>> Narrator: Live from Nashville, Tennessee. It's the Cube. Covering Commvault GO 2018. Brought to you by Comvault. >> Welcome back to the Music City. This is the Cube at Commvault GO. I'm Stu Miniman with my Co-host Keith Townsend. Happy to welcome to the program one of the users of the show, actually, going to get to see her on stage at the keynote tomorrow. Ah, Michele Buschman who's the Vice President of Information Services at American Pacific Mortgage. Thanks so much for jointing us. >> Thanks for having me. >> Alright, ah, give us a little bit about your company and your roles of responsibility there. >> Sure, so, um, as you mentioned, I'm the Vice President of Information Services at American Pacific Mortgage. Um, I pretty much am responsible, you know, in the acting role or CIO, CTO, and CISO. So, I manage all technology for the company reporting to the COO. Um, our company is a top 15 independent mortgage bank. Um, we do about 10 billion dollars in mortgages a year, and have about a 25 hundred employee user base. >> Alright, so you've just got a couple of roles there, and luckily your in an industry, not much regulation to worry about, things aren't changing, things are kind of static. You just kind of put in a couple hours at the office and go, go take a nap, right? >> Ya, right (laughing). >> Um, why don't you tell us, what are some of those dynamics that are driving your up level business that are impacting, uh, the technology side. >> Oh, absolutely, so, um, you know, the mortgage industry is somewhat cyclical, and we are in that range where interest rates are going up, um, margin pressures are high. So, you know it's all about doing more with less and saving money. Um, in traditionally in the mortgage banking world, um, you know, IT resources, you're always a little bit short? Um, and so, that, you know, drives me to look for strategies that allow me to leverage my technical resources more for business value operations, than managing infrastructure, keeping lights on, um, which has really motivated us to move to the Cloud, and adopt platform type solutions similar to Commvault to be able to be more efficient with our few resources that we do have in our technology team. >> Alright, can you speak a little bit about Cloud. What is that driver, what does Cloud mean to your organization? And ah, yeah, what is the strategy as it sits today? >> Absolutely, so, um, we're kind of unique, I guess, to an extent in that, you know, when I walked into the organization four and a half years ago. The bulk of our critical business applications were already Sass hosted applications. Um, that grew out of the need because they had such a small technical team, um, you know, for the investments to manage the infrastructure to host applications is very high. So, um, luckily enough, I already had a head start, ah, in that the bulk of our critical business applications were CSS Sass hosted, so, um, what I've done since then is to look for those solutions that are more commodities. So, you know, why manage email on Prem when, you know, Microsoft can do a way better job than we could with the small staff we have. So, you know, it's slowly been, you know, taking each application, pulling it out, putting it into the Cloud, so that my team can be better leveraged to actually work on security initiatives, and um, business value, and transformation type of solutions. So, it is part of it is a, you know accessibility as well. Um, you know, we're in a changing environment where we want to be able to deliver our, um, employee workforce to be able to work anywhere, anytime, on any device, and in order to do that, we have to have solutions that are sitting out there, and accessible to them, um, and not always just sitting behind the firewall in the data center. >> So, let's talk a little bit about data management, data protection as it pertains to the business. What are some of the drivers, especially if you are in the Sass world that make you look at data protection suites as opposed to consuming native solutions within those services? >> Oh, absolutely. So, I very much have a strategy around platform services. Uh, when I walked into the organization, there's probably 30 different applications that were out in the environment, and none of them talked to each other. Um, when you're trying to manage, you know, bringing data across the organization to compile it and aggregate it to actually have something useful to the business. You have to have connected systems, but when you have a small team, it's very difficult to do that development working, connect all those systems, and manage them. So, what I like to look for is a platform solution, um, that will allow me to grow, um, as my budget allows, to add on the different modules that that platform solution, um, offers to me. So, you know, for example, you know, today's budget, I might have a certain limited amount that I can invest, but if I pick a solution that ultimately might give me 70, maybe 80 percent of the needs, um, then I'm only having to add in maybe a couple of other solutions and that cost to integrate and manage, and so overall it reduces the overall cost and complexity of the environment. >> So, you're in a mismatch of ten billion dollars a year in mortgages issued, yet, small IT staff, Sass solutions. When you think of Commvault 20 years, enterprise less solution, you don't think necessarily simple, easy to use, initially, so, why Commvault? >> Oh, absolutely, so, um, again within the first year I was there we went through a huge market share grab and so we grew 75 percent market share, and when I walked in the door, we needed to do investment in infrastructure. So, um, the original forecasts were totally blown out of the water, so the investment