(upbeat music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of AWS re:Invent! 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host for the theCUBE, a lot of great action here. A lot of great solutions. Great keynote. The future of cloud's going to be all about purpose-built software platforms, enabling more and more SaaS, faster performance with custom chips, all enabling great stuff. I have two great guests here. Who are going to talk about it from Accenture. We've got Karthik Narain, global lead of Accenture's Cloud First. Welcome to the program. Good to see you and Chris Wegmann, AABG Accenture Amazon Business Group. Technology leads senior manager. Thanks for coming on. >> Great to be here. >> I was commenting before we came on about Accenture's work you guys been doing with the clouds in my article, I posted before re:Invent!. Dave Vellante coined the term superclouds, which we kind of just put out there, but the idea that people can build really strong platforms that enable a new kind of Saas has been the big wave. Connect has been a great example. We heard on stage from Adam, the CEO. Chris, this has been something that's been a real change where it's not just lift and shift and refactor, it's build value in a platform and new SaaS capabilities. What's your reaction to that? >> Yeah, I would absolutely agree. We've seen this change over time. We've seen the lift and shift and modernize and it's definitely moved into the Superclouds. I like the term, but you know, we call them cloud continuums, which we'll talk a little bit about, it's about building these purpose-built solutions. I think if you look at the keynote today, you look at, everybody that was on stage. United and everyone talking about what they're building, their technology companies now, they're not just the business. >> You guys did some new research, coining new terms and Cloud First. What is this all about? What is this new wave you guys are talking about? >> Yeah, so John, you know, few years ago, when people talked about cloud, they generally meant public cloud. I think the definition of cloud is changing and expanding. And from now on, whenever people talk about cloud, it's actually a cloud continuum. It's a continuum of capability from public to Edge and everything in between all seamlessly connected by Cloud First networks, which means all the capabilities that customers used to get from one public cloud destination. They can actually access that across the continuum, whether that be in their own private data center, using the capability of cloud with AWS's Outpost and other capabilities. Or they could use the capability in their Edge location, whether it's their retail centers, their warehouse locations, manufacturing and so on and so forth. So organizations are using the power of cloud beyond one purpose and one destination, but more as an operating system going forward. >> Chris, what's your take on this redefinition of cloud what's your take on it? >> I think it's much needed. I think Andy kicked it off last year when he recognized the term hybrid. We all, who've has been around a while kind of chuckled because they finally said the word. But if you look at the keynote today, they just continued it. Adam picked it up and ran with it. If you look at all the services, Wavelength and all the different services, there's not a single customer that I have, that's just using EC2 or S3 right. They're using all these different services you saw today. You saw all the different services that United put up on the screen. That DISH put up on the screen. So yeah, it's how people and companies, if they're truly going to transform and truly use cloud to transform, you have to use the whole continuum. >> Yeah. And I think the continuum message is a good one because if you look at what the evolution is, that was interesting to. Adam went on and did kind of a history lesson in the beginning, it felt like I was in the Star Wars movie, like back in the old days. And then you kind of progressed. You had to be really elite to roll your own cloud. And the hyperscalers did that, you saw that. Now you still have elite technical people, but now it's general purpose, or purpose built. It's like having prefabricated platforms and open source. We've learned that why do you want to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to? So if I want a call center I get Connect, if I want to have a big plugin platform, I can still build on top of and have that SaaS unique application. This seems logical. This is new. (laughter) This is the continuum. I mean, it seems obvious now looking at it, but how far along in are people getting this. Karthik, what's your take on this? >> I think customers are getting it. They are looking at cloud more as an operating system for their future innovation. They liked the concept that they got from the public cloud, which is easy configurability, consumability and automatability of their infrastructure assets. And when you can get that capability as an operating system for your entire enterprise, and you could innovate across the spectrum, that's extremely powerful. We see companies accelerating their adoption to cloud, but we are also seeing over the last three years, a lot of that adoption was using cloud as a migration destination. But now with the power of the cloud continuum, where innovation is available, that so many new services that Adam launched today, you could use truly cloud as an innovation engine. And we're actually seeing that the clients who are using the cloud continuum for innovation are doing much better than the ones that are using cloud as a migration destination. In fact, they're doing two X to three X use of cloud for innovation and uplifting knowlEdge where they are actually using three X more cloud for sustainability purposes. So huge, huge value. >> Yeah, I mean, this is a great point. Great insight, because what you're saying is essentially you can't hide anymore. The projects are either going to be successful or not. You can see whether it's useful or not, and now you're tying cloud adoption and outcomes together. Where you can look it and saying, we need to make this outcome work. Not for building, for building sake. Those projects were discovered during the pandemic. Why are we doing that? So you can't hide that ball anymore. >> Right and everybody's got to do it now, right? I mean, you don't have a choice. The pandemic is now forcing companies to change. They've changed. And that the research shows that the companies that have truly adopted the whole continuum are doing much better than the companies that didn't. >> What's pattern in this continuum research you guys, what's the big takeaway that you guys have found in that study, in that customer experience that you're having. What's the big, Aha moment. >> I think there are a few things. Number one surprising aspect is that the companies that use cloud for a broader innovation objective, actually, were saving more than the ones that use cloud just as a cost saving initiative. That was a big, Aha moment. Number two, when you talk about all of this innovation that AWS provides, sometimes it's easy for organizations to shrug it off saying, this looks like this is only for the elite companies, or this is only for the digitally native companies to follow. But our research showed that the companies that were successful adopting cloud continuum, the ones that we call less continuum competitors, 60% of them are pre-digitally born organizations. And they were reaping the benefits and they were growing faster, saving more, being more innovative than all others. So this is truly usable across the spectrum of the G 2000 enterprise. >> Yeah, and I think it's a no brainer, but now that you have, customers are transforming, they have multiple clouds. You have AWS, Azure, Google cloud, people were trying to find their swim lane. We heard about skill gap shortage. We did some reporting on that, that this idea of multi-cloud maybe not, I can't hire enough people. I'm going to bet on this cloud, maybe use that cloud. How are people looking at that? How do you guys see that the cloud competitive continuum, or how is the cloud competition affecting the cloud continuum from a customer standpoint? >> Yeah. I mean, you got to look at it, do you use the whole continuum? You've got a lot of cases, you got to be on the same cloud, right. You can use the whole, you got to use all the different components, all the different services. So I think we are seeing customers that are picking one and starting with one and then adding others. I see a lot of my customers who are using multiple clouds, but they're using them in different business units, right? So they may pick one business unit to go deep with AWS on, they may go use another business unit to go deep on another cloud, right? So yeah, I mean, everyone is getting multiple, but a lot of they're starting with one and then adding a