(upbeat music) >> With cloud computing, programmable infrastructure, open source momentum with things like Terraform and software defined everything, people have been asking, "Does hardware still matter?" The obvious answer is software has to run on something but why does hardware still matter specifically? What customer value is there in advanced hardware architectures and what are some of the less frequently discussed nuances of hardware that make software run better and businesses run more efficiently and securely at scale. Welcome to the Cube's ongoing series where we explore the importance of hardware its evolution over the decades and its future outlook with me is longtime cubilam, Shannon Champion. Who's the vice president of Product Marketing at Dell Technologies. Welcome Shannon. >> Thank you. Glad to be here. >> Yeah, it's always great to collaborate with you. Shannon, you've had a pretty impressive career. You've got this killer combination of you have an engineering degree, multiple engineering degrees actually combined with business education. You've worked as a semiconductor engineer, a quality engineer, product manager, product marketing exec, et cetera. And you now have responsibility for a variety of hardware and software led infrastructure at Dell. How have you seen hardware evolve over the years? >> Well, first of all, thank you. I appreciate that intro Dave. Yeah, it's been a fun journey. I think there's two things. I think there's a product led evolution and then there's customer evolution. And obviously those go hand in hand. If you think about the technology from a hardware perspective, it's become more advanced, more specialized and the diversification of chip architectures is really what's driving that. It's gone from general purpose CPUs to GPUs, to specialty processors like, DPUs and purpose-built accelerators. And with all that specialization, obviously more and more software is required to really knit it together. We believe Dell is uniquely positioned to do that. >> Awesome. So I want to just come right out and ask you, you know, with cloud and software defined and hyper-converged why specifically does hardware still matter? >> Well, if you know anything about Dell, you know we are driven by customer first mindset. So I'm going to go back to that customer evolution I talked about and from a customer perspective, purchase decisions used to be more about feature function, Like how much compute memory storage can you pack in and get the best performance characteristics. Of course, people still care about this and almost every customer, if you look at the widespread surveys that have been done in the industry projections are still going to be making data center infrastructure purchases for the foreseeable future, but more and more, these sort of like traditional hardware capabilities are table stakes. And what customers are making purchase decisions on are the software driven capabilities that provide the differentiating capabilities to allow them to do more with less. So with that sort of comes a refocusing of where IT adds value for their organizations. We know maintaining and managing the infrastructure is not what differentiates companies and makes them stand out from the crowd. So that's what this whole notion of IT Transformation is all about. Our customers are pulling us into a broader set of problems and their purchase criteria is moving away from hardware feature function to differentiated solution and software value decision making with more focus on how they can drive business value beyond the infrastructure. So it's really the combination of hardware with software that optimizes and delivers the best outcomes and the tighter the link we can create between them the more seamless the experience for customers. >> Gotcha and I mean, this is more important than ever with the push toward digital transformation. And everybody's trying to get digital right. Now thinking about Dell as a company and its broader strategy, the majority of revenue comes from what most people would think of as hardware but as Jeff Clark often points out, the vast majority of engineers are software engineers. Can you explain how that dynamic works and what role hardware plays in that equation? >> Yeah, totally. So if you think about IT transformation infrastructure is the enabler of that transformation, but infrastructure needs to be smarter, easier, more automated, more secure. And that's done with software and our software engineering focus is nothing new. I think Dave, we were together five years ago talking about the latest version of HCI on the 14th generation of power edge servers. And at that time we were talking about how our hardware platform engineers were working with the software engineers to design in software defined storage capabilities within the power edge platform. So, you know, we, that we are not new to this. We've been looking at ways we can use software to exploit the underlying hardware features and capabilities and do that in a differentiated way because it delivers value for customers. And honestly, they're willing to pay a premium for that. >> Yeah. I remember that well, 14G now 15G, soon we're going to be talking about 16G. Can you give me an example of where hardware differentiation has created value for your customers beyond, you know what a straight software only solution running on generic white boxes might bring? >> Yeah, I have a couple of examples. The first is easily VxRail, right? VxRail, our jointly engineered HCI system with VMware. It provides full stack integration of hardware and software for that consistent operations in VMware environments. And when you think about evolution of infrastructure VxRail is actually a cool story. When it was introduced six years ago its scalability and performance, you know had it be rapidly adopted mainly in the data center but customer demands have evolved and they wanted to extend that operational efficiency to a broader and broader set of workloads. Not only in the data center, but in the cloud at the edge. So VxRail grew and its portfolio today has maximum flexibility. You can choose the best platform to meet performance, storage, graphics, IO, cost requirements a range of processor types and NVMe drives and graphics cards. So it really is the most configurable HCI system to meet any workload demand. And we recently introduced some new node types. That's hardware based, right? VxRail dynamic nodes and satellite nodes and our customers and partners are really excited about these, the dynamic nodes, as you know add the capability to scale compute and storage independently and extend to primary storage like power store and the satellite nodes are single nodes for the edge. So that's all hardware stuff, but the secret to VxRail really is more about the software. So I'm going to go back there. The VxRail HCI system software is what makes VxRail more seamless and simple than any other HCI system. And when managing your environment is easier and more automated and your workloads can stay up and running, leveraging that intelligent life cycle management customers pay attention. So again, it's that combination of hardware and software and for VxRail customers it's how we're delivering that truly curated experience like we like to call it that they can't get anywhere else. >> Awesome. So last question. Anything else you want to bring into the discussion before we close? >> Yeah. Two things, actually I have another good example of hardware differentiation and how it creates value for customers. And this one is based upon PowerStore. So PowerStore inline data reduction uses Intel quick assist technology and it performs hardware accelerated compression. So it's basically handling data reduction in hardware. We offload the compute intensive workloads of compression and conserve the CPU cycles for storage IO tasks that save application and storage processing time, cycles and costs. So it's a more consistent way to do storage efficiency and leverage power storage advance inline compression and it's always on, and it doesn't compromise performance of other services. So, with PowerStore using this hardware differentiated approach to inline data reduction, customers get an average four to one data reduction across all their workloads, don't compromise performance or services. And honestly, a lot of times we see them achieving up to 20 to 1 or more depending on the data type. So yeah, I just wanted to throw out that other example. >> Great. >> The last thing I'll say is we just launched a trifecta storage innovation at Dell Technologies World. We have over 500 new high value software enhancements that bring out the best in our storage hardware platforms and that's across PowerStore, PowerMax and PowerFlex. So I encourage folks to go check that out and you know obviously let us know what you think. >> Yeah. We can put a link to those in the show notes. And I was there at Dell Tech World. It was actually quite amazing. Shannon, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your insights really appreciate it. >> My pleasure. >> All right. And thank you for watching this Cube conversation. This is Dave Vellante and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>>The cube presents, Dell technologies world brought to you by Dell. >>Welcome back to the cube. Lisa Martin and Dave Vale are live in Las Vegas. We are covering our third day of covering Dell technologies world 2022. The first live in-person event since 2019. It's been great to be here. We've had a lot of great conversations about all the announcements that Dell has made in the last couple of days. And we're gonna unpack a little bit more of that. Now. One of our alumni is back with us. Shannon champion joins us again, vice president product marketing at Dell technologies, and she's a company by Pete Robinson, the director of infrastructure engineering at Salesforce. Welcome. Thank >>You. >>So Shannon, you had a big announcement yesterday. I run a lot of new software innovations. Did >>You hear about that? I heard a little something >>About that. Unpack that for us. >>Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it's so exciting to be here in person and have such a big moment across our storage portfolio, to see that on the big stage, the boom to announce major updates across power store, PowerMax and power flex all together, just a ton of innovation across the storage portfolio. And you probably also heard a ton of focus on our software driven innovation across those products, because our goal is really to deliver a continuously modern storage experience. That's what our customers are asking us for that cloud experience. Let's take the most Val get the most value from data no matter where it lives. That's on premises in the public clouds or at the edge. And that's what we, uh, unveil. That's what we're releasing. And that's what we're excited to talk about. >>Now, Pete, you, Salesforce is a long time Dell customer, but you're also its largest PowerMax customer. The biggest in the world. Tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing with PowerMax and your experience. >>Yeah, so, um, for Salesforce, trust is our number one value and that carries over into the infrastructure that we develop, we test and, and we roll out and Parex has been a key part of that. Um, we really like the, um, the technology in terms of availability, reliability, um, performance. And it, it has allowed us to, you know, continue to grow our customers, uh, continue needs for more and more data. >>So what was kind of eye popping to me was the emphasis on security. Not that you've not always emphasized security, but maybe Shannon, you could do a rundown of, yeah. Maybe not all the features, but give us the high level. And at Pete, I, I wonder how I, if you could comment on how, how you think about that as a practitioner, but please give us that. >>Sure. Yeah. So, you know, PowerMax has been leading for, uh, a long time in its space and we're continuing to lean into that and continue to lead in that space. And we're proud to say PowerMax is the world's most secure mission, critical storage platform. And the reason we can say that is because it really is designed for comprehensive cyber resiliency. It's designed with a zero trust security architecture. And in this particular release, there's 19 different security features really embedded in there. So I'm not gonna unpack all 19, but a couple, um, examples, right? So multifactor authentication also continuous ransomware anomaly detection, a leveraging cloud IQ, which is, uh, huge. Um, and last but not least, um, we have the industry's most granular cyber recovery at scale PowerMax can do up to 65 million imutable snapshots per array. So just, uh, and that's 30 times more than our next nearest competitor. So, you know, really when you're talking about recovery point objectives, power max can't be beat. >>So what does that mean to you, Pete? >>Uh, well, it's it's same thing that I was mentioning earlier about that's a trust factor. Uh, security is a big, a big part of that. You know, Salesforce invests heavily into the securing our customer data because it really is the, the core foundation of our success and our customers trust us with their data. And if we, if we were to fail at that, you know, we would lose that trust. And that's simply not, it's not an option. >>Let's talk about that trust for a minute. We know we've heard a lot about trust this week from Michael Dell. Talk to us about trust, your trust, Salesforce's trust and Dell technologies. You've been using them a long time, but cultural alignment yeah. Seems to be pretty spot on. >>I, I would agree. Um, you know, both companies have a customer first mentality, uh, you know, we, we succeed if the customer succeeds and we see that going back and forth in that partnership. So Dell is successful when Salesforce is successful and vice versa. So, um, when we've it's and it goes beyond just the initial, you know, the initial purchase of, of hardware or software, you know, how you operate it, how you manage it, um, how you continue to develop together. You know, our, you know, we work closely with the Dell engineering teams and we've, we've worked closely in development of the new, new PowerMax lines to where it's actually able to help us build our, our business. And, and again, you know, continue to help Dell in the process. So you've >>Got visibility on the new, a lot of these new features you're playing around with them. What I, I, I obviously started with security cuz that's on top of everybody's mind, but what are the things are important to you as a customer? And how do these features the new features kind of map into that? Maybe you could talk about your experience with the, I think you're in beta, maybe with these features. Maybe you could talk about that. >>Yeah. Um, probably the, the biggest thing that we're seeing right now, other than OB the obvious enhancements in hardware, which, which we love, uh, you know, better performance, better scalability, better, and a better density. Um, but also the, some of the software functionality that Dells starting to roll out, you know, we've, we've, we've uh, implemented cloud IQ for all of our PowerMax systems and it's the same thing. We continue to, um, find features that we would like. And we've actually, you know, worked closely with the cloud IQ team. And within a matter of weeks or months, those features are popping up in cloud IQ that we can then continue to, to develop and, and use. >>Yeah. I think trust goes both ways in our partnership, right? So, you know, Salesforce can trust Dell to deliver the, you know, the products they need to deliver their business outcomes, but we also have a relationship to where we can trust that Salesforce is gonna really help us develop the next generation product that's gonna, you know, really deliver the most value. Yeah. >>Can you share some business outcomes that you've achieved so far leveraging power max and how it's really enabled, maybe it's your organization's productivity perspective, but what are some of those outcomes that you've achieved so far? >>Um, there there's so many to, to, to choose from, but I would say the, probably the biggest thing that we've seen is a as we roll out new infrastructure, we have various generations that we deploy. Um, when we went to the new PowerMax, um, initially we were concerned about whether our storage infrastructure could keep up with the new compute, uh, systems that we were rolling out. And when we went through and began testing it, we came to realize that the, the performance improvements alone, that we were seeing were able to keep up with the compute demand, making that transition from the older VMAX platforms to the PMAX practically seamless and able to just deploy the new SKUs as, as they came out. >>Talk about the portfolio that you apply to PowerMax. I mean, it's the highest of the highest end mission critical the toughest workloads in the planet. Salesforce has made a lot of acquisitions. Yeah. Um, do you throw everything at PowerMax? Are you, are you selective? What's your strategy there? So >>It's, it's selective. In other words that there's no square peg that meets every need, um, you know, acquisitions take some time to, to ingest, um, you know, some run into cloud, some run in first, in, in first party. Um, but so we, we try to take a very, very intentional approach to where we deploy that technology. >>So 10 years ago, someone in your position, or maybe someone who works for you was probably do spent a lot of time managing lawns and tuning performance. And how has that changed? >>We don't do that. <laugh> we? >>We can, right. So what do you do with right. Talk, talk more double click on that. So how talk about how that transition occurred from really non-productive activities, managing storage boxes. Yeah. And, and where you are today, what are you doing with those resources? >>It, it, it all comes outta automation. Like, you know, the, you know, hardware is hardware to a point, um, but you reach a point where the, the manageability scale just goes exponential and, and we're way, well past that. And the only way we've been able to meet that, meet that need is to, to automate and really develop our operations, to be able to not just manage at a lung level or even at the system level, but manage at the data center level at the geographical, you know, location level and then being able to, to manage from there. >>Okay. Really stupid question. But I'm gonna ask it cause I wanna hear your answer. True. Why can't you just take a software defined storage platform and just run everything on that? Why do you need all these different platforms and why do you gotta spend all this money on PowerMax? Why, why can't you just do >>That? That's the million dollar question. Uh, I, I ask that all the time. <laugh>, um, I think software defined is it's on its way. Um, it's come a long way just in the last decade. Yeah. Um, but in terms of supporting what I consider mission critical, large scale, uh, applications, it's, it's not, it's just simply not on par just yet with what we do with PowerMax, for example. >>And that's exactly how we position it in our portfolio. Right? So PowerMax runs on 95% of the fortune 100 companies, top 20 healthcare companies, top 10 financial services companies in the world. So it's really mission critical high end has all of the enterprise level features and capabilities to really have that availability. That's so important to a lot of companies like Salesforce and, and Pete's right, you know, software define is on its way and it provides a lot of agility there. But at the end of the day for mission critical storage, it's all about PowerMax. >>I wonder if we're ever gonna get to, I mean, you, you, you, it was interesting answer cuz you kind of, I inferred from your that you're hopeful and even optimistic that someday will get to parody. But I wonder because you can't be just close enough. It's almost, you have to be. >>I think, I think the key answer to that is it's it's the software flying gets you halfway there. The other side of the coin is the application ecosystem has to change to be able to solve that other, other side of it. Cuz if you simply simply take an application that runs on a PowerMax and try to run it, just forklift it over to a software defined. You're not gonna have very much luck. >>Recovery has to be moved up to stack >>Operations recovery, the whole, whole whole works. >>Jenny, can you comment on how customers like Salesforce? Like what's your process for involving them in testing in roadmap and in that direction, strategic direction that you guys are going? Great >>Question. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, customer feedback is huge. You've heard it. I'm sure this is not new right product development and engineering. We love to hear from our customers. And there's multiple ways you heard about beta testing, which we're really fortunate that Salesforce can help us provide that feedback for our new releases. But we have user groups, we have forums. We, we hear directly from our sales teams, our, you know, our customers, aren't shy, they're willing to give us their feedback. And at the end of the day, we take that feedback and make sure that we're prioritizing the right things in our product management and engineering teams so that we're delivering the things that matter. Most first, >>We've heard a lot of that this week. So I would agree guys, thank you so much for joining Dave and me talking about Salesforce. What you doing with PowerMax? All the stuff that you announced yesterday, alone. Hopefully you get to go home and get a little bit of rest. >>Yes. >>I'm sure that there's, there's never a dull moment. Never. Can't wait guys. Great to have you. >>Thank you. You guys, >>For our guests on Dave Volante, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching the queue. We are live day three of our coverage of Dell technologies world 2022, Dave and I will be right back with our final guest of the show.

