>> Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE! Covering IBM Think 2019. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back, live here in San Francisco, it's theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think 2019. I'm John Furrier--Stu Miniman. Stu, four days, we're on our fourth day, the sun's shining, they've shut down Howard Street here at IBM. Big event for IBM, in San Francisco, not Las Vegas. Lot of great cloud action, lot of great AI data developers. Great story, good to see you again. Our next two guests, Julie Lockner, Director, Offering Management, Portfolio Operations at IBM, Data+AI, great to see you. >> Thank you, it's great to see you too, thank you. >> And Jay Limburn, Director of Offering Management, IBM Data+AI, thanks for coming on. >> Hey guys, great to be here. >> So, we've chatted many times at events, the role of data. So, we're religious about data, data flows through our blood, but IBM has put it all together now. All the reorgs are over, everyone's kind of, the table is set for IBM. The data path is clear, it's part of applications. It's feeding the apps. AI's the key workload inside the application. This is now a fully set-up group, give us the update, what's the focus? >> Yeah, it's really exciting because, if you think about it, before, we were called IBM Analytics, and that really is only a part of what we do. Now that we're Data+AI, that means that not only are we responsible for delivering data assets, and technology that supports those data assets to our customers, but infusing AI, not only in the technologies that we have, but also helping them build applications so they can fuse AI into their business processes. >> It's pretty broad, I mean, data's very much a broad swath of things. Analytics, you know, wrangling data, setting things up, cataloging them. Take me through how you guys set this up. How do you present it to the marketplace? How are clients engaged with it? Because it's pretty broad. But it could be, it needs to be specific. Take us through the methodology. >> So, you probably heard a lot of people today talk about the ladder to AI, right? This is IBM's view of how we explain our client's journey towards AI. It really starts at the bottom rung of the ladder, where we've got the collection of information. Collect your data. Once you've collected your data, you move up to the next rung, which is the Organize. And this is really where all the governance stuff comes in. This is how we can provide a view across that data, understand that data, provide trust to that data, and then serve that up to the consumers of that information, so they can actually use that in AI. That's where all the data science capabilities come in, allowing people to actually be able to consume that information. >> So, the bottom set is just really all the hard and heavy lifting that data scientists actually don't want to do. >> And writing algorithms, the collecting, the ingesting of data from any source, that's the bottom? And then, tell me about that next layer up, from the collection-- >> So, Collect is the physical assets or the collection of the data that you're going to be using for AI. If you don't get that foundation right, it doesn't really make sense. You have to have the data first. The piece in the middle that Jay was referring to, that's called Organize, our whole divisions are actually organized around these ladders to AI, so, Collect, Organize, Analyze, Infuse. On the Organize side, as Jay was mentioning, it's all about inventorying the data assets, knowing what data you have, then providing data quality rules, governance, compliance-type offerings, that allow organizations to not just know your data, trust your data, but then make it available so you can use your data, and the users are those data scientists, they're the analytics teams, they're the operation organizations that need to be able to build their solutions on top of trusted data. >> So, where does the Catalog fit in? Which level does that come into? >> Yeah, so, think of the Data Catalog as the DNS for data, all right? It's the way in which you can provide a full view of all of your information. Whether it's structured information, unstructured information, data you've got on PRAM and data you've got in a cloud somewhere. >> That's in the Organize layer, right? >> That's all in the Organize layer. So, if you can collect that information, you can then provide capabilities that allow you to understand the quality of that data, know where that data's come from, and then, finally, if you serve that up inside a compelling, business-friendly experience, so that a data scientist can go to one place, quickly make a decision on if that's the right data for them, and allow them to go and be productive by building a data science model, then we're really able to move the needle on making those data science organizations efficient, allowing us to build better models to transform their business. >> Yeah, and a big part of that is, if you think about what makes Amazon successful, it's because they know where all their products are, from the vendor, to when it shows up on the doorstep. What the Catalog provides is really the similar capability of, I would call it inventory management of your data assets, where we know where the data came from, its source--in that Collect layer-- who's transformed it, who's accessed it, if they're even allowed to see it, so, data privacy policies are part of that, and then being able to just serve up that data to those users. Being able to see that whole end-to-end lineage is a key point, critical point of the ladder