we made in small to midsize business type of solutions, we out grew before our contracts were due. So, when I went into this, um, we took about an 18 months, um, to take out time to find the right solution. Uh, we looked at about 6 different vendors, um, you know, we did a little bit of POC work, uh, we did references, um, and ah, basically at the end of the day I was looking for something that had a really good vision, um, that was platform driven, so I could continue to add additional products as budget allowed. Um, that had the ability to have more of a single pane of glass and very little man power to manage, um, and then, reliability was huge. Um, you know, we had some challenges with our previous solution of feeling comfortable that our backups would work in the event we had an incident. So, you know, when we looked at Commvault, um, you know, it may have been, um, you know, it's an enterprise solution which is what I wanted. I could scale without rip and replace. Um, great reputation, great vision, good, technology, you know, bones. Um, and so, you know, when I would go to the board for that, I said, you know, the investment may be a little bit more than a lower end solution, but it's going to give us the capability to grow with the business. >> You know Michele, it's interesting, if you dialed back and said you were looking at this five years ago, I wonder if the pricing strategy that Commvault had in place would fit what you're looking for. I'm sure you've seen as a customer, um, when I hear, you know, I kind of want to be able to reach that vision, but do it incrementally. Sounds like something you might get more from a startup? Maybe give us a little bit of insight what you've seen, how you look at this relationship, and what are some of those things that you are looking to add on in the future. >> Oh, absolutely, so, you know, absolutely, financials always come into place, right? You've got to be able to afford what you're putting into place. Um, you know, I will say that, um, their pricing model did change, you know, cause we had looked at that previously, and it was a pretty high price point to get in with the licensing under the perpetual licensing models. Um, so, with the change of how Commvault kind of moved with the times, more subscription style, made it a little more affordable for some of the smaller businesses to take advantage of. Um, and so, you know, that's how I kind of looked at it for, plus at the end of the day, if you're looking for a quality product around security, and recovery, and backup, it's worth the money to invest in something you feel comfortable that's going to meet that need. Um, and grow with you without, again, having you know, who wants to go through a migration every three years when your contracts up, right? Um, and then, as far as the other products, I'm looking, you know, at some of the new products that they've officially announced. It was really exciting to hear the CEO and COO talk today about the automation that they are building cause that plays absolutely into what we're trying to do in our organization. As we need stuff, you know, again, acception processing is what I always talk about. I only want to have to touch things when it's not working, and, you know, when there's some sort of exception. Um, and, so, I'm really excited about the way Commvault's headed down that path with the automation. Um, and then, also the data piece. Being able to really categorized the data, know if it's outdated or not. I mean, this is a very well known industry issue that we have, we are data hogs in the mortgage business. Um, and our users are as well. Uh, and so being able to identify the data that I have, I mean, you know, I walked into a situation where there's been no purge of data. You know, being able to really identify what is valuable date to not purge vs. the data we want to purge to reduce that footprint to reduce the risk for any kind of potential breech, or security incident. You know, the more you have out there, the more the chance you are going to get hit. >> So, you wear a bunch of hats that seem kind of in conflict especially, seeing that you report up to the COO. Security being the most interesting one. >> (Michele) Uh huh. >> How does your role as the CISO and your selection of the data protection suite, data management, impact your decision to go with a Commvault. >> Oh absolutely, that's huge as well, right? Um, you know, in our industry, we obviously are responsible for um, being custodians to a lot of personal information to consumers, so we have NPI, PI all over, and it's not even just with my critical business system vendor, you know, caus I rely on them heavily, they're much larger, they have, um, larger security teams, and larger budgets to typically protect our data. But, we also have that data internally into our own data warehouse. So, um, data protection is key. Um, so looking at products that will allow us to simplify that, have visibility into it, you know, that's another area I'm really looking forward to expanding my Commvalt use into as we start to actually, Um, you know, one of the other projects we're going to be working on potentially is moving our data warehouse to Microsoft Azure. So, um, you know, really having that, um, security plan figure out before the data is up in the cloud. >> Michele, I wonder what your experience has been with recovery. Is that something you test? Have you had to actually do a recovery? What is your experience been? >> Yeah, so, you know, knock on wood, I'm not sure if there's wood under here, but, you know, knock on wood. We haven't had a major incident, um, however, what we do, have done, now that we've actually deployed Commvault fully, um, is in, you know, it's too bad it's