also mentioned legacy solutions are kind of costly complex. Talk to me about some of the challenges with respect to those legacy solutions that you're helping customers to address with VMware cloud disaster recovery. >>Yeah. There are a few traits of chains that are, uh, that are emerging and then the whole data production space. One is, uh, customers want to do more with the data. And so with legacy systems, what they're finding is that customers are, you know, are able to replicate the data, but the data is sitting idle and not being used. And so, um, you know, and that's extremely, very expensive for our customers on the line. And secondly, from an outpatient standpoint, backup and Dr, as kind of merging into a single single solution and ransomware protection is becoming a critical use case as we spoke about at the talk about for that. So, uh, customers are not looking to deploy different systems for different types of production. They're looking for a similar solution that, that the lowest cost and gives them enough production across all these different use cases. >>And so where the NFL disaster recovery comes into play is that, is that we are able to use the data that we protect for other uses such as, uh, such as ransomware recovery, such as data protection, such as disaster recovery. So single copy of data that's being could be used in multiple use cases. Number one. And secondly, uh, it's a very expensive, uh, proposition to have, um, you know, on-prem to on-prem, you know, having to, you know, people who shouldn't capacity just sitting idle. And so where Vizio comes into play is that they're able to use, uh, protect the data into cloud, store it in a cost effective manner, and then just use the data when it's acquired either fatal or during disasters in ransomware. And that's where you're able to in, in, in, in the market today, >>Dig through some of those differentiators, if you will, one by one, because there's so much choice out there, there's a lot of backup solutions. Some that are providing backup only some that are doing also Dr. Depending on how customers have deployed and how they're using the technology. But when you're in customer conversations, what are the three things that you articulate about VMware cloud DVR that really help it stand out above the pack? >>Yeah, number one is the cost, right? Um, we, you know, we're able to bring down the cost of, uh, of a disaster protection, uh, by 65, by 65%. And, uh, and, you know, um, that's one big value proposition that we, uh, that we know highlight in our solution. Number two, a lot of our customers also becoming environmentally friendly and, you know, and I'm in a conscious, I should say. And so, because we're able to store the data in a more cost-effective manner, in a more efficient manner in the cloud, they're able to bring down the carbon footprint by 80% compared to regular, you know, your legacy, uh, disaster recovery and data protection solution. And the third, you know, sort of major value proposition from, from, uh, from the BMS is that, you know, we're able to integrate the, uh, uh, BCDR solution, the disaster coriander data protection solution. So well into our, um, you know, into, into the ecosystem, uh, can easily operationally easily recover data into a BM ware cloud. And so for, for the BMA ecosystem, it just becomes a natural logical extension of their, uh, their, uh, toolset. >>That's huge having a console that you're familiar with, you know, the whole point of, of backing up data and the need to recover from a disaster is to be able to restore the data in a timely fashion. I talked with a lot of customers who were using legacy technologies, and that was one of the biggest challenges backup windows weren't completing, or they simply couldn't recover data that was either, um, lost in an, in a ransomware attack or accidentally lost that recovery is what it's all about. Right. >>That's it, that's exactly right. And so at this rainbow ledger using a key enhancements and features that specifically speak to that, uh, you know, to that pain point that you just mentioned, you know, uh, we are bringing down, uh, the, uh, you know, the replication time, uh, to 30 to 30 minutes. So in other words, your Delta is, is, is, uh, is at a 300 interval now compared to all us in a traditional backup system. And number two, um, we are extending, uh, you know, be in love with a copy of it regardless it's always had with single file recovery. And so, especially for the, for the ransomware, uh, use case customers are quickly able to figure out which file leads to the restore, and they're able to restore those files individually rather than restoring their entire VM for the entire data center. And so it becomes a critical, uh, use case for, uh, critical functionality, I should say, for a ransomware recovery. And the other huge announcement of a major announcement media announcement had been made, uh, uh, others be involved is the integration into the VMware cloud in such a way that customers who move are migrating data into the BMR, the cloud on AWS can, uh, have the opportunity to, um, uh, protect the data, um, you know, uh, you know, easily BCDR and >>Got it. I'd love to get an example of a customer that you helped to recover from ransomware. As we mentioned, it's on the rise. In fact, I was looking at some cybersecurity data in the last few weeks, and it's the first half of 2021 calendar. It was up nearly 11 ax. And obviously the, the, the hockey stick lists looking like it's going to continue to go up into the right. So give me an example of a customer that you helped recover after they were hit with ransomware. >>Yeah. Yeah, I lose. And in fact, before I give you one set, one statistic that I just saw recently, um, it is, um, every Lennon are going to be across the board. There's some ransomware attack and in the world. And so, uh, you know, it is a big, you know, it is a huge, huge top of mind for a lot of, uh, the CEO's across and I, you know, across the globe now, uh, we, I just give you an example of one customer that we helped, um, you know, protect the data against ransomware. Merrick is the customer name, uh, it's a public reference. It can, um, you know, it's, it's in the BMI website and they had legacy systems, just like we talked about before they had legacy systems for protecting the data and they had, you know, backup systems and they had disaster recovery systems. >>And the big pain point was that, you know, they knew that they are, you know, they needed to protect against ransomware and, but they had two different systems backup and disaster recovery, and their cost was high because they were replicating the light data or production data, uh, you know, across different sites. And so they were looking for a, uh, to lower the cost of disaster recovery, but more importantly, they're looking to, uh, to protect themselves against potential ransomware threats and, um, and they were able to deploy VCR. And how does multiple points in time? Um, you know, I, in, in, um, in the, in the cloud that are, that allows them to go to any point, uh, you know, uh, after a ransomware attack and record from it. And as I said, the single file recovery was a huge benefit for them because they can then figure out exactly which, you know, which of those files, uh, you know, required, um, recovery. And so, um, they're able to lower the cost and protect, uh, and at the same time, uh, you know, meet the regulatory requirements and mandates to have a production in place so that the women all up there in all over the place, >>As you said, there, the data show one ransomware attack occurs every 11 seconds. And of course we only hear about the ones that make the news, right, for the most part, our customers talk about, Hey, we've had this problem. So it is no longer a, if we get hit with ransomware for every industry, like you were saying before, no industry is blind to this. It's when we get hit, we've gotta be able to recover the data. It sounds like what you're talking about from a recovery perspective is it's, it's very granular. So folks can go in and find exactly what they're looking for. Like, they don't have to restore entire VM. They can go down to the file level. >>That's exactly right. And, and you need the grant of the recovery because you want to be able to quickly restore, you know, your data, uh, and get back on, uh, you know, get back in the business. And so, uh, we provide that granular, granular recovery at the file level so that you can quickly scan your data, figure out which file needs to be at least a bit of cover and recollect just those files. Of course, you can also the color. We also provide authorization for the whole data center for the whole, uh, you