>> Narrator: Live from San Jose, it's theCUBE. Presenting Big Data, Silicon Valley. Brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media and its ecosystem partners. >> Hi, I'm George Gilbert, and we are broadcasting from the Strata Data Conference, we're right around the corner at the Forager Tasting Room & Eatery. We have this wonderful location here, and we are very lucky to have with us Michael Nixon, from Snowflake, which is a leading cloud data warehouse. And David Abercrombie from Sharethrough which is a leading ad tech company. And between the two of them, they're going to tell us some of the most advance these cases we have now for cloud-native data warehousing. Michael, why don't you start with giving us some context for how on a cloud platform one might rethink a data warehouse? >> Yeah, thank you. That's a great question because let me first answer it from the end-user, business value perspective, when you run a workload on a cloud, there's a certain level of expectation you want out of the cloud. You want scalability, you want unlimited scalability, you want to be able to support all your users, you want to be able to support the data types, whatever they may be that comes in into your organization. So, there's a level of expectation that one should expect from a service point of view once you're in a cloud. So, a lot of the technology that were built up to this point have been optimized for on-premises types of data warehousing where perhaps that level of service and currency and unlimited scalability was not really expected but, guess what? Once it comes to the cloud, it's expected. So those on-premises technologies aren't suitable in the cloud, so for enterprises and, I mean, companies, organizations of all types from finance, banking, manufacturing, ad tech as we'll have today, they want that level of service in the cloud. And so, those technologies will not work, and so it requires a rethinking of how those architectures are built. And it requires being built for the cloud. >> And just to, alright, to break this down and be really concrete, some of the rethinking. We separate compute from storage, which is a familiar pattern that we've learned in the cloud but we also then have to have this sort of independent elasticity between-- >> Yes. Storage and the compute, and then Snowflake's taken it even a step further where you can spin out multiple compute clusters. >> Right. >> Tell us how that works and why that's so difficult and unique. >> Yeah, you know, that's taking us under the covers a little bit, but what makes our infrastructure unique is that we have a three-layer architecture. We separate, just as you said, storage from the compute layer, from the services layer. And that's really important because as I mentioned before, you want unlimited capacity, unlimited resources. So, if you scale, compute, and today's world on on-premises MPP, what that really means is that you have to bring the storage along with the compute because compute is tied to the storage so when you scale the storage along with the compute, usually that involves a lot of burden on the data warehouse manager because now they have to redistribute the data and that means redistributing keys, managing keys if you will. And that's a burden, and by the reverse, if all you wanted to do was increase storage but not the compute, because compute was tied to storage. Why you have to buy these additional compute notes, and that might add to the cost when, in fact, all you really wanted to pay for was for additional storage? So, by separating those, you keep them independent, and so you can scale storage apart from compute and then, once you have your compute resources in place, the virtual warehouses that you're talking about that have completed the job, you spun them up, it's done its job, and you take it down, guess what? You can release those resources, and of course, in releasing those resources, basically you can cut your cost as well because, for us, it's pure usage-based pricing. You only pay for what you use, and that's really fantastic. >> Very different from the on-prem model where, as you were saying, tied compute and storage together, so. >> Yeah, let's think about what that means architecturally, right? So if you have an on-premises data warehouse, and you want to scale your capacity, chances are you'll have to have that hardware in place already. And having that hardware in place already means you're paying that expense and, so you may pay for that expense six months prior to need it. Let's take a retailer example. >> Yeah. >> You're gearing up for a peak season, which might be Christmas, and so you put that hardware in place sometime in June, you'll always put it in advanced because why? You have to bring up the environment, so you have to allow time for implementation or, if you will, deployment to make sure everything is operational. >> Okay. >> And then what happens is when that peak period comes, you can't expand in that capacity. But what happens once that peak period is over? You paid for that hardware, but you don't really need it. So, our vision is, or the vision we believe you should have when you move workloads to the cloud is, you pay for those when you need them. >> Okay, so now, David, help us understand, first, what was the business problem you were trying to solve? And why was Snowflake, you know, sort of uniquely suited for that? >> Well, let me talk a little bit about Sharethrough. We're ad tech, at the core of our business we run an ad exchange, where we're doing programmatic training with the bids, with the real-time bidding spec. The data is very high in volume, with 12 billion impressions a month, that's a lot of bids that we have to process, a lot of bid requests. The way it operates, the bids and the bid responses and programmatic training are encoded in JSONs, so our ad exchange is basically exchanging messages in JSON with our business partners. And the JSONs are very complicated, there's a lot of richness and detail, such that the advertisers can decide whether or not they want to bid. Well, this data is very complicated, very high-volume. And advertising, like any business, we really need to have good analytics to understand how our business is operating, how our publishers are doing, how our advertisers are doing. And it all depends upon this very high-volume, very complex JSON event data stream. So, Snowflake was able to ingest our high-volume data very gracefully. The JSON parsing techniques of Snowflake allow me to expose the complicated data structure in a way that's very transparent and usable to our analysts. Our use of Snowflake has replaced clunkier tools where the analysts basically had to be programmers, writing programs in Scala or something to do in analysis. And now, because we've transparently and easily exposed the complicated structures within Snowflake in a relational database, they can use good old-fashioned SQL to run their queries, literally, afternoon analysis is now a five-minute query. >> So, let me, as I'm listening to you describe this. We've had various vendors telling us about these workflows in the sort of data prep and data science tool change. It almost sounds to me like Snowflake is taking semi-structured or complex data and it's sort of unraveling it and normalizing is kind of an overloaded term but it's making it business-ready, so you don't need as much of that manual data prep. >> Yeah, exactly, you don't need as much manual data prep, or you don't need as much expertise. For instance, Snowflake's JSON capabilities, in terms of drilling down the JSON tree with dot path notation, or expanding nested objects is very expressive, very powerful, but still your typical analyst or your BI tool certainly wouldn't know how to do that. So, in Snowflake, we sort of have our cake and eat it too. We can have our JSONs with their full richness in our database, but yet we can simplify and expose the data elements that are needed for analysis, so that an analyst, their first day on the job, they can get right to work and start writing queries. >> So let me ask you about, a little more about the programmatic ad use case. So if you have billions of impressions per month, I'm guessing that means you have quite a few times more, in terms of bids, and then there's the, you know once you have, I guess a successful one, you want to track what happens. >> Correct. >> So tell us a little more about that, what that workload looks like, in terms of, what analytics you're trying to perform, what's your tracking? >> Yeah, well, you're right. There's different steps in our funnel. The impression request expands out by a factor of a dozen as we send it to all the different potential bidders. We track all that data, the responses come back, we track that, we track our decisions and why we selected the bidder. And then, once the ad is shown, of course there's various beacons and tracking things that fire. We'd have to track all of that data, and the only way we could make sense out of our business is by bringing all that data together. And in a way that is reliable, transparent, and visible, and also has data integrity, that's another thing I like about the Snowflake database is that it's a good old-fashioned SQL database that I can declare my primary keys, I can run QC checks, I can ensure high data integrity that is demanded by BI and other sorts of analytics. >> What would be, as you continue to push the boundaries of the ad tech service, what's some functionality that you're looking to add, and Snowflake as your partner, either that's in there now that you still need to take advantage of or things that you're looking to in the future? >> Well, moving forward, of course, we, it's very important for us to be able to quickly gauge the effectiveness of new products. The ad tech market is fast-changing, there's always new ways of bidding, new products that are being developed, new ways for the ad ecosystem to work. And so, as we roll those out, we need to be able to quickly analyze, you know, "Is this thing working or not?" You know, kind of an agile environment, pivot or prove it. Does this feature work or not? So, having all the data in one place makes that possible for that very quick assessment of the viability of a new feature, new product. >> And, dropping down a little under the covers for how that works, does that mean, like you still have the base JSON data that you've absorbed, but you're going to expose it with different schemas or access patterns? >> Yeah, indeed. For instance, we make use of the SQL schemas, roles, and permissions internally where we can have the different teams have their own domain of data that they can expose internally, and looking forward, there's the share house feature of Snowflake that we're looking to implement with our partners, where, rather than sending them data, like a daily dump of data, we can give them access to their data in our database through this top layer that Michael mentioned, the service layer, essentially allows me to create a view grant select onto another customer. So I no longer have to send daily data dumps to partners or have some sort of API for getting data. They can simply query the data themselves so we'll be implementing that feature with our major partners. >> I would be remiss in not asking at a data conference like this, now that there's the tie-in with CuBOL and Spark Integration and Machine Learning, is there anything along that front that you're planning to exploit in the near future? >> Well, yeah, Sharethrough, we're very experimental, playful, we're always examining new data technologies and new ways of doing things but now with Snowflake as sort of our data warehouse of curated data. I've got two petabytes of referential integrity data, and that is reliable. We can move forward into our other analyses and other uses of data knowing that we have captured every event exactly once, and we know exactly where it fits in a business context, in a relational manner. It's clean, good data integrity, reliable, accessible, visible, and it's just plain old SQL. (chuckles) >> That's actually a nice way to sum it up. We've got the integrity that we've come to expect and love from relational databases. We've got the flexibility of machine-oriented data, or JSON. But we don't have to give up the query engine, and then now you have more advanced features, analytic features that you can take advantage of coming down the pipe. >> Yeah, again we're a modern platform for the modern age, that's basically cloud-based computing. With a platform like Snowflake in the backend, you can now move those workloads that you're accustomed to to the cloud and have in the environment that you're familiar with, and it saves you a lot of time and effort. You can focus on more strategic projects. >> Okay, well, with that, we're going to take a short break. This has been George Gilbert, we're with Michael Nixon of Snowflake, and David Abercrombie of Sharethrough listening to how the most modern ad tech companies are taking advantage of the most modern cloud data warehouses. And we'll be back after a short break here at the Strata Data Conference, thanks. (quirky music)

