>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCube covering Blockchain Week. Now here's John Furrier. (uptempo techno music) >> Hello everyone, welcome back. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCube. We're here in New York City for Blockchain Week New York as well as Consensus 2018. You're watching theCube. We've got two great guests here. Cube alumni Al Burgio has been on many times. Hot start ups, Digitalbits. He's got a great project, and it's really getting a lot of traction. Been there before, fellow entrepreneur. He's got big news and he's with Jaime Leverton, general manager, VP in Canada and APAC for Cogeco Peer 1. Saw the press release, congratulations Al. >> Thank you, thank you John. >> Jaime, welcome to New York. >> Thank you very much. >> So Al, talk about the deal that you did with these guys. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> News went out so what's significant about it? >> I think it's very significant to the Blockchain space. In a lot of respect it's very powerful technology that a lot of people speak of when it comes to distributed ledger technology. But in some respects with regards to let's say certain industry it's still just starting to work its way into the space. We basically are trying to drive innovation at multiple levels, and we can achieve that with the support of great partners like Cogeco Peer 1. I'll let Jaime explain what they do, but from a partnership perspective. You can think of what we've created at Digitalbits really is this open source technology that we want many people to consume, not just consumers but the enterprises, SaaS companies and so forth. So a lot of those companies live in Cogeco data centers worldwide. And so they're a natural partner for us. They are a company we always see in the forefront of innovation, and they're doing it with Blockchain. So really excited to have them as a partner. >> Jaime, I want you to take a minute to explain what you guys do, and how that fits into Blockchain. >> I think it fits in incredibly well. So for those of you not familiar with Cogeco Peer 1. We own and operate a global network, so we have our own connectivity, as well as 16 data centers globally. We have our own private cloud. We partner with the hyperscale public clouds. We have managed hosting, co-location. We work with 6500 enterprise customers around the world who live in our data centers or on our networks. And we really believe that Blockchain is the future, and there is no better place for it to live than an infrastructure like ours. >> Cloud computing was always poo-poo. Oh cloud computing, no one will ever give up their data centers and hosting and cloud came together. But that drove a lot of growth. The same thing is happening now with these networks. You're seeing Blockchain needs to run on something. Just like the old argument was cloud is going to kill the server business. Well servers still need to be bought. So blockchain needs to run somewhere. >> Absolutely. >> On servers. >> Yeah. >> So some decentralized servers but some big ones too. >> Right. >> Is that how you see it? Is it actually what I'm seeing happening out here? >> That is exactly how we see it, and I feel very blessed for the infrastructure that we built. The reputation that we have in this industry which is literally perfectly poised to support web 3.0 and everything that is coming. Starting with partnerships like this. >> Al, I want to get your thoughts about. You know the networking business. You've done a couple start ups in the area and trends. You've done all that stuff. You guys just did some news out there where they're spinning up. Something we saw what happen with Stellar. >> Yeah. >> Okay, can you explain this nuance point 'cause it's an inside baseball geeky thing. >> Yeah. >> But it's really significant for the industry. >> Well at the end of the day, everyone is talking about enterprise adoption, enterprise adoption. But as we've just discussed. The enterprise today, the hardware is not their possession anymore. And so, they don't need to be the only organization to be able to support what the enterprise wants us to do or even a SaaS company. Many, in fact the majority SaaS companies don't manage their own hardware either. And they're relying on cog dividers to provide that compute storage and so forth. So there needs to be that proficiency. And almost like a standard, and not necessarily one. Let's say Linux is a standard. Windows is, there's different flavors of Linux. There's database technologies and so on. But whichever they're choosing to use. It needs to be supported at every layer of that digital supply chain. And we are basically, we see that. >> John: Yeah. >> And we're working with partners at every level there. The ones that we know get it. Really understand compute and network. 'Cause it's very important. >> We're in the hallway here. We're in the middle of the floor here at Consensus. So we've been hearing a lot of hallway chatter. And I always like to eavesdrop, being the journalist reporter guy that I try to be, as you know. But I hear a lot of things. One thing I heard all week consistently is that I'm going to spin up some Blockchain nodes. So it reminds me of the old days of spinning up clusters. Like storage clusters. So this notion of spinning up a Blockchain cluster I've heard or I've heard provisioning clusters or what does that mean? To spin up a Blockchain. Is it that trend that we're seeing? >> If it is a primitive Blockchain. Bitcoin for example, it's the grandfather of all let's say blockchains that we're familiar with or this era is familiar with. It does a few things. Processes transactions, anybody could spin up one and what have you, but if you want to take something and make it enterprise great. There needs to be APIs. You need to be able to know how to integrate. Consume those APIs and so forth. And so not every company is going to know how to do this. There's a gap. There's a shortage of Blockchain engineers. There's a shortage of engineers period that understand this stuff. So it has to be supported. It has to be supported. There needs to be companies that can support the enterprise to consume those. So spinning up is easy for an engineer that's efficient in Blockchain to say. Yeah, we're spinning up nodes. We're going to take our work really hard. Purchase hardware, deploy it, ship it many, many, many months. Maybe they'll use Amazon if that's well suited for them or some other platform provider like Cogeco or what have you. But the challenge is what's everyone else going to do? If they're not proficient at technology, they need partners that get it. And that's where managed cloud comes in, and that's where we're very focused. >> So what does this mean for Digitalbits and your project? I'm just trying to squint through it. It's nerdy, geeky stuff but I like it. It's networking but now you got a project called Digitalbits. You got some horsepower with the Cogeco deal, so you spin up Blockchain I can imagine. What does it mean for the Digitalbits project and the impact of what you're trying to do? >> It's an open source project, and from our perspective, we want to see many, many enterprises, and many, many SaaS and other organizations use this technology. It's not going to just happen. You don't just build it and they will come. So you need strategic partners that see the value in it. Whether directly or through lines of business that they have. And co-evangelizing this technology and supporting the enterprise and their consumption. And so again, partners like Cogeco really help us create that new standard of technology that they can consume and it becomes mainstream this way. >> Jaime, what's your take on this? Obviously you did a deal with these guys. What was the benefit of you doing it? Also your customers moving in the direction of having a decentralized application set of infrastructure to provide power the next generation. Why this deal? Why these guys? >> I think when we look at who we partner with and build out our ecosystem. It's really about the relationship with the individuals behind it. We're very much about trust. We've worked with Al before. We believe in his vision. We know that he goes at projects with passion and integrity. And ultimately the reason we did this with Digitalbits is because we believe in what Al's doing, and his track record. >> Well he knows technology. He's also been a successful entrepreneur. >> And he understands networks, sorry to jump in, but really understanding that the power of the cloud is only as good as the power of the network. And the closer you can bring those things together that's where the magic really happens, and no one understands that better than Al. And when you look to build that Blockchain going forward, that's what you need. That's the power that you have to be able to harness, and we don't have to educate him. Jaime, you've been doing a lot of innovative things. We were just talking before we came on camera. You got an innovation award last night in Ottawa. You couldn't make it down for the big party we had last night. >> I'm sorry I missed that party. >> With Jeff Besos' brother. It's really, really cool. What are you doing at innovative that you can share. I love what you're doing. It's great work. What are some of the innovation things that you're proud of that you can take a moment to share? >> We've partnered a lot with the incubators in Canada. So really working with start ups, next generations technology, supporting the people that we think are going to build the future. So that's where we put all of our attention as oppose to on a traditional large enterprise focus. Our focus is NextGen emerging incubators. We've had a lot of success in the gaming industry with artificial intelligence, which is really booming in Canada. Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto are creating incredible new companies focused on AI. A lot of them are partnered with us in our data centers and using our technologies. So really I just see us continuing to push further and further as the industry moves. We want to be there moving with it. >> Are you going to be on the Canadian boat tonight I call it the Canadian--? >> Yes, I'm going to be on the Canadian boat tonight. >> The Do-rio yacht. >> That's right, yes. Hopefully the rain subsides, but yeah I'll be on the boat. >> Great, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. Al, congratulations on the news. Big news from Digitalbits open source project. Gaining steam, really disrupting the old loyalty platforms as one of its used cases. Check it out at Digitalbits. Any URL you want to share Al for the project? Digitalbits.io. You're watching theCube. I'm John Furrier, your host here in New York all week for Blockchain Week. Thanks for watching. (uptempo techno music)

>>Hi everyone. Welcome to our event, pure Storage, the Path to Sustainable It. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to welcome back one of our cube alumni. AJ Singh joins me, the Chief Product Officer at Peer Storage. Aj, it's great to have you back on the program. >>Great to be back on, Lisa. Good morning. >>Good morning. And sustainability is such an important topic to talk about. So we're gonna really unpack what PI's doing. We're gonna get your viewpoints on what you're saying, and you're gonna leave the audience with some recommendations on how they can get started on our ESG journey. First question, we've been hearing a lot from pure RJ about the role that technology plays in organizations achieving sustainability goals. What's been the biggest environmental impact associated with, with customers achieving that given the massive volumes of data that keep being generated? >>Absolutely. Lisa, you can imagine that the data is only growing and exploding and, and, and, and there's a good reason for it. You know, data is the new currency. Some people call it the new oil. And the opportunity to go process this data gain insights is really helping customers drive an edge in the digital transformation. It's gonna make a difference between them being on the leaderboard a decade from now, when the digital transformation kind of pans out versus, you know, being kind of somebody that, you know, quite missed the boat. So data is super critical and, and obviously as part of that, we see all these big benefits, but it has to be stored. And, and, and that means it's gonna consume a lot of resources and, and the, and therefore data center usage has only accelerated, right? You can imagine the amount of data being generated, you know, a recent study pointed to roughly by twenty twenty five, a hundred and seventy five zetabytes, which where each zettabyte is a billion terabytes. So just think of that size and scale data. That's huge. And, and they also say that, you know, pretty soon, today, in fact, in the developed world, every person is having an interaction with the data center literally every 18 seconds. So whether it's on Facebook or Twitter or you know, your email, people are constantly interacting with data. So you can imagine this data is only exploding. It has to be stored and it consumes a lot of energy. In fact, >>It out, oh, go ahead. Sorry. >>No, I was saying in fact, you know, there was some studies have shown that data center usage literally consumes one to 2% of global energy consumption. So if there's one place we could really help climate change and, and all those aspects, if you can kind of really, you know, tamp down the data center, energy consumption, sorry, you were saying, >>I was just gonna say, it's, it's an incredibly important topic and the, the, the stats on data that you provided. And also I, I like how you talked about, you know, every 18 seconds we're interacting with a data center, whether we know it or not, we think about the long term implications, the fact that data is growing massively. As you shared with the stats that you mentioned, if we think about though the responsibility that companies have, every company in today's world needs to be a data company, right? And we consumers expect it. We expect that you are gonna deliver these relevant, personalized experiences, whether we're doing a transaction in our personal lives or in business. But what is the, what requirements do technology companies have to really start billing down their carbon footprints? >>No, absolutely. If you gonna think about it, just to kind of finish up the data story a little bit, the explosion is to the point where, in fact, if you just recently was in the news that Ireland went up and said, sorry, we can't have any more data centers here. We just don't have the power to supply them. That was big in the news. And you know, all the hyperscale that's crashing the head, I know they've come around that and figured out a way around it, but it's getting there. Some, some organizations and areas jurisdictions are saying pretty much no data center the law, you know, we're, we just can't do it. And so, as you said, so companies like Pure, I mean, our view is that it has an opportunity here to really do our bit for climate change and be able to, you know, drive a sustainable environment. >>And, and at Pure we believe that, you know, today's data success really ultimately hinges on energy efficiency, you know, so to to really be energy efficient means you are gonna be successful long term with data. Because if you think of classic data infrastructures, the legacy infrastructures, you know, we've got disc infrastructures, hybrid infrastructures, flash infrastructures, low end systems, medium end systems, high end systems. So a lot of silos, you know, a lot of inefficiency across the silos. Cause the data doesn't get used across that. In fact, you know, today a lot of data centers are not really built with kind of the efficiency and environmental mindsets. So they're the big opportunity there. >>So aj, talk to me about some of the steps that Pure is implementing as its chief product officer. Would love to get your your thoughts, what steps is it implementing to help Pures customers become more sustainable? >>No, absolutely. So essentially we're all inherently motivated, like pure and, and, and, and everybody else to solve problems for customers and really forward the status quo, right? You know, innovation, you know, that's what we were all about. And while we are doing that, the challenge is to how do you make technology and the data we feed into it faster, smarter, scalable obviously, but more importantly sustainable. But you can do all of that. But if you miss the sustainability bit, you're kind of missing the boat. And I also feel from an ethical perspective, that's really important for us, not only to do all the other things, but also kind of make it sustainable. In fact, today 80% of the companies, the companies are realizing this, 80% today are in fact report out on sustainability, which is, is great. And in fact, 80% of leadership at companies, you know, CEOs and senior executives say they've been impacted by some climate change event. >>You know, whether it's a fire in the place they had to evacuate or floods or storms or hurricanes, you, you name it, right? So mitigating the carbon impact can in fact today be a competitive advantage for companies because that's where the puck is going