(upbeat music) >> Welcome back, everyone, to theCUBE's coverage of VMware Explore 2022, formerly Vmworld. We've been covering this event since 2010. I'm with Dave Nicholson, my cohost. We've got two sets here, live for three days, breaking down all the action, what's going on in the news, what announcements, what are the partners doing, you got the VMware execs, you got the customers, and you got the partner ecosystem, which is booming. We got Darren Wolner, Senior Director of Product Management at Lumen, SASE and SD-WAN, in the midst of it all. The internet is SD-WAN, this is all rocking. Welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for coming on. >> Hey. Thanks for having me, guys. I really appreciate being here. >> Well, we know the name change LUMEN from CenturyLink. You guys have been on many times on theCUBE talking about, you know, the connective tissue. You got infrastructure, platform, now SASE. Cloud's changing. We're calling it supercloud. Some people call it multicloud. But the game is still the same. You got an on-premise environment, you got edge, could be a building. And you got now cloud-native hyperscale, cloud players, now all connecting, kind of like the old branch office days, connect here. So a lot of the same kind of concepts, but done differently. Give us the quick update from Lumen. What are you guys seeing? What are some of the big trends? >> So the quick update from Lumen is that we just launched a new service called SASE that we're extremely excited about. And this new service from Lumen takes advantage of a lot of the infrastructure that you just mentioned. So we're able to take advantage of our cloud edge 60 plus nodes to help customers move their applications closer to where they're doing business. Major performance boosts. So even though all these customers want to move the workloads to the cloud to improve their efficiency, improve their performance, we are acting quickly to make sure that that experience is a positive one. So as things are evolving and changing, so is Lumen, Aad we're pushing towards that evolution to technology. >> Take a minute to explain, just kind of set the table to the situation of how you guys relate to your customers. You mentioned SASE, which is a service I want to get into. Okay, got connectivity. What are some of the use cases? Where does SASE fit in? What is the use case with the customers? Where are you seeing the most traction? >> And you need to define SASE. It's always a party foul to use an acronym without defining it immediately after the first time you used it, so. >> Okay, so I have to recover from that foul. So, absolutely. So SASE, we view SASE as a convergence of network and security. And what we're doing with SASE is that we're delivering this package of services that are cloud based, that customers can pick and choose whichever ones they want. And that's Secure Access Service Edge. And that is what we're very excited to talk about. >> I mean, basically it's connectivity, it's application security, it's edge. So it's end-to-end. So we all get the acronym. Nice play there. But when reality comes to the customer, what is the use case that you guys are seeing the most on? Lift and shift I get. Is it lift and shift and then cloud native to on-prem? What is some of the things specifically that you guys are selling into? >> Specifically what we're seeing is we're seeing that customers, they want to evolve their networks and move to cloud environments, but not everybody's ready to do it all at the same time. That's part of the reason why SASE has become so popular right now. Because we're enabling customers to pick and choose the order in which they want to move to cloud enabled services, and we're allowing them to choose one or choose them all. And from a use case perspective, as we've just gone through COVID, and everybody knows work from home has become extremely important way of doing business, and that we want to give that flexibility. >> No one would've forecasted 100% work-from-home, VPN, move it under provisioned. (men laughing) So again, shock to the system. >> It is, it is, it is. It was, but with a solution like this, we're able to provide our customers with flexibility to run their businesses any way they want. They to be premise-based, we can support them. They want to be remote, we can support them. That is a huge use case right now. >> I mean, all joking aside, the forcing function, necessity's the mother of invention, and the pandemic really kind of changed the game. How do you guys see security evolving? Because as you look at the security, you got FourNet out there. I know you guys have a relationship with them. You got VMware. There's a lot of different tools and platforms emerging. We hear every CSO we talk to is like, hey, I want to take my 35 tools down to 24, and more platforms, and much more defensibility, not just point security. How do you discuss that with customers around the security conversation? >> So we're finding that our customers want a little bit more simplicity. You had mentioned that they want to bring down their numbers to something that's a little bit more manageable. With the service that we've just launched, we have single vendor solutions, and we're looking to simplify that path for the customer. And it's