>>And welcome back to the cubes coverage of AWS executive summit at re-invent 2021. I'm John ferry hosts of the cube. This segment is about surviving and thriving and with the digital revolution that's happening, the digital transformation that's turning into and changing businesses. We've got two great guests here with guardian life. Nick Volpi CIO of individual markets at guardian life and Kim golly CTO of life. And is at Accenture essentially, obviously doing a lot of cutting-edge work, guardian changing the game. Nick, thanks for coming on, Kevin. Thanks for coming on. >>Thanks John. Good to be here. >>So I wonder before I get into the question, I want to just set the table a little bit. The pandemic has given everyone a mandate, the good projects are exposed. The bad projects are exposed. Everyone can kind of see kind of what's happening because of the pandemic forced everyone to kind of identify what's working. What's not working what the double-down on innovation for customers is a big focus, but now with the pandemic kind of relieving and coming out of it, the world's changed. This is an opportunity for businesses, Nick, this is something that you guys are focused on. Can you take us through what guardian lives doing kind of in this post pandemic changeover as cloud goes next level? >>Yeah. Thanks John. So, you know, the immediate need in the pandemic situation was about the new business capability. So those familiar with insurance traditionally, you know, life insurance, underwriting, disability underwriting is very in-person fluids labs, uh, attending physician statements. And when March of 2020 broke that all came to an abrupt halt, right doctor's office were either closed. Testing centers were either closed or inundated with COVID testing. So we had to come up with some creative ways to digitize our new business, um, adopt the application and adopt our new medical questionnaires and also get creative on some of our underwriting standards that put us at, you know, certain limits and certain levels and how we, when we needed fluids. So we, we, we have pretty quickly, we're agile about decisions there. And we moved from about, uh, you know, 40 to 50% adoption rate of our electronic applications to, you know, north of 98% across the board. >>Um, in addition, we kind of saw some opportunities for products and more capabilities beyond new business. So after we weathered the storm, we started taking a step back. And like you said, look at what we were doing. Like kind of have a start, stop, continue conversation internally to say, you know, this digitation digitization is a new norm. How do we meet it from every angle, not just a new business, right? And that's where we started to look at our policy administration systems, moving more to the cloud and leveraging the cloud to its fullest extent versus just a lift and shift. >>Kim, I want to get your perspective at a century I'm, I've done a lot of interviews with the past, I think 18 months, lots of use cases with a central, almost in every vertical where you guys are almost like the firefighters get called in to like help out cause the cloud actually now isn't an enabler. Um, how do you see the impact of the, of the pandemic around reverbing through? I mean, obviously you guys come to the table, you guys bring in, I mean, what's your perspective on this? >>So, yeah, it's really interesting. I think the most interesting fact >>Is, you know, we talk about Nick raised the, you know, such a strong area in our business of underwriting and how can we expedite that? There's been talking on the table for a number of years. Um, but the industry has been very slow or reluctant to embrace. And the pandemic became a very informed, I became an enforcer in it to be honest. And a lot of the companies were thinking about a prior. Um, but that's, it they'll think about it. I mean, even essentially we, we launched a huge three-year investment to get clients into cloud and digital transformation, but the pandemic just expedited everything. Now the upside is clients that were in a well-advanced stage of planning, uh, that we're easily able to adopt. Uh, but clients that weren't were really left behind. Um, so we became very, very busy just supporting the clients that weren't didn't have as much forethought as the likes of guardian, et cetera. >>Nick, that brings up a good point. I want to get your reaction to see if you agree. I mean, people who didn't put their toe in the cloud, or just jump in the deep end, really got flat-footed when the pandemic hit, because they weren't prepared people who were either ingratiated in with the cloud or how many active projects were even being full deployments in there did well, what's your take on that? >>Yeah, the, the enablement we had and, and the gift we were given by starting our cloud journey, and I want to say 2016, 17 was we really started moving to the cloud. And I think we were the only insurer that moved production load to the cloud at that point. Um, most of insurers were putting their development environments, maybe even their environments, but, you know, guardian had a strategy of getting out of the data center and moving to a much more flexible, scalable environment architecture using the AWS cloud. Um, so we completed our journey into the cloud by 2018, 19, and we were at the point of really capitalizing versus moving. So we were able to move very quickly, very nimbly, uh, when, when the pandemic hit or in any digital situation, we have that, that flexibility and capacity that AWS provides us to really respond to our customers, our customer's needs. So we were one of the more fortunate insurers that were well into our cloud journey and at the point of optimization versus the point of moving. >>So let's talk about the connection with, with the sensors, life insurance and annuity platform also known as a, I think the acronym is, uh, what was that? Why was that relevant? What, what was that all about? >>Yeah. So I'll go first and then Kim, you can jump in and see if you agree with me. Um, so >>It's essentially, >>I suspect you would write John, like I said, our new business focus was the original, like the, the, the, the emergency situation when the pandemic hit. But as we went further into it and realized the mortality and morbidity and the needs and wants of our customers, which is a major focus of guardian, really being, having the client at the center of every conversation we have, we realized that there was a real opportunity for product and his product continues to change. And you had regulations like 7,702 coming out where you had to reprice the entire portfolio to be able to sell it by January 1st, 2022, we realized our current systems are for policy admin. We're not matching our digital capabilities that we had moved to the cloud. So we embarked on a very extensive RFP to Accenture and a few other vendors that would come to the table and work with us. >>And we just really got to a place where combination of our, our desire to be on the cloud, be flexible and be capable for our customers. Married really well with the, the knowledge, the industry knowledge and the capabilities that Accenture brought to the table with the Ayla platform, um, their book of business, their current infrastructure, their configuration versus development, really all aligned with our need for flexible, fast time to market. You know, we're looking to cut development times significantly. We're looking to cut tests in times niggly. And as of right now, it's all proving true between the CA the cloud capability and halo capability. We are reaping the benefits of having this new platform, uh, coming up in live very soon here before. >>Well, I get to, um, a center's perspective. I want to just ask you a quick follow-up on that. Nick, if you don't mind the, you basically talk us through, okay, I can see what's happening here. You get with Accenture take advantage of what they got going on. You get into the cloud, you start getting the efficiencies, get the cultural change. What refactoring has you have you seen? What's your vision? I should say, what's your vision around what's next? Because clearly there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a playbook you get in the cloud replatform, you get the cultural fit, you understand the personnel issues, how to tap the resources. Then you gotta look for innovation where you can start changing. What, how you do things to refactor the business model. >>Yeah. So I think that, you know, specifically to this conversation, that's around the product capability, right? So for all too long, the insurance companies have had three specific sleeves of insurance products. We've had individual life. We have an individual disability and we'd have individual annuities, right? Each of them serving a specific purpose in the customer's lives, what this platform and this cloud platform allows us to do is start to think about, can we create the concept of a single rapper? Can we bring some of these products together? Can we centralize the buying process? And with ALA behind the scenes, you don't have that. You know, I kind of equate it to building a Ferrari and attaching a, uh, a trailer to it, right? And that's what we were doing today. Our digital front ends, our new business capabilities are all being anchored down or slowed down by our traditional mainframe backends by introducing Accenture on the cloud in AWS, we now have our Ferrari fully free to run as fast as it can versus anchoring this massive, you know, trailer to it. Um, so it really was a matter of bringing our product innovation to our digital front end innovation that we've been working on for, you know, two or three years prior. >>I mean, this is the kind of the Amazon way, right? You decouple things, you decompose, you don't want to have a drag. And with containers, we're seeing companies look at existing legacy in a way that's different. Um, can you talk about how you guys look at that Nick and terminally? Because a lot of CEO's are saying, Hey, you know what? I can have the best of both worlds. I don't have to kill the old to bring in the new, but I can certainly modernize everything. What's your reaction to that? >>Yeah. And I think that's, that's our exact, that's our exact path forward, right? We don't, we don't feel like we need to boil the ocean. Right. We're going after the surgically for the things that we think are going to be most impactful to our customers, right? So legacy blocks of business that are sitting out there that are, you know, full, completely closed. They're not our concern. It's really hitching this new ALA capability to the next generation of products. The next generation of customer needs understanding data, data capture is very important. And right. So if you look at the mainframes and what we're living on now, it's all about the owner of the policy. You lose connection with the beneficiary or the insured, what these new platforms allowed us to do is really understand the household around the products that they're buying. Right. I know it sounds simple, but that data architecture, that data infrastructure on these newer platforms and in the cloud, you can turn it faster. >>You have scale to do more analysis, but you're also able to capture in a much cleaner way on the traditional systems. You're talking about what we call intimately the blob on the mainframe that has your name, your first name, your last name, your address, all in one free form field sitting in some database. It's very hard to discern on these new platforms, given our need and our desire to be deeper into the client's lives, understanding their needs, ALA coupled with em, with AWS, with our new business capabilities on the front end really puts together that true customer value chain. That's going to differentiate us. >>Okay. I'm okay. CTO of a live as he calls it, the acronym for the service you have, this is a great example. I hate to use the word on-ramp cause that sounds so old, right? But in a way in vertical markets, you're seeing the power of the cloud because the data and the AI could be freed up and you can take advantage of all the heavy lifting by providing some platform or some support with Amazon, the, your expertise. This is a great use case of that, I think. And I think, you know, this is, I think a future trend where the developments can be faster, that value can be faster and your customers don't have to build all that lower level abstractions. If you will. Can you describe the essential relationship to your customers as you guys? Cause this is a real great use case. >>Yeah, it is. You know, our philosophy is simple. Let's not reinvent the wheel and with cloud and native services as AWS and, uh, provide w we want to focus on the business of what the system needs to do and not all the little side bets, we can get a great service. That's fully managed that has, uh, security patches updates. We want to focus on the real deal. Like Nick wants to focus on the business and not so much what's underneath it. That's my problem. I'm focusing on that. And we will work together, uh, in a nice little gel. You've had the relatively new term, no code, low code. You know, it's strange a modern system, like a lip has been that way for a number of years. Basically it means I don't want to make code changes. I just want to be able to configure it. >>So now more people can have access to make change, and we can even get it to the point where it's the people that are sitting there, dealing with the clients that would be the ultimate, where they can innovate and come up with ideas and try things because we've got it so simple. We're not there yet, but that's the ultimate goal. So alien, the no code, no code has been around for quite some time. And maybe we should take advantage of that, but I think we're missing one thing. So as good as the platform is the cloud moving in calculating native services, using the built-in security that comes with all that, um, and extending the function and then being able to tap into, you know, the InsureTech FinTech internet of things, and quickly adapt. I think the partnership is big. Okay. Uh, it's, it's very strong part of the exercise, so you can have the product, but without the people that work