>> Voiceover: Live from San Francisco, it's The Cube covering DevNet Create 2017 brought to you by Cisco. >> Welcome back everyone. Live in San Francisco, this is exclusive Cube coverage of DevNet Create, Cisco's inaugural event where they're going out into the devops world into the community ingratiating and donating a million dollars for hardware, really taking their DevNet developer program to the next level, really creating an open developer devops ethos. Coverage two days. I'm John Furrier with my co-host, Peter Burris, head of wikibon.com research, also head of research SiliconANGLE Media. Our next guest is Abby Kearns, Executive director of Cloud Foundry. Welcome back to The Cube. Good to see you. >> Always a pleasure. >> I'm excited to chat with you for multiple reasons. One, you've got a hot product but at Dell EMC world more than ever you start to see the emergence of Cloud Foundry coalescing, not consolidating, coalescing the stakeholders. >> Abby: Yeah. >> And so you start to see multi-cloud starting to develop as the swim lane or a path, certainly hybrid cloud is hot. Cloud Foundry is kind of interesting right now. So, congratulations. Give us the update. What's going on? Obviously, you've got a spring in your step. What's happening? >> Well, not to be biased, but I feel like Cloud Foundry's always been interesting. >> John: Well, from a growth standpoint, now more than ever. >> Yeah, we started talking about multi-cloud a year ago. So, it's really interesting to see it really taking form in the industry where people are like, "Yes." People don't want to be locked into a single cloud. Yes, they want to have choice. And yes, they want to be able to take their workloads and move them anywhere and public cloud, right now, has gotten such amazing traction. And they're coming up with interesting things. You know, GCP is really coming into it's own and Azure's really starting to take shape. I think there's a lot of potential for a lot of features and services to really be available. >> The thing I like talking to you about is ... Talking with you is because you're in an area that is misunderstood early on. You've been beating on this drum, we've talked about this before. Andy, Jessie and I had similar conversations about this, but Amazon, how they were misunderstood in the beginning. People were dismissing it. And so there's always a tipping point. The Cube's the same way. "What do you guys do?" And we keep on ... And then people figure it out. That's kind of when the rest of the world, mainstream starts to get it and in particular, these are the model. What was the tipping point for you because I know that you had this same vision. What's the tipping point now? Why are we now is it happening? Because of the pressure? Is it because now the tools are coming to the table? What's the forcing function that's taking Cloud Foundry from this alternative approach to a viable, scalable opportunity? >> Well, I think it's always been viable. I think where we are, though, is we're seeing users starting to get traction on digital transformation. And I know digital transformation, everyone's like, "God, not that term again. We're so tired of it." But, it's true. It's more of these enterprise organizations are, "I'm now a software company," or, "I'm now competing against Airbnb or Tesla." You know, the landscape is changing and so as they realize they become software companies and they need to develop software, they're investing more in developers and development and they're like, "Oh, well, how do I do that quickly? How do I really focus on that?" Because turns out really investing in a lot of other ancillary aspects isn't core to my business. It's not changing who I am. And so investing in technology, in software in particular, allows you to differentiate your business. And so a platform like Cloud Foundry really abstracts the way an infrastructure automates that as much as possible, so the developers have the freedom to create. And that's really what's going to differentiate businesses that are becoming software companies. >> So, as you think about the developer, break it down where you think it's going to be in about five years. Because we're here at the developer conference and most of these people are folks with network expertise or folks with traditional software development expertise coming into the world where we're going to build distributed applications. Very, very important stuff. But as you think about the characteristics or how the demographics of what the developer is, how much is it going to be the professional hard-core developer, how much of it is going to be citizen development? Where do you think all this goes in five years as we start to see how all this new software gets created to serve all the business needs that are on the horizon of a digital world? >> Well, my opinion is that eventually everyone is going to be a developer of some type, whether it's taking advantage of business logic or operationalizing outcomes from machine learning or automotive AI, just taking advantage of that. But in five years, I think, where we are today, the technology is definitely growing faster than user's capability to adopt it all. So, there is a growing gap there. >> And use cases are emerging as well. So, another dimension to that complexity is new devices are connected. >> Exactly, so I think there's going to be an exponential over the next couple of years of growth in terms of the technology, what it enables, why it enables, and how the users are adopting it. Because I think we all theorize about what users could do and will do, but at the end of the day, if these large enterprise organizations start actually putting the focus and the force behind development, imagine what they can come up with. You know, look at what GE's doing with Predix, or SAP is doing with their cloud platform and think about the investment around those applications and the ability to influence where we go. You know, seven years ago we wouldn't have predicted the iPhone would be the tool that it is today. Or the iPad or the way that