know, BM and all the beings in the data center, but customers when they hit the trends and where they want to be able to quickly get back, get back into production, to those flights that, you know, that they critically need. And so that's, um, yeah, that's, it's a critical functionality. >>So is this whole entire solution in the cloud, or is there anything that the customer needs to have on premise? >>So this is, uh, all the data is go to the cloud in an efficient day, in an efficient way. Again, uh, you know, this is another sort of, um, like be that behalf, which is it's easy to just store data in the cloud in a debate, but what we do is be efficiently store the data so that, you know, you, uh, you know, you can know what the cost of your storage and, uh, uh, in the cloud. And so, you know, we used to be at BCDR, we'll be in the cloud disaster recovery. Those data in the cloud is, uh, and, and, and the data repository is in the cloud. And, uh, you can either recover data back to where you need to recover, or we allow filo or orchestrate automatically feel or of, uh, workloads into VMware on AWS, again, operational consistent, because it's a BMI software that's running on ground BMI software, that's running on data and you can, um, you know, fail a lot and bring the data onto the in-vitro Needham, VSO. It's, uh, uh, it's, uh, you know, and it's all there to look for SAS customer customer doesn't have to really manage anything on prem fuel, >>Which must've been a huge advantage in the last year and a half when it was so hard to get to the on-prem locations. Right. >>That's exactly right. And this is one of the clear differentiators, you know, against, uh, you know, with, um, uh, compared to the legacy systems, because in legacy backup and disaster recovery systems, you need to manage your, not just your target tourists, but also, you know, the Asians and, you know, all the stuff that, uh, uh, all the software that goes along with that, uh, data production and, uh, and the disaster recovery solution. And so by T and Matt upgrades and patches and so on. And so what we do with, with a SAS based approach is take away that burden away from customer. So we deliver this entire service as a SAS first as a cloud service first, um, uh, delivery mechanisms of customers are don't have water. You don't have to whatever any of those things. >>And that's critical, especially as we've seen in the last 18 months with what's been going on the challenge of getting to locations, but also what's been happening as we talked about in the cybersecurity space, on the increase, the massive increase in ransomware. Talk to me a little bit about, I want to dig in before we go about some of the ways that you've simplified and integrated the way to backup VMware cloud on AWS. Talk to me a little bit more about some of those enhancements specifically. Yeah, >>Yeah. So, um, a lot of the customers, customers, as you know, are, uh, you know, have a dual pronged approach where they have, you know, some workloads running on prem and they have some workloads running and the VMware cloud on AWS and for BNB, uh, for VMs that are running on VMware cloud on AWS. Um, you know, now they have a choice of, uh, of protecting, protecting the data and the VM very simply, uh, using the McLaurin disaster cloud disaster recovery. And what that means is that they don't need to have the full band BR solution, but they can simply protect the data and automatically restore and recover of data. If they, you know, if there's a corruption or something goes wrong with their, uh, you know, the beans, they can simply restore the data without going through an entire field processes. So we provide a simplified way for customers to automatically protect data, and then that are running on VMware cloud on AWS. And that's a, and it's fully integrated with our cloud on AWS, you know, workflows. And, um, and so that's a great win for anyone who's, who's migrating data man workloads into BMC >>Is the primary objective of that to deliver a business resiliency. Dr. >>Both actually that's, that's, that's, that's a great part about that. You know, that's a bit part of the solution is that customers don't have to choose between Dr and business resiliency. They get both with a single solution. They can start off, it's a specific business resiliency and protecting the data, but if they choose to, they can them, uh, you know, add BR as well to that, to those workflows. And so it's not either, or it's both. >>Excellent. Got it. Any other enhancements that you guys are announcing at the Emerald this year? >>Yeah. I just want to reiterate the announcements and the key enhancements and the making, making, uh, you know, the balancing beam. Well, um, the first one, as I said is, uh, uh, is 30 minutes RPO. So customers that are business critical workloads can now pro protect the data and be guaranteed that they're, you know, the, the, you know, the demo data, the data that they, um, you know, they lag behind it's, it's in the 30 minute range and not in the other screens, like with other legacy backup solutions. That's one. The second is the integration, uh, as all enhancements that, you know, that I just talked about for ransom recovery, single file, thin file restore. Um, they always had, you know, number of snapshots and, you know, failure was and so on, but silverish was a key and that's what they've been making for a ransomware recovery. And the third one is the integration with BNB coordinator. So the fully integrated solution and provides a simple, you know, sort of plug and play solution for any workload that's funding in being AWS. Those are the three Tiki announcements. There's a lot more in, um, in the world. So you'll see that in the coming weeks and months, but these are the three on to get the input, >>A lot of enhancements to a solution that was launched just about a year ago. VJ, thank you for sharing with us. What's new with VMware cloud DVR, the enhancements, what you're doing, and also how it's enabling customers to recover from that ever pressing, increasing threat of ransomware. We appreciate your thoughts and likewise for VJ Ramachandra and I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching the cubes coverage of VMworld 2021.

>> live from San Francisco, celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage. It's the Cube covering Veum, World 2019 brought to you by the M Wear and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to San Francisco. Day three of our coverage here on the Cube Of'em world 2019. I'm John Wall's Glad to have you here aboard for our continuing coverage here Day Volonte is also joining me, as is the sartorially resplendent Eric Herzog, cm of and vice president. Global storage channels that IBM storage. Eric, good to see you and love the shirt. Very >> nice. Thank you. Well, always have a wine shirts when I'm on the Cube >> I love in a long time Cuba to we might say, I'm sure he's got the record. Yeah, might pay. Well, >> you and pattern, neck and neck. We'll go to >> the vault. And well, >> since Pat used to be my boss, you know, couch out a path. >> Well, okay. Let the little show what IBM think. Maybe. Well, that's OK. Let's just start off a big picture. We're in all this, you know. Hybrid. Multilingual. This discussion went on this week. Obviously, just your thoughts about general trends and where the business is going now supposed to wear? Maybe we're 23 years ago. Well, the >> good thing is for IBM storage, and we actually came to your partner and titty wiki Bond when our new general manager, Ed Walsh, joined. And we came and we saw Dave and John at the old office are at your offices, and we did a pitch about hybrid multi cloud. Remember that gave us some feedback of how to create a new slide. So we created a slide based on Dave's input, and we were doing that two and 1/2 years ago. So we're running around telling the storage analyst Storage Press about hybrid multi cloud based on IBM storage. How weaken transparently move data, things we do with backup, Of course. An archive. You've got about 450 small and medium cloud providers. Their backup is a service engine. Is our spectrum protect? And so we talked about that. So Dave helped us craft the slide to make it better, because he said, we left a couple things >> out that Eric >> owes you. There were a few other analysts I'm sure you talked to and got input, but but us really were the first toe to combine those things in your in your marketing presentations. But >> let's I'd love to get >> an update on the business. Yes, help people understand the IBM storage organization. You guys created the storage business, you know, years and years and years ago. It's a it's a you know you've got your