not a couple weeks from now because we're actually going to do a full DR exercise with our new backups now that are fully deployed with Commvault. >> So, you'll take a vacation the week after (laughing). >> So, we're going to actually test that out. That's one of the things that I task my team with is once my backups and everything was in place that we're going to, you know, do a tabletop exercise, but actually try to do a full recovery of some systems with the new backups to make sure we are all in good shape. Uh, but with that being said, I can already tell you just from a, um, you know, our old system to our new system, you know, with the features sets that we have available in Commvault compared to what we had in our other solution. The time to recover individual files is exponential. You know, our other solution, we had to recover an entire folder, not just individual files. And then, we're really excited also of being able to eventually being able to push out some self service file restoration capabilities that Commvalt allows us to do as well. >> So, as a natural consumer of, as a service, offering a mission critical businesses. How important is Commvalut role map to, as a service, for enterprise class solutions. >> Oh, I think that's great. I actually can't wait to see what they have to offer around that. Again, you know, um, I might be a unique use case, I don't know, because that's really how we manage our business from the IT side because of limited budget, limited resources is leveraging vendors. Um, so, I'm really excited to see how that evolves actually. Um, you know, from a service perspective. >> Okay, Michele, it's your second time coming to this event. For audiences that didn't come, what did you get out of it, what excites you the most coming to an event like this? >> I think there's two key things that I really enjoy going to conferences about. Um, one of course, is always the networking opportunities. I always, meet other people who have the same challenges that I do, and you know, they're looking at the same products, and being able to exchange ideas, um, and how you solve problems, and, you know talking to other people about real life issues, um, is so valuable. Uh, the other piece is always getting myself out of the office and getting more education. So, you know, really seeing what's evolving, what's changing, um, you know, what are the partners doing that work with Commvault, what's Commvault, you know, doing? Really, getting out of the office to have a chance to really get educated around that and what's really unique to about Commvalt GO to, is that a lot of it is customer based. Uh, you have customers up talking about their use cases and how they've implemented the product, so it's real life, ah, education, and not just, you know, um, a vendor up there talking about their product and selling it, right? >> Absolutely, we appreciate you sharing your story, Ah, with our audience here, and uh, congratulations on all the progress, ah, American Pacific Mortgage. And ah, boy, you know, tired of thinking of all the hats you've been wearing for those of us that wear a few hats, ah, we can definitely, ah, you know, appreciate that, alright. For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman, we'll be back with more programming here at Commvault GO. Thanks for watching The Cube. >> Michele: Thank you.

>> Announcer: Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's theCUBE, covering Commvault GO 2018, brought to you by Commvault. >> Welcome back to Nashville. You're watching theCUBE at Commvault GO. Our first year at this show, the third year of the show. I'm Stu Miniman, my co-host, Keith Townsend. Happy to welcome to the program Chris Powell, who's the Chief Marketing Officer at Commvault. Thanks so much. >> Thanks, Stu. >> For inviting us to the Music City, and your party. >> We're glad to have you guys, thanks for being here. >> All right, so Chris, Commvault... I really like what I've seen at the show, so far. You made a statement that really resonated with me yesterday. You said, look, this is a 20 year old company, but it's very different than it was. We know cloud and AI and all these things are kind of changing. >> Yeah. >> Things like ransomware and GDPR are hot in the data world. When we look at our research, data is at the center of everything. So, you know, what's the brand of Commvault? If we think of a company that has lots of customers, but going through its own transformation, how should we be thinking of the company? >> I think what we're trying to do with Commvault is make sure that we, there's some times in marketing, where you end up in a place where it's either, it's perception is driving reality or reality is driving perception, and Commvault's in that transitional period where it's more about reality that we need to use to drive that perception, because there's some old perceptions. And as you said, in any company, especially in the tech space, that's 20 years old, you end up in a place where there's a lot of different perceptions of you from days gone by. Those can be about pricing. They can be about the usability of the products. The different technology innovations that you've had because you have such a long history, so we, sort of, need to continue to shift that and shape that as we go forward. For us, the Commvault brand has really evolved into Commvault is about being data experts and helping our customers be data experts. As you said, data is the new oil. Data, as we said at the show this morning, the new water, and it's definitely, sort of, this space where everybody's recognizing what's happening, but it's such early days in this world of data that's changing everything around us. >> Well, we have a friend of the program, Alan