(energetic technological music) >> Live from Atlanta, Georgia, it's theCUBE covering Citrix Synergy Atlanta 2019 brought to you by Citrix. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend day two of theCUBE's coverage of Citrix Synergy 2019. We're in Atlanta, Georgia welcoming back one of our CUBE alumni, Lee Doyle, Principal Analyst at Doyle Research. Lee, it's great to have you back on theCUBE. >> Thanks, for having me. >> So we were chatting away all day yesterday with Citrix execs and analysts. We talked to one of their customers from the Miami Marlins. Excited about day two today. We talked a lot about some of the key tenets that Citrix addressed yesterday: digital workspace, the intelligent experience, analytics, security. We want to talk about networking with you. I was looking at a stat the other day that said over 80% of businesses believe the ability to migrate apps to the cloud is hindered by network infrastructure complexity. Talk to us about that and what Citrix is doing to help reduce that complexity. >> Sure. So we're now in an environment where data is everywhere, employees are everywhere, partners are everywhere, data is flowing. You're going to be using in-house applications. You're using SaaS-based applications. You're using applications on AWS or Azure or Google, and there's no good control of that information, but there also isn't a good way necessarily to deliver the appropriate quality of user experience or quality of service that those applications need. So the network, that's where the network sits. It's handling all the traffic. It sees the traffic. It can help with security. So that's why the network becomes so important here. >> So, Lee, SD-WAN has come so far. I remember back when I managed networks and trying to come up with policy-based routing to send voice traffic one way, send, you know, FTP traffic another way, and now we have a robust market. I thought the market would collapse. It's 20 plus, last time I looked, 20 plus significant SD-WAN solutions out in the market. Where is Citrix and the customer mindsets when it comes to SD-WAN? >> Right. So I'll start with SD-WAN and the broad picture which is, you know, SD-WAN is a great technology at the right place, at the right time. It's the example of SDN, broadly, that's had very good adoption. And it solves a real problem, which is that you need to link the user and the application with each other. And that application can be in a variety of places. So you're not, no longer just simply going from the branch via MPLS to the data center. Great, now you're going to Amazon. Now you're going to Salesforce. Now you're going to Microsoft. And the idea of having a hybrid WAN with internet connections, MPLS, 4G LTE, cable, like, whatever you want. So SD-WAN technology sits at that nexus and providing the intelligence and the management and the ease of use to enable the remote workforce in the remote branches. >> So, can you go on a really interesting combination? Identity, Citrix is really into identity management. SD-WAN. What's possible? Talk to us about the "what's possible" when you can tie identity to your network. >> Right. Yeah, so Citrix is a solid SD-WAN supplier. They're able to identify the traffic. They have partnerships with all the major cloud guys. And, one of the critical aspects of SD-WAN is how you tie in the security aspect. So you have network security and partnerships, maybe with a Palo Alto or Zscaler or some other folks, but then you also have the identity because there is no fixed perimeter anymore, right? >> Right. There is no more four walls. >> So, the bad, the bad guys can get access at any different point. So authentication and understanding, you know, that identity is a critical aspect. And Citrix has some excellent partnerships and programs to help that out. >> Especially, >> So, >> I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Go ahead. >> Especially when you think of Office 365 and these services where, you know, when I think of Office 365 I think about my consumer version of Office 365. I can share data with anyone in the organization. I can access it from anywhere in the world. Right before we started recording, you know, we talked a little bit about the ability of Citrix, with the partnership with Microsoft and Office 365, to improve access to Office 365. When we think about that from a consumer perspective that kind of, you know, it doesn't, it kind of doesn't register. "Wait, I need to. When I use Office 365 it just works." >> Right. >> What are some of the challenges enterprises are facing as they adopt solutions like O 6, O365 and SaaS in general? >> Right. So, you've got the quality of experience, quality of service issue, right? Making sure that the remote user or remote office is hitting the right path on the internet to the right on-ramp, is sort of one aspect of it, right? >> Right. >> So identify that as 0365, get me to the right on-ramp, but have a nice, you know, seamless, quick experience. The other is, from a security standpoint, understanding that, you know, who the user is. What data are they accessing? What data are they sending around? Is that part of the normal behavior or is that something that looks a little strange and maybe we should flag that. I mean, clearly, people do do a lot of sensitive things on Office 365. >> When you're out in the field, Lee, talking with customers, you have to transform digitally. There's so many steps involved in that. We, you know, we talk about cultural transformation and security transformation. Network transformation. How do you advise, especially like, we'll say, legacy organizations. Maybe like a peer of Citrix's whose been around for decades. How do you advise them to start that network transformation process so that they can deliver, for example, you know, facilitate collaboration via 0365 globally, what is that process like to transform a network? >> Right. It's obviously very complex and highly dependent on where you are and where you're starting, but there's no question that these organization are not going to throw the network that they have today. They've got switches and routers, wifi, and applications over controllers and all sorts of different things. So, one of the reasons why SD-WAN has been successful is it's able to slide into the network relatively seamlessly as an overlay. So you don't have to rip and replace. And then, gradually, as you bring up new sites or small locations or temporary sites, you may find that the actual router isn't as important over time. And then you can start to evolve that to a more simplified branch network operation. Instead of having five different boxes at a given branch you can move to two or three and, you know, ultimately I think we're going to a more unified SD branch type solution, but that might be a few years out still. >> So, and as we talk, you know, kind of the few years out, one of the great benefits, productivity wise, from using the SaaS services, destroying the walls, so to speak, the perimeter, is that we can get frictionless transactions. The, Citrix is, you know, touting the employee experience. If I need to share a document with you that shouldn't there shouldn't be a ton of friction in that. But in that comes the, the scare of employees. We've been talking all week, or both days, about employees are the weak link in security. If I can't trust my employee to not have their post-it note with the password