core business, which is column arms dealers. But there's a lot of Regent IBM, the Cloud Division. You've got the service's division, but so help us understand this sort of organizational structure. So >> the IBM story division's part of IBM Systems, which includes both the mainframe products Z and the Power Server entities. So it's a server in storage division. Um, the Easy guys in particular, have a lots of software that they sell and not just mainframe. So they have a very, very large software business, as do we. As you know, from looking at people that do the numbers, We're the second largest storage software company in the world, and the bulk of that software's not running on IBM gear. So, for example, spectrum protect will back up anyone's array spectrum scale and our IBM Cloud Object storage are sold this software only software defined as the spectrum virtualized. You could basically create a J. Bader Jabo after your favorite distributor or reseller and create your honor. Rates are software, but the all of the infrastructure would actually not be ours, not branded by us. And you call us for tech support for the software side. But if you had a bad power supplier fan, you'd have to call, you know, the reseller distributor said this very robust storage software business. Obviously you make sure that was compatible with the other server elements of IBM systems. But the bulk of our storage is actually sitting connect to some server that doesn't have an IBM logo on it. So that's the bulk of our business connected to Intel servers of all types that used to include, of course, IBM Intel Server division, which was sold off to Lenovo. So we still have a very robust business in the array space that has nothing to do with working on a power machine are working on a Z machine, although we clearly worked very heavily with them and have a number of things going with him, including something that's coming very shortly in the middle of September on some new high end products that we're going to dio >> went 90 Sea Counts All this stuff. Do they >> count to give IBM credit for all the storage that lives inside of the IBM Cloud? Do you get you get credit for that or >> not get credit for that? So when they count our number, it's only the systems that we sell and the storage software that we sell. So if you look at if we were a standalone company, which would include support service made everything, some of which we don't get credit for, right, the support and service is a different entity at IBM that does that, UM, the service's group, the tech support that all goes to someone else. We don't have a new credit >> so hypothetical I don't I don't think this is the case, but let's say hypothetically, if pure storage sold an array into IBM Cloud, they would get credit for it. But if you're array and I'm sure this happens is inside of the IBM, you don't get credit for it. >> That's true interesting, so it's somewhat undercounts. Part of that is the >> way we internally count because we're selling it to ourselves. >> But that's it. >> It's not. It's more of an accounting thing, but it's different when we sell the anybody else. So, for example, we sell the hundreds of cloud providers who in theory compete with the IBM Cloud Division >> to you Get credit for that. You get credit for your own away. That's way work. But if we were standing >> on coming for, say, government, we were Zog in store and I bought the company away, we would be about a $6.3 billion standalone storage software company. That's what we would be if we were all in because support service manes. If we were our own company with our own right legal entity, just like net app or the other guys, we'd be Stanley would be in that, you know, low $6 billion range, counting everything all in. When we do report publicly, we only report our storage system because we don't report our storage software business. And as you notice a few times, our CFO has made comments. If we did count, the storage software visit would be ex, and he's publicly stated that price at least two times. Since I've been an idea when he talks about the software on, but legally we only talk about IBM storage systems. When he publicly state our numbers out onto Wall Street, that's all >> we publicly report. So, um, you're like, you're like a walking sheet of knowledge here, but I wonder if you could take the audience through the portfolio. Oh, it's vast. How should we think about it? And the names have changed. You talk about, you know, 250 a raise, whatever it is the old sand volume control. And now it's a spectrum virtualized, >> right? So take us to the portfolio. What's the current? It's free straight for. >> We have really three elements in the portfolio, all built around, if you will, solution plays. But the three real elements in the portfolio our storage arrays, storage systems, we have entry mid range and high end, just like our competitors do. We lead with all flash, but we still sell hybrid and obviously, for backup, an archive. We still sell all hard drive right for those workloads. So and we have filed blocking object just like most other guys do, Um, for an array, then we have a business built around software, and we have two key elements. Their software defined storage, and we saw that software completely stand alone. It happens, too, by the way, be embedded on the arrays. So, for example, Dave, you mentioned Spectrum virtualized that ship's on flash systems and store wise. But if you don't want our raise, we will sell you just spectrum virtualized alone for block spectrum scale for Big Big Data A. I file Workloads and IBM caught object storage, which could all of them could be bought on an array. But they also could be bought. Itjust Standalone component. Yes, there's a software so part of the advantage we feel that delivers. It's some of the people that have software defined storage, that air raid guys. It's not the same software, so for us, it's easier for us to support and service. It's easier for a stack developing have leading it. Features is not running two different pieces of software running, one that happens to have a software on Lee version or an array embedded version. So we've got that, and then the third is around modern data protection, and that's really it. So a modern data protection portfolio built around spectrum, protect and Protect Plus and some other elements. A software to find storage where we sell the software only, and then arrays. That's it. It's really three things and not show. Now they're all kinds components underneath the hood. But what we really do is we sell. We don't really run around and talk about off last race. We talk about hybrid multi cloud. Now all of our flash raise and a lot of our software defined storage will automatically tear data out, too. Hybrid multi cloud configurations. We just So we lead with that same thing. We have one around cyber resiliency. Now, the one thing that spans the whole portfolio of cyber resiliency way have cyber rebellion see and a raise. We have some softer on the mainframe called Safeguarded Copy that creates immutable copies and has extra extra security for the management rights. You've got management control, and if you have a malware ransomware attack, you couldn't recover to these known good copies. So that's a piece of software that we sell on the mainframe on >> how much growth have you seen in that in? Because he's never reveals if you've got it resonating pervasive, right, Pervasive. So >> we've got, for example, malware and ransomware detection. Also, Inspector protect. So it's taken example. So I'm going to steal from the Cube and I'm gonna ask Dave and for you, I want a billion dollars and Dave's gonna laugh at me because he used a spectrum protect. He's gonna start laughing. But if I'm the ransomware guy, what do I do? I go after your snapshots, your replicas and your backup data sets. First, I make sure I've got those under control. And then when I tell you I'm holding you for ransom, you can't go back to a known good copy. So Ransomware goes after backup snaps and replicas first. Then it goes half your primary storage. So what we do, inspector protect, for example, is we know that at Weeki Bond and the Cube, you back up every night from 11 32 1 30 takes two hours to back you up every night. It's noon. There's tons of activity in the backup data sets. What the heck is going on? We send it out to the admin, So the admin for the Cube wicky bond takes a look and says, No server failure. So you can't be doing a lot of recovery because of a bad server. No storage failures. What the heck is going on? It could be a possible mount where ransomware attack. So that type of technology, we encrypt it, rest on all of our store to raise. We