Cohen, that said, here's the challenge in IT, used to be that IT was the, always the no, and then you go to the procurement people and they're really slow. And, Chris, do you know what we need everybody to do? We need them to go. (laughs) I really like the branding of the show. Probably not where you came up with the term, but you've got 2,000 people here. The show floor, I've been to five or six thousand person shows that have a smaller expo hall here. You've got customers, with booths. You've got partners with booth. You know, Nashville's got a great energy. So, for people who haven't come here in person, give us a little bit about, why Nashville, what you hope to accomplish with the expo, the flow and then the show? >> Well, the why Nashville, and a lot of what we were trying to get with is, we've all been to probably one or two too many conferences in other cities, that we won't name here because I love those other cities too, but what we've done in our partnership with the Gaylord Hotels, which is a great customer of Commvault's as well, is trying to find just venues that are a little bit more interesting, and unexpected and different. That it was all part of the plan, as we were coming up with this, is to really project Commvault in a way that we believe, really, was more about our image. Towns like Nashville, last year we were in Washington, D.C., it's, they're great representations of what we're trying to do in the market. I was with people last night and they said so many people said they'd never been to Nashville, and this is a great town, and it really represents our brand well. >> So Chris, 20 years, 20 years of data. There's companies that are just waking up, realizing that they have this asset locked away in their, whether it's on tape, on media that's sitting aside in some random storage facility, but they have this asset that they can now unlock. What's the central message you want these customers to know about Commvault and your ability to help them to unlock that data. >> Keith, the... it's so true in that when you talk to people who are more on the data scientist side of things, it's this, it's this understanding that the... usually, the very well-paid data scientists struggle with just a couple of very basic things that they don't want to struggle with and it's not even what you pay them for. It's, can I get access to the data? Is the data all brought together in a form that I can really now serve it up, use it, get value from it? And as Commvault's been, sort of, developing and expanding our overall portfolio, it's really trying to address both of the issues of, if you're someone who's responsible for data in your organization, you have a bit of a challenge on an ongoing basis. You need to make sure the data is protected so it's secure. It's available when you need it. But it's also that you can serve it up and you can get value from it. The portfolio that Commvault's really been refining and introduced this past July, and continued to introduce things just this week, is made up of products that both enable the protection of that data but also serving that data up. The Commvault Activate product line and the portfolio that we're starting to introduce now is all meant to try to drive value out of the data. You're so right, in that, I was talking to some of our... we have a great expert in AI that's going to be with us tomorrow, Y.Y. Lee, who's also one of our board of director members, and she was just talking about how so many companies, as you've said, have locked that data away. It's not... it's not available to them and now they're bringing in these data scientists and their job is to try to find value in that data but they can't get access to that data. So this is a, this is a very straight-forward challenge that we're trying to help our customers with. >> Chris, I'd like you to take us inside your customers because when I think about five or ten years ago, backup, there was usually a storage person. It's like, okay, how do I have it? Do I have a backup window? Got to worry about recovery, something we would look at, but when you talk about data, you talk about data scientists. We're going up the stack. How do I use analytics and everything? Is this... >> Yeah. >> Is there a C.D.O. in my organization, worries about that? Governance and compliance are board-level discussions. So, bring us through where are you talking to the customers? Is there, kind of, the traditional customer, and the new customer? How'd that impact your whole field? It's a, it's a big, broad question. We don't have a ton of time but, yeah. >> Chris: Well, the way that I usually look at it is you can almost come at this from two different directions but you end up telling a very similar story. It's just almost the order of operation that you tell it. What I mean by that is, in the world of the folks who were really responsible for their virtual environment, their physical environment, and backing it up, you can talk to them about what they need and their desires in terms of the strongest backup and recovery, but then eventually you pretty quickly find yourself talking about a better understanding of what that data is so that you can apply your policies against it, so that you can show your compliance, and then eventually, to be able to serve that data up for more higher-value needs of your organization. And if you end up speaking to someone often, it's a more senior IT person in an organization or even all the way into the CEO's office. It's sort of just almost a different direction you go. It's you want to talk about how you can get value out of your data, and in order to get that value out of your data, you need to be able to understand truly what it is, where it is, who created it, who