>>from >>around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. Special coverage sponsored by AWS Global Partner Network >>Right. Welcome, everyone to the Cube. Live covering aws reinvent 2020. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. Today we're joined by Joshua Virgin. He is the general manager at AWS Outpost. Thanks so much for coming on the Cube. Joshua, >>thank you for having me. It's great to be here. >>Well, it's great to have you So tell our viewers a little bit about aws out AWS Outpost. >>Sure, it's the one of my favorite subjects, obviously. So outpost is a service from AWS that allows you to use the same tools technology ap ice. You know, programming interfaces that you do in the cloud, but install this and run it on your own premises or in a co location facility. So it really extends the reach of A W S two far more locations than you could otherwise use it. >>So what are some of the advancements this year? >>It's been an amazingly you know, busy year, even under unprecedented kind of circumstances, where we've tried to turn the crank really hard and deliver value for our customers. We increase the number of countries you could order outposts in up to 51 countries. You can now connect outpost all 22 AWS regions and or govcloud regions everything outside of China. On we delivered 15 new services or incremental features, including S three on outpost, which was the top thing that customers asked for. But also our application load balancer, elastic cash are relational database service RDS. You know, there's probably more that I'm missing here, but, you know, and we're definitely not slowing down in that regard. 2021 will probably be an even bigger year. >>So tell us a little bit about the response from customers since the launch of a W s outpost last year. What are you hearing? >>Yeah, I mean, we're hearing a lot. I think we've been pleasantly surprised by the breadth and the depth of the customer use cases. One >>of the >>biggest things we heard from people was, you know, the the outposts are great, but it's a it's a full rack of compute or many racks of compute in some cases in storage, you know, their locations that people wanted to put it in that were smaller where their space constrained. Maybe a restaurant or a factory floor or ah, you know, small medical facility. You know, a telco like a cell site. And and so what we did, based on that is something that we actually just announced and Andy's keynote just a few days ago here, which is the new small form factor outposts that are one you and to you size servers. It's about the size of one or two pizza boxes stacked on top of each other. So that's even going to make outposts available toe even Mawr use cases. Uh, you know, early on we kind of said to ourselves that it's important to kind of give people that consistent experience wherever they might need the compute and storage and the other services. And so I've been I've been really pleasantly surprised, as I mentioned earlier by how many people have talked to us. We have customers like Philips Healthcare. They are. They're bringing their medical imaging solution toe outposts, and it allows them to kind of modernize the way they deliver services, the hospitals and medical research centers around the world, something that really wouldn't be possible without having A W s everywhere, >>and that is much, much needed today. Um, tell us a little bit about Maura. About this year in particular. You said it yourself at the beginning of our conversation. This is an unprecedented year for so many different reasons. How has the cove in 19 pandemic affected AWS outpost and how your team interacts with customers and get your job done? >>Yeah, we I >>think we have >>some unique, you know, challenges in that regard. Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, a W s outposts are installed in a co location, facility or on a customer's own premises in a data center. You know, other things like that. So obviously we have to get our technicians out there toe, roll them in and hook them up to your network and, you know, to get them powered up. So that means that we are complying with, uh, covert restrictions. And as I mentioned 51 different countries. So there was even an install earlier this year at a mining location, you know, far outside the U. S. Where we had to get technicians working with, uh, local technicians from the customer following Kobe guidelines wearing protective gear and actually installing the outpost. You know, using kind of satellite connectivity and phones, toe phone home and talk to us during the installation, of course, because it's not hooked up yet. So those were just kind of examples of the lengths to which will go to make sure that, of course, we're safe. The customers were safe, but that they can kind of continue to modernize their application portfolio and get benefits from the outpost. >>And what are you hearing from clients and customers in terms of how they're thinking about their technology needs now and in the coming year? >>Yeah, that's a That's a great question. I mean, it really varies by market segment. So you have customers like Cisco and Ericsson and Telefonica. They're gonna be using Outpost Thio kind of run their five g packet core technology. It it's got to be run at the edge right there. Telcos. They need to minimize Leighton, see single digit milliseconds, or you might have a customer like Lockheed Martin, And what they've told us is they have projects that are subject to government contracts and regulations. And not only do they have, of course, compliance regimes like Fed ramp that they need to be aware of. But there's