and everybody's, you know, is skating, wanting to skate towards the buck. And it's good, it's good business too, to be sustainable and, and, and meet these, you know, customer requirements. In fact, the the recent survey that we released today is saying that more and more organizations are kickstarting, their sustainability initiatives and many take are aiming to make a significant progress against that over the next decade. So that's, that's really, you know, part of the big, the relief. So our view is that that IT infrastructure, you know, can really make a big push towards greener it and not just gonna greenwash it, but actually, you know, you know, make things more greener and, and, and really take the, the lead in, in esg. And so it's important that organizations can reach alignment with their IT teams and challenge their IT teams to continue to lead, you know, for the organization, the sustainability aspects. >>I'm curious, aj, when you're in customer conversations, are you seeing that it's really the C-suite plus it coming together and, and how does peer help facilitate that? To your point, it needs to be able to deliver this, but it's, it's a board level objective these days. >>Absolutely. We're seeing increasingly, especially in Europe with the, you know, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that, you know, that's, that's, you know, unleashed we definitely see is becoming a bigger and bigger board level objective for, for a lot of companies. And we definitely see customers in starting to do that. So, so in particular, I do want to touch briefly on what steps we are taking as a company, you know, to to to make it sustainable. And obviously customers are doing all the things we talked about and, and, and we're also helping them become smarter with data. But the key difference is, you know, we have a big focus on efficiency, which is really optimizing performance for what with unmatched storage entities. So you can reduce the footprint and dramatically lower the power required. And and how efficient is that? You know, compared to other old flash systems, we tend to be one fifth, we tend to take one fifth the power compared to other flash systems and substantially lower compared to spinning dis. >>So you can imagine, you know, cutting your, if data center consumption is say 2% of global consumption, roughly 40% of that tends to be storage cause of all the spinning disc. So you at about, you know, 0.8% of global consumption and if you can cut that by four fifths, you know, you can already start to make an impact. So, so we feel we can do that. And also we're quite a bit more denser, 10 times more denser. So imagine one fifth the power, one 10th the density, but then we take it a step further because okay, you've got the storage system in the data center, but what about the end of life aspect? What about the waste and reclamation? So we also have something called non-disruptive upgrades where using our AI technology in pure one, we can start to sense when a particular part is going to fail and just before it goes through failure, we actually replace it in a non-disruptive fashion. So customers data is not impacted and then we recycle that so you get a full end to end life cycle, you know, from all the way from the time you deploy much lower power, much lower density, but then also at the back end in a reduction in e-waste and those kind of things. >>That's a great point you that you bring up in terms of the reclamation process. It sounds like Pure does that on its own. The customer doesn't have to be involved in that. >>That's right. And we do that, it's a part of our evergreen, you know, service that we offer. A lot of customers sign up for the service and in fact they don't even, we tell them, Hey, you know, that part's about to go, we're gonna come in, we're gonna swap it out and, and then we actually recycle that part. >>The power of ai. I love that. What are some of the, the things that companies can do if they're, if they're early in this journey on sustainability, what are some of the specific steps companies can take to get started and maybe accelerate that journey as it's becoming climate change and things are becoming just more and more of a, of a daily topic on the news? >>No, absolutely. There's a lot of things companies can do. In fact, the four four item that we're gonna highlight, the first one is, you know, they can just start by doing a materiality assessment and a materiality assessment essentially engages all the stakeholders to find out which specific issues are important for the business, right? So you identify your key priorities that intersect with what the stakeholders want, you know, your different groups from sales, customers, partners, you know, different departments in the organization. And for example, for us, when we conducted our materiality assessment, for us, our product we felt was the biggest area of focus that could contribute a lot towards, you know, making an impact in, in, in, from a sustainability standpoint. That's number one. I think number two companies will also think about taking an Azure service approach. The beauty of the Azure service approach is that you are buying a cardio customer, they're buying outcomes with SLAs and, and when you are starting to buy outcomes with SLAs, you can start small and then grow as you consume more. >>So that way you don't have systems sitting idle waiting for you to consume more, right? And that's the beauty of the Azure service approach. And so for example, for us, you know, we have something called Evergreen one, which is our as a service offer, where essentially customers are able to only use and have systems thrown onto as much as they're consuming. So, so that reduces the waste associated with underutilized systems, right? That's number two. Number three is also you can optimize your supply chains end to end, right? Basically by making sure you're moving, recycling, packaging and eliminating waste in that thing so you can recycle it back to your suppliers. And you can also choose a sustainable supplier network that's following sort of good practices, you know, you know, across the globe and such. Supply chains that are responsive and diverse can really help you also the business benefit that you can also handle surge in demand, for example, for us during the pandemic with these global supply chain shortages, you know, whereas most of our competitors, you know, lead time went to 40, 50 weeks, our lead times went from three to six weeks cuz you know, we had this sustainable, you know, supply chain. >>And so all of these things, you know, the three things are important, but the four thing I say is more cultural and, and the cultural thing is how do you actually begin to have sustainability become a core part of your ethos as a company, you know, across all the departments, you know, and we've at Pure, definitely it's big for us, you know, you know, around sustainability starting with a product design, but all other the areas as well. So if you follow those four items, they, they're the great place to start. >>That's great advice, great recommendations. You talk about the, the, the supply chain, sustainable supply chain optimization. We've been having a lot of conversations with businesses and vendors alike about that and how important it is. You bring up a great point too on supplier diversity. We could have a whole conversation on that. Yes. But I'm also glad Oji, that you brought up culture that's huge to, for organizations to adopt an ESG strategy and really drive sustainability in their business and has to become, to your point, part of their ethos. It's challenging. Cultural change management is challenging. Although I think with climate change and the things that are so public, it's, it's more on, on the top mindset folks. But it's a great point that the organization really as a whole needs to embrace the sustainability mindset so that it as a, as an organization lives and breathes that. Yes. My last question for you is advice. So you, you outlined the four Steps organizations can take. I look how you made that quite simple. What advice would you give organizations who are on that journey to adopting those, those actions, as you said, as they look to really build and deploy and execute an ESG strategy? >>No, absolutely. And so obviously, you know, the advice is gonna come from, you know, a company like Pure, you know, our background kind of, of being a supplier of products. And so, you know, our advice is for companies that have products, usually they tend to be the biggest generator, the products that you sell to your customers, especially if they've got hardware components in it. But, you know, the biggest generator of e-waste and, and and, and, and, and kind of from a sustainability standpoint. So it's really important to have an intentional design approach towards your products with sustainability in mind. So it's not something that's, that you kinda handle at the very back end. You design it upfront in the product and so that sustainable design becomes very intentional. So for us, for example, doing these non-disruptive upgrades had to be designed upfront so that, you know, a, you know, one of our repair person could go into a customer shop and be able to pull out a card and put in a new card without any change in the customer system. >>That non-disruptive approach, it has to be designed into the hardware software systems to be able to pull that on. And that intentional design enabled you to recover pieces just when they're about to fail and then putting them through a recovery, you know, waste recovery process. So that, that's kind of the one thing I would say that philosophy, again, it comes down to if that is, you know, seeping into the culture, into your core ethos, you will start to do, you know, the, you know, that type of work. So, so I mean it's an important thing, you know, look, this year, you know, with the spike in energy prices, you know, you know, gas prices going up, it's super important that all of us, you know, do our bit in there and start to drive products that are fundamentally sustainable, not just at the initial, you know, install point, but from an end to end full life cycle standpoint. >>Absolutely. And I love that you brought up intention that is everything that PI's doing is with, with such thought and intention and really for organizations and any industry to become more sustainable, to develop an ESG strategy. To your point, it all needs to start with intention. And of course that that cultural adoption, aj, it's been so great to have you on the program talking about what PEER is doing to help organizations really navigate that path to sustainable it. We appreciate your insights on your time. >>Thank you, Lisa. Pleasure being on board. >>Great to have you. For AJ saying, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching this special event, peer Storage, the Path to Sustainable It.

>>In the early part of this century, we're talking about the 2005 to 2007 timeframe. There was a lot of talk about so-called green it. And at that time there was some organizational friction. Like for example, the line was that the CIO never saw the power bill, so he or she didn't care, or that the facilities folks, they rarely talked to the IT department. So it was kind of that split brain. And, and then the oh 7 0 8 financial crisis really created an inflection point in a couple of ways. First, it caused organizations to kind of pump the brakes on it spending, and then they took their eye off the sustainability ball. And the second big trend, of course, was the cloud model, you know, kind of became a benchmark for it. Simplicity and automation and efficiency, the ability to dial down and dial up capacity as needed. >>And the third was by the end of the first decade of the, the two thousands, the technology of virtualization was really hitting its best stride. And then you had innovations like flash storage, which largely eliminated the need for these massive farms of spinning mechanical devices that sucked up a lot of power. And so really these technologies began their march to mainstream adoption. And as we progressed through the 2020s, the effect of climate change really come into focus as a critical component of esg. Environmental, social, and governance. Shareholders have come to demand metrics around sustainability. Employees are often choosing employers based on their ESG posture. And most importantly, companies are finding that savings on power cooling and footprint, it has a bottom line impact on the income statement. Now you add to that the energy challenges around the world, particularly facing Europe right now, the effects of global inflation and even more advanced technologies like machine intelligence. >>And you've got a perfect storm where technology can really provide some relief to organizations. Hello and welcome to the Path to Sustainable It Made Possible by Pure Storage and Collaboration with the Cube. My name is Dave Valante and I'm one of the host of the program, along with my colleague Lisa Martin. Now, today we're gonna hear from three leaders on the sustainability topic. First up, Lisa will talk to Nicole Johnson. She's the head of Social Impact and Sustainability at Pure Storage. Nicole will talk about the results from a study of around a thousand sustainability leaders worldwide, and she'll share some metrics from that study. And then next, Lisa will speak to AJ Singh. He's the Chief Product Officer at Pure Storage. We've had had him on the cube before, and not only will he share some useful stats in the market, I'll also talk about some of the technology innovations that customers can tap to address their energy consumption, not the least of which is ai, which is is entering every aspect of our lives, including how we deal with energy consumption. And then we'll bring it back to our Boston studio and go north of Italy with Mattia Ballero of Elec Informatica, a services provider with deep expertise on the topic of sustainability. We hope you enjoyed the program today. Thanks for watching. Let's get started >>At Pure Storage, the opportunity for change and our commitment to a sustainable future are a direct reflection of the way we've always operated and the values we live by every day. We are making significant and immediate impact worldwide through our environmental sustainability efforts. The milestones of change can be seen everywhere in everything we do. Pure's Evergreen Storage architecture delivers two key environmental benefits to customers, the reduction of wasted energy and the reduction of e-waste. Additionally, Pure's implemented a series of product packaging redesigns, promoting recycled and reuse in order to reduce waste that will not only benefit our customers, but also the environment. Pure is committed to doing what is right and leading the way with innovation. That has always been the pure difference, making a difference by enabling our customers to drive out energy usage and their data storage systems by up to 80%. Today, more than 97% of pure arrays purchased six years ago are still in service. And tomorrow our goal for the future is to reduce Scope three. Emissions Pure is committing to further reducing our sold products emissions by 66% per petabyte by 2030. All of this means what we said at the beginning, change that is simple and that is what it has always been about. Pure has a vision for the future today, tomorrow, forever. >>Hi everyone, welcome to this special event, pure Storage, the Path to Sustainable it. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to be joined by Nicole Johnson, the head of Social Impact and Sustainability at Pure Storage. Nicole, welcome to the Cube. Thanks >>For having me, Lisa. >>Sustainability is such an important topic to talk about and I understand that Pure just announced a report today about sustainability. What can you tell me what nuggets are in this report? >>Well, actually quite a few really interesting nuggets, at least for us. And I, I think probably for you and your viewers as well. So we actually commissioned about a thousand sustainability leaders across the globe to understand, you know, what are their sustainability goals, what are they working on, and what are the impacts of buying decisions, particularly around infrastructure when it comes to sustainable goals. I think one of the things that was really interesting for us was the fact that around the world we did not see a significant variation in terms of sustainability being a top priority. You've, I'm sure you've heard about the energy crisis that's happening across Europe. And so, you know, there was some thought that perhaps that might play into AMEA being a larger, you know, having sustainability goals that were more significant. But we actually did not find that we found sustainability to be really important no matter where the respondents were located. >>So very interesting at Pure sustainability is really at the heart of what we do and has been since our founding. It's interesting because we set out to make storage really simple, but it turns out really simple is also really sustainable. And the products and services that we bring to our customers have really powerful outcomes when it comes to decreasing their, their own carbon footprints. And so, you know, we often hear from customers that we've actually really helped them to significantly improve their storage performance, but also allow them to save on space power and cooling costs and, and their footprint. So really significant findings. One example of that is a company called Cengage, which is a global education technology company. They recently shared with us that they have actually been able to reduce their overall storage footprint by 80% while doubling to tripling the performance of their storage systems. So it's really critical for, for companies who are thinking about their sustainability goals, to consider the dynamic between their sustainability program and their IT teams who are making these buying decisions, >>Right? Those two teams need to be really inextricably linked these days. You talked about the fact that there was really consistency across the regions in terms of sustainability being of high priority for organizations. You had a great customer story that you shared that showed significant impact can be made there by bringing the sustainability both together with it. But I'm wondering why are we seeing that so much of the vendor selection process still isn't revolving around sustainability or it's overlooked? What are some of the things that you received despite so many people saying sustainability, huge priority? >>Well, in this survey, the most commonly cited challenge was really around the fact that there was a lack of management buy-in. 40% of respondents told us this was the top roadblock. So getting, I think getting that out of the way. And then we also just heard that sustainability teams were not brought into tech purchasing processes until after it's already rolling, right? So they're not even looped in. And that being said, you know, we know that it has been identified as one of the key departments to supporting a company sustainability goals. So we, we really want to ensure that these two teams are talking more to each other. When we look even closer at the data from the respondents, we see some really positive correlations. We see that 65% of respondents reported that they're on track to meet their sustainability goals. And the IT of those 65%, it is significantly engaged with reporting data for those sustainability initiatives. We saw that, that for those who did report, the sustainability is a top priority for vendor selection. They were twice as likely to be on track with their goals and their sustainability directors said that they were getting involved at the beginning of the tech purchasing program. Our process, I'm sorry, rather than towards the end. And so, you know, we know that to curb the impact of climate crisis, we really need to embrace sustainability from a cross-functional viewpoint. >>Definitely has to be cross-functional. So, so strong correlations there in the report that organizations that had closer alignment between the sustainability folks and the IT folks were farther along in their sustainability program development, execution, et cetera, those co was correlations, were they a surprise? >>Not entirely. You know, when we look at some of the statistics that come from the, you know, places like the World Economic Forum, they say that digitization generated 4% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. So, and that, you know, that's now almost three years ago, digital data only accelerates, and by 2025, we expect that number could be almost double. And so we know that that communication and that correlation is gonna be really important because data centers are taking up such a huge footprint of when companies are looking at their emissions. And it's, I mean, quite frankly, a really interesting opportunity for it to be a trailblazer in the sustainability journey. And, you know, perhaps people that are in IT haven't thought about how they can make an impact in this area, but there really is some incredible ways to help us work on cutting carbon emissions, both from your company's perspective and from the world's perspective, right? >>Like we are, we're all doing this because it's something that we know we have to do to drive down climate change. So I think when you, when you think about how to be a trailblazer, how to do things differently, how to differentiate your own department, it's a really interesting connection that IT and sustainability work together. I would also say, you know, I'll just note that of the respondents to the survey we were discussing, we do over half of those respondents expect to see closer alignment between the organization's IT and sustainability teams as they move forward. >>And that's really a, a tip a hat to those organizations embracing cultural change. That's always hard to do, but for those two, for sustainability in IT to come together as part of really the overall ethos of an organization, that's huge. And it's great to see the data demonstrating that, that those, that alignment, that close alignment is really on its way to helping organizations across industries make a big impact. I wanna dig in a little bit to here's ESG goals. What can you share with us about >>That? Absolutely. So as I mentioned peers kind of at the beginning of our formal ESG journey, but really has been working on the, on the sustainability front for a long time. I would, it's funny as we're, as we're doing a lot of this work and, and kind of building our own profile around this, we're coming back to some of the things that we have done in the past that consumers weren't necessarily interested in then but are now because the world has changed, becoming more and more invested in. So that's exciting. So we did a baseline scope one, two, and three analysis and discovered, interestingly enough that 70% of our emissions comes from use of sold products. So our customers work running our products in their data centers. So we know that we, we've made some ambitious goals around our Scope one and two emissions, which is our own office, our utilities, you know, those, they only account for 6% of our emissions. So we know that to really address the issue of climate change, we need to work on the use of sold products. So we've also made a, a really ambitious commitment to decrease our carbon emissions by 66% per bed per petabyte by 2030 in our product. So decreasing our own carbon footprint, but also affecting our customers as well. And we've also committed to a science-based target initiative and our road mapping how to achieve the ambitious goals set out in the Paris agreement. >>That's fantastic. It sounds like you really dialed in on where is the biggest opportunity for us as Pure Storage to make the biggest impact across our organization, across our customers organizations. There lofty goals that pure set, but knowing what I know about Pure, you guys are probably well on track to, to accomplish those goals in record time, >>I hope So. >>Talk a little bit about advice that you would give to viewers who might be at the very beginning of their sustainability journey and really wondering what are the core elements besides it, sustainability, team alignment that I need to bring into this program to make it actually successful? >>Yeah, so I think, you know, understanding that you don't have to pick between really powerful technology and sustainable technology. There are opportunities to get both and not just in storage right in, in your entire IT portfolio. We know that, you know, we're in a place in the world where we have to look at things from the bigger picture. We have to solve new challenges and we have to approach business a little bit differently. So adopting solutions and services that are environmentally efficient can actually help to scale and deliver more effective and efficient IT solutions over time. So I think that that's something that we need to, to really remind ourselves, right? We have to go about business a little bit differently and that's okay. We also know that data centers utilize an incredible amount of, of energy and, and carbon. And so everything that we can do to drive that down is going to address the sustainability goals for us individually as well as, again, drive down that climate change. So we, we need to get out of the mindset that data centers are, are about reliability or cost, et cetera, and really think about efficiency and carbon footprint when you're making those business decisions. I'll also say that, you know, the earlier that we can get sustainability teams into the conversation, the more impactful your business decisions are going to be and helping you to guide sustainable decision making. >>So shifting sustainability and IT left almost together really shows that the correlation between those folks getting together in the beginning with intention, the report shows and the successes that peers had demonstrate that that's very impactful for organizations to actually be able to implement even the cultural change that's needed for sustainability programs to be successful. My last question for you goes back to that report. You mentioned in there that the data show a lot of organizations are hampered by management buy-in, where sustainability is concerned. How can pure help its customers navigate around those barriers so that they get that management buy-in and they understand that the value in it for >>Them? Yeah, so I mean, I think that for me, my advice is always to speak to hearts and minds, right? And help the management to understand, first of all, the impact right on climate change. So I think that's the kind of hearts piece on the mind piece. I think it's addressing the sustainability goals that these companies have set for themselves and helping management understand how to, you know, how their IT buying decisions can actually really help them to reach these goals. We also, you know, we always run kind of TCOs for customers to understand what is the actual cost of, of the equipment. And so, you know, especially if you're in a, in a location in which energy costs are rising, I mean, I think we're seeing that around the world right now with inflation. Better understanding your energy costs can really help your management to understand the, again, the bigger picture and what that total cost is gonna be. Often we see, you know, that maybe the I the person who's buying the IT equipment isn't the same person who's purchasing, who's paying the, the electricity bills, right? And so sometimes even those two teams aren't talking. And there's a great opportunity there, I think, to just to just, you know, look at it from a more high level lens to better understand what total cost of ownership is. >>That's a great point. Great advice. Nicole, thank you so much for joining me on the program today, talking about the new report that on sustainability that Pure put out some really compelling nuggets in there, but really also some great successes that you've already achieved internally on your own ESG goals and what you're helping customers to achieve in terms of driving down their carbon footprint and emissions. We so appreciate your insights and your thoughts. >>Thank you, Lisa. It's been great speaking with you. >>AJ Singh joins me, the Chief Product Officer at Peer Storage. Aj, it's great to have you back on the program. >>Great to be back on, Lisa, good morning. >>Good morning. And sustainability is such an important topic to talk about. So we're gonna really unpack what PEER is doing, we're gonna get your viewpoints on what you're seeing and you're gonna leave the audience with some recommendations on how they can get started on their ESG journey. First question, we've been hearing a lot from pure AJ about the role that technology plays in organizations achieving sustainability goals. What's been the biggest environmental impact associated with, with customers achieving that given the massive volumes of data that keep being generated? >>Absolutely, Lisa, you can imagine that the data is only growing and exploding and, and, and, and there's a good reason for it. You know, data is the new currency. Some people call it the new oil. And the opportunity to go process this data gain insights is really helping customers drive an edge in the digital transformation. It's gonna make a difference between them being on the leaderboard a decade from now when the digital transformation kind of pans out versus, you know, being kind of somebody that, you know, quite missed the boat. So data is super critical and and obviously as part of that we see all these big benefits, but it has to be stored and, and, and that means it's gonna consume a lot of resources and, and the, and therefore data center usage has only accelerated, right? You can imagine the amount of data being generated, you know, recent study pointed to roughly by twenty twenty five, a hundred and seventy five zetabytes, which where each zettabyte is a billion terabytes. So just think of that size and scale of data. That's huge. And, and they also say that, you know, pretty soon, today, in fact in the developed world, every person is having an interaction with the data center literally every 18 seconds. So whether it's on Facebook or Twitter or you know, your email, people are constantly interacting with data. So you can imagine this data is only exploding. It has to be stored and it consumes a lot of energy. In fact, >>It, oh, go ahead. Sorry. >>No, I was saying in fact, you know, there's some studies have shown that data center usage literally consumes one to 2% of global energy consumption. So if there's one place we could really help climate change and, and all those aspects, if you can kind of really, you know, tamp down the data center, energy consumption, sorry, you were saying, >>I was just gonna say, it's, it's an incredibly important topic and the, the, the stats on data that you provided and also I, I like how you talked about, you know, every 18 seconds we're interacting with a data center, whether we know it or not, we think about the long term implications, the fact that data is growing massively. As you shared with the stats that you mentioned. If we think about though the responsibility that companies have, every company in today's world needs to be a data company, right? And we consumers expect it. We expect that you are gonna deliver these relevant, personalized experiences whether we're doing a transaction in our personal lives or in business. But what is the, what requirements do technology companies have to really start billing down their carbon footprints? >>No, absolutely. If you can think about it, just to kind of finish up the data story a little bit, the explosion is to the point where, in fact, if you just recently was in the news that Ireland went up and said, sorry, we can't have any more data centers here. We just don't have the power to supply them. That was big in the news and you know, all the hyperscale that was crashing the head. I know they've come around that and figured out a way around it, but it's getting there. Some, some organizations and and areas jurisdictions are saying pretty much no data center the law, you know, we're, we just can't do it. And so as you said, so companies like Pure, I mean, our view is that it has an opportunity here to really do our bit for climate change and be able to, you know, drive a sustainable environment. >>And, and at Pure we believe that, you know, today's data success really ultimately hinges on energy efficiency, you know, so to to really be energy efficient means you are gonna be successful long term with data. Because if you think of classic data infrastructures, the legacy infrastructures, you know, we've got disk infrastructures, hybrid infrastructures, flash infrastructures, low end systems, medium end systems, high end systems. So a lot of silos, you know, a lot of inefficiency across the silos. Cause the data doesn't get used across that. In fact, you know, today a lot of data centers are not really built with kind of the efficiency and environmental mindset. So there's a big opportunity there. >>So aj, talk to me about some of the steps that Pure is implementing as its chief product officer. Would love to get your your thoughts, what steps is it implementing to help Pures customers become more sustainable? >>No, absolutely. So essentially we are all inherently motivated, like pure and, and, and, and everybody else to solve problems for customers and really forward the status quo, right? You know, innovation, you know, that's what we are all about. And while we are doing that, the challenge is to how do you make technology and the data we feed into it faster, smarter, scalable obviously, but more importantly sustainable. And you can do all of that, but if you miss the sustainability bit, you're kind of missing the boat. And I also feel from an ethical perspective, that's really important for us. Not only you do all the other things, but also kind of make it sustainable. In fact, today 80% of the companies, the companies are realizing this, 80% today are in fact report out on sustainability, which is great. In fact, 80% of leadership at companies, you know, CEOs and senior executives say they've been impacted by some climate change event, you know, where it's a fire in the place they had to evacuate or floods