>>from around the globe. It's the cue with digital coverage of active EO data driven 2020. Brought to you by activity. We're back. This is the cubes coverage. Our ongoing coverage of active FiOS data driven. Of course, we've gone virtual this year. Ash. Ashutosh is here. He's the founder, president and CEO of Active Eo. Great to see you again. >>Likewise, They always always good to see you. >>We have We're in a little meet up, You and I in Boston. I always enjoy our conversations. Little did we know that, You know, a few months later, we would only be talking at this type of distance and, uh and of course, it's sad. I mean, a data driven is one of our favorite events is intimate, its customer content driven. The theme this year is you call it the next normal. Some people call it the new abnormal, the next normal. What's that all about? >>I think it's pretty pretty fascinating to see when we walked in in March, all of us were shocked by the effect of this pandemic. And for a while we all scrambled around trying to figure out How do you react to this one, and everybody reacted very differently. But most people have this tendency to think that this is going to be a pretty broom environment with lots of unknown variables, and it is important for us to try to figure out how to get a get our hands on this. By the time we came on. For six weeks into that, almost all of us have figured out this is Ah, this is not something you fight again. This is not something you wait, what, it to go away? But this is one. Did you figure out how to live in and you figured out how to work around it? And that, we believe, is the next long. It's not about trying to create a new abnormal. It's not about creating a new normal, but it's truly one that basically says that is it. That is a way, perhaps packed forward. There's a is a way to create this next normal, and you just figured out how to live with the environment, behalf and the normal outcomes of companies that have done remarkably well as a result of these actions. Fact. If you're being one of them, >>it's quite amazing isn't it? I mean, I've talked to a lot of tech companies, CEOs and their customers, and it's almost like they feel the first reaction was course they cared about their there, their employees and their broader families. Number one number two was many companies, as you know, saw a tailwind, and it initially didn't want to be seen as ambulance chasing. And then, of course, the entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and they said, Okay, we can only control what we can control and tech companies in particular just exceedingly Well, I don't think anybody really predicted that early >>on. Yeah, I, um I think of the heart, We're all human beings, and the first reaction was to take it off. Four constituencies, right? One. Take care of your family. Take it off your community, take care of your employees, take care of your customers. And that was the hardest part. The first 4 to 6 weeks was to figure out How do you do each of those four. Once you figured that part out or you figured out ways to get around to making sure you can take it off those you really found the next mom, you really start forgetting our out of continue to innovate Could, you know to support each of those four constituencies and people have done different things. I know it's amazing how, um, Cuba continues to operate As far as a user is concerned, they're all watching anymore. Yes, we don't have the wonderful desk, and we all get to chat and look in the eye. But the content of the messages asked powerful as what it waas a few months ago. So I'm sure this is how we're all going to figure out how to make through this new next normal >>and digital transformation kind of went from from push to pull. I mean, every conference you go to, they say, Well, look at uber, you know, look at Airbnb and it put up the examples you have to do this to, and then all of sudden the industry dragged you along. Some Curis esta is toe. How and and I guess the other point there is digital means data. We've said that many, many times. If you didn't have a digital strategy during the height of the lock down, you couldn't transact business and still many restaurants is still trying to figure this out, But so how did it affect you and your customers? >>Yeah, it's very interesting. And I we spend a lot of time with several of our customers were managing some of the largest I T organizations. We talk about very interesting phenomena that happened some better beginning of this year. About 20 years ago, we used to worry about this thing called the Digital Divide, those who have access the network and Internet and those who don't. And now there is this beta divide, the divide between organizations that know how to leverage, exploit and absolutely excellent the business using data and those adorable. I think we're seeing this effect so very clearly among organizations that unable to come back and address some of this stuff. And it's fascinating. Yes, we all have the examples off the lights off. People are doing delivery. People are doing retailing, but there are so many little things you're seeing organizations. And just the other day, he had a video from Century Days Is Central Data System, which is helping accelerate