data residency requirements. So whether they're deploying in the United States or, you know, with our allies all around the world, the compute in the storage that they need to run in specific locations. So now outposts are going to be a key advancement and kind of a key differentiator for them in how they deliver services to their customers and still meet those data residency or compliance requirements. >>Joshua, tell our viewers more about AWS Outpost ready? >>Oh, that zits. Another thing. I'm really glad you mentioned. So the Outpost Ready program. These are solutions from our a Pienaar Amazon AWS partner Network that are validated in following our best practices on AWS outposts. They're certified toe work and you know they're generally available to customers. And so it's a program where, you know, I SVs and saz providers can ensure that the technology that they provide this third party technology is going to work in the outpost environment. And and there's there's something about outpost that I think makes this, uh, differentiator and uniquely valuable. When I mentioned kind of that consistent hybrid experience. When you think about how outposts are deployed, you know, in a customer's data center, Mike. Maybe alongside other technology they're already using. And so customers say, Look, these AWS services are great, but I already use a variety of, you know, third party technology, maybe from Veritas or Trend Micro Palo Alto Networks. Con vault sigh since pager duty Pure storage Netapp. You know, the list is actually pretty extensive of what people are already using. And so they said, you know, I do plan on using AWS services, but I also don't want to give up. You know what what my team is already familiar with, So can you make sure that's gonna work for me, whether I'm using it in the region or on the AWS outposts? And so the interest and kind of demand for this both from customers and the enthusiasm from the partners has been off the charts. We started the program in just September, which is not that long ago, and we had 32 partners, and as of today we have an additional, uh, additional 25 partners, right? It's 57 partners, total 64 certified solutions so that that's a lot of momentum in just kind of, ah, short amount of time. And I'm really happy that we can deliver that to the customers >>so it doesn't. It's already showing tremendous momentum. How do you think about it in terms of the primary benefits that it gives to customers and how it helps customers and partners? >>Yeah, I think, you know, in order to qualify, the solution has to be tested and validated upon against a bunch of criteria that we have very specific technical criteria, security requirements operational and you know, they're they're supported for customers with clear deployment guidelines. So you know, the customers can kind of think of this as a guarantee that we're not just saying maybe this could work, but but this will work. If you're already using it, it's going to continue to work in a way that's familiar to you and and again, that's important. That consistent hybrid experience, whether you're using a solution from a third party or from AWS, whether you're using it in the region or on a local zone or in a wavelength zone, some of our other, you know, kind of innovative infrastructure deployments or using it on outpost, no matter where you're using it, it has to work the same way. And so this is something that customers have said. I want to be able to get up and running quickly. We had a customer riot games. They're the maker of league of Legends. But also when they were launching their new game, Valerie Int, in June of 2020 they deployed outpost in four different locations to kind of ensure a level playing field in terms of latency. What they told us, you know, very much like this service ready program is they were able to get up and running in just a matter of days once the outpost was deployed. And it's because we gave them those same a p I s that same tooling. So I think that's really important for people. And, you know, I hope we can continue to deliver on that promise. >>So the closest out here, I want you to look into your crystal ball and think ahead 12 and 24 months when you know, fingers crossed things are back to somewhat more normal. What? What's in store for AWS Outpost? >>Yeah, I mean, we're going to deliver on what we announced here at reinvent, which is the new small form factor outposts on. I think what we're going to continue to do is listen to customers. We developed outpost from the very beginning because customers said Could could you deploy outposts in our in our data center or Sorry, can you deploy eight of us? And our data center didn't have a name back then. And so that's really the hallmark of AWS, you know, somewhere around 90% of our road maps or based on what customers tell us they want, then the other 10% is when we kind of look around the corner and hopefully delight people with something they didn't even know they needed. And I really hope for my team. And that that's what 2021 2022 brings is, you know, more countries, more services, more value, more compliance certifications. You know, all the things that people tell us they want. We're going to keep turning the crank as hard as we can and delivering that as quickly as possible >>with the trademark Amazon customer delight. >>Yes, absolutely >>excellent. Well, Joshua Virgin. Thank you so much for coming on the Cube. It was a pleasure having you. >>That was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much. >>I'm Rebecca night for more of the cubes. Coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. Stay tuned. >>Yeah.