has access to it, and then eventually, you find yourself to: Is it protected? So it's a very similar story but if you go to a CEO and you start with backup, they don't really want to talk to you. And, if you go to a backup administrator and start talking about the value of data, they don't really want to talk to you. So, but what we've come to realize is that it's the same story, just told in a different direction. >> So talk... talk to us about bridging that gap. We're at Commvault GO, two thousand people, over 150 sessions, guys have been pretty clear this is an educational event. How did you help bridge the gap with such a large... difference of users? You have over five hundred partners attended the, the Partners Session. You have customers from the backup, admin, all the way up to the data scientists, and even executives that have to make these decisions. How does Commvault GO help bridge that gap? >> So, in a lot of ways, we use data so we're... we're as the old saying goes, eating your own dog food, kind of thing. We're using data from the previous conferences and always refining this. It's a... there's 182 Break-Out Sessions that occur over two days. There's, what we call, 30 and 30. It's 30 structured labs and 30 hands-on labs that you can, sort of, experience while you're here at the show. There's a lot of mini sessions, so there's the theaters that hold 120 people and then there's the theaters that hold 15 people. And through a lot of the technology of the shows now, the mobile apps, you can really refine what you want to experience at the show. The Meet the Experts Sessions, we have our developers here. The first year we did this, I wasn't sure how this would work, but we brought about, I think we brought about 10 developers for a Meet the Experts Sessions. The next year, we ended up bringing 20, and this year, we brought 40. 40 developers and engineers are here to have whiteboard sessions and just sit and talk to people. So, it's a... we've really divined, defined, sorry, this show in a way that looks at the audience first and, from a marketing perspective, I can tell you that when we came into this, nobody wants to be marketed to in this, in this industry. They, they want real information and what Commvault GO has been about is real information. It's, you talk about the reality driving the perception. Commvault is strong in reality. You know, it's, that's our reality. We just need to be able to communicate that and we use this show to make sure we're doing it, and not selling to people. We're here to provide real information. >> Chris, one of the things that actually surprised me, the portfolio is actually broader than I expected and part of that, you had quite a bit of hard news. What I mean by that, you announced quite a lot of products, everything from the ASA service through the Commvault Activate. >> Yeah... extended appliances. >> There's a whole lot of things there. We're going to have a lot of your, your team on to go through that, but give us what, when you, people walk away from the show, what you want them to know about Commvault, announcements. >> Yeah, so I think the big... there's so many different pieces, you're right, that have come from the show, very tangible, specific things, new product line around Commvault Activate, what you can utilize that... solution for, in terms of, understanding your data, things like, for sensitive data governance, then you get into the Commvault appliance and the extended appliance offering. We've taken the start of the appliance that was just in its initial forms last year at this time, at the last GO Conference, and then extended that this year with a larger appliance offering, as well as a smaller. And that's just a testament to how these things are being adopted in the market and the amount of customer uptake we're beginning to see on it. And then, when you look within our product portfolio, we've tried to make sure that some of our foundational products, like Commvault Complete Backup Recovery, that's been a big change for us recently. In terms of offering what we consider to be, and in terms of the name, the most complete backup and recovery solution, and what that was, is an answer to the market. Over the last 20 years, and it's not just Commvault, the whole market started to disperse their backup and recovery products. If you wanted backup and recovery, you had to go out and buy 10, 15 different products. You had to piece all these different things together, and what we realized is that what customers were really... longing for was something that really brought this together, so that they stopped spending all their time trying to figure out how to piece together a backup and recovery solution, and started spending more of their time about how to get value out of that data. >> As your CEO and COO said on the stage this morning, there's the difference between simple and smart, >> Chris: Yeah. >> And often, smart will end up being easier than, than doing this in part. >> Yep. >> Chris, I really appreciate you helping us to get a flavor for the show at the beginning. We've got lots more interviews to dig through all the product announcements, talk to the customers, talk to the partners. For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman, back with lots more coverage. Thanks for watching theCUBE. (light electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's theCUBE, covering Commvault GO 2018. Brought to you by Commvault. >> Welcome to the Music City. You're watching theCUBE, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. This is Commvault GO. 20-year-old company, Commvault, the third year of their show, and the first time we have theCUBE here, and the first time we've been