to AI. Especially when you start to think about things like bias detection, which is a big part of the Analyze layer. >> But one of the things we've been digging into on theCUBE is, is data the next flywheel of innovation? You know, it used to be I just had my information, many years ago we started talking about, "Okay, I need to be able to access all that other information." We hear things like 80% of the data out there isn't really searchable today. So, how do you see data, data gravity, all those pieces, as the next flywheel of innovation? >> Yeah, I think it's key. I mean, we've talked a lot about how, you can't do AI without information architecture. And it's absolutely true. And getting that view of that data in a single location, so it is like the DNS of the internet. So you know exactly where to search, you can get hold of that data, and then you've got tools that give you self-service access to actually get hold of the data without any need of support from IT to get access to it. It's really a key-- >> Yeah, but to the point you were just asking about, data gravity? I mean, being able to do this where the data resides. So, for example, we have a lot of our customers that are mergers and acquisitions. Some teams have a lot of data assets that are on-premises, others have large data lakes in AWS or Azure. How do you inventory those assets and really have a view of what you have available across that landscape? Part of what we've been focusing on this year is making our technology work across all of those clouds. And having a single view of your assets but knowing where it resides. >> So, Julie, this environment is a bit more complicated than the old data warehousing, or even what we were looking at with big data and Hadoop and all those pieces. >> Isn't that the truth? >> Help explain why we're actually going to be able to get the information, leverage and drive new business value out of data today, when we've struggled so many times in the past. >> Well, I think the biggest thing that's changed is the adoption of DevOps, and when I say adoption of DevOps and things like containerization and Docker containers, Kubernetes, the ability to provision data assets very quickly, no matter where they are, build these very quick value-producing applications based on AI, Artificial Intelligence APIs, is what's allowing us to take advantage of this multi-cloud landscape. If you didn't have that DevOps foundation, you'd still be building ETL jobs in data warehouses, and that was 20 years ago. Today, it's much more about these microservices-based architecture, building up these AI-- >> Well, that's the key point, and the "Fuse" part of the stack, I think, or ladder. Stack? Ladder? >> Ladder. (laughs) >> Ladder to success! Is key, because you're seeing the applications that have data native into the app, where it has to have certain characteristics, whether it's a realtime healthcare app, or retail app, and we had the retail folks on earlier, it's like, oh my god, this now has to be addressable very fast, so, the old fenced-off data warehouse-- "Hey, give me that data!"--pull it over. You need a sub-second latency, or milliseconds. So, this is now a requirement. >> That's right. >> So, how are people getting there? What are some use cases? >> Sure. I'll start with the healthcare 'cause you brought that up. One of the big use cases for technology that we provide is really around taking information that might be realtime, or batch data, and providing the ability to analyze that data very quickly in realtime to the point where you can predict when someone might potentially have a cardiac arrest. And yesterday's keynote that Rob Thomas presented, a demonstration that showed the ability to take data from a wearable device, combine it with data that's sitting in an Amazon... MySQL database, be able to predict who is the most at-risk of having a potential cardiac arrest! >> That's me! >> And then present that to a call center of cardiologists. So, this company that we work with, iCure, really took that entire stack, Organize, Collect, Organize, Analyze, Infuse, and built an application in a matter of six weeks. Now, that's the most compelling part. We were able to build the solution, inventory their data assets, tie it to the industry model, healthcare industry model, and predict when someone might potentially-- >> Do you have that demo on you? The device? >> Of course I do. I know, I know. So, here is, this is called a BraveHeart Life Sensor. And essentially, it's a Bluetooth device. I know! If you put it on! (laughs) >> If I put it on, it'll track... Biometric? It'll start capturing information about your heart, ECG, and on Valentine's Day, right? My heart to yours, happy Valentine's Day to my husband, of course. The ability to be able to capture all this data here on the device, stream it to an AI engine that can then immediately classify whether or not someone has an anomaly in their ECG signal. You couldn't do that without having a complete ladder to AI capability. >> So, realtime telemetry from the heart. So, I see timing's important if you're about to have a heart attack. >> Yeah. >> Pretty important. >> And that's a great example of, you mentioned the speed. It's all about being able to capture that data in whatever form it's coming in, understand what that data is, know if you can trust that data, and then put it in the hands of the individuals that can do something valuable with the analysis from that data. >> Yeah, you have to able to trust it. Especially-- >> So, you brought up earlier bias in data. So, I want to bring that up in context of this. This