or storms or hurricanes, you, you name it, right? >>So mitigating the carbon impact can in fact today be a competitive advantage for companies because that's where the puck is going and everybody's, you know, it's skating, wanting to skate towards the, and it's good, it's good business too to be sustainable and, and, and meet these, you know, customer requirements. In fact, the the recent survey that we released today is saying that more and more organizations are kickstarting, their sustainability initiatives and many take are aiming to make a significant progress against that over the next decade. So that's, that's really, you know, part of the big, the really, so our view is that that IT infrastructure, you know, can really make a big push towards greener it and not just kind of greenwash it, but actually, you know, you know, make things more greener and, and, and really take the, the lead in, in esg. And so it's important that organizations can reach alignment with their IT teams and challenge their IT teams to continue to lead, you know, for the organization, the sustainability aspects. >>I'm curious, aj, when you're in customer conversations, are you seeing that it's really the C-suite plus it coming together and, and how does peer help facilitate that? To your point, it needs to be able to deliver this, but it's, it's a board level objective these days. >>Absolutely. We're seeing increasingly, especially in Europe with the, you know, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that, you know, that's, that's, you know, unleashed. We definitely see it's becoming a bigger and bigger board level objective for, for a lot of companies. And we definitely see customers in starting to do that. So, so in particular, I do want to touch briefly on what steps we are taking as a company, you know, to to to make it sustainable. And obviously customers are doing all the things we talked about and, and we're also helping them become smarter with data. But the key difference is, you know, we have a big focus on efficiency, which is really optimizing performance per wat with unmatched storage density. So you can reduce the footprint and dramatically lower the power required. And and how efficient is that? You know, compared to other old flash systems, we tend to be one fifth, we tend to take one fifth the power compared to other flash systems and substantially lower compared to spinning this. >>So you can imagine, you know, cutting your, if data center consumption is a 2% of global consumption, roughly 40% of that tends to be storage cause of all the spinning disc. So you add about, you know, 0.8% to global consumption and if you can cut that by four fifths, you know, you can already start to make an impact. So, so we feel we can do that. And also we're quite a bit more denser, 10 times more denser. So imagine one fifth the power, one 10th the density, but then we take it a step further because okay, you've got the storage system in the data center, but what about the end of life aspect? What about the waste and reclamation? So we also have something called non-disruptive upgrades. We, using our AI technology in pure one, we can start to sense when a particular part is going to fail and just before it goes to failure, we actually replace it in a non-disruptive fashion. So customer's data is not impacted and then we recycle that so you get a full end to end life cycle, you know, from all the way from the time you deploy much lower power, much lower density, but then also at the back end, you know, reduction in e-waste and those kind of things. >>That's a great point you, that you bring up in terms of the reclamation process. It sounds like Pure does that on its own, the customer doesn't have to be involved in that. >>That's right. And we do that, it's a part of our evergreen, you know, service that we offer. A lot of customers sign up for that service and in fact they don't even, we tell them, Hey, you know, that part's about to go, we're gonna come in, we're gonna swap it out and, and then we actually recycle that part, >>The power of ai. Love that. What are some of the, the things that companies can do if they're, if they're early in this journey on sustainability, what are some of the specific steps companies can take to get started and maybe accelerate that journey as it's becoming climate change and things are becoming just more and more of a, of a daily topic on the news? >>No, absolutely. There's a lot of things companies can do. In fact, the four four item that we're gonna highlight, the first one is, you know, they can just start by doing a materiality assessment and a materiality assessment essentially engages all the stakeholders to find out which specific issues are important for the business, right? So you identify your key priorities that intersect with what the stakeholders want, you know, your different groups from sales, customers, partners, you know, different departments in the organization. And for example, for us, when we conducted our materiality assessment, for us, our product we felt was the biggest area of focus that could contribute a lot towards, you know, making an impact in, in, in from a sustainability standpoint. That's number one. I think number two companies can also think about taking an Azure service approach. The beauty of the Azure service approach is that you are buying a, your customer, they're buying outcomes with SLAs and, and when you are starting to buy outcomes with SLAs, you can start small and then grow as you consume more. >>So that way you don't have systems sitting idle waiting for you to consume more, right? And that's the beauty of the as service approach. And so for example, for us, you know, we have something called Evergreen one, which is our as service offer, where essentially customers are able to only use and have systems turned onto as much as they're consuming. So, so that reduces the waste associated with underutilized systems, right? That's number two. Number three is also you can optimize your supply chains end to end, right? Basically by making sure you're moving, recycling, packaging and eliminating waste in that thing so you can recycle it back to your suppliers. And you can also choose a sustainable supplier network that following sort of good practices, you know, you know, across the globe and such supply chains that are responsive and diverse can really help you. Also, the big business benefit benefited. >>You can also handle surges and demand, for example, for us during the pandemic with this global supply chain shortages, you know, whereas most of our competitors, you know, lead times went to 40, 50 weeks, our lead times went from three to six weeks cuz you know, we had this sustainable, you know, supply chain. And so all of these things, you know, the three things important, but the fourth thing I say more cultural and, and the cultural thing is how do you actually begin to have sustainability become a core part of your ethos at the company, you know, across all the departments, you know, and we've at Pure, definitely it's big for us, you know, you know, around sustainability starting with a product design, but all of the areas as well, if you follow those four items, they'll do the great place to start. >>That's great advice, great recommendations. You talk about the, the, the supply chain, sustainable supply chain optimization. We've been having a lot of conversations with businesses and vendors alike about that and how important it is. You bring up a great point too on supplier diversity, if we could have a whole conversation on that. Yes. But I'm also glad that you brought up culture that's huge to, for organizations to adopt an ESG strategy and really drive sustainability in their business. It has to become, to your point, part of their ethos. Yes. It's challenging. Cultural change management is challenging. Although I think with climate change and the things that are so public, it's, it's more on, on the top mindset folks. But it's a great point that the organization really as a whole needs to embrace the sustainability mindset so that it as a, as an organization lives and breathes that. Yes. And last question for you is advice. So you, you outlined the Four Steps organizations can take. I look how you made that quite simple. What advice would you give organizations who are on that journey to adopting those, those actions, as you said, as they look to really build and deploy and execute an ESG strategy? >>No, absolutely. And so obviously, you know, the advice is gonna come from, you know, a company like Pure, you know, our background kind of being a supplier of products. And so, you know, our advice is for companies that have products, usually they tend to be the biggest generator, the products that you sell to your, your customers, especially if they've got hardware components in it. But, you know, the biggest generator of e-waste and, and and, and, and, and kind of from a sustainability standpoint. So it's really important to have an intentional design approach towards your products with sustainability in mind. So it's not something that's, that you can handle at the very back end. You design it front in the product and so that sustainable design becomes very intentional. So for us, for example, doing these non-disruptive upgrades had to be designed up front so that, you know, a, you know, one of our repair person could go into a customer shop and be able to pull out a card and put in a new card without any change in the customer system. >>That non-receptive approach, it has to be designed into the hardware software systems to be able to pull that on. And that intentional design enables you to recover pieces just when they're about to fail and then putting them through a recovery, you know, waste recovery process. So that, that's kind of the one thing I would say that philosophy, again, it comes down to if that is, you know, seeping into the culture, into your core ethos, you will start to do, you know, you know, that type of work. So, so I mean it's important thing, you know, look, this year, you know, with the spike in energy prices, you know, you know, gas prices going up, it's super important that all of us, you know, do our bit in there and start to drive products that are fundamentally sustainable, not just at the initial, you know, install point, but from an end to end full life cycle standpoint. >>Absolutely. And I love that you brought up intention that is everything that peers doing is with, with such thought and intention and really for organizations and any industry to become more sustainable, to develop an ESG strategy. To your point, it all needs to start with intention. And of course that that cultural adoption, aj, it's been so great to have you on the program talking about what PEER is doing to help organizations really navigate that path to sustainable it. We appreciate your insights on your time. >>Thank you, Lisa. Pleasure being on board >>At Pure Storage. The opportunity for change and our commitment to a sustainable future are a direct reflection of the way we've always operated and the values we live by every day. We are making significant and immediate impact worldwide through our environmental sustainability efforts. The milestones of change can be seen everywhere in everything we do. Pures Evergreen storage architecture delivers two key environmental benefits to customers, the reduction of wasted energy and the reduction of e-waste. Additionally, pures implemented a series of product packaging redesigns, promoting recycle and reuse in order to reduce waste that will not only benefit our customers, but also the environment. Pure is committed to doing what is right and leading the way with innovation. That has always been the pure difference, making a difference by enabling our customers to drive out energy usage and their data storage systems by up to 80% today, more than 97% of Pure Array purchased six years ago are still in service. And tomorrow our goal for the future is to reduce Scope three emissions Pure is committing to further reducing our sold products emissions by 66% per petabyte by 2030. All of this means what we said at the beginning, change that is simple and that is what it has always been about. Pure has a vision for the future today, tomorrow, forever. >>We're back talking about the path to sustainable it and now we're gonna get the perspective from Mattia Valerio, who is with Elec Informatica and IT services firm and the beautiful Lombardi region of Italy north of Milano. Mattia, welcome to the Cube. Thanks so much for coming on. >>Thank you very much, Dave. Thank you. >>All right, before we jump in, tell us a little bit more about Elec Informatica. What's your focus, talk about your unique value add to customers. >>Yeah, so basically Alma Informatica is middle company from the north part of Italy and is managed service provider in the IT area. Okay. So the, the main focus area of Al Meca is reach digital transformation innovation to our clients with focus on infrastructure services, workplace services, and also cybersecurity services. Okay. And we try to follow the path of our clients to the digital transformation and the innovation through technology and sustainability. >>Yeah. Obviously very hot topics right now. Sustainability, environmental impact, they're growing areas of focus among leaders across all industries. A particularly acute right now in, in Europe with the, you know, the energy challenges you've talked about things like sustainable business. What does that mean? What does that term Yeah. You know, speak to and, and what can others learn from it? >>Yeah. At at, at our approach to sustainability is grounded in science and, and values and also in customer territory, but also employee centered. I mean, we conduct regular assessments to understand the most significant environment and social issues for our business with, with the goal of prioritizing what we do for a sustainability future. Our service delivery methodology, employee care relationship with the local supplier and local area and institution are a major factor for us to, to build a such a responsibility strategy. Specifically during the past year, we have been particularly focused on define sustainability governance in the company based on stakeholder engagement, defining material issues, establishing quantitative indicators to monitor and setting medium to long-term goals. >>Okay, so you have a lot of data. You can go into a customer, you can do an assessment, you can set a baseline, and then you have other data by which you can compare that and, and understand what's achievable. So what's your vision for sustainable business? You know, that strategy, you know, how has it affected your business in terms of the evolution? Cuz this wasn't, hasn't always been as hot a topic as it is today. And and is it a competitive advantage for you? >>Yeah, yeah. For, for, for all intense and proposed sustainability is a competitive advantage for elec. I mean, it's so, because at the time of profound transformation in the work, in the world of work, CSR issues make a company more attractive when searching for new talent to enter in the workforce of our company. In addition, efforts to ensure people's proper work life balance are a strong retention factor. And regarding our business proposition, ELEX attempts is to meet high standard of sustainability and reliability. Our green data center, you said is a prime example of this approach as at the same time, is there a conditioning activity that is done to give a second life to technology devices that come from back from rental? I mean, our customer inquiries with respect to sustainability are increasingly frequent and in depth and which is why we monitor our performance and invest in certification such as EcoVadis or ISO 14,001. Okay, >>Got it. So in a previous life I actually did some work with, with, with power companies and there were two big factors in it that affected the power consumption. Obviously virtualization was a big one, if you could consolidate servers, you know, that was huge. But the other was the advent of flash storage and that was, we used to actually go in with the, the engineers and the power company put in alligator clips to measure of, of, of an all flash array versus, you know, the spinning disc and it was a big impact. So you, I wanna talk about your, your experience with Pure Storage. You use Flash Array and the Evergreen architecture. Can you talk about what your experience there, why did you make that decision to select Pure Storage? How does that help you meet sustainability and operational requirements? Do those benefits scale as your customers grow? What's your experience been? >>Yeah, it was basically an easy and easy answer to our, to our business needs. Okay. Because you said before that in Elec we, we manage a lot of data, okay? And in the past we, we, we see it, we see that the constraints of managing so many, many data was very, very difficult to manage in terms of power consumption or simply for the, the space of storing the data. And when, when Pure came to us and share our products, their vision to the data management journey for Element Informatica, it was very easy to choose pure why with values and numbers. We, we