second one or a third along the way. >> Karthik, this is what I was trying to get out of my story. It's a hard, very nuanced point. But if you look at the success of say Snowflake and Databricks, all bet on Amazon and their superclouds, they are on Amazon, but they're now working with Azure as well, because why wouldn't you want to open up your market? >> Exactly. And even the industry companies that want to monetize their capabilities using the digital ecosystems are doing that. For example, Siemens wanted to bring all their capabilities in manufacturing and machine operating system into a platform called MindSphere. And they knew that their end goal was going to be multi-cloud, but they want to practice, leveraging the power of cloud with one platform. And when they created MindSphere, they started with AWS and they created that solution in the public cloud and private cloud also at the Edge by leveraging the power of cloud from public to Edge and proved it out. And once it started working and they were able to roll it out for customers. Now they are giving customers the choice to be able to use it in other clouds as well. >> Yeah Karthik, you mentioned earlier at the top of our interview about the platform of the cloud and Dave and I were talking on our keynote review. We did a little history lesson of when Microsoft owned the monopoly of windows, the system software, and they had the application suite with office, but they still wanted developers to build on top of windows. Okay. But now with cloud that's one big windows platform like thing. So the developers ecosystem is evolving. And so one of the things we're watching, I want to get your reaction to this. Is in every major inflection point in the computer industry, when new ways to build and write code rolled out, the application owners always wanted their software to run on the fastest platform. Speeds and feeds matter in these shifts, because why would I want to have my software run slower? >> Yeah. >> What is your reaction to that? >> Yeah, absolutely. And again, there's a lot of things that the industry is going through and we are pushing the envelope on digitization. And today's keynote. When you saw the CEO of NASDAQ talking about the technology bottlenecks that were preventing the matching algorithm to be finally taken to cloud. Now that capability that's available at with AWS is what is enabling that matching algorithm to be taken to cloud through the power of Edge. So there's so much technology innovation, that's happening. That's constantly expanding the boundaries of posibilities. >> I mean, that's exactly the point. And I wrote this in my story and it came out on the keynote today, which was Adam saying, the clouds expanding that's the continuum. If it's running cloud operations, does it matter what it is? I mean, it's, if you're at the Edge and you're running cloud, maybe cause you want latency, of course you want to have low latency. Why wouldn't you want outposts. Again, this is all cloud operations. DevSecOps data is now kind of cloud operationalized. That seems to be what's happening. >> Yeah, I think the developers love the fact that they can write for one and put it anywhere, right? And whether it's a EKS on Inside, I don't even know what you call anymore, the public cloud, right? Or all the way out at the Edge, right? You write it once, you can deploy it there and it makes their lives a lot easier. And you know, as you said, it's all about performance. So they get the best option. >> Well, We love having you guys on the theCUBE, Accenture. You guys have really smart, talented people, always great commentary. Dave and I were looking at reviewing the tape so to speak. It's not really tape anymore. It's it's digitally stored on a S3, but we were looking back at 2016 when we first started talking about horizontally scalable cloud and vertically specialized applications. If you look at the keynote today and squint through the announcements, Amazon's going to offer full horizontal scalability and vertical specialization at the app level with machine learning capabilities. This means that you need data to be horizontally addressable, which is kind of counterintuitive, but you're seeing all the success on data lakes and lakes. This is the new architecture. It's kind of proven now, what do you guys think? >> Yeah, again, the aspect of cloud is about democratised innovation. The first element is, even though there's so much infrastructure build-out and infrastructural elements where there's continuous innovation going on, the enterprises and developers are moving from Bivives built decisions to assembling and consuming options. And when they assemble and consume, they want newer and newer services to be available. That is very specific to their industry and specific to functions, whether it is supply chain function or manufacturing function or so on and so forth. For this, there are going to be specific data that is going to be required, or operational for that particular use-case. But the whole idea of predictive analytics and AI and machine learning and data science is about how do you find correlations between operational data for a particular capability, with things that in the previous world was unrelated. For that you need to bring all of this data together. Time will tell whether all the data is going to move to one location or is there going to be distributed computing of that data with more technology, but that's the role that data is going to play in these verticalized solutions. >> Yeah, I mean, that's awesome. I want to get you guys while I got one, a couple of minutes left. Advice to people that look into go this next level. They know the continuum is coming, you guys been providing great solutions and advice to your customers. For the folks watching, what advice can you give where they're just putting their toe in the water or want to go full in? >> Yeah, so, we found in that research that there were some common patterns that were followed by these continuum competitors, the ones that were succeeding or winning in the cloud. And there was namely four of them, the first one, and these four can be adopted by others for them to also win in the continuum. The first one was looking at the power of the continuum, how the technology is evolving and creating a strategy to take advantage of the evolution of the continuum. That's number one. Number two, this is about organizational change. So don't go about this change in a soft manner. There are elements that you need to change within your organization to imbibe this wholeheartedly. That's the second thing. Third thing is one common aspect that all the continuum competitors followed was they put experience at the forefront for everything. For their end customers. Last but not the least. This is a holistic journey and an enterprise wide journey. And this would require CSO level, CEO level commitment on a longer term to achieve this. So with these four things, most companies can achieve the successes that the continuum competitors are seeing. >> Awesome insight, Chris, real quick, 30 seconds. What's your advice. >> Chris: Don't be afraid. (laughter) It's pretty simple. >> The water's warm, come on in >> Yeah, come on in. A lot of gone before you, right? It can be scary. It can be daunting, right? A lot of services. Don't be scared to get in and go at it. >> Yeah, one of the jobs I love about being theCUBE host is, you talk to people many years earlier, you guys got it right at Accenture. Congratulations. You were deploying, you saw this wave of purpose-built before anyone else and congratulations. Great success. >> Thanks, thanks for having us on theCUBE. >> Okay, I'm John Furrier. You're watching us here live in Las Vegas, for AWS re:Invent 2021 coverage. TheCUBE, the leader in tech coverage. (upbeat music)