>>Welcome back to the cubes coverage of AWS public sector summit live in Washington D. C. A face to face event were on the ground here is to keep coverage. I'm john Kerry, your hosts got two great guests. Both cuba alumni Shannon Kellogg VP of public policy for the Americas and john would ceo tell us congratulations on some announcement on stage and congressional john being a public company. Last time I saw you in person, you are private. Now your I. P. O. Congratulations >>totally virtually didn't meet one investor, lawyer, accountant or banker in person. It's all done over zoom. What's amazing. >>We'll go back to that and a great great to see you had great props here earlier. You guys got some good stuff going on in the policy side, a core max on stage talking about this Virginia deal. Give us the update. >>Yeah. Hey thanks john, it's great to be back. I always like to be on the cube. Uh, so we made an announcement today regarding our economic impact study, uh, for the commonwealth of Virginia. And this is around the amazon web services business and our presence in Virginia or a WS as we all, uh, call, uh, amazon web services. And um, basically the data that we released today shows over the last decade the magnitude of investment that we're making and I think reflects just the overall investments that are going into Virginia in the data center industry of which john and I have been very involved with over the years. But the numbers are quite um, uh, >>just clever. This is not part of the whole H. 20. H. Q. Or whatever they call HQ >>To HQ two. It's so Virginia Amazon is investing uh in Virginia as part of our HQ two initiative. And so Arlington Virginia will be the second headquarters in the U. S. In addition to that, AWS has been in Virginia for now many years, investing in both data center infrastructure and also other corporate facilities where we house AWS employees uh in other parts of Virginia, particularly out in what's known as the dullest technology corridor. But our data centers are actually spread throughout three counties in Fairfax County, Loudoun County in Prince William County. >>So this is the maxim now. So it wasn't anything any kind of course this is Virginia impact. What was, what did he what did he announce? What did he say? >>Yeah. So there were a few things that we highlighted in this economic impact study. One is that over the last decade, if you can believe it, we've invested $35 billion 2020 alone. The AWS investment in construction and these data centers. uh it was actually $1.3 billion 2020. And this has created over 13,500 jobs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So it's a really great story of investment and job creation and many people don't know John in this Sort of came through in your question too about HQ two, But aws itself has over 8000 employees in Virginia today. Uh, and so we've had this very significant presence for a number of years now in Virginia over the last, you know, 15 years has become really the cloud capital of the country, if not the world. Uh, and you see all this data center infrastructure that's going in there, >>John What's your take on this? You've been very active in the county there. Um, you've been a legend in the area and tech, you've seen this many years, you've been doing so I think the longest running company doing cyber my 31st year, 31st year. So you've been on the ground. What does this all mean to you? >>Well, you know, it goes way back to, it was roughly 2005 when I served on the Economic Development Commission, Loudon County as the chairman. And at the time we were the fastest-growing county in America in Loudon County. But our residential real property taxes were going up stratospherically because when you look at it, every dollar real property tax that came into residential, we lose $2 because we had to fund schools and police and fire departments and so forth. And we realized for every dollar of commercial real property tax that came in, We made $97 in profit, but only 13% of the money that was coming into the county was coming in commercially. So a small group got together from within the county to try and figure out what were the assets that we had to offer to companies like Amazon and we realized we had a lot of land, we had water and then we had, you know this enormous amount of dark fiber, unused fibre optic. And so basically the county made it appealing to companies like amazon to come out to Loudon County and other places in northern Virginia and the rest is history. If you look today, we're Loudon County is Loudon County generates a couple $100 million surplus every year. It's real property taxes have come down in in real dollars and the percentage of revenue that comes from commercials like 33 34%. That's really largely driven by the data center ecosystem that my friend over here Shannon was talking. So >>the formula basically is look at the assets resources available that may align with the kind of commercial entities that good. How's their domicile there >>that could benefit. >>So what about power? Because the data centers need power, fiber fiber is great. The main, the main >>power you can build power but the main point is is water for cooling. So I think I think we had an abundance of water which allowed us to build power sources and allowed companies like amazon to build their own power sources. So I think it was really a sort of a uh uh better what do they say? Better lucky than good. So we had a bunch of assets come together that helps. Made us, made us pretty lucky as a, as a region. >>Thanks area too. >>It is nice and >>john, it's really interesting because the vision that john Wood and several of his colleagues had on that economic development board has truly come through and it was reaffirmed in the numbers that we released this week. Um, aws paid $220 million 2020 alone for our data centers in those three counties, including loud >>so amazon's contribution to >>The county. $220 million 2020 alone. And that actually makes up 20% of overall property tax revenues in these counties in 2020. So, you know, the vision that they had 15 years ago, 15, 16 years ago has really come true today. And that's just reaffirmed in these numbers. >>I mean, he's for the amazon. So I'll ask you the question. I mean, there's a lot of like for misinformation going around around corporate reputation. This is clearly an example of the corporation contributing to the, to the society. >>No, no doubt. And you think >>About it like that's some good numbers, 20 million, 30 >>$5 million dollar capital investment. You know, 10, it's, what is it? 8000 9000 >>Jobs. jobs, a W. S. jobs in the Commonwealth alone. >>And then you look at the economic impact on each of those counties financially. It really benefits everybody at the end of the day. >>It's good infrastructure across the board. How do you replicate that? Not everyone's an amazon though. So how do you take the formula? What's your take on best practice? How does this rollout? And that's the amazon will continue to grow, but that, you know, this one company, is there a lesson here for the rest of us? >>I think I think all the data center companies in the cloud companies out there see value in this region. That's why so much of the internet traffic comes through northern Virginia. I mean it's I've heard 70%, I've heard much higher than that too. So I think everybody realizes this is a strategic asset at a national level. But I think the main point to bring out is that every state across America should be thinking about investments from companies like amazon. There are, there are really significant benefits that helps the entire community. So it helps build schools, police departments, fire departments, etcetera, >>jobs opportunities. What's the what's the vision though? Beyond data center gets solar sustainability. >>We do. We have actually a number of renewable energy projects, which I want to talk about. But just one other quick on the data center industry. So I also serve on the data center coalition which is a national organization of data center and cloud providers. And we look at uh states all over this country were very active in multiple states and we work with governors and state governments as they put together different frameworks and policies to incent investment in their states and Virginia is doing it right. Virginia has historically been very forward looking, very forward thinking and how they're trying to attract these data center investments. They have the right uh tax incentives in place. Um and then you know, back to your point about renewable energy over the last several years, Virginia is also really made some statutory changes and other policy changes to drive forward renewable energy in Virginia. Six years ago this week, john I was in a coma at county in Virginia, which is the eastern shore. It's a very rural area where we helped build our first solar farm amazon solar farm in Virginia in 2015 is when we made this announcement with the governor six years ago this week, it was 88 megawatts, which basically at the time quadruple the virginias solar output in one project. So since that first project we at Amazon have gone from building that one facility, quadrupling at the time, the solar output in Virginia to now we're by the end of 2023 going to be 1430 MW of solar power in Virginia with 15 projects which is the equivalent of enough power to actually Enough electricity to power 225,000 households, which is the equivalent of Prince William county Virginia. So just to give you the scale of what we're doing here in Virginia on renewable energy. >>So to me, I mean this comes down to not to put my opinion out there because I never hold back on the cube. It's a posture, we >>count on that. It's a >>posture issue of how people approach business. I mean it's the two schools of thought on the extreme true business. The government pays for everything or business friendly. So this is called, this is a modern story about friendly business kind of collaborative posture. >>Yeah, it's putting money to very specific use which has a very specific return in this case. It's for everybody that lives in the northern Virginia region benefits everybody. >>And these policies have not just attracted companies like amazon and data center building builders and renewable energy investments. These policies are also leading to rapid growth in the cybersecurity industry in Virginia as well. You know john founded his company decades ago and you have all of these cybersecurity companies now located in Virginia. Many of them are partners like >>that. I know john and I both have contributed heavily to a lot of the systems in place in America here. So congratulations on that. But I got to ask you guys, well I got you for the last minute or two cybersecurity has become the big issue. I mean there's a lot of these policies all over the place. But cyber is super critical right now. I mean, where's the red line Shannon? Where's you know, things are happening? You guys bring security to the table, businesses are out there fending for themselves. There's no militia. Where's the, where's the, where's the support for the commercial businesses. People are nervous >>so you want to try it? >>Well, I'm happy to take the first shot because this is and then we'll leave john with the last word because he is the true cyber expert. But I had the privilege of hosting a panel this morning with the director of the cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency at the department, Homeland Security, Jenness easterly and the agency is relatively new and she laid out a number of initiatives that the DHS organization that she runs is working on with industry and so they're leaning in their partnering with industry and a number of areas including, you know, making sure that we have the right information sharing framework and tools in place, so the government and, and we in industry can act on information that we get in real time, making sure that we're investing for the future and the workforce development and cyber skills, but also as we enter national cybersecurity month, making sure that we're all doing our part in cyber security awareness and training, for example, one of the things that are amazon ceo Andy Jassy recently announced as he was participating in a White house summit, the president biden hosted in late august was that we were going to at amazon make a tool that we've developed for information and security awareness for our employees free, available to the public. And in addition to that we announced that we were going to provide free uh strong authentication tokens for AWS customers as part of that announcement going into national cybersecurity months. So what I like about what this administration is doing is they're reaching out there looking for ways to work with industry bringing us together in these summits but also looking for actionable things that we can do together to make a difference. >>So my, my perspective echoing on some of Shannon's points are really the following. Uh the key in general is automation and there are three components to automation that are important in today's environment. One is cyber hygiene and education is a piece of that. The second is around mis attribution meaning if the bad guy can't see you, you can't be hacked. And the third one is really more or less around what's called attribution, meaning I can figure out actually who the bad guy is and then report that bad guys actions to the appropriate law enforcement and military types and then they take it from there >>unless he's not attributed either. So >>well over the basic point is we can't as industry hat back, it's illegal, but what we can do is provide the tools and methods necessary to our government counterparts at that point about information sharing, where they can take the actions necessary and try and find those bad guys. >>I just feel like we're not moving fast enough. Businesses should be able to hack back. In my opinion. I'm a hawk on this one item. So like I believe that because if people dropped on our shores with troops, the government will protect us. >>So your your point is directly taken when cyber command was formed uh before that as airlines seeing space physical domains, each of those physical domains have about 100 and $50 billion they spend per year when cyber command was formed, it was spending less than Jpmorgan chase to defend the nation. So, you know, we do have a ways to go. I do agree with you that there needs to be more uh flexibility given the industry to help help with the fight. You know, in this case. Andy Jassy has offered a couple of tools which are, I think really good strong tokens training those >>are all really good. >>We've been working with amazon for a long time, you know, ever since, uh, really, ever since the CIA embrace the cloud, which was sort of the shot heard around the world for cloud computing. We do the security compliance automation for that air gap region for amazon as well as other aspects >>were all needs more. Tell us faster, keep cranking up that software because tell you right now people are getting hit >>and people are getting scared. You know, the colonial pipeline hack that affected everybody started going wait a minute, I can't get gas. >>But again in this area of the line and jenny easterly said this this morning here at the summit is that this truly has to be about industry working with government, making sure that we're working together, you know, government has a role, but so does the private sector and I've been working cyber issues for a long time to and you know, kind of seeing where we are this year in this recent cyber summit that the president held, I really see just a tremendous commitment coming from the private sector to be an effective partner in securing the nation this >>full circle to our original conversation around the Virginia data that you guys are looking at the Loudon County amazon contribution. The success former is really commercial public sector. I mean, the government has to recognize that technology is now lingua franca for all things everything society >>well. And one quick thing here that segues into the fact that Virginia is the cloud center of the nation. Um uh the president issued a cybersecurity executive order earlier this year that really emphasizes the migration of federal systems into cloud in the modernization that jOHN has worked on, johN had a group called the Alliance for Digital Innovation and they're very active in the I. T. Modernization world and we remember as well. Um but you know, the federal government is really emphasizing this, this migration to cloud and that was reiterated in that cybersecurity executive order >>from the, well we'll definitely get you guys back on the show, we're gonna say something. >>Just all I'd say about about the executive order is that I think one of the main reasons why the president thought was important is that the legacy systems that are out there are mainly written on kobol. There aren't a lot of kids graduating with degrees in COBOL. So COBOL was designed in 1955. I think so I think it's very imperative that we move has made these workloads as we can, >>they teach it anymore. >>They don't. So from a security point of view, the amount of threats and vulnerabilities are through the >>roof awesome. Well john I want to get you on the show our next cyber security event. You have you come into a fireside chat and unpack all the awesome stuff that you're doing. But also the challenges. Yes. And there are many, you have to keep up the good work on the policy. I still say we got to remove that red line and identified new rules of engagement relative to what's on our sovereign virtual land. So a whole nother Ballgame, thanks so much for coming. I appreciate it. Thank you appreciate it. Okay, cute coverage here at eight of public sector seven Washington john ferrier. Thanks for watching. Mhm. Mhm.

>>From around the globe, it's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel and AWS. >>We continue our coverage here on the cube of AWS reinvent 2020 I'm John Wallace, glad to be with you here and glad that you've joined us for an important discussion. You know, a lot of companies and many industries are making a very concerted effort toward promoting greater diversity and inclusion within their various workforces. And the renewable energy industry is certainly a big part of that movement. And here to talk about how AWS is supporting that and what the industry itself is doing. I'm proud to and pleased to welcome three guests. We have Shannon Kellogg with us from AWS. He's the vice president of public policy for the Americas. Shannon, thanks for being with us here on the cube. >>You back. Thank you. And great >>Whetstone, who is the president and CEO of the American council on renewable energy. We're going to call it a core from here on out, and also joining us Colleen Pickford, who was the EVP at ACOR, and welcome to both of you. Glad we could have it here on the cube. Glad to be here. John's great. You bet. Absolutely looking forward to this discussion first off, Shannon, let me, let me turn it over to you. I know, uh, AWS had some fairly significant announcements, uh, very recently about renewable and, um, you know, launching that on, around reinvent 2020, if he would take us through that a little bit about that commitment and what exactly that news was all about. >>Well, thank you on, uh, Amazon overall, uh, made a very, uh, significant announcement, uh, last week of 26, uh, renewable energy projects around the world. Uh, so many of those here in the U S but also, uh, many of those, uh, internationally and, um, the announcements, uh, collectively last week, along with what we've already announced previously in renewable energy projects now makes us the largest, uh, corporate, uh, buyer of renewable energy in the world. And so we're really excited about that. Um, this is part of our longterm, uh, efforts, uh, to be a hundred percent renewable, um, in our, uh, uh, footprint around the AWS infrastructure, uh, footprint, uh, but also a part of the broader, uh, commitment that we have at Amazon, including around climate and sustainability. So, uh, we were really super excited about last week from now. >>Yeah. Can you give me an idea of the flavor of the projects? I mean, you're talking about more than two dozen, uh, and as you said there around the world, so I assumed pretty wide variety of impacts and, and of, uh, initiatives as well, but maybe just to give those watching at home and idea of what the scale at this point. >>Well, it's a mix of, uh, solar and wind, uh, projects. Uh, like I said, both in the U S and abroad. Um, we had previously announced, uh, uh, several, um, solar projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For example, with last week's announcements, we added more, uh, solar, uh, in Virginia, we had previously, uh, uh, announced, uh, wind projects in Ohio and we added more, uh, wind, uh, and, um, uh, you know, large scale utility scale projects in Ohio. And so we also included other States of course, are in the U S and in countries as well, including, uh, one of the first offshore, uh, projects, uh, offshore wind projects that we've done, uh, with, uh, in this case with, uh, off of the coast of Germany. >>All right, Greg, when you hear about that kind of commitment that AWS is making, uh, in terms of, uh, not only from a geographical standpoint, but from a variety of standpoint, we're talking about when we're talking about solar, um, I mean, what is, what stands out to you with regard to the, the impact of that kind of commitment and that kind of initiative >>Kale it's really impactful. It's such an impressive thing to be able to bring that many new renewable projects that are that big online in a single year, that the total amount of new clean generation is on the order of 4,000 megawatts. It wasn't that long ago. That would be a great year for the renewable sector as a whole in the United States. If you go back 10, 12 years. So the idea that one company is now procuring so much renewable power is phenomenally exciting, and we're just so proud of Amazon and it's big progress toward Amazon. So a hundred percent goal, uh, and really, uh, toward the broader effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rapidly enough to stay within shouting distance of what scientists say we need to do in order to protect our planet's climate. >>Right. Great point. Uh, Colleen, I know you made an interesting point recently, you were talking about the accelerated membership program, which is, uh, an initiative that you've just launched, uh, in terms of trying to create greater diversity and equity and inclusion within the renewable energy, uh, workforce, uh, AWS big sponsor of that, um, founding partner. Uh, if you would tell us a little bit more about that program, uh, and, and what you see is what you hope it's near term or short term impact might be. And then maybe the long tail of that, you know, what kind of impact you can have eventually? >>Yeah, absolutely a core like toward like many in our industry, we've been looking at how we can play a role in creating a more equitable and just future. Um, and we were lucky because we have board members who went during our normal boring board meetings, and we're looking at our membership, asked me, they said, what are you doing to bring more diversity into a core membership? And I had to say, not enough, and that's really the Genesis for the accelerate program. And we were really fortunate to have Shannon and Amazon and our other board members work with us to develop a program that will create opportunities for companies that are owned or led by women or people of color to access a core in all of our benefits for two years and create additional resources for them to really grow their businesses in a way that they may not otherwise be able to. >>Yeah. Shannon did point out that you are board members, Colleen just, just mentioned, um, uh, of a core. What is it about this particular initiative that you think that has peaked the AWS entrust? >>This is Colleen said, uh, we were discussing at the board level, you know, ways that we could, um, do more as a or, uh, in this companies in this sector, promote diversity and inclusion. And we were brainstorming one day and came up with this, uh, with this idea, you know, it's, I'm really excited about it because, um, we're basically going out and offering a core membership and other services, uh, to entrepreneurs and small businesses in the sector led by, uh, minorities and, um, uh, women leaders. And this is just a fantastic opportunity to assist companies and organizations that are just getting started, uh, in an encourages innovation and encourages obviously diversity and inclusion. And so we're super excited about this effort. >>Is this, is this something that you can direct toward a company of any specific size? I mean, Shannon just touched on it, small business, um, but is, is this applicable? The, the, the accelerate program is this geared toward just the small businesses, larger >>Turn in Britain. Uh, we want to bring more diversity in the sector. We want to help. And it's really the smaller companies that need assistance and making those connections and participating, uh, and gaining the access, uh, and maybe mentoring pro bono services. Uh, we want to help those small companies become bigger, grow this sector and, and help enhance the diversity, the leadership in this sector from underrepresented communities. We want, you know, like much of the economy we recognize the renewable energy sector does not yet look like America looks and that's something we're all fighting to achieve. And it's, uh, incredibly helpful to have an Amazon is really the founding supporter of this program. And after Amazon stepped up, uh, seen a number of other companies join in and helping make this a reality. And we've got a lot of momentum now, very excited about the accelerate program. >>Colleen, I like to hear a little bit more from you on the partnership with AWS in general. Um, I know this isn't the first time that you all have partnered together. So if you would maybe fill in some of the blanks about that history that led us to this initiative, and then for them being the one of the founding partners along with the Berkshire Hathaway foundation. >>Sure. I mean, Amazon's been a member of our board for a number of years now, their commitment to the industry is clear and, you know, Shannon and his whole team actively participate across a core providing us with guidance and with insights like these. I think when you look at what we've done with the accelerate program, you know, it's not the first stop for a new small company organization like eight core, but we can have a measurable impact on their go to market strategies and their ability to grow their business. And Shannon and Amazon gave us that insight and they gave us some additional insights about what we could provide through the accelerate program that could really help make a difference for those companies. >>Hmm. You know, Greg, um, if I could just flip the script just a little bit here or, or, uh, get you back on to the discussion about climate change in general. I know that's just obviously, uh, the, the, a key driver to your organization's mission. Just your thoughts about, you know, where we stand, that you talked about trying to be within shouting distance of certain goals. I know there's been discussion about United States for joining the Paris accord, um, and committing to voluntary, uh, uh, emissions controls, just, I mean, where are we in your mind in terms of, of trying to seriously address the problem >>We're behind? I mean, the surprising thing is the renewable sector has been growing at a booming pace. We had over $60 billion in investment last year and wind and solar power, uh, one of the most important economic drivers for the country. Um, we're going to end up despite all of the difficulties presented by 2020 with a pandemic, we're going to have record renewable energy growth in 2020, we're going to bust through the old record, which was about 23,000 megawatts. And we'll be more like 27,000 megawatts. So that's great, but to get our arms around the climate issue, we know we have to grow much more rapidly. We've set a goal at a core of achieving a trillion dollars and investment by 2030, starting when we launched that program back in 2018, uh, and we made a lot of headway, but we're behind. We need to be investing closer to 90, a hundred billion a year in order to see that growth in logging at growth at a much higher rate, we feel really optimistic about getting a tailwind from the new administration, the desire to build back that, or, uh, the clear focus on policies and that value the ability to generate power, to make our economy grow and grow dramatically without greenhouse emissions, without adding to, uh, climate change. >>So, uh, um, I'm optimistic we can get there, but we know we gotta step it up as much as we've been growing as successful as we've been. It's not enough. And we know that >>Colleen, how does your organization in ACOR trumpet that, um, I know you talked about the nexus of finance and policy and technology. Obviously policy is what, uh, is at the center of this particular discussion, but, but how, how can you in the coming year, especially, um, be a, a key driver in that discussion? >>Well, I think, you know, we bring together a really unique stakeholder group from all across the renewable energy industry. And we take those stakeholders and it gives us a magnified voice to share the message of what's needed to really drive more Watts of renewable energy onto the grid. And what are those barriers in policy to making that possible? So, I mean, that's really how we do it is we bring together the most unique group together, >>But we appreciate the work. Uh, no question about that. It is a dire need that needs to be addressed. And we certainly thank you for that. Uh, Shannon, we thank AWS for their support, not only of this initiative, but of all that you're doing around the world. And, uh, we certainly wish you all the best of success with the accelerate membership program and creating these better hiring opportunities within your industry. So thank you all very much for joining us here on the cube.