(upbeat music) >> Welcome to this Cube Conversation. I'm Dave Nicholson, and this is continuing coverage of Google Cloud Next '21. I'm joined today by Sachin Gupta, General Manager and Vice President of Open Infrastructure at Google Cloud. Sachin, welcome to theCube. >> Thanks Dave, it's great to be here. >> So, you and I both know that the definition of what constitutes Cloud has been hotly contested by some over the last 20 years. But I think you and I both know that in some quarters there really has never been a debate. NIST, for example, the standard body that calls out what constitutes Cloud, has always considered Cloud an operational model, a set of capabilities, and it has never considered Cloud specifically tied to a location. With that in mind, how about if you share with us what was announced at Cloud Next '21 around Google Distributed Cloud? >> Yeah, thanks Dave. The power of Cloud in terms of automation, simplicity, observability, is undeniable, but our mission at Google Cloud is to ensure that we're meeting customers where they are, in their digital transformation journey. And so in talking to customers, we found that there are some reasons that could prevent them to move certain workloads to Cloud. And that could be because there's a low latency requirement. There is high amounts of data processing that needs to happen on-prem. So taking data from on-prem, moving into the Cloud to get it processed and all the way back may not be very efficient. There could be security, privacy, data residency, compliance requirements that they're dealing with. And then some industries, for some customers, there's some very strict data sovereignty requirements that don't allow them to move things into the public Cloud. And so when we talked to customers, we realized that we needed to extend the Cloud, and therefore we introduced Google Distributor Cloud at Next 2021. And what Google Distributed Cloud provides is all of that power of Cloud anywhere the customers need it. And this could be at a Google network edge, it could be at an operator or communication server provider edge as well. It could be at the customer edge, so right on-premise at their site, it could be in their data centers. And so a lot of flexibility in how you deploy three fully managed hardware and software solutions delivered through Google. >> Yeah it's interesting because often statistics are cited that somewhere near 75% of of what we do in IT, is still "on-premises." The reality is, however, that what's happening in those physical locations on the edge is looking a lot more Cloudy, isn't it. (laughs) >> Yes, and the customers are looking for that computational power, storage, automation, simplicity, in all of these locations. >> So what does this look like from an infrastructure stack perspective? Is there some secret sauce that you're layering into this that we should know about? >> Yeah, so let me just talk about it a little bit more. So we start off with third party hardware. So we're sourcing from Dell, HPE, Cisco, Nvidia, NetApp, bringing it together. We're using Anthos, you are hopefully familiar with Anthos, which is our hybrid multi-cloud software layer. And then on top of that, we use open source technologies. For example, built on Kubernetes. We offer a containerized environment, a VM environment, that enables both Google first-party services, as well as third-party services that customers may choose to deploy, on top of this infrastructure. And so the management of the entire infrastructure, top to bottom, is delivered to Google directly, and therefore customers can focus on applications, they can focus on business initiatives, and not worry about the infrastructure complexity. They can just leave that to us. >> So you mentioned both Kubernetes, thinking of containerization as Cloud native, you also said VMs. So this spans the divide between containerized microservices-based applications and say VM-ware style of virtual machines or other VMs? >> Yes, look, the majority of customers are looking to modernize and move to a containerized environment with Kubernetes, but there are some workloads that they may have that still require a VM-like environment, and having the simplicity and the efficiency of operating VMs like containers on top of Google Distributed Cloud, built on Anthos, is extremely powerful for them. And so it goes back to our mission. We're going to meet customers where they are, and if they need VM support as well, we're providing it. >> So let's talk about initial implementations of this. What kind of scale are you anticipating that customers will deploy? >> The scale is going to vary based on use case. So it could be a very small, let's think about it as a single server type of scale, all the way to many, many dozens of racks that could be going in to support Google Distributed Cloud. And so, for example, from a communication service provider point of view, looking to modernize their 5G network, in the core it could be many, many racks with Google Distributed Cloud the edge product. And for their RAM solutions, it could be a much smaller form factor, as an example. And so depending on use case, you're going to find all kinds of different form factors. And I didn't mention this before, but we also, in addition to scale, we offer two operational modes. One is the edge product. So Google Distributed Cloud edge that is connected to the Cloud. And so it gets operational updates, et