>> Narrator: Live from Anaheim, California, it's theCUBE, covering Nutanix .NEXT 2019, brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back everyone, to theCUBE's live coverage of Nutanix .NEXT here in Anaheim, California. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Ferrier. We have two guests for this segment. We have PJ Farmer, she is the Director, Cloud Product Management at TierPoint. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you, I'm very excited. >> Rebecca: And we have David Hines, VP, Architecture and Engineering at TierPoint. Thanks, David. >> Yes, thank you. >> So, for our viewers that maybe unfamiliar with TierPoint, can you tell us all about this St. Louis based company, what you do, give us an introduction. >> Oh, absolutely. So, TierPoint is a managed services, data services, and colocation provider. We have a broad footprint. We have over 40 data centers in the United States, and we have a broad portfolio of services we offer because we're really interested in meeting customers where they are in their digital transfortation, or transformation, excuse me. So everything from colo to cloud and beyond, we offer because customers come to us for a consultative approach. They have a problem, they needed solutions, and we can offer them those solutions, right. So we manage all of that. >> So you're helping them with their digital transformations and everything. >> Absolutely. >> And where does Nutanix come into play here? >> So, Nutanix is a part of that cloud services really that we're offering our customers, but also giving them a dedicated environment really that they can manage their workloads, but also have some more control, security, compliance, so that overall, the customers end up with a solution that helps them drive their business forward. And of course, TierPoint, our goal is to make sure that we're taking care of all that underlying infrastructure and systems and components, so again, the customer can focus on driving their business forward, and taking that burden off of IT and Nutanix is a great platform that really helps enable us and enable our customers, at the end of the day. >> Talk about the technical challenges you guys had before Nutanix, after Nutanix. What changed, what was the journey like, how did the door open up for them? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, I think overall, we as technologists, work very hard to piece together solutions, varied solutions, to provide a platform for our customers that they can consume, but that is challenging, right, as a company, technology changes quickly. There are a lot of different vendors in the marketplace offering a lot of different technologies, and I think one of the things that we see as a huge value for Nutanix, is they've got a very complete platform, across the spectrum. It's not just a box with compute and storage. It is so much more than that, and so for us, that's very exciting, it's very intriguing, and something that really helps us be efficient, and also our customers, be efficient. >> So, digital transformation is something that we're talking about so much, on theCUBE in general, here at this show. What are you hearing from customers and what is sort of their bugaboos and their pain points? >> So, we recently had a customer who, their hypervisor of choice is something they're super familiar with, right. They have a great amount of comfort, but over time they can see, there could be some cost savings in Nutanix, with going with the Acropolis hypervisor that's included. So our customer came to us and said, hey, can you help us with this? Said, absolutely. So they are in our data center, we're taking care of them, we are consulting through their transformation and they are starting out with what they're comfortable with and as time changes and as they mature and transition, we're gonna help them get there, right. We're gonna help them change, if it's a hypervisor, if it's a different service, if it's a different way to set it up and present it out to their innovative IT developers, right. We're gonna help them do that. >> Talk about, can you guys share your insight into how you're operating the business? I mean obviously, you've got customers, a lot of customers. What's it like, operating this? 'Cause you got developers out there who want applications to be supported. I'm sure you got latency challenges around. We went to the cloud, a lot of multi-cloud conversations. People still gotta store stuff in their data centers or colos. So the edge, the network change, all these things are evolving. What's going on inside your company, in terms of how you operate? >> So, that's a great question. So, it is challenging to keep up with that landscape as it evolves but we are investing heavily in that. So the great thing about TierPoint, is we are in these edge markets. That is one of our real value adds, and so we're investing very heavily in our network. We also have some really strong partnerships with carriers that give us that on-ramp into the hyperscale. So it really helps complete that multi-cloud story that customers need. So yeah, they can come to us, colocate that equipment that they really have to hold on to, mainframes, mid-range servers, other legacy systems, while gaining that connectivity to those hyperscale environments. And then there's the middle, the middle where we provide a layer, like Nutanix, that gives them that enterprise