>> (soft music) >> Presenter: From around the globe. It's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021 brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back everyone to the CUBE's coverage of IBM Think 2021. I'm your host, John furry with theCUBE. Our next guest Manish Chawla who's the industry general manager of energy, resources and manufacturing, a great guest to break down this next generation of infrastructure modern applications and changing the business in the super important areas he's regulated verticals. Manish, it's great to see you. Thank you for coming back on theCUBE. >> Thank you John. Good to meet you. >> You know, this is the area where I've been saying for years the cloud brings great scale horizontally scalable data, but at the end of the day, AI and automation really has to be specialized in the verticals. In this we're going to see the action the ecosystems for connecting. This is a big deal here I think this year, transformation is the innovation, innovation at scale. This seems to be the underlying theme that we've been reporting on. So I'd love to get your thoughts on how you see this Fourth Industrial Revolution as you say, coming about. Can you define for us what that means? And when you say that, what does it mean for customers? >> Yeah, sure, sure. So, you know, in sort of simple terms all the technologies that we see around us, whether it's AI we talk about AI, we talk about 5G, we talk about Edge Cloud Robotics. So the application of those to the physical world in some sense in the industrial world is what we define as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Essentially, it's the convergence between the humans, the physical aspect, like the machines and the cyber either digital aspects, bringing that together. So companies can unlock the value from the terabytes and petabytes of data that our connected world is now able to produce. >> How does the IOT world come in? We've been again, I did a panel I think two years ago called you know the industrial IOT Armageddon. And it was really kind of pointing. It was kind of provocative title, but the point was you know, the industrial connections are all devices now and they're connected to the network security super important. This industrial revolution includes this new edge. >> It's got to be smarter and intelligent. What's your take on that? >> Yeah, absolutely. It is about the edge. It's about devices. It's about delivering capturing the data from the umpteen devices. You know, we've recently heard about the chip shortage which gives you an idea that there is so much utilization of compute power everywhere in the world. And the world is becoming very software defined. So whether it's software defined machines software defined products, the washing machines that we use at home, the cars we use home, everything is gradually becoming, not gradually I'd say rapidly becoming intelligent. And so that edge or IOT is the foundation stone of everything we're talking about. >> Well, you mentioned software on a chip SOC that's a huge mega wave coming. That's going to bring so much more compute into smaller form factors which leads me to my next question, which kind of, I'm kind of answering for myself but I'm not a manufacturing company but why should they care about this trend from a business perspective besides the obvious new connection points? What's really in it for them? >> Yeah. So big topic right now is this topic of resilience, right? So that's one aspect. This, the pandemic has taught us that resilience is a core objective. The second objective, which is front and center of all CEOs or CEOs is out-performance. And so what we're seeing is out-performance are investing in technology for many goals, right? So it's either sustainability which is a big topic these days, and a huge priority. It's about efficiency. It's about productivity. It's also now more and more about delivering a much stronger customer experience, right? Making your products easier to use much easily consumable as well. So if you, when you pull it all together it's an end to end thinking about using data to drive those objectives of out-performance as well as resilience. >> What's the progress being made so far on the manufacturing industry on this front? I mean, is it moving faster or you mentioned accelerating but where is the progress bar right now? >> So I think as we came into 2020, I would have described it as we were starting to enter the chapter two where companies were moving from experimentation to really thinking of scaling this. And what we found is the pandemic really caused a big focus on these, as Winston Churchill has been attributed the quote "Never waste a good crisis." A lot of CEOs, a lot of executives and leadership really put their energy into accelerating digital transformation. I think we really, two thirds have been able to accelerate their digital transformation. So the good news is, you know companies don't have to be convinced about this anymore. They're really, their focus is on where should I start? Where should I focus? And what should I do next? Right, is really the focus. And they are investing in sort of two types of technologies is the way we see it. What I would call foundational technologies because there's a recognition that to apply the differentiating technologies like AI and capturing and taking value of the data you need a strong architectural foundation. So whether it's cybersecurity, it's what we call ITOT integration connecting the devices back to the mothership. And it's also applying cloud but cloud in this context is not about typically what we think as public cloud or a central spot. It's really bringing cloud-like technologies also to the edge or to the plant or to the device itself whether it's a mobile device or a physical device. And that foundation is that recognition that you've got to have the foundation that you can build your capabilities on top. Whether it's for customers or clients or colleagues. >> That's a great insight on the architecture. I think that's a successful playbook. It sounds so easy. I do agree with you. I think people have said this is a standard now hybrid cloud, the edge pretty clear visibility on the architecture of what to do or what needs to be done, how to do it, all other story. So I have to ask you, we hear of these barriers. There's always blockers. I think COVID's released some of those relieved some of those blockers because people have to force their way into the transformation but what are those barriers that are stopping the acceleration for customers to achieve the benefits that they need to see? >> Yeah. So I think one or one key barrier is a recognition that most of our plants or manufacturing facilities or supply chains really run in a brownfield manner. I, there's so many machines so many facilities that have been built over decades. So there's a proliferation of different ages of devices, machines, et cetera. So making sure that there is a focus on laying out a foundation, that's a key barrier. There is also a concern that, you know the companies have around cybersecurity. The more you connect the more you increase the attack surface. And we know that that hacks and so on are, are a dominant issue now whether it's for ransomware or for other malicious reasons. And so modernizing the foundation and making sure you're doing it in a secure way those are the key concerns that executives have. And then another key barrier I see is making sure that you have a key, key core objective and not making too many different varied experimentation beds. So keeping a focus on what's the core use case of benefit you're after and then what's the foundation to make sure that you're going after it. Like I said, whether it's quality or productivity or such like. >> So the keys to success, if I get this right is you have the right framework for this as you say, industry 4.0 you got to understand the collaborative dynamics and then have an ecosystem. >> Yeah. Can you unpack those three things? Because take me through that. You got to the framework, the collaboration and the ecosystem. What does that mean specifically? >> So the way I take the simplest way to think of it is the amount of work and effort that all companies have to put in, is so great in front of them. The opportunities are so great as well that nobody can hire all the smart people that are needed to achieve the goals. Everybody has their own specific I would say focus and capabilities they bring to bear. So the collaboration between manufacturers the collaboration between operational technology companies like the Siemens, ABB, Schlumberger, et cetera and IT technology companies like ourselves that three-part collaboration is sort of the heart of what I see as ecosystems coming together. The other dimensionality of ecosystems is also looking at it from a supply chain or a value chain perspective cause how something becomes more intelligent or smarter or more effective is also being able to work across the supply chain or value chain. So those are our key focus areas make sure we are collaborating across value chains and supply chains, as well as collaborating with manufacturers and OT, operational technology companies to be able to bring these digital capabilities with the right capabilities of operational technology companies into the manufacturers. >> If I asked you, how are you doing that? What specifically would you say? I mean, how are you collaborating? What's some examples give some examples of this enaction. >> Certainly. So we recently announced over the last say, nine months or so three strategic, very transformative partnerships. The first one I'll share with you is with Schlumberger. Schlumberger is the world's largest oil field services company. And now also the world's largest distill technology company for the oil and gas industry. So we've collaborated with them to bring hybrid cloud to the digital platform so they now can deploy their capabilities to any customer regardless of whether they want it in country or on a