>> Narrator: Live from The Wigwam in Phoenix, Arizona, it's the CUBE. Covering Data Platforms 2017. Brought to you by Qubole. (techno music) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with the CUBE. We are in The Wigwam Resort, historic Wigwam Resort, just outside of Phoenix, Arizona at Data Platforms 2017. It's a new Big Data event. You might say, god there's already a lot of Big Data events, but Qubole's taken a different approach to Big Data. Cloud-first, cloud-native, you're integrated with all the big public clouds and they all come from Big Data backgrounds, practitioner backgrounds. So it's a really cool thing and we're really excited to have our next guest, Colin Ridell, he's a Big Data architect from Epic Games, was up on a panel earlier today. Colin, Welcome. >> Thank you, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely, so, enjoyed your panel, a lot of topics that you guys covered. One of the ones we hear over and over again is get early wins. How do you drive adoption, change people's behaviors, it's not really a technology story. It's a human factors and behaviors story. So I wonder if you can share some of your experience, some best practices, some stories. >> So I don't know if there's really a rule book on best practices for that. Every environment is different, every company is different. But one thing that seems to be constant is resistance to change in a lot of the places, so... >> Jeff: That is consistent. >> We had some challenges when I came in. We were running a system that was on it's last legs basically, and we had to replace it. There was really no choice. There was no fixing it. And so, I did actually encounter a fair bit of resistance with regards to that when I started at Epic. >> Now it's interesting, you said a fair amount of resistance. Another one of your lessons was start slow, find some early wins, but you said, that you were thrown into a big project right off the bat. >> Colin: So, we were, yeah. >> I'm curious, how did the big project go, but when you do start slow, how small does it need to be where you can start to get these wins to break down the resistance. >> I think what we, the way we approached it was we looked at what was the most crucial process, or the most crucial set of processes. And that's where we started. So that was what we tried to convert first and then make that data available to people via an alternative method, which was Hive. And once people started using it and learned how to interact with it properly the barriers start to fall. >> What were some of the difficult change management issues? Where did you come from in terms of the technology platform and what resistance did you hit? >> So it was really a user interface was the main factor of resistance. So we were running a Hadoop cluster. It was fixed sized, it wasn't on PRaM, but it was in a private cloud. It was basically, simply being overloaded. We had to do constant maintenance on it. We had to prop it up. And it was, the performance was degrading and degrading and degrading. The idea behind the replacement was really to give us something that was scalable, that would grow in the future, that wouldn't run into these performance blockers that we were having. But again, like I said, the hardest factor was the user interface differences. People were used to the tool set that they were working with, they liked the way it worked. >> What was the tool set? >> I would rather not actually say that on camera, >> Jeff: That's fine. >> Does it source itself in Redmond or something? >> No, no it doesn't, they're not from Redmond. I just don't want to cast aspersions. >> No, you don't need to cast aspersions. The conflict was really just around familiarity with the tool, it wasn't really about a wholesale change in behavior and becoming more data-centric. >> No, because the tool that we replaced was an effort to become more data-centric to begin with. There definitely was a corporate culture of we want to be more data-informed. So that was not one of the factors that we had to overcome. It was really tool-based. >> But the games market is so competitive, right? You guys have to be on your game all the time and you got to keep an eye on what everybody else is doing in their games, and make course corrections as I understand, something becomes hot, or new, so you guys have to be super nimble on your feet. How does taking this approach help you be more nimble in the way that you guys get new code out, new functionality? >> It's really, really very easy for us now to inject new events into the game, we basically can break those events out and report on them or analyze what's going on in the game for free with the architecture that we have now. >> Does that mean it's the equivalent of, in IT operations, we instrument everything from the applications, to the middleware, down to the hardware. Are you essentially doing the same to the game so you can follow the pathway of a gamer, or the hotspots of all the gamers, that sort of thing? >> I'm not sure I fully understand your question. >> When you're running analytics on a massively multi-player game, what questions are you seeking to answer? >> Really what we are seeking to answer at the moment is what brings people back? What behaviors can we foster in-- >> Engagement. >> in our players. Yeah, engagement, exactly. >> And that's how you measure engagement, it's just as simple as, do they come back or time on game? >> That's the most simple measure that we use for it, yeah. >> So Colin, we're short on time, want to give you the last word. When you come to a conference like this, there's a lot of peer interaction, there's some great questions coming out of the panel, around specifically, how do you measure success? It wasn't technical at all. It's, what are the things that you're using to measure whether stuff is working. I wonder if you can talk to the power of being in an ecosystem of peers here. Any surprises or great insights that you've got. I know we've only been here for a couple days. >> I would say that one of the biggest values, obviously the sessions and the breakouts are great, but I think one of the greatest values of here is simply the networking aspect of it. The being able to speak to people who are facing similar challenges, or doing similar things. Even although they're in a completely different domain, the problems are constant. Or common at least. How do you do machine learning to categorize player behaviors in our case and in other cases it's categorization of feedback that people get from websites, stuff like that. I really think the networking aspect is the most valuable thing to conferences like this. >> Alright, awesome. Well, Colin Ridell, Epic Games, thanks for taking a few minutes to stop by the CUBE. >> You're welcome, more than welcome, thank you very much. >> Absolutely, alright, George Gilbert, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching the CUBE from Data Platforms 2017 at the historic Wigwam Resort. Thanks for watching. (upbeat techno music)