cetera, directly through the Cloud. And the second one is something we call the hosted mode, and in hosted mode, it's completely air-gapped. So this infrastructure, what is modernized and provides rich 1PN third party services, does not connect to the Cloud at all. And therefore, the organizations that have the strictest data latency sovereignty requirements, can benefit from a completely air-gapped solution as well. >> So I'm curious, let's say you started with an air-gapped model. Often our capabilities in Cloud exceed our customer's comfort level for a period of time. Can that air-gapped, initial implementation be connected to the Cloud in the future? >> The air-gap implementation, typically customers, the same customer, may have multiple deployments, where one will require the air-gap solution, and another could be the hosted solution, and the other could be the edge product, which is connected. And in both cases, the underlying stack is consistent. So, while I don't hear customers saying, "I want to start from air-gap and move," we are providing Google Distributed Cloud as one portfolio to customers so that we can address these different use cases. In the air-gap solution, the software updates obviously still come from Google, and customers need to move that across the air gap check signatures, check for vulnerability, load it in the system, and the system will then automatically update itself. And so the software we still provide, but in that case, there's additional checks that that customer will typically go through before enabling that software onto their system. >> Yeah, so you mentioned at the outset, some of the drivers, latency security, et cetera, but can you restate that? I'd like to hear what the thinking behind this was at Google when customers were presenting you with a variety of problems they needed solutions for. I think it bears recapping that. >> Right, so let me give you a few examples here. So one is, when you think about 5G, when you think about what 4G did for the industry in terms of enabling the gig economy, with 5G we can really enable richer experiences. And this could be highly immersive experiences, it could be augmented reality, it could be all kinds of technologies that require lower latency. And for this, you need to build out the 5G infrastructure on top of a modernized solution like Google Distributed Cloud. Let me just get into a few use cases though, to just bring some color here. For example, for a retailer, instead of worrying about IP and infrastructure in the store, the people in the store can focus on their customers, and they can implement solutions using Google Distributed Cloud for things like inventory management, asset protection, et cetera, in the store. Inside a manufacturing facility, once again, you can reduce incidents, you can reduce injuries, you can look at your robotic solutions that require low latency feedback, et cetera. There's a whole bunch of emerging applications through ISVs, that a rich, on-prem or anywhere you want it in the edge infrastructure, can enable a new suite of possibilities that weren't possible before. In some cases, customers say, "You know what, I want 5G. But I actually you want a private 5G deployment." And that becomes possible with the Google Distributed Cloud as well. >> So we talked a little bit about scale. What's the smallest increment that someone could deploy? You just gave an example of retail. Some retail outfits are small stores, without any IT staff at all. There's the concept of a single-node Kubernetes cluster, which is something we love to come up with in our business terminology that makes no sense, single node cluster. The point is, these increments, especially in the containerized world, are getting smaller. What's the smallest increment that you can deliver, you're planning to deliver? >> I'll answer this two ways. First of all, we are planning to deliver a smallest increment, think of it as one server. We are planning to deliver that as well, all the way up to many, many racks. But in addition, there's something unique that I wanted to call out. Let's say you're in the medium or larger deployment in the racks, and you want to scale up, compute, and store it separately. That's something we enable as well, because we will work with customers in terms of what they need for their application, and then scale that hardware up and down based on their need. And so there's a lot of flexibility in that, but we will enable scale all the way down to a single server unit as well. >> So what is the feedback been from the partners that will be providing the hardware infrastructure, folks like Dell. What has their reaction been? >> I think that they're obviously very eager to work with us. We're happy to partner with them in order to provide customers flexibility, any kind of scale in any kind of location, different kind of hardware equipment that they need. But in addition to those partners on the hardware side, there are customers and partners as well who are enabling rich experiences and solutions for that retailer, for that manufacturer, for example. And so working with AT&T, we announced partnership on 5G and edge to enable experiences, especially in the areas of retail and manufacturing, like I talked about earlier, but then in Europe, we're partnering with OVHcloud, for example, in order to enable very strict data sovereignty requirements that are happening in that country. And so where