have both tape and tape and cloud air gapping. I'm gonna ask you about that. We've got both types of air gapped >> used to hate tape. Now he loves my love, right? No, I used to hate it, But now I love it because it's like the last resort, just in case. And you do air gapping when you do a WR gapping with customers, Do you kind of rotate the You know, it's like, uh, you know, the Yasser Arafat used to move every night. You sleep in a different place, right? You gonna rotate the >> weird analogy? You do >> some stuff. There's a whole strategy >> of how we outlined how you would do a tape air gap, you a cloud air gap. Of course you're replicating or snapping out to the cloud anyway, so they can't get to that. So if you have a failure, we haven't known good copy, depending on what time that is, right. And then you just recover. Cover back to that and even something simple. We have data rest, encryption. Okay. A lot of people don't use it or won't use it on storage because it's often software based, and so is permanent. Well, in our D s platform on the mainframe, we can encrypt with no performance hit on our flash system products we can encrypt with no performance it on our high end store. Wise, we have four models on the two high end stores models we could encrypt with no performance penalty. So why would you not encrypt all your debt? When there's a performance penalty, you have to sort of pick and choose. My God, I got to encrypt this valuable financial data, but, boy, I really wish it wasn't so slow with us. There is no performance it when you encrypt. So we have encryption at rest, encryption at flight malware and ran somewhere detection. We've got worm, which is important, obviously, doesn't mean I can't steal from wicked Bond Cube, but I certainly can't go change all your account numbers for all your vendors. For sake. of argument, right? So and there's obviously heavily regulated industries that still require worm technology, right? Immutable on the fine, by the way, you could always if it's wormed, you could encrypt it if you want to write. Because Worm just means it's immutable. It doesn't. It's not a different data type. It's just a mutable version of that data. >> So the cyber resiliency is interesting, and it leads me to another question I have around just are, indeed so A lot of companies in this industry do a lot of D developing next generation products. I think, you know, look a t m c when you were there, you know, this >> was a lot of there. Wasn't a ton, >> of course, are a lot of patents and stuff like that. IBM does corps are a lot of research and research facilities, brainiac scientists, I want if you could talk about how the storage division takes advantage of that, either specifically, is it relates to cyber resiliency. But generally, >> yes, so as you know, IBM has got, I think it's like 12 12 or 15 research on Lee sites that that's all they do, and everyone there is, in fact, my office had to be. Akiyama didn't labs, and there's two labs actually hear. The AMA didn't research lab and the Silicon Valley lab, which is very close about five miles away. Beautiful. Almost everything. There is research. There's a few product management guys I happen, Navid desk there every once. Well, see a sales guy or two. But essentially, they're all Richard with PhDs from the leading inverse now at Al Madden and many sites, all the divisions have their own research teams there. There's a heavy storage contingent at Al Midan as an example. Same thing in Zurich. So, for example, we just announced last week, as you know, stuff that will work with Quantum on the tape side. So you don't have to worry about because one of things, obviously, that people complain about quantum computing, whether it's us or anyone else, the quantum computing you can crack basically any encryption. Well, guess what? IBM research has developed tape that can be encrypted. So if using quantum computer, whether it be IBM or someone else's when you go with quantum computing, you can have secured data because the quantum computer can't actually cracked the encryption that we just put into that new tape that was done at IBM Research. How >> far away are we from From Quantum, actually being ableto be deployed and even minor use cases. >> Well, we've got available right now in ibm dot com for Betas. So we've got several 1000 people who have been accidents in it. And entities, we've been talking publicly in the 3 to 7 year timeframe for quantum computer crap out. Should it? Well, no, because if you do the right sort of security, you don't but the power. So if you're envisioning one of my favorite movies, I robot, right where she's doing her talking and that's that would really be quantum in all honesty. But at the same time, you know, the key thing IBM is all about ethics and all about how we do things, whether it be what we do with our diversity programs and hiring. And IBM is always, you know, at the forefront of doing and promoting ethical this and ethical. Then >> you do a customer data is huge. >> Yeah, and what we do with the customer data sets right, we do. GDP are, for example, all over the world were not required by law to do it really Only in Europe we do it everywhere. And so if you're not, if you're in California, if you happen to be in Zimbabwe or you're in Brazil, you get the same protection of GDP are even though we're not legally required to do it. And why are we doing that? Because they're always concerned about customers data, and we know they're paranoid about it. We want to make sure people feel comfortable with IBM. We do. Quantum computing will end up in that same vein. >> But you know, I don't worry about you guys. I were about the guys on the other side of the fence, the ones that I worry about, the same thing Capabilities knew that was >> on, of course. And you know, he talked about it in his speech, and he talked about action on the Cube yesterday about some of his comments on the point, and he mentioned that was based on Blockchain. What he said was Blockchain is a great technology. They've got Blockchain is no. IBM is a big believer in Blockchain. We promoted all over the place and in fact we've done all kinds of different Blockchain things we just did. One announced it last week with Australia with the Australian. I think it is with their equivalent of Wall Street. We've done some stuff with Merrick, the big shipping container thing, and it's a big consortium. That's all legal stuff that was really talking about someone using it the wrong way. And he's very specific point out that Blockchain is a great technology if used ethically, and IBM is all about how we do it. So we make sure whether be quantum computing, Blockchain, et cetera, that everything we do at IBM is about helping the end users, making sure that we're making, for example, open source. As you know. Well, the number one provider of open source technology pre read had acquisition is IBM. We submit Maur into the open community. Renounce Now are we able to make some money off of that? Sure we are, but we do it for a reason, because IBM believes as day point out in this core research. Open computing is court research, and we just join the Open Foundation last week as well. So we're really big on making sure that what we do ourselves is Ethel now We try to make sure that what happens in the hands of people who buy our technology, which we can always track, is also done ethically. And we go out of our way to join the right industry. Associations work with governments, work with whatever we need to do to help make sure that technology could really be iRobot. Anyone who thinks that's not true. If you talk to your grandparent's goto, go to the moon. What are you talking about? >> What Star Trek. It's always >> come to me. Oh, yeah, >> I mean, if you're your iPhone is basically the old community. Transport is the only thing I wish I could have the transfer. Aziz. You know, >> David has the same frame us up. I'm afraid of flying, and I I felt like two million miles on United and David. He's laughs about flowers, so I'm waiting for the transport. I know that's why anymore there's a cone over here. Go stand. Or maybe maybe with a little bit of like, I'm selling my Bitcoin. No, hang on, just hold on. There's always a comeback. Not always. There could be a comeback because Derek always enjoy it as always. Thanks for the good seeing you. All right, Back with more Veum. World 2019 The Cube live in San Francisco.