in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Stu Miniman, your host for one day of coverage and joining me to help unlock the Commvault is the CTO advisor, Keith Townsend. >> Good to be back on theCUBE. >> Yeah, Keith, so you've actually been to this show before. It's my first time. I've known Commvault for a long time, but, you know, we talk about companies, they're all going through some kind of digital transformation and Commvault is no exception. I love the energy that I'm seeing at this show. They've got great puns around data. Data is at the center of everything, and really comes to what we see. You know, we know that data is so important. All the tropes out there. It's the new oil, it's the new currency, it is one of the most important things, not only in IT, but in business. So what's your experience been, so far? >> So far great. You know, they did a great job, second go for me. Last year, they had Captain Sully, great inspirational talk. This year they had a comedian, Connell on it, did a fabulous job of fast-paced multimedia sessions, talking about the connection of data, our everyday lives, lives as a technologist. Really high-powered show, a lot of great conversation around data and its applicability. >> Yeah, I did love that. Steve Connell, he is a poet, and some humor, and a lot of geeky things in there, talking about, right, how data fits into all of our lives, and what we do. And then that's one of the reason's why we're here, why the customers are here, and that's what it's about. You look at a company like Commvault. They've got 10s of thousands of customers, and as the big wave's coming in, what is Cloud Mead? I like some of the messages. I know we're going to dig in, both in our analysis, as well as with the guests, how cloud is impacting this, as well as things like the wave of AI. How is that changing the product? How can I access the information? I hear things like ransomware and GDPR, and hacking. It's a dangerous time in technology, whether you're talking social media, or talking in business. So give us a little bit of background, what you're hearing. Keith, you're talking to customers in your day job all the time. How important is data? And things like backup and data recovery, where do they fit in their world? >> Well, you know what? Customers are still learning this journey. I've talked to plenty of customers that have used Commvault, competing products, and a lot of, at the low level, a lot of these guys are still thinking about it as backup, but great, great testimony from one of the larger customers, out there, Merck, who talked about using backup or data protection, as part of their data management strategy, moving workloads from worker mobility, moving workloads from cloud to cloud, location to location. Every customer is dealing with multi-cloud challenges. Stu, we've talked about multi-cloud and the keys to multi-cloud data is absolutely the most important part of getting your multi-cloud strategy, or even cloud strategy, straight. So, I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation I've had out in the field, which is customers challenged with how do I simply identify a data management strategy? To hearing Commvault's message today and throughout the guests that we'll have on, customers, partners, the entire ecosystem, about how Commvault enables multi-cloud through data management. >> Yeah, I was curious what I would see coming in. Would this be, kind of, a hard core, let's get in to the product and understand things like backup and recovery. As you know, backup's important, but recovery is everything. We heard some of the customer stories about how fast they can recover. Those are great stories. How does cloud fit into it? You had the CEO and the COO on stage talking about do you go, when you go to the cloud, do you go simple or do you go smart? And there's some nuance there that you'll want to unpack as to understanding. You know, as we look at cloud, it's not just take the way we were doing things and throw them up there. I mean Keith, they talked about tape and virtual tape. You know, I remember back when, like, the VTLs were first being a thing, I was working at a storage company back then. You know, it was a huge move. Backup, those processes, are really hardened into an environment. What do the admins have to do? What do they have to change in the way they're doing things? Let's look at the news a little bit. So, you know, there was the, Commvault did a good job, I think, of checking all the check boxes. While there was nothing that jumped out at me as, like, wow this is the first time I've heard it, it's what I'm hearing from customers. So, moving to, and as a service portfolio, they've got a full line of appliances, but it's not only hardware. If you'd like to buy the software from them, of course you could do that. Got a number of big partners. We're going to HPE on the program. We're going to have Cisco on the program. NetUP is another big, big partner here. As well as, I think that the product that they're most excited to talk about is Commvault Activate, which is really looking a lot of the governance, which, when you talk in a cloud world, is one of the biggest challenges. By the way, if people in the background hear these cheering, the Commvault employees are really excited, everybody's starting to walk on the show floor. We're in the center of it all, Keith. So, we got a preview yesterday, they actually announced it to the tech field day crew, which you and I sat in with. So, give me your thoughts as to what you saw in the product line. How does that line up with what you're hearing from customers in a competitive nature? >> So, I think I tweeted out yesterday, doing the tech field day session, Commvault does not sleep at the wheel. As you