we actually make use of these as platforms because of the applications. The applications have really driven the innovation around that and I think we'll start seeing that the applications and the use cases really driving the innovation leaps. >> Talk about the challenges and opportunities that digital transformation has for business that are trying to get there and there's obviously different business profiles, startup, fast growing, public company, I mean, Ford. There's a customer of yours I know, I don't want to get into the whole Mark Fields thing. There's challenges at different levels of the organizations. So, to implement devops, at the end of the day, Ford's trying to get better cars, not necessarily a better cloud. Cloud enables them to do things. So, companies have to look at this and have a journey. What is the part that you see that companies are doing well from a journey standpoint and how are they laying out that digital transformation with Cloud Foundry? >> Well, I think more than a journey, they have to have a clear vision, a clear idea where they want to go. Because at the end of the day, technology shouldn't be the goal. Technology should be the enabler to achieve that goal. And ensuring that companies can maintain that clear vision, and really lead from the top with that vision, because, at the end of the day, we talk about digital transformation. Technology is a topic I talk about a lot because, obviously, Cloud Foundry's focusing on the technology piece, but the cultural shift, what it enables is really what's both critical, but also the most difficult. These organizations are trying to transform and become software companies, are also fundamentally changing their business model, their organization, and the way they leverage technology and that's a huge shift for many of these organizations. >> Actually businesses, we were talking before the camera how companies should look at that process because you have to kind of invest and it's not just the old days, you buy a general purpose software stack. Then the suppliers took care of it, say Oracle, whoever. Hey, they supply it, they turnkey, there's some TCO, total cost of ownership involved. I get that. But now, with developers, you're talking about training, you're talking about devops, you're talking about real investment. >> Restructuring, hiring, retention. It changes fundamentally the way you think about everything. How do you hire developers? How do you hire cloud native developers? How do you retain talent? How do you restructure teams? When we talk about two-pizza teams or cross-functional alignment, what that's really saying is, "Hey, I need you to rethink your entire org structure and the way that you incentivize people and motivate people." >> John: And fund it. >> And funding is like, you know, gone are the days of give me your five year plan and we'll do your capex and OPEX allocations. But it needs to be more iterative because you're encouraging agile. You're saying fell fast or iterate more. You're really saying I want you to take ideas and iterate on them, get them out the door, and then maybe that doesn't work. Maybe we try again. But the idea is to continue to iterate and innovate on that. >> Abby, what trends are you seeing in terms of pattern recognition as you go out and evangelize and support your customers with Cloud Foundry? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder depending on how you implement your cloud, IBM and others, the customers. What's the pattern that's consistent across the Cloud Foundry ecosystem that's happening right now, that's maybe different from a few years ago that's emerging? >> Well, to me, the Cloud Foundry users are key. I spend a lot of time talking to them because, for me, it's interesting. We can theorize about the technology and where it should go, but at the end of the day, how you're using it and what you're doing with it is the most important, one might say. >> John: And what are they doing? What are some examples? >> They are really starting to get traction. I mean, Comcast is a great example. The amount of traction they've gained. They have over 1000 developers working on Cloud Foundry right now. Over 10,000 applications running on it. They're doing 180 million transactions per day. That is huge. And, for them, it's not just the amount of investment they've got in it, but it's also how it's transforming the way they work. How much more productive they are and how getting better ideas out to the hands of customers. It's changing the way that they think about customers. Improving the way that they connect to their customers and that's the fundamental shift. >> Have you observed any, because we've, again, been funding the present creation of these events, especially inaugural events like DevNet Create for Cisco, which is to put their toes in the water, but they're committed to it. CubeCon, we saw that emerge. We saw Cloud Native emerge back in the 2008 timeframe with The Cube. Open Stack, obviously, has trajectory. Are you seeing a community expansion? Certainly there's expansion of the community in general. But we're seeing our Cube alumni fans here. I saw Patrick Riley earlier. I saw Lisa Marie. There's not one community any more. There's a series of new communities. OpenStack is one, you got Cloud Native Foundation, or Compute ... CNCF, you've got Cloud Foundry. There seems to be kind of like a flowing set of people in the community. What's happening in the community layers. I mean, it's all good. Does it mean anything? >> Yeah, it means open source is amazing. Because, at the end of the day, that's what's amazing about open source. We can do work with other projects in other communities. We have a great relationship with OpenStack. We have a great relationship with our sister CNCF. In fact the open service broker API project that we announced last year was a way to really take the best of great technology and make it available across other platforms and communities. Because at the end of the day, when we're talking about open source, when we're talking about bringing