Cohen 19 research because it will get copies of the data faster than they would get access to data so that these are just much, much faster. Sometimes you know, several days to a few minutes. It's that that level of effect, it's not just down to some seven. You know, you almost think of it as nice to have, but it's must have life threatening stuff. Essential stuff or just addressing. Korea was running a very pretty in a wonderful article about this supercomputer in That's Doing an Aristo covert 19 and how it's figured out most of these symptoms they're able to figure out by just crunching a ton of data. And almost every one of those symptoms that the computer has predicted Supercomputer is predicted has being accurate. It's about data. It is absolutely about data, which is why I think this is a phenomenal time for companies. Toe Absolutely go change. Make this information about data exploration, data leverage, exploitation. And there's a ton of it all over all around us. >>Yeah, and and part of that digital transformation, the mandate is to really put data at the core. I mean, we've we've certainly seen this with the top market cap companies. They've got dated at the core, and and now, as they say it's it's become a A mandate. And, you know, there's been several things that we've clearly noticed. I mean, you saw the work from home required laptops and, you know, endpoint security and things of that. VD. I made a comeback, and certainly Cloud was there. But I've been struck by the reality of multi Cloud. I was kind of a multi cloud skeptic early on. >>Yeah, >>I said many times I thought it was more of a symptom than it was a strategy, but it's that's completely flipped. Ah, recently in r e t r surveys, we saw multi cloud popping up all over the place. I wonder what you're seeing when you talk to your customers and other CEOs. >>Yeah, So fascinating, though really is the first flower part of sometime in 2018. End of 2018 >>Go right, Yeah, >>the act if you'll go on world, which is a phenomenal way to completely change the way you think about the using object storage in the flower for two years that we saw about 20% of our business. By the end of two years, the beginning of this year, 20% of our business was built on never it in the cloud since March. So that was end of our almost ended the Q one. So now we just limit left you three in six months. We added 12 more percent of the business literally weeded in six months. What we did not do before for 18 months before that, right? Significantly more than what we did for a year and a half before that. And there are really three reasons and we see this old nor again, we have a large customer. We closed in January. Ironically, were deploying out of UK, a very large marketing organization. Got everything deployed, running the they're back up and beyond and a separate data center. And they had a practical problem of not being able to access the second sight literally in the middle of deployment. Mystere that customer, Did you see me Google Cloud? Because they were simply no way for them to continue protecting their data, being able to develop new applications with that data that simply had no access. So there was. This was the number one reason the inability for already physically access, but put their their employees at rest and have before the plow would be the infrastructure. That's number one, so that first of all, drove the reason for the cloud. And then there's a second reason there are practical reasons. And why some clerk platforms that good one working the other ones are not. So where, uh, some other more fuels. And so if I'm an organization that has that spans everything, I've got no power PC and X 86 machine A vm I got container platforms. I got Oracle. They got a C P. There is no single cloud platform that supports all my work loaders efficiently. It's available in all the agents I want. So inevitably I have to go at our different about barefoot. So that's a second practical visa. And then there's a strategic reason. No, when no customer what's really locked into anyone card back at least two. You're gonna go pear more likely? Three. So those are the reasons. And then, interestingly enough, have you were on a panel with as global Cee Io's and in addition to just the usual cloud providers of you all know and love inside the U. S. Across the world, in Europe, in Asia, there's a rise off the regional flower fire. See you take all this factor. So have you got absolute physical necessity? You got practical constraints of what can the club provided support the strategic reasons on why either Because I don't want to be locked into a part for better or because there is a rise off data nationalism that's going on, that people want to keep their data within the country bombs all of these reasons. But the foundations or why multiplier is almost becoming a de facto. It's impossible. What a decent size organization to assume. They were just different on one car ready. >>The big trend we're seeing, I wonder if you could comment. Is this this notion of the data life cycle of the data pipeline? It's a very complex situation for a lot of organizations, their data siloed. We hear that a lot. They have data scientists, data engineers, developers, data quality engineers, just