create a business case and we said that we, we see that our power consumption usage was much less, more than 90% of previous technology that we used in the past. Okay. And so of course you have to manage a grade oil deploy of flash technology storage, but it was a good target. >>So we have tried to monitoring the adoption of flash technology and monitor monitoring also the power consumption and the efficiency that the pure technology bring to our, to our IT systems and of course the IT systems of our clients. And so this is one, the first part, the first good part of our trip with, with Pure. And after that we approach also the sustainability in long term of choosing pure technology storage. You mentioned the Evergreen models of Pure, and of course this was, again, challenge for us because it allows, it allow us to extend the life cycle management of our data centers, but also the, IT allows us to improve the facility of the facilities of using technology from our technical side. Okay. So we are much more efficient than in the past with the choose of Pure storage technologies. Okay. Of course, this easy users, easy usage mode, let me say it, allow us to bring this value to our, to all our clients that put their data in our data centers. >>So you talked about how you've seen a 90% improvement relative to previous technologies. I always, I haven't put you in the spot. Yeah, because I, I, I was on Pure's website and I saw in their ESG report some com, you know, it was a comparison with a generic competitor presuming that competitor was not, you know, a 2010 spinning disc system. But, but, so I'm curious as to the results that you're seeing with Pure in terms of footprint and power usage. You, you're referencing some of that. We heard some metrics from Nicole and AJ earlier in the program. Do you think, again, I'm gonna put you in the spot, do you think that Pure's architecture and the way they've applied, whether it's machine intelligence or the Evergreen model, et cetera, is more competitive than other platforms that you've seen? >>Yeah, of course. Is more competitor improve competitive because basically it allows to service provider to do much more efficient value proposition and offer services that are more, that brings more values to, to the customers. Okay. So the customer is always at the center of a proposition of a service provider and trying to adopt the methodology and also the, the value that pure as inside by design in the technology is, is for us very, very, very important and very, very strategic because, because with like a glass, we can, our self transfer try to transfer the values of pure, pure technologies to our service provider client. >>Okay. Matta, let's wrap and talk about sort of near term 2023 and then longer term it looks like sustainability is a topic that's here to stay. Unlike when we were putting alligator clips on storage arrays, trying to help customers get rebates that just didn't have legs. It was too complicated. Now it's a, a topic that everybody's measuring. What's next for elec in its sustainability journey? What advice would you might have? Sustainability leaders that wanna make a meaningful impact on the environment, but also on the bottom line. >>Okay, so sustainability is fortunately a widely spread concept. And our role in, in this great game is to define a strategy, align with the common and fundamentals goals for the future of planet and capable of expressing our inclination and the, and the particularities and accessibility goals in the near future. I, I say, I can say that are will be basically free one define sustainability plan. Okay? It's fundamentals to define a sustainability plan. Then it's very important to monitor the its emissions and we will calculate our carbon footprint. Okay? And least button list produces certifiable and comprehensive sustainability report with respect to the demands of customers, suppliers, and also partners. Okay. So I can say that this three target will be our direction in the, in the future. Okay. >>Yeah. So I mean, pretty straightforward. Make a plan. You gotta monitor and measure, you can't improve what you can't measure. So you gonna set a baseline, you're gonna report on that. Yep. You're gonna analyze the data and you're gonna make continuous improvement. >>Yep. >>Matea, thanks so much for joining us today in sharing your perspectives from the, the northern part of Italy. Really appreciate it. >>Yeah, thank you for having aboard. Thank you very >>Much. It was really our pleasure. Okay, in a moment, I'm gonna be back to wrap up the program and share some resources that could be valuable in your sustainability journey. Keep it right there. >>Sustainability is becoming increasingly important and is hitting more RFPs than ever before as a critical decision point for customers. Environmental benefits are not the only impetus. Rather bottom line cost savings are proving that sustainability actually means better business. You can make a strong business case around sustainability and you should, many more organizations are setting mid and long-term goals for sustainability and putting forth published metrics for shareholders and customers. Whereas early green IT initiatives at the beginning of this century, were met with skepticism and somewhat disappointing results. Today, vendor r and d is driving innovation in system design, semiconductor advancements, automation in machine intelligence that's really beginning to show tangible results. Thankfully. Now remember, all these videos are available on demand@thecube.net. So check them out at your convenience and don't forget to go to silicon angle.com for all the enterprise tech news of the day. You also want to check out pure storage.com. >>There are a ton of resources there. As an aside, pure is the only company I can recall to allow you to access resources like a Gartner Magic Quadrant without forcing you to fill out a lead gen form. So thank you for that. Pure storage, I love that. There's no squeeze page on that. No friction. It's kind of on brand there for pure well done. But to the topic today, sustainability, there's some really good information on the site around esg, Pure's Environmental, social and Governance mission. So there's more in there than just sustainability. You'll see some transparent statistics on things like gender and ethnic diversity, and of course you'll see that Pure has some work to do there. But kudos for publishing those stats transparently and setting goals so we can track your progress. And there's plenty on the sustainability topic as well, including some competitive benchmarks, which are interesting to look at and may give you some other things to think about. We hope you've enjoyed the path to Sustainable it made possible by Pure Storage produced with the Cube, your leader in enterprise and emerging tech, tech coverage.

>>Good afternoon and welcome back to Detroit, Lisa Martin here with John Furrier. We are live day two of our coverage of Coan Cloud Native Con North America. John, we've had great conversations. Yeah. All day yesterday. Half a day today. So far we're talking all things, Well, not all things Kubernetes so much more than that. We also have to talk about storage and data management solutions for Kubernetes projects, cuz that's obviously critical. >>Yeah, I mean the big trend here is Kubernetes going mainstream has been for a while. The adopt is crossing over, it's crossing the CADs and with that you're seeing security concerns. You're seeing things being gaps being filled. But enterprise grade is really the, the, the story. It's going enterprise, that's managed services, that's professional service, that's basically making things work at scale. This next segment hits that part and we are gonna talk about it in grade length >>With one of our alumni. Moral morale to Molly is back DP and GM of Port Work's Peer Storage. Great to have you back really? >>Yeah, absolutely. Delightful >>To be here. So I was looking on the website, number one in Kubernetes storage. Three years in a row. Yep. Awesome. What's Coworks doing here at KU Con? >>Well, I'll tell you, we, our engineering crew has been so productive and hard at work that I almost can't decide what to kind of tell you. But I thought what, what, what I thought I would do is kind of tell you that we are in forefront of two major trends in the world of Kubernetes. Right? And the, the two trends that I see are one is as a service, so is trend number one. So it's not software eating the world anymore. That's, that's old, old, old news. It's as a service unifying the world. The world wants easy, We all are, you know, subscribers to things like Netflix. We've been using Salesforce or other HR functions. Everything is as a service. And in the world of Kubernetes, it's a sign of that maturity that John was talking about as a platform that now as a service is the big trend. >>And so headline number one, if you will, is that Port Works is leading in the data management world for Kubernetes by providing, we're going all in on easy on as a service. So everything we do, we are satisfying it, right? So if you think, if you think about, if you think about this, that, that there are really, most of the people who are consuming Kubernetes are people who are building platforms for their dev users. And dev users want self service. That's one of the advantages of, of, of Kubernetes. And the more it is service size and made as a service, the more ready to consume it is. And so we are announcing at the show that we have, you know, the basic Kubernetes data management as a service, ha d r as a service. We have backup as a service and we have database as a service. So these are the three major components of data. And all of those are being made available as a service. And in fact, we're offering and announcing at the show our backup as a service freemium version where you can get free forever a terabyte of, of, you know, stuff to do for Kubernetes for forever. >>Congratulations on the announcement. Totally. In line with what the market wants. Developers want Selfer, they wanna also want simplicity by the way they'll leave if they don't like the service. Correct. So that you, you know that before we get into some more specifics, I want Yeah. Ask you on the industry and some of the point solutions you have, what, it's been two years since the acquisition with Pure Storage. Can you just give an update on how it's gone? Obviously as a service, you guys are hitting all your Marks, developers love it. Storage are big part of the game right now as well as these environments. Yeah. What's the update post acquisition two years. You had a great offering Stay right In >>Point Works. Yeah. So look, John, you're, you're, you're a veteran of the industry and have seen lots of acquisitions, right? And I've been acquired twice before myself. So, you know, there's, there's always best practices and poor practices in terms of acquisitions and I'm, you know, really delighted to say I think this, this acquisition has had some of the best practices. Let me just name a couple of them, right? One of them is just cultural fit, right? Cultural fit is great. Entrepreneurs, anybody, it's not just entrepreneurs. Everybody loves to work in a place they enjoy working with, with people that they, you know, thrive when they, when they interact with. And so the cultural fit with, with Pure is fantastic. The other one is the strategic intent that Pure had when they acquired us is still true. And so that goes a long way, you know, in terms of an investment profile, in terms of the ability to kind of leverage assets within the company. So Pure had kind of disrupted the world of storage using Flash and they wanted to disrupt higher up the stack using Kubernetes. And that's kind of been our role inside their strategy. And it's, it's still true. >>So culture, strategic intent. Yeah. Product market fit as well. You were, you weren't just an asset for customers or acquisition and then let the founders go through their next thing. You are part of their growth play. >>Absolutely. Right. The, the beauty of, of the kind of product market fit is, let's talk about the market is we have been always focused on the global two k and that is at the heart of, you know, purest 10,000 strong customer base, right? They have very strong presence in the, in the global two k. And we, we allow them to kind of go to those same folks with, with the offering. >>So satisfying everything that you do. What's for me as a business, whether I'm a financial services organization, I'm a hospital, I'm a retailer, what's in it for me >>As a customer? Yeah. So the, the what's in it for, for me is two things. It's speed and ease of use, which in a way are related. But, but, but you know, one is when something is provided as a service, it's much more consumable. It's instantly ready. It's like instant oatmeal, right? You just get it just ad hot water and it's there. Yep. So the world of of it has moved from owning large data centers, right? That used to be like 25 years ago and running those data centers better than everybody else to move to let me just consume a data center in the form of a cloud, right? So satisfying the cloud part of the data center. Now people are saying, well I expect that for software and services and I don't want it just from the public cloud, I want it from my own IT department. >>This is old news. And so the, the, the big news here is how fast Kubernetes has kind of moved everything. You know, you take a lot of these changes, Kubernetes is a poster child for things happening faster than the last wave. And in the last couple of years I would say that as a service model has really kind of thrived in the world of Kubernetes. And developers want to be able to get it fast. And the second thing is they want to be able to operate it fast. Self-service is the other benefit. Yeah. So speed and self-service are both benefits of, of >>This. Yeah. And, and the thing that's come up clearly in the cube, this is gonna be part of the headlines we'll probably end up getting a lot of highlights from telling my team to make a note of this, is that developers are gonna be be the, the business if you, if you take digital transformation to its conclusion, they're not a department that serves the business, they are the business that means Exactly. They have to be more productive. So developer productivity has been the top story. Yes. Security as a serves all these things. These are, these are examples to make developers more productive. But one of the things that came up and I wanna get your reaction to is, is that when you have disruption and, and the storage vision, you know what disruption it means. Cuz there's been a whole discussion around disruptive operations. When storage goes down, you have back m dr and failover. If there's a disruption that changes the nature of invisible infrastructure, developers want invisible infrastructure. That's the future steady state. So if there's a disruption in storage >>Yeah. It >>Can't affect the productivity and the tool chains and the workflows of developers. Yep. Right? So how do you guys look at that? Cuz you're a critical component. Storage is a service is a huge thing. Yeah. Storage has to, has to work seamlessly. And let's keep the developers out of the weeds. >>John. I think what, what what you put your finger on is another huge trend in the world of Kubernetes where at Cube Con, after all, which is really where, where all the leading practitioners both come and the leading vendors are. So here's the second trend that we are leading and, and actually I think it's happening not just with us, but with other, for folks in the industry. And that is, you know, the world of DevOps. Like DevOps has been such a catchphrase for all, all of us in the industry last five years. And it's been both a combination of cultural change as well as technology change. Here's what the latest is on the, in the world of DevOps. DevOps is now crystallized. It's not some kind of mysterious art form that you read about how people are practicing. DevOps is, it's broken into two, two things now. >>There is the platform part. So DevOps is now a bunch of platforms. And the other part of DevOps is a bunch of practices. So a little bit on both these, the platforms in the world of es there's only three platforms, right? There's the orchestration platforms, the, you know, eks, the open ships of the world and so on. There are the data management platforms, pro people like Port Works. And the third is security platforms, right? You know, Palo Alto Networks, others Aqua or all in this. So these are the three platforms and there are platform engineering teams now that many of our largest customers, some of the largest banks, the largest service providers, they're all operating as a ES platform engineering team. And then now developers, to your point, developers are in the practice of being able to use these platforms to launch new services. So the, the actual IT ops, the ops are run by developers now and they can do it on these platforms. And the platform engineering team provide that as an ease of use and they're there to troubleshoot when problems happen. So the idea of DevOps as a ops practice and a platform is the newest thing. E and, and ports and