>> Boston, Massachusetts. It's the queue covering W T G transformed 2019 Accio by Winslow Technology Group. >> Hi, I'm Stew Minutemen And this is the Cubes. Third year at W. T. G. Transform 2019 which is the Window Technologies Group, Their user conference. Longtime compelling customer, of course. Compelling, bought by Del del Body M. C. So it's now the deli emcee user event and to help me kick off a day of content where we're gonna be talking. Toa some of the W T G executive some of their customers and some of their partners is first time guests on the program. Joe Batista, Who's a Creek and easy chief creative, apologised at Del Technologies. Joe Appreciate you making it all the way in from the suburbs to come here to downtown Boston in the shadow of Fenway. >> It was a long haul this morning with no traffic of 5 30 35 minutes in. >> Yeah, a Zeiss safe for the people. Adele. It's about the distant from Boston Towe where we live as it is to go from Austin to Round Rock. So >> there we go, >> you know, similar types of things. So I have to start create apologised. A song. You know, I did a little bit of reading and, you know, having watched Aquino, it's, you know, sparking that creativity. So I love the idea of it. You've had this title for quite a while since before you Riddell just give us a little bit about background of you know what you do, and you know why you're qualified to do it. >> Well, it was quite a fight. It's a fun brand, but literally. It sits at the nexus of business and technology, and my job's simply is to help it re image the business, because now every company's a technology company. So what does that look like? So I get involved Also, it's a really cool problems, opportunities that customers are facing by re imaging it >> well, it's funny that you say re image, because when I did my history, the oldest thing I found some article from the nineties talking about somebody from Polaroid that that title and I was actually talking to some of the young people in the office there, like everybody's using Polaroids. There's these days, it's cool. It's true. They're doing it. So what's old is new again. You know everything come back together. So luckily, you know our industry. I mean, nothing changes, right? You know, it's the same now as it was 10 years ago, 100 years ago. You know, I'll just go into the factory and pumping things out now. >> Still, you know, I've been a referee a long time, and in the old days we had swim lengths, right? You know, you thought about certain vendors. They were in swim lanes. Now, today, with the influx of cash, as I was talking about, and the level of it of even innovation cycle time and how the industry's become more fragmented with lots of products, the complexity index has increased exponentially, and the velocity around that complexity is even more accelerate. So, no, it hasn't gotten easier. It's gotten more difficult. >> Yeah, fascinating. Actually. I just heard a segment on our national public radio station here in Boston talking about that. One of the biggest changes and how people think over the last few decades is we're better at recognizing patterns. Used to be, we could be an expert on something and do our thing, you know. We know the old trope is well, you know. My grandfather, you know, worked at a company for 30 years and did his same thing today. Things are changing constantly. You know, we didn't have, you know, the power of a supercomputer in our pocket, you know, 10 years ago, you know, let alone even older. So, you know, this is a user conference. So you know what air they did do. I mean, if if I understand, if I'm, you know, making a decision today for my business. And oftentimes that decision is something I need to live with for a while. How do I make sure that I'm making the right decisions That's going to keep me, you know, you know, keeping up with the competition and keeping my business moving forward as things constantly change. >> Yeah. So there is no easy answer to that question. There's a couple of thoughts and hasn't said in the presentation. You gotta look at these vectors that impacted trajectory of the thinking. And I love the Peter Drucker coat. Right. If he using yesterday's logic probably gonna get in trouble, you have to rethink the logic. In the example I gave you was the high jumper and how we did high jumping before and after 1960. So? So the question becomes one of those vectors, and I went through some of those vectors to help people think about, Okay, I do. My analysis on technology, that's all good. And, uh, tell technology you got a huge portfolio of technology. But how do you think about the perimeter? About how those things change over depreciation cycle. So is trying to add a little bit more color in there, thought processes. And I got a lot of post questions afterwards and a lot of engagements. So it seemed to resonate with the field. And I'll tell you what. The thing that they like the most was the business conversation off. They're like, you know, we don't do that enough. >> Yeah, right. I mean, you know, when we look at the successful companies today, it is not, You know, we've been talking for years, you know? Does it matter? Is it just a cost center? And it needs to be if it isn't helping the business drive forward and responding to what the business needs, uh, you know, could be replaced. That's where we got. Shadow it. It's It can't be the nowhere the slow needs to be. When the business says we need