a lot of different constituencies and lines of business. And it's kind of a mess. And so what they're trying to do is bring that together. So they've done that data. Scientists complain they spend all their time wrangling data, but but ultimately the ones that are succeeding to putting data at the core is, we've just been discussing are seeing amazing outcomes by being able to have a single version of the truth, have confidence in that data, create self serve for their for their lines of business and actually reduce the end and cycle times. It's driving your major monetization, whether that's cost cutting or revenue. And I'm curious as to what you're seeing. You guys do a lot of work. Heavy work in Dev ops and hard core database those air key components of that data Lifecycle. Yeah, you're seeing in that regard regarding that data pipeline. >>Yeah, it's a It's a phenomenal point if you really want to go back and exploit data within an organization. If you really want to be a data driven organization, the very first thing you have to do is break down the silos. Ironically, every organization has all the data required to make the decisions they want to. They just can't either get to it or it's so hard to make the silos. That is just not what trying to make it happen. And 10 years ago we set out on this mission rather than keep this individual silos of data. Why don't we flip it open and making it a pipeline, which looks like a data cloud where essentially anybody who's consuming it has access to it based on the governance rules based on the security rules that the operations people have said and based on the kind of format they want to see data. Not everyone even want to see the data in a database. Former, maybe you want the database for my convert CSP for my before you don't analytics And this idea of making data, the new infrastructure, this idea of having the operations people provide this new layer for data, it's finally come to roost. I mean, it's it's fascinating. I was the numbers last quarter. We just finished up. You do now. 45% of our customer base is uses activity or for reuse is the back of data for things that excellent. The business things that make the business move faster, more productive or you will survive. That was the mission. That was what we set out to do 10 years ago. We were talking to an analyst this morning, and now this is question off. You know, it looks like there's a team of backup data being reused, said Yeah, that's kind of what we've been saying for 10 years. Backup cannot be an insurance back up in order to your destination. It has to be something that you could use as an asset and that I think it's finally coming to the point with you can use back up a single source of truth only if you designed it right from the beginning. For that purpose, you cannot just lots of lots of ways to fake it. Make it try to pretend like you're doing it. But that was a trooper was off making date of the new infrastructure, making it a cloud, making it something that is truly an ask. And it's fascinating to see our businesses. You take any of our larger counts and the way they've gone about transforming not just basic backup. India. Yes, we are the world's glasses back up in most Kayla will be our solution. That's that's a starting point. But do we will be used after Devil applications 8, 10 times faster? Ron Analytics, 100 ex pastor. The more data you have, the more people who use data you have, the better this return makeups. >>You know, that is interesting to hear you talk about that because that has been the holy Grail of backup. Was toe go beyond insurance to actually create business value. And you're actually seeing some underlying trends We talked about that data pipeline in one of the areas that is the most interesting is in database, which was so boring for so many years. Ah, and you're seeing new workloads emerge. Take the data warehouse beyond your reporting. Never really lived up to its Ah, it's promise of 360 degree view. You mentioned analytics. That's really starting toe happen. Ah, and it's all about data John, for Used to say that your data is that is the new development kit. You call it the new infrastructure, and it's sort of the same same type of theme. So maybe some of the trends you're seeing in ah in database enoughto talk about that for a little bit and then pick your brains and some other tech like object storage is another one that we've really seen takeoff? >>Yeah. So I think our journey with object story began in 16 4017 as we started or Doctor Cloud platform in response to the user requirements, Uh, we did more like most companies have done and unfortunately continue to do to take the in print product. And then it's smooth under the cloud. And one of the things we saw was there was a fundamental difference off how the design points of flower engineering is all about what they're designed it for object story, that one of those one of those primitives fundamental stories, primitives that the cloud providers actually produced that we know really exploited. There was. It was used as a graveyard for data. It's a replacement for me, please, where data goes to die. And then we look at it really closely and say, Well, this is actually a massively scalable, very low cost