well together, I think it's also a big challenge. >>You know, all programs have their idiosyncrasies and there's a lot of challenges along the way. You know, there's one really small, simple example I can use. Um, I'd say guardian is one of our industries, market leaders, when, and when they approach the security, they really do lead the way out there. They're very strict, very, um, very responsible, which is such a pleasure to say, but at the end of the day, you still need to run a business. So, you know, because we're a partnership because we all have the same challenges we want to get to success. We were able to work together quite quickly. We planned out the right approach that maximize the security, but it also progressed the business. So, and we applied that into the overall program. So I think it is the product. Definitely. I think it is, uh, everything Nick said you actually elaborated on, but I'd like to point out there's a big part of the partnership to make it a success. >>Yeah. Great, great call out there, Nick, let's get your reaction on that because I want to get into the customer side of it. This enablement platform is kind of the new platform has been around for awhile, but the notion of buying tools and having platforms are now interesting because you have to take this kind of low code, no code capability, and you still got to code. I mean, there's some coding going on, but what it means is ease of use composing and being fast, um, platforms are super important. That requires real architecture and partnership. What's your reaction. >>Yeah. So I think, you know, I'll, I'll tie it all together between AWS and ALA, right? And here's the beauty of it. So we have something called launchpad where we're able to quickly stand up in AIDAP instance for development capabilities because of our Amazon relationship. And then to Kim's point, we have been successful 85% or more of all the work we've done with Inala is configuration versus code. And I'd actually I'd venture to say 90%. So that's extremely powerful when you think about the speed to market and our need to be product innovative. Um, so if our developers and even our, our analysts that sit on the business side could come in and quickly stand up a development buyer and start to play with, um, actuarial calculations, new product features and function, and then spin that to a more higher end development environment. You now have the perfect coupling of a new policy administration system that has the flexibility and configuration with a cloud provider like Amazon and AWS that allows us to move quickly with environments. Whereas in days past you'd have to have an architecture team come in and stand up the servers. And, you know, I'm going way back, but like buy the boxes, put the boxes in place and wire them down. This combination available in AWS has really a new capability to guardian that we're really excited about. >>I love that little comparison. Let me just quickly ask you compared to the old way, give us an order of magnitude of pain and timing involved versus what you just described as standing up something very quickly and getting value and having people shift their, their intellectual capital into value activities versus undifferentiated heavy lifting. >>Yes. I'll, I'll give you real dates. Right? So we engage really engaged with Accenture on the ALA program. Right before Thanksgiving of last year, we had our environment stood up and running all of our vitamins dev set UAT up by February, March timeframe on AWS. And we are about to launch our first product configuration into the, of the platform come November. So within a year we've taken arguably decades of product innovation from our mainframes and built it onto the Ayla platform on the Amazon cloud. So I don't know that you can do that in any other type of environment or partnership. >>It's amazing. You know, that's just great example to me, uh, where cloud scale and real refactoring and business agility is kinda plays out. So congratulations. I got to ask you now on the customer side, you mentioned, um, you guys love, uh, providing value to the customers. What is the impact of the customer? Okay, now you're a customer guardian life's customer. What's the impact of them. Can you share how you see that rendering itself in the marketplace? >>Yeah, so, so clearly AWS has rendered tons of value to the customer across the value stream, right? Whether it be our new business capability, our underwriting capability, our ability to process data and use their scale. I mean, it just goes on and on about the AWS, but specifically around ad-lib, um, the new API environment that we have, the connectivity that we can now make with the new backend policy admin systems has really brought us to a new, a new level. Um, whether it be repricing, product innovation, um, responding to claims capabilities, responding to servicing capabilities that the customer may need. You know, we're able to introduce more self-service. So if you think about it from the back end policy admin, going forward to our client portal, we're able to expose more transactions to self-serve. So minimize calls to the call center, minimize frustration of hold times and allow them to come onto the portal and do more and interact more with their policies because we're on this new, more modern cloud environment and a new, more modern policy admin. So we're delivering new capabilities to the customer from beginning to end being on the cloud with, with, >>Okay, final question. What's next for guardian life's journey year with Accenture. What's your plans? What do you want to knock down for the next year? What's what's on your mind? What's next? >>Uh, so that's an easy question. We've had this roadmap plan since we first started talking to Excentra, at least I've had it in my head. Um, we, we want off all of our policy admin systems for new business come end of 2025. So we've got about four policy admin systems maintaining our different lines of business, our individual disability or life insurance, and our newest, um, four systems that are kind of weighing us down a little bit. We have a glide path and a roadmap with Accenture as a partner to get off of all of these, for new business capability, um, by end of 2024. And that's, you know, I'm being gracious to my teams when I say that I'd like to go a little bit sooner, and then we begin to migrate the, the most important blocks of business that caused the most angst and most concerned with the executive leadership team and then, you know, complete the product. >>But along the way, you know, given regulation, given new, uh, customer customer needs, you know, meeting the needs of the customers changing life, we're going to have parallel tracks, right? So I envision we continue to have this flywheel turning of moving, but then we begin another flywheel right next to it that says we're going to innovate now on the new platform as well. So ultimately John, next year, if I could have my entire whole life block, as it stands today on the new admin platform and one or two new product innovations on the platform as well, by the third quarter, fourth quarter of next year, that would be a success. As far as that. >>Awesome. You guys had all planned out. I love, and I have such a passion for how technology powers business. And this is such a great story for next gen kind of where the modernization trend is today and kind of where it's going. It's the Nick. Appreciate it, Kim. Thanks for coming out with a censure Nixon. It's an easy question for you. I have to ask you another one. Um, this is, I got you here. You know, you guys are doing a lot of great work for other CEOs out there that are going through this right now, whether whatever they are on the spectrum missed the cloud way of getting in. Now this notion of refactoring and then replatforming, and then refactoring business is a playbook we're seeing emerge. People can get the benefits of going to the cloud, certainly for efficiency, but now it opens up the aperture for different kinds of business models. With more data access with machine learning. This refactoring seems to be the new hot thing where the best minds are saying, wow, we could do more, even more. What's your vision? How would you share those folks out there, out there, or the CEOs? What should they be thinking? What's their approach? What advice would you give? >>Yeah, so a lot of the mistakes we make as CEOs, we go for the white hot core first, right? We went the other way. We went for the newer digital assets. We went for the stuff that wasn't as concerning to the business should be fall over. Should there be an outage? Should there be anything? Right? So if you avoid the white hot core, improve it with your peripherals, easier moves to the cloud portals, broker, portals, um, beneficiary portals, uh, simple, you know, AIX frames, moving to the cloud and making them cloud native new builds. Right? So we started with all those peripheral pieces of the architecture and we avoided the white hot core because that's where you start to get those very difficult conversations about, I don't know if I'm ready to move. And I don't see the obvious benefit of moving a dividend generating policy admin system to the cloud. Like why, when you prove it in the pudding and you put the other things out there and prove you can be successful the conversation and move your core and your white hot core out to the platform out to leverage the cloud and to leverage new admin platforms, it becomes a much easier conversation because you've kind of cut your teeth on something much less detrimental to the business. Should it be >>What's the other expression, put water through the pipes, get some reps in and get the team ready to bring training, whatever metaphor you. That's what you're essentially saying. There, get, get some, get some, get your sea legs, get, get practice >>Exactly. Then go for the hard stuff, right? >>It's such a valid point. John is, you know, we see a lot of different approaches across a lot of different companies and, and the biggest challenges, the core is the biggest part. And if you start with that, it can be the scariest part. And I've seen companies trip up big time and you know, it becomes such a bubble spend, which really knocks you on for years, lose confidence in your strategy and everything else. And you're only as strong as your weakest link. So whether you do the outside first or the inside first from a weakest link until it's, the journey is complete, you're never going to maximize. So it was a, it was a very, uh, different and new and great approach that they took by doing a learning curve around the easiest stuff. And then, >>Yeah. Well, that's a great point. One quick, quick followup on that is that the talk about the impact of the personnel, Kim and Nick, because you know, there's a morale issue going on too. There's a, there's a, there's a training. I won't say training, but there's not re-skilling, but there's the rigor. If you're refactoring, you are, re-skilling, you're doing new things, the impact on morale and confidence. If you're not, you get the white, you don't wanna be in the white core unconfident. >>Maybe I should get first. Cause it's Nick's stuff. So he probably might want to say a lot, but yeah. Um, what we see with a lot of insurance companies, uh, they grow through acquisition. Okay. They're very large companies grown over time, uh, buying companies with businesses and systems and bringing it in. They usually bring a ten-year staff. So getting the staff to the next generation, uh, those staff is extremely important because they know everything that you've got today, and they're not so, uh, fair with what's coming up in the future. And there is a transition and people shouldn't feel threatened, but there is change and people do need to adopt and evolve and it should be fun and interesting, but it is a challenge at that turnover point on who controlling what, and then you get the concerns and get paranoid. So it is a true HR issue that you need to manage through >>The final word here. Go for it. >>Yeah. John, I'll give you a story that I think will sum the whole thing up about the excitement versus contention. We see here at guardian. I have a 50 year veteran on my legacy platform team and this person is so excited, got themselves certified in Amazon and is now leading the charge to bring our mainframes onto a lip and is one of the most essential. And I've actually had Accenture tell me if I had a person like this on every one of my engagements who is not only knowledgeable of the legacy, but is so excited to move to the new. I don't think I'd have a failed implementation. So that's the kind of guardian, the kind of backing guardians putting behind this, right? We are absolutely focusing on rescaling. We are not going to the market. We're giving everyone the opportunity and we have an amazing take-up rate. And again, like I said, 50 year veteran who probably could have retired 10 years ago is so excited, reeducated themselves, and is now a key part of this implementation, >>Hey, who wouldn't want to drive a Ferrari when you see it come in, right? I mean Barston magnet trailer. Great story, Nick. Thank you for coming on. Great insight, Kim, great stuff for the century as always a great story here, right? At the heart of the real focus where all companies are feeling right now, we're surviving and thriving and coming out of the pandemic with a growth strategy and a business model with powered by technology. So thanks for sharing the story. Appreciate it. Thanks John. Appreciate it. Okay. So cube coverage of 80 of us executive summit at re-invent 2021. I'm John furrier, your host of the cube. Thanks for watching.

