>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Dell Technologies World 2018 brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to the Cube's continuing coverage of Dell Technologies World from Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend, and we're joined by two Cube alumni. We've got Paul Galjan, Senior Director of Microsoft Hybrid Cloud for Dell EMC, and Claude Lorenson, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Cloud and Enterprise Platform, from Microsoft. Hi Guys. >> Combined Voices: Hi, how are you? >> Welcome back. >> Voice 1: Thank you. It's really great to be here. >> So, we've had almost two full days of talking with customers, partners ... We want to talk to you guys about what's next, what is next, well, we'll get there ... What's new? How about that? With Dell EMC and Microsoft? >> Yeah, so we shipped toward the end of last year, fourth quarter of last year. We went GA, and what's happening is there's an amazing amount of momentum in the enterprise now. We're seeing a lot of interest from the financial sector, from manufacturing, oil and gas. People are really interested in exploring use cases for Azure Stack and also government. Government is also spending up. And we're spending the week here with a ton of great customers and exploring how we can extend their IT business. >> Yeah, we've been very happy with the number of new customers that have joined this platform with Dell EMC. As Paul mentioned, we're seeing some focus on a few verticals in manufacturing, financial services, and, for Microsoft, working with Dell EMC has been a natural because we've worked on a solution like this for quite a few years so it makes the making the sausage part easier when work we work with Dell EMC because we're a trusted partner for quite a while in these solutions. >> We've been making sausage with Microsoft for a long time. (laughter) >> That is a Cube meme for sure. (laughter) So, it's been nine months, there's the ideal of what a product is, and then customers get it, and they start to use it. What have been some of the surprises? Has it been exactly what you guys thought it would be? Or have the customers kind of stretched the imagination to using Azure Stack instead. >> So the thing that surprised me the most is how much our portfolio, at least from a Dell EMC perspective, is how much our portfolio really plays into the decision. And, I'll give you an example, our ISO LAN attach rate with Dell EMC Azure Stack is tremendous, and it's because the inherent the storage density of a hyper-converged infrastructure is what it is, and when you have a multi-petabyte data set that you want to process using cloud types of technologies having an ISO LAN sitting right next to it makes sense. That has surprised me how quickly people have jumped to that with production use cases. >> Keith: It is an interesting concept. >> For Microsoft, the thing that surprised us a lot is the customer that actually get the platform as an enabler of digital transformation the amount of things that they want to do on it is just like mind boggling, so we are constantly asked to add different things to the base services. And, of course, we're doing our best to triage this and prioritize what makes the most sense, but there are the people who gets it, they have tremendous use case very specific for them that Azure Stack enables, so we're on our toes to keep improving the different services that we can offer for Azure Stack. >> Lisa: And you mentioned a number of verticals that seemed to be kind of early adopters here. Are there common use cases among government, financial services, or are you seeing specific use cases to those industries? >> I can talk to that. Gas and mining industry, we see a lot of interest in the disconnected scenarios because of poor latency with the internet. They want to run some of their application that they usually run on Azure, but they want to run it in the mine shaft, for example, or they want to run it in a drilling platform in the ocean. So Azure Stack is an extension of Azure for this so in these kind of industries, the disconnected scenario is very, very big. If you can think of Defense also, if they want to use something in moving vehicle Azure Stack is a great platform for that. >> And it's not just latency, it's just simple data gravity. You know if you have, if you're generating pentabytes of data on a daily basis out on an oil rig, you're not going to be able to get that into W Azure, GPC, or Azure. So you can process it, upload results, filtered results back to Azure for further processing. It's a really common use case. And the federal space is quite big for defense actually. >> So what are the most common services on Azure Stack taking advantage of the petabytes of ISO LAN right next to it as opposed to shipping it back to ... on a truck back to the Azure data center? >> So you want to talk about some of the recent developments for all that? >> You go ahead with all that. >> So what we're seeing a lot of initiatives around is IoT, and those are, that's that very typical data gravity type issue, and it also has it also has compliance implications particularly in the EU. Being able to control where the data is and being able- >> Staying within the border of the country so you don't move it in a data center that is not in your country so Azure become Azure in your country if you don't have your own Azure data centers. And the banking industry in Europe is pretty particular about this, so that's a big vertical for us in Europe. >> Yeah, a lot of finance. >> What about? >> I'm sorry go ahead. >> Oh thank you, sir. I wanted to talk, Claude, to you about what differentiates Dell EMC as an OEM for Microsoft with Azure Stack. >> Well, one thing that differentiates Dell EMC is the fact that they have a broad portfolio of server storage, they have great backup solution, for example, and that's needed in Azure Stack, And, also, let's face it, familiarity. We have been building these integrated systems together for a long, long time. So we know their engineering team, we have a well-oiled machine in terms of testing, so it's easier in some ways there. There's a familiarity in how we work that's quite well-known, and we can take advantage of their portfolio. Like I said, backup is a huge thing for Azure Stack. I mean it's hard to find a better partner for backup than Dell EMC, for example. So, we have a long experience in selling product together. And the client side, the laptop side, we have a long experience of selling Windows Server together, I mean, for years, they've been one of our biggest reseller of Windows Server. So, all this knowledge about Microsoft and how Microsoft works makes Azure Stack simpler to develop with a partner like Dell EMC. >> Okay, can you guys expand upon the advantages of the relationship when it comes to support? Nine months