there's many communication service providers, there's many partners trying to solve for different use cases for their end customers. >> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let's pretend for a minute that you're getting Yelp reviews of this infrastructure that you're responsible for moving forward. What would a delighted customer's comments look like? >> I think a delighted customer's comments will be probably in two or three areas, all right? So first up will be, it's all about the applications and the end user experience that this can enable. And so the power of Google AI ML technology, third-party software as well, that can run consistently single operational model, build once, deploy anywhere, is extremely powerful. So I would say, the power of the applications and the simplicity that it enables is number one. I think number two is the scale of operations experience that Google has. They don't need to worry about, "do I have 5 sites or 500 sites or 5,000 sites?" It doesn't matter. The fleet operations, the scaled operations capability, the global network capability that Google has, all that experience in site reliability engineering, we can now bring to all of these vast amounts of edge locations, so they don't need to worry about scale at all. And then finally, they can be sort of rest assured that this is built on Anthos, it's built on Kubernetes, there's a lot of open source components here, they have flexibility, they have choice, they can run our one-piece services, they can run third-party services on this, and so we're going to preserve the flexibility in choice. I think these are the things that would likely get highlighted. >> So Sachin, you talk to customers around the world. Where do you see the mix between net-neu stuff going into infrastructure like this, versus modernized and migrated workloads into the solution? What does that mix look like? And I know it's a bit of speculation, but what are your thoughts? >> I think, Dave, that's a great question, I think it's a difficult one to answer because we find that those conversations happen together with the same customers. At least that's what I find. And so they are looking to modernize, create a much richer environment for their developers, so that they can innovate much more quickly, react to business needs much more quickly, to cater to their own end customers in a much better way, get business insights from the data that they have. They're looking to do all of this, but at the same time, they have, perhaps, legacy infrastructure or applications that they just can't easily migrate off of, that may still be in a VM environment, more traditional type of storage environment, and they need to be able to address both worlds. And so, yes, there are some who are so-called "born in the Cloud," everything is Cloud native, but the vast majority of customers that I talked to, are absolutely looking to modernize, like you don't find a customer that says, "Just help me lift and shift, I'm not looking to modernize." I don't quite see that. They are looking to modernize but they want to make sure that we have the options that they need to support different kinds of environment that they have today. >> And you mentioned insights. We should explore that a little further. Can you give us an example of artificial intelligence, machine learning being used now at the edge, where you're putting more compute power at the edge? Can you give us an idea of the kinds of things that that enables specifically? >> Yes, so when you think about video processing, for example, if I have a lot of video feeds and I'm looking based on that, I want to apply artificial intelligence, I'm trying to detect object inventory movement, people movement, et cetera. Again, adhering to all the privacy and local regulations. When I have that much data streaming in, if I have to take that out of my edge all the way across the WHEN network, into the Cloud for processing, and bring it all the way back and then make a decision, I'm just moving a lot of data up and down into the Cloud. And in this case, what you're able to do is say, no, you don't actually need to move it into the public Cloud. You can keep that data locally. You can have a Google Distributed Cloud edge instance there, you're going to run your AI application right there, achieve the insights and take an action very, very quickly. And so it saves you, from a latency point of view, significantly, and it saves you from a data transmission up and down into the Cloud significantly, which you sometimes, you know, you're not supposed to send that data up, that there's data residency requirements, and sometimes the cost of just moving it, it doesn't make sense. >> So do you have any final thoughts? What else should we know about this? Anything that we didn't touch on? >> I think we've touched on a lot of great things. I think I'm just going to reiterate, you started with a "what is the definition of Cloud itself" and our mission once again, is to really understand what customers are trying to do and meet them where they are. And we're finding that they're looking for Cloud solutions in a public region. We've announced a lot more regions. We continue to grow our footprint globally, but in addition, they want to be able to get that power of Google Cloud infrastructure and all the benefits that it provides in many different edge locations all the way on onto their premises. And I think one of the things we perhaps spent less time on is, we're also very unique that in our strategy, we're bringing in underlying third-party hardware, but it's a fully managed solution that can operate in that connected edge mode, as well as a disconnected hosted mode, which just enables pretty much all the use cases we've heard about from customers. So one portfolio that can address any kind of need that they have. >> Fantastic. Well, I said at the outset Sachin, before we got started, you and I could talk for hours on this subject. Sadly, we don't have hours. I'd like to thank you for joining us in theCube. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us for this Cube conversation, covering the events at Google Cloud NEXT 2021. I'm Dave Nicholson. Thanks for joining. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE. Covering VMworld 2018. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome to theCUBE. We are live at VMworld 2018. Day one, VMware's 20th anniversary. I am Lisa Martin, very excited to be joined by Dave Vellante. Hey, Dave! >> Hey, Lisa, good to see you again. >> Good to see you, too. We are welcoming back to theCUBE, an alumni, Geoff Waters, the VP of Global Cloud Sales for Vmware, hi, Geoff. >> Hi, great to be here, guys. Last year, we talked about the buzz, VMware getting the buzz back. Boy, this is a sonic boom this year. >> Yeah, it's a lot of buzz. >> Superpower infused. And we've also got David Wigglesworth, the Chief Revenue Officer for OVH. David, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you very much, both of you, Dave and Lisa. >> So, I have to ask first, do you have the VMware tattoo that Pat Gelsinger sported this morning? >> I don't have VMware, but I do have OVHcloud. Okay, so, speaking of OVH, David give our viewers an overview of what you guys are doing and what momentum you have created with VMware. >> Yeah, you know, it's an exciting time for us, especially to be here, as a Global Diamond sponsor, right? This is our second year, as OVHcloud, to be here. Last year, when we came, it was right after the vCloud Air acquisition of the asset from Vmware. Which is where our partnership just continued to grow more and more. And, so, for the last year, what we've been doing is we've really been focusing on deploying our data centers here, as well as getting our products ready to go to market. I always joke that OVHcloud is, probably, the best-kept secret in the US because that, when we acquired vCloud Air's assets, is when we kind of launched in the US. But, as Geoff can tell you in a few minutes, we've been a partner with VMware for years, right? And it's been really exciting. >> Yeah, I wonder if you could talk about that, Geoff, a little bit, I mean, the signal on vCloud Air early on, you guys kept having to tune the radio station, so to speak. >> Yep. >> Yep. >> And then, boom, finally it hit the OVH acquisition and then AWS deal, of course, IBM and other cloud service providers. Talk about how that all came about, and the track that you're on now. >> Yes, so, I mean, we've been partnering with OVH for actually nine years, I went back and I researched it. >> Did you? >> Yeah, back in Europe. So, they've actually been a seven-time Service Provider of the Year award winner. So, our relationship with OVH is nothing new. And we've been working with them for years. The other thing is the breadth of the portfolio adoption, the full SDDC stack, so not just vSphere, NSX, vSAN, the entire stack. So, you know, OVH is right in the forefront of our overall cloud strategy, and it has been for years. >> Yeah, and as a global infrastructure provider, we have almost a million 500 thousand customers, in 138 different countries. We have 28 data centers, three here in North America. We've got the breadth to go to the market in a big way. So, it's exciting to be here. >> So, lay out the options that you have for OVH customers. What services can they get from you? What are the platforms? >> No, it's a great question. So, obviously, have a very purpose-felt solution built on VMware, right, with our Hybrid Private Cloud. It's all built on the SDDC stack. So vSphere, vSAN, NSX, everything that Geoff mentioned. We also offer a bare metal solution. And then we also have a public cloud offering that's built on our relationship that we have with OpenStack. So, we give our customers three different choices on what they want to go to the market with. >> So, what do you make of, what's the AWS-VMware partnership mean for OVH? How do you guys take advantage of that? >> Well, I mean, you know, look. I think Pat, in his keynote this morning, talked about that eight out of every 10 customers is using cloud today, multi-cloud strategy. The average large customer is using, what did he say, eight clouds? >> Yep. >> He said that they're forecasting that there would be 10 clouds by the end of 2019. I'd like to take one of those two spots, if you don't mind. So, no, we think there's huge opportunity. I mean, Amazon's built a business on, and has created kind of the standard. We think there's plenty of room to play in a very large market. >> Well, the services market has always been highly fragmented. >> Yep. >> And it's always been local in nature. Maybe not as to the degree and scale, but, so, you've got, what did you say, a million and a half customers? >> Globally. >> So what are they telling you about their cloud strategy? >> Well, what our customers are asking for is