>>LA from Las Vegas. It's the cube covering AWS reinvent 2019 brought to you by Amazon web services and along with its ecosystem partners. >>Welcome back to Vegas, Lisa Martin with John farrier. We are live at AWS reinvent in the expo hall at the sands convention center. There's tons of people in here. You could probably hear some of the background AWS expecting 65,000 or so folks. John, how many of those 65,000 and have you talked to in the last two days? >>Well, I can hear all the conversations happening at once. It's about hybrid cloud, IOT edge data, machine learning. my head's going to come. >>I was going to say lots of cool stuff. John and I are pleased to be joined by Greg Coralville, the VP of products and strategy for Blackberry Q. Next group. Welcome to the program >>to be here with 65,000 of our closest friends. >>His friends. Exactly. So Blackberry, cute X. What's it all about? >>What's it all about? Well, we do software. We do embedded software for mission critical systems at this event, at the AWS reinvent over showing a software and a really cool car, a karma, and we're connecting it to the AWS IOT backend services and showing some really, really cool use cases. Some of which are near term summer, which are a bit longer term are pretty exciting. Take a quick minute to describe Kunis. Is background acquired by Blackberry system history legacy? Exactly. Just take a quick minute to explain that. So we were founded in 1980 and then developing software for mission critical devices and medical, industrial. And then we started developing software for automotive in 1998 so we've been in automotive for about 20 years and developing originally an infotainment and then digital instrument clusters, telematic systems, gateways, safety systems, acoustics systems, pretty much becoming the software platform in the car because in the car, the car, the software is to be reliable, safe, secure. >>So we're trusted to deliver that. In automotive, we were acquired by Blackberry in 2010 and we're bringing the best of Blackberry and automotive and all of our other markets. So Lisa and I always talk about IOT is RPA automation. All this stuff's going on. But one of the things that comes up is we're trying to grok what's the software development environment in the cloud, in the car, and a Amazon one by having great API APIs. Yep. That was one of their core design principles. Is there a similar design principle from a car standpoint? Because if I'm an app developer, I just love, I have my mobile app sit on the car, right? But I don't want to have to become an expert on all the nuances of is there a connector? So is there going to be multiple platforms? What's the, what's the principle? Can you explain that a great question and great observation. >>So cars traditionally have been proprietary, pretty much closed systems and started open up with CarPlay and Android auto or all of a sudden you saw your mobile device being able to communicate with the car and now I could run Android apps, I could run iOS apps and started to open it up a bit. And now what you've seen is cars are becoming more connected, they're becoming more automated, eventually autonomous. Um, they're definitely, and what you're seeing in the car is in order for that car to really evolve and to offer connected services and shared mobility and the electrification that's occurring, the automotive industry is going through a disruption. We've all heard that and it really is true. So to the point where the electronics in the car, the networks in the car, the software in the car, it's getting completely redesigned and you're seeing a lot more high end processors. >>You're seeing safety critical systems, which have always been in cars, but now you're seeing a lot more complexity. And that speaks to exactly what we do. So where that car's going, if you think about it, is moving to more of a software platform. You have applications and mobile devices. Why? Because you've got Android and you've got iOS. That car is moving to that sort of a common platform where with the help of AWS connected services, the cubix Blackberry Punic software platform in the car, all of a sudden that'll open the door to that kind of environment to applications, to connected services. And that's exactly where it's going. So connectivities, it's here and it's going to be predominant through a pretty much all the vehicles coming off the line in the coming years. So you're going to see the connectivity and now we can bring the services and the apps to that vehicle. But at the same time you got to keep it safe, got to keep it secure. Gotta keep it reliable. You know, it's the classic mobile device, bingo literal device on wheels, right of two ton mobile device on wheels. >>Doc disruption sounds really cool and it's consumers. We just had this expectation that we can have whatever I want, the whole experience I want. And obviously as everything evolves, we want it to be safer and safer. And as there's laws and regulations that govern, Hey, you're going to get hefty fines if you're seeing with this device and you're driving. But disruption is really challenging, right? We talked, we got some great examples yesterday on stage with Andy Jassy of Goldman Sachs, right? How many years old are they and how they have leveraged disruption to revolutionize their consumer business or healthcare revolutionizing. I'd love to get your perspective on what are some of the automakers that are bleeding edge going, we get it. We want to work with you guys so that they understand that this the, you know, the, the mobile devices, the connected device on wheels is going to be transformative for their business. >>Good point. So first of all, every automaker we work with and we work, we work with almost 50 auto makers and we're over a hundred. We're in over 150 million vehicles and multiple systems in the cars. They're all putting safety first. That's never really changed. But that remains primary, primary objective. And to your point is how do you maintain that safety net reliability while at the same time opening the door to connectivity, making sure that vehicle is secure and resilient to attacks and whatnot. And you've seen some of those attacks in the past. And the industry is learning. Um, but that's, that's exactly what, that's what speaks to us and what we do. Same thing with AWS. If you think about what we do, we're plumbers. We, we build plumbing in the car, AWL splits, plumbing in the cloud. And I've had that call, those conversations with AWS and they're like, yeah, we're plumbers. >>And I said, so are we, we're going to get along great. But to your point, we have to keep our eye on security. Our definitely our eye on privacy and safety. And that's exactly what we do. As much as we all want the consumer apps and the connected experience at the same time, we can't compromise on that. So the good thing in automotive is there's a automotive safety standards, ISO two, six, two, six, two and whatnot, which we've certified our products to and we're going to keep doing that and keep delivering that software in the car. But that's awesome for 0.2 ton mobile device on wheels. So we got to always be aware of that. Great opportunity. People want more conduct and safety too. And that's a huge thing. Security and safety. I want to get to that in a second, but I got to ask you, um, what is the relationship that you guys have with Amazon? >>Could you explain that? And what are you guys doing at reinvent this year? Is your leg a presentation demo? Take a minute to explain the relationship between queen Nixon and Amazon web services and what you're showing here. Well, we're in the connected home exhibit. In fact, we're in the quote unquote garage where we've got a vehicle, a beautiful karma Rivero GT. And I was told it's the first time there's actually a car at reinvent. So that was pretty cool. And it's a cool car if you get a chance, come on over. And what we've done is we've taken the karma vehicle and we've actually connected it to AWS IOT. So if you think about what we do, we do software in the car, as I was saying earlier. And then we worked with the Amazon team, with the AWS team to say, okay, what can we do? So one of the things we're doing is we're doing battery monitoring and prediction in terms of the life of the battery. >>That's one of the things that we're doing. The other thing we're doing is personalized cockpit, which is, which is pretty exciting. And, and the last thing we're doing is kind of a business to business demonstration, um, where it's data orchestrations. If you think about the vehicle, there's a lot of sensors on the vehicle, a lot of information available on the vehicle. And what we're doing with AWS is pulling information from the vehicle, putting it in the cloud. And then we've got a few examples that we're using. So one of them is an application for an auto detailing company where they might want, you might want to have your vehicle detailed where we can make the position of your vehicle available, GPS, the VIN number. So the identify the identification of the vehicle. Um, and then you could actually contract with that expert detailings what we called them to come to your vehicle, clean the vehicle, detail your vehicle within a finite period of time securely. >>And then you'll get notified when it's done and whatnot. We're doing facial recognition in the vehicle and we also put some ML in machine learning in the car. We're actually showing gesture recognition where I can fold the mirrors with a, with a peace sign or victory signs. I could have the mirrors fold in. Uh, I can, I can interact with the infotainment system. I can personalize the music and whatnot. So really personalizing the cockpit. But all through the power of AWS. Sorry, what are we going to have to the car flying cars? Come on Jetsons flyers. I love this coming. Maybe not the flying carpet. Wow. Okay. Flying cars. Fine. I mean, I always say anything else that's in star Trek or star Wars will be invented. So I'm respecting some flying vehicles. All fun aside. Yeah. Now the serious conversation is safety and security. >>Worst case scenario, my car is hacked. Take over. This is a fear. Again, it's the worst. It's a doom season here. Those stories are straight. All IOT device. It's a car. How do you guys view the security posture? Um, good question. This is concerned. It might be on people's mind. Yeah. And that's what really speaks to where our company has been for almost four decades now. You know, when people would ask me, Hey, where would I find Punic software? Blackberry Punic software, I'd say almost everywhere, but the desktop. So where things have to be reliable, safe, secure work all the time. That's where you'll find our software. So factory floor, we're in laser eye surgery. Machines are in patient monitoring devices, MRI machines. And so essentially those areas which are safety critical, where safety, security and reliability, you know, our top real really industrial IOT thing, big time, big time. >>And that's the cool thing about walking around reinvent. There's all kinds of industrial devices and control. So if you go to the car now, if you think about the vehicle, same fundamental needs, reliability, safety, security, and we're trusted to deliver an automotive. So security is one of those things. It's not static. So when you, when you, when you make something that's secure, you're really building something that's resilient to attacks. So you'd be as resilient as possible to prevent attacks. And then you do whatever you can to prevent any malicious act or actions on that. So we will monitor what's going on in the system. We'll monitor any communications going to the car, for instance. So the minute we detect something a bit of normal, we can take action based on that. So that, that's absolutely key, especially given the cars connected and more and more becoming connected. >>What's the opportunity is in a trucking industry, when I think of the number of sensors on trucks, the regulations that you know for drivers safety in terms of how many hours they actually have to be able to can drive. What's the opportunity there for Q next? >>Good question. So everything we're doing in the car, which I should generalize and say a vehicle applies to trucks. So if you think about trucking or vehicles or drones or anything like that, you have multiple sensors that you have to interact with. You have to interpret that information, you have to take action based on that information. So if we look at trucking specifically, everybody knows a major shortage of truck truck, truck drivers. So when people ask me about autonomous cars and Hey, when are we going to see autonomy's vehicles? I always look at trucking and we're working with companies, trucking companies that are using our technology. And one of the first use cases that they're putting forward is something called platooning, where you'll actually have the first truck on the road with a driver and any other trucks on the road. We'll be operating autonomously essentially following like a train if you want on a highway, and then they'll have a starting location and a drop off location and that all of a sudden becomes a real world scenario, which makes use of the same sensors, LIDAR, radar cameras, et cetera. >>So from a trucking perspective, we look at it very similar to a car and automotive perspective because they need the same fundamental technologies. So pretty exciting. Like I said, what we do applies all over the place and again, all going to be connected. But grant, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate, I want to get your final thoughts, at least from my perspective on developers. When you see deep racer, you see that trend. It's kind of, they've got LIDAR, it's kind of a toy, but people geeking out on this. And so I would imagine that we're going to see an emergence of a software development environment where as a controlled sandboxes, cause yeah, they've got the concern with the industrial equipment. Exactly. Yeah. How do you balance that old school industrial mindset of, you know, IOT with the new rapid agile product development? Yeah. And to your point, we're going through that transition now. >>So this is where things like Sage maker come into play where I can develop out and develop and refine machine learning models in the cloud. You still have those tight control loops that you need and there's tools for that. So that's the deeply embedded stuff that's controlling actuators and whatnot. You still need that. But to your point, you need to be more iterative. You need to be more agile, need to develop according to the safety standards and the various industries that they might be in. So it's that is evolving and it's evolving at exactly the right pace. Really glad to see that evolution. But to your point, all of these devices are going to become interconnected. There's going to be new opportunities. And from a developer perspective, you know, we can't hire enough developers. No one can. It's really exciting whether it's IOT cloud developers or embedded developers. >>There's such an exciting future ahead. And I got to ask, this is just popped in my head. So I want to ask, cause I'm curious, um, spectrum and RF power is great, but you need connectivity to make an IOT device work, right? How do you guys, how does the car folks look at conductivity? Just when they get to a spot they can connect. So is it managing the spectrum? How are cars thinking about the connectivity? So we work very closely with the modem vendors. For instance, in today in cars you'll see Bluetooth, you'll see wifi, you'll see 4g. Obviously there's the emergence of 5g. Um, vehicle to vehicle communications is through something called DSRC. Essentially wifi 5g is going to come along, so now you're going to be able to have throughput and also what's called low latency. So quick turn around on your messages and the information being exchanged. >>So that too is evolving from a, from a QA software perspective, we'll make use of whatever modems there. But to your point, we also have to deal with the cases where I've lost connectivity. I still need that V vehicle to operate safely. And especially if you consider that the systems might be, um, uh, the systems might be connected or we don't want to make, make it such that they're dependent on that connectivity. So you have to have fail over scenarios and whatnot, but cars will become connected, devices will become connected. We're going to take advantage of that connectivity, but not be dependent on that connectivity. >>Well, Greg, please let me know when that, uh, personalized service is available so that my car can be found and detailed. They'd find it right in my driveway going lady, please. It's been a pleasure, a really cool stuff. Blackberry Kunis thank you for joining John. We'll be, we'll have to go check out that car for John furrier. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cube live in Vegas at AWS. Reinvent 19. Thanks for watching.