is just one example of wearables, Fitbits, all kinds of things happening. >> New sources of tech, yeah. >> In healthcare, retail, all kinds of edge, realtime, is bias of data. And the other one's privacy because now you have a new kind of data source going into the cloud. And then, so, this fits into what part of the ladder? So, the ladder needs a secure piece. >> Tell me about that. >> Yeah, it does. So, that really falls into that Organize piece of that ladder, the governance aspects around it. If you're going to make data available for self-service, you've got to still make sure that that data's protected, and that you're not going to go and break any kind of regulatory law around that data. So, we actually can use technology now to understand what that data is, whether it contains sensitive information, credit card numbers, and expose that information out to those consumers, yet still masking the key elements that should be protected. And that's really important, because data science is a hugely inefficient business. Data scientists are spending too much time looking for information. And worse than that, they actually don't have all the information available that they need, because certain information needs to be protected. But what we can do now is expose information that wasn't previously available, but protect just the key parts of that information, so we're still ensuring it's safe. >> That's a really key point. It's the classic iceberg, right? What you see: "Oh, data science is going to "change the game of our business!" And then when they realize what's underneath the water, it's like, all this set-up, incompatible data, dirty data, data cleaning, and then all of a sudden it just doesn't work, right? This is the reality. Are you guys seeing this? Do you see that? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think we're only just really at the beginning of a crest of a wave, here. I think organizations know they want to get to AI, the ladder to AI really helps explain and it helps to understand how they can get there. And we're able then to solve that through our technology, and help them get there and drive those efficiencies that they need. >> And just to add to that, I mean, now that there's more data assets available, you can't manually classify, tag and inventory all that data, determine whether or not it contains sensitive data. And that's where infusing machine learning into our products has really allowed our customers to automate the process. I mentioned, the only way that we were able to deploy this application in six weeks, is because we used a lot of the embedded machine learning to identify the patient data that was considered sensitive, tag it as patient data, and then, when the data scientists were actually building the models in that same environment, it was masked. So, they knew that they had access to the data, but they weren't allowed to see it. It's perfectly--especially with HIMSS' conference this week as well! You were talking about this there. >> Great use case with healthcare. >> Love to hear you speak about the ecosystem being built around this. Everything, open APIs, I'm guessing? >> Oh, yeah. What kind of partners are-- >> Jay, talk a little bit-- >> Yeah, so, one of the key things we're doing is ensuring that we're able to keep this stuff open. We don't want to curate a proprietary system. We're already big supporters of open source, as you know, in IBM. One of the things that we're heavily-invested in is our open metadata strategy. Open metadata is part of the open source ODPi Foundation. Project Egeria defines a standard for common metadata interchange. And what that means is that, any of these metadata systems that adopt this standard can freely share and exchange metadata across that landscape, so that wherever your data is, whichever systems it's stored in, wherever that metadata is harvested, it can play part of that network and share that metadata across those systems. >> I'd like to get your thoughts on something, Julie. You've been on the analyst side, you're now at IBM. Jay, if you can weigh in on this too, that'd be great. We, here, we see all the trends and go to all the events and one of the things that's popping up that's clear within the IBM ecosystem because you guys have a lot of business customers, is that a new kind of business app developer's coming in. And we've seen data science highlight the citizen data scientist, so if data is code, part of the application, and all the ladder stuff kind of falls into place, that means we're going to see new kinds of applications. So, how are you guys looking at, this is kind of a, not like the cloud-native, hardcore DevOps developer. It's the person that says, "Hey, I can innovate "a business model." I see a business model innovation that's not so much about building technology, it's about using insight and a unique... Formula or algorithm, to tweak something. That's not a lot of programming involved. 