in, there's going to be stumbling blocks, there's going to be challenges, there's just going to be a lot to learn. What has been been a typical customer support experience with two companies? >> So, this really speaks to the learnings that we've had over the years working together. We have jointly, we have worked together on what we call 'Case Exchange API' which allows for ... it goes well above and beyond kind of the typical TSA net case exchange, with that sites, logs. This is API level access into mutual case management systems where we can get visibility into Microsoft's status with a given case and Microsoft can give visibility into Dell EMC's status with the case. And so it makes it so that the customer experience is completely seamless, and they can call, it doesn't matter which number you call for support, it ends up, you end up with a completely seamless experience. It's great. >> And we had years to improve that process and now we have an electronic, automatic ticket exchange and Dell EMC was one of the first partners to really implement this with us, and it's helped tremendously for the customer experience, and, luckily, so far, support hasn't been a big issue on Azure Stack. (laughter) As numbers grow and grow, I'm sure it'll change. >> So, you've been partners for a long time, we've talked about this well-oiled sausage factory (laughter) partners, collaborative ... (laughter) >> That can tweet. You will get tags. >> It is a tweetable moment. So collaboration, visibility, talk to us about the two cloud strategies, Dell EMC's cloud strategy, Microsoft's cloud strategy, how do they align? >> Okay, well, from a Dell EMC perspective, it's a no-brainer, of the big public clouds, Microsoft is really unique in their hybrid cloud approach. There's the Mware approach with AWS and bringing the workload to the cloud. Microsoft is the only major cloud vendor right now bringing the cloud to the work. And it's just a no-brainer from that perspective amongst most cases. >> And for Microsoft? >> Well, our cloud strategy is pretty clear- it's Azure, (laughter) but that part you said. Azure Stack is an extension of Azure. It brings Azure in different scenarios that would not be possible before, and we rely on our trusted, secure and hybrid, hybrid across the board not only with Azure, but with SQL Server, with identity, with security are pillars on these key functions our hybrids across, on premises, and in the cloud. Azure Stack brings this all up for different workloads. So, Azure, we're all in, and it's going well. And Azure Stack as an extension of that bringing in to the customer data center. >> Keith: So, let's talk about this Azure inside of a customer's data center. This is public cloud inside of a customer's data center, expectations change, operations change, technical capability changes, what have been some of the key learnings as customers start to to assume public cloud in their private data center? Like you said, this is a unique approach, this is hybrid cloud like no other model, instead of going inside out, you guys are going outside in. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I think the biggest the biggest perception change that needs, that customers, it helps that customers learn it early, is that Azure Stack is cloud. Simply because it's residing on your data center floor doesn't mean that it's virtualization and all those concepts go along with it. I'll give you a perfect example, if you have a workload that has some sort of unbalanced, you know, you need a lot of RAM but a little CPU, a lot of IOPs but not a whole lot of capacity, those are things that you capture as part of the re-platforming, the refactoring process, if you're going into public Azure or AWS. That same process needs to be followed for going into Azure Stack because from an operating model perspective it's an identical process. >> So let's talk about what's next. I talked to Jeff Snover again about nine months ago and one of the things he said, one of the advantages of Azure Stack is that it is new, and in being new, you can bring in new services, so customers are there to talk, looking at the cloud, they're going to look at things such as containers, functions as a service, et cetera. What's next for Azure Stack and Dell EMC? >> Claude: I'll talk a little about ... Well, we have a roadmap. It's a public roadmap. You can find it on Azure dot com. So what's next is extending the platform with more and more services. So one thing we have to tell customers is that not all services in Azure run in Azure Stack today. There's a subset. We're expanding that subset. We take input from our partner and customer and prioritizing what we are going to do, but also what's next is things like increased scalability, for example, increased efficiency in terms of virtual density, virtual machine density. Increase the number of regions that you can support, so making it from a one off to a true scale product is one of the things we're focusing on. We're making, we're putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that our customers are happy, so when they deploy Azure Stack, we want to make sure that their experience is good, so we're expending effort on making sure that there's a good way for them to reach out to us, but basically expanding the number of services on the platform is is what's new and what's next. >> So, Claude, last question for you, from Microsoft, we're at the first Dell Technologies World, right, last year with Dell EMC, 14 thousand people here, That's a huge, loads of partners, what are some things that you're looking forward to hearing tomorrow in your session from the Dell Technologies customers? >> I'm interested in learning about their use case, how does it fit their data centers? Because every customer is a little bit different, I had some customer meeting today, Dell EMC has invited me to quite a few customers and hearing what they want to do is really interesting because it can guide which next services, for example, we should implement, so hearing the specific is a very important thing. My experience I've talked at Dell, Dell EMC World for quite a few years, very often, the people who come in these session, they are kind of like rookie. They want to know, they want to learn. The experienced folks, we get to talk to them in the booth, but in the session, we get a lot of rookies, like what is thing, what it is, you got to be conscious of that too. >> Well, thanks, guys, for stopping back by the Cube and sharing what's new with Microsoft Hybrid Cloud and Dell EMC, we appreciate that. >> Thank you. We appreciate the time, look forward to it next year. >> Absolutely! >> Thanks. >> We want to thank you for watching the Cube. We are live on Day Two of Dell Technologies World. I am Lisa Martin for Keith Townsend. Stick around, we'll be right back after a short break. (music)