>>from >>around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS and our community partners. >>Welcome to the Cube virtual and our coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host, Lisa Martin, and with me today is Amiram Shachar, the V P and GM of Spot by Netapp program. It's great to have you on the program. >>Thank you, Lisa. It's great to be here. >>So here we are in this virtual world that we're all living in great that we can still connected you. But I wanted to understand you're the founder and CEO of Spot, which was acquired by net up earlier this year. Talk to me a little bit about spot about the technology and what's going on since the Net acquisition. >>Absolutely so Spot is the company that was founded in late 2015 on was centered and concentrated about helping companies thio optimize their cloud infrastructure costs through automation off software of how customers air provisioning their compute so we could possibly help customers to choose their best price off server infrastructure in the price and the best size off server infrastructure in the cloud on, You know, since we launched the company. So we help over 1500 customers worldwide. Thio use our technology scale that revenues to tens of millions of dollars of revenue raised money from top VCs, including Intel Capital, Vertex and Highland on just recently, four months ago, we got acquired by buying it up. >>Excellent. So that's a pretty fast from launch to acquisition, You know, less than five years. Must have a neck brace collar on from the whiplash. That and covert, right with flash. So talk to me about acquisition a few months ago. What's going on with the technologies, aunt? How is the netapp, um, customer base helping to expand your market penetration? >>Yeah. So it was clear, uh, during the rationality. You know, when we did the rationale of the acquisition, So it was clear that spot is going to remain a an entity with the netapp. So, for example, we preserved our brand, so it's spot by net up. It's not gonna be just integrated, and that's it. So we're not gonna see spot disappearing. It's actually the opposite. So we're gonna leveraged a market credibility. That net up is 27 years. You know storage leading storage provider has in the market, and we're gonna use spot as a brand to lean forward and lead with cloud native applications on Do. What we're gonna do is we're gonna help to netapp transform, like, you know, net up existing customers. They're moving to the cloud so not only they can use netapp storage in the cloud. They can also use thesaurus fair and automation and optimization layers that sport provides. Actually. >>So talk to me about what's going on in the market today. We've been talking for months now about this acceleration of digital transformation, acceleration of cloud adoption given businesses now are working so differently. Talk to me about what you are seeing, what your customers just seeing how you're helping them to manage and not just keep the lights on right now. But be able to be successful in going positions Well, in the future. >>Mhm. So I'm seeing like to two main trends. The first trend is like more cloud usage, but that's very general, very vague. But what I do see in in addition to that is actually like priorities have been changed. And when I talk about priority like priority is not only moving to the cloud but doing it efficiently. So customers who already using cloud we're moving to the cloud they really need Thio, you know, planned this in the most efficient way. So I can tell you, for example, a lot of customers that actually we were talking to them to use us at the beginning of 2020. So they intended to use us in, like, you know, third quarter, fourth quarter of the year, like it all got accelerated and they started to use our platform because they put their priorities have changed and they wanna have, like, optimization of cost, right? Right now, >>yeah, That's been something that a lot of folks have been wanting and needing even to just keep the lights on, get their eyes on visibility where we spending costs. Are we using cloud efficiently? If not, how can we work with technology vendors to help us get that visibility and optimize our costs and spend so tell me about from a conversation perspective, uh, post, you know, during this interesting year, the acquisition occurred. Are your conversations with customers changing? Are we seeing now? Is cloud rising even up that the C suite stacked to the board in terms of the conversations that you're having, >>you know, and I'm seeing this like for five years. Like how our conversations are changing the year over year and year over year, we're seeing like improvement in our type of conversations because people living in, like, you know, to the Cloud Mawr people thinking about about optimization is becoming a priority. As I mentioned, like, you know, four years ago like it's not about optimizing cloud. It's about moving to the cloud. And right now I have so many things in the cloud. I just need to run it well, I need to understand why them thio bring in the cloud. So our conversation has gotten a lot better on, especially in 2020 on. Do you think about cloud expenditure like this is probably the second biggest line item off every company's expenses. So it goes directly to the cause, which is the cost of good salt of every company. So it goes directly go off the margin off cos so Cloud is definitely becoming a board discussion thing. >>So talk to me about some of the new products and capabilities that you guys have now that you're part of that. >>So first of all, is the company we really believe in, like listening to customers, seeing what they need and innovating on their behalf. I think this is like our mission, and I'm always like saying