storage, but it has some problems. It has an interface that you cannot use with traditional servers. Uh, it has some issues around not being able to read, modify right the data. So it feels like a consuming a lot of stories. So we're going to solve those problems because a good two years to come back with something on world that fundamentally creeds objects the lady like this massive use capable high performer disk? Yes, except it is ridiculously low cost and optimize the capacity. So this finger on world that patented has really become the foundation of how everything in our works without using CPU Ray, that is simply nothing at a lower PCO that if you wanted to basic backup, the, uh, more importantly, use that to do this a massive analytics and you don't know more data warehouse data leaks. It is not a good deal of Lake House aladi. All of these are still silent. All of these are people trying to take some data from somewhere put into one of the new construct and have it being controlled by somebody else. This is artist thing. It's just you just move the silos from some place to another place instead of creating a pipeline. If you want to really create a pipeline object story has been integral part of the pipeline, not a separate bucket by itself. And that's what we did. And same thing with databases, you know, most business, most of the critical business and I was on a daily basis, and the ability to find a way to leverage those. Move them on our leverage in terms of whichever format databases access. Which location or Saxes doesn't know how big it is. Lots of work has gone into trying to figure figure that one out. And we we had some very, very good partners in some of the largest customers who help take the journey with us. I'm pretty much all of the global 2000 accounts you see across the board, but an integral part of a process. >>You mentioned the word journey and triggered a thought. Is your discussion with Robbie, the CEO of of Seeing >>A. It was a customer years. >>Ah, and what he said. I liked what he said. He course he used the term journey. We all do. But he said, You know what? I kind of don't like that term because I want to inject the sense of urgency essentially what he was saying. I want speed, you know, journeys like Okay, kids get in the car, were in a drive across country. We're gonna make some stops. And so, while there's a journey, he also was was really trying to push the organization hard and he talked about culture. Ah, as some of the most difficult things and it goes like many. See, I said, Now the technology is almost the easy part. It's true when it works. Oh, I thought that was a great discussion that you had. What were some of your takeaways >>with thinking? Robbie's is very astute. Ah, I t executive was being around the block for so long and one of the fascinating things, but a asking this question about what's the biggest challenge was just gone through this a couple of times. What is the biggest challenge? Taking an organization as vulnerable as well known A C gate is. I mean, this is a data company. This is This is the heart of the Oliver Half the world's data is on seeing stuff. How are you today was, or company has been around for long in the middle of Silicon Valley and make it into ah into a fast growing transformation company that's responding to the newer challenges. And I thought he was going to come back with Well, you know, I gotta go to the abuses. I picked this technology that techno in. Surely that is exactly what I expected he would end up with. There's nothing through technology in this day and age when you can have an Elon Musk and send a card of Mars. It's not many technologies that we can really solve many covered 19 ism. Next one Do we gotta go solve? Well, frankly, he kid upon the one thing that matters to every company. It is the fundamental culture to create a biased of action. It's a fundamental culture where you have to come back and have a deliverable that moves the ball forward every day, every month, every quarter, as opposed to have this CDs off. Like you said, a journey that say's and we all know this right? People talk about, we're going to do this in face one. We're gonna do this and face to and good food release and face three nothing and what happens Invasive. Nobody gets a number feast. I think he did a great job of saying I fundamentally had to go change the culture that was my biggest take away, and this I've heard this so many times the most effective I D execs wait a transformation. It actually shows in the people that they have. It's not the technology, it's the people. And some. This history is replete with organizations that have done remarkably well, not by leveraging the heck out of the technology, but truly by leveraging the change in the people's mindset. And, of course, that at that point that leverages technology where a proper here. But Robbie's a insightful person, always such a They lied to talk them, said they like for him to have chosen us as a its information technology for him to go pull his data warehouses and completely transformed how I was doing manufacturing across the globe. >>You know, I want to have some color of what you just said because some key keep takeaways that from what you just said, ashes is You know, you're