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of VM World 2020 brought to you by VM Ware and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back, I'm still minimum and this is the Cubes coverage of VM World 2020 our 11th year doing the Cube. First year. We're doing it, of course, virtually globally. Happy to welcome back to the program. One of our Cube alumni, Shannon Champion, and she is the director of product marketing with Dell Technologies. Shannon, Nice to see you and thanks so much for joining us. >>Thanks for having me. Good to see you as well. >>Alright, So big thing, of course, at VM World, talking about building off of what was Project Pacific at last year's show? Talking about how kubernetes all the wonderful cloud native pieces go in. So let's let's talk about application modernization. Shannon, you know, with a theme I've talked about for a number of years, is you know, we need to modernize the platform, and then we can modernize the applications on top of those. So tell us what you're hearing from your customers and how Delon vm, where then, are bringing the solutions to help customers really along that journey. >>Yeah, I'd love Thio. It's fun stuff. So, um, enterprises are telling us that especially now more than ever, they're really looking for how they must digitally transform. And they need to do that so they can drive innovation and get a competitive advantage on one way. That they're able to do that is by finding ways to flexibly and rapidly move work loads to where they make sense, whether that's on premises or in the public cloud. And the new standard for doing this is becoming cloud native applications. There was a recent I. D. C. Future Escape that predicted that by 2025 2 3rd of enterprises will be prolific software producers with code being deployed on a daily basis, and over 90% of applications at that time will be delivered with cognitive approaches. So it's just kind of crazy to think, and what's really impressive to is that the sheer volume of applications that are anticipated to be produced with these cloud native approaches Ah, it's expected to be over 500 million new APS created with cognitive approaches by 2024 just kind of putting that into perspective 500 million. APS is the same number that's been created over the last 40 years. So it's a fun, fun trend to be part of. >>Yeah, it's really amazing. When I talked to customers, there's some It's like, Oh, let me show you how Maney APs I've done and created in the last 18 months. It was like, Great. How does that compare before? And they're like, we weren't creating APS. We were buying APS. We were buying software. We had outsourced some of those pieces. So you know that that that trend we've been talking about for a number of years is kind of everyone's a software company, Um, does not mean that, you know, we're getting rid of the old business models. But Shannon, there are challenges there either expanding and moving faster or, you know, making sure that I have the talent in house. So bring us inside. What if some of the big things that your customers are telling you, uh, maybe that's holding them back from unlocking that central? >>Yeah, totally. You hit on a couple of them, you know, we're definitely seeing a lot of interest in adoption of kubernetes and clearly VM Ware is leading the way with Changzhou. But we're also hearing that they're underestimating the challenges on how toe quote unquote get to kubernetes. Right? How do you stand up that full cloud native staff and particularly at scale Thio? How do you manage the ongoing operations and maintain that infrastructure? How do you support the various stakeholders? How do you bring I t operators and developers together? Eso There's really a wide range of challenges that, um businesses air facing. And the other thing is that you hit on, you know, they're going to be producing mawr and Mawr cloud native applications, but they still need to maintain legacy applications, many of which are driving business, critical applications and workloads. So they're going to need to look for solutions that help them manage both and allow them to re factor or retire those legacy ones at their own pace so they can maintain business continuity. >>Yeah, and of course, Shannon, we know as infrastructure people, our job was always toe, you know, give the environment to allow the applications to run in virtualization. For years, it was Well, I knew if I virtualized something, I could leave it there and it wasn't going to. It didn't have to worry about the underlying hardware changes. Help us understand How does kubernetes fit into this environment? Because, as I said that people don't want to even worry about it. And the infrastructure people now need to be able to change, expand and, you know, respond to the business so much faster than we might have in times past. >>Yeah, so from an infrastructure perspective, working with VM ware based on tons of really the essence of that is to bring I t operators and developers together. The infrastructure has a common set of management that, you know, each the developer and the I t operators can work in the language there most familiar with. And, you know, the communication of the translation all happens within Tan Xue so that they're more speaking the same, um, language when it comes Thio, you know, managing the infrastructure in particular with VM ware tansy on VX rail. We are delivering kind of a range of infrastructure options because we know people are still trying to figure out you know, where they are in their kubernetes readiness path. Some people have really developed mature capabilities in house for who were Netease for software defined networking. And for those customers, they still may want Thio. You know, use a reference architecture er and build on top of the ex rail for, you know, a custom cloud native specific application. What we're finding is more and more customers, though, don't have that level of kubernetes expertise, especially at scale. And so VM ware v sphere with Tan Xue on VX rail as well as via more cloud foundation on VX rail are ways Thio get a fast start on kubernetes with directly on these fair or kind of go with the full Monty of VM or Cloud Foundation on VX rail. >>Well, we're bringing up VX rail. Of course. The whole wave of h C I was How do we enable simplicity? We don't wanna have to think about these. We wanna, uh, just make it so that customers can just buy a solution. Of course. VX rail joint solution, you know, heavily partnership with VM ware. So, Shannon, there's a few options. VM has been moving very fast toe expand out that the into portfolio, uh, back at the beginning of the year when the sphere seven came out. You needed the BMR Cloud Foundation. Which, of course, what was an option for for for the VX rail. So help us understand you laid out a little bit some of those options there. But what should I know as Adele customer, Uh, you know what my options are? How the fault Kansas Wheat fits into it. >>Yeah, eso We like to call it kubernetes your way with the ex rail. So we have a range of options to fit your operational or kubernetes scale requirements or your level of expertise. So the three options, our first for customers that are looking for that tested, validated, multi configuration reference architectures er that will deliver platform as a service or containers is a service. We've got Tom to architecture for VX rail, which is a new name for what was known as pivot already architecture er and then for customers that may have minimum scaling requirements. They may have some of that expertise in house to manage at scale. The fastest path to get started with kubernetes is the new VM ware V sphere with Changzhou on VX rail. And then last I mentioned kind of that full highly automated turnkey on promises Cloud platform. That's the VM, or Cloud Foundation, on VX rail, which is also known as Dell Technologies Cloud Platform. And that option supports Tan Xue with software defined networking and security built in with that automated lifecycle management across the full stack. So there's really three paths to it from a reference architecture approach to a fast path on the actual clusters all the way to the full Deltek Cloud platform. And Dell Technologies is the first and only really offering this breath of tans. You infrastructure deployment options. Eso customers can really, uh, choose the best path for them. >>Yeah, So, Shannon, if if I If I think back to what we saw in the keynote, you know, VM Ware lays out there, they're hybrid and multi cloud solution. So of course they're they're public cloud the VM ware cloud on a W s. They have that solution. They have extended extended partnerships. Now, with azure uh, the the the offering with Oracle. Uh, that's coming, and I guess I could think to just think of the delta cloud on VX rail as just one of those other clouds in that hybrid and multi cloud solutions. Do I have that right? Same stack. Same management. If I'm if I'm living in that VM world world. >>Yeah. So the Deltek Cloud platform is an on premises hybrid cloud. So, you know, ah, lot of customers were looking to reduce complexity really quickly especially, you know, with some of the work from home initiatives that were sprung upon us and trying to pivot, um to respond to that. And, you know, the answer to solving some of that complexity is to jump into public cloud. What we found is a lot of customers actually are driving a hybrid cloud strategy and approach. And we know many customers sort of have that executive mandate. There's value in, um, driving that are on prem hybrid cloud approach. And that's what Dell Technologies Cloud platform is. So you get the consistent operations in the consistent infrastructure and more of the public cloud like consumption experience while having the infrastructure on Prem for security data locality. Other, um, you know, cost reasons like that. Eso That's really where VM or Cloud Foundation on VF Trail comes into play eso leveraging the VM ware technologies you have on Prem Hybrid cloud. It can connect all those public cloud providers that you talked about. So you have, you know, core to cloud on Dwan. Of the new capabilities that VM or Cloud Foundation, is announced support for is remote clusters. So that takes us kind of from cloud all the way toe edge because you now have the same VCF operational capabilities and operational efficiency with centralized management for remote locations. >>Wonderful. I'm glad you brought up the edge piece. Of course, you talk to the emerging space vm ware talking about ai talking about EJ, so help us understand. How much is it? The similar operational model? Is it even eyes that part of the VX rail family? What's the What's the state of the state in 2020 when it comes to how edge fits into that cloud core edge discussion that you just raised? >>Yeah, when you look at trends, especially for hyper converged edge and cloud native are kind of taking up a lot of the airwaves right now. Eso hyper converge is gonna play a big role in Theodore option of both cloud native Band Edge. And I think the intersection of those two comes into play with things like the remote cluster support for VM Ware Cloud Foundation on VX rail, where you can run cloud, you know, cloud native based modern applications with Tan Xue alongside traditional workloads at the edge, which traditionally have more stringent requirements. Less resource is maybe they need a more hardened environment, power and cooling, you know, um, constraints. So with VCF on VX rail, you have all the operational goodness that comes from the partnership in the levels of integration that we have with VM Ware. And customers can sort of realize that promise of full workload management mobility in a true hybrid cloud environment. >>Shannon I'm wondering what general feedback you're getting from your customers is as they look at a zoo, said these cloud native solutions. You know what's what's the big take away? Is this a continuation of the HD I wave that you've seen? Do they just pull this into their hybrid environments? Um, I'm wondering if you have any either any specific examples that you've been anonymized or just the general gestalt that you're getting from your customers. Is that how they're doing expanding, uh, into these, you know, new environments that kind of stretch them in different ways. >>Yeah, it's interesting because you know, there's there's customers that run the gamut when we look at those that are sort of the farther down their digital transformation journey. Those are the ones that were already planning for cloud native applications or had some in development. Uh, there's also some trends that we're seeing based on, you know, the the size of cluster deployments and the range of, you know, various configurations that are an indicator of those customers that are more modernized in terms of their approach to cloud native. And what we find from those customers, especially over the last six months, is that they're more prepared to respond to the unknown on bond. That was a big lesson for some of the other customers that you know, had new. The digital transformation was the way of the future, but hadn't yet sort of come up with a strategy on how to get there themselves were finding those customers are inhibiting their investments to areas that can help them be more ready for the unknown in the future. In Cloud native is top of that list. >>Absolutely. Shannon Day Volante showed a few times There's the people in the office, you know, with their white board doing everything. And there's the wrecking ball of covert 19. Kind of like Well, if you weren't ready and you weren't already down this path, you better move fast. Wonderful. All right, Shannon. So we know, uh, from past years, you know, VX rail. Usually it's all over the show. So in the digital world, what do you want to he takeaways. What are some of the key? You know, hands on demos, sessions that that people should check out. >>Thank you. Yeah. So hopefully your take away is that the X ray is a great infrastructure to support modern applications. First and foremost, we have, you know, a jointly engineered system built with VM ware, four VM ware environments to enhance fam. Where, and we do that with our the extra LHC I system software, which I didn't give a shout out to yet, which extends that native capabilities and really is the secret behind how we do seamless automated operational experience with the ex rail. And that's the case, whether it's traditional or modern applications. So that's my little commercial for VX rail at the show. Please tune into our VM World session on this topic. We also have hands on labs. We are launching a fun augmented reality game. Eso Please check that out on. We have a new Web page as well that you could get access to all the latest assets and guides that help you, you know, navigate your journey for cloud native. And that's at dell technologies dot com slash Hangzhou. >>Wonderful. Well, Shannon Champion, thanks so much. Great to see you again. And be short. Uh, we look forward to hearing more in the future. >>Thanks to >>stay with us. Lots more coverage from VM World 2020. I'm stew. Minimum is always thank you for watching the Cube.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of VM World 2020 brought to you by VM Ware and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back, I'm still minimum and this is the Cubes coverage of VM World 2020 our 11th year doing the Cube. First year. We're doing it, of course, virtually globally. Happy to welcome back to the program. One of our Cube alumni, Shannon Champion, and she is the director of product marketing with Dell Technologies. Cannon. Nice to see you and thanks so much for joining us. >>Thanks for having me. Good to see you as well. >>Alright, So big thing, of course, at VM World, talking about building off of what was Project Pacific at last year's show? Talking about how kubernetes all the wonderful cloud native pieces go in. So let's let's talk about application modernization. Shannon, you know, with a theme I've talked about for a number of years, is you know, we need to modernize the platform, and then we can modernize the applications on top of those. So tell us what you're hearing from your customers and how Delon Vm Ware then are bringing the solutions to help customers really along that journey. >>Yeah, I'd love Thio. It's fun stuff. So, um, enterprises are telling us that especially now more than ever, they're really looking for how they must digitally transform. And they need to do that so they can drive innovation and get a competitive advantage on one way. That they're able to do that is by finding ways to flexibly and rapidly move work loads to where they make sense, whether that's on premises or in the public cloud. And the new standard for doing this is becoming cloud native applications. There was a recent I. D. C. Future Escape that predicted that by 2025 2 3rd of enterprises will be prolific software producers with code being deployed on a daily basis, and over 90% of applications at that time will be delivered with cognitive approaches. So it's just kind of crazy to think, and what's really impressive to is that the sheer volume of applications that are anticipated to be produced with these cloud native approaches Ah, it's expected to be over 500 million new APS created with club approaches by 2024 just kind of putting that into perspective 500 million. APS is the same number that's been created over the last 40 years. So it's a fun, fun trend to be part of. >>Yeah, it's really amazing. When I talked to customers, there's some It's like, Oh, let me show you how Maney APs I've done and created in the last 18 months. It was like, Great. How does that compare before? And they're like, we weren't creating APS. We were buying APS. We were buying software. We have outsourced some of those pieces. So you know that that that trend we've been talking about for a number of years is kind of everyone's a software company, Um, does not mean that, you know, we're getting rid of the old business models. But Shannon, there are challenges there either expanding and moving faster or, you know, making sure that I have the talent in house. So bring us inside. What if some of the big things that your customers were telling you, maybe that's holding them back from unlocking that potential? >>Yeah, totally. You hit on a couple of them, you know, we're definitely seeing a lot of interest in adoption of kubernetes and clearly vm Ware is leading the way with Changzhou. But we're also hearing that they're underestimating the challenges on how toe quote unquote get to kubernetes. Right? How do you stand up that full cloud native staff and particularly at scale Thio? How do you manage the ongoing operations and maintain that infrastructure? How do you support the various stakeholders? How do you bring I t operators and developers together? Eso There's really a wide range of challenges that, um businesses air facing. And the other thing is that you hit on, you know, they're gonna be producing Mawr and Mawr cloud native applications, but they still need to maintain legacy applications, many of which are driving business critical applications and workloads. So they're going to need to look for solutions that help them manage both and allow them to re factor or retire those legacy ones at their own pace so they can maintain business continuity. >>Yeah, and of course, Shannon, we know as infrastructure people, our job was always toe, you know, give the environment to allow the applications to run in virtualization. For years, it was Well, I knew if I virtualized something, I could leave it there, and it wasn't going to it didn't have to worry about the underlying hardware changes. Help us understand How does kubernetes fit into this environment? Because, as I said that people don't want to even worry about it. And the infrastructure people now need to be able to change, expand and, you know, respond to the business so much faster than we might have in times past. >>Yeah, So from an infrastructure perspective, working with VM ware based on tons of really the essence of that is to bring I t operators and developers together. The infrastructure has a common set of management that, you know, each the developer and the I t operators can work in the language there most familiar with. And, you know, the communication of the translation all happens within Tan Xue so that they're more speaking the same, um, language when it comes Thio, you know, managing the infrastructure in particular with VM ware tansy on VX rail. We are delivering kind of a range of infrastructure options because we know people are still trying to figure out you know, where they are in their kubernetes readiness. Have, um, some people have really developed mature capabilities in house for who were Netease for software defined networking. And for those customers, they still may want Thio. You know, use a reference architecture er and build on top of the ex rail for, you know, a custom cloud native specific application. What we're finding is more and more customers, though, don't have that level of kubernetes expertise, especially at scale. And so VM ware v sphere with Tan Xue on VX rail as well as via more cloud foundation on VX rail are ways Thio get a fast start on kubernetes with directly on these fair or kind of go with the full Monty of B M or Cloud Foundation on BX rail. >>Well, we're bringing up VX rail. Of course. The whole wave of h C I was How do we enable simplicity? We don't wanna have to think about these. We wanna, uh, just make it so that customers can just buy a solution. Of course. VX rail joint solution, you know, heavily partnership with VM ware. So, Shannon, there's a few options. VM has been moving very fast. Expand out that the into portfolio, uh, back at the beginning of the year when the Sphere seven came out. You needed the BMR Cloud Foundation. Which, of course, what was an option for for for the VX rail. So help us understand you laid out a little bit some of those options there. But what should I know as Adele customer, Uh, you know what my options are? How the fault hands a sweet fits into it. >>Yeah, eso we like to call it kubernetes your way with the ex rail. So we have a range of options to fit your operational or kubernetes scale requirements or your level of expertise. So the three options, our first for customers that are looking for that tested, validated multi configuration reference architectures er that will deliver platform as a service or containers is a service. We've got tons of architecture for VX rail, which is a new name for what was known as pivot already architecture er and then for customers that may have minimum scaling requirements, they may have some of that expertise in house to manage at scale. The fastest path to get started with kubernetes is the new VM ware V sphere with Changzhou on VX rail. And then last I mentioned kind of that full highly automated turnkey on promises. Cloud platform. That's the VM, or Cloud Foundation, on VX rail, which is also known as Dell Technologies Cloud Platform. And that option supports Tan Xue with software defined networking and security built in with that automated lifecycle management across the full stack. So there's really three paths to it, from a reference architecture approach to a fast path on the actual clusters all the way to the full Deltek Cloud platform. And Dell Technologies is the first and only really offering this breath of Tanya infrastructure deployment options. Eso customers can really choose the best path for them. >>Yeah, so, Shannon, if if I If I think back to what we saw in the keynote, you know, VM Ware lays out there, they're hybrid and multi cloud solution. So of course they're they're public cloud the VM ware cloud on a W s. They have that solution. They have extended extended partnerships. Now, with azure uh, the the the offering with Oracle that's coming. And I guess I could think to just think of the Delta cloud on VX rail as just one of those other clouds in that hybrid and multi cloud solutions do I have that right? Same stack. Same management. If I'm if I'm living in that VM world world. >>Yeah. So the Deltek Cloud platform is an on premises hybrid cloud. So, you know, ah, lot of customers were looking to reduce complexity really quickly especially, you know, with some of the work from home initiatives that were sprung upon us and trying to pivot to respond to that. And, um, you know the answer toe solving some of that complexity is to jump into public cloud. What we found is a lot of customers actually are driving a hybrid cloud strategy and approach. And we know many customers sort of have that executive mandate. There's value in, um, driving that, um on Prem hybrid cloud approach. And that's what Dell Technologies Cloud platform is. So you get the consistent operations in the consistent infrastructure and more of the public cloud like consumption experience while having the infrastructure on Prem for security data locality There, um, you know, cost reasons like that eso That's really where VM or Cloud Foundation on VF drill comes into play eso leveraging the VM ware technologies you have on Prem hybrid cloud. It can connect all those public cloud providers that you talked about. So you have, you know, core to cloud on day one of the new capabilities that VM or Cloud Foundation is announced support for is remote clusters. So that takes us kind of from cloud all the way toe edge because you now have the same VCF operational capabilities and operational efficiency with centralized management for remote locations. >>Wonderful. I'm glad you brought up the edge piece. Of course, you talk to the emerging space vm ware talking about ai talking about EJ. So help us understand. How much is it? The similar operational model is it even? Is that part of the VX rail family? What's the What's the state of the state in 2020 when it comes to how edge fits into that cloud core edge discussion that you just, uh, raised? >>Yeah. When you look at trends, especially for hyper converged edge and cloud native are kind of taking up a lot of the airwaves right now. Eso hyper converge is gonna play a big role in Theodore option of both cloud native Band Edge. And I think the intersection of those two comes into play with things like the remote cluster support for VM or Cloud Foundation on VX rail where you can run cloud, you know, cloud native based modern applications with thons Ooh, alongside traditional workloads at the edge, which traditionally have more stringent requirements. Less resource is maybe they need a more hardened environment, power and cooling, you know, um, constraints. So with VCF on Vieques, well, you have all the operational goodness that comes from the partnership in the levels of integration that we have with VM Ware. And customers can sort of realize that promise of full workload management mobility in a true hybrid cloud environment. >>Shannon, when I'm wondering what general feedback you're getting from your customers is as they look at a zoo, said these cloud native solutions and you know what's what's the big take away? Is this a continuation of the HD I wave that you've seen? Do they just pull this into their hybrid environments? Um, I'm wondering if you have any either any specific examples that you've been anonymized or just the general gestalt that you're getting from your customers. Is that how they're doing expanding, uh, into these, you know, new environments that kind of stretch them in different ways. >>Yeah, it's interesting because you know, there's there's customers that run the gamut when we look at those that are sort of the farther down their digital transformation journey. Those are the ones that were already planning for cloud native applications or had some in development. Uh, there's also some trends that we're seeing based on, you know, the the size of cluster deployments and the range of, you know, various configurations that are an indicator of those customers that are more modernized in terms of their approach to cloud native. And what we find from those customers, especially over the last six months, is that they're more prepared to respond to the unknown on bond. That was a big lesson for some of the other customers that you know, had new. The digital transformation was the way of the future, but hadn't yet sort of come up with a strategy on how to get there themselves were finding those customers are inhibiting their investments to areas that can help them be more ready for the unknown in the future. In Cloud Native is top of that list. >>Absolutely Shannon Day Volante shown a few times. There's the people in the office, you know, with their white board doing everything. And there's the wrecking ball of covert 19. Kind of like Well, if you weren't ready and you weren't already down this path, you better move fast. Wonderful. All right, Shannon. So we know, uh, from past years, you know, VX rail. Usually it's all over the show. So in the digital world, what do you want? He takeaways. What are some of the key? You know, hands on demos, sessions that that people should check out. >>Thank you. Yeah. So hopefully your take away is that the exhale is a great infrastructure to support modern applications. First and foremost, we have, you know, a jointly engineered system built with VM ware, four VM ware environments to enhance fam. Where, and we do that with our the extra LHC I system software, which I didn't give a shout out to yet, which extends that native capabilities and really is the secret behind how we do seamless automated operational experience with the ex rail. And that's the case, whether it's traditional or modern applications. So that's my little commercial for VX rail at the show please tune into our VM World session on this topic. We also have hands on labs. We are launching a fun augmented reality game. Eso Please check that out on. We have a new Web page as well that you get access to all the latest assets and guides that help you, you know, navigate your journey for cloud native. And that's at dell technologies dot com slash Hangzhou. >>Wonderful. Well, Shannon Champion, thanks so much. Great to see you again. And be short. Uh, we look forward to hearing more in the future. >>Thanks to >>stay with us. Lots more coverage from VM World 2020. I'm stew. Minimum is always thank you for watching the Cube.