that like customers always want, like cheaper cloud and more simple cloud. This is like a strategy to build a long term business like, I don't know if customers will not need, like, cheaper cloud in 10 years from now. And I don't know if customers would want more complicated cloud in 10 years from cloud in 10 years from now. Um so in order to keep that momentum So we're doubling down like our existing technology, which helping customers to optimize their pricing purchasing. As you know, we're helping companies to purchase across the three pricing models in the cloud and the first pricing model being on demand, which is you pay by the hour the second pricing model being reserved instances or savings plans, which is you basically reserve capacity for longer time, and then you get a discount. And the third pricing model, called Spot and Spot, basically is like either the resource is idle. Compute resource is that cloud providers have and they're willing to sell you that in a low rate, but they can take it away from you at any moment. So what our technology does it actually balancing in the most economical way across these three pricing models that we basically push the savings to the maximum while we also keep the S. L. A and the SLOC over the customers. So what we're releasing now doubling down on the technology is we're introducing something called predictive re balancing, which is basically customers who are launching spot instances and they want to migrate between spot instances, two different spot instances or two reserved instances so we could do it much more proactively than ever before. We've been investing a lot of machine learning engineers on that problem. We've put a lot of brain power toe work on this, and we're gladly happy to release a new, updated version of that. It can help customers to get warnings off almost an hour before an interruption might happen. >>Predictive re balancing, You said it's called one of the things I was thinking when you were talking about the three pricing tiers and what you guys help businesses do. It sounds very dynamic and iterative in the moment. So based on what's it based on usage data volumes, how do you help customers make that? How does the technology actually help customers with that dynamic, that predictive re balancing? >>So it's a great question, because the way that it works, it really matches the technology stack of the customer. So if we understand that this is like a Web service running behind an elastic load balancer, so the predictive rebalancing will have Behavior X. And if we realize that this is a big data workload that requires, um, some other type of compute provisioning. So the predictive rebalancing will behave like why. And there is also the new wave of APS, which are cloud native containers and micro services so actually predictor of balancing notes to identify that. So, basically, if you think about that, what happens behind the scenes is that we migrate between different pricing models and we just move containers around. The customers don't really know what happened behind the scenes, but they that the output of everything is the most optimized and high available capacity they could possibly get from the cloud. >>So what sort of cost savings are we talking about? Can you share an examples of some what some of your customers has have achieved? >>Mhm. So, yeah, we're talking about like, I think the benchmark is anywhere between 70 to 90%. We have a lot of public use cases with our customers and some of our really valuable customers like check, which is an education tech technology company which are running with us. The entire fleet off containers reported like over 65% off cost reduction of the under compute also, ah, gum gum, which is computer vision company that analyzes, um ads in real time. They also reported over 70% off cost reduction of their off their cloud infrastructure a swell as the well known Ticketmaster, which is also a very large customer virus and using us and all of their production communities clusters and also saved, um, over 60 to 70% off their containers infrastructure. >>So big savings. I think the lowest number heard you say, with 60% so big impact that the technology is able to make talk to me about the existing customers that and you've got some big brand. You mentioned Ticketmaster? Um, how How have things changed for them or not changed for them with the net acquisition, you talked about maintaining the spot brand. But talk to me about kind of that transition for your existing customers. >>So, you know, it's actually a very, um, you know, e felt lucky, like going through this process of an acquisition, you know, is the founder of a company. And it's, uh it's very, uh, very pleasing. Calls to have with customers is when you call customers and you tell them about the acquisition. And I was lucky enough to tell them like, Hey, guys, nothing is gonna change Like our road map is going to continue in the same way our name is going to remain the same way. The only thing we're gonna bother you with, quote unquote as we're going to add storage capabilities into our computer capabilities, >>that must have been music to their ears. But I gotta ask you, what's it like doing an acquisition in the middle of a global pandemic? And we're completely remote, right? >>You know, this is an experience I will never forget. Uh, you know it, Z, you're just You're at home. You know, I was also I was really lucky to become a father for the first time. And I know earlier this year s Oh, it's like you're with your baby wife, family and just all day calls on going and you know it, Z it's It's a really amazing experience that I think I will never forget. >>Yeah, I think I'm with you on that unique experiences. Well, congratulations for being a