type cloud. But again, it's dedicated to them, it's in our data center, it's local to their other systems, while also getting that reach to the hyperscale. So it's a really, really powerful story for us. >> On the hypervisor challenge question, this is interesting, we hear people saying, I got Hyper-Vi, I got Hyper-V, I got VMware, I wanna just use, Nutanix' got their own hypervisor. AVH has been an interesting product for Nutanix. The full stack is compelling for a lot of customers, but you guys probably have a lot of customers who wanna parole their own, or bring their own hypervisor. How do you deal with that, does that fit in to the value proposition? >> Well, I think there is some talk about the hypervisor, maybe being irrelevant, like it's obsolete, it's not something to be concerned about, and I think Dave said it earlier, best today, he said that-- >> John: You could be nice when you say that, by the way. >> I'm sorry, what? >> John: A lot of people are saying that. >> Well, yeah, a lot of people are saying that. I just think it's less of a focus, right, because TierPoint helps people focus on what is innovative, what is your business outcome, what are you really doing for your business? So I feel like the hypervisor is just less of a focus, right, than it is necessarily, not important. >> It's more commodity now. >> Yeah. >> It is, and we don't want the customers to have to focus on that, because again, IT really needs to drive business, not be a drag on business and so the less that they have to focus, as an IT organization, on the maintenance and management of infrastructure, and even up the stack towards operating systems, where we can take that burden off of them, then again, they can be a leader for their business and driving the business as a whole, not be held back. >> Okay, what's the playbook for doing that, not being a drag on the business? Because that's what everyone wants to do but they might have legacy stuff. What's the playbook? >> The playbook, is being a part of that business discussion and when the business itself is making decisions about how to drive forward, IT has that seat at the table, and again, is thinking about, how can we drive savings or cost cutting, how can we enable transactions, how can we enable the customer base? And not thinking about, oh, do I have my storage system updated, am I dealing with the old boxes that I have to replace, and do I have power and cooling problems in a data center. They don't need to be dealing with that. They need to be up front with the business, making business decisions. >> What you're talking about, really represents a complete shift in the role of the technologist. Do they have the skills to be thinking about, they obviously, can think about more than just the maintenance, and do I have the storage, and things like that. But does there need to be much more education around these business strategy questions that they should be thinking about? As you said, this is their role, to really help the business transform. >> David: Yeah. >> So, I think that often times I see people feel like they are just technology, oh, I'm just hands on keyboard, I'm doing this, but what their exposure and their natural interests, lead them to have a broad picture of how things can work, what is expected, and how do these things operate, what have I had experience with, and when they have a seat at the table and they're making, with the business decisions, they have value to add there. Right. That value is in that perspective, what they've seen, because that may not be forefront for some of the other business leaders at the table, right? And it is a collaborative discussion, that generates quality output, that generates innovation, that generates thinking outside of the box, and unique solutions that really lead the market. >> But I do think it really does, to your point, mean new education, new skills for these IT technologists and so that's part of, we've gone through this at TierPoint, transforming the engineers and the technologists that we have working on our staff and really teaching them new ways to work, new ways to think, new ways to collaborate, so that they're helping us move the business forward and not sitting behind a keyboard, isolated from the business itself. >> I was gonna ask you about the skill gap 'cause one of the things that comes up as the shift at DevOps is happening, with more development going on to make the infrastructure programmable so it's not a drag on the business, changing roles are a huge thing 'cause Nutanix essentially, the values, they enable new things to happen, the result is consolidation, so it's not consolidation as the primary. You get consolidation as a benefit of what they do. So people be like, whoa, what do I do now? But the benefit is people shift. So the IT Ops role has changed, it's best probably to get it before the operations. Where do you guys see that trend evolving? Because if this continues with AI and automation, you can almost imagine it's completely programmable infrastructure. >> Yeah, we do see a consolidation of Siloed Technologists, right, so this idea of I'm only a network engineer, I'm only a storage engineer, I'm only a cloud engineer, that is definitely going away and again, we've done this at TierPoint. We've kind of mixed those roles, right, educate the staff, but from additional education programmability, somebody'd be able to do the automation