right when you look back at the history of the computer industry used to be very well known processes, but the technology was the big mystery and the and the big risk and you think about with Cove it were it not for Technology Way didn't know what was coming. We were inventing new processes literally every day, every week, every month. It's so technology was pretty well understood. It and enabled that. And when you when you think when we talked earlier about putting data at the core, it was interesting to hear Robbie. He basically said, Yeah, we had a big data team in the U. S. A big tainted TV in Europe. We actually organized around silos and and so you guys played a role you were very respectful about, you know, touting active video with him. You did ask him, You know what role you play, But it is interesting to hear and talk about how he had to address that both culturally. And of course, there's technology underneath to enable that unification of data that silo busting, if you will. And you guys played a role in that. >>Yeah, I always enjoy, um, conversation with folks who have taken a problem, identified what needs to be done and then just get it done. And its That's more fascinating than you. Of course, I video plays a small part in a lot of things, and we're proud to have played a small part in his big initiative, and that's true of know the thousands of customers we talk about. But it's such a fascinating story to have leaders who come back and make this transformation happen, and to understand how they went about making those decisions, how they identified where the problem with these are so hard. We all see them in our own life, right? We see there is a there's a problem, but sometimes it takes a wider don't understand. How do you identify them and what do you have to do and more importantly, actually do it? And so whenever use, whenever I get an opportunity with people like Robbie, I think understanding that there's a way to help, uh, we always make sure that we play our own small part, and we're privileged to be a part of those kinds of journeys. >>Well, I think what's interesting about activity on the company that you created is essentially that. We're talking about the democratisation of data, that whole data pipeline, that discussion, that we had the self service of that data to the lines of business and, you know, you guys clearly play a role there. The multi cloud discussion fits into that. I mean that these air all trends that are tail winds for companies that can that can help sort of you know, flattened the data globe. If you if you will, your final thoughts. >>Yeah, I know you said something that is so much at the heart of every idea Exactly that you're talking to, if they truly is. The fundamental asset that I finally end up with is an organization. The democratization of data. Where I do not lock this into another silo, another platform, another ploughed. Another application has to be part of my foundation design and therefore my ability to use each of this cloud platform for the services they provide. While I and they were to move the data to where I needed to be. That is so critical. So you almost start to think about the one possession and organization now has. And we talked about this with a group of CEOs. They might be some pretty soon. Not too far off, but data stolen asset. I might actually have our data mark data market, just like you. I was stopped working, but I can start to sell my data. You know, imagine a coup in 19. There's so many organization that have so much data, and many of them have contributed to this research because this is an existence of issue. But you can see this turning into a next level. So, yes, we've got activities, will move the data toe one level higher where it's become a foundation construct for the organization. The next part is gonna actually done. This is the one asset would actually monetize someone stuff. And it will be not too long when you need to talk about how there's this new exchange and what's the rate of data for this company? Was, is that company in the future trading options? Who knows is gonna be really interesting. >>Well, I think you're right on this notion of a data. Marketplaces is coming, and it's not not that far away, Blash. It's always great to talk to you. I hope next year a data driven weaken we could be face to face. But I mean, look, this has been we we've dealt with it. It's it's actually created opportunities for us toe to reinvent ourselves. So congratulations on the success that you've had and ah, and thank you for coming on the Cube. >>No, thank you for hosting us and always a big fan off Cube. You guys, you engage with you since early days, and it is fascinating to see how this company has grown. And it's probably many people don't even know how much you've grown behind the seats, technologies and culture that you created yourself. So it's hopefully one day we'll strict the table that I would be another side and asking of our transformation. Digital transformation of Cuban cell >>I would love to. I'd love to do that index again. And thank you, everybody for watching our continuous coverage of active fio data driven keeper Right there. We'll be back with our next guest right after this short break. >>Thank you.