to go, you know, get on board and drive. I love one of the analogies you used is, you know, in this world of complexity, there's so many things out there, You know, when I've worked with, you know, enterprises and small cos you look at their environments and it's like, Oh my God, it's this Hedorah genius mess, you know? How do we standardize things? How do we make things easier? You had a fun little analogy talking about space. Maybe, maybe. >> Okay, that was good. I always try to use visuals as much as possible. So high, high, high light with challenges. So the challenge was, Oh, actually have it in my pocket. So they pulled this out and basically what it is. If you look at the international space shuttle, that's the only thing that they need to fix anything on Specialist 7/16 inch socket or the millimeter version of it. I can't read. Excited my glasses on to fix anything. So imagine if I had one tool to fix anything that's Nirvana. That's not reality. I have to fatigue. So I need to get to that simplicity. Its glasses law remember, every 25% increase in function shin is 100% increase in complexity. And that's public enemy number one for us. >> All right, so So you hopped on board the Dell family relatively recently, when most people think, Adele, it's well, you know, Delpy sees, you know, talk to my you know, my parents. They're like they know Dell computers. They've used them forever. You're talking most people, you know, Del servant. Like you talked a lot about your presentation software is eating the world. Give give us how you know where Del fits in that software was eating the world picture. >> Well, what I can tell you, though, is I was absolutely amazed when I did my due diligence about all the innovation that happens in this company. Phenomenal not only about the hardware but the soft. And I think actually, Jeff said it best. I think we have more software engineers now that we have heart hardware engineers. So the pivots there, we're pivoting our talent, the software, but it's the innovation that's in this company. And I think I kind of rattled off a couple of statistics by how much we spend the quantity of I p that we have. And I think customers are amazed at that innovation. But the supercharger on is okay. How does the innovation apply to the business mechanics of the company? And what value do you extract from it? And that's where the whole language and conversation usually happens with us. I will tell you, though, I'm really excited that Del Technologies kind of doubling down on business outcomes. They're really trying to change the culture and helping customers understand what the technology >> means. Yeah, one of things that struck me. I've been to this event now for a couple of years, and, you know, there's a lot of product discussion here, you know, when you get down to the channel, it's like, Okay, great. You know, I'm doing a server refresh. I'm looking to things like hyper convert, you know? What am I doing in my network? You know, when you up level things a little bit, You know, when I went to del World, it's like, you know, we hear about the venture, you know, activity that's happening around and things like coyote coming down the pipe. But How does that trickle down to the customers? That talking event here? It's great to talk about innovation, but, you know, I got to run my business. You know what? You know. Where does Del fit in that picture >> for you? Got it? Well, it's a custom you got to do both, right? So this has got to be a shift, because now I have to think differently, right? I know how to do feature analysis and benefit analysis of a point in time product, but what's the periphery of activities that inspecting, impacting that decision? Does that architectures scale? What are the economics around that? So you need to think about all those things. And I think it's just a journey for not only us as a vendor, but also for customers as well. >> Okay, so you're relatively new in today. L I want to ask you You gave a great quote in your presentation from from Jack Welch. Er said if the rate of change outside the company is greater than inside the company, the end is near. >> I would say the post. >> So, you know, explain to us the pace of change inside of del technologies. >> Well, you know, that's That's a That's a big question. I mean, piece of change varies by organization by business unit I really can't comment on your individual business units, but I will say, though there's a definite desire toe. Understand? We're customers interested. He is there. So what's the customer trying to dio? And then how do we satisfy the customer request? It's a matter of fact. I don't know if you know this and it was amazing because that's what the customer the other day, you know, Stevie Awards. Which a customer satisfaction, which we double down on customer satisfaction. We have a customer chief customer officer was Karen, and we just won 15 Stevie Awards, which is about customer satisfaction. So I think there's a slow shift, but there's a real focus on customer Central City. For us, the velocity will get there. But if you put the customer at the center like we do, that's a winning strategy. >> Yeah, well, yeah, we know Karen Kim does quite well, you know, culture and working with customers. You know, quite dio you talked about the portfolio of companies and l We know Del Bhumi quite well. We've done their event in the team were well, and you know, VM wears no slouch in the industry. I've had one of the pleasures of my careers. You know, I started working with him. Where when they were, like, 100 person company. No, watch them grow and pack. El Singer, I think was just named like the number one number two, you know, CEO work for employees by employees from glass doors. So, you know No, no slouch on the the venture family. So congratulations, toe Dale family on all that. >> Thank you very much are exciting. >> Joe Batista. Thank you so much for joining me here at the W T. G. Transformed 2019. Pleasure to catch up with you. Appreciate the opportunity. All right, so we're here with customers, the executives, and digging into all the industry trends. Of course. Check out the cute dot net for where we will be. And, uh, I think it was always for watching the cube