public cloud. Another example is we've established a data platform with Schlumberger for the oil and gas industry, to be able to bring again that data platform to any location around the world. The advantage of hybrid, the advantage of AI. With EVB, what we've done is we've taken our smart sync IT security connected with their products and capabilities for operational systems. And now are delivering an end to end solution that you can get cyber alerts or issues coming from manufacturing systems dry down to right up to an IT command center where you're seeing all the events and alerts so that they can be acted upon right away. So that's a great example of collaborating with IT from a security point of view. The third one is industrial IOT with Siemens and we've partnered with Siemens to deliver the MindSphere private cloud edition. Delivered on our red hat hybrid cloud. So this is an example where we are able to take our horizontal technologies, apply it with their verticals smarts and deep industry context put our services capabilities on top of it so they can deliver their innovations anywhere >> Manish is such an expert on this such a great leader on this area and I have to ask you you know, you've been in this mode of evangelizing and leading teams and building solutions around digital re platforming or whatever you want to call it, renovations. >> Manish: Right >> What's the big deal now, if you had to, I mean, it seems like it's all coming together with red hat under the covers, you get distributed networks with the Edge. It's all kind of coming together now for the verticals because you got the best of both worlds. Programmable scalable infrastructure with modern software applications on top. I mean, you've been even in the industry for many many waves, why is this wave so big and important? >> So I think there is no longer the big reason why it's important is I think there's no reason why companies have to be convinced now that the clarity is there that this needs to happen so that's one. The second is, I think there's a high degree of expectation among consumers, among employees and among customers as well, that everything that we touch will be intelligent. So these technologies really unlock the value unlock the value, and they can be deployed at scale that's really, I think what we're seeing as the focus now. And being able to deliver the innovation anywhere whether someone wants it at the Edge next to a machine that's operating, or be able to look at how a manufacturing facility or different product portfolio is doing in the boardroom. It's all available. And so that shop floor, the top floor connection is what everybody's aiming for but we also now call it Edge to enterprise. >> And everything works better, the employees are happy people are happy, stakeholders are happy. Manish great insight. Thank you for sharing here on theCUBE for Think 2021. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Absolutely thanks John for having me. >> Okay. I'm John Furry host theCUBE for IBM Think 2021. Thanks for watching. (soft music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello, and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Red Hat Summit 2021 Virtual. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We got a great guest here, Raymond Kok, Senior Vice President Cloud Application Solutions at Siemens Digital Industry Software. Raymond, thanks for remoting in with theCUBE Virtual all the way from the Netherlands. Great to see you. We're in Palo Alto, California. Great to see you. >> All right, thanks for having me. >> Love the international culture of the vibe with virtual, one of the benefits of having remote, which we were in person, but soon the pandemics coming around the corner, but great to see you. Let's get started, let's get into the Digital Industry Software Group that you're involved in, your relationship with Red Hat. But first let's start with, if you could take a minute to give us a brief overview of Siemens and your role there. >> Yeah, so first of all, let me talk a little bit about Siemens because Siemens is obviously a big company. So as you already announced, I'm part of Siemens Digital Industries Software. So Digital Industries is actually the vision at Siemens that is really focused on how to help companies to become a digital enterprise. And so as part of this IoT (faintly speaking) Industrial Internet of Things is obviously an important element of that. And so if you look at my role at Siemens, is really to be the business lead for the cloud part of IoT. And so what I mean with that is specifically a product line called MindSphere. And so Siemens, like I said, is looking at the overall digital transformation of customers, relay product landscape but also how we can support them with new technologies and IoT is very much part of that. >> One of the benefits of doing theCUBE interviews over the years and having the team that we have in the media side, we get to see things early. Industrial IoT, we've been blogging about and reporting for a couple of years now, now it's hard. Because with the pandemic, you still need things to run. And so Industrial IoT, not withstanding, there's still the other edges like consumer edge and other devices, but Industrial IoT is getting all the focus because of security and also because of just critical operations, critical infrastructure and for business and public sector, private sector, everything. This is a huge area. Could you talk about your strategy around Industrial IoT and specifically how you guys are using this analytics, MindSphere as you mentioned, what is that about? How does that help me if I'm a manufacturing organization? >> Yeah, so first of all, maybe it's good to clarify what we mean with Industrial IoT, because there's IoT and there's Industrial IoT. So, when people typically talk about Industrial IoT, it's really three main areas. It's smart grid. So it's really around IoT for energy management and energy usage. There is smart cities. So this is really IoT for smart buildings but also any kind of infrastructure that goes with smart cities. And then the last one is smart factories. And so, we typically, when we say Industrial IoT, we have clients that cover the three main areas that I just mentioned. And so really what it is about is to take advantage of data, right? So IoT is really about how you take advantage of data and how do you actually get insights from this data to run your business better? So maybe to give a specific example, if you look at one of our major customers, like for example, Coke Hellenic, and they just actually presented that (mumbles) last week. They are trying to use IoT to advance how they actually operate the bottling lines of the factories. And so it's really above operational excellence. So, meaning how to get more trooper, how to get more efficiency into how they do production. But in many cases, John, it's also about energy management because data is not just about, okay, operational excellence but also surrounding topics like, how can I better preserve energy as I produce something? And so, yeah. So in many cases, IoT is all about data, getting next levels of insight from the data and then put that to a particular use. So this can be answering the quality of production, getting better performance of your equipment, getting a better use of your equipment when it comes to energy consumption. So there are many use cases typically related to Industrial IoT. >> Yeah, and you got to love the industrial definition to the way you laid it out. That's critical infrastructure and emerging infrastructure and plant and equipment, all those things. But it's also a proxy for (faintly speaking) for business. So this kind of brings me to the kind of connecting the dots. If you don't mind, I'll jump to the convergence question I'd love to bring up, which is the convergence of IT, Information Technology and Operational Technology, OT, which has been discussed before, but you talked about culture clashes, different cultures. Also systems are different, purpose-built, potentially on one side, but they've got to come together, okay? These are both very important software pieces to the puzzle on the platform. How do you see that evolving? What's your take on resolving this dilemma of the priorities, of innovation and security and openness? What's your take on this? >> (Faintly speaking) Topic, John, because the reality is that OT has to ITinice and IT has to OTinice I guess, when we talk about IoT, right? So I think that's why at Siemens, we have kind of a unique viewpoint because Siemens looks at both the OT side of the world through, for example the context of discrete, the process industries look at the automation part of it, so meaning the actual operational automation and then obviously only equipment that comes with it, which is really typically an OT conversation. Then if you look at my business unit, so, Siemens Digital