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of AWS Public sector online brought to you by Amazon Web services. Hello and welcome back to the Cube's virtual coverage of AWS Public sector Summit online. Virtual. We're here in the Palo Alto Studios. I'm your host, John Furrier with the Cube with the quarantine crew. We got a great guest Cube alumni. Shannon Kellogg, vice president of Amazon Web Services AWS Public Policy Shannon, Great to see you. >>Hey, John, it's great to be back. I do feel like I'm a bona fide alumnus of the Cube, so thanks for having me. >>It's always great to have you on. You know, we've had many kind of conscious about policy and modernization of government. That's been the big trend kind of waves in your world. Now, with Cove in 19 you cannot ignore this. This was no longer an adjunct of physical spaces or physical realities. This reality is about virtualization, of of data, workloads, work, workforces, workplaces, workloads, work flows, you name it, it's impacted, and certainly this is a tough time for everyone to do work. More importantly, that it shows all the problems with modernization people aren't modern are really suffering. So I want to get your thoughts about as we go through this pandemic and look at stabilizing and coming out of it. A lot of reinvention and a lot of growth strategies that are changing in real time. So I want to get your thoughts on that real quick. >>Yeah, well, John, we've seen more innovation and migration to the cloud in the last few months than we have over the last few years. And, you know, things have been steady the last few years. You know, you've seen organizations continually migrate, Cloud and AWS, but organizations now accelerating, we're seeing at every level of government. We're seeing it in the education sector. We're seeing, of course, in healthcare. And so organizations are trying to transform fast. One of the first problem sets that we were tackling in the early days of the code 19 response was to work with states here in the US as they were trying to set up their unemployment response efforts. And, ah, their you know, their unemployment insurance portals in places where citizens could go in and apply for those benefits. And you had a lot of states that were dealing with some very, um, old legacy systems that had to move quickly. And we, uh, you know, partnered with many of them and in several of our providers service providers to get them set up fast. And so that was one of the first, um, uh, things that we saw, you know, during the early stages of code 19 >>one of the big means going around the Internet, Obviously past couple months, as you know, the cliche of digital transformation or directional mission and then just being celebrated by covert, kind of like, ah, wrecking ball kind of hitting that digital transformation theme. Really kind of exposing people to the reality of it has to happen faster. I want to get your thoughts on this because you published an op ed piece today around the code 19 response on how the federal government should respond to this. And it's titled Rethinking Government Services in the wake of covert 19. You really make some strong points there, and I want to get your thoughts on that. Can you give a quick highlights of the key thoughts on that? Opted? What are you trying to say there? What's the positioning. What's the message? >>Yeah, well, as I mentioned, governments at every level have already started to accelerate their digital transformation effort. And one of the things that I was trying to really emphasize in the op ed today was that there is an opportunity to continue to do that certainly in the federal government, but also at state and local levels. And, um, you know, there have to be some investment in order to continue to enable that transformation, and there has to be continued leadership and focus on it. And, of course, it doesn't end just with government digital transformation. We're seeing it in the education sector. We're seeing it in the health, their sector. And so, uh, what I am trying to emphasize now is that we've come a long way even in a few months, in helping organizations through this transformation provide better citizen services, provide emergency response efforts including, you know, as I mentioned at the state level, getting these unemployment insurance portals set up fast in the virtual call centers organized around those, uh, and certainly at the federal government. We've seen some large scale programmes rolled out without cloud computing. That would not have been successful in several cases. When you think about the billions of dollars and really trillions of dollars that's rolled out through these federal, uh, government relief efforts, uh, I t. Has been a very important part of that. And so now we need to continue to move forward and accelerate this digital transformation across the board. It we owe it, quite frankly, to citizens. And, um, you know, I think that there are a lot of lessons learned that we can draw from covered 19 responses. >>So are you making a case for Congress to allocate money for modernization of these services? >>Yeah, The good news is, John is that Congress for years in a bipartisan way, has been supporting federal I t. Modernization. And now they have an opportunity, especially as you look at what's happening out of the states and again thinking about how some of these old legacy systems really delayed or hurt some of the covered 19 response efforts. The states need funding in order to modernize some of these systems, or it's not every federal agency as the funding that they need either. And there's an opportunity for Congress also to provide some of that funding. I saw that you spoke with my colleague Matt Cornelius over at the Alliance for additional Innovation and talked a lot about the modernizing technologies on it, some of those efforts and how important it is for Congress in a bipartisan way to make sure that the mighty modernization in federal agencies fully funded. And I support that. And I know that many other not only companies but trade associations like the Alliance for Additional Innovation do as well. >>And tomorrow >>I'm and I'm talking about up Skilling, of course, which is an important part. >>Well, I mean, you look at that. Look at the attic being the systems. They're antiquated, their old, you've got unemployment. That's just new jobs need to be filled re Skilling of existing jobs because the cloud is part of it. And then just the local economy is going to be impacted. Just online education, new roles and new responsibilities. So I got to ask you with with what you're seeing, what are the lessons? Have you learned that can keep up the momentum in the government? Because I see this is an accelerant. This pandemic. What lessons? >>In addition to what I was saying earlier on the funding side, having a focus on training and upscaling and re Skilling is really critical. Um, we have a lot of work worse development programmes here at Amazon and AWS that we're rolling out and providing a service or or our public sector customers and colleagues. We're also doing a lot in terms of helping, um, various parts of the population retrain and get involved in the digital economy. One of the I think really great examples of how we've been doing that for several years are the military assistance programs that we have been involved in where we're working with partners, community college level four year education institutions, Teoh provide training and certification for workers that are coming out of the military and or their spouses. That's something that we leave were both again the community college level, but even have partnered with the federal government, the Department of Labor in some of those programs. And we have to continue to do that we and others to accelerate what we're doing in terms of the workforce development effort. Um, you know, across every level of government, right? Frankly, >>you know, I've been doing a lot of virtual cube virtual events covering them, building software for them. Um, and then this is big focus on the remote workers work from home. I get that. That's an I T kind of paradigm. Companies have a focus of their workers, but also there's a remote customer, remote prospect or remote user. So the stakeholders of all these systems now are exposed in the It's pretty obvious who's winning and who's got a good solution. So I got to ask you, What's the learnings? Are you you're seeing over the past few months around this remote worker or remote consumer, because people have to do their jobs. But they also have suppliers in respect to how the Internet has evolved the ecosystem of partners and companies and and stakeholders. There's a lot of learnings here. What would you share the past couple months? >>So John is probably obvious to you that Kobe, 19 has transformed how people are working, obviously, and that's no different here at Amazon. Many of us are working remotely and have been for several months. Certainly, we're seeing, um, a huge transformation in the public sector around remote work. The federal government is you know, for years has had initiatives around Tele work. Uh, champions, like Gerry Connolly, a U S representative from Virginia, have been very focused on trying to move the federal government in that direction. And thank goodness, because I think if if those efforts weren't already in place, you would not have seen a So many people will be able to work from home as fast as they did during covered 19. But still, there's a lot more work to do in our federal agencies to adopt. Hello, work and, um, remote working. Uh, we're seeing that at the state level. We're seeing that in educational institutions, there's a ton more work there to do. And, you know, I think there's an opportunity. Teoh continue through these digital transformation efforts, enabling remote work and tele work. But we also have to have bipartisan collaboration to continue to push forward those efforts at the federal level. >>You know, it's interesting and I want to get your reaction is you're a veteran not only of technology, but also policy. And as I was saying earlier in an interview I was doing this morning around your event, is that on the commercial side. We saw Amazon. I mean, I was a history of Amazon developers. I t enterprise, commercial and now public sector. It's the same movie. Inadequate old systems need to be modernized cloud, certainly helping there. But you look at that. Look at the flywheel of Amazon, infrastructures of service, platforms of service and sass. A lot of people in the public sector are laying down the foundational things around infrastructure, getting on auditing, compliance system that's agile and then building a platform on top for a new workload. So I got to get your reaction to the three things that we're seeing. Changing technology, changing economics and changing expectations and experiences that are happening right now at an accelerated level. All three of those theaters are exploding and change. What's your thoughts and reaction? >>Well, one of the things that I've seen over the years, as you know, you saw first movers in the cloud and you saw organizations adopt these technologies is that sometimes you know when you look at federal workers, for example, or you even look across the public sector. People were a little apprehensive sometimes adopting these new technologies and practices, because they, um you know were adverse the risk or felt that if they did, you know, service a first mover, do something bold that it might come back to potentially, um, you know, hurt them in some way in terms of the risks that they took if something went wrong. And so now, over the last several months, I've seen that apprehension in every organization that we're working with basically not be there, because people recognize that they have to move now, move quickly and adopt these new technologies. Adopt these new practices in order to do their jobs to provide. If you're in government, the right services do your citizens into the people who need those services. If you're in the private sector to move faster, to be able to provide more services more quickly to your customers, I mean, think about a company like ours where we had to scale up very, very fast. We were already scaling rapidly, but we had to scale even more wrap and and so it's really, really important. I think that, you know, we draw on these lessons over the last few months, especially in relation to the public sector, where it's okay to take a risk. It's okay to adopt new technologies and practices. And it's okay to move fast, because you know what? In a situation like over 19 sometimes you're gonna have to move very, very quickly to that remote working environment, or you're gonna have to move very quickly to set up a you know, a digital or virtual call center in order to provide basic services that people need to survive. So it's just a really interesting transformation that I'm seeing out there. >>Yeah, it was interesting out to share some commentary from myself and I want to get your reaction to that is that in the hundreds of people that I've talked to in the DC area, covering public sector of the past many years is has been this younger audience and this younger workforce. And then now look at the pandemic. You look at the impact on education, unemployment in the citizenship of in the communities, not just state, but local. You're seeing an uprising. You're seeing a silent revolution from the younger constituents was saying, you know Hey, I don't care what it takes. Just go faster. Support me. Deliver the kind of serve, Be agile I mean, they're kind of speaking Dev ops in their own way. So a silent revolution is happening and I want to get your thoughts. But I know you and I have talked about this briefly and I use the word summit revolution. But people were younger generation like What are you talking about? Manuals like shipping old procurement methods. What's the problem? What's the blocker? Why is that? There is really no answer to that. So I want to get your thoughts to that cause that's something that we're seeing in this silent revolution is emerging in this I t modernization the government because people will expect faster services. They're >>unemployed. I wanted to be a lot more of the startup mentality. And, you know, I don't think it's, ah, even age restrictive. You know, every organization that we're working with, we have workers at every in every age group, and, you know, we're seeing people just shift to this mentality of okay, I need this service now. I need to move faster, and you know, we have to get access to this remotely in order to do this or to do that. And so to me, it's not you know, necessarily, just in a certain part of our population and everybody is starting. I think that way in every organization that we're working with and they're throwing out some of the, you know, some of the, um uh, old practices or old way of thinking. I mean, I can't tell you how many state officials I've had Call me during this covered 19 response who were asking for help. Like, we've got to do this now. How can we get your help to do this now And and to me, that's just, you know, that start up mentality like we've got to figure this out. No matter if our procurement practices aren't where they should be or our systems aren't where they should be. We have to figure this out. And to me, that's sort of a startup mentality. A you know, a transformational approach that we're seeing across the board. >>I would I would agree with that. Also add that a lot of people want to have a mission and they want to get involved in public service and see a way to contribute. So I see an inward my inbound migration for people getting involved, assault on these public sector problems cause it's a societal impact, and I think you're going to start to see people realizing that they can just taken protest. They can vote, but they also get involved. And I think you're going to see developers. I think it will be a tsunami of of new creative work loads or applications coming quickly. I think that's gonna be very >>interested. John. I I couldn't agree more. I think I think, you know, we're seeing transformation not just in the public sector and how services are providing are provided, but also in our economy and how we interact with people and how we socialize. And, you know, it's just a complete transformation in different way of thinking. And organizations and individuals are out there creating right now, much of it in the cloud, trying to figure out how to innovate, trying to figure out how you know, to come up with new business models and approaches. And so it's It's very exciting, you know, to see some of that also the top there in to talk to people as they're thinking about new ways to do things, you know, it's it's unfortunately very tragic given, You know, the circumstances around Kobe 19. But when things get difficult like this and people, you know, base, uh, challenges like this, you know, they tend to and we all tend to figure out how we can help, how we can maybe think differently, how we can help with the transformation. And we're certainly seeing that in the public sector and through some of these digital transformation efforts. But to your point, we're also seeing it in the private sector. >>What's great about the economy. People solve problems together. And that's one of the best things about America and Free States nations out there. So I want to shift a little bit. As I know this is something that's close to you, your heart as well as mine. You wrote a block post this past year earlier in the year, so we're supporting veterans to get into stem programs. How are you thinking about that and getting them back into the workforce? Certainly for and after the pandemic? >>Yeah, we're really passionate about this area, John. I'm glad you asked. I mentioned a little bit before some of the training that we're doing with colleges and universities and even directly with the government for, um uh, you know, military members that are transferring out. Our folks are already veterans or their spouses. You know. It's also important to remember the families who have been there right at the side of our veterans and those that air service a providing service in the military for the country. And so we're super passionate about that at every level of Amazon and every level, certainly of AWS. We have a lot of programs across Amazon to hire veterans to train veterans, including in above basic skills as well as advanced cloud skills. And we're super excited about all of those programs. I mentioned many of those in the block bus that you're referring to, and I would encourage folks toe look on our AWS public sector blawg for more information on those efforts, we're constantly updating and providing more insight and how those programs are being conduct >>well, Shannon, one of the things that's interesting and just to kind of close out our chat here is sustainability because you look at the carbon footprint, a lot of cars on the road, you see and seeing people being happy about that. But this points to what technology can do to help. Sustainability has had some announcements here at the summit. Can you share highlights on that? >>Yeah. So we have lots going on in sustainability across Amazon. Amazon Web services, or AWS, has been a big part of that. We have, ah, long term goal of being 100% renewable and eventually carbon carbon neutral. Our initial renewable energy goal is in 2025 s. So we've been, um, you know, enabling the availability of a lot more utility scale. Renewable energy is part of that effort just across the river in Virginia. We have multiple solar projects that we've been putting in place and backing financially now for several years as part of that effort. And we're doing that across the country as well as across the world. And that's something that we believe very strongly in. And, you know, the company Amazon just announced a $2 billion climate fund last week that focuses on startups and technology, a new technologies and new companies in this space. And that is also something that we're very proud. So we believe very strongly about this area. I you have been involved for a number of years in sustainability efforts in the in the company and in particular in AWS. Tonight I have the pleasure of also serving on the American Council for Renewable Energy, which does one of the leading non profits and organizations in this space. And there's, you know, there's a lot of momentum for, you know, renewable energy. And even with some of the challenges around code 19 and the economic challenges that industry is is moving forward. And, you know, we as a company are very, very committed to enabling more renewable energy to be available, including right across the river in Virginia. >>Well, Shannon, you got your hands full as the vice president of AWS public policy in d. C. Not only do we have the pandemic, we just got them sea change of massive innovation coming a digital. I know you've got the world down. They're evolving really quickly. Congratulations. And, you know, stay with it and keep keep plugging away for that innovation strategy. Appreciate it, >>John. We appreciate it. Thanks so much for including me and AWS on the queue began during the public sector summit. >>Michael, >>always good to see >>my pleasure. Always. Great societal changes coming. Real impact. This is the focus. Digital technology's going to make a difference. Change the economics. Changing experiences and outcomes for public services. Public in societal change. Kellog Shannon Kellogg, vice President of public Policy here in the Cube. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> [Introduction Narrator] Live from Washington, D.C., it's theCUBE, covering AWS Public Sector Summit brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back everyone, to theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit here in Washington D.C. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Furrier. We are welcoming to the program Shannon Kellogg. He is the V.P. Public Policy Americas at AWS. Thanks so much for coming on the show. >> Thanks for having me. It's great to be back on theCUBE. >> Yes, I know. A CUBE veteran. >> Yeah, I feel like a CUBE alumni at this point. >> You are indeed, Shannon. >> Well, this is your show, I mean this is a policies front and center, here at AWS. You got Andy Jassy's Fireside Chat. >> Indeed. >> Kind of his first foray into revealing some of his political thoughts and his mission around what Amazon could do to change it. Pretty interesting time. >> Yeah, it was. I thought it was a really interesting Fireside Chat today with Andy and Teresa. You know, Andy talked about, of course, a lot of what's going on at AWS and some of the big picture challenges that our country faces, so it was great to hear him. >> Well, so that's what I want to get into right now, is that we are having this Summit with the backdrop of an emerging tech backlash, where not only are the regulators sharpening their focus on big tech, and a lot of political candidates saying they we want to break up these companies, the public becoming increasingly wary of big tech's power over us. Give us a little bit of a peek into your mindset and how AWS is thinking about all of these issues. >> Sure, well so I've been at Amazon for about seven years, and so I've seen the growth and evolution of the company firsthand. I've focused during that time frame mostly on working with our Amazon web services business, or AWS, which of course is all around us today. And you know we really, when I started working seven years ago here in Washington, D.C., a lot of people didn't even understand what cloud computing was. I remember one of my first conversations was going into a very senior policy maker on the Hill, and explaining to him what cloud was, and it was very hard to kind of understand during those days this transformation that had already begun if you're a policy maker. And there were a lot of questions back then around security and sort of how the cloud computing would fit within the security discussion. And there was even during that time frame a lot of national discussions around cyber security. And now that conversation has completely changed. More people know what cloud computing is, and now policy makers more and more are seeing cloud computing as part of the answer to help organizations and even governments strengthen their cyber security posture. And Andy talked a little bit about that today at the Fireside Chat. So the conversation has changed in areas like that, even though there are these broader, macro conversations going on as well. >> Well, Shannon, I want to get your thoughts, because you have a history in public policy and policy with tech, which is good. More than ever now, one of the things that we heard from Andy was the acceleration of change happening now. The ability to solve big problems now. New kinds of conversations and approaches are being invented to existing ways. So I got to ask you the question of how policy's modernizing with this modernization cloud trend and where it's remaining the same, so in some cases, the game is still the same, just kind of same wine, new bottle kind of thing, or is there areas that got to be changed. So, for instance, is there an approach that can still be evergreen today that's historically been working for government and private enterprises over the years, and where is it different where it needs to really change. >> Yeah. >> You've got to tease us and walk us through where that policy game is evolving to. >> Well when I started Amazon seven years ago, and started having conversations with customers and policy makers, like I was saying, there were still a lot of people even at the agency level who were experimenting very early on with cloud, and trying to figure out how they were going to use commercial cloud computing, right? And I would classify them as first movers. And so the conversation with them back then was really understanding what they were trying to do by moving a few applications to cloud. What kind of services they were trying to offer and new innovations that they were trying to offer. And so, the policy work that we did around that was much different than what we're doing today, because now you have so many organizations that are moving to cloud and you see this big push, not just in the U.S. but around the world toward IT modernization as an example. And if you're going to modernize your systems within government, then you actually ultimately have to do many different kinds of policy changes, unlike seven or eight years ago, right? And some of those include modernizing or updating your procurement policies and acquisition policies. Some of those include how you're budgeting and funding those initiatives, because there's a shift from capital expenditure into operational expenditure. Some of those policy conversations also involve updating your cyber security policies and your data protection policies. And so all of that is happening today, and we're seeing the federal government, Congress here wanting- >> Net new changes. Net new changes. >> Yeah, net new changes, and adapting, those policies and frameworks to how organizations are moving faster and faster to commercial cloud. >> Inside the policy beltway and even Silicon Valley, you've seen a lot of things that has worked and hasn't worked in the past. What do you think works for policy? If you look back histories, we've seen in the short history of technology and computer industries it's not that old, it's still young. We still have the internet, rise of the web, mobile computing, obviously spectrum and all these connectivity issues. What has worked that you think is relevant today that we should double down on and what should be taken away and reinvented? >> Well first of all, I think it's really important for, not just our company, and me as a leader at Amazon on public policy, but quite frankly, the entire industry, all of my peers, we all need to listen to what customers are trying to do to achieve their missions. And so when you think about whether it's NASA and the new initiatives that they have, to not only go back to the moon, but beyond to Mars, or you talk to health and human services or the Veterans Administration or some of our National Security agencies, they all have really, really important missions, so understanding what they are and how you can be supportive is very important. >> Well I mean, but there's all, I get that, that the customer's always right, listen to the customer, that's Andy's line, Amazon's line. But there's some potentially conflicting things, I'll just throw an example out there. Open government, open data creates more observability of data, hence more creativity, that's a theme that's getting a lot of traction in circles. And then customers want security and privacy. >> Right, so lots of unintended consequences to make all that. >> So as this new ground for a real, first-generational problem needs to be solved, you can't just pick one old way. Like you open it up, you're going to expose the data. >> Right. But I'm glad you mentioned open data, because it's actually one of the areas over the last few years that we've actually gotten some really important things done. There was federal legislation here in the U.S. that passed just, I think it was about 18 months ago, the first open data, comprehensive open data legislation. And we're seeing also other governments internationally kind of move in this direction as well. And I was part of those conversations, and other colleagues in my company were part of those conversations, took a lot of education. And took a lot of outreach to policy makers to get them to understand the benefits of open data and how technology could enable those benefits, which by the way, include getting more data sets so people can actually innovate on those data sets and build new businesses, which is a benefit and so- >> Keith Alexander's business, for instance, is all about visibility into threats, as one example. >> Right. But back to your question, what I found that was very helpful to policy makers is to give them a very baseline explanation of what open data was and how technology like cloud computing was enabling more access to that data or protections would need to be in place, but also how organizations and individuals and entrepreneurs were going to use that data, so having that conversation and educating. And I would say, John, that's sort of the new way of lobbying, the new conversations is to actually go in and try to understand, not only what's on a customer's mind, but what is on a policy maker's mind in terms of what do they really care about, and what are they trying to do to support whatever mission or to support whatever big initiative that matters to their district. >> So education is really the blocking and tackling tenet. You keep on pounding the education. Doing things in the open is interesting. You mentioned open data. We're in a world now in digital where everything's out in the open. You can't hide in the shadows. And so I wrote a story about Jedi, which through my sources, I essentially was referring to Oracle having this smear campaign against Amazon, which was supported by many sources. No one wanted to go on the record, so no other journalists reported it. But this is happening out in the open. These are old tactics of lobbying. >> They're old tactics, yeah. >> There's a sea change going on where open, turning the lights on, is more reality for policy lobbyists than ever before. Can you comment on your reaction to that? >> Sure. All anyone has to do, to look at some of the tactics that are being used by companies like Oracle, and we generally look at them as the legacy players, the legacy IT companies that are trying to protect their particular business model and their margins and the way that they're doing business, versus doing what I said earlier, which was listen to your customers, listen where they want to go, and try to align to that, right? Oracle is doing the exact opposite. It doesn't appear that they are listening to their customers at all. But putting Oracle aside as the only company doing this, there are other companies that are doing it as well, and if you look at the history of lobbying over the last 20 years, and you look at companies like Oracle or IBM, some of those players, they have done these kind of things previously, right? I mean, look at the original anti-trust case against Microsoft, or look at what Oracle was doing with Google and the EU on Fair Search. I mean, these are the same old tactics that these companies have used again and again and again, >> Beck and I were talking with the general Keith Alexander on this one point, where misinformation is so elevated now, and with machine learning and AI and openness, you can't do that anymore. There's no place to hide, so the transparency become a big part of processes. >> Right. >> Your reaction to how that's going to change, how policy is shaped, the participants and the actors involved, and potentially accelerated outcomes. Your thoughts on that. >> In terms of what the Department of Defense is trying to do, I think there's been a lot of transparency in that process, and there's been a lot of media coverage and light shown on what's going on there, so I don't probably need to go into those details. You know, I think it's really important for policy makers to always go out and get several perspectives. There are a lot of organizations out there that like policy makers and our general experience are trying to support the mission of these agencies that are trying to transform. And so if you looked at what the Department of Defense is trying to do or if you looked at what the intelligence community has already undergone several years of transformation with commercial cloud and emerging technologies, these are really important missions that policy makers want to support. >> John Furrier: And public policy- >> And you see that again and again and again. And other organizations. National Security think tanks, third party organizations and associations. They want to support that, too. So I would look to those voices versus listening to some of the same old tired IT legacy voices of the past. >> How do I know which entities are tainted or not tainted, because as someone who's not a big D.C. guy or tech guy, we got in through the cloud, and we're seeing all this stuff that's kind of, you see bad behavior and it's out in the open. Wow, I can't believe they're doing that. So the transparency is good, I get that, but how do I know- >> Transparency and learning from history. Look back and read about some of the tactics that have been used previously. I mean this is reported. >> So is there an organization out there that's like we're a think tank for the greater good of society. How do I know that they're not funded by someone? I mean, is there ways to detect- >> Various >> someone's reputation? Is there a working- >> Well there are organizations that are set up just to basically attack either other companies or another audience, and so those are generally known as astroturfing like organizations. >> I've seen those Google fair search, like they're really not a fair search, they're trying- >> And you can usually, if you look under the hood a little bit, you can usually figure out who those are. Not just those of us in the industry who have seen this playbook used again and again and again, by companies like Oracle and IBM, but also policy makers, if they just go out and talk to people they hear different perspectives, they're going to be able to figure out pretty quickly what is an astroturfing organization. Because they use the same old tactics that they've used for many years. >> I want to pick up on something that Andy Jassy was talking about during his Fireside Chat, and then he's talking about the culture of Amazon, which is the culture that tolerates failure, that allows people to go out and pursue these high-risk ideas which could be career-ending in other organizations. I want to hear what your thoughts are about the public sector, and I know the public sector is vast and not monolithic, but how would you describe the culture that you're seeing, the agencies you're working with, also the state and locals, the educational institutions, what are you seeing? >> Yeah, you bet. Well I think it's actually a really critical point in question, because we're seeing, at really every level of government that we work at, we're seeing people who are trying to be creative and innovate and offer new ways of services to citizens or to other constituencies that they serve, but we're also seeing cultural challenges, where you may have this particular group that is trying to come up with a new way to meet the mission, but then you have this other group over here, and they've always managed the data center, they've always been able to hug their box, their iron box, and see the blinking lights and get close to that, and it's hard sometimes for people who have done something for a certain amount of time in a certain way to necessarily embrace a new way of doing things. >> Rebecca Knight: Change is hard. >> For a couple of reasons. Change is hard, but also sometimes because of the, the fact is, if you look at really any level of government, there are always going to be IT failures, right? And there have been some doozies in the past, here at the federal level, as well as at the state and local level. And I would say consistently we've heard from government leaders who are trying to be first movers who are trying to be transformers, that sometimes they are tepid because of the failures of the past. And so then it gets them to step back and maybe go over to this group and do things the way they've always done them, versus take that risk. And what we need to do as citizens and as in our case, industry, and as a company like Amazon that is so customer-focused, we need to go out there and help them be creative, innovative, and have a voice. And that goes back to John's question about how policy has changed. That's the work I want to do. How do you help people who are really change agents who are trying to do the right thing for their constituents, do the right thing for their citizens, do the right thing for the National Security mission of the United States. Do the right thing for the war fighter who is out there executing the mission of the day. How do you help them achieve their goals and to be able to move forward and transform what they're doing. >> Well you got tail winds with the cloud, Andy pointed it out, we've been talking about it, but I think one thing that's key is, as you guys get the policy gurus together, as you lead the younger generation to shape these new territories, it's a - >> [ Shannon Kellogg] Thank you for calling me younger, John. >> Yeah, you're looking good, by the way. But you've been around the block, you've seen a few waves, and you've seen what works and what doesn't work, and when more than ever, younger majors are going to come in, whether they're from science, or different disciplines are going to be, you have to come and bring that interdisciplinary skill to really solve some of these world problems, I mean Andy's laid out a few. >> That's right. That's right. >> It's a critical... These are opportunities now that can be solved. >> Yeah, and by the way, that trend that you're pointing to is something that we're seeing not just domestically here in the U.S., but internationally. And we're seeing a lot of governments set up some kind of innovation units within government, so they bring in younger generation, but also entrepreneurs, folks that have been out in industry, creating and failing, and creating again and innovating, and bringing them in, and really trying to help them transform their missions. We're seeing that in so many different places now. >> Well, we're going to... you need to keep in touch, and check in on your progress and track the accountability of the industry. We've been really passionate about that, so thanks for sharing your vision and perspective. >> You bet. Thanks for having me on theCUBE again. It's really great to be back and to talk to you as always. >> Rebecca Knight: It's been a pleasure. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit. Stay tuned. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and it's ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with John Furrier coming to you live from Dell Technologies World 2019. This is our third day of coverage from two CUBE sets. What do you call that John? >> CUBE Cannon. >> CUBE Cannon of content. And guess who's back? One of our alumni Shannon Champion. >> Hello. >> Director of Product Marketing Dell EMC, Shannon thank you so much for joining us. >> A pleasure as always. >> Day three you still have a big smile on your face. >> I do do, it has been exhilarating, I'm completely exhausted but I'm thrilled to be here talking with you. >> You don't look exhausted but we're thrilled to have you. >> Thank you. >> So everything started, talking about cannons, Michael came out on Monday morning with all the gang, lots of news, lots of information that we've heard throughout the last three days, people are very excited about this. Excited about the deeper collaboration within the Dell Technologies companies. But something that you guys announced that we want to kind of really break through is Dell Technologies Cloud, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, can you help me as a non-technologist understand those two differences, consumption model. >> Absolutely yeah, so it's all in a name really, Dell Technologies Cloud is the unification of the strategies between Dell EMC Cloud and VMware Cloud, one unified cloud strategy called Dell Technologies Cloud. Under that there are offers. So there's two categories of offers, one is the Data Center-as-a-Service, the fully managed, on-prem infrastructure where VxRail is the foundation. People know this as Project Dimension announced last year, it now has a formal, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC. So it's an offer underneath the category of Dell Technologies Cloud. >> And the VxRail components, explain VxRail for a minute, I think that's super important, it seems to be everywhere a key part of the architecture. >> It is yeah, so if you are here at the show, you've seen that VxRail is everywhere, it's on stage in lots of demos and it is the core foundation of our Dell Technologies Cloud offers. The collaboration between Dell EMC and VMware to bring VxRail to market kind of showcases the power of what this partnership can do. So it makes sense that this tightly integrated enterprise grade hyper-converged platform is the foundation of these Dell Tech Cloud offers. >> What's some of the use cases that was really driving the project, obviously multiple clouds was a key message here, but what was some of specific use cases you guys were really attacking? >> Sure, so when you look at the Data Center-as-a-Service offer, it's the fully managed capabilities. So customers are going to public cloud for the simplicity, agility, that cloud-like operations. But we started to see customers slowing down the adoption of that to some extent because they needed the security and the control of having infrastructure on premises and that's what we do with Data Center-as-a-Service, basically deliver the benefits of both, in a monthly subscription type model where they have all the infrastructure on premise but they get the benefit of a public cloud-like experience. >> And that's in beta, the announcement in the news was that Project Dimension, now Data Center-as-a-Service, which I love that name by the way, I think it's going to be great. But it's in beta, what does that mean beta? Select customers, preview, what's specific? >> Yeah, it's in beta phase, we have a couple customers that are running it today, so we're looking for customers to help shape the future, help us prioritize, you know, what are the key use cases that they're seeing a need for this technology. So we're looking for a few good companies still, so if anyone's out there interested, hit up our reps. Yeah, it'll be available in the market in the second half of this year, but currently in beta. >> It seems to be great for the edge, shipping a data center is almost like, okay with all this new technology, the bundling's literally nice, you guys did a good job on that. Shipping a data center, it almost was a dream years ago, We'll just ship a data center to the edge. That seems to be the the big use case that people are talking about, the edge of the network's going to have more capabilities, moving data around is not the answer, 'cause of latencies and as Pat Gelsinger would say laws of physics. This is identified as a big sweet spot. Michael Dell commented the edge in the next 10 years is going to be explosive, is that pretty much the core kind of direction? >> Yeah, it's interesting, you know it's called Data Center-as-a-Service and edge is a key use case for Data Center-as-a-Service, but also the core data centers when we are polling our customers they're actually telling us, they have a need for this in both locations, so both are key use cases, the edge obviously for the reasons you pointed out too. >> So talk to us about the customers involvement in the manifestation of Project Dimension. We've been hearing a lot the last three days, you really even felt it on stage from day one. Collaboration, not just within the Dell Technologies companies, we saw Microsoft. But where are the customers in terms of influencing Project Dimension now becoming a reality? >> Sure yeah, I mean this has been a collaboration with customers, but also between Dell EMC and VMware jointly with our joint customers going out to talk to them about the possibility and the promise and the capabilities that are being delivered. So certainly a joint effort from both companies along with our customers to give us feedback in terms of you know, where they see this as a key use case for them. >> Customers just looking for tighter integration, tighter collaboration, what are some of the business imperatives, where your customers are saying, hey guys, this is really the way to go here and here's why. >> Yeah I mean I touched on it a little bit in terms of like, the transparency, the security, the control, the data latency, improvements of having infrastructure on premises whilst still wanting sort of that agility and simplicity of a public cloud-like operating model, and that's essentially what's driving this new category of infrastructure consumption, Data Center-as-a-Service. And we have a whole nother side of Dell Tech Cloud, which is the Dell Technologies Cloud platform and we deliver that through VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, so I mentioned VxRail's kind of everywhere, that offer is available today for customers on premises. And with VxRail it's really the only VMware Cloud Foundation infrastructure offering that has full stack integration, we're calling it full stack integration because there is a set of software capabilities for VxRail that tie together what VMware does with the SDDC Manager automation together with the infrastructure management VxRail through RESTful APIs, through software that integrates the two. So for customers, they have a complete seamless all in one management experience with cloud foundation on VxRail. So, we're really excited about that and it's only been shipping for two weeks and already customers are willing to be reference customers for us, talking about the potential, the promise, wanting to work with us on what this could mean for their organizations. >> Was going to ask you about their reactions. >> Give us some feedback on the customer, I'd love to hear what they're saying, obviously demand, what's the main euphoria around it? >> Yeah so, hybrid cloud is part of every customer's strategy and really understanding how they can best get there, what's the simplest and the fastest way for them, has been what they're considering. And if you look at what we're doing with VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, we have a fast and simple way and they back by the promise of both Dell EMC and VMware working together to bring these two technologies in a unified way that's a seamless experience. So, you know the power of hyper-converged is to let businesses get out of the, maintaining the infrastructure so they can focus on business outcomes. The same is true for other use cases like hybrid cloud. So that's what customers are excited about there. >> Yeah Pat Gelsinger says "don't look down, look up." Meaning if you can take advantage of the modernizations of hyper-converged which you guys have been doing for a while, the packaging's more consumable and you bolt on the VMware piece. So then you got consistent cloud operations, but then can focus in on the software. This is the dream of software defined data center, this is what people had hoped for, I think two years ago, but it's kind of, come in now this is reality. >> This is reality, for sure. >> So it sounds like, you've got nearly what 5,000 VxRail customers, it's over a billion dollar run rate, are customers looking at VxRail as a foundational component of really accelerating their modernization of their IT and their data center. >> Yeah, that's been the core of what VxRail's delivered since the start, so it's three years old, as you mentioned nearly 5,000 customers to date. It's the fastest growing HCI system, thanks to that strong customer adoption. But really it's been a catalyst for data center modernization to date. And what we're talking about this week is how it's really going beyond an HCI appliance. So it's the foundation for hybrid cloud for the Dell Tech Cloud offers. And we're also offering up additional deployment options, so people think of VxRail as an appliance, but now they can get it as fully integrated rack with or without networking and if they choose Dell EMC Networking, they get the power of SmartFabric