>> Live from San Diego, California It's the queue covering Sisqo Live US 2019 Tio by Cisco and its ecosystem. Barker's >> back to San Diego. Everybody watching the Cube, the leader and live tech coverage. My name is Dave Volante, and I'm with my co host, Steuben. Amanda, this is Day two for Sisqo. Live 2019. We're in the definite. So still. I was walking around earlier in the last interview, and I think I saw Ron Burgundy out there. Stay classy Sleeping Gow is here. He's the founder and CEO of Met Net Brain Technology's just outside of Boston. Thanks very much for coming on the Q. Thank you there. So you're very welcome. So I want to ask you, I always ask Founders passion for starting companies. Why did you start? >> Well, maybe tired of doing things, Emmanuel. Well, that's alongside the other side of Yes, I used Teo took exam called a C C. I a lot of folks doing here. I failed on my first try. There was a big blow to my eagle, so I decided that we're gonna create a softer help them the past. This is actually the genesis of nettle. I met a friend help people three better doing their network management. >> That's a great story. So tell us more about that brain. What do you guys all about? >> Sure, we're the industry. First chasing time. Little confirmations after our mission is to Democrat ties. Merrick Automation. Every engineer, every task. They should've started with automation before human being touched. This task, >> you know, way go back. Let's say, 10 years ago people were afraid of automation. You know, they thought I was going to take away their jobs. They steal and they still are. We'll talk about that. You get this and I want to ask you about the blockers. They were fearful they wanted the touch thing. But the reality is people talk about digital transformation. And it's really all about how you use data, how your leverage data. And you can't be spending your time doing all this stuff that doesn't add value to your business. You have to automate that and move up to more valuable test. But so people are still afraid of automation. Why, what's the blocker there? >> They have the right reason to be afraid. Because so many automation was created a once used exactly wass right. And then you have the cost ofthe tradition automation. You have the complexity to create in their dark automation. You guys realize that middle confirmation You cannot have little gotta measure only work on a portion of your little way. You have to walk on maturity if not all of your narrow right. So that's became very complex. Just like a You wanna a self driving car? 10 You can't go buy a Tesla a new car. You can drive on a song. But if you want to your Yoder Puta striving always song Richard feared it. That's a very complex Well, let's today, Netto. Condemnation had to deal with you. Had a deal with Marty Venna Technology Marty, years of technology. So people spent a lot of money return are very small. There's so they have a right to a fair afraid of them. But the challenges there is what's alternative >> way before you're there. So there, if I understand it, just playing back there, solving a very narrow problem, they do it once, maybe twice. Maybe a rudimentary example would be a script. Yeah, right, right. And then it breaks or it doesn't afford something else in the network changes, and it really doesn't affect that, right? >> Yeah. I mean, you know, I think back to money network engineers. It's like, Well, I'm sitting there, I've got all my keep knobs and I get everything done and they say, No, don't breathe on it because it's just the way I want it less. It can't be that doesn't scale. It doesn't respond to the business. I need to be able to, you know, respond fast what is needed. And things are changing in every environment. So it's something that I couldn't, as you know, a person or a team keep up with myself, and therefore I need to have more standardized components, and I need to have intelligence that can help me. >> Let's sit and let's >> s so we've laid out the generalized way that we've laid out the problem. What's what's the better approach? >> Well, give you looking out of the challenge today is you have to have Dave ups, which a lot of here they have not engineer know howto script and the mid off the engineer who know how little cooperates walk together. So there's a date, a part of it. There's a knowledge. A part of this too has to meet to create a narrow coordination and that Ned Ogata may have to be a scale. So the challenge traditional thoracotomy here, why is for short lie on if you're going down? Technical level is wise A terra, too many data and structure and the otherwise Our knowledge knowledge cannot be codified. So you have the knowledge sitting people's head, right, Eh Programa had to walk in with a narrow canyon near together. You make it a cost hire. You make it a very unskilled apple. So those are the challenge. So how fast Motor way have to do so neither brand for last 15 years You decide to look differently that we created some saying called operating system off total network and actually use this to manage over 1,000 of mental models technology. And he threw problem. You can't continually adding new savings into this problem. So the benefit of it is narrow. Canyon near anybody can create automation. They don't have to know how to writing a code. Right? And Deborah, who knows the code can also use this problem. All the people who are familiar with technology like and people they can integrate that never >> pray. Okay, so you have all this data I wish I could say is unstructured So he doesn't have any meaning. Data's plentiful insights aren't, uh And then you have this what I call tribal knowledge. Joe knows how to do it, but nobody else knows how to do it. So you're marrying those two. How are you doing that? Using machine intelligence and and iterating building models, can you get that's amore colors? Tow How you go about that? What's the secret sauce >> way? Took a hybrid approach. First call on you have to more than the entire network. With this we'll kind of operating system called on their own way have about 20 12,000 valuables modeling a device and that 12,000 valuable adults across your let's say 1,000 known there or there will be 12,000,000 valuables describing your medal. That's that's first. Zang on top of 12,000,000 valuables will be continually monitored. A slow aye aye, and the machine learning give something called a baseline data. But on top of it, the user, the human being will have the knowledge young what is considered normal what is considered abnormal. They can add their intelligence through something called excludable rumble on couple of this system, and their system now can be wrong at any time. Which talking about where somebody attacking you when that OK is un afford all you through a human being, all our task Now the automation can be wrong guessing time. So >> this the expert, the subject matter expert, the main expert that the person with the knowledge he or she can inject that neck knowledge into your system, and then it generates and improves overtime. That's right, >> and it always improve, and other people can open the hood. I can't continue improving. Tell it so the whole automation in the past, it was. Why is the writer wants only used once? Because it's a colossal? It's a script. You I you input and output just text. So it wasn't a designer with a company, has a motive behind it. So you do it, You beauty your model. You're writing a logical whizzing a same periods off, we decided. We think that's you. Cannot a scale that way. >> OK, so obviously you can stop Dave from inputting his lack of knowledge into the system with, you know, security control and access control. Yeah, but there must be a bell curve in terms of the quality of the knowledge that goes into the system. You know, Joe might be a you know, a superstar. And, you know, stew maybe doesn't know as much about it. No offense, too. Student. So good. So how do you sort of, you know, balance that out? Do you tryto reach an equilibrium or can you wait? Jos Knowledge more than Stu's knowledge. How does that work? >> So the idea that this automation platform has something called excludable Rambo like pseudo Rambo can sure and implacably improved by Sri source One is any near themselves, right? The otherwise by underlying engine. So way talk about a I and the machine learning we have is that we also have a loo engine way. Basically, adjusting that ourselves certainly is through Claverie Partner, for example, Sisko, who run many years of Qatar where they have a lot of no house. Let's attack that knowledge can be pushed to the user. We actually have a in our system that a partnership with Cisco attack South and those script can be wrong. slow. Never prayer without a using woman getting the benefit of without talking with attack. Getting the answer? >> Yes, I think you actually partially answered. The question I have is how do you make sure we don't automata bad process? Yeah. So And maybe talk a