they're asking for agility. They're looking for low cost. You know, we announced a partner program earlier this morning, where we're launching that. And our partners are coming to us saying, David, give us choice, give us flexibility, and help us save a little bit of money. I mean, all of our partners are dealing with margin erosion, as well as everybody else in the industry. So, if we can come to market and actually help them go acquire a customer, and help them do that in a way that's cost-effective, they're very excited about that. >> So, what's the conversation that you're having with customers? You know, we were, a lot of press, a lot of news came out this morning. A lot of great announcements made by Pat and team on stage. Customers talking about migrating from on-prem to the cloud, from public back to on-premises, for security compliance reasons. What are some of the things that you guys are hearing from customers, when you're having those business-level discussions about being able to execute a successful cloud strategy? >> You want to hit that first, and I'll come over. >> Go ahead. Well, I can. So, what our customers are talking about is simplicity. One of the things that we're excited to work about, to work with VMware on, is that our customers, when they move their solution on-prem to our hybrid cloud, they use the exact same resources that they use on-prem today. They don't have to go hire new people. It's all of the exact same economics that they've built to an on-prem solution, is in their off-prem solution with OVHcloud. That's what makes this so unique, right? I mean, look, part of the vCloud Air acquisition, what are we doing? We're migrating VMware customers, right, that are using VMware technology, that we're setting on vCloud Air into OVH data centers, using VMware technology to do it. And, so, it's. >> Just to add to that, the beauty is reducing day two complexity onto the operations, day two operations. So, instead of customers having to build out all themselves and integrating it, OVH is doing that already. Right out of the gate, in a hosted managed environment. >> That's because it is a like to like homogeneous, and you guys have laid that vision out years ago. >> Yep, yep. >> We sure did. >> When Maritz was running the company. But how does that actually manifest itself? So, a customer says, look, I'm sick of the heavy lifting, I want to get to the cloud. Alright, so they come to you guys, what are the steps that they take to get there? >> Well, there's, you know, the first thing you'll do is you'll sit down with the client. And some clients know exactly what they want to do and how they want to do it. And some customers say, hey, I think I need to be in the cloud, please help me. So we'll have that conversation, right, first of all. Yeah, exactly, it's from A to Z, soup to nuts, whatever you want to say. So, you know, a lot times we'll sit down and we'll walk them through that journey to the cloud. And then, once we determine what applications or workloads we want to move, then we'll back into, okay, well here's the best way to move that, right, and whatever technologies we then decide to do. And if it's vSphere based, it makes it real simple, right? >> And you hit the nail on the head. It starts with the application. It's always about the application. What is the end goal? Right, once you identify that, you start looking at the use cases, a lot of it's app migration, a lot of data center evacuation. A lot of these data centers, as the different leases are coming up, they want to get out of there. Right, and that's the opportunity to then have the discussion. There's also tools that we got. HDX, which allows for bulk migration of workloads and it reduces, you know, the complexity of going to another cloud and another hypervisor from, like, years down to months and weeks. We've had some customers that have done that, migrated hundreds of VMs over a weekend. >> Oh sure. And we're in the process of that right now. >> So, go ahead, please. >> Oh, thank you, I was going to say, could you give us an example of a customer, whether they're in Europe, where you guys have really had a lot success, or here in the Americas, that have really demonstrated substantial business outcomes, revenue, et cetera, leveraging the joint service? >> Well, sure, I mean, you know, we've got customers both in the U.S. and in EMEA, but, you know, I'm thinking about a customer in particular that's based in the U.K.. That, they're a MNA company, right? And, at one time, they had 97 data centers that they were trying to manage. The complexity of that. And, so, they originally went to vCloud Air because they were like, help us with this complexity, we're built on VMware, but we've got to close these data centers, right, we need to go to more of an asset-like model, and we need to be able to manage it effectively with the staff that I have that's already overworked. So that's how we won them as a client with vCloud Air. What's exciting is, is when we come in and we start talking about what we're doing with OVH, and some of the new technology that we're building, on the VMware stack, right, plus the fact that we own our own network. I don't charge ingress and egress charges, right. A lot of the things that we do, We've got 33 points of presence, you know, globally. Then we start having a conversation and they're like, listen I already had a great solution in vCloud Air on VMware, now I've