>> [Female VoiceOver] From the CUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with our leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE conversation. >> Hello and welcome to the CUBE conversation here in the Palo Alto studios, I'm John Furrier. Cloud Native News and industry coverage. There are two great guests here to break down what's going on in Cloud Native. we got Rancher Labs, Jim Sarale, Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances and Bryce Cracco Product Manager for NetApp HCI. Guys, thanks for coming on this breaking news around Cloud Native. I mean, this has been really all about Cloud Native for the past year and a half, but this year, certainly with the pandemic, the modern applications are being pushed out faster and faster. A lot of pressure. So congratulations on this announcement, Jim set us up. What is the News? I saw some articles, we've got a story get hit and SiliconANGLE. What's the news with NetApp with Rancher Labs? >> Yeah, thank you. And you're right, we are seeing a vast push with, with the crazy times that we're in right now, but the news really is, you know, Rancher formerly launching our OEM program and launching that with with our Marquee partner with NetApp, you know, when companies get to a certain juncture, you know, an OEM relationship and sometimes means just more of a marketing type relationship but as everybody knows, Rancher is, you know, one of the industry leading multicloud, multi Kubernetes cluster management solutions, open source. And you know, what that means is we're an agnostic play for, for those that are trying to leverage Kubernetes, we've talked with NetApp, we struck a deal with them for them to embed us on their HCI platform. And when you talk about our early in program and, and the things that it entails is really around, you know, how do you get contract vehicles to map go to market strategies? How do you get support, engineering, integration, development, all of those things align with partners. It's not an easy task. It's very important to the go to the kind of go to market strategy that we have. And I think, you know, not only with the market adoption around Kubernetes, Ranchers agnostic play in open source and then obviously, you know, Ranchers come a long way. Our products tried and true. We have nearly 500 customers. We're seeing those customers lean back into some of the OEMs and to the software vendors to have them do more and get them more, I guess, ready for the things that they're doing, an IT operations, how the have dev you know, the app DevOps folks are trying to do more and get applications to market faster. So we're really suited well for organizations like NetApp to take our technology bundle in it and really make it better for their customers experience. So the program allows for contract vehicles, direct integration, support, engineering, pricing, because not one size fits all. As you see the evolution from On-prem to cloud IoT Edge, a lot of different devices from 100s of dollars to 1000s. So Ranchers committed to making sure that we align our products and pricing to fit some of those low compute platforms and also be able to right size our business model to make them successful. >> Well, congratulations, I love the term OEM still kind of hangs around, I'm old enough to remember when it was actually equipment not software, original equipment manufacturer, which essentially, you're essentially letting NetApp embed your code into their equipment or their software. But this is the relationship of a channel and indirect channel for Rancher which you guys are launching, which is total validation. Appreciate that, I like to get into the NetApp side. Bryce, if you don't mind, because, you know, obviously cloud's not new to NetApp storage becoming more critical, hybrid clouds more important. Tell us about the transformation of HCI because I think this is where Kubernetes and it starts to fit in when you see the cloud native surge coming in. How are you guys looking at this opportunity? >> Yeah, you bet when you, when you look at it from a converged infrastructure or hyper-converged infrastructure or hybrid cloud infrastructure perspective. It's always been about simplicity, right. We're not doing anything in the HCI market in general that can't be otherwise done. It's just making it much simpler, reducing that that learning curve and reducing that time to value that our IT customers get. And so I think we saw it, you know, converged infrastructure and hyper-converged infrastructure, all start out with virtualization is kind of the top layer that's facilitated but now obviously Kubernetes is becoming table stakes in the enterprise. So I think we're seeing all the vendors in the space, put in some kind of automatic deployment of Kubernetes or some easier deployment of Kubernetes, making Kubernetes that top layer rather than just virtualization. And, you know, this is a really great opportunity for us at NetApp to be able to do that. Not only with just any Kubernetes package but one that's very well regarded and beloved in the DevOps communities and that's Rancher. So what we have here is kind of something that's great for IT, and really great for DevOps in terms of being able to centralize multi cluster management across a hybrid cloud ecosystem and really empower those DevOps teams, what they to do what they need to do but still keeping IT at the center of it. >> You know, it's interesting, you know, shift left for security DevOps here, DevSecOps, it's all kind of happening with software, software defined, software operated. This is what this is the new operating environment. What is the use cases that presents itself well for this is it from a customer standpoint? Is it they're looking for certain things when you look at the product definition, you say, okay we have NetApp, we have