together diverse perspectives, diverse people to innovate more. So, collaborative R&D is where open source can really drive real value. >> It's an expansion of the community of open source. By the way, I will note that we cover, Hugh, Peter we talked about open source that have gone public. Cloud Air, MuleSoft, the list goes on and on. There's multiple new IPOs. Since RedHat and Hortonworks started that wave, so real companies. >> Real companies doing real things on open source. >> Let me push on this open source concept really quickly because it's very clear that it's been a successful model. But open source has been most successful where the marketplace has a very clear convention of what is being open source. For example, we knew what a UNIX operating system was. LINUX is an open source option. Came very clear. When you think about big data and Hadoop, the use cases of big data, the use cases associated with very complex analytics, not as clear. So, we get a lot of open source stuff that's being created that kind of marginally improves things. How is the open source world through companies like Cloud Air that can provide some leadership going to evolve to get more focus on use cases and how we're going to apply this through open source innovation, as opposed to just creating software that is defined in terms of other open source software around it? What are your thoughts on that? >> Well, I think, going back to the point about diverse participation, that's where the real innovation's happening. So, the innovation isn't really happening at a single company or a single individual. It's happening when you bring together a bunch of individuals and a bunch of different organizations with a bunch of different perspectives. Because that's where you really start to see value. Because you're thinking outside of the box that you know. When you start thinking outside of your known use case, your known customer base and start bringing in other perspectives, that's where you're really able to push the envelope a little bit more and a little bit faster and also build and accelerated ecosystem around that quickly of people that want to participate and commit to driving that and continue to drive that innovation. >> That is recruiting opportunity for the companies. I mean, we were just talking about Cisco being closer to networking side. This is an opportunity to have a foray into innovation, but also recruiting, getting some new blood in. >> What we found in our research that developers actually list that as one of their driving factors on whether or not they're going to join a company. What is their level of participation in an open source project because they want to be able to be part of something bigger. They want to be able to contribute and be able to influence where that technology is going and that is power. >> You're starting to see on GitHub on about pages companies on the executive masthead. Check out my GitHub, see what my code ... Again, this is the badge of honor like in the gaming world where you see how many merit badges you got or guns you've acquired, depending which game you do. But in a way, this is now really the resumes, not the static LinkedIn and it's like what code have you done, what communities are you in. It almost really is a testament. >> I think it's exciting because it's saying that we not only care about technology, but we care about where it's going and that's real exciting both from an open source standpoint, but also as a developer and as a business leader. That should be exciting because you're now able to influence the technology. >> Okay, final question for you Abby. What does this event mean to you? Obviously Cisco is a new event, inaugural event, very cool, very humble, very well one by Suzy and the team, but they have a DevNet Create Cisco Developer Program. Networking guys, we know there. What does this mean, in your opinion, in terms of Cisco's statement to the industry? >> I think any program that really wants to bring developers together and give them an opportunity to collaborate, and develop more, I think it's amazing. That's something that we strive for at Cloud Foundry as well in our event coming up in a couple of weeks, which I think you'll be at. >> John: We'll be there, yep. >> It's also we're trying to mimic something similar, giving an opportunity for developers to come together, share ideas, share knowledge and contribute and work together on common projects. >> Final, final question since you brought up the event. Give us a quick preview of what to expect at the Cloud Foundry Summit in San Francisco. >> Yes, so in a couple of weeks we will host Cloud Foundry Summit North America. There's some announcements that you should pay attention to. >> John: Come on, tell us! >> Some really exciting announcements. >> Put the dots out there, we'll connect them. >> Some new new members that we're excited about joining as well as some new technology announcements. But more than that, it's our first time. We've really been rejiggering the structure of the event and we like to think of ourselves of an agile foundation. And we wanted to encourage more developers to be there, so, we're offering developer language track, so with Node and Cloud Native Java and SAP's got a track. But more than that we're also going to be announcing general availability of the Cloud Foundry Certified Developer. So, we're going to offer training on site and certification on site for the first time. So, the idea is to make this a place for developers to come and share ideas and network, but also learn more about not just Cloud Foundry, but cloud native best practices. >> So, a confab with all the bells and whistles, plus now the learning tracks to make it kind of a hands-on event. Abby Kearns, executive director of Cloud Foundry here at Cisco's inaugural DevNet Create events, Cube's coverage. I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris. Stay with us and check out Cloud Foundry Summit in a few weeks. I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris. We'll be right back. (techno music)