(funky upbeat music) >> Live from Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE covering Cisco Live! Europe. Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to Barcelona everybody we're wrapping up day one of Cisco Live! Barcelona CUBE coverage. I'm Dave Vellante, he's Stu Miniman. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. Donnie Williams is the IT Director at Scott Equipment out of Louisiana and Eric Herzog is back. He's the CMO of IBM Storage. Gentlemen, good to see you, welcome. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> You're very welcome. So tell us about Scott Equipment. What do you guys do? What's the company all about? >> We're a heavy equipment dealer, so we've been in the business for 80 years, privately owned company. And so we started out in farm implement 80 years ago by the founder Tom Scott which is where the name Scott Equipment comes from. And so we transitioned over the years to construction equipment and we're now, so back in 2014 we sold all of our, the farm stores that handle all of that equipment, and now we're strictly servicing the construction industry and petrochemical industry. >> So you're a dealer of large equipment. And you service it as well, or? >> Yes we service it. We're primarily a rental company first. Then we also sell what we rent. We service it and it also parts as well. >> So we're talking massive? >> Yes big. If you think, one of our main clients is Volvo which if you've seen the show Gold Rush, that Volvo equipment that you see there, that's what we sell. >> It's incredible machines. >> Yeah, yeah they are I had a chance to play with one. I went to a Shippensburg Pennsylvania where their North America office is and had a chance to play with their largest excavator. That was fun. >> So is a lot of you IT centered on sort of the maintenance business and the service business or? >> Yes. Mostly Mirror is like a car dealership. So like I said, we do sale service, parts, all of that. >> So the business flow starts after the sale is made, obviously. >> Exactly, yes, we sell, yeah, exactly. We get the equipment out there in the territory and then the revenue continues to come in. >> So what are some of the challenges, the external challenges that are driving your business? >> So really, our, the whole heavy equipment industry is, is kind of behind the times in my, from a dealership perspective. From a manufacturer perspective. They're somewhat up with technology, especially Volvo, but from a dealership, they're mainly privately owned, so they're not, there's not a whole lot of resources in technology. That's not a focus for them. They're focused on the business side of it, so. When I first started at the company 10, 11 years ago now, there was one guy servicing 600 employees. And it was-- >> One IT person? >> One IT person. So, as you can imagine, it was a nightmare. I mean it's not the guy's fault. I don't blame him at all. It's just the way that they had done business and not changed. >> He was a bummed out IT person. >> Yeah, right exactly, yeah. >> Now how'd you guys find them? >> So they're a customer of ours for the verses stack. We have a partner that they've been buying their IBM and their Cisco gear from, and then when they were doing a modernization effort, the reseller talked to Scott and said, Donnie, what d'ya think? How about doing this converge infrastructure. Easier to employ at sep-tor. So it all came through their existing channel partner that they were using for both IBM gear and Cisco gear. >> So you wanted a solution that one guy could run, right? >> We've now at least grown that, our company to, now we have six total in our department. So we've changed a lot since I started 11 years ago. >> And what are they spending their time doing? >> Primarily, we do a lot of help desk, assistant administration, we do mostly, my focus is to make sure that our employees are satisfied so they can take care of the customer. And that's the primary goal and along with that comes systems administration, as well, so. >> But you know, a full stack like this. I mean the joke. You need more than one person. >> Right. But it's going to be simplified, you know what you're buying, >> Right, exactly. >> It's predictable, and therefore, you shouldn't need to be seen on a day to day basis. >> Yes, I like keeping things simple, simple as possible. So, that makes my job easier, it makes my team's job easier, as well. >> So what kind of things are you driving? Is it, ya know, data protection? Is it, what sort of, you know, use cases do you have on your stack? >> We're from our, we're servicing on our, with Cisco, I'm sorry, verses stack. It's mostly it's all private cloud. We're servicing applications that supplement our core ERP system. So, we have reporting solutions. When we first bought the verses stack, we were considering moving to another ERP system, and we would have that infrastructure in place to migrate to that. So we still have that, actually, element table as an option for us. >> The migration to a new ERP system? >> Yes. >> We should talk afterwords. >> We're avoiding that all costs. >> Right, well, of course. You don't want to convert if you don't have to. Yeah but sometimes it's a business case. Sometimes it's hard to make. We'll talk. >> Exactly. >> Cloud in your future or present? >> We're doing some-- >> SAS stuff, or? >> Yeah a little of that. I mean anything. I mean things that make sense for us to do cloud. Security services. We're doing, of course, probably the most common is hosting email. We're doing a lot of that. Share point. That type of solution in the cloud. >> How long you've been with the company? >> 11 years. >> 11 years, okay, so, thinking about the last decade, I mean a lot has changed. >> Yes. >> What are you most proud of? What's like your biggest success that you can share with us? >> Really building the IT department and bringing our company into the 21st century from a technology perspective. I mean, like I said, we had one person that was handling it. It was really impossible. I mean, you couldn't depend on one person and expect the company to survive long term. >> Yeah, that one person had to say no a lot. >> Exactly, right. He just couldn't get everything done. >> So, really that modernization and that's kind of where you guys came in, right? >> IT modernization play. The verses stack is heavily used for that and, you know, as we've said on the earlier interview, we had a CSPN. We've also used it to go to the next level from an IT transformation to the future. 'Cause in that case, as you know, that was a CSP who uses it to service, you know, hundreds of customers all across the UK in a service model. And in this case, this is more of a IT modernization, take the old stuff, upgrade it to what it was. They even had an old IBM blade servers. That's old this stuff was. Old XE6 Blade servers that must've been 10 years old before they went to the verses stack. >> How many people in the company? Roughly? >> Right now, we've actually sold off side since I've been with the company, we've sold off some of our nonperforming business units. We're probably roughly around 550 now. >> Okay. >> So I mean, we're actually more profitable now than we were 11 years ago. We have less employees, but our profitability is actually exceeded. >> Theme of simplification. >> Exactly, right. >> So what's the biggest challenge you face as the head of IT, today? >> The biggest, probably the biggest challenge would be me wanting to implement technologies that are not ready. I want to have the competitive edge of the industry. I want to be able to be ahead of the curve. And that's probably the biggest challenge. >> And you're saying you can't because the tech isn't ready? Or it's a skills issue? >> It's just the industry. Just trying to work with vendors and getting them to be ready for, I say vendors, manufacturers. They're our vendors. To get them to, and know their dealers as well. To all be acceptable to the technology's that's been there 20 years. >> What would you say is the top, number one, or the top things IBM has done to make your life easier? And what's the one thing they could to do that they're not doing that could make your life easier? What's the, start with what they've done. You know what the success is that have helped. >> Really, we've been a longtime IBM customer. We have not just the verses stack, but we also have the power system, which actually runs our core ERP. >> Ah, okay, so. >> So I mean, we've had long standing relationship with IBM. Reliability is there. The trust is there, as well. >> Yeah, long term partnership. Alright, what's the one thing they could do? If you could wave a wand and you said, IBM will to X, what would x be to make your life better? >> Cut the price. >> Ah, here we go! (all laughing) I should've prefaced that soon! Besides cut the price. Alright we'll leave it there on that topic. But you know, the power system thing brings up, you know, our friend Bob Piccano's running the cognitive systems group now. You guys doing some stuff with AI. Maybe talk about that a little bit. >> So what we've done is two things. First of all, we've imbued inside of our systems AI all over the place. So for example, we tier data which can do not only to own array, but literally to 440 arrays that have someone else's logo on them. It's all AI done. So when the data's hot, it's on the fastest tier. So if you have 15,000 RPM drives and 7,200 RPM drives, it goes to 15,000 when it cools off. AI automatically moves it. The storage admin does nothing. You don't set palsies AI takes care of it. We have Flash, and you have hard drives. Same thing. It'll move around. And you could have an IBM array talking to an EMC array. So all sorts of technology that we've implemented that's AI in the box. Then on top of that, what we've done is come up with a series of AI reference architectures for storage as one of the critical elements of the platform. So what we've done is create what we call a data pipeline. It involves not only our storage arrays, but four pieces or our software, spectrum scale, which is giant scale off file system, in fact, the two fastest supercomputers in the world have almost half an exabyte of that software, storage with that software. Our spectrum discover, which we announced in CUBE 4, which is all about better management of metadata. So, for AI workloads, big data analytic workloads, the data scientist doesn't prep the data. They can actually talk to what we do, and you can create all these metadata templates, and then boom, they run an AI workload on Thursday, and then run an analytic workload on Friday, but all automated. Our archive, and then our cloud object storage. So, all that is really, think about it more as an oval, because when you're doing an AI system, you're constantly learning. So the thing you got to do is, one, you've got to have high performance and be able to handle the analytics which you we do on Flash. 'Kay, so the Flash is connected. You've got to be able to move the data around and part of the thing with the Spectrum Discover is that we can talk through an API, to a piece of AI software, to piece of analytic software, to a piece of big data software. And they can literally go through that API, create templates for the metadata, and then automatically suck what they need into their app and then munge it and then spew it back out. And then obviously on the archive side, want to be able quickly recall the data because if you think about an AI system, it's like a human. So let's give you my Russian example. So I'm old enough, when I was a kid, there were bomb shelters in my neighborhood that people dug in the backyard. Then we have, you know, Nixon lighting up the Chinese. Then we have Reagan and Gorbachev. Next thing you know, the wall comes down, right? Then the next thing you know, there's no longer a Soviet Union. All of a sudden, ah, the Russians might be getting a little aggressive even though they're no longer communist, and now you see, depending on which political party, that they're totally against us, or they're totally helping us, but, you know, if they really were hacking systems, whatever political party you're in, they really were hacking our systems trying to manipulate the election. Pro or con, the point is that's kind of like a cyber attack. And that's not a good thing. So we learn and it changes. So an AI system needs to understand and change, constantly learn, if all of a sudden you have flying cars, that's going to be different than a car with tires. Now a lot of it may be the same. The interior, all the amenities, but the engines going to be different, and there are companies, including the big three, four, five, auto, who are actually working on flying cars. Who knows if it'll happen, but the AI system needs to understand and learn that and constantly learn. And so, the foundation has to heavily resilient, heavily performant, heavily available, last thing you want is an AI system going down on you. Especially if you're in healthcare, or big giant manufacturing, like Volvo, his customer. When they're building those cranes and things, they must cost 50, 60 million dollars. If that assembly line goes down, it's probably a big deal for them. So you need AI systems that always keep your other systems up and running. So you have to have that solid foundation of storage underneath. >> Awesome, alright, we got to leave it there. Give the customer the last word. Donnie, first time in Barcelona, right? >> Yes it is. >> How are you finding the show and the city? >> Oh it's awesome. This is my fifth Cisco Live. First time in Europe, so yeah. Enjoying it. >> Good, good. Well thank you guys for coming to theCUBE. >> Great thank you for coming. >> Thank you! >> Really appreciate it. >> You're welcome. Alright keep it right there everybody. We'll be back to wrap day one Cisco Live! Barcelona. You're watching theCUBE. (techno music)