little bit about kind of the training process to your original. Why of the company is to make things easier. You know, What's the ramp up period for someone that gets in giving me a bit of a how many engineers you guys have >> worked with? The automatic Allied mission. Our mission statement of neda prayer is to Democrat ties. Network automation, you know, used to be network automation on ly the guru's guru to it. Right, Dave off. Send a satchel. And a young generation. My generation who used come, Ally, this is not us, right? This is the same, you know. But we believe nowadays, with the complicity of middle with a cloud, computing with a cybersecurity demand the alternative Genetic automation is just no longer viable. So way really put a lot of starting to it and say how we can put a network automation into everyone's hand. So the things we tell as three angle of it, while his other missions can be created by anyone, the second meaning they've ofthe net off. Anyone who know have knowledge on metal can create automation. Second piece of automation can lunched at any time. Somebody attacking you middle of the night. They don't tell you Automation can lunch to protect Theo, and they're always out. You don't have people the time of the charter. Automation can lunch the tax losses, so it's called a lunch. Any time certain want is can adapt to any work follow. You have trouble shooting. You have nettle changes. You have compliance, right? You have documentation workflow. The automation should be able to attack to any of this will clothe topping digression tomorrow. We have when service now. So there's a ticket. Human being shouldn't touches a ticket before automation has dies, she'll write. Is a human should come in and then use continually use automation. So >> So you talk about democratizing automation network automation. So it's so anybody who sees a manual process that's wasting time. I can sort of solve that problem is essentially what you're >> doing. That's what I did exactly what we >> know So is there, uh, is there a pattern emerging in terms of best practice in terms of how customers are adopting your technology? >> Yes. Now we see more animal customer creating This thing's almost like a club, the power user, and we haven't caught it. Normal user. They have knowledge in their heads. Pattern immunity is emergent. We saw. Is there now work proactively say, How can I put that knowledge into a set of excludable format so that I don't get escalate all the time, right? So that I can do the same and more meaningful to me that I be repeating the same scene 10 times a month? Right? And I should want it my way. Caught a shift to the left a little while doing level to the machine doing the Level one task level two. Level three are doing more meaningful sex. >> How different is what you're doing it net brain from what others are doing in the marketplace. What's the differentiation? How do you compete? >> Yeah, Little got 1,000,000 so far has being a piecemeal, I think, a fragment. It's things that has done typical in a sweeping cracker. Why is wholesale Hardaway approach you replace the hardware was esti N S P. Where's d? Let there's automation Capitol Building Fifth, I caught a Tesla approached by a Tesla, and you can drive and a self driving. The second approaches softer approach is as well. We are leading build a model of your partner or apply machine learning and statistics and was behind but also more importantly, open architecture. Allow a human being to put their intelligence into this. Let's second approach and insert approaches. Actually service little outsourcer take you, help you We're moving way or walk alone in the cloud because there's a paid automation there, right so way are focusing on the middle portion of it. And the landscaper is really where we have over 2,000 identifies customer and they're automating. This is not a just wall twice a week, but 1,000 times a day. We really excited that the automation in that escape scale is transforming how metal and is being managed and enable things like collaboration. But I used to be people from here. People from offshore couldn't walk together because knowledge, data and knowledge is hard to communicate with automation. We see collaboration is happening more collaboration happening. So we've >> been talking about automation in the network for my entire career. Feels like the promise has been there for decades. That site feels like over the last couple of years, we've really seen automation. Not just a networking, but we've been covering a lot like the robotic process automation. All the different pieces of it are seeing automation. Bring in, gives a little bit look forward. What? What do you predict is gonna happen with automation in I t over the next couple of years? A >> future that's great Way have a cloud computing. We have cyber security. We have the share of scale middle driving the network automation to the front and center as a solution. And my prediction in the next five years probably surrounded one izing automation gonna be ubiquitous. Gonna be everywhere. No human being should touch a ticket without automation through the first task. First right second way. Believe things called a collaborative nature of automation will be happy. The other was a local. Automation is following the packet from one narrow kennedy to the other entity. Example would be your manager service provider and the price they collaborated. Manager Nettle common little But when there's something wrong we don't know each part Which part? I have issues so automation define it by one entity Could it be wrong Across multiple So is provider like cloud provider also come Automation can be initiated by the Enterprise Client way also see the hado A vendor like Cisco and their customer has collaborated Automation happening So next five years will be very interesting The Manu away to manage and operate near Oca will be finally go away >> Last question Give us the business update You mentioned 2,000 customers You're hundreds of employees Any other business metrics you Khun, you can share with us Where do you want to take this company >> way really wanted behind every enterprise. Well, Misha is a Democrat. Eyes network automation way Looking at it in the next five years our business in a girl 10 times. >> Well, good luck. Thank you. Thanks very much for coming on the queue of a great story. Thank you. Thank you for the congratulations For all your success. Think Keep right! Everybody stew and I will be back. Lisa Martin as well as here with an X guest Live from Cisco Live 2019 in San Diego. You watching the cube right back

Sand Hill Road to the heart of Silicon Valley it's the cute presenting the people first Network insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders when I'm John Ferrari with the cube I'm the co-host also the founder of Silicon angle me we are here on Sand Hill Road at Mayfield for the people first conversations I'm John furry with the cube weird Allen being global CTO and IT of innovation at Procter & Gamble formerly the same position at coca-cola has done a lot of innovations over the years also a reference account back in the day for web methods when they call on the financing of that one of the most famous IPOs which set the groundwork for web services and has a lot of history going back to the 80s we were just talking about it welcome this conversation on people first network thank you for inviting me so the people first network is all about people and it's great to have these conversations you're old school you were doing some stuff back on the 80s talking about doing RPA 3270 you've been old school here yeah I go back to APL as my first programming language went through the the third generation languages and of course the old 30 to 70 emulation which is what we know today is our PA one of the cool things I was excited to hear some of your background around your history web methods you were a reference call for venture financing of web methods which was financed on the credit card for the two founders husband and wife probably one of the most successful I appeals but more importantly at the beginning of the massive wave that we now see with web services this is early days this was very early days when I was at DHL we were looking at what we're gonna do for the future and in fact we built one of the first object-oriented frameworks in C++ at the time because that was all that was available to us or the best was available we rejected Corbis and we said look if we're gonna go this direction and one of my developers found web methods found philip merrick it was literally at the time working out of his garage and had this technology that was going to allow us to start moving