pure storage leading in the world of data management platforms >>There. Talk about a customer example that you think really articulates the value that Port Works and Pure Storage delivers from a data management perspective. >>Yeah, so there's so many examples. One of the, one of the longest running examples we have is a very, very large service provider that, you know, you all know and probably use, and they have been using us in the cable kinda set box or cable box business. They get streams of data from, from cable boxes all over the world. They collected all in a centralized large kind of thing and run elastic search and analytics on it. Now what they have done is they couldn't keep up with this at the scale and the depth, right? The speed of, of activity and the distributed nature of the activity. The only way to solve this was to use something like Kubernetes manage with Spark coming, bringing all the data in to deep, deep, deep silos of storage, which are all running not even on a sand, but on kind of, you know, very deep terabytes and terabytes of, of storage. So all of this is orchestrated with the Heco coworks and there's a platform engineering team. We are building that platform for them with some of these other components that allows them to kind of do analytics and, and make some changes in real time. Huge kind of setup for, for >>That. Yeah. Well, you guys have the right architecture. I love the vision. I love what you guys are doing. I think this is right in line with Pures. They've always been disruptors. I remember when we first interviewed the CEO when they started Yep. They, they stayed on path. They didn't waiver. EMC was the big player. They ended up taking their lunch and dinner as well and they beat 'em in the marketplace. But now you got this traction here. So I have to ask you, how's the business, what's the results look like? Either GM cloud native business unit of a storage company that's transformed and transforming? >>Yeah, you know, it's interesting, we just hit the two year anniversary, right John? And so what we did was just kind of like step back and hey, you know, we're running so hard, you just take a step back. And we've tripled the business in the two years since the acquisition, the two years before and, and we were growing through proven. So, you know, that that's quite a fe and we've tripled the number of people, the amount of engineering investments we have, the number of go to market investments have, have been, have been awesome. So business is going really well though, I will say. But I think, you know, we have, we can't be, we we're watching the market closely. You know, as a former ceo, I, you have to kind of learn to read the tea leaves when you invest. And I think, you know, what I would say is we're proceeding with caution in the next two quarters. I view business transformation as not a cancelable activity. So that's the, that's the good news, right? Our customers are large, it's, >>It's >>Right. All they're gonna do is say, Hey, they're gonna put their hand, their hand was always going right on the dial. Now they're kind of putting their hand on the dial going, hey, where, what is happening? But my, my own sense of this is that people will continue to invest through it. The question is at what level? And I also think that this is a six month kind of watch, the watch where, where we put the dial. So Q4 and q1 I think are kind of, you know, we have our, our watch kind of watch the market sign. But I have the highest confidence. What >>Does your gut tell you? You're an entrepreneur, >>Which my, my gut says that we'll go through a little bit of a cautious investment period in the next six months. And after that I think we're gonna be back in, back full, full in the crazy growth that we've always been. We're gonna grow by the way, in the next think >>It's core style. I think I'm, I'm more bullish. I think there's gonna be some, you know, weeding out of some overinvestment pre C or pre bubble. But I think tech's gonna continue to grow. I don't see >>It's stopping. Yeah. And, and the investment is gonna be on these core platforms. See, back to the platform story, it's gonna be in these core platforms and on unifying everything, let's consume it better rather than let's go kind of experiment with a whole bunch of things all over the map, right? So you'll see less experimentation and more kind of, let's harvest some of the investments we've made in the last couple >>Of years and actually be able to, to enable companies in any industry to truly be data companies. Because absolutely. We talked about as a service, we all have these expectations that any service we want, we can get it. Yes. There's no delay because patients has gone Yeah. From the pandemic. >>So it is kind of, you know, tightening up the screws on what they've built. They, you know, adding some polish to it, adding some more capability, like I said, a a a, a combination of harvesting and new investing. It's a combination I think is what we're gonna see. >>Yeah. What are some of the things that you're looking forward to? You talked about some of the, the growth things in the investment, but as we round out Q4 and head into a new year, what are you excited about? >>Yeah, so you know, I mentioned our, as a service kind of platform, the global two K for us has been a set of customers who we co-create stuff with. And so one of the other set of things that we are very excited about and announcing is because we're deployed at scale, we're, we're, we have upgraded our backend. So we have now the ability to go to million IOPS and more and, and for, for the right backends. And so Kubernetes is a add-on which will not slow down your, your core base infrastructure. Second thing that that we, we have is added a bunch of capability in the disaster recovery business continuity front, you know, we always had like metro kind of distance dr. We had long distance dr. We've added a near sync Dr. So now we can provide disaster recovery and business continuity for metro distances across continents and across the planet. Right? That's kind of a major change that we've done. The third thing is we've added the capability for file block and Object. So now by adding object, we're really a complete solution. So it is really that maturity of the business Yeah. That you start seeing as enterprises move to embracing a platform approach, deploying it much more widely. You talked about the early majority. Yeah. Right. And so what they require is more enterprise class capability and those are all the things that we've been adding and we're really looking forward >>To it. Well it sounds like tremendous evolution and maturation of Port Works in the two years since it's been with Pure Storage. You talked about the cultural alignment, great stuff that you're achieving. Congratulations on that. Yeah. Great stuff >>Ahead and having fun. Let's not forget that, that's too life's too short to do. It is right. >>You're right. Thank you. We will definitely, as always on the cube, keep our eyes on this space. Mur. Meley, it's been great to have you back on the program. Thank you for joining, John. >>Thank you so much. It's pleasure. Our, >>For our guests and John Furrier, Lisa Martin here live in Detroit with the cube about Coan Cloud Native Con at 22. We'll be back after a short break.

(upbeat music) >> The Cloud essentially turned the data center into an API and ushered in the era of programmable infrastructure, no longer do we think about deploying infrastructure in rigid silos with a hardened, outer shell, rather infrastructure has to facilitate digital business strategies. And what this means is putting data at the core of your organization, irrespective of its physical location. It also means infrastructure generally and storage specifically must be accessed as sets of services that can be discovered, deployed, managed, secured, and governed in a DevOps model or OpsDev, if you prefer. Now, this has specific implications as to how vendor product strategies will evolve and how they'll meet modern data requirements. Welcome to this Cube conversation, everybody. This is Dave Vellante. And with me to discuss these sea changes is Ajay Singh, the Chief Product Officer of Pure Storage, Ajay welcome. >> Thank you, David, gald to be on. >> Yeah, great to have you, so let's talk about your role at Pure. I think you're the first CPO, what's the vision there? >> That's right, I just joined up Pure about eight months ago from VMware as the chief product officer and you're right, I'm the first our chief product officer at Pure. And at VMware I ran the Cloud management business unit, which was a lot about automation and infrastructure as code. And it's just great to join Pure, which has a phenomenal all flash product set. I kind of call it the iPhone or flash story super easy to use. And how do we take that same ease of use, which is a heart of a Cloud operating principle, and how do we actually take it up to really deliver a modern data experience, which includes infrastructure and storage as code, but then even more beyond that and how do you do modern operations and then modern data services. So super excited to be at Pure. And the vision, if you may, at the end of the day, is to provide, leveraging this moderate experience, a connected and effortless experience data experience, which allows customers to ultimately focus on what matters for them, their business, and by really leveraging and managing and winning with their data, because ultimately data is the new oil, if you may, and if you can mine it, get insights from it and really drive a competitive edge in the digital transformation in your head, and that's what be intended to help our customers to. >> So you joined earlier this year kind of, I guess, middle of the pandemic really I'm interested in kind of your first 100 days, what that was like, what key milestones you set and now you're into your second a 100 plus days. How's that all going? What can you share with us in and that's interesting timing because the effects of the pandemic you came in in a kind of post that, so you had experience from VMware and then you had to apply that to the product organization. So tell us about that sort of first a 100 days and the sort of mission now. >> Absolutely, so as we talked about the vision, around the modern data experience, kind of have three components to it, modernizing the infrastructure and really it's kudos to the team out of the work we've been doing, a ton of work in modernizing the infrastructure, I'll briefly talk to that, then modernizing the data, much more than modernizing the operations. I'll talk to that as well. And then of course, down the pike, modernizing data services. So if you think about it from modernizing the infrastructure, if you think about Pure for a minute, Pure is the first company that took flash to mainstream, essentially bringing what we call consumer simplicity to enterprise storage. The manual for the products with the front and back of a business card, that's it, you plug it in, boom, it's up and running, and then you get proactive AI driven support, right? So that was kind of the heart of Pure. Now you think about Pure again, what's unique about Pure has been a lot of our competition, has dealt with flash at the SSD level, hey, because guess what? All this software was built for hard drive. And so if I can treat NAND as a solid state drive SSD, then my software would easily work on it. But with Pure, because we started with flash, we released went straight to the NAND level, and as opposed to kind of the SSD layer, and what that does is it gives you greater efficiency, greater reliability and create a performance compared to an SSD, because you can optimize at the chip level as opposed to at the SSD module level. That's one big advantage that Pure has going for itself. And if you look at the physics, in the industry for a minute, there's recent data put out by Wikibon early this year, effectively showing that by the year 2026, flash on a dollar per terabyte basis, just the economics of the semiconductor versus the hard disk is going to be cheaper than hard disk. So this big inflection point is slowly but surely coming that's going to disrupt the hardest industry, already the high end has been taken over by flash, but hybrid is next and then even the long tail is coming up over there. And so to end to that extent our lead, if you may, the introduction of QLC NAND, QLC NAND powerful competition is barely introducing, we've been at it for a while. We just recently this year in my first a 100 days, we introduced the flasher AC, C40 and C60 drives, which really start to open up our ability to go after the hybrid story market in a big way. It opens up a big new market for us. So great work there by the team,. Also at the heart of it. If you think about it in the NAND side, we have our flash array, which is a scale-up latency centric architecture and FlashBlade which is a scale-out throughput architecture, all operating with NAND. And what that does is it allows us to cover both structured data, unstructured data, tier one apps and tier two apps. So pretty broad data coverage in that journey to the all flash data center, slowly but surely we're heading over there to the all flash data center based on demand economics that we just talked about, and we've done a bunch of releases. And then the team has done a bunch of things around introducing and NVME or fabric, the kind of thing that you expect them to do. A lot of recognition in the industry for the team or from the likes of TrustRadius, Gartner, named FlashRay, the Carton Peer Insights, the customer choice award and primary storage in the MQ. We were the leader. So a lot of kudos and recognition coming to the team as a result, Flash Blade just hit a billion dollars in cumulative revenue, kind of a leader by far in kind of the unstructured data, fast file an object marketplace. And then of course, all the work we're doing around what we say, ESG, environmental, social and governance, around reducing carbon footprint, reducing waste, our whole notion of evergreen and non-disruptive upgrades. We also kind of did a lot of work in that where we actually announced that over 2,700 customers have actually done non-disruptive upgrades over the technology. >> Yeah a lot to unpack there. And a lot of this sometimes you people say, oh, it's the plumbing, but the plumbing is actually very important too. 'Cause we're in a major inflection point, when we went from spinning disk to NAND. And it's all about volumes, you're seeing this all over the industry now, you see your old boss, Pat Gelsinger, is dealing with this at Intel. And it's all about consumer volumes in my view anyway, because thanks to Steve Jobs, NAND volumes are enormous and what two hard disk drive makers left in the planet. I don't know, maybe there's two and a half, but so those volumes drive costs down. And so you're on that curve and you can debate as to when it's going to happen, but it's not an if it's a when. Let me, shift gears a little bit. Because Cloud, as I was saying, it's ushered in this API economy, this as a service model, a lot of infrastructure companies have responded. How are you thinking at Pure about the as a service model for your customers? What's the strategy? How is it evolving and how does it differentiate from the competition? >> Absolutely, a great question. It's kind of segues into the second part of the moderate experience, which is how do you modernize the operations? And that's where automation as a service, because ultimately, the Cloud has validated and the address of this model, right? People are looking for outcomes. They care less about how you get there. They just want the outcome. And the as a service model actually delivers these outcomes. And this whole notion of infrastructure as code is kind of the start of it. Imagine if my infrastructure for a developer is just a line of code, in a Git repository in a program that goes through a CICD process and automatically kind of is configured and set up, fits in with the Terraform, the Ansibles, all that different automation frameworks. And so what we've done is we've gone down the path of really building out what I think is modern operations with this ability to have storage as code, disability, in addition modern operations is not just storage scored, but also we've got recently introduced some comprehensive ransomware protection, that's part of modern operations. There's all the threat you hear in the news or ransomware. We introduced what we call safe mode snapshots that allow you to recover in literally seconds. When you have a ransomware attack, we also have in the modern operations Pure one, which is maybe the leader in AI driven support to prevent downtime. We actually call you 80% of the time and fix the problems without you knowing about it. That's what modern operations is all about. And then also Martin operations says, okay, you've got flash on your on-prem side, but even maybe using flash in the public Cloud, how can I have seamless multi-Cloud experience in our Cloud block store we've introduced around Amazon, AWS and Azure allows one to do that. And then finally, for modern applications, if you think about it, this whole notion of infrastructure's