'Cause with Cloud and Cloud Private, all these back end systems, that's an ecosystem partner opportunity for you guys, but it's not your classic ISV. So, there's a new breed of business apps that we see coming, your thoughts on this? >> Yeah, it's almost like taking business process optimization as a discipline, and turning it into micro-applications. You want to be able to leverage data that's available and accessible, be able to insert that particular Artificial Intelligence machine learning algorithm to optimize that business process, and then get out of the way. Because if you try to reinvent your entire business process, culture typically gets in the way of some of these things. >> I thought, as an application value, 'cause there's value creation here, right? >> Absolutely. >> You were talking about, so, is this a new kind of genre of developer, or-- >> It really is, I mean... If you take the citizen data scientist, an example that you mentioned earlier. It's really about lowering the entry point to that technology. How can you allow individuals with lower levels of skills to actually get in and be productive and create something valuable? It shouldn't be just a practice that's held away for the hardcore developer anymore. It's about lowering the entry point with the set of tools. One of the things we have in Watson Studio, for example, our data science platform, is just that. It's about providing wizards and walkthroughs to allow people to develop productive use models very easily, without needing hardcore coding skills. >> Yeah, I also think, though, that, in order for these value-added applications to be built, the data has to be business-ready. That's how you accelerate these application development life cycles. That's how you get the new class of application developers productive, is making sure that they start with a business-ready foundation. >> So, how are you guys going to go after this new market? What's the marketing strategy? Again, this is like, forward-pioneering kind of things happening. What's the strategy, how are you going to enable this, what's the plan? >> Well, there's two parts of it. One is, when Jay was mentioning the Open Metadata Repository Services, our key strategy is embedding Catalog everywhere and anywhere we can. We believe that having that open metadata exchange allows us to open up access to metadata across these applications. So, really, that's first and foremost, is making sure that we can catalog and inventory data assets that might not necessarily be in the IBM Cloud, or in IBM products. That's really the first step. >> Absolutely. The second step, I would say, is really taking all of our capabilities, making them, from the ground up, microservices-enabled, delivering them through Docker containers and making sure that they can port across whatever cloud deployment model our customers want to be able to execute on. And being able to optimize the runtime engines, whether it's data integration, data movement, data virtualization, based on data gravity, that you had mentioned-- >> So, something like a whole new developer program opportunity to bring to the market. >> Absolutely. I mean, there is, I think there is a huge opportunity for, from an education perspective, to help our customers build these applications. But it starts with understanding the data assets, understanding what they can do with it, and using self-service-type tools that Jay was referring to. >> And all of that underpinned with the trust. If you don't trust your data, the data scientist is not going to know whether or not they're using the right thing. >> So, the ladder's great. Great way for people to figure out where they are, it's like looking in the mirror, on the organization. How early is this? What inning are we in? How do you guys see the progression? How far along are we? Obviously, you have some data, examples, some people are doing it end-to-end. What's the maturity look like? What's the uptake? >> Go ahead, Jay. >> So, I think we're at the beginning of a crest of a wave. As I say, there's been a lot of discussion so far, even if you compare this year's conference to last year's. A lot of the discussion last year was, "What's possible with AI?" This year's conference is much more about, "What are we doing with AI?" And I think we're now getting to the point where people can actually start to be productive and really start to change their business through that. >> Yeah and, just to add to that, I mean, the ladder to AI was introduced last year, and it has gained so much adoption in the marketplace and our customers, they're actually organizing their business that way. So, the Collect divisions are the database teams, are now expanding to Hadoop and Cloudera, and Hortonworks and Mongo. They're organizing their data governance teams around the Organize pillar, where they're doing things like data integration, data replication. So, I feel like the maturity of this ladder to AI is really enabling our customers to achieve it much faster than-- >> I was talking to Dave Vellante about this, and we're seeing that, you know, we've been covering IBM since, it's the 10th year of theCUBE, all ten years. It's been, watching the progression. The past couple of years has been setting the table, everyone seems to be pumping, it makes sense, everything's hanging together, it's in one group. Data's not one, "This group, that group," it's all, Data, AI, all Analytics, all Watson. Smart, and the ladder just allows you to understand where a customer is, and then-- >> Well, and also, we mentioned the emphasis on open source. It allows our customers to take an inventory of, what do they have, internally, with IBM assets, externally, open source, so that they can actually start to architect their information architecture, using the same kind of analogy. >> And an opportunity for developers too, great. Julie, thanks for coming on. Jay, appreciate it. >> Thank you so much for the opportunity, happy Valentine's Day! Happy Valentine's Day, we're theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman here, live in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, and the whole street's shut down, Howard Street. Huge event, 30,000 people, we'll be back with more Day Four coverage after this short break.