>> Live from Barcelona, Spain. It's the cue covering Sisqo Live Europe, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back >> to Barcelona. Everybody would adapt. Wrapping up day one of Sisqo live Barcelona Cube coverage. I'm David. Long day. He's stupid men. You're watching the Cube. The leader in live tech coverage. Donnie Williams is it director at Scott Equipment out of Louisiana. And Eric hurts August back. He's the CMO of IBM storage. Gentlemen, good to see you. Welcome. >> Thank you for having us. >> You're very welcome. So tell us about Scott equipment. What do you guys do? Look, what's the company all about were >> a heavy equipment dealer, So we've been we've been in the business for eighty years, privately owned company. And so we're we're We started out and farm implement eighty years ago by the founder, Thomas Scott, which is where the name Scott equipment comes from. And so we transition over the years, Teo construction equipment, Andi were now back in two thousand fourteen, we sold all of our the farm stores that handled all of that equipment. And now we're We're strictly servicing the construction industry and petrochemical in >> history. So your dealer of exactly what equipment and your services as well? >> Yes. We service that we were primarily a rental company. First then then we We also sell what we rent. We service service it and and also parts as well. So we're talking massive? Yes, they got. If you if you think our one of our main lines is Volvo, which you have you have you seen the show? Gold rush that that Volvo equipment you see there, that's that's what we sell. So is incredible machine. Yeah, Yeah, they are. Hada chance tio to play with one. I went Teo Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Where were their North America offices and had a chance to play with their largest excavator? That was That was >> fun. So is a lot of your Senate on sort of the maintenance business in the service business? >> Yes. So we were just mostly. Mirror is like a car dealership. If if you so we were like I said, we do sale service parts, all of that. >> So the business flow starts after the sale is made on >> exactly. Yes. We still like, Yeah, exactly. We get. We get equipment out there in the in the in the territory, and then the revenue continues tio to come in. >> So what are some of the challenges? The external challenges that are driving your business? You really >> are. The whole heavy equipment industry is It's kind of behind the times in my from a dealership perspective from from a manufacturer perspective there. They're somewhat up with technology, especially especially Volvo. But from a dealership there, there might mainly privately owned. So they're not there's not a whole lot of resource is in, and ah, in technology they don't. That's not a focus for them that they're they're focused on the business side of it. So what? We we're not When I first started the company ten, eleven years ago, now there was one guy servicing six hundred employees and and it was one eyed person, one i t person. So, as you can imagine, it was, it was a nightmare. Go. I mean, it's not the guy's fault. I don't blame him at all. Is this Is this the way that they had done business and not change bombed out, >> right? Exactly. Yeah. Guys >> find them. >> So their customer of ours for the versus stack, we have, ah, partner that they've been buying their IBM in their Cisco gear from. And then when they were doing a modernization effort, the reseller talk to Scott and said, Dani, what do you think? How about doing this? Converge infrastructure. Easier to play. It's after. So it all came through their existing channel. Part of that they were using for both IBM gear and Cisco Gear. >> So you wanted a solution. That one guy could run, right? We've now at least growing that company to house. We have six total in our in our department. So we've changed a lot since I started the eleven years ago. >> And why are they spending their time doing what? Premier >> Li? We do a lot of help desk on systems administration way do mostly, uh, are My focus is to make sure that our employees are satisfied that so they could take care of the customer, and that's that's the primary goal. And along with that comes comes systems administration. A cz. Well, so, But, >> you know, a full stack like this. I mean, the joke. You need more than one person, but it's going to be simplified. You know what you're buying, right? Predictable. And therefore, you shouldn't need to be seen on a basis. >> Yes, I like keeping things simple. Simple as possible. So that makes that makes my job easier. It makes my team's job easier. What >> kind of >> things you driving? Is it? You know, data protection, is it? You know what? What? What? What sort of, you know, use cases do you have on your stack >> on that Were from our were servicing on our with Francisco verse. Sorry versus stack. We are mostly it is all profit cloud were servicing applications. That's the supplement. Our court system. So we have reporting solutions. We were when we first bought it. The vs stack way were considering moving to another Air P system. Oh, and we would have that that infrastructure in place tio migrate to that. So we see what we still have that that actually on the table as a as an option >> for us, but the migration to a new Europe E system. Yes, we should talk afterwards. No, you >> were warning that it >> all about you. Of course, you don't want to convert if you don't have to write. But sometimes there's a business case. Sometimes it's hard to make you talk. Cloud in your in your future president were doing some that's ass stuff. >> Yeah, a little of that. I mean, anything. I mean things that that makes sense for us to to cloud I security services we're doing. Of course, probably most common is hosting email. Were doing a lot of that share point that that type of solution in the cloud >> How long you been with the company? Eleven years. Eleven years. Okay, So, thinking about the last decade, I mean, it's a lot of lot has changed. Yes. What's your What do you most proud of? What you like your biggest success that you can share with us. Oh, >> really? Building my the that dude the I T department and bringing our company into the twenty first system century from a from a technology perspective. I mean, like I said, we had one person that was that was handing. It was really impossible. I mean, you couldn't depend. Depends on one person. And and and, yeah, expect the company's or saw survive long term. Yeah, That one person had to say no a lot. Exactly. Right. Why would he? Just couldn't get everything >> done right? So that really that modernization? Yes, I know where you guys >> can. Ninety Mater, My team modernization play. The versus stack is heavily used for that. And, you know, as we said, on the earlier and every we had to see ESPN, we've also used it to do you know, to the next level from a night transformation to the future. Because in that case, as you know that was a CSP who uses it to service. You know, hundreds of customers all across the UK in a service model. And in this case, this is more of a mighty modernization. Take the old stuff, upgraded to what it was. They even have old IBM blade servers. That's how old the stuff wass old, actually, six played servers that must have been ten years old before they went to the Versus Stack. >> How many people in the company >> right now? We've actually sold off side since I've been with the company we sold off. Some of our non performing business units were probably roughly around five hundred fifty now. Okay, so I mean, we're Ah, we're actually more profitable now than we were eleven years ago from Ah, I mean, we have less employees, but our profitability is actually exceeded >> the name of simplification. Exactly. Right. So what's the biggest challenge you face Is the head of it today? The biggest, Probably >> the biggest challenge would be me wanting to implement technologies. They're not really not ready. I want it. I want tohave the competitive edge, that of the industry. I want to be able to be ahead of of the ahead of the curve. Uh, and that's probably the probably biggest challenge. And you're >> saying you can't Because the tech is ready or skills >> is just is just the industry just trying Teo. I work with vendors and getting getting them to be ready for I say, vendors, manufacturers, they're our vendors. Toe Get them Tio and other dealers as well. Teo Teo Albee. Acceptable to technology that's been there twenty years. >> What would you say is the but the top number one or the top things that IBM has done to make your life easier? And what's the one thing they could do that they're they're not doing that could make your life easier. What's the start with what they've done? You know whether successes, you know that >> really? Really. I mean, we've been a long time IBM customer. We have not, not just the versus Stack, but we also have the power system, which were actually runs are our core AARP. Um, okay. And so that we had long standing relationship with IBM, and the reliability is there. The trust is, >> there's well, a long term partnership. But what's the one thing they could do? One thing that you could If you could wave a wand and IBM will do x what would x B to make your life better? Uh, cut the price way. Go >> way. I should have prefaced that something that size >> on that topic. But you know, the power system thing brings up. You know, our friend Bob. Pity on who's running the cognitive systems group now You guys do with some stuff in a I talked about that a little bit. >> So what we've done is two things. First of all, we've been beauty inside of our system's ai ai all over the place. So, for example, we tear data which can weaken due not only to our own array, but literally two four hundred forty rays that have someone else's logo on them. It's all a eye dunce. When the data is hot, it's on the fastest here. So if you have fifteen thousand rpm drives in seventeen hundred rpm drives, it goes to fifteen thousand. When it cools off A. I automatically moves that the storage admin does nothing. You don't set policies, A takes care. We have flash and you have hard drive's same thing. It'll move around and you could have on IBM array talking to any AMC array. So all sorts of technology that we implement, that's a I in the box. Then, on top of that, what we've done is come up with a Siri's of a reference architectures for storage, as one of the critical elements in the platform. So we've done is create what we call a data pipeline. It involves not only our storage raise, but four pieces of our software spectrum scale, which is giant scale out file system, in fact, to fastest super computers in the world have almost half an exabyte of that software storage. With that software, our spectrum discover which we announced in queue for which is all about better management of metadata. So for a I workloads, big get anally work loves the data scientist doesn't prep the data. They can actually talk to what we do, and you could create all these meditate a template, then boom. They run a a ay workload on Thursday and then run a analytic workload on Friday. But all automated our archive and then our cloud objects towards. So all that is really think about it. Maura's an oval because when you're doing an A I system, you're constantly learning. So the thing you got to do is one you've got to have high performance and be ableto handle the analytics, which we do on flash. Okay, so the flashes connected, you've got to be able to move the date around. And part of thing with the spectrum Discover is that we can talk through an A P I to a piece of a AI software two piece of analytic software to piece of big data software, and they can literally go through that. AP I create templates for the metadata and then automatically suck what they need into their app and then munge it and then spirit back out and then obviously on the archives side, you want to be able to quickly recall the data, because if you think about a I system, it's like a human. So it's giving my Russian example. So I'm old enough. When I was a kid, there were bomb shelters in my neighborhood that people dug in the backyard. Then we have, you know, Nixon lightening up with the Chinese and we have Reagan and Gorbachev next, You know, the wall comes down right then. Next thing you know, there's no longer Soviet Union. All of a sudden, no, the Russians might get a little aggressive, even though they're no longer communist. And now, you see, depending on which political party. Either they're totally against us where they're totally helping us. But, you know, if they really were hacking systems whose whatever political party urine, they really were hacking our system, tried to manipulate the election pro or con. The point is, that's kind of like a cyber attack, and that's not a good thing. So we learn and it changes. So when a I system needs to understand and change constantly, learn. If all of a sudden you have flying cars, that's going to be different than a car with tires. Now, a lot of it, maybe the same, the interior, all the amenities. But the engine is going to be different. And there are companies, including the big Big three, four five who are actually working on flying cars, knows it will happen. But the A I system needs to understand and learn that and constantly learning. So the foundation has to be heavily resilient, heavily performance, heavily available, lasting one is an A I system going down on you, especially if you're in health care or big giant manufacturing. Like Volvo, his customer. When they're building those cranes and things, they must cost fifty sixty million dollars at that assembly line goes down its prey a big deal for them. So you need a I systems that always keep your other systems up and running. So you have to have that solid foundation storage underneath. >> Awesome. All right, we got to leave it there. Give the customer the last word. Donnie. First time in Barcelona, right? Yes. It ISS how you find in the show and the >> syphilis is awesome. This's my, actually my fifth, uh, Cisco lifers our first time in Europe, so yeah, enjoying it. >> Good. Good. Well, thank you, guys. For German of the >> correct. Thank you. Have you appreciate it? >> You're welcome. Alright. Keep right there, everybody. We'll be back to rap Day one. Sisqo live Barcelona watching you.