Industries Software, we look at it really from an IT point of view, and so how can we help these customers to become a digital enterprise? And so at Siemens, we're kind of bringing these two views together. And then to your point, we're trying to make the integration as seamless as possible. And to your point actually, it includes also making sure that we actually drive the standards that are going to make this enable, that are going to make this possible, can be open standards like OPC UA, for example, when you look at discrete manufacturing, but can also be standardizing on certain technologies, right? And so what we're seeing is that, for example, back to my word, talking is really Kubernetes and kind of the container technology that is out there, standard technology is helping this conversation as well. >> Yeah, the integration piece, that's the Kubernetes, containers and micro services. These are bringing cloud native integration points. And that's really going to be key, I'm going to get that in a second, but I want to come back to the MindSphere Analytics piece because data is critical as you mentioned. So integration data security and observability means security, monitoring all these things are evolving. You guys earlier this year, announced you expanding this MindSphere reach in partnership with IBM and Red Hat, so consumers could run on on-prem and cloud. That's the topic of this event. The main theme at Red Hat Summit this year is clearly hybrid cloud, in a distributed kind of computing paradigm which we all love. This is what we're talking about here. We're talking about distributed computing edge, Core Cloud. Why is this important for Siemens and your customers? Why did you decide to work with IBM and Red Hat on this initiative? >> Yeah, it kind of was already somewhat in your question, meaning that if we work with our customers, really the cloud conversation that we have with them is a hybrid cloud conversation. And what we mean with that is, yes, there're elements of public clouds, but especially when you talk about critical factory operations, many of these workloads that we're talking about are actually very close to the shop floor or are at least some what near, and therefore any kind of large enterprise OEM that we work with, so whether it's an automotive OEM, whether it's an aerospace and defense OEM, they all have a hybrid cloud strategy. And so what is interesting about IoT is that this is where hybrid cloud kind of comes together. It kind of goes back to your previous question about IT and OT coming together. As you can imagine OT has always been very on-premise because it's near real time critical factory operations. IT obviously much more comfortable with public cloud. So we're trying to bring this together and therefore, many of these conversations that we have with large enterprise OEMs is really a hybrid cloud conversation. So specifically, what we're doing here together with Red Hat is to enable exactly that. So meaning that we can take MindSphere or solution for IoT Analytics, we can bring that not just to a public cloud or make that available as a public cloud solution, but also on-premise private clouds. And I think it's very interesting because it opens a conversation that allows people to really now start talking about value as opposed to being worried about, okay, where is my data going? Is it secure? Is it actually going to be available when I need it for factory operations? So, yeah, I'm pretty excited about this work that we're doing together, because again, it's about value, making sure that our customers actually can fit what we do at Siemens into a landscape that they feel comfortable with. >> It feels to me, I may be a little bit old school but I feel like this is the innovation that we saw in the eighties and nineties as networks got more expansive and inter networking happened and you start to see that life blood of the action and the value get enabled. And I think your point about hybrid and operating around the environment is critical, because this brings up new challenges and new opportunities. For instance, you don't need to bolt on a caching layer to manage a slow database or you can get real time, and you can get better performance and compute. You don't need to move the data around. So, bringing compute and resource and scale to these edges when they need it, focuses more on the solution architect less on putting point technologies in place to solve. >> Yeah, exactly. Maybe to chime in on that, I think what is also interesting is that it allows the customers to optimize where to best place the workloads that they care about. And so maybe to make that a bit more specific, if you think about a use case like energy management. So let's say that I have a production line, 1500 assets that are consuming energy. If you then think about the data that is involved in analytics, you can imagine that if I start sending all this data to public cloud, maybe, maybe not the most efficient setup, because a first level of filtering and analytics, I can very much close do or do that close to a 2D equipment. And then when I get to aggregation of data, and some further filtering to figure out, okay, what is really happening at the line level? What is really happening at a particular production area level? Again, I think you can do that prior to actually sending some of this data to the cloud, meaning public cloud. Where the public cloud becomes interesting is when you want to aggregate, for example across multiple manufacturing facilities. Now you want to look at the KPIs of one factory versus another, you want to aggregate across multiple factories, you want to figure out, okay, why are certain trends happening just in this factory and it's better in this one? But I think that's why, what we're seeing with clients is that they're expecting from us a layered architecture and to your point, the most efficient way of actually dealing with their use cases across the infrastructure that is available to them. So yeah, if you look at Siemens, we're trying to kind of carefully think about all these layers from fields to edge, to on-premise private cloud, to public clouds, and then make sure that along the way each layer has value and that it's there for a purpose and for a real reason, right? And not just for the sake of having it. >> Yeah, or being limited by the architecture that you're stuck with, constrained by the architecture by what the solutions are. You're saying, the script is flipped upside down where you can optimize your business, which by the way will flow up more data to evaluate. So there's a new post analysis mode of post configuration, and you could align your resources best way you see fit to maximize your business model. This is the beautiful thing about this distributed edge concept is the software enablement of the business is there. So the data is critical. So, as more controlled data comes in, it's not just set it up and watch it run. Yeah, there's automation involved in a lot of software but you're getting new data coming in. If you have this new observation space, of new horizontally scalable data, this new data coming in. >> Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think you said a key point there. We don't want our architecture to constrain. I guess, what kind of value the customer can actually get out of these use cases and therefore, I think it's kind of exciting that in this ecosystem, especially also the interplay between Red Hat and Siemens, that we kind of take it one step further and think about, okay, what is actually truly the most optimal way for customers to go do this? And that we've formed these kinds of partnerships to really help the customer even take another step forward. So I think it's pretty, pretty nice. >> Well, Raymond, I really appreciate it. That's a masterclass, a commentary, nice gems you're dropping here on theCUBE, I appreciate it. The way I look at it, I'd love to get your final reaction to kind of the world we're living in. Just my take on it is that, we have a new operating system of business, and we're kind of getting at, is that you guys now can have an operating model for your customers and software. It's not just another (faintly speaking) For a server and the server is the business, it's the world now. >> Yeah, exactly. And I think from my point of view, I think it's exciting to see us again in this world of complex technology always to find new ways to help the customer to kind of advance their use cases, right? Because the imperatives that, for example discreet manufacturing doesn't really change. They've been there for many, many years. And I think for us to be able to bring out technology closer together and then solve, and I do use use cases in an even more efficient way. I think that's pretty interesting. And yeah, so I see good things and I think ultimately IoT, I think those that can actually bring real value are going to be