said, Stu, there's nothing amazingly new about what they announced, but a 20-year-old technology company is definitely keeping pace with the innovation that we've seen in the field. Customers want options when it comes to consuming backup and recovery. From a storage layer, they want the storage bricks, they want a hardware solution, they want to consume it via subscription, or perpetual license. They want this cloud-type capability. More importantly, they want, and they talked about it on stage today, this analytics capability. The ability to extract intelligence out of your data. Commvault calls is 4-D indexing. Other vendors just call it, simply, meta-data. But taking advantage of 15, 20 year-old data, to drive innovation in today's society, while keeping compliant with GDPR and other regulations that are coming up, sprouting up as it seems, every other week. >> I did like that terminology that you used. The 4-D innovation, because of course the fourth dimension is time and we're using intelligence. The challenge we have, as we know, is we have so much data and what do we the analytics for? They said we can use the analytics, first of all, compliance. I need to understand that I take care of that. Secondly, what if I want to cull data? What data don't I need anymore? What can I get rid of? There's huge cost savings that I can have there. And lastly, what can I get from analytics? How can I get value out of that information? And more. So, the use of analytics is something I was looking for, obviously want to talk to some of the product people, some of the customers, about what I've heard so far and talking to people. People were excited. I was actually talking to one of the partners of Commvault, they said one of the reasons they partnered deeper and are looking to work with Commvault, is they've got good tech. There's a reason they've been around for 20 years. They're a publicly traded stock. They've been doing well. They have been growing. Revenue wise, I looked, the last three years, I think they're at 700 million, they've been growing in the kind of eight to 9% year over year for the last couple years. Which, as a software company, it's not taking the world by storm, but for, in the infrastructure space, that is good growth. I do have to mention, there was some activist investor activity that came on. We actually we're going to have the CMO, we're going to have the COO on the program. We won't have the CEO, they are in the midst of going through a change there. And, you know, look, say what you will about activist investors. The reason they're getting involved is because they believe that there is more value that can be unlocked in Commvault with some changes and with product line and the things happening that's what we're starting to see here. That's why were excited to dig in and kind of understand. >> Yeah, we can see that even in some of the tech customer's testimonials. The state of Colorado net new customer. This is amazing in an area that we've seen 90 million, 250 million, easily a half a million dollars of investment in the data protection space. Commvault, 20-year-old company, still gaining traction with net new use cases and if I was an activist investor, I'd look at that. I'd look at the overall industry and thinking what can we do to unlock some of the potential of a fairly large customer base? Pretty stable company, but a very, very exciting part of the industry. >> Yeah, and Keith, you brought up meta-data. Meta-data's something that, you know, in the industry we've been talking about for a long time. It's really that intelligence that's going to allow the systems to gather everything. I know, when I get my brand new phone now, I can search my 4,000 photos by location, by date, everything like that. It's auto-recognizing information. The same thing we're getting on the business side. It used be oh okay, let's make sure when you put your photo, your file, in there that you tag it. Come on. Nobody can do this. Nobody's thinking when I'm doing my job, well I really need to think about the meta data 'cause five years from now, I might want to do it. Oh, I can search by person or project or things like that. But it's the intelligence in the system to be able to learn and grow and the more data we have, actually the more that the intelligence can get there. >> And that's critically important for even compliance. Again, culling data. You know, Bill Nye got up on stage and talked about being able to use data, or I'm sorry, AstraZeneca got up on stage and talked about using data that was 15-years-old to rerun through today's algorithms and trials. If you were to cull the wrong data, then they could not have the innovation that they've created by having 15-year-old data. So, the meta data, the ability to go back again, search your repository for key words, content, surface up that data and leverage that data. This is why we say data is the new currency, it's the new oil, it's the most critical. I even heard on stage today, data's the new water. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, you know I like my old-fashioned glass of water, but this is why we hear these terms because companies are reinventing themselves with the data. >> Alright, so Keith, what Dave Allante would point out is water is a limited resource. Data, we can reuse it. We can take a drink of data, we can share it. Data helps complete us. It's the shirts that they have at the show. We've got AstraZeneca, we've got the state of Colorado, we've got other users. The key partners, key executives. We're going to bring you the key data to help you extract the signal from the noise here at Commvault GO. For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman. Thanks for joining theCUBE. (upbeat music)