new father, but that also makes it challenging, right? You're you're CEO of a startup. It's about to get acquired. And you've got a newborn as, ah coworker. So all of a sudden, all these challenges that just add, um ADM or challenges to the mix. So I'm sure it was great to be able to have the conversation with your existing customers about what little is changing, but also for them. What's the opportunity for those existing customers to really start taking advantage of all of net tax net ops capabilities? >>So that's exactly the intersection between spot and ETA, which I feel like super excited about, because if you think about that like we've built a technology of computer optimization over the last five years. That up is a big, brand, credible company. Going for 27 years, more than 27 years. The last seven years get up has has been doing like a massive shift to the cloud supporting their customers were moving from on Prem to the cloud. So net up what never actually did. And I was very amazed by that, which is the imported >>all of their own >>premise t technology and put it in the cloud in the platform that they call cloud volumes, which is you. Basically, you can get >>all the >>features that Netapp provides, like advanced snap shooting and back up and fast restored and compression D duplication, which I remember managing data centers myself from my military days. I was using a lot of netapp stuff >>on. They took all of these great things and put it in the ground. And now what we can >>actually do for our customers is that we can actually attach like the computer they're buying from us and optimizing with us with the storage, the great storage that offers in the cloud in the cloud volume platform. >>It's a lot of opportunities there. In fact, Netapp has We've been talking about this on the Cube for a while. For years, Netapp has gone, undergone a big transformation, a big evolution, and it sounds like what they're doing with spot and also the opportunities that it's providing. So not just your existing customers, but you're prospective customers. And your new customers is just kind of keeping that door wide open. Which right now in this interesting time is is essential is businesses are continuing to pivot as this time unfold, and we know something's going to remain permanent, but that got to be able to pivot quickly. Otherwise, the competition is probably in the rear view mirror, maybe smaller, more agile and ready to take over. >>That's so true and like, you know, generally speaking about, like transformation, like modernization of application. So, like huge trend that we're seeing. And this is also a huge intersection between netapp and spot. Um, is everything kubernetes and everything containers eso we're seeing organizations moving to the cloud, but they're they're not, like, no, not anymore looking at, like just lift and ship their like, lift modernized ship like people want to modernize our application for various reasons. And we see containers. Technology is just becoming like the de facto technology for shipping applications in the cloud, and we're seeing kubernetes on the rise and one of our products. That spot, called Ocean Eyes, is a product that manages compute for kubernetes. So our our tagline is basically serverless containers, which is customers deploy their containers and then we manage the infrastructure underneath. They don't need to define their infrastructure, think about their infrastructure, just like it's a really a near Vanna for for develops, people responsible for communities. And then when we actually, you know, got into Nana and we saw all of, like, the cloud volumes technology that I was telling you about, we said it like, Hey, what if we can take this service, compute off containers and we can actually make it for storage as well? And we basically you can take all the good things that you get from service, which is, you know, no infrastructure management building Mike utility building, you know, scale to zero scale to like, you know, infinite. If you need >>Andi with no infrastructure management and this is actually possible with the netapp cloud >>volumes technology. So, actually, right now we're launching with net up, something will recall storage less volumes, which is basically for containers were going to allow that directly from our ocean product that you will be able to get storage list volumes that are going to be completely Hence we management of storage. And just to set the tone like, what is storage is like, Is there no storage like, what is surveillance are their storage? Are their service there? Of course there are, but you don't manage them. So what storage is? Is there a storage underneath? Of course there is, but you don't need to manage it. And >>is that something that your customers can take advantage of? Now, is that coming in the next quarter or so? What's the timing on that? >>But this is, um this is right now already in preview. So we already opened that to some of our, you know, advanced customers that are using, like all of our latest and greatest you know, features. So it's already with customers validation working with them. They're actually actually love it and love the fact that they don't need to manage storage, because when you move to the cloud. You actually don't really care about storage anymore because it's becoming just oil for your applications. Eso and it's gonna be generally available. Hopefully, in the first half of 2021. >>Exciting. Something positive to look forward to. You'll have to come back and share with us. Some of the results. Mm. It's been great to have you on the Cube. Thanks for spending some time with me >>today. Likewise. Lisa, thank you very much. >>I'm Lisa Martin. 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