Services integration, for hyper-converged networking can be a pain point now it's fully automated, deployment, life cycle management as part of the full stack, so lots of options. >> Talk about the software innovation, 'cause we've been hearing and this has been happening, they've done a software transition, there's more software engineers than hardware engineers these days, you guys have the system software and some analytical software, how does that play in on the HCI side and where's that sit on the VxRail side, is it on the stacks, so where is your software piece? >> Yeah, thanks so there's really great software innovation from the PowerEdge side from the VMWare vSAN side, but we also have additional software innovation, specifically for VxRail that kind of ties those things together and that now includes VMware Cloud Foundations. So there's things like the RESTful APIs that I talked about that enable VMware Cloud Foundation full stack integration, that also have downstream connectors that allow networking automation. But now we're introducing another piece of software innovation that we're calling VxRail ACE. Analytical Consulting Engine, so you know, it's a marketing term, but what does this do, it's intelligent analytics to further simplify operations. We like to call it infrastructure machine learning for VxRail. So we're excited, we have a data lake, it has an analytics engine and historical data of how customers have been using VxRail to date. Now we're able to have enough data to apply machine learning to that and offer up customers insights into how to best optimize their configurations, forecast consumptions, I was just talking with some customers in a session before about how a few years back they would try and project their resource consumption over a five year period and now they can't even look six months ahead. So a tool like this can help them forecast it. At what point in time am I going to need to add more drives or add more nodes based on my current usage rates and that's pretty powerful technology. >> And with the consumption model changing too to the subscription, this gives them more agility on both sides, proactive planning and also understanding kind of what's going on. Not look back six months to a year like, well we should have bought or over-provisioning, the old days right? >> Yeah exactly yeah, that's good a point. >> So what's the future hold, tell us about where this is going to go next. Obviously selling like hot cakes, congratulations. >> Thanks. >> What's next, where's the next innovation coming, what's going on? >> Yeah I mean, like I said, we're seeing VxRail as more than just a catalyst for data center modernization, a lot of customers are going to keep choosing it for that turnkey simplicity. But we're now enabling fast and simple hybrid cloud and as edge use cases start to emerge, VxRail as a hyper-converged infrastructure has a lot of promise there too, so we really see it as a opportunity and a foundation for a wide range of use cases with our customers. >> So a lot of customers as we mentioned. Any favorite stories that really showcase how VxRail as a foundation for hybrid cloud, customer's cloud strategies, how it's really enabling them to unlock the data capital as it's been talking about here as obviously data has so much potential, but if you can't find it and you can't harness the insights. Any customer stories that really in your opinion speak to, this is really unlocking customer's data so that they can make better decisions, identify new revenue streams and ultimately deliver an awesome customer experience. >> Yeah definitely, I mean we have over 25 VxRail customers here at the show telling their stories throughout. It's hard for me to pick a single one. You know what's interesting is when we just had a session, we had two customers there and we asked them what are the business drivers that VxRail is enabling for you? They both, completely different industries, one is an insurance industry and one was a financial services industry, and they both came back to the same premise of I need to deliver IT services faster to my customer base and I can't spend time being in the business of maintaining the infrastructure, I just need automation that enables me to let my teams accelerate the pace of innovation and stay competitive. So, that's the role that it's playing. >> And in any industry, because as we know, every company these days, if they're not technology companies already, they need to be. >> Yeah that's true, yeah we were just talking about IT as a business, how IT leaders really need to work hand in hand with the CEOs, understand the business strategy and then create their own IT strategy. And really drive a culture around a business plan specifically for IT and technology. Which is a really interesting way to think about it. >> I was going to ask you about cultural change, as we all know that's very challenging to do. These two customers that you mentioned did they talk about that at all, like how it's actually enabling cultural change that drives the business forward. >> Yeah they did actually and you know, the core there is that people is harder to change than technology and tools and processes. Some of the tips that they had were really insightful, one of which is, a lot of people fear change. But if you can inspire them to fear obsolescence more than fearing change, then you can motivate them around that, but also creating a vision for them around what their role will be when they're not maintaining infrastructure will also help kind of inspire them to do things differently. So that was pretty cool to hear directly from customers around how their innovating, inspiring their people. >> Competition real quick, obviously HCI's been very competitive, new other vendors are out there, we know who they are, how do you guys fit in versus the competition, obviously the differentiators, the multiple piece parts of Dell Technologies. But where's the real innovation and competitive advantage that you guys are putting out there? >> Yeah, from a VxRail perspective it's easy. There's no deeper integration with VMware. All customers pretty much are VMware customers, a majority of them right? And being jointly engineered with VMware gives us inherent advantages and an experience that customers come to us and tell us, is superior to others that they're able to find, so we always go back to that and we get validation from our customers on that too. >> Okay Shannon as we wrap up here in the last few seconds. What are some the things you're personally going to be taking away as you hop on that red-eye tonight? >> Personally, I think Dell Technologies World is like the culmination of so much hard work of a ton of people, so I'm going to send a ton of thank you notes to all the people that made this happen, but really reflect on how exciting a time it is in technology, in what we're doing in hyper-converged that plays a role in everything that we've heard this week. And just be proud of what we're doing. >> Awesome, you should be proud, well Shannon thank you for joining John and me on theCUBE again this afternoon we appreciate your time. >> Thank you. >> Go get some rest. >> I will. (laughs) >> For John Furrier, I'm Lisa Martin you're watching theCUBE live from Dell Technologies World 2019. Thanks for watching. (upbeat techno music)

>> From Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE. Covering VMware Women Transforming Technology 2019. Brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event VMware, WT squared, one of my favorite events and I'm joined by two PhDs, both from, I'm going to say this one time, the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, we've got Shannon Gilmartin, senior research scholar. Hi, Shannon. >> Hi, great to be here. >> And we've got, great to have you, we've got Caroline Simard, managing director of the lab. Ladies, thank you so much for joining. >> Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. >> So this event, we were talking about before we started, that you, walk into the keynote, opening keynote which in and of itself was electric but the energy that comes into the room with, VMware was telling me a little while ago, about 1500 live attendees. >> Incredible. >> Not even including those that were watching the livestream. The energy comes into the room and then, of course, this morning with Joy, I'm going to try to say her name, Buolamwini. The poet of code, the MIT researcher who started really, sharing with us the significant biases in AI. The energy, if it could even be down that more, I can't even imagine it, so. I can imagine the panel that you guys were on this morning was quite charged. The panel title was, I found interesting, Inclusive Innovators Designing For Change. So Caroline, talk to us about designing for change. You look through a design lens, what does that mean? >> Yeah, so I think what, to frame the morning, and then Shannon was the moderator, so I want, she picked the topic of design. But I think what Joy really showed is the power that is possible to realize when women and women of color and people from different dimensions of identity are included in creating technology and how much better technology will be for society, right? If all voices are included, and I would also say that some of her comments also make it clear that it is fundamentally irresponsible not to have diversity at the table in designing the technology of tomorrow. The consequences on different kinds of people and different populations are significant. And so this is why Shannon really picked this idea of, as engineers and designers and creators of this technology, how do you keep in mind the responsibility that you have? >> So yeah, talk to us more about the design and why that is so critical. >> And the way we positioned it for our panelists, it was titled Inclusive Innovators Designing For Change, and we were going to explore how meaningful change towards greater diversity and equity is realized in engineering cultures. And in the very technology that's being created. More specifically though, how do individuals and communities of people design for change in their technical environments? Even when this environment may not be initially very receptive to new ways of interacting. To new ways of thinking, to new ways of achieving. And so the whole panel was premised on this idea of people are designers of change in their environments. How does that happen? How do people interface with barriers to those design processes? And what is advice for the younger generation as they look ahead to their pathways as designers for change? >> Yeah, 'cause change in any context of life is hard. >> Yep. >> Yes. >> Right, it's an uphill battle. But designing for that change, I'm curious what some of the commentary was from the panelists about, when you're encountering, whether it's a company or a leadership group within a company that, to your point, isn't receptive, what were some of the comments or stories of how that was changed over time to become receptive and understand, the massive potential that that change can have? I mean we look at numbers like, companies with women on the leadership communities are far more profitable, so what were some of those, from, I don't get it, to, oh my gosh, why aren't we doing sooner? >> And we have this amazing range of perspectives represented on the panel, so we had a VMware CTO, chief technology officer Ray O'Farrell. And he was really talking about from a leader perspective, a key idea here when there are barriers and blocks and inertia, is to open things up and really start listening. And this is a skill and a talent and a group practice that is so little done, so infrequently done. So poorly done, sometimes. But really key in the face of those barriers is to actually say, instead of shutting down, open up and start listening to what's happening. Another one of our panelists, Susan Fowler who is the Time Magazine Person of the Year as one of the silence breakers in 2017, she was really talking about how, expect the steps, you're going to need to go through a lot of steps to make your voice heard. And ultimately, for Susan, she made the decision to go public with what she had encountered and was facing and grappling with and struggling, as were many of her colleagues. But she was really talking about the step by step process that's involved in a large organization, when you're hitting blocks, you just got to keep on fighting that good fight, and you also need to be doing your very best work at the same time, it's a high pressure situation. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So. >> Absolutely, we also heard from Lisa Gelobter who is the CEO of tEQuitable, an organization that's creating a safe place for change agents to share their stories when they're encountering these blocks and this kind of unfair treatment. And she talked about, also, the need to do your best work but also the critical importance of community in being more resilient as you're trying drive change in your environment, right? And this is the kind of community that is being built today with this event, right? It's really paying attention especially for her, as a black woman engineer, being the only one constantly at the table fighting for change has been something that she has realized she needs to pay a lot of attention to so that she can be much more resilient as a leader for longterm change. Another topic that I think, in terms of generating change, that really came through both in the panel and during this morning's keynote, and that we pay a lot of attention to at the lab, is to really highlight bias. Is to really diagnose what is really happening in organizations? Or in AI, as we heard from Joy this morning. So a lot of people genuinely aspire to treat others fairly, right? But they don't realize that their workplaces are so far from being a meritocracy, that there's these structural inequalities that are really embedded in all of the ways that people are working. And so when you're able to show people exactly how it shows up in their company, right? The promotion rates for women of color for example, being lower than for other people, the exact points of data that they need to see, that they're not treating people the same way and creating the same kind of pathways for impact for different kinds of people, then that has a lot of power to drive change because a lot of people, then, will be very motivated to say, okay, I see this is happening in my org every day. Now I can design a different approach, right? How do I redesign the way I'm working today? In my units. >> And take action. >> And take action. >> 'Cause you actually have the data, it's such a dichotomy at times, that we have, we're surrounded by data especially in Silicon Valley. But one of the things that shocked me, what Joy showed this morning is, when she put on blast, IBM, Microsoft, and what was it, Face++, about looking at all of the built in biases to facial recognition. But, one of the things that really also, I thought, was interesting, was that, she went and showed this to these companies, who responded, and those numbers are actually improving. And then when she said, hey Amazon, so, the fact that even that one person is able to show, look at some of the massive problems that you're training these models to have, they need to be able to see that. So the highlight, I think, the highlight the bias, and the communicate, communicate, communicate and listen, are three critical elements to any place being successful. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. One additional part of both Joy's presentation and Lisa's comments too, really spoke to action needing to take an intersectional approach. So Joy's data breaks it down by race and gender and all of a sudden, you see completely different trends. Lisa spoke to that as well in her comments. Key to this designing for change process is really wearing the hat of someone who is looking through the world with an intersectional lens. And understanding how different axes operate together uniquely for different groups. And that's when you see these biases being highlighted really in full force, in full relief. So both of these points and these presentations really brought that up. >> Yeah and the intersectionality that Joy talked about was even evident and you could parallel it to, why it was important to look at all these different sources of facial recognition data, how disparate some of them were. >> Right, right. >> I know. >> Without that lens you couldn't see all of that variation even across the different providers. >> Exactly. >> Yeah, and she talked, too, about how everything is classified in a binary way, right? In terms of gender identity, and then where data doesn't even see people who are Non-Binary. >> Exactly. >> So it's like, >> That's still a huge omission >> again, exactly. That we have a lot more work to do to have data that truly captures all the dimensions we're interested in. >> It does, it does. Long way to go, but the fact that it's being highlighted and opportunities like, not just what VMware does but the lab as well. So let's talk a little bit about the lab. It kind of got its start in 2013 when then Stanford president Doctor John Hennessy, provided some funding. I had the opportunity to interview him last week, lovely man. Last year VMware did a big endowment of about 15 million. What's going on, Caroline, we'll start with you, what's going on at the lab? What are you guys studying now? What are some of the breakthroughs that have been uncovered in the last 12 months? >> Yeah, so a big part of our lab's work and since we began this work, has been to really bridge the gap between research and practice, right? And so a lot of why there's little progress being made is because you have a lot of research happening in the academy, in the ivory tower, if you will. And then you have a lot of innovative practices being tested but without necessarily the research foundation and the research frameworks to truly evaluate it. And so, our work has been to really bridge those two things together. And explore those boundaries so we can have more innovative research but also more evidence based practices come in, right? And since the VMware endowment we've been able to, really grow in our aspirations in the kind of data, in the kind of research questions that we can really ask. One of them is this focus on the more intersectional, longterm study of really documenting the experience of women of color. And really understanding the nature of their career pathways across racial dimensions, right? And really highlighting a lot more of, qualitative deep insight, generate their stories, right? And really centering their experience. The other one is, investing in large scale datasets that capture gender, race, age, and other identity dimensions and look at their longterm career trajectories. This is actually work that Shannon is leading. So we have an exciting dataset where we have people through five years and we see what happens to them, who gets promoted? Who doesn't? Who gets top talent designation, who gets a salary increase? Who, and then we're excitingly, looking at social network data, so who's meeting with who? And then what kind of connections do you need to be able to advance in your career? And are there some systematic inequalities there, right? And a big part of our work then is to design these interventions where we work with companies to test what we call a small wins approach. It always starts with diagnosis, here's what's going on in your very specific workplace and your culture. And then we co-design with leaders and managers. It doesn't work for us or HR or anybody to say, go do this, or you should do this. It's really about really engaging managers who want to do better in coming up with the design fix, if you will, that they can come up with. Informed by our research, so it's a co-design process. And then we roll it out and we test the outcomes pre and post, so. We're doing a lot more work now to disseminate what we're learning through these interventions so that other organizations can implement this very similar approach. >> First I love that it's called an intervention. 'Cause I think that's incredibly appropriate. (Shannon and Caroline laughing) Second, are you seeing an uptick in the last year of companies, obviously VMware and Dell being two great companies that are very focused on, not just women in technology, but I loved how Joy said today, it's women and people of color are the underrepresented majority. Are you seeing an uptick in companies willing to, accept the intervention and collaborate with you to really design from within for that change? >> Yes absolutely. And I would say that in this industry people are comfortable with piloting things and doing a little R and D experiment, right? So it's also a culturally appropriate way of thinking, okay, what if we try this, and see what happens? And so I see a lot of energy from organizations and based on what you were talking about, it's also, I think companies are aware that it's, the overlapping dimensions of identity increasingly aware, are within their own walls, but then, in their consumer base, right? So how is their product affecting different kinds of people? Are their customers experiencing bias from the very platforms that they build? And so I think that's also a very powerful, entryway into this intersectional conversation because, the product is, so foundational to the business of the company. >> It is, and especially event after event that we cover on theCUBE, customer experience in any industry, is critical because as consumers of whatever it is, we have so much choice. Shannon last question for you. One of the things that always interests me is the attrition rate being so high in technology. I'm curious what you guys are finding in the lab with, mentioning following women on maybe their first five years. Are you seeing any glaringly obvious, challenges that are driving that attrition? Is it, it's got to be more than the motherhood penalty. >> Right, right. We're looking at a range of, what we call pathway outcomes really for young people just starting out in their very first, second jobs, where they are several years later, we're looking at odds of promotion, odds of leaving the company, odds of moving and making a lateral move into some other kind of line of business, maybe taking them out of, let's say, a technical role and moving them into a non technical role. Each and every one of those critical moments is worthy of deeper study for us. And what we're doing, really, is taking this intersectional lens and understanding how do those different moments vary for different groups of women? It's not enough just to say, all women have some x percentage of an attrition rate. We're trying to understand how attrition really varies by sub-groups of women. And how that varies over time with what interactions that precede it and then follow. One of the themes that we've really been looking at in, for instance, attrition stories, is the assignment. Which projects, what kinds of assignments are people getting in their first few years on the job? How are some of those make or break? With what net consequence for women, men, from different racial ethnic backgrounds, different ages, different countries? And understanding, really, the role of those assignments in someone's longer term career pathway, just how important they are. And what kinds of interventions we can hand design to really elevate access to the best assignments for everyone, basically. >> Gosh, you guys, this is so fascinating and so inspiring what you're doing at the lab I wish we had more time, but you'll have to come back next year! >> Exactly. >> Absolutely we will thank you so much for having us. >> Thank you so much, Lisa. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. For theCUBE I'm Lisa Martin, on the ground at WT squared, thanks for watching. 