able to deal like we just talked about, the hybrid scenarios, but the people that are going to matter is the people that can bring the most insights out of this data, right? Because what I always say about IoT is, it's yet more a messy data. So it's only worth actually collecting all this data if you actually get next to levels and new levels of insight from it. And I think, yeah, it has to kind of fit that kind of a mantra, and I think together that we're really trying to figure that out, so- >> I know some people as well would agree with that statement, I do as well, but the other side of that question is, if you don't architect the edge properly or the IoT edge, the data costs could be compelling. You could get hit with some charges because most people have been burned by the idea of moving data around versus say, moving compute. So, back to this value, where's the edge? What're you optimizing for? That's kind of the big question. How do you react to that when someone says, Raymond, what should I be optimizing for as I lay out my architecture for the core to edge, data center cloud edge scenario, what am I optimizing for? >> Yeah, I think you kind of work backwards from what you're trying to achieve. I think it may sound kind of obvious, but quite often I get in discussions with customers where we first start talking technology, obviously it's exciting. I'll be kind of attacking myself. So it's exciting to talk about technology but they forget to start from, okay, what's the return of the invest and what's the use case, right? And so, what are we trying to solve? Who is trying to benefit from it? And what benefit are they looking for? And then if you carefully work backwards from there, you will actually see that as we just talk about data and insights into data are in many cases, leading some elements of the value that a particular person is looking for. And then working backwards from there, you will actually figure out that back to the layer of discussion that we just had, this data doesn't have to be available at every level, right? Every layer adds some value, and so therefore you have to have kind of an open discussion and that's meaning an open discussion about what layers to use. And that's why at Siemens, we kind of follow that approach. So meaning that we work backwards from the use case, then we think about, okay, what is most appropriate at the field and control level? Then what to your point, is the most appropriate at the edge level? Then what is the most appropriate at the cloud level? And then from there, you actually figure out, okay, where do I deploy? What kind of acquisition of data? What kind of insights am I interested in at that level? And then basically, what kind of machine learning am I going to deploy there? And then work all the way from there. And it seems to work. And that's why to your point, it's all about making sure that at every level data is there for a reason and you process it for a reason, because otherwise it's just acknowledging it, interesting still, but it doesn't have any value, right? >> Awesome. Raymond, great insight there. And this is all about engineering. You guys are doing a great job. Engineering, the solutions, this is DevOps, DevSecOps, it's some hybrid cloud, really bringing those that value to the edge, industrial edge. Congratulations for all the great work. Raymond Kok, Senior Vice President, Cloud Application Solutions at Siemens Digital Industries Software. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Okay, yeah. Thanks for having me. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, Red Hat Summit 2021 Virtual. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> And, welcome back to theCube's coverage of Red Hat Summit, 2021. I'm John Furrier, host of theCube. We've got a great segment here on how Red Hat is working with telcos and the disruption in the telco cloud. We've got a great guest Cube alumni, Darrell Jordan Smith, senior vice president of industries and global accounts at Red Hat. Darrell, great to see you. Thanks for coming back on theCube. >> Oh, it's been, it's great to be here and I'm really excited about having the opportunity to talk to you today. >> Yeah, we're not in person, in real life's coming back soon. Although I hear Mobile World Congress, might be in person this year, looking like it's good. A lot of people are going to be virtual and activating I know. A lot to talk about. This is probably one of the most important topics in the industry because when you talk about telco industry, you're really talking about the edge. You're talking about 5G, talking about industrial benefits for business, because it's not just edge for connectivity access. We're talking about innovative things from self-driving cars to business benefits. It's not just consumer, it's really bringing that together. You guys are really leading with the cloud-native platform from REL, OpenShift managed services. Everything about the cloud-native underpinnings, you guys have been successful as a company. But now in your area, telco is being disrupted. You're leading the way >> Absolutely. Give us your take on this, this is super exciting. >> Well, it's actually one of the most exciting times. I've been in the industry for 30 years. I'm probably aging myself now, but in the telecommunications industry, this for me, is the most exciting. It's where, you know, technology is actually going to visibly change, the way, that everyone interacts with the network. And with the applications that are being developed out there on, on our platform. and, you know, as you mentioned, IoT, and a number of the other AI and ML innovations, that are occurring in the marketplace. We're going to see a new wave of applications and innovation. >> What's the key delivery workload you're seeing, with 5G environment. Obviously it's not just, you know 5G in the sense of thinking about mobile phones or mobile computers as they are now. It's not just that consumer, "Hey surf the web and check your email and get an app and download and, and communicate". It's bigger than that now. Can you tell us, where you see the workloads coming in on the 5G environment? >> You, you hit the nail on the head. The, the, the, the killer application, isn't the user or the consumer and the way that we traditionally have known it. Because you might be able to download a video and that might take 20 seconds less, but you're not going to pay an awful lot more money for that. The real opportunity around 5G, is the industrial applications. Things like connected car. You know automotive driving, factory floor automation. How you actually interface digitally with your bank. How we're doing all sorts of things, more intelligently at the edge of the network, using artificial intelligence and machine learning. So all of those things are going to deliver a new experience, for everyone that interacts with the network and the telcos are at the heart of it. >> You know, I want to get into the real kind of underpinnings, of what's going on with the innovations happening. You just kind of laid out kind of the implications of the use cases and the target application workloads, but there's kind of two big things going on with the edge and 5G. One is under the hood networking, you know, what's going on with the moving the packets around the workload, throughput, bandwidth, et cetera, and all that, that goes on under the hood. And then there's the domain expertise in the data, where AI and machine learning have to kind of weave in. So let's take the first part, first. OpenShift is out there. Red Hat's got a lot of products, but you have to nail the networking requirements and cloud native with containerization, because at large scales, not just packets, it's all kinds of things going on, security, managing compute at the edge. There's a lot of things under the hood, if you will, from a networking perspective. >> Could you share what Red Hat's doing in that area? >> Yep, so, so that's a very good question, in that we've been building on our experience with OpenStack and the last time I was on theCube, I talked about, you know, people virtualizing network applications and network services. We're taking a lot of that knowledge, that we've learned from OpenStack and we're bringing that into the container based world. So we're looking at how we accelerate packets. We're looking at how we build cloud-native applications, on bare metal, in order to drive that level of performance. We're looking at actually how we do, the certification around these applications and services, because they may be sitting in different applets across the cloud. And in some instances running on multiple clouds, at the same time. So we're building on our experience from OpenStack. We're bringing all of that into OpenShift, our container based environment. With all of the tooling necessary to make that effective. >> It's interesting with all the automation going on and