on their, on their monitor then all the security in the world can't, won't help. How is Citrix making security easier and frictionless so that, one, we're ensuring all Dr. Albright talked about, "We need to be able to trust who we're talking to." >> Right. >> So, at the beginning we need to be able to trust who we're talking to is actually who we intend to talk to. How is Citrix going about enabling that? >> Right. So, it goes back to, you know, identity and end-point management. Is that the device that we expect it to be? Is it the person that we expect it to be? Are they doing the things that they normally do, right? And then, you have the network can analyze, "Well, is that a strange traffic? Is there something being inserted? Is there malware? Is there an attack?" So you have, security can not only degrade the performance of the network, but it also can be used to take out data that you don't want to have leaving the premises as it were. So, >> Or even if the data hasn't been opened and peeked at. >> Right. >> So, you know, the SSL security keys that when it left the premises the same as the when it was received on the other end. Are those things still in tact? >> Right. Very complex, though. But, it's not a, >> Yeah. >> Now, we haven't solved the security problem yet. But, Citrix is certainly making some good headway. >> I wanted to get your opinion, speaking of Citrix and headway. As I mentioned, 30-year-old company, maybe they consider themselves 30-years-young. I noticed last year at Synergy 2018 rebranding, messaging changes, positioning. One of the first things David Henshall showed the audience yesterday in his keynote was a big, great eye chart that just showed how much they've been focused on delivering. And they've delivered new solutions faster than they ever have before. We're hearing now about, they've really elevated their technologies to not be for power users, but for the general user which is most of us. I'd love to get your, your perspective on, not just the last year of Citrix's evolution, but over the last few years and how you think their, where they are now, is a competitive advantage to their business. >> Right. So, I focus mostly on the networking side of what Citrix is doing. And they've rebranded the networking. They've made some very significant enhancements both in SD-WAN and the ADC and intelligent traffic management. And I think the next evolution for Citrix is really integrating these solutions together and, you know, moving even to, to easier to consume bundles. They, what they've done in the last, in this cycle of announcement is given a lot of different options in terms of ways to consume. You can consume it on the major cloud platforms. You can consume it as a box. You can consume it as a license or as a usage-based. Over time I'm interested to see how Citrix migrates to more network-as-a-service offerings which would make it even easier to consume. And, you know, as a workspace user you, that, those tools might be in the background. You might not even know that they exist. And in some cases that's already here today, but there's a lot more that the industry and Citrix can do there. >> Do they have the foundation to eventually get to network-as-a-service? Maybe the right ecosystem of partners to do that, in your opinion? >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, that's where they're headed and I think they have some good technology, and good partners, and obviously always more work to do. But, >> So as you talk to combine Citrix and your own customers, I would like to get some insights. That, we, we've heard several times over the past couple days, me and Lisa, that there's five generations of workforce in the workforce. Which also means there's five generations of leadership. So when I saw the stat in yesterday's show, when all the changes that happened in a year at Citrix, one part of me was like, "Oh, that's great. That's the consumerization of IT, enterprise IT." Then another part of me was like, "Whoa, that's a lot of change." You know, if I set up a, if I spent a year and a half, two years deploying a network, I want that network to be very stable for the next five to seven years. How have customers embraced the consumerization, or the pace of change inside of Citrix and in the industry as well? >> Sure. So, I think the network issue a little bit separate because it's not at really consumerization of the network, right? >> Right. >> And so that's still, you know, you still need network professionals and, that being said, you know, Citrix SD-WAN is very easy to install and, you know, has good operational tools and, you know, improved management. So you're network management is now back in vogue and making it, you know, making life easier for IT administrators. You know, the whole consumerization, I mean, that's just like there's so many tools and so many channels. And, you know, the the issue of being overwhelmed by the seven different ways that we might communicate with each other is a very real, you know, challenge. And I'm glad to see Citrix, you know, addressing that because each generation or types of will have their own favorite, you know, ways to go about it. >> Oh, yes. Even, you can think about it in your family. Somebody might be an email person. Somebody might be a text person. Somebody might be a WhatsApp person. It's hard enough to manage, to try to meet everybody. So somebody might be a phone person? >> I know, like, real-time >> Who talks on the phone? Voicemail? >> Real-time communication. >> Right. Creepy. But in terms of, you're saying you know that we talked about consumerization, and not consumerization of the network. But those network expert that you talked about are influenced as consumers at home. And we all as consumers have these expectations of everything on-demand. I want to be able to use the tools that I'm most familiar with to become the most productive. So, how are the network engineers and their own consent of consumerization potentially going to impact consumerization of the network? >> Right. I mean I really look at the, you know, the two things of, you know, is the network, is my application available and is it responsive, right? Obviously the first one's a deal breaker. The second one is incredibly frustrating. And then of course the third area from an IT or SecOps standpoint is, you know, is it secure? Right? And then, you know, from an IT or network professional I need to enable those things so give me more tools. So, I mean I think that the buzzwords of, you know, machine learning and artificial intelligence as applied to networking are still a little early for that. But there are, you know, Citrix is using, you know, its vast intelligence that it gathers through its traffic management system to to look at, you know, where where to best route the traffic. It's deploying new tools to make things easier to deploy and easier to troubleshoot. So anything that the industry and Citrix can do there makes the life easier for the network guy and the IT guys. >> Making life easier. I think that's what we all want, right? >> Right. >> Well, Lee, thank you so much for coming back to theCUBE and talking with Keith and me at Citrix Synergy. We appreciate your time. >> Thanks. >> Our pleasure. For Keith Townsend, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from Atlanta, Georgia, Citrix Synergy 2019. Thanks for watching. (energetic technological music)