Rancher. Take me through that thinking, what's the customer use case? What are they getting out of this? >> Sure, I think there's a variety of use cases where you see Kubernetes coming into play. And one of the great things about NetApp HCI, is it's not just simple infrastructure but it's also very scalable infrastructure. So that's where a lot of these types of products fall down. As we get to such such a scale point they don't work because of our scalability and our ability to handle mixed workloads. We can really handle any number of use cases. So in a Kubernetes context, this could be anything from IT departments who are going to containerized applications for their own, you know, the applications that they themselves manage, like ERP systems and so forth that are starting to get containerized. It could also be for bespoke applications that the companies are writing themselves, the DevOps teams that actually write the code that makes the company work. And so there, there's kind of a wide variety of use cases in there that are starting to go to Kubernetes. If not there already, the DevOps teams largely are already using Kubernetes. And this is just a great way to centralize it on on one kind of easy button, but yet very scalable and highly performing infrastructure for that kind of consolidation. >> Jim, this is the holy grail we've you guys have been doing since the beginning of Rancher Labs, programmable infrastructure, infrastructure as code, you couldn't get any clear or here when you start to have mainstream, you know, programmable storage and still programmable networking. All of this is happening. This is what we had hoped for the world's now gone full containers. Now you've got Kubernetes and IDC still shows that the enterprises are only like 30 to 40%. Even deep in their toes in on containers. If that, so you see a coupe call and you see all that at VM world, you'll see that re-invent you're going to see mainstream IT, the classic IT with DevOps. What's your reaction to that? Because there this, you know, what's your, what's your what's your take on this? >> Yeah I think you're absolutely right, we are scratching the surface and I think that we will see IT really embrace, right. This, this becomes the opportunity for business enablement to take, to take shape across all different avenues, IT is building infrastructure and make it, you know, allowing compute to be available. And this is kind of, we'll see this surge, not just the IT operations but really having the different groups from app devs to the business line owners, to those pushing applications, understanding the entire ecosystem. You know, we're talking about NetApp and HCI today but you can think of cross the edge, data center edge cloud, retail point of sale systems, getting immediate updates, dealing with IT operations and the compute platforms. It's really just endless. And we're excited. I think the OEM program is going to allow companies like NetApp and in other verticals and industries to really take shape and take advantage of what Rancher's offering to help them be more efficient across what their critical business apps are trying to do. >> Well, congratulations on NetApp, they're very smart company. They've got savvy customers and they're very loyal. Bryce, with that in mind, what's been the reaction you laid out the use cases when you bring this to market with your customers and partners? What's the feedback thumbs up on this and what's the vibe? >> Yeah, we've had some really enthusiastic early reaction, a couple early customers looking at it. You know, it's been a lot of fun and people are really excited that one of the great things about doing this with Rancher is that it's, it's purely open source software. So, you know, our customers love that. It's, there's, it's kind of a low risk proposition for them. They're very well, well hedged they can push this button and get it started on their NetApp HCI with very little, very little lead up to that very little advanced knowledge and just kind of get started. It's actually there's no incremental costs to use it on NetApp HCI. It's just, if you want a joint support model that it, that that there's a fee. And so you can kind of think of it as an indefinite trial period in a way. And I think that's created a lot of early interest and I think yeah I think it's going to be a really great option for our customers. It's going to add a lot of value to the NetApp HCI product. And so far, everyone's been very excited about it. >> You know, I was talking with Dave Vellante, my co-host in the CUBE also does a lot of storage research, knows NetApp as well. We were also commenting about this dynamic and we kind of call this out in 2016 when VMware was having trouble with the cloud operations. And then they decided to get rid of everything and just partner with Amazon. Everyone's like, that's horrible. It's going to be terrible. They're going to lose all their customers but we pointed out and I think this is true here. And I want to get your reaction, both of you guys, if you don't mind commenting what turned out to be the case was is that there was a clear distinction and operator of infrastructure and software development environments with higher level cloud native services. And they're not necessarily competing directly. They're kind of coming together, this idea of operating infrastructure and IT concept when it goes software and goes cloud, it's not a win, lose dynamic. You have software and you get people often need to operate that either code it or run it. So at large scale, this is where HCI kind of fits in Bryce, right? I mean, because now you got the edge, it's more devices. I mean, this is more infrastructure to run. So more, more stuff you've got to operate all this stuff. It's not going to ever go away. You guys react to that. What do you