live from las vegas it's the cube covering knowledge 60 brought to you by service now here your host dave vellante and Jeff Frick we're back Jeff Frick and I are pleased to be wrapping up day one for us for the cube at knowledge 16s a plastic piece no service house big events been a long day okay farriers texted me from SA and looks like they had a good event down there as well but but we're here at knowledge 16 great day financial analyst meeting yesterday set up the cube had a great kick off today at the the keynotes with Frank's luqman and and company laying out their vision she said robert gates on as a rock star right i saw him at the cio event so service now has a separate cio event within the event and they bring in a lot of speakers and they share you know it's behind closed doors CIOs talking to other CIOs pretty impressive was great walking over with him ten minutes he came on now remember he replaced rumsfeld all right george w bush brought him in asking him to replace rumsfeld it was like it would be like Belichick replacing Parcells right Rumsfeld effusive outgoing controversial hey and then and then and then of course belcheck you know very straight narrow and and that's kind of way Gates is right i mean he was very measured and in yet opinionated met serving eight presidents all of all of which had great sense of humor except to he said right jimmy carter and and richard nixon yeah dark days then take take what you will from that he's head so pretty interesting but so what's your take on day one at knowledge you know kind of following up on some of the stuff that dr. gates talked about it the themes are actually really simple you know and he listed the traits of leadership you know these are not things that you never heard before carrying it with the trust humor and I think the themes here at as service now are very similar Dave and that it's it's about work it's not about records it's you know for time and time again about it's about effective response not necessarily you know building the biggest mode in the security in the security aspect and you know it's the action platformer we get work done so it just seems like this kind of methodical just boom boom boom stick another knitting moving down the road moving down the field as we like to say and continuing just to execute and as they see everything as a service that now that opens up this huge opportunity to go well beyond itsm which is you know consistent with the vision and I don't keep talking about that 2013 interview with rebels our first meeting with him you know to execute on that vision of a platform and now going into shared services which we've heard a lot about you know a little bit into HR a little bit into legal and continuing to move down that path where you know this seems like a good opportunity for a head but they're just executing just keep executing well and I Tom now is the big opportunity facing them and I think it's going to provide a Mick shift to to a new set of products for service now IT operations management they've made some acquisitions they are a service management is now it's got its tentacles everywhere and I mean essentially helping orchestrate chef and puppet if you want they could do the orchestration for you so cloud management is a new area for these guys than this whole notion of inter clouding and managing multiple disparate clouds is something that service now can help attack I mean it's pick a problem that involves a service workflow and service now is going to knock it down how many things in business involve a service workflow it's like everything everything we do everything we touch has a service workflow aspect to it so every project every new initiative every acquisition it's just you know the market opportunities enormous and what service now has done a really good job of doing is taking this little notion of a like the Big Bang IT Service Management he'll help desk changed man and problem management change management etc and exploded that in all different directions into new vectors you mentioned a little bit in hrs I think it's increasingly getting traction in HR legal logistics you're now seeing service now lay out a vision of touching and helping to essentially orchestrate request service requests around the ERP systems around the CRM systems which are systems of record and relatively rigid systems of record right and service now can help orchestrate all the activities around that it's an enormous opportunity so the TAM I pegged the tam in 2014 I wrote an article that John furrier II published on Forbes I pegged the tam at 30 billion at that time and remember when I went through the analysis David floor you help me at ease you know it just feels like it could even be higher and I remember discussing that with David said yeah but 30 billion so huge already and they get this tiny little company and you're on thin ice we better be conservative here and now it's up to 60 billion i think the 60 billion is is understated Jeff well Darryl from from H&R Block in Canada you know they do this annual thing I left I called it a merger acquisition at a divestiture to build the infrastructure to execute the annual tax process for Canada 84,000 tasks everything from painting the building to signage to computers to paper to hiring people firing people i mean how does a lot of different tasks that they now manage with service now I thought that was pretty a fascinating story you were not when we had Lawrence on from from from ey not understand young anymore ey and talked about now they can provide a level of detail in the IT FM the financial management is like what's the cost of an application that no one ever knew before because they never added in the data center cost you know this is just software and maintenance and now people can start making interesting informed decisions about end-of-life enough which has come up in a number of our conversation so that people are turning off other applications and and service now is taking that workload the other thing I wanted to talk about we talked about this at the open but when you and I walked the floor at 22 the ServiceNow 2013 it was struck us that one of the challenges they had is to evolve this ecosystem and in that but by the way they they still have that challenge but they've done a really good job and you've seen one of the things we said is where the real big guys KPMG was here but you know the the Accenture of the world the youngs at the time now they are going all-in so accenture acquires cloud sherpas CSC acquires fruition so those guys like to focus on big opportunities so the only area now the other thing we talked about when we were at the Aria was the down market opportunity you know we said boy wouldn't it be nice if they had a solution for small companies take a put in a page out of the the Salesforce playbook and they've announced offerings there you're not hearing anything about them you know because and I think the reason is at least in part there's so much opportunity in the global 2000 they're really laser focused on that piece we got to do some more digging and find out what's going on there I know initially there was some concerns about sort of the the growth path and but we haven't heard a peep unless I missed it about the down market product the entry-level product guys the guys like us right you know he'd use it I don't know if I have 84,000 tasks to put the cube production together but i could not the few that i was not to have an automated in this system absolutely yeah so and then the other thing Dave which which you know we ettore on talking about the design and and the the watch and the fact that he sits in a room he had a surf shop in the Maldives before he came to work for service now for a couple years and he sits with Fred and so again just this unique culture of having kind of the mad scientist you know elder coder with the the fellow surf shop design guy and to come together and to try things and to come up with the watch and told the story the watch and I had to build credibility over years to try new things to get to the point where you could say hey let's let's talk about the what let's do a watch and is a form factor of the wash and what are the types of notifications and work behavior that we can better represent represent in this form factor and I think it's just you just cannot underestimate the strength of having you know a driven visionary leader that pulls people to him and inspires people which he so clearly does well and he's young at heart I mean a sec i would say i think he was coding in the keynotes today i got we gotta ask him but he comes on you know but they you know you look at this company and there's some folks at this company that been around for a while you know it's not a bunch of kids you know co diem there are right but a lot of the senior leadership team and the technical team the development team have been around the block right this is not their first rodeo and yet they're able to focus on simplicity you know Fred used to talk about the Amazon experience lat you know last year I think it was the uber experience I think I know we're gonna see some more stuff on on Wednesday though the watch still as we scratching my head a little bit but look low when did the Apple watch come out right i mean window if you look at apple's kind of the people at stamp you know this is now kind of a valid new technical assed year right austrian they're already kind of thinking of new ways to use this fourth basket right well so one of the guests said today you know things change so quickly now you know we it's true we used to go to these conferences and you'd be talking about the same cloud narrative two years straight hey right now it's like every six months it's something new every three months it's something new you know whether it's you know the way i OT just exploded on the scene you know hadoop which was so hot now the dupes like passe you know everybody's talking about you know spark and you know other new real-time methods and streaming and and it's just amazing to see the pace of innovation and so servers now seems to be a company that can keep up with that the other thing is i'd look at my notes on is back to your comment about the system integrators you know we had center and see you see both talking about them getting out of the plumbing business and really moving more of their efforts with their clients to the high-value stuff and you think wow that's kind of counterproductive they've made a lot of money on I'm doing heavy lifting infrastructure implementations and integration and all that big nasty stuff even they see the writing on the wall it's better to get behind this transformation the cult of the rotation to the new and to build their practice around helping their customers execute in a cloud enable the world versus necessarily continuing to stitch together infrastructure well I mean I think that's it's important I mean the hallmark of a great company is one that can can navigate through transitions we we've covered EMC for years we've seen their their Executive Joe Tucci talk about the waves I I always believed in the DMC strategy for example was was the right one but it could not navigate those waves all right it's been a lot of great companies the digital is the primes the way thanks you know and so we'll see if well I mean guys like the service companies tend to be able to make those transitions all right because they they do you know eat from the trough so to speak right right hey they wait until there's a lot of food and then they go in and and pig out and I do a really good job of it and they're doing it now so that tells you there's food so that's a huge sign a confirmation about this ecosystem so all right anyway a big another big day tomorrow start off with the keynotes at eight a.m. pacific time and and then we start up i think at nine thirty again right correct we start at nine thirty and again we've got a great selection of service now executives of course but more importantly what we look forward to really is the customers and and again as we've said a number of times one of the reasons why this is one of our favorite shows is because we get to talk to practitioners we get to talk to people that are executing that are in the trenches that are transforming their own companies in this competitive world and they happen to be using service now as part of that strategy and there's a lot of them here so we will be extracting the signal from the noise as we do with the cube thanks for watching everybody this is a wrap day one we're here at servicenow knowledge 2016 at the mandalay bay we'll see you tomorrow service management