and the development in an engineering role verses having a separate development team working on that. It's gonna be really important as companies evolve their groups. >> I think you've had a lot of infrastructure engineers that 20 years ago, 15 years ago, knew Pearl, they knew scripting, they knew these things, and as time has gone on, now they know APIs, now they know RESTful APIs, now they're interacting, but we all know, in IT, it's always change and it's always learning, I mean, you got into this, right. So I think a lot of the infrastructure engineers, over time, are finding they were already automating things in some ways and they're becoming more mature in the ways that they automate things, right? I think it's a great transition as they go on, yeah. >> So, talk about the relationship with Nutanix. What's it like, partnering with them? They got a lot of momentum in enabling a partner strategy. We saw news with Hewlett Packard enterprise, potential channel opportunity there. They're a partner centric, they're partner friendly. What's it like, working with them? >> Fantastic, I mean absolutely fantastic, from go, see our customers were coming to us wanting to, they brought Nutanix to us, honestly, they came up. A lot of people that use Nutanix are like fans of Nutanix, right, you've seen some of those, and so our customers brought Nutanix to us, and as we began to see this trend, and we decided to make a private cloud product out of it, we engage with Nutanix. They've provided so many resources, they've been there for us, been very responsive. It's really been a natural and easy collaboration with them. And like you said, they do everything through partners so that has made it easy. We are another partner, right? They enable us, they know that part of their success is our success and vice versa, so it's almost like an extension of the team, which is fantastic. >> So what do you say to the new Nutanix customer that comes in, 'cause I agree with you, they're very hardcore loyal fans because they took a chance and they see benefits, so they took a chance and it paid off. It's like gambling, you put a number on the roulette wheel and it comes up black or red, whatever. They've had great success there and their promoter score is 90. But what about new people, are like, hey, I heard this Nutanix thing is out there, or software. How are you guys looking at these new opportunities, when is Nutanix a good fit? 'Cause you gotta balance it all for all your customers. >> Yeah. >> Depending on what they wanna do. >> Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Honestly, for us it's really about enabling the higher order applications and workloads for our customers, so I don't know, unless the customer themselves is really bringing Nutanix to us, that we're having that conversation. It's really like, look, this is a solution that's gonna provide you the capabilities, and again, trying to not have the customer really worry too much about that and let us own that relationship, and as PJ mentioned, Nutanix has invested very heavily, not only in the partnership but also developing this platform and solution for us so it's been-- >> So you guys could provide it, if no one asks, just provide the best solution. >> Absolutely. >> Right. >> And that's the key, right? >> I want to ask you a question about geographics. So, I'm based in Boston, John's based in the Valley, you're a technology company based in St. Louis. I'm interested, we may just come to this with our east coast, west coast biases and I'm just, what's it like to be a technology company in St. Louis, in the heartland, do you feel part of the community? >> Oh absolutely, in fact, St. Louis really has been, you see several articles about all the startup tech in St. Louis because it is an affordable place to live. You have access to all the cities, usually direct flights, right, so from a community perspective, there's a lot more technology startups than you might think in St. Louis, but they do have access to-- >> Rebecca: And great barbecue too. >> Great barbecue, absolutely. And it really is a beautiful place. You also have lots of parks, lots of rivers, lots of outdoor, I mean, it's kinda surprising, honestly. We have a main technology center also, in Raleigh, North Carolina, so we are split between the two. >> David: Yeah. >> We do a lot of flights back and forth. >> WWT is out there too. >> RTP, yeah, the research truck will park in North Carolina, as a very big tech hub, so that split really provides a balance. There's a very big business hub in St. Louis and a lot of collaborational partnerships there from the business side, but also that Raleigh Tech Hub on the east coast is really a huge benefit to us. And a lot of our partners are there, >> PJ: And like a lot of-- >> Nutanix actually, is right there, down the street. >> We'll have to come down and visit you in North Carolina. My daughter's going to UNC >> Oh, okay. >> So I gotta find some excuses to get down there. >> That'd be great. >> Anytime. >> Maybe see your business. >> Some TierPoint shows. >> Oh, that's right. >> Exactly. >> And do a little, couple interviews. >> Anytime. >> Anytime. >> Well, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE. It was great talking to you. >> Yeah, we really enjoyed it. >> Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, for John Ferrier, you are watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)