code, as a service, software driven storage, the Kubernetes infrastructure enables one to really deliver a great automation framework that enables to reduce the labor required to manage the storage infrastructure and deliver it as code. And we have, kudos to Charlie and the Pure storage team before my time with the acquisition of Portworx, Portworx today is truly delivers true storage as code orchestrated entirely through Kubernetes and in a multi-Cloud hybrid situation. So it can run on EKS, GKE, OpenShift rancher, Tansu, recently announced as the leader by giggle home for enterprise Kubernetes storage. We were really proud about that asset. And then finally, the last piece are Pure as a service. That's also all outcome oriented, SLS. What matters is you sign up for SLS, and then you get those SLS, very different from our competition, right? Our competition tends to be a lot more around financial engineering, hey, you can buy it OPEX versus CapEx. And, but you get the same thing with a lot of professional services, we've really got, I'd say a couple of years and lead on, actually delivering and managing with SRE engineers for the SLA. So a lot of great work there. We recently also introduced Cisco FlashStack, again, flash stack as a service, again, as a service, a validation of that. And then finally, we also recently did a announcement with Aquaponics, with their bare metal as a service where we are a key part of their bare metal as a service offering, again, pushing the kind of the added service strategy. So yes, big for us, that's where the buck is skating, half the enterprises, even on prem, wanting to consume things in the Cloud operating model. And so that's where we're putting it lot. >> I see, so your contention is, it's not just this CapEx to OPEX, that's kind of the, during the economic downturn of 2007, 2008, the economic crisis, that was the big thing for CFOs. So that's kind of yesterday's news. What you're saying is you're creating a Cloud, like operating model, as I was saying upfront, irrespective of physical location. And I see that as your challenge, the industry's challenge, be, if I'm going to effect the digital transformation, I don't want to deal with the Cloud primitives. I want you to hide the underlying complexity of that Cloud. I want to deal with higher level problems, but so that brings me to digital transformation, which is kind of the now initiative, or I even sometimes call it the mandate. There's not a one size fits all for digital transformation, but I'm interested in your thoughts on the must take steps, universal steps that everybody needs to think about in a digital transformation journey. >> Yeah, so ultimately the digital transformation is all about how companies are gain a competitive edge in this new digital world or that the company are, and the competition are changing the game on, right? So you want to make sure that you can rapidly try new things, fail fast, innovate and invest, but speed is of the essence, agility and the Cloud operating model enables that agility. And so what we're also doing is not only are we driving agility in a multicloud kind of data, infrastructure, data operation fashion, but we also taking it a step further. We were also on the journey to deliver modern data services. Imagine on a Pure on-prem infrastructure, along with your different public Clouds that you're working on with the Kubernetes infrastructures, you could, with a few clicks run Kakfa as a service, TensorFlow as a service, Mongo as a service. So me as a technology team can truly become a service provider and not just an on-prem service provider, but a multi-Cloud service provider. Such that these services can be used to analyze the data that you have, not only your data, your partner data, third party public data, and how you can marry those different data sets, analyze it to deliver new insights that ultimately give you a competitive edge in the digital transformation. So you can see data plays a big role there. The data is what generates those insights. Your ability to match that data with partner data, public data, your data, the analysis on it services ready to go, as you get the digital, as you can do the insights. You can really start to separate yourself from your competition and get on the leaderboard a decade from now when this digital transformation settles down. >> All right, so bring us home, Ajay, summarize what does a modern data strategy look like and how does it fit into a digital business or a digital organization? >> So look, at the end of the day, data and analysis, both of them play a big role in the digital transformation. And it really comes down to how do I leverage this data, my data, partner data, public data, to really get that edge. And that links back to a vision. How do we provide that connected and effortless, modern data experience that allows our customers to focus on their business? How do I get the edge in the digital transformation? But easily leveraging, managing and winning with their data. And that's the heart of where Pure is headed. >> Ajay Singh, thanks so much for coming inside theCube and sharing your vision. >> Thank you, Dave, it was a real pleasure. >> And thank you for watching this Cube conversation. This is Dave Vellante and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

(techno music) >> Announcer: Live, rom Atlanta, Georgia, it's theCUBE. Covering IFS World Conference 2018. Brought to you by IFS. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of IFS World Conference 2018 here in Atlanta, Georgia, I'm your host Rebecca Knight along with my co-host Jeff Frick. We are joined by Darren Roos. You are the CEO of IFS. Thanks so much for joining us Darren. >> Great to be here, thanks for making time. >> So the conference is buzzy, we're really picking up a lot of excitement here. But I wanted to talk about you, just starting as CEO in April, brand new to the role. What what drew you to the role? >> You know as I did my due diligence on IFS what you found was there was a customer base that was super engaged with what we were doing. If you look on Gartner Peer Insights' website as an example, we're the top-ranked ERP solution amongst our peers. If you look at our NPS scores, we have a 34% bump on our top five competitors. So, when you have the opportunity to lead a business, of scale, we're half a billion Euros in revenue, with a super happy customer base, that's a great opportunity, so you know, I couldn't pass it up. >> And this is something that you also talked a lot about in your in your keynote. And and the number, the metrics speak for themselves- >> Absolutely. >> but it's the customer focus, the relentless customer focus, how do you maintain that? What is the secret sauce? >> Yeah, you know, I think it's not one thing, it's loads of different things. You can think about the business model that we have, but another data point that I love about the business, that the average tenure of our employees is nine years, right. And to really understand ERP, to understand how our customers are using the technology, you have to have tenure, you have to have account managers, and pre-sales people, and consultants, who've had the time to engage with the business, to go on this journey with them, to understand how the technology works, how the industry works, and really be able to move the needle in a meaningful way. And you know, most of our peers just don't have that tenure. They're focused on other things. And I think that the fact that we're able to bring in young talents, like we saw Tyler on stage this morning, talking about the technology, but with great people like Amy on stage, who have had great experience with our customers. That balance of tenure, and experience, and innovation, is really how we've managed to drive those results. >> It's really hard thing to maintain, because they've got to feel engaged obviously, with their customers and feel good about helping their customers, but they've also got to feel really good about the management and the company behind them, that enables them to deliver the innovation, to be engaged, and have that institutional knowledge. If you lose the institutional knowledge, both the customer's institutional knowledge, as well as your own organization, it's really hard to replicate and expensive. >> Yeah, it's difficult to do, and the reality is, it might be expensive to replace the people, but you can't replace the knowledge, right. You just can't do it. So you know we've been nominated as a great place to work for the last nine years, I think it is. So you know the fact that we were able to maintain that status, together with the customer satisfaction scores, are really the reason why we have the buzz that we do here today. >> So this is your first World, WOCO, World Conference, as you're calling it. What do you hope attendees come away with? >> Yes, we're not as big as some of our our peers, and I think it's really important that our customers come away from this understanding that they've bought the best technology that there is in the market. And really, when when we talk about the Gartner Peer Insights rankings, that's the validation for me. I'm not talking about some nebulous metric that I invented. If our customers say we're the best, or the customers in the market say we're the best, that's a good validation for me. So the customers that come here, and the partners that come here, can be proud of the fact that we are the number one in this industry, when it comes to the quality of solution that we deliver. So that's one thing that I want them to know. And then another thing that is really unique about IFS, is that we don't sell software. We sell an outcome. When we engage with the customer, they have a specific business benefit that they're wanting to derive, and we stick with them, we really partner with them to deliver that outcome. And again, I say that in a very meaningful way, because a very large proportion of our business are the services to implement our own software. So we work very closely with our ecosystem of partners in order to deliver it, but we're always on the hook to deliver that customer's success too. So you know, those two messages for me are, you have great technology, be confident in what you've bought, it's recognized as the best on the market, and know that IFS will always be in your corner. >> Go ahead. >> I was just going to ask about the culture, because you also talked about that being one of the things that really drew you to IFS, and then the need for candor too. So how do you make sure that customers are telling you things, even sometimes things you don't necessarily want to hear? Because you also made a point of saying that on stage, come up, talk to me, I want to hear it. >> Yeah, look I think, you know, how you encourage that and this is my leadership style, is not to become defensive, and to show customers that when they give you that feedback, that you value it and you take action. And I think that's a very self-fulfilling approach to take. So you know, I'm a straight shooter, I always have been. It's what my reputation is. And I think that it's a good match with the IFS culture because that just, tell it how it is approach, is how IFS typically does things. I think it comes from the fact that we're a Swedish company, and you know, it's a very open culture, a very straightforward and honest culture. It's not hierarchical, and that's a good fit with the way I like to run the business. >> It's still hard though, 'cause nobody wants to tell the boss bad news, right. So, I mean the fact that you have that, and it's, the right thing is to actively search out the negative right. >> No one, no one told them that they don't like to tell the boss bad news. >> They didn't know. >> People are quite happy to tell me the bad news when there's bad news tell me, no no. >> Well, that's the only way you can fix it right? >> Absolutely. >> So I want to kind of talk about digital transformation, and I could probably drop about 100 buzzwords, with IOT, and cloud, and AI, and dead smart people that get branded interesting things. But really it comes down to something you talked about in the keynote, and that's getting closer to the customer. Getting close to the end user. Whether that's you and your customers, or your customers and the consumers of their products. How do you see, I mean is that really the essence of digital transformation? Is the enablement of getting closer to the end customer? >> I think that proximity to the customer is a major trend that we see in, whether it's through servitization or product, or whether it's through, the example that I gave on stage this morning, with just you know, all companies, whether they're B2B or B2C, getting to know their customers better, I think it's a trend that we see. But really, the IFS philosophy is, don't worry about the buzzword. Don't think about AI, or about IOT, or about any of these things. Think about the business problem. Think about the business pain that you're experiencing and then let's figure out a way to leverage technology to solve that problem. When you have the business pain in mind, whether that's an inflated cost base, or whether you're trying to drive incremental revenue, trying to launch a new product, whatever it is, then it's much easier to come up with a tangible benefit that you're trying to achieve, and specific metrics. And that's what IFS is focused on. So on the on the Did You Know slides before the keynote started this morning, we spoke about the incredible, tangible benefits, that our clients have recognized, in terms of their improvements in profitability, their improvements in revenue, and these are specific metrics. And we track them, because we're engaged with customers focused on that outcome. So you know I think from my perspective, forget about the buzzwords, really focus on what the business pain is that you trying to solve, and then leverage technology to solve that problem, and measure whether you've managed to solve the problem. And that's how they should focus. And very often today, in a disproportionate number of cases, that's about somehow getting closer to the end user customer. Understanding what they're looking for, how they want to transact, and we see that in every industry. >> I'm just curious from a historical perspective, you've been in ERP for a long, long time, and I remember when kind of the first big ERP wave hit, I don't know 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you know better than I, right, there was this huge leap in productivity and efficiency. Are you amazed still today, that there are these giant opportunities for efficiency improvements? It just staggers my mind that there's still so many big opportunities, to squeeze so much more value out of processes and assets. >> I think the reality is that technology, while it is the enabler, it's also very often the inhibitor. So you know, what we see is, we see as these new technologies come on board, that we're able to unlock new capabilities that the technology just simply didn't enable before. We have a great customer, Anticimex, who are in the pest control market. And the way pest control companies, Anticimex are an example, is that they would put rodent traps out and then they'd have to send field service agents around to go check whether the traps had been activated. And now they put sensors in the traps, the traps report back when they've been triggered, and they only send field service agents out to go and check when a trap has been triggered. Clearly, that's a level of efficiency when, pre-sensors, and pre the IOT connectors that we have today, simply weren't possible. So it's really about the way in which innovation is, technology is enabling us to do things that simply weren't possible before. So now it's, you know, you can understand why happens. >> Yeah, and then the other piece that you talked about there, is really kind of this API economy, with you know, connecting the very disparate databases. So that's a big piece. Then the other pieces we're surrounded here, is the ecosystem. I wonder if you can speak a little to, you know, how the ecosystem plays in helping you deliver value to your customers. >> So IFS, as I've said before, have always had an approach which is, that we want to own the value, the outcome for the customer, the value delivery, the value assurance. And I think now what we're looking at, is how do we leverage the ecosystem to do a bit more of the work so that we can make sure that we can scale? Because as we win bigger and bigger customers, with global footprints, doing bigger roll-outs, they're wanting to engage with partners who perhaps have a bit more experience from an industry perspective or from a horizontal, functional perspective. So you know, as we engage with partners like Accenture, or like PWC, or other partners like that, it really gives us the ability to scale the business to a greater extent. So the ecosystem are critical for us in doing that, but for us, we can't compromise on the quality. It is always quality first. It's always a case of making sure that our customers will still realize the benefits while we give them some more options on how they can deploy. >> So the theme of this conference is Connect to What's Next. So we want to know what is next for IFS. Particularly as you were talking about doing your due diligence, and it has these great metrics, it's kind of this best kept secret, really, in this industry. >> It is an incredibly well kept secret. >> So how are you going to get the secret out? >> Look, I think, from my personal planning perspective as CEO, we have some work to do around standardizing our operating model. At the moment we're a fairly fragmented business. We have eight regions, and those eight regions don't all run in the same way. So we have some internal homework to do, and we'll get through that pretty quickly. After that it's really about leveraging the global partnerships that we have. You know Microsoft are here as an example, Accenture are here as an example, as platinum sponsors. And leveraging those partners, to get better known in the market, and those are some of the discussions that we've kicked off. And I think there's lots of ways for us to, to try and leverage the secret, to try and kind of open, open the box a little, and show people the power of what we've got. But I think we're going to, we're a relatively small business still, and we're going to have to leverage those partnerships as a springboard to get to more people. >> And this is your first US world conference, right? You guys have had other conferences in North America, but not your big one. >> Darren: I think they've done one here before. >> Darren and Jeff: I think there was one in Boston a couple years ago. >> But I don't know, I think that was more kind of a North American one, maybe or Americas, then the world conference. >> What I'm saying is that when we nearly twice as big this year at the World Conference as we were at the last one. And I anticipate the next one will be twice as big again. So you know, we're seeing phenomenal growth, we're seeing strong growth in our revenues strong both in our headcounts, and we're seeing strong growth in the number of people who are interested in our technology, so, you know, things are good. >> Great, well Darren thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. We've had a great conversation. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick. We will have more from IFS World Conference 2018 in just a little bit. That was terrific. 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>> Commentator: Live from Palo Alto, it's theCUBE, covering Women Transforming Technology 2017, brought to you by VMware. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Women Transforming Technology here in sunny Palo Alto at the VMware conference. I am Rebecca Knight, your host. I'm joined by Josie Gillan. She is the Senior Director of Engineering at Cloudera and a passionate advocate for getting more women into technology. Josie, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you very much for inviting me. Pleasure to be here. >> So I want to start out by asking a question that should be obvious but it may not be. Why do we need more women in technology? >> Right, so that's the classic question and I think I probably would have the classic answer which is just so many studies have shown that diversity results in much better products, much better ideas and we've found numerous stories where products were developed by mostly white males and they just have actually alienated many, many of their customers, right? So it's definitely that we need to have that diversity and I think 50%, 51% I think actually, of the population is women, right? So let's not disregard half of them. I just think women have a lot to offer and a lot to add. It's a generalization, but women generally are more collaborative and supportive so it's the right thing to do and obviously the numbers in tech are just so far skewed off what the actual numbers and population are that it's time to continue to do something about it, but it's hard. >> I want to talk to you about what you just said about women in their approach to work, their approach to being on a team. You said they're more collaborative. You were talking a little bit earlier about EQ and the importance of EQ. Can you comment on the perspective that women bring and the approach that they take to being on a team that is different in your experience? >> It's just that women are generally probably, again I'm really generalizing here, but the way that women network with each other and support each other and generally want to touch and connect, I think that's a lot of what it is about networking. So for example, again this is not all women, but in 101s and meeting with your fellow peers, I think connection is really important and building the relationships and probably being a little more vulnerable I think is really important rather than the stoic I'm here to get what I need. I think women generally tend to say, "Okay, what can we get together?" And I think that's a natural trait that women have, but again purely generalizing. >> In terms of Silicon Valley, you've been around at a lot of different companies. You built your career here. Is it better? Now also particularly now at a time where we are hearing so many horrible stories about overt sexism, everything from subtle biases to overt sexism and sexual harassment. What's it like? Tell us the tales from the trenches. Do you have? >> Well, first of all, I think you were going to start to say, "Is it getting better?" >> Rebecca: Yeah. (laughs) >> Unfortunately it's not and there's a lot of studies to show that. What I think is changing though is that we are talking about it more and more starting with I guess it was two years ago and there was this grassroots effort after one of the Grace Hopper Conferences to get companies to actually publicize their diversity data so I think that's number one, right? That we're actually getting companies to say what their numbers are, both for gender and people of color, right? >> Rebecca: So the first step is really awareness that there could be a problem. >> Exactly. And then that there's a lot of companies investing in and obviously hiring a diversity inclusion leader. I've been at Atlassian before I came to Cloudera and Atlassian is a great company, got some really good two CEOs who really believed in diversity but again like other companies, the numbers were pretty, pretty bad. And it was in Australia too, probably you knew that. I actually moved to Australia for a year and I think it was very young. It was not only not so diverse on the gender but also very young which is again very common in tech companies, but they've gone and hired a diversity inclusion leader and she's doing an amazing job at bringing in more programs, getting awareness out there and trying to make a difference, but it's not an easy job. I think she's doing amazing. I think our folks at Cloudera are doing amazing. Salesforce is doing amazing. There's awareness but it's a very difficult issue. >> So that's the hiring part of it, it's bringing more women in. What about the culture too? We were talking earlier too about the supportive environment and supportive leadership. What will it take for a big cultural shift in the technology industry? >> So when I came back, basically this is my story, is I'm from New Zealand originally but I've lived over here, I moved to America in '98 and worked for several different companies, Oracle, Salesforce and thought always hey I wouldn't mind going back home and being closer to my family so we actually moved to Sydney for a year and that's where I worked for Atlassian which was a really interesting experience, but it made me realize that the bay area was home and I think the culture of Silicon Valley is something that you can't get outside of Silicon Valley. >> For better or for worse. >> For better or for worse but again, back to that collaboration, in Sydney there's not that many tech companies, right? So I didn't find that collaboration. These kinds of events were very, very rare and especially in engineering, right? I could meet people who worked for the Google office in Sydney, but they're more in nontechnical roles. I mean, there were some. So when I came back, it was really important for me to find a company that again, as you mentioned, had that high EQ and a really good culture and what I mean by that is not it's got a free lunch. Cloudera has free lunches, but that's not what attracted me to Cloudera. What attracted me to Cloudera was talking to my manager is the SVP of Engineering and my peers are all VPs of Engineering and it was the conversation in the interviews that really were conversations and just very, very respectful and it wasn't all about this is what I do and this is what you must do. It was about a collaborative conversation. And one thing I really got from talking with both my manager and my peers was that they really were out to support each other. And one thing I think is amazing about the culture we have at Cloudera is that what will happen is I'm leading quality, performance, build and infrastructure and quality is at the top of our list at the moment. We can always improve on quality and we had an extraordinary developer in one of my peer's teams who wanted to come and help with quality problems. Now normally what would happen is the development VP might say, "I don't want to leave him." >> Yes, there are silos. >> But he was like, the development VP was, "Well, really sad to lose him, "but this is a much bigger problem and I'm going to help him. "I'm going to help him move." And I think that is a really interesting leaderships style that isn't prevalent throughout Silicon Valley which is I'm going to do what's good for the company and the overall good of the company and just what's right rather than particularly my own. >> Rebecca: My department, my unit. >> My own turf, yeah. And what we want to do at Cloudera is bring that further through the chains because as a company, as it's growing, we've got many different product teams and we want to make sure that that collaboration goes across the development managers, the quality engineering managers to really learn from each other and support each other. Your question is how do we, that to me is very, very important and I think we need to start talking about it and we need to showcase companies that do it well. We've actually gone through one of those personality tests or it wasn't actually a personality test, what drives you whether it's more strategic or problem solving, people are into the process, and I think those are really good things to do so that you can all work to communicate with each other and work with each other. >> You mentioned earlier that one of the things about working in Sydney that struck you is that conferences like this one, the Women Transforming Technology, are rare. Why are they so important do you think? >> Oh right. I've been to the Grace Hopper Conference four times. You're so used to being the minority. You're so used to being the minority and it's fantastic to come to a conference like that where you're not the minority anymore. And I think one thing that's extraordinary, have you been to the Grace Hopper Conference? >> Rebecca: I have, I was there in Houston in October. >> One thing that I find extraordinary about the Grace Hopper is the camaraderie. And you'll be lining up to get a coffee and just the people that you'll start a conversation and I've actually made some really, really great friends from Grace Hopper that I still keep in contact with and it's the networking and oh hang on a minute, she's having the same problem I'm having. >> Are these professional problems that you're facing or are these strategic? >> A bit of both. It could be technical problems. A lot of it's how do I get a team to collaborate on something. It's how do I overcome my imposter syndrome? How do I be a good leader? And the connections you make. I really feel that you can truly be yourself and I love what Cara was just saying before about being authentic and being genuine. I think something like Grace Hopper is somewhere where you can truly, truly feel authentic and genuine. The thing for me is it always gives me a great big confidence. I just feel great after these conferences and I'm inspired to just go back and really continue to move the needle. >> This is a women's conference. It's mostly women attending. If you could send a message to the men of Silicon Valley, what would it be? If you could just gather all of them in a room and say give them some advice about either helping a young woman in her career or just hey fellas know this. >> I think the big advice is listen, right? Were you at the Grace Hopper Conference two years ago? >> Rebecca: No I wasn't, I missed that one. >> I'm not sure if you heard about the male allies panel, but it was interesting because basically there's a male allies panel which was done with all good intention, but it got a lot of flak because why the hell am I flaking about the space and what the people who were on the panel did which was really interesting is they actually created a second panel the next day and said, "Okay, we're going to shut up. "We're going to listen." And it's really quite hard. For all of us in technology, we're all used to solving problems and we want to have our say and to get them to be quiet and listen is so important and not try and solve the problem, just try and understand and Cara was just saying that before, right, about some of the stuff that's going on with Uber and everything is some of the males she talks to say, "But I don't see it." Well of course you don't see it because you're not experiencing it, right? So listen, talk to women and make it very clear that it's a safe space and that you're just here to listen and you're not going to try and solve the problem, but try and get an understanding because they're in a very, very different space than we are. >> The story that's going on with Uber, it is depressing as a woman, as a woman in technology in Silicon Valley particularly just a couple of years after the Ellen Pao lawsuit. Are you hopeful that things will get better? >> I'm hopeful things will get better. It's brave women like Susan who are they telling their stories. We need to support each other and really support people like Susan who were brave enough to say that and obviously now because she's done it, a lot of other people are coming forward and Uber has to take some responsibility and has to do something so I'm hopeful it's getting better because we're talking about it a lot more, but it's a very, very difficult situation and the more we talk about it and there's people who are a lot smarter than me and a lot different, who are very experienced in this kind of social issue to be able to figure out how the hell we address this, but a lot of it is to get the conversation going and as I said to listen. >> If you could give a piece of advice to the younger version of you, that young girl in New Zealand dreaming of a career in technology, you mentioned imposter syndrome, what would you say? >> Getting back to Cara's talk, she talked about don't worry so much about what people think of you. >> Oh that's so hard though, it's so hard. >> And I remember gosh in my early days in my career, I was sitting there and I can't say anything. I really want to say something but I'm going to look stupid and it's like be curious. I think that's my best advice. What I love when I'm interviewing, I've done a lot interviewing of college grads and what I'll do is see what questions they ask so I think you don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to show I'm the best Java programmer there is, but oh tell me about this and I really love that your company does this and how do you approach this kind of problem? And just their thirst for knowledge and that curiosity and their eagerness to learn, I think it's really important to ask questions. And I think that's a good way to get over the imposter syndrome because you're not necessarily coming up as like I'm trying to be an expert on something, it's like I'm trying to contribute to conversation and help me understand and I think it's a really good way to get people out there and getting people talking. >> So be curious, don't care so much what people think of you. >> Josie: Right, right. >> You don't have to be the smartest person at the table. >> And build your network and especially if you see somebody in a meeting that handled a particular situation very well, I think it's really great to be able to go up to them afterwards and say, "Look, I loved how you said that. "Can you maybe chat to me about how you came up with that? "'Cause I'd love to learn from you." There's a lot of this talk about mentorship and I think it's really true that Sheryl Sandberg says it's not really the best way to say, "Could you be my mentor please?" But to actually just say, "I love this." >> Ask for advice. >> Ask for advice and very few women would say, "I don't want to talk about that." Most women are like, "Wow that's great," and want to be able to help out the younger generation. >> Josie Gillan, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure talking to you. >> Thank you so much. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for theCUBE in our coverage of Women Transforming Technology. We'll be right back. (modern techno music)