about simplicity, but it's also about optionality. We want to make sure that we can say yes to our customers. And whatever path that they want to go to, from a software perspective, we're able to support them. And the flexibility of our platform allows that to happen. >> You know, networking, Dave, we always talk about the three major pillars: networking, compute, storage. They never go away. >> No. >> They'll always be around. Networking is now front and center, especially with the abstractions going on. You're starting to see supercloud discussions. You see companies buying more cloud native, like with AWS, to take that CapEx off, but now are putting all that energy into modern application development. Which now puts pressure on, okay, well about network policies? So networking is into the fold again. It's always been there, it never left, but it's becoming different. How do you see the different conversations happening with the network component, with cloud native trend that we're seeing here? >> Well, I think the network component is really table stakes. And what's happening is, as everybody is interested in moving to the cloud, services are becoming instant, right? Digitized. But you have the network that customers are still looking for that level of support from a company like Lumen, and they know that we have a vast infrastructure. So the network conversation doesn't go away. It just evolves. What's happening is customers want to understand how they can better secure those networks. And then what's also happening is people want to use any device, anywhere, anytime. So the conversation about the network is important, but when you think about security, it's starting to move away from the network. It already has. >> There's no more perimeter. >> Exactly. So we need to be able to secure our customers wherever they are, however they want to use their devices. And for us, that path was SASE. >> So go into a little more depth in terms of how this is deployed. What is this thing that is SASE? >> Absolutely. >> Is this software living on the edge on people's servers? Does it include some sort of physical components and wizardry? >> Well... (laughs) >> Peel back-- >> Is it self-service? Is it installable? Does it need professional services? >> So, there is a little bit of wizardry. And what we put together is really an awesome digital platform where customers have the ability to go into the Lumen marketplace, and in five simple steps, purchase a SASE solution based on a few discreet choices that they need to make. And once they've provisioned that, once they've purchased that service, now they have those entitlements. We've created an all new application from the ground up called the Lumen SASE Manager where they're able to go in, take their entitlements, design, build, manage their network. So the customer can go through this journey, and it's relatively quick. And they have tons of flexibility to do that. However, if a customer prefers a seller-led journey, we're still going to help them do that as well. So really the spirit of SASE for us was to give ultimate flexibility to the customer. Consume exactly what you want, consume it the way you want to, but the simplicity factor with our digital approach I think is something that we feel is pretty game changing. >> So when one of those customers, let's say you have a campaign, thank you SASE. What are those customers thanking you for? Give me an example of what a delighted customer would point to as, "I'm really glad we made the decision to do this with Lumen." Why would they be happy? >> Why would they be happy? Because the advantage of doing this with Lumen is not only that simplified digital approach, but we're selling them essentially a cookie, right? And that cookie has two layers, and it has cream filling. And what's going on is-- >> Tastes great. >> Definitely, definitely. But everybody has different tastes, and we'll get to that in a second. But the top layer is the infrastructure that Lumen provides. And we have a vast infrastructure, 450,000 route miles of fiber, 60 plus cloud edge nodes to bring compute closer to the customer. So that's a very important layer that we're providing. And then the other layer of the cookie is the management. Different customers have different needs. Not every business looks alike. So you're going to have some businesses who have invested in their security apparatus, and they may not need enough as much help from us. So we're offering customers different levels of managed service wrapper so they can buy exactly what they need, no more, no less. So let's get to the cream filling. Everybody likes the cream filling, but not everybody likes the same kind. Every time you go down the supermarket aisle and you look at your favorite cream cookie, there's different types of flavors that are introduced from time to time. So what we want to do is to be able to say yes to our customers and give them as much variety as the cream flavors as possible. And that's where the software comes in. If you have dedicated a lot of expertise to a certain platform, we want to be able to support that software platform. And I think the flexibility of the Lumen platform and the flexibility of Lumen SASE solutions allows us to give that flexibility back. >> So you