got that on steroids. I've got the benefit of both companies coming together for a solution for my client. >> So how do you get the data from point A to point B? Do you back up the Chevy truck and load it on? >> You can do it that way. >> You talked about your network. What's the kind of best practice? >> Yeah, so the best practice is to come in and understand the actual environment we're working with. What is the tolerance to take that workload up or down? But, if we use technology like HDX, I don't have to take that workload down at all. I'm able to basically, essentially, and don't let me get over my skis, VMware guy, but I am going to essentially do a Vmotion over my network, right, no cost to the customer, into my data center, and the customer can continue to use the app while that's happening. >> And the time that takes is a function of, obviously, the volume of the data, >> Sure, of course. The bandwidth. >> The number of VMs, the complexity of that. >> So you'll schedule that out over a period of, what, days, weeks, months? >> Exactly Years, even, I mean, maybe not years but, maybe I have a multi-year strategy, right? So that's how you're seeing people do it? It's sort of a planned approach. >> Weeks and months is sort of. >> I would say, typically. >> It's project based, yeah. >> So, within months, I can get an entire data center from my on-premises into your platform. Is that a fair statement? >> And if you ever wanted to bring it back, we can do that real easy too. >> You see that happening? >> We see customers moving workloads back and forth, it depends on seasonality. I mean, you take the retail industry, right? There's a lot of times where, during the retail industry, they'll send things to us, they'll flip it around, and, after the holidays are over, they'll bring there on-prem or what have you. >> And, more importantly, I think having network access back into the on-prem data center, with HDX, allows you to have a network connection. So it does need a talk back. The whole workload may not move back, but you need to have communications back into the network. And that's what HDX, their technology, allows. >> Right. >> So it allows me to leave whatever component of my workload I want to keep there. >> Yep, that's right. >> When I'm talking to each other. >> That's right. >> Okay, so for years at VMware, we heard this theme, any app, any workload, really anywhere in the world. >> Exactly. >> Now, you guys, right, you guys have an open source based public cloud. Vmware, obviously, like, hey, some of these cloud native apps, we'd like a piece of that action. You hear Pat talking about Kubernetes and containers. So what's that conversation like, between you guys, I mean you want some of that, right? Are you talking about Edge? Is that more integration? You guys got some work to do there to really compete in the that space? >> Well, I mean, it's your solution. But I'll start off of on the Edge. So, the announcement on Edge today, I don't know if you guys have heard it yet, but really exciting. We've actually announced a lot of different solutions around automation of the data center. I mean, this whole cloud operations is becoming sort of a major problem, as we have eight to 10 global service providers in most enterprises. So, reducing the complexity of that down is incredibly important. All the pieces that we're announcing, a VMware as a service, we're going to roll to our service providers in a managed service environment. So all these new technologies that we just announced, right, David and OVH are going to get access to that and have the same capability. >> That's right. >> I'll let you guys speak, specifically on your OpenStack. >> Well, I mean, listen, the beautiful thing about OpenStack is it's open, right, so, I mean, it doesn't really matter what cloud's out there, we can interface with it, right? So, that's the beauty of it, right? And it doesn't change at all the way that we go to market. It's just, really, we're giving the customers choice. What do you want? And it depends on the app, right? That's what's beautiful about it, is when we've sit down and meet with customers or partners, it's, like, what do you want to do, what workload would you want to move? And we've got choice for you. >> Yeah, I remember when we talked to Pat about this, years ago, when OpenStack was kind of the hot new toy, and he said, OpenStack, we like OpenStack, that's cool, we'll embrace it, no problem, and we're like, really? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of exactly what's happened. I mean, you're seeing the same thing with Kubernetes, and containers, and the like. But, again, you guys still got some work to do to really earn their business for those types of workloads, and I presume you're hard at work. >> We are. I don't know if you wanted to hit on some of the announcements that you. >> Yeah, I'd love to. >> Yeah, let's do that. >> So, the real thing I'm excited about is this morning we announced the announcement of our partner program at OVHcloud. It's an exciting day for us on that because, if you'll remember a few minutes ago, I was talking about all of the things we've been doing for the last year, right, getting our data centers ready, and, also, building out our product stack to be able to go to market, and migrating our customers. Well, the fourth thing we were doing, for the last nine to 12 months, is we've been meeting with partners. And I'm