into this object-oriented approach and I remember the day Robin Vasan form a field called and said hey I'm thinking about investing in web methods what do you think about it and not only was it one of the first startups that I ever worked with but it's actually the first time I met anybody in the venture community way back in nineteen I think 1997 is what had happened and that was a computing time in computer science and then the rest is history and then XML became what it became lingua franca for the web web services now Amazon Web Services you see in cloud computing micro services kubernetes service meshes this is a new stack that's being developed in the cloud and this is the new generation you've seen many waves and at Procter & Gamble formerly coca-cola you're the same role you have to navigate this so what's different now what's different say 15 20 years ago how are you looking at this market how you implementing some of the IT and infrastructure and software development environments I think what's change is you know when we got into the the early 2000s Nicolas car came out and said IT doesn't matter and I think anybody that was an IT had this very objectionable response initially but when you step back and you looked at it what she realised was in many cases IT didn't matter and those were those areas that were non-competitive those things that could be commoditized and it was completely right the reality is IT has always mattered that technology does give you a competitive advantage in certain markets and certain capabilities for a company but back then we had to go out and we had to purchase equipment we had to configure the equipment there was a lot of heavy lifting in corporations just did not want to invest the capital so they outsource the stuff wholesale I think General Motors was the first one that just out sourced everything and was followed by other companies including Procter & Gamble the decision at that time was probably right but as we go forward and we see what's happened with corporations we see the valuations of corporations the amount of return on equity based on the on the capital that's being invested we can see that data is important we can see that agility flexibility is key to competing in the future and therefore what's changing is we are now moving into an age of away from ERP so we're moving into an age away from these outsource providers on a wholesale basis and using it selectively to drive down costs and allowing us to free up money in order to invest in those things that are most important to the company so you're saying is that the folks naturally the server consolidation they've bought all this gear all this software over you know 18-month rollouts before they even see the first implementation those are the glory days of gravy trains for the vendor's yeah not good for the practitioners but you're saying that the folks who reinvested are investing in IT as a core competency are seeing a competitive advantage they certainly are you know I think I made the statement front of a number of the vendors and a few years ago and people were not comfortable with it but what I said was like you gone are the ears of these 10 20 million dollar deals gone are the ears of the million two million dollar deals we're in the ear of throwaway technology I need to be able to use and invest in technology for a specific purpose for a specific period of time and be able to move on to the next one it's the perfect time for startups but startups shouldn't be looking at the big picture they should be looking at the tail on these investments let me try things let me get out in the market let me have a competitive advantage in marketing which is most important to me or in supply chain those are the areas that I can make a difference with my consumers and my customers and that's where the investments have to go so just in constant of throwaway technology and you know you'd also be said of you know being more agile though interesting to look at the cloud SAS business model if Amazon for us I think that's the gold standard where they actually lower prices on a per unit basis and increase more services and value but in the aggregate you're still paying more but you have more flexibility and that's kind of a good tell sign so that you're seeing that ability to reuse either the infrastructure that's commoditized to shift the value this is are people having a hard time understanding this so I want to get your reaction to how should I tea leaders understand that the wave of cloud the wave of machine learning what a I can bring to the table these new trends how how should leaders figure this out is there a playbook as there are things that you've learned that you could share you know that there's really a playbook it's still early on everyone's looking for one cloud fits all the reality is whether it's Google whether it's Amazon whether it's Microsoft whether it's IBM all clouds are different all clouds have our special are purpose-built for different solutions and I think as an IT leader you have to understand you're not going to take everything and lift and shift that's what we used to do we're now in the position where we have to deconstruct our business we have to understand the services the capabilities that we want to bring to market and not lock ourselves in its building blocks its Legos we're in the period of Legos putting these things together in different manners in order to create new solutions if we try to lock ourselves in the past of how we've always financed things how we've always built things then we're not going to be any better off in the new world than we were in the old alan i want to get your reaction to to two words our PA and containers well as i said earlier our PA is 3270 emulation from the 1980s and for those of us that are old enough to remember that i I still remember scraping the the old green screens and and putting a little process around it it what's nice though is that we have moved forward machine learning and AI and other other capabilities are now present so that we can do this I actually played around with neural nets probably back in 1985 with an Apollo computer so that tells you how far back I go but technologies change processing speeds change everything the technology trends are allowing us to now to do these things the question that we have is also a moral dilemma is are we trying to replace people or are we trying to make improvements and I think that you don't look at our PA as a way simply to replace work it's a way to enhance what we're doing in order to create new value for the customer or for the consumer in our case I think in the in the area of containers you know again been around for a while been around for a while it's just another another approach that we're not we don't want lock in we don't want to be dependent on specific vendors we want the portability we want the flexibility and I think as we start moving containers out to the edge that's where we're gonna start seeing more value as the business processes and the capabilities are spread out again the idea of centralized cloud computing is very good however it doesn't need to be distributed what's interesting I find about the conversation here is that you mentioned a couple things earlier you mentioned the vendors locking you in and saying here's the ERP buy this and with this you have to have a certain process because this is our technology you got to use it this way and you were slave to their their tech on your process serve their tech with containers and say orchestration you now the ability to manage workloads differently and so an interesting time there's that does that change the notion of rip and replace lift and shift because if I a container I could just put a container around it and not have to worry about killing the old to bring in the new this is on the fundamental kind of debate going on do you have to kill the old to bring in the new well you need to kill the old sometimes just because it's old it's time to go other times you do need to repackage it and other times I hate to say it you do need to lift and shift if you're a legacy organization they have a long history such as most of the manufacturing companies in the world today we can't get rid of old things that quickly we can't afford to a lot of the processes are still valid as we're looking to the future we certainly are breaking these things down into services we're looking to containerize these things we're looking to move them into areas where we can compute where we want to when we want to at the right price we're just at the beginning of that journey in the industry I still think there's about five to seven years to go to get there now I'll