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas. It's the Cube. Covering Knowledge 16. Brought to you by ServiceNow. Here's your host, Dave Vellante. >> Welcome back to Knowledge 16 everybody. This is Dave Vellante. It's our pleasure to have Dr. Robert Gates here, American statesman, scholar, author, and the 22nd U.S. Secretary of Defense, Dr. Gates thanks very much for coming on the Cube. >> My pleasure. >> So we just came over. We had a nice walk over from the CIO event here at Knowledge, you were speaking on leadership. Your book, A Passion for Leadership, which I can not get on Amazon so I have to carry it around with me. It's nice, it comes in handy when we're on the Cube. First question. Are leaders born or are they made? >> I think that they are not necessarily born, but there are certain aspects of leaders, of leadership that I think cannot be taught. If your empathy with other people, character and honor. Courage. Sincerity. A liking for people. A vision. I think these are things that are very personal, you're not necessarily born with them, they develop during the course of your life. But I also believe that they can't be taught in a university. >> Now we were talking on the way over, I mentioned that there's no co-author on this book, you told me you write all the books yourself, do all the research yourself. And you said one of the things you're proud of, I'll let you explain it, there's been no factual, claims of factual error and you do all your own research, is that right? >> Well it's one of the benefits of the IT revolution is access to a lot of databases and things that even a non-technical person like me can use. >> So how much time does it take you to write a book like Passion for Leadership or...? >> I would say that that book probably took about 18 months. Two years. The previous book, Duty, the memoir of my time as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Bush and Obama took longer, but it's got a lot more factual information and a lot more synthesis of information. And this really was more all out of my head in terms of my experiences over 50 years in public service. >> So you've served eight presidents, six of whom had a great sense of humor. Why is it important for leaders to have a sense of humor? >> Well I think a sense of humor reflects balance. It reflects a perspective on the world that is healthy. And people who don't have, well to be specific, as I often joke, I mean the two presidents that as far as I was concerned had no discernible sense of humor were Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and I leave people to draw their own conclusions in terms of the outcome for those presidents. >> Now in thinking about some of the concepts that you put forth in your work on leadership, one of the things that struck me is when you came in as the head of the CIA, that was obviously a tumultuous time, the Soviet Union was splitting apart. You're an expert in that field. You had to have intense focus, and the same thing when President W. Bush asked you to come back as Secretary of Defense. The focus was on Iraq so you had intense focus on the Soviet Union in the first example, and Iraq in the second yet you had so many other tasks that you had to do. Help us understand how you balance that need for focus which many of us in the start-up community have to have with all the other tasks that you have to do, how'd you adjudicate? >> Well I said as I write in the book, you have to, sometimes you're faced with a situation where you need to make immediate changes and take immediate steps to deal with a crisis situation that's in front of you. But sometimes, simultaneously, you have to be making decisions about the long-term future. So for example, when I became CIA director in 1991, we were literally five weeks from the collapse of the Soviet Union. So it was not only how do I provide intelligence support for the president in terms of what's going to happen when the Soviet Union collapses, what happens to 40,000 nuclear weapons, will there be famine, will there be riots, et cetera, et cetera. But also the longer term task was how do I reorient the entire American intelligence community away from this singular focus on the Soviet Union that we'd had for 45 years to deal with a world where there many more and different kinds of challenges. So I was dealing with both a short-term crisis and the longer term issue. When I became Secretary of Defense, we were, for all practical purposes, losing two wars. In Iraq and Afghanistan. So my focus entirely as Secretary of Defense was on how do we turn those wars around. The president had made what I thought was a very courageous decision to surge troops into Iraq, so how do I get them there. The decision is one thing. Getting 30,000 troops there with their equipment and getting them into the fight and providing them the support was quite another. And then we also had the war in Afghanistan, so there was a singular focus there and as I write in the book, it was only when President Obama asked me stay on that I then broadened the aperture dramatically in terms of how do we change the way the Department of Defense gets managed and how we manage big weapon systems. How do we ring overhead out of our costs and take the longer term view of repositioning the defense department. >> So when you think back to 1991, you had to make a lot of predictions, you and your colleagues. About what would happen with the Soviet Union. And while I'm sure there was a lot of data, we talk a lot on the Cube about big data and big data analytics. How has data changed the decision making process in government at that level? Or has it? >> I think when it comes to intelligence, data provides you more information about capability. But big data and technology still cannot help you when it comes to intentions. I always liked to say that in the intelligence world, all the information we want to know can be divided into two categories. Secrets and mysteries. And unfortunately the mysteries are the big things. Will the Soviets invade Czechoslovakia? Will they invade Afghanistan? Is China prepared to go to war over the South China Sea? And there is no data that can help you answer those questions. You can, the data can help you identify the capabilities they can bring to the problem. Or to the issue. But in essence, when it comes to figuring out what other leaders will do, sometimes figuring out what our own leaders will do, there is no data that can help you solve that problem. >> I want to change the subject, ask you about term limits. And specifically my question is, do you think corporations should have term limits on their executives? >> I think these kinds of broad rules are a mistake. I think that there may be certain companies where that has value, but on the other hand, you've got leaders, and I write about 'em in the book, who've been leading institutions, whether it's a university or a company for 20 years. And they are still the most restless, the most innovative, the most entrepreneurial people in the company. Even at 75 or 80 years old. So to have some kind of a general rule that says everybody has to leave, I think is a serious mistake. I first joined corporate boards when I was 50 years old. After I retired as CIA director. I thought age limits on boards then were crazy. And I was the youngest person on virtually every board I was on. But I would see somebody forced to rotate off at 70, who at 70 was making a bigger contribution than a lot of members of the board at 50 or 55. So I think these general rules are a mistake. I think it has to be very company-specific and personality-specific. >> Well in the technology industry obviously you have some big names like Dell still around and the other Gates who did quite a good job and so forth. What about at lower levels within the organization. Still senior but what's your philosophy in terms of mixing things up, putting executives in different roles? Giving them a flavor for whatever, running finance or information technology or logistics, et cetera? >> Well let me frame it a different way. I would tell rising military officers that they were not, as Secretary of Defense in my view, they were not competitive for senior command if artillery was all they'd every done. Or if flying helicopters was all they had done. Or supervising people who flew helicopters. I wanted people who had a breadth of experience, who knew different aspects of the defense establishment. So they had a broader perspective of the various challenges that we faced. So I think for someone who is going to aspire to the most senior positions, having some exposure to the other parts of the organization is valuable. By the same token, it seems to me, it doesn't make any sense to take somebody who is a CFO and who has a particular skill and then put them in charge of the production line or something, I don't know, I've never run a private company but it seems to me you have to be pretty careful about that. Of taking somebody who is in a technical specialty and then trying to get them to do something else. But once you rise to a certain level in an organization, if you want to have the big job, it seems to me you have to have a variety of experiences that give you a broader perspective. >> I feel I want to talk a little bit about cybersecurity, you mentioned in the CIO event that you were just at the threat of cyber, I feel like in our industry it's trivial compared to some of the cyber threats that you've had to deal with. But nonetheless, there seems to be the recognition within the executive community that it's not about just keeping people out anymore, it's about recognizing that you have been hacked, you will continue to be hacked, it's about the response. What should be on board of directors' check list, if you will, with regard to cybersecurity? >> Well I think cyber and the risks associated with cyber and IT need to be a regular part of every board's agenda. I think that there is value in having it an integral part of risk management. And so whether you focus specific attention, in the audit committee for example, and then have briefings for the broader board. Probably is up to each company but, there's no question in my mind that when it comes to risk, for most companies today, cyber is right up there with natural disasters and business continuity and so on and needs to be a responsibility in terms of oversight for a board. >> With regard to the board's use it on, do you feel like there's an honest and frank conversation about cyber and has that changed? >> Well I do, I do, I think it's very different, I mean I think people really take it seriously. >> Yeah sometimes I get concerned that this fail equals fire mentality has led a lot of organizations to sandbag the risks, is that a fair criticism? >> Oh, what do you mean by that? >> By essentially say, I've got it covered. The risk of us getting hacked is low, we have it under control. Verus an open and frank conversation of no, we're getting infiltrated, we have to think about the response versus we can't keep the bad guys out, we can try, but... >> Anytime anybody in an organization tells me he's got everything under control, I am automatically skeptical. >> Okay fair enough. I got to ask you, I know we're tight on time, you've been gracious with your time, but I have to ask you about the current tone of the campaigns. Your reaction to that. It's kind of comedic. There's not a lot of comedy. Comedy in the narrative. What's your take as now an independent observer? >> Well I don't think it's funny at all, I think it's very serious, I worry about the fact that there's no real discussion of specific, of the many challenges that we face expect in the broadest possible terms. Foreign policies being discussed in almost primitive terms. And not very intelligently in my view. So in terms of the challenges that the country faces, which are quite extraordinary, it seems to me, the campaigns at this point, across the board politically, seem to me to be pretty superficial. >> So I want to end with coming back to the Passion for Leadership. You know I have to say the brilliant part of this book, don't hate me for this, but you basically laid out a lot of common sense ideas but the brilliance of the book was the way in which you weaved it together and gave examples. If I may, it was listen, respect, reward people, delegate, empower, have fun. Care from your heart. Check your ego at the door. Hire smart people, honesty, integrity. These are very common sense things, but you brought them all together in a way that had meaning, I felt like some of the classics, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, I feel like there's a lot of timeless things in here. Was that your objective or did you just write from your heart? >> Well both. It seems to me that as I looked back and realized that I had let these three very large institutions, the American intelligence community, the fifth largest university in the country, and the Department of Defense, that I actually had been able to change a lot. And in environments where people said that was impossible. And so it seemed to me worth sharing here's how I got it done. It can be done, I guess one of the most important messages I wanted to convey was that institutions can be reformed. They can be transformed. And made more efficient and more cost-effective and more user-friendly. And better serve both customers and citizens. At a time when most people just throw up their hands and say this is all impossible. The theme of the book is it's not impossible, it can be done, it has been done, it can be done in the future. >> Dr. Gates, thanks so much for coming on the Cube, taking your time and really appreciate you at this event and really welcome the feedback. >> Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. >> Alright, keep it right there everybody, we'll be back with our wrap right after this. Thanks for watching. >> Service management is helping GE connect...