think? >> Sure. Yeah, I think I mean, from a NetApp perspective our customers use all kinds of infrastructure. They use public cloud infrastructure and NetApp has a really great public cloud focused portfolio, around public cloud services. So that's certainly a market that would be playing in our customers use. And it's part of the landscape, as you say, edge, of course also, and you know, with this solution I think it fits right into that because Rancher becomes this kind of container orchestration control plane. That's hosted on an HCI but can span this hybrid multi-cloud and edge environment all from that kind of centralized location. >> I think the simplification of the workloads is a huge deal. Jim, your, your thoughts on this? I see you've got this great program. You have the OEM program and you got an indirect partner, rising tide floats all boats here with, with this market. What's your take? >> Absolutely. And what better way to launch this program with somebody like NetApp? So yeah, you know, Rancher from its inception has been an open source platform agnostic. I think that will help, you know, help us, not just us but NetApp and other OEM partners, depending on operating system, legacy systems, verticals, industries, we're all playing a part in it. On-prem cloud, hybrid cloud, you know, I think Ranchers really well suited, for this advancement strictly by the way that we've continued in our philosophy of building an open source agnostic platform to help organizations, OEMs, ISBs, cloud providers, you name it. I think that Rancher is really well suited for, you know, kind of taking this additional ride, if you will, right. We're seeing we're all seeing it. And as you pointed out, it's less than 30% adoption today. We're all hoping for that to increase exponentially. >> Yeah, when you go mainstream, you get a lot of issues. Bryce, final question on the news analysis here. Why Rancher Labs from a NetApp perspective, what was the what was the deciding factor for you guys? >> Well, they just made a lot of sense for us to partner with. Again, the open source nature of it and the free nature of it made it really low barrier to entry for our customers. We really liked that. We also like they're very open and agnostic approach. So, you know, nothing that we're doing here with Rancher has to be at the expense of any other relationships that we have. And that was really that was really an important consideration. You know, it's, it's a very low risk, low cost, easy to get going solution for our customers. And there's very, there's no fear of lock-in with it. And so it's basically just all potential upsides and no potential downsides. And I think it's a really great solution for both IT and for DevOps, which was really critical. >> Real quick question on the customer expectation. Are you guys going to support Rancher? How does a customer get impacted by this? Obviously NetApp has, has their own supporters or is there a joint support? Is you guys going to handle that? How does the customer deal with that touches? >> Yeah, that's, that's really the crux of the deal. There is NetApp is able to provide frontline support for our customers or NetApp HCI customers, if they've, if they've purchased the Rancher support package through NetApp, they can get support for it through NetApp. And we're able to pass tickets back and forth between the companies as needed. So you don't have to have any guesswork about where where the problem and the stack might lie. You just opened your support ticket with NetApp and we can make sure it gets resolved. So that's been a really great part of the deal. >> Well, gentlemen, thanks for coming on. Appreciate the news insight. I do want to ask one final question, while I got you both here. If you don't mind, as we come in to the end of the year 2020, what a crazy year it's been between the pandemic and just the just the shift and the massive sea change of how virtual virtualization, not, you know, server or storage virtualization, but you know, the virtual world we live in remote everything, pandemic, uncertainty the digital transformation is just full throttle just more and more pressure. As we come out of cloud native CUBE con and AWS reinvent, we had VM all this activity. What do you guys think of the most important stories that customers should pay attention to in cloud native? What's what's the high order bit? What's the one thing or two things that really are notable that people should pay attention to that's important? Bryce, we'll start with you. >> I think it's bringing Kubernetes into the mainstream, right? I mean, that's what we see happening. How do you do that in a way that continues to give DevOps the flexibility they need and empower them and the way that Kubernetes does, but but also brings it into the mainstream. That's what I think what everyone's trying to solve right now >> Jim, your take on the most important story people should pay attention to. >> I think the same, I think Kubernetes adoption and really getting that education and people up to speed to start making that transformation. You know, quicker and getting that adoption rate up. I think we'll see a lot of benefits. Like you said, remote virtual in Kubernetes is kind of that framework that needs to get out there, be prevalent and and all of us take advantage, and start working together. >> All right, we'll leave it there. Guys, congratulations on the deal. NetApp embedding Kubernetes and Rancher support inside their hyper-converged infrastructure HCI. Bryce, Jim, thanks for coming on the CUBE. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'm John Furrier with CUBE conversation here in Palo Alto. Normally when we do these in person but it's remote with the pandemic, giving you the latest continuing the cube virtual coverage, here in Palo Alto. Thanks for watching. (gentle music)