talk about the role of the edge role of cloud computing as it increases the surface area of IT potentially combined with the fact that IT is a competitive advantage bring those two notions together what's the role of the people because you used to have people that would just manage the rack and stack I'm provisioning some storage I'm doing this as those stovepipes start to be broken down when the service area of IT is bigger how does that change the relationship of the people involved you know you win with people at the end of the day you don't win with technology you know a company of such as Proctor and Gamble and I think what's happened if you look at historically the ERP vendors came out probably 99 2000 and it used to be and remember these I'm old to be honest with you but I remember that we used to have to worry about the amount of memory we were managing we had to be able to tune databases in all of this and the vendors went ahead and they started automating all those processes with the idea that we can do it better than a human and a lot of people a lot of the technology talent then started leaving the organizations and organizations were left with people that we're focusing on process and people a process excuse me process and the the the business which is very good because you need the subject matter experts going forward we have to reinvest in people our people have the subject matter expertise they have some technology skills that they've developed over the years and they've enhanced it on their own but we're in this huge change right now where we have to think different we have to act different and we have to behave differently so doubling down on people is the best thing that you can do and the old outsource model of outsourcing everything kind of reduces the core competency of the people yeah now you got to build it back up again exactly I mean we when we left at P&G 15 years ago about 5,000 people left the organization when we outsource them when we outsource the technology to our partner at that time now it's time we're starting to bring it back in we've brought the network team back in and stood up our own sock in our own NOC for the first time in years just this past year we're doing the same thing by moving things out to the cloud more and more is moving to the cloud we're setting up our own cloud operations and DevOps capabilities I can tell you having been on both sides of it it's a lot harder to be able to bring it back in than it is to take it out and you know interesting proctoring games well known as being a very intimate with the data very data-driven company the data is valuable and having that infrastructure NIT to support the data that's important what's your vision on the data future of the data in the world well I think data is has a value to itself but when you tie it to products you tie it to your customers and consumers it's even more valuable and we're in the process now of things that we used to do completely internally with our own technology or technology partners we're now moving all of that out into the cloud now and I must say cloud its clouds plural again going back to certain clouds are better for certain things so you're seeing a dramatic shift we have a number of projects underway that are in the cloud space but for customers and consumers number of cloud projects in the way for our own internal employees it's all about collecting the data processing the data protecting that data because we take that very seriously and being able to use it to make better decisions I want to get your reaction on two points and two quite lines of questioning here because I think it's very relevant on the enterprise side you're a big account for the big whales the old ERP so the big cloud providers so people want to sell you stuff at the same time you're also running IT innovation so you want to play with the new shiny new toys and experiments start up so if startups want to get your attention and big vendors want to sell to you the tables have kind of turned it's been good this is a good it's a good buyers market right now in my opinion so what's your thoughts on that so you know start with the big companies what do they got to do to win you over well they got to look like how they got to engage and for startups how do they get your attention I think the biggest thing for either startup or large companies understanding the company you're dealing with whether it's Procter & Gamble whether it's coca-cola whether it was DHL if you understand how I operate if you understand how decisions are made if you understand how I'm organized that's gonna give you an a competitive advantage now the large corporations understand this because they've been around through the entire journey of computing with these large corporations the startups need to step back and take a look and see where do I add that competitive advantage many times when you're selling to a large corporate you're not selling to a large corporate you're selling two divisions you're selling two functions and that's how you get in I've been working with startups as I said back since web methods and it was just a two-person company but we brought them in for a very specific capability I then took web methods with me when I left DHL I took them to GE when I left GE I took them to ing because I trusted them and they matured along the way I think finding that right individual that has the right need is the key and working it slowly don't think you're gonna close the deal fast if you're start-up know it's gonna take some time and decide if that's in your best interest or not slow things down focus don't try to boil the ocean over too many of them try to boy you're right Jimmy people try to boil the ocean get that win one win will get you another one which will get you another win and that's the best way to succeed get that beachhead Ellen so if you could go back and knowing what you know now and you're breaking into the IT leadership's position looking forward what would you do differently can do a mulligan hey what would you do differently well you know I think one of the one of the dangers of being an innovator in IT is that you really are risk taker and taking risks is counterculture to corporations so I think I would probably try to get by in a little bit more I mean someone once told me that you know you see the force through the trees before anybody else does your problem is you don't bring people along with you so I think I would probably slow down a little bit not in the adoption of technology but I'd probably take more time to build the case to bring people along a lot faster so that they can see it and they can take credit for it and they can move that needle as well yeah always sometimes early adopters and pioneers had the arrows on the back as they say I've had my share now thanks for sharing your experience what's next for you what's the next mountain you're going to climb well I think that as we're looking forward latency is still an issue you know we have to find a way to defeat latency we're not going to do it through basic physics so we're gonna have to change our business models change our technology distribution change everything that we're doing consumers and customers are demanding instant access to enhanced information through AI and m/l right at the point where they want it and that means we're now dealing with milliseconds and nanoseconds of having to make decisions so I'm very interested in looking at how are we going to change consumer behavior and customer behavior by combining a lot of the new technology trends that are underway and we have to do it also with the security in mind now before we security was secondary now as we're seeing with all of the hacks and the malware and everything that's going on in the world we have to go in and think a little bit different about how we're gonna do that so I'm very much engaged in working with a lot of startups I live here in the Silicon Valley I commute to Cincinnati for Procter & Gamble I'm spending time and just flew in from tel-aviv literally an hour ago I'm in the middle of all the technology hotspots trying to find that next big thing and it's a global it's global innovation happens everywhere and anywhere the venture community if you look at the amount of funds it used to be invested out of the Silicon Valley versus the rest of the world it continues to be on a downward trend not because the funding isn't here in the Silicon Valley but because everyone is recognizing that innovation and technology is developed everywhere in the world Alan Bain was the CTO global CTO and IT innovator there at the cube conversation here in San Hill Road I'm John for a year thanks for watching you