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>> Presenter: Live from Las Vegas, it's the CUBE! Covering Dell Technologies World 2018! Brought to you by Dell EMC, and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to the Cube! We are live at Day One of Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante, and we are joined by two guests. We have Shannon Champion, Product Marketing of HCI at Dell EMC, and we have her customer, from Celtic Manor, Chris Stanley, IT Manager. Hey Chris! >> Hi. >> Welcome to the Cube, you guys! >> Thank you, thank you very much! >> And we just timed this perfect music intro for you! >> They knew, they knew! >> So Chris, Celtic Manor, you're based in Wales, talk to us about Celtic Manor, what it is that you do, before we start talking about your IT and Digital Transformations. >> Yeah sure, so we're a collection of hotels, four, in South Wales. Within that four, there is a resort hotel, with a conference center. We offer lots of facilities to our guests, golf courses, spas, all the niceties, bars, restaurants, and as well as the conference business being quite a big side of that. And we've got a lot of growth coming on with new hotels and a new convention center. Yeah, and we've got a staff of around about a thousand at the moment, half of those being PC end-users, and a small IT team of eight supporting all those people. >> So a lot of locations, a lot of stuff, a lot of data. Talk to us about what you're doing with Dell EMC, where did you start from, infrastructure-wise? And where are you now? >> Infrastructure-wise, we've been a Dell Partner probably since 2014. That was, we were the previous vendor before, and now at Dell EMC House, always good news, eh! (chuckles) And, our VxRail journey has begun, probably the last eight months, with a new convention center opening, which is an international one, International Convention Center Wales, a joint venture with the Welsh government there. And it's something that's, whereas we've got a lot of conference business now, we do very well at it, we have to turn away a lot of conference business because we're not big enough. So this facility can offer up to 4,000 people in the main room, 1,500-seat auditorium, as well as other breakout rooms. So sort of 6,000 potential guests on-site. And we needed some technology to support that, so we engaged with Dell EMC, and VxRail was our choice. We briefly evaluated others, but Dell EMC, we had a proven past with a great support and strategic partnership, so it was an easy decision. >> So we're going to get into sort of the details there, but Shannon, let me bring you into the conversation. Last time we really spent any time together was in the 14G Launch. You helped orchestrate a lot of the messaging of that, so give us the update on HCI and VxRail, did that awesome marketing package that you put together, is it living up to the marketplace! (all laughing) >> Well thank you for that softball, Dave! Yes, yeah! So in November we were talking to you about HCI and 14th-generation PowerEdge servers, and how PowerEdge is really designed with software-defined storage in mind, and how that really set itself up well for HCI. And what it does is open up doors to being applicable for even more mainstream workloads and applications because of the power and predictability that provides, and Celtic Manor is a perfect example of that, in terms of, initially, using VxRail to scale quickly and reliably for a majority of their workloads and applications, actually. And now, are moving to VDI where, historically, VDI has really been the entry point for HCI. So it's really exciting to see that sort of flip-flop use case here. >> Right, it was like the obligatory workload or use case, right? >> Chris: We like to be different. (laughing) >> Well, I mean, your business is different, right? >> Yes! >> I wonder if you could start with some of the business drivers, right? I mean, obviously, very competitive industry, but you've got some unique differentiators, right, experiences that you're offering customers is somewhat different. But what's driving your business? Speed, digital disruption, maybe you could talk about that a little bit. >> Organizational growth was a key one. With new hotels and conference centers coming on we were bursting at the seams with our current environment. >> Good problem! >> Yeah, so we're all very good. But it was supporting that for customers going forward as well as our staff, supporting with the systems and reliability that we can, to ensure that we get the businesses doing, you know, its utmost. And then, yeah, going on from there, we offer all these different kinds of facilities on-site, golf, bedrooms, spas, all needing different systems, from booking systems through to your VOIP systems, your big databases, Oracle databases, on these servers. So quite a hard workload on them. And we're looking for something that was easy for us to manage, you know, going forward. >> So Chris in terms of IT transformation, Michael Dell talked this morning about these four transformative elements that a company should take to be successful. Digital, IT, workforce, security, talking about the opportunity for IT innovation, to really convert IT into a profit center. And where IT innovation is successful is where customers are looking at it as a business strategy. Talk to us about the stakeholders, maybe, from the CFO's perspective, of, "Hey, we have a great opportunity here "to capture more business and be more competitive." What was that conversation like, the IT folks to the CFO to get budget and approval to help transform? >> Always a tough conversation. (chuckling) Going from the past experience where we'd initially gone with a converge solution back in 2014 with Dell, that alone saved us a significant amount in power alone, so it was something that paid for itself. >> So the CFO was already like, "Alright guys"-- >> Yeah, you know what you're doing, so yeah. We took that, we could see where our pain points were in the environment we currently had, and with it, all the additional hotels, conference centers, coming on, we were at a key stage where we needed to, from the core, build outwards. So VxRail was and obvious-er choice, I should say, in the end. But it was key to transformation, because it enables us now to look at other methods. It's freed up a lot of time for IT staff, so we're looking at deploying a virtual desktop solution now which we don't currently have. And that could be initially anything from up to 300 virtual desktops, so big load, but we now have the core capacity there to do it. And we're looking at other things for our guests, where we can give them a better experience. So Artificial Intelligence, AI, is very big on the agenda, so we look at everything. There's face recognition systems now that can recognize the guests when they come in, ping a message, we haven't deployed these yet, we're still looking at them. But it's enabled us to look at these now with the power behind us of the 14G service. So it's all, it's a key enabler for us, the VxRail solution. >> Opening up the potential for emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning... >> Yes, very much so. >> How do you differentiate from your HCI competition? What are some of the touchpoints there? >> Well, from a VMware focus perspective, you know, Celtic Manor has deployed VxRail. Our differentiator is that we're the only provider through our strategically-aligned business relationship that is jointly engineered with VMware. And so what that means, from a customer point of view, is a more seamless experience, right. Familiar tools they already know and love, that they use day to day, from a VMware perspective, for day-to-day management. But then also the automation that's built in. Automated deployment, ability to upgrade with one click, seamless process to scale quickly when you have new hotels coming online, for example. And then have a single point of support. So we take one single call, whether it's hardware or software, for VxRail. If there's an issue, call Dell EMC and a lot of customers find a lot of value in that. >> So, okay, Chris, now I've got to ask you. So you heard that from Dell EMC, but a lot of companies would say, "Well, we get along great with VMware, "we get the SDKs early, "yeah, those guys overplay all that stuff." What, from your perspective, how important is what Shannon just laid out? And how real is it? >> It's very real. And Shannon basically, yeah, all those points there were literally what we were struggling with. We had the one support telephone company to call, imperative to us. We'd been ringing, in the past we'd be ringing Sand Storage, we were ringing ESX, VMware, all blaming each other, and you're going back and forth and you're wasting key time. With one support number now, you know, you've one call, you've got a one-stop-shop to sort it. So that was a big, big call for us. The 14G service as well, we also get the recover points which enables us to have two environments where we can lose one, and one total environment lost, but still operate as a business. So all of these, keeping, giving us uptimes to close to 100% as we can. >> Have your had to test that yet? Or, when I say test, has it actually, have you had to fail over? I mean, you probably tested it, hopefully you tested it, but-- >> We have-- >> Dave: Has it tested you yet, let me put it that way! >> Yeah, we have failed over servers. We haven't failed over a whole cluster, because you hope it's one of the things you hope you never have to do. (Shannon laughing) We've tested the procedure between nodes, as you would, and there is, we have tested recently with the Recover Point software, where we have lost servers, and it's a decision then, do we try to troubleshoot the problem or do we just go back a few minutes when it was working and we just, we gave it an hour to sort it out, it was impacting, so we just rolled back as if it never happened! >> It worked! >> Yeah, which was a nice reaffirmation that what we did was right! >> So Shannon you talked about resiliency, speed. There was an analyst report, recently, that I'd like you to kind of enlighten us on. And kind of look at one of the thing Chris said, in terms of getting back to the business cost savings. How does Celtic Manor's achievement so far kind of align with what you're seeing in terms of customers being able to leverage HCI to be more budget friendly? >> Yeah, so, I think you're referring to our IT Maturity Study. And what we're seeing is that the majority of customers, almost all of them, are telling us that if they don't transform in their industry, then they'll no longer be competitive. So I think all of our customers are kind of coming to that realization. One of the key aspects to that is that a year ago, when we asked the same question, a significantly lower number was mentioned. So I think that just speaks to the speed and the urgency that customers are coming to the realization that it's really important to transform, and we need to do it sooner rather than later. We have a lot of proof points around VxRail, particularly, in terms of the automation. You know, 73% faster to deploy, that means value to customers. That's money that they're saving, directly. And lower serviceability costs overall, over 40% lower. So that translates into real TCO, goes back to the CFO, you know, that helps understand the investment that they're making, lets them reprioritize in other areas of the business that helps them transform and stay innovative in their industry. >> I want to follow up on that last point that Shannon just made. And a lot of times, when you're bringing in some kind of consolidation, the staff says, "Uh oh, "that means I'm going to lose my job, "because I'm really good at revisioning LANs" or whatever it is. How did you address that, was there organizational tension, what did you do with the time that was freed up? >> Yeah, I think it's helped transform the IT team. If anything, it's freed up time, but that time is now taken, it's given us more time to look at innovative products and going forwards. There is, our staff has a tendency to specialize more as opposed to generalize, which is nice. As in, the VxRail has sat there, and it's pretty much doing what you would do with minimal amounts of watching over them, with the remote support, who also watch your environment, if you enable it. If you have any outages there, they can potentially draw your attention to it before you even know. So lots of time's been freed up, and now you can see the staff are embracing it there, they're happy they've got this additional time not to be doing the not-so-important stuff, as we say, although it is very important, to keep it going. But they have more time now to specialize in what they mostly enjoy. So it's brought it on full circle now, so it's really, yeah, we're really seeing some positives. >> And hang out with their families on the weekends. (everyone speaking at once in agreement) So since they're not doing that, and they have more time to innovate, where are you on this data center modernization journey? And where, we talked about VDI, but where do you think you are in that journey? >> With respect to, with VDI, we are imminently doing it. We finished deploying the second VxRail cluster, the five S Series nodes, probably only a couple weeks ago, after a full migration of all the existing VMs. So it's now enabling us to look at VDI, which, ironically, when we get back, the week I get back, we have a meeting with Dell EMC on, do we need another node, all flash, or do we, we have specced within five nodes, some capacity for virtual desktops. But it's, again, something that, with all these additional hotels coming on, the conference centers, virtual desktop is the way to go. Even centralizing the data more so people aren't taking all data off of their laptops, so we're a more secure environment. So again, a great enabler for us, and finally, after four or five years, I get the virtual desktop! Done it the other way around, but-- >> Do you golf? >> I used to golf a lot. >> Okay, so you know what a mulligan is. >> Yeah. >> So, if you had a mulligan, what would you do differently? >> Um, what would I do differently? Good question! >> I mean, specific to this project. (chuckling) >> Nothing, really. I think everything pretty much has been done as I would expect. When we first deployed the conference center, the new conference center environment, it was a bit disjointed, because the conference center wasn't built and in full use. It kind of gave us some time to test the environment fully, which we also did with the Dell VxRail test drives, which I know the guys offer you were you can go into a classroom facility for a day and see it in action before you actually purchase and use it. >> Same question, different spin. Advice for your peers. Because obviously you had some successes. What would you tell them, to be successful? >> Just go for it! If you're thinking it, I mean, it is, as far as I can see, it is the future product, and it's not going to go in any other direction. The management side of things is far more simplistic than everything else we've experienced in the past. And it's baked-in VMware so, you know, you have the best chef and the best ingredients with the best thing as opposed to another chef taking the best ingredients and trying to do something. So yeah, it's just seamless integration now, and it gives us a lot of confidence that we have everything there with Dell, and this environment, to go forward and grow even bigger as a business. >> And then we've cued your outro music. >> Perfect! >> Timed that perfectly! Chris, thank you so much for sharing what you're doing at Celtic Manor to innovate, making your IT transformation. Shannon, thank you for sharing what's new with HCI. Dave, thank you for sharing with me the word "mulligan", I just looked it up. In case you don't know what a mulligan is, it is an extra stroke allowed after a poor golf shot. I probably would be like the mulligan queen. >> You get a few. (chuckles) >> We want to thank you for watching the Cube, we are live on Day One of Dell Technologies World. I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante, stick around, we'll be right back after a short break. (electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Washington DC, it's CUBE Conversations with John Furrier. >> Well, welcome to a special CUBE conversation here at Amazon Web Services headquarters in public sector, in Washington DC, actually, in Arlington, Virginia. It's a CUBE coverage on the ground in Washington DC. Our next guest is Shannon Kellogg, who's the Director of AWS Public Policy in Americas, here, joining us. Thanks for spending the time with us. >> It's a pleasure to be here. >> So obviously, public policy is a big part of public sector, hence the success you guys have had. Amazon's had great success. I mean, you go back four years ago, the shock heard all around the cloud was the CIA deal. >> Shannon: Indeed. >> And since then, there's been this gestation period of innovation. You guys have been penetrating, doing a lot of hard work. I know how hard it is. And kind of knowing the DC culture, how hard was it, and hard is it for you guys now? Is it getting easier? I mean, policies, got a lot of education involved, a lot of moving parts. >> Yeah, well, I joined over five years ago. And when I joined, there was very little understanding that Amazon was even in the cloud computing business. And so we really had to start from scratch. And so it was just basic education and awareness work. And I wouldn't call that easy, but it certainly was in a different time where people were curious about Amazon, AWS, and cloud. What is cloud computing? The cloud computing directive of the Federal Government, Cloud First Policy, had just come out a year prior, and so there was a lot of curiosity. So people were willing to talk. People were curious, but they didn't really understand what cloud computing was. And again, they didn't even realize AWS was in that business. >> And back at that time, and I know you have a tech history over at EMC before and RSA. You know the tech game. You've seen many waves of >> Shannon: I have. >> innovation, and it's almost a time where you saw some interesting shadow IT developing. Shadow IT term referred to kind of a in-the-shadows experiment. You put your credit card down and get some Amazon, get some cloud, and test, kick the tires, if you will, kind of, without anyone seeing you, called shadow IT. That became a big part of the growth. How much shadow IT has been involved to kind of force Amazon to the table? Did that help? Was that a help-driver for you guys? Was it going on? >> Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because when you look back four or five years ago, there were a lot of first movers in departments and agencies, folks in little units that I had actually even never heard of in some of the big agencies, customers that I would speak to that were experimenting with AWS and commercial cloud. In those days, they were able to take out their credit card and experiment a little bit with it and discover what was possible. And we saw a lot of uptake in interest as a result of some of that experimentation. But really, things started to change in a big way when AWS won the contract to build the community cloud for the intelligence community. And following that win, and as that project was implemented, and in the six months to a year after that award, we saw a lot more interest by agencies to not just experiment, but to go bigger. >> I couldn't get Amazon to confirm. I've tried many times on the CUBE, Jassy and Teresa, to get them to confirm that that was certainly a shadow IT effort, that someone within the CIA came out of the woodwork and said, "Hold on IBM, we have an alternative." >> Yeah, well I can't-- >> (laughing) Conferment denied. I can't comment on that either, but I can tell you that it was a very open, competitive process that we won. And it was a very big deal for the community and a very big deal for us. And that's when we really started to see a number of other agencies and organizations, really, not just experiment with cloud, but how can we leverage this to get the same benefits that the intel community needs? >> And IBM didn't help either. They got cocky. They figured they're going to sue you guys and ended up amplifying it, where the judge actually said on the ruling, "Amazon is a better service." >> Shannon: Yeah. >> I mean, you couldn't get a better testimony. But let's talk about that move. >> There was a resounding public, or resounding legal opinion, and I would encourage your viewers who haven't read it to read it. >> It's well doc, but at SiliconANGLE. Search SiliconANGLE, AWS, IBM, CIA deal, you'll find it. But I think what's notable about that is it's kind of cocky, because the old way of doing things was schmooze, win the ivory tower, have that relationship, lean on that relationship. And the IT just, they were just like going through security at the airport, just whatever, right? >> Shannon: Right. They just checked the boxes. You got to win the C level. That now has changed, where not only at the buying and evaluation process bottoms up, there's a lot of consensus involved. There's now new stakeholders. >> You bet. >> Talk about that new dynamic, because this is a modern trend. It's not just send it to the department for a check box, it's truly agile. Talk about this new, modern procurement process that people are going through. >> You bet, and it's still evolving. But over the last few years, we've seen a lot of interest by federal organizations to shift from what is traditionally a capital expense model to an operational expense model. And you'll probably laugh at me that I actually even remember this. But in the 2015 budget, with the previous administration, President Obama's budget request in 2015, there was, actually, on page 41 of that budget, a line, or actually a paragraph, that talked about how the Federal Government would need to continue to move to commercial cloud services. And in the language, in the budget, it actually talked about the consumption model, the operational expense model versus the traditional capex model. >> Shannon, what is commercial cloud, because, I mean, again, back to the old days, kind of back in my days when I was growing with the industry, you had a federal division that managed all the government stuff, sometimes separate products, right, I mean, absolutely different, unique features >> Yeah, you bet. >> in the government. Now with the cloud, I'm I hearing that this is the same cloud that Amazon runs? Is it a different product. I know there's different private clouds. >> Certainly, our cloud >> But what is the commercial cloud? >> is one option. >> Explain what the commercial cloud is. >> Yeah, our cloud is one option in this area of commercial cloud services. And we think it's a great option. But if you look at the different types of solutions, NIST actually talked about this when they put out the definition on what cloud computing should be described as several years ago. I think the final definition came out in 2011. And at the time, they called public cloud, which we in federal agencies, now, really refer to as commercial cloud, as one of the deployment models. But it also is really emphasizing commercial solutions and commerciality, versus having an agency go out and try to build its own cloud, or to issue a special contract that is controlled by that agency, that does a traditional private-cloud type of build, like for example, California did with CalCloud several years ago. We're seeing more and more agencies move away from that model and into procuring-- >> Why is that? Why are they moving, costly? >> Well, because, yeah, it's-- >> Just like HP and everyone else backed out of the cloud, same reason? >> It's costly, and one thing, looking at CalCloud, and if you haven't sort of looked at what they did with their policy, in 2014 they issued a policy, California did, which basically created a preference for CalCloud. And by August of 2017, they moved away from that preference reversing the policy and then doing sort of a about-face and saying not only is there not a preference for CalCloud, this privately built cloud, anymore in California, but there's going to be a preference for commercial cloud services and leveraging commercial solutions and technologies. >> Is that, again, the same reasons why a lot of commercial vendors like HP, even VMware, and others who kind of backed out of the cloud. It's expensive, it's complicated, right? I mean, is that main driver, or is it of talent? I mean, why did CalCloud move from that to the (mumbles). >> Yeah, I mean, I obviously can't speak for what other >> Well generally speaking. >> companies have done, but I think, based on our observations at the federal level, at the state level, and even internationally, we're seeing more and more governments in their cloud policies focus on how to leverage commercial cloud services, versus build their own, or go out and spend a billion dollars in trying to build their own through a contractor or traditional contractor. >> I talked to Teresa Carlson. >> And by the way, just for the record, in California, it was IBM who actually ended up building CalCloud. >> Nice dig on IBM there, good one. >> So I just talked to Teresa Carlson, and she and I, we talked about the notion of commercializing ecosystem, to bring in tech in with government kind of the mash up or integration culturally among other things, technology. I had an interview with an executive of New Relic, one of Amazon's top customers. I think they were saying they were getting FedRAMP certified. But there's a variety of certifications that you guys offer, essentially, people in the ecosystem, non-governmental, but they can come in and provide solutions. Can you talk about that dynamic, because we're seeing that become a trend now, where folks in the Amazon, or in general tech ecosystems, that says, "Hey, you know what? "I can go in through Amazon and do some business "with the public