certainly with the edge developing nicely, the way you're describing it, it's certainly disrupting the telco cloud. You have an operator mindset a cloud-native operator thinking, kind of, I mean it's distributed computing. We know that, but it's hybrid. So it's essentially cloud operations. So there's an operator mindset here, that's just different. Could you just share quickly, before we move on to the next segment, what's different about this operating model, for the, these new kinds of operators. As, as you guys have been saying, the CIO is the new cloud operator. That's the skill set they have to be thinking. And certainly IT, to anyone else provisioning and managing infrastructure has to think like an operator, what's your view? >> Exactly. They certainly do need to think like an operator. They need to look at how they automate a lot of these functions, because they're actually deployed in many different places, all at the same time. They have to live independently of each other, that's what cloud-native actually really is. So the whole, the whole notion of five nines and vertically orientated stacks of five nines availability that's kind of going out the window. We're looking at application availability, across a hybrid cloud environment and making sure the application can live and sustain itself. So operators as part of OpenShift is one element of that, operations in terms of management and orchestration and all the tooling that we actually also provide as Red Hat, but also in conjunction with a big partner ecosystem, such as companies like Netcracker, for example, or IBM as another example. Or Ericsson bringing their automation tool sets and their orchestration tool sets, to that whole equation, to address exactly that problem. >> Yeah. You bring up the ecosystem and this is really an interesting point. I want to, just hit on that real quick, because it reminds me of the days, when we had this massive innovation wave in the nineties. During that era, the client server movement, really was about multi-vendor, right? And that, you start to see that now and where this ties into here I think, is and I want to get your reaction to this is that, you know, moving to the cloud was all about to 2015, moved to the cloud, move to the cloud, cloud-native. Now it's all about not only being agile and better performance, but you're going to have smaller footprints, with more security requirements, more net, enterprise requirements. This is now, it's more complicated. So you have to kind of make the complication go away. And now you have more people in the ecosystem, filling in these white spaces. So, you have to be performance and purpose built, if you will. I hate to use that word, but, or, or at least performing and agile, smaller footprint, greater security, enabling other people to participate. That's a requirement. Can you share your reactions to that? >> Well, that's core of what we do at Red Hat. I mean, we take open source community software, into a hardened distribution, fit for the telecommunications marketplace. So we're very adapt to working with communities and third parties. That ecosystem is really important to us. We're investing hundreds of engineers, literally hundreds of engineers, working with our ecosystem partners, to make sure that their application is services certified running on our platform. But also importantly, is certified to be running in conjunction with other cloud-native applications that sit under the same cloud. So that, that is not trivial to achieve, in any stretch of the imagination. And a lot of IT technology skills come to bear. And as you mentioned earlier a lot of networking skills, things that we've learned, and we build with a lot of these traditional vendors as we bring that to the marketplace. >> You know, I've been saying on theCube, I think five years ago, I started talking about this and it was kind of a loose formulation. I want to get your reaction, because you brought up ecosystem. Now saying, you know, you're going to see the big clouds develop obviously Amazon and Microsoft came in after and now Google and others. And then I said, there's going to be a huge wave of, of what I call secondary clouds. And you see companies, like Snowflake building on top of Amazon. And so you start to see the power law, of new cloud service providers emerging, that can either sit and work with, across multiple clouds, either one cloud or others, that's now multi-cloud and hybrid. But this rise of the new, more CSPs, more cloud service providers. This is a huge part of your area right now because some call that telco, telco cloud, edge hits that. What is Red Hat doing in this cloud service provider market specifically? How do you help them? If I'm a cloud service provider, what do I get in working with Red Hat? How do I be successful? Because it's very easy to be a cloud service provider now more than ever. What do I do? How do you help? How do you help me? >> Well, we, we, we offer a, a platform called OpenShift which is our containerized based platform, but it's not just a container. It involves huge amounts of tooling associated with operating it, developing in and around it. So the, the concept that we have, is that you can bring those applications, develop them once, on one, one single platform, and run it on premise. You can run it natively as a service in Microsoft's environment. You can actually run it natively as a service in Amazon's environment. You can run it natively in IBM's environment. You can build an application once and run it in all of them, depending on what you want to achieve and who actually provides you the best zoning, the best terms and conditions, the best, the best tooling in terms of other services, such as an AI, associated with that. So it's all about developing it once, certifying it once, but deploying it in many, many different locations, leveraging the largest possible developer ecosystem, to drive innovation through applications on that common platform. >> So the assumption there, is that's going to drive down costs. Can you tell me about why the benefits, the economics are there? Talk about the economics. >> Well, Yeah, so, so, A, it does drive down costs and that's an important aspect but more importantly, it drives up agility, so time to market advantage is actually attainable for you. So many of the telcos when they deploy a network service, traditionally it would take them literally, maybe a year to roll it all out. They have to do it in days, they have to do updates in real time, in day two operations, in literally minutes. So we were building the fabric necessary, in order to enable those applications and services to occur. And as you move into the edge of the network and you look at things like private 5G networks, service providers or telcos, in this instance, will be able to deliver services all the way out to the edge, into that private 5G environment and operate that, in conjunction with those enterprise clients. >> So OpenShift allows me if I get this right, from the CSP to run, have a horizontally scalable organization. Okay. And from a unification platform standpoint. Okay. Whether it's 5G and other functions, is that correct? >> Darrell: That's correct. >> Okay. So you've got that. Now I want to come in and bring in the top of the stack with the other element that's been been a big conversation here at Red Hat Summit and in the industry. That is AI and the use of data. One of the things that's emerging is the ability to have both the horizontal scale, as well as the specialism of the data and have that domain expertise. You're in the industries for Red Hat. This is important because you're going to have, one industry is going to have different jargon, different language, different data, different KPIs. So you got to have that domain expertise, to enable the ability, to, to write the apps and also enable AI. Can you comment on how that works and what's Red Hat do in there? >> So, so, so, we, we're developing OpenShift and a number of our, other technologies, to be fit for the edge of the network, where a lot of these AI applications will reside, because you want them at the closest to the client or the, or the application itself, where it needs to reside. We're, we're creating that edge fabric, if you like. The next generation of hybrid cloud is really going to be, in my view at the edge. We're enabling a lot of the service providers to go after that, but we're also igniting by industry. You mentioned different industries. So if I look at, for example, manufacturing with MindSphere, we recently announced with Siemens, how they do at the edge of the network, factory automation, collecting telemetry, doing real-time data and analytics, looking at materials going through the factory floor, in order to get a better quality result, with lower, lower levels of imperfections, as they run through that system. It's just one industry and they have, their own private