fortunate, from my years at EMC-Vmware, and my team, we have a lot of relationships out there. And so we were able to go meet with these partners and say, listen, here's what we're thinking, what do you guys think, what are you looking for, right? We've got all these big players out there, obviously we know all the names, but what differentiation could we bring to your business to help you go grow revenue? And, you know, they came back to us and they said, Wiggs, what we really want to be able to do is we want to be able to come in slowly, expand that as much as we can, make big commitments, make small commitments, we want the ability to be agile, we want to be able to, help us figure out a way that we can save money and worry about that. Help us resolve that issue of that margin erosion. That's a big thing that a lot of the channel's dealing with today. And, so, that's what we did. We came up with a program of four different levels, right? You can dip your toe in, and with a very minimum commitment, the higher commitment you make, not only do you get a better price, but you also get a ton of support on the backend. So, I actually come in and work with you on your messaging. I have sales teams that can actually go out and help them sell the solution, with us as the infrastructure layer in the underpinning, right, and, so far, it's been really good. >> So these are, don't hate me for saying this, these are sort of traditional box sellers, now trying to transform their business, right, and add more value, or their value added supply. Maybe they're SAP. >> Well, you've got manage service providers. You've got manage service providers. >> Okay, so hosting. >> You've got the SI's and the OS's, right? So, you know, some of these guys they either want a private label, right? Or white label your solution? Some guys just want to go to mark up their solution and they just need an asset like model, right? They're just exhausted with, you know, investing in infrastructure, right? So, they're like, "Listen >> And bodies. >> And body, you take that over and let us worry about that. >> You see, from VMware's perspective, that's exactly what we're seeing. We've got an ecosystem of 42 hundred global service providers. They build their own data centers, have a VMwares based hosted solution of some type. A lot of different flavors. They want to get out of the hardware space and out of the data center management space. This is why it's a great solution for OVH, they want to focus on, and, again, we call this asset light, they want to focus on high margin trusted value. Things that they're good at, where they can make a lot of money. >> Which is what? Like, I always see there's a consulting piece up front, security. >> It could be security specialist. >> Yep, security security services. >> Patching monitor, you know, automation, migration services, I mean, the exact discussion we just talked about, right? Customers need that journey. So OVH abstracts a way, the need to do hardware, and that allows them to go focus on the rich or higher margin services that they offer. >> And how are they making it sticky? Because, obviously, they want that, right? So what do you see there and how are you helping them? >> I think anytime you're adding a value added service, if you add that value it is sticky, right? >> Yeah. >> I mean, for an example, to help our relationship with Vmware, and just how strong it is, you know, FusionStormers was one of the partners that we had announced today, right? And they had a quote in there. And I was just sitting in Pat's keynote, next to our customer. You know, and I'm like, so, you know, I get this, it makes sense, you're looking for this, you know, infrastructure as a service play. He's like, David, what we're trying to do is help our customers that love the VMware stack, we're trying to help them to get to the Cloud, right? They don't care about the infrastructure, all they want is great service, right, and great support. And he said, that's my secret sauce, that I am able to offer that. And he goes, you guys handle the infrastructure. He said, it's perfect. >> Last question, David, for you. What are people going to be able to see and feel and touch at the OVH booth here at VMWorld? >> Oh, that's a great question. So, you're going to be able to go over, and you're going to be able to learn about some of our other announcements, with VMwares. Specifically, around what we're doing on the whole SCDC as a stack, right? In the VMware Cloud foundation, and the announcement we had on that this morning. Or, actually, I think that was Friday. You're actually going to be able to go over and they'll pull up and they'll show you some demos, and be able to see the technology live. I think they have a show every hour, and you go over there. And if you go over, you might win a Yeti mug. I think they're giving a Yeti mug to whoever pays the most attention. (Lisa and Dave ooh) So, go over there and learn about that. >> Can always use another Yeti, yeah, I love the Yeti. >> Yeah >> You can't have too many Yeti's. >> Does it come with caffeine? Because that, I'm all over it. >> No, well, we'll leave it clean, yes, maybe caffeine. >> Okay, awesome. David, Geoff, thanks so much for joining Dave and me this morning. >> Thank you so much, we really enjoyed it. >> You're watching theCUBE, live from VMWorld 2018. Day one, Lisa Martin for Dave Vellante, stick around, we'll be right back. (electronic music)