putting that wizardry at the edge, so the customer's environment, whatever they have flexes with the connectivity? >> It does, yes. >> That's what you're getting at. I mean, at the end of the day, we need the network. Everybody wants more bandwidth. >> Its not going away. >> Faster, faster, faster. >> That's right. >> We need more bandwidth. >> That's right. >> But it could be smarter. But that also implements some potential overhead. So you got to understand the end to end. That's where I think the SD-WAN interesting tie-in comes in. How do you talk to customers about that piece? Is it simply you can have your cake and eat it too, and you lose weight with Lumen? I stole that line from Victoria from VMware. I want my cake and eat it too, and I want to lose weight. >> I mean, wouldn't that be a wonderful world if we could do that? Have our cake and lose weight. >> I want to make sure. Yeah. >> But when it comes to SD-WAN, especially under our SASE umbrella, what we're looking to do is go down the road of simplicity and try to work out the amount of compute that a customer needs, and the amount of storage, I'm sorry, not storage, the amount of throughput that a customer needs. And we're getting these customers to make these decisions. They know what they have. They know what they want to run. We will consult with them. Whether they go through our digital experience, whether they go through our seller-led experience, there's always off ramps and a way to talk to a human being and make choices. So we're giving the customer enough information to make an informed decision, and we're here to support them if they need more. >> So you're customer-centric. You guys are good there. I mean, that's solid. Great track record there. I guess my final two questions are: one, how do I consume? I'm the customer. How do I consume? And what's on the roadmap going forward? I mean, look at the project management. You got the keys to the kingdom on the roadmap. And you can share if you want, but maybe you can't share some things. But what's the consumption model? Where do I find it? Is it the marketplace? Is it through channel partners and service providers? And then what's on the roadmap? >> Sure, absolutely. So you can consume this on dotcom through the Lumen marketplace. You could interact with the learn and the buy experience. And then once you've gone through that experience, you're going to consume it through the SASE manager. That's how you're going to use and interact with the service. That's how you're going to consume it. And then you're going to continue to utilize the SASE manager for reporting, access to portals, so forth and so on. You need to make a change to your service, not a problem. It's simple. You go back into the SASE manager, you add more seats to your ZTNA solution. You want to add another site, you go back into the SASE manager, you could purchase another site. We'll take care of all of it. Everything is automated. >> If you're a VMware customer, what's in it for them? >> This is great for VMware. It's the automation of the complete security stack. It's the automation of the SD-WAN portion. And we think that this total package is something that's going to be very appealing to VMware fans, VMware customers, and most importantly, when a VMware customer comes to us and says, "I have a ton of experience with VMware, and I don't want to move away from it, but I can really use the management and the infrastructure that you guys have," I'm able to say yes. >> And then you got the Aria coming out, now you got the cross-cloud, going to be very interesting. Okay, what's on the roadmap? Tell us what's the secret sauce. Reveal some secrets. >> Reveal some secrets. I dunno, there's a lot of people watching. >> They're shaking their head over there, "Don't say it! Don't say it!" (laughs) >> We have a lot of exciting things on the roadmap. I will tell you this because I think it's very important. The way we are developing services today has shifted. No longer can companies afford to roll out one product a year and wait. It takes you a year to roll that product out, and it's stale by the time it comes out, and then it takes you another year to fix it. We have moved to continuous development cycles. We are keeping track of what's going on in the market, what the hot trends are, what the hot services are, and as SASE continues to evolve, we will be able to quickly evolve. So while we do have some ideas of where we want to go on the roadmap, and I'm sure they're shaking their heads over there, what I love is we now have the ability to listen to what our customers want and act quickly. >> I call it the holy trinity. Network storage, compute, get that software intelligence at the edge which is going to be really popular. You guys are in a really perfect position. Thanks for coming on, sharing on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much, thank you. >> Okay, Darren's here on theCUBE breaking it down for Lumen, formerly CenturyLink, rebranded a few years ago. Connectivity is the key. You still got to connect, network, compute, storage, and you got the data center now, the cloud hybrid, now multicloud. This is the super CUBE, covering supercloud here at VMware Explore 2022. We'll be right back after this short break. (upbeat music)