and favorite AI platforms and data sets they want to work with. With their own data scientists who understand that, that, that ecosystem inherently. You can move that to healthcare. And you can imagine, you know, how you actually interface with your healthcare professionals here in North America, but also around the world. How those applications and services and what the AI needs to do, in terms of understanding x-rays and looking at, you know common errors associated with different x-rays, so, so our practitioner can make a more specific diagnosis, faster, saving money and potentially lives as well. So different, different vertical markets in this space, have different AI and ML requirements and needs, different data sciences and different data models. And what we're seeing is an ecosystem of companies, that are starting up there in that space, you know, we have Watson as part of IBM, but you have Perceptor Labs, you have H2O and a number of other, very very important AI based companies in that ecosystem. >> Yeah. And you've got the horizontal scalability of the control plane then in the platform, if you will, that gives us cross-organizational leverage and enable that, that vertical domain expertise. >> Exactly. And you'd want to build an AI application, that might run on a factory floor for certain reasons, it's location and what they're actually physically building. You might want to run that on premise. You might actually want to put it in the IBM cloud, or in Zuora or into AWS. You develop it once to OpenShift, you can deploy it in all of those as a service, sitting natively in those environments. >> Darrell, great chat. You got a lot going on. telco cloud, there is a lot of cloud-native disruption going on. It's a challenge and an opportunity. And some people have to be on the right side of history, on this one, if they're going to get it right. We'll know, and the scoreboard will be very clear, 'cause this is a shift, it's a shift. So again, you hit all the key points that I wanted to get out, but I want to ask you two more areas that are hot here at Red Hat Summit 21, as well, again as well in the industry. I want to get your reaction and thoughts on. And they are DevSecOps and automation. Okay. Two areas everyone's talking about, DevOps, which we know is infrastructure as code, programmability, under the hood, modern application development, all good. You add the second there, security, DevSecOps, it's critical. Automation is continuing to be the benefits of cloud-native. So DevSecOps and automation, what's your take, and how's that impact the telco world and your world? >> You can't, you can't operate a network without having security in place. You're talking about very sensitive data. You're talking about applications that could be real-time critical And this is actually, even lifesaving or life threatening, if you don't get them right. So the acquisition that Red Hat recently made around StackRox, really helps us, make that next level of transition into that space. And we're looking at about how we go about securing containers, in a cloud-native environment. As you can imagine, there'll be many many thousands, tens of thousands of containers running. If one is actually misbehaving for want of a better term, that creates a security risk and a security loophole. We're shoring that up. That's important for the deployment OpenShift in the telco domain and other domains. In terms of automation, if you can't do it at scale and if you look at 5G and you look at the radios at the edge of the network and how you're going to provision those services. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of nodes, hundreds of thousands. So you have to automate a lot of those processes, otherwise you can't scale to meet the opportunity. You can't physically deploy. >> You know, Darrell this is a great conversation, you know as a student of history and Dave Vellante and I always kind of joke about that. And you've been in and around the industry for a long time. Telcos have been balancing this evolution of digital business for many, many decades. And now with cloud-native, it's finally a time where you're startin' to see, that it's just the same game, now, new infrastructure. You know, video, voice, text, data, all now happening, all transformed and going digital, all the way, all aspects of it. In your opinion, how should telcos be thinking about, as they put their plans in place for next generation? Because you know, the world is, is now cloud-native. There's a huge surface here of opportunities, different ecosystem relationships. The power dynamics are shifting. It's, it's really a time where there will be winners and there will be losers. What's your, what's your view on on how the telco industry needs to Cloudify, and how to be positioned for success? >> So, so one of the things I, I truly believe very deeply, that the telcos need to create a platform, horizontal platform that attracts developer and ecosystems to their platform, because innovation is going to sit elsewhere. Then you know, there might be a killer application that one telco might create, but in reality, most of those innovations, the most of those disruptors are going to occur from outside of that telco company. So you want to create an environment, where you're easy to engage and you've got maximum sets of tools and versatility and agility in order to attract that innovation. If you attract the innovation, you're going to ignite the business opportunity that 5G and 6G and beyond is going to actually provide you, or enable your business to drive. And you've really got to unlock that innovation. And you can only unlock it, in our view at Red Hat innovation, if you're open. You know, you follow open standards, you're using open systems and open source, is a method or a tool, that you guys, if you're a telco I would ask, you guys need to leverage and harness. >> Yeah. And there's a lot. And there's a lot of upside there if you get that right. >> Yes. >> There's plenty of upside. A lot of leverage, a lot of assets, take advantage of the whole offline, online, coming back together. We are living in a hybrid world, certainly with the pandemic. We've seen what that means. It's put a spotlight, on critical infrastructure and the critical shifts. If you had to kind of get pinned down Darrell, how would you describe that learnings from the pandemic. As folks start to come out of the pandemic, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As we come out of this pandemic, companies want a growth strategy. Want to be positioned for success. What's your learning coming out of the pandemic? >> So from, from my perspective, which really kind of in one respect was, was very admirable, but, in another respect is actually deeply, a lot of gratitude, is the fact that the telecommunications companies, because of their carrier grade capabilities and their operational prowess, were able to keep their networks up and running and they had to move significant capacity from major cities to rural areas, because everyone was working from home. And in many different countries around the world, they did that extremely, extremely well. And their networks held up. I don't know, and maybe someone will correct me and email me, but I don't know one telco had a huge network outage, through this pandemic. And that kept us connected. It kept us working. And it also, what I also learned is, that in certain countries, particularly Latam, where they have a very large prepaid market. They were worried that the prepaid market in the pandemic would go down, because they felt that people would have less money to spend. And therefore they wouldn't top up their phones as much. The opposite effect occurred. They saw prepaid grow. And that really taught me, that, that connectivity is critical, in times of stress, that we are also, where everyone's going through. So, I think there were some key learnings there. >> Yeah, I think you're right on the money there. It's like they pulled the curtain back of all the FUD and said, you know, necessity's the mother of invention. And when you look at what happened and what had to happen, to survive in the pandemic and be functional, you're, you nailed it. The network stability, the resilience, but also the new capabilities that were needed, had to be delivered in an agile way. And I think, you know, it's pretty much a forcing function, for all the projects that are on the table, to know which ones to double down on. So, I think you pretty much nailed it. >> Thank you. Darrell Jordan Smith, senior vice president of industries and global accounts for Red Hat, theCube alumni. Thanks for that insight. Thanks for sharing. Great conversation around telcos and telco clouds and all the edge opportunities. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you, John. >> Okay. It's theCube's coverage of Red Hat Summit 21. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)