sector." >> Sure. >> What do you guys offer? Is there a playbook? Is there a roadmap? Is there check boxes? What's the playbook? >> Well, first of all, if you don't, if your viewers don't know what FedRAMP is, it's a Federal Government security evaluation process for cloud computing providers and service providers who want to sell to the US Federal Government. And the framework itself was created on international security standards as well as existing, and evolving in some cases, NIST security standards. And so it's a common security framework that any company of any size can align to. And AWS, because we believe so strongly in security, and because we had a lot of first-mover customers in the Federal Government marketplace, we really invested in that process early. And as a result of that, we meet the FedRAMP requirements at the different security levels that exist. And we were one of the first providers to actually do that. And then partners started working with us and leveraging that. And not just-- >> So what does that mean to the partner? >> resellers or systems integrators. >> They piggyback on your certification, or they have to do some modifications? It's like the stamp of approval. You can't get into the party without it, right? >> Yeah, you have to have FedRAMP certification in order to provide certain types of services to the US government. A lot of agencies now require some type of FedRAMP certification to do business with them. It's very common now. >> Any other certifications that they need? >> Well, that's the most common one at the federal level. But there are some department-specific requirements too. So for example, when you look at the Defense Department, they've added additional requirements on top of FedRAMP. And providers like us have to go through those additional processes, and then again, if you're partnering with an AWS, and we've gone through that process, and we made the investments, and you have some software that's based on AWS, that's going to be favorable for you in order to sell to that market segment. >> Take a step back and zoom out, and talk about the big landscape in DC. Obviously, DC's the center of the action for policy and this, obviously, public sector all around the world, as well in the United States. What's the trend that you're seeing? I mean, obviously Amazon is kind of like its own black swan. If you think about it, lowering prices, increasing functionality on a daily basis is the business model of Amazon. They win on scale. Customers are happy with that, and government seems to be happy. Yet, the competitive landscape couldn't have been at an all-time high, certainly Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, the others are competing for the same dollars, potentially. So you have the old guard, as Andy Jassy would say, and you guys, self-described, new guard. What's the landscape look like? How are you guys competing? What observations can you share and the role of policy makers in the middle of it? Are they stuck between all this? >> Well, it's been quite a ride over the last seven or eight years. Again, going back to when the First Cloud Policy was issued by the Federal Government CIO at the time, Vivek Kundra. Very early days, they talked about each agency trying to move three applications to the cloud. And so we're in a much different time now. And there a lot of agencies who are going all in on cloud services. That's actually been really fast forward and emphasized even more over the last couple years, starting with the previous administration and the emphasis that they had. I talked about the 2015 budget, but we also saw a number of other policy initiatives in the previous administration during President Obama's eight years. And then you had the new administration come in and really emphasize this early too. And one of the cornerstone things that's happened by the new administration over the last year has been the development and then the release of the President's report on IT modernization. And they set up a new Office of American Innovation and a new tech council to advise on the development of that report. And they went out, the administration did, and got a lot of input from the industry. And then they came out with a final report of recommendations in December. And they're already moving to actually implement a number of those recommendations and pilot a number of recommendations in agencies. And they're really emphasizing shared services and commercial cloud services as a key part of that effort. And then in tandem with that, and this is probably going to shock you, but in tandem with that, Congress actually worked with the administration to also make a number of changes to law, including in December of 2017, a really important piece of legislation called, The Modernizing Government Technology Act. And that was added to the Defense Authorization Bill for 2018. You know in this town, that's often how legislation moves at the end of the year is through the Defense Authorization Bill. So that legislation was passed, and it really is focused on helping agencies in their IT modernization efforts move again from legacy IT systems to the cloud. And they're not doing that just because it lowers cost, and it's a good thing to do. They're actually doing that as part of a way to improve the Federal Government cyber security posture. And that's the last thing I'll talk about that's happened in the last year is I mentioned what the administration did about its IT Modernization Report. I mentioned also what Congress did with the Modernizing Government Technology Act. Well, there was also a new cyber security executive order that was issued during the year by the President that married those two things. And basically, it made very clear that there's very little possibility to actually improve the security of federal systems without moving forward with the IT modernization efforts and moving to cloud. >> And the cyber warfare we're living in it truly is a cyber war. This is not just hand-waving, IT modernization. It's beyond that, because it's critical infrastructure now being compromised. This is our security, right? It's the state of the security of our people. >> You bet, and quite frankly, we're seeing this trend internationally too. You see more and more governments making this link between IT modernization and improving the country's cyber security posture. We've seen that in the UK. We've seen that in Australia. >> It takes cyber war to fix IT. I mean, is that what we're coming to? Okay, final point is obviously IT modernization is key. I love that that's driving it. We need to go faster. Question for you, Cloud First, certainly a big, initial orientation from the government to go Cloud First. Question for you is do you see the expectations yet in the agencies and throughout public sector for cloud speed, meaning not only like speed in feeds, like moving to an agile outcome, faster delivery, under budget, on time, lower prices. Is that expectation now set, or is it still getting there? >> No, we believe it is being set. And if you look at developments over the last six months I mean, you now have the Department of Defense that has come out with changes to policy to move faster to the cloud. And if you look at the Secretary, I'm sorry, the Deputy Secretary of Defense's memorandum in September of last year, he talked a lot about leveraging cloud computing as part of a way to make improvements in the implementation of technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. And in that memo they talked about that's a national security imperative to do that. And so they're seeing technology, not as the end result, but as a way to enable a lot of these developments and changes. And we've already seen many of those steps forward in the intelligence community. So it's very encouraging to us that we're also seeing now the Department of Defense move in this direction. >> So they're running towards the cloud. They're running towards AI. >> Shannon: They're trying to. >> They're going as fast as they can, because they need to. >> They're trying to. >> Final word on security. What do you hope to have happen in our government in America to really crack the code on cyber security and surveillance all these holes? Especially with IoT, their surface area couldn't be bigger. >> So before I answer that question, one thing I did want to say, because we were talking about the Department of Defense. And you had added a question in earlier about what some of the legacy proprietors may or may not be doing. Well, these two things are married. What we're seeing at the Department of Defense is that they really do want to move faster to the cloud. But you probably noticed in the press that there are many different legacy providers out there. And as our boss would say, Andy Jassy, a lot of the old-guard community, who want to try to slow that transition down. And so that is really something that's going on right now. There's a lot of effort out there to pursue the status quo, to continue to keep the lights on. And if you look at what amount of the federal budget that is being spent on keeping the lights on in IT, it's over 80% is what the number is commonly referred to. And so a lot of companies are making traditional companies, old-guard companies, as Andy Jassy would say, are making a lot of money following that same path. And you know what? The taxpayer can't afford that anymore. The mission owners can't afford that anymore. And so it's really time to move forward into the 21st century and leverage commercial cloud technology and some of these advanced capabilities, like artificial intelligence and machine learning. And then to answer your final question-- >> Hold on, on the DoD thing, because I did see that in the news. It's obviously clearly FUD, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, as they said, in the industry from the old guards to slow down the process. That's classic move, right? Hey, slow down. >> It is. >> We're going to lose this thing. If we don't put the brakes on-- >> It's a classic move that some companies have been practicing for a few decades. >> Decades, decades, we all know that, I mean, it's called Selling 101 when you want to secure the ivory tower. Okay, so papa, this is the tactic, and I want to get your opinion. This is a policy question. It's not in the best interest of the users, and the society, and the citizens to have a policy injection for political warfare on deal selling. So that's, essentially, what I see happening. >> Yeah, we agree. >> I want to get your comments on this, because it comes up to a very political topic, technically, multi-cloud. >> Shannon: Right. So the move is, whoa, you can't go to one cloud. We're putting all our eggs in one basket, so we have to spec it to be multi-cloud. That's the policy injection. What's the impact of that in your opinion? Does it matter? Does the government say, "Hey, we should do multi-cloud"? You actually want to have one cloud. That's what Andy Jassy >> Well, actually... >> wants, right? >> you know, that's not true. What I'll say, and take a step back here, is that what we want is what the customer wants. And a lot of companies are forgetting the customer in this debate about multi-cloud versus single cloud. >> So you're jump ball. Your philosophy is to say jump ball. >> We welcome open competition. >> So multi-cloud, >> We want to serve the customer. >> and single cloud. >> What happened with the intelligence community is they had an open competition for a single-cloud approach. One thing that's happening right now as part of this broader discussion is some of the old-guard companies are spreading a lot of misinformation about-- >> John: Like what? >> the different types of contracts, and so there's been a lot of misinformation about DoD trying to pursue a sole-source contract for this JEDI program that they're trying to do to implement cloud. And what DoD has said in the stories that I've read on the record is that they want to have an open competition. And whether or not they choose a single award, which is different than a sole source that's not competed, if they choose a single award that's competed like the intelligence community did, or they choose a multi-award, it's going to be their preference. And let me tell you something, the policy space, what we've heard consistently from members of Congress and other policy makers is they don't want to be in the business of telling the Department of Defense or any other federal agency, specifically, what they should do or shouldn't do in a technology procurement. What they want is an open competition. And I'll tell you on the record, we embrace an open competition, and that will serve the customers well. But don't tell the customer if you're an old-guard company what they should or shouldn't do. And don't ignore the customer. >> Well, I would, from just a personal standpoint, industry participant, I would say that that's going backwards. If you have the companies doing old-guard tactics injecting policy and FUD to slow a deal down just to save it, that's really bad, bad form. >> Yeah, it's- >> That's going backwards. >> It's bad policy, but it's also bad for the taxpayer, and it's bad for the mission owner. So let there be open competition. Let the customers, like DoD, make the decisions that they're going to make, which is going to be best for their mission. >> Well, Shannon, as Teresa, a basketball fan, would say, "Jump ball," make it fair. >> Let's do it. >> Let the chips fall where they may. >> Let's do it. >> All right. Open competition, that is Amazon's position here in DC. Policy, no problem, we can play that game, but it's all about the customers. Shannon, thanks for your insight and observations. >> You bet. >> Shannon Kellogg, who's in charge of policy at Americas for AWS. This is CUBE Conversations. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (rhythmic electronic music)

>> Hey welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with the CUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018, actually, the preview event, 'about 200 people. The actual report comes out in a couple of days. A lot of interesting conversations about what are the big trends in 2018 in Accenture. Surveyed Paul Daugherty and team and really excited. Just was a panel discussion to get into a little bit of the not exactly a technology, but really the trust and ethics conversations. We're joined by Dr. Shannon Vallor. She's a professor at Santa Clara University. Dr. Vallor, great to see you. >> Great to be here, thank you! >> So you were just on the panel, and of course there was a car guy on the panel. So everybody loves this talk about cars and autonomous vehicles. You didn't get enough time. (chuckles) So we've got a little more time, which is great. >> Great! >> But one of the things that you brought up that I think was pretty interesting is really, kind of a higher-level view of what role technology plays in our life before. And you said before it was ancillary, it was a toy, it was a gimmick. It was a cool new car, a status symbol, or whatever. But now technology is really defining who we are, what we do, how we interact, not only with the technology of other people. It's really taken such a much more fundamental role with a bunch more new challenges. >> Yeah, and fundamentally that means that these new technologies are helping to determine how our lives go, not just whether we have the latest gadget or status symbol. Previously, as I said, we tended to take on technologies as ornaments to our life, as luxuries to enrich our life. Increasingly, they are the medium through which we live our lives, right? They're the ways that we find the people we want to marry. They're the ways that we access resources, capital, healthcare, knowledge. They're the ways that we participate as citizens in a democracy. They are entering our bodies. They're entering our homes. And the level of trust that's required to really welcome technology in this way without ambivalence or fear, it's a kind of trust that many technology companies weren't prepared to earn. >> Jeff: Right, Right. >> Because it goes much deeper than simply having to behave in a lawful manner, or satisfy your shareholders, right? It means actually having to think about whether your technologies are helping people live better lives, and whether you're earning the trust that your marketing department, your engineers, your salespeople are out there trying to get from your customers. >> Right. And it's this really interesting. When you talked about a refrigerator, I just love that example 'cause most people would never let their next door neighbor look into their refrigerator. >> Shannon: Or their medicine cabinet, right? >> Or their medicine cabinet, right. And now you want to open that up to automatic replenishment. And it's interesting 'cause I don't think a lot of companies that came into the business with the idea that they were going to have this intimate relationship with their customers to a degree, and a personal responsibility to that data. They just want to sell them some good stuff and move on >> Sure. >> to the next customer. >> Yes. >> So it's a very different mindset. Are they adjusting? How are the legacy folks dealing with this? >> Well, the good news is, is that there are a lot more conversations happening about technology and ethics within industry circles. And you even see large organizations coming together to try to lead in an effort to develop more ethical approaches to technology design and development. So, for example, the big five leaders in AI have come together to form the partnership for AI and social good. And this is a really groundbreaking movement that could potentially lead other industry participants to say, "Hey we need to get on board with this, "and we have to start thinking >> Right. >> "about what ethical leadership looks like for us," as opposed to just a sort of PR kind of thing. Yeah, we throw the word "ethics" on a few websites or slides and then we're good, right? >> Right. >> It has to go much deeper than that. And that's going to be a challenge. But it has to be at a level where rank and file workers and project managers have procedures that they know how to go through that involve ethical analysis, prediction, and preparing ethical responses to failures or conflicts that might arise. >> Right, there's just so many layers to this that we could go on for a long time. >> Sure. >> But the autonomous band has kicked up. >> Yes, yes! >> But one of the things is when you're collecting the data for a specific purpose, and you put all the efficacy in as to why and how, and what you're going to treat, what you don't know is how that data might be used by someone else next week, >> Yes. >> next year, >> Yes. >> ten years from now. >> Absolutely. >> And you can't really know because there's maybe things that you aren't aware of. So a very difficult challenge. >> And I think we have to just start thinking in terms of different kinds of metaphors. So data up until now has been seen as something that had value and very little risk associated with it. Now our attitudes are starting to shift, and we're starting to understand that data carries not just value, not just the ability to monetized, but immense power. And that power can be both constructive or destructive. Data is like jet fuel, right? It can do great things. >> Right. >> But you've got to store it carefully. You have to make sure that the people handling it are properly trained. That they know what can go wrong. >> Right. >> Right? That they've got safety regimes in place. No one who handles jet fuel treats it the way that some companies treat data today. But today, data can cause disasters on a scale similar to a chemical explosion. People can die, lives can be ruined, and people can lose their life savings over a breach or a misuse of data that causes someone to be unjustly accused of fraud or a crime. So we have to start thinking about data as something much more powerful than we have in the past. >> Jeff: Right. >> And you have the responsibility to handle it appropriately. >> Right, but we're still so far away, right? We're still sending money to the Nigerian prince who needs help getting out of the airport at Newark Airport. I mean, even just the social, >> Yes. >> the social factors still haven't caught up. And then you've got this kind of whole API economy where so many apps are connected to so many apps. >> Right. >> So even, where is the data? >> Yeah. >> And that's before you even get into a plane flying over international borders while you send an email, I mean. >> Right, yes. >> The complexity is crazy! >> Yep, and we're never going to get a handle on all of it. So one of the things I like to tell people is, it's important not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> So the idea is, yes, the problem is massive. Yes, it's incredibly complex. Can we address every possible risk? Can we forestall every possible disaster? No. Can we do much better than we're doing now? Absolutely. So, I think, the important thing is not to focus on how massive the problem or the complexities are, but think about how can we move forward from here to get ourselves in a better and more responsible position. And there's lots of ways to do that. Lots of companies are already leading the way in that direction. So I think that there's so much progress to be made that we don't have to worry too much about the progress that we might never get around to making. >> Right, right. But then there's this other interesting thing that's going on that we've seen with kind of the whole "fake news," right? Which is algorithms are determining what we see. >> Shannon: Yes. >> And if you look at the ad tech model as kind of where the market has taken over the way that that operates, >> Shannon: Yep. >> there's no people involved. So then you have things happen like what happened with YouTube, where advertisers' stuff is getting put into places where they don't want it. >> Yeah. >> But there's really no people, there's no monitoring. >> Yes. >> So how do you see that kind of evolving? 'Cause on one hand, you want more social responsibility and keeping track of things. On the other hand, so much is moving to software, automation, and giving people more of what they want, not necessarily what they need. >> Well, and that means that we have to do a much better job of investing in human intelligence. We have to, for every new form of artificial intelligence, we need an even more powerful provision of human intelligence to guide it, to provide oversight. So what I like to say is, AI is not ready for solo flight, right? And a lot of people would like that to be the case because, of course, you can save money if you can put an automated adjudication system in there and take the people out. But we've seen over and over again that that leads again and again to disaster and to huge reputational losses to companies, often huge legal liabilities, right? So we have to be able to get companies to understand that they are really protecting themselves and their long-term health if they invest in human expertise and human intelligence to support AI, to support data, to support all of the technologies that are giving these companies greater competitive advantage and profitability. >> But does the delta in the machine scale versus human scale just become unbearable? Or can we use the machine scale to filter out the relatively small number of things that need a person to get involved. I mean. >> Yeah, and the-- >> How do you see some kind of some best practices? >> Yeah, so the answer depends on the industry, depends upon the application. So there's no one size fits all solution. But what we can often do is recognize that typically human and AI function best together, right? So we can figure out the ways in which the AI can amplify the human expertise and wisdom, and the human expertise can fill in some of the gaps that still exist in artificial intelligence. Some of the things that AIs just don't see, just don't recognize, just aren't able to value or predict. And so when we figure out the ways that human and artificial intelligence can compliment each other in a particular stetting, then we can get the most reliable results, and often the fairest and safest results. They might not always be the most efficient from the narrow standpoint of speed and profit, right? >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So they have able to step back and say at the end of the day, quality matters, trust matters. And just as if we put together a shoddy project on the cheap and put it out there, it's going to come back to bite us. If we put shoddy AI in place of important human decisions that affect human lives, it's going to come back to bite us. So we need to invest in the human expertise and the human wisdom, which has that ethical insight to round out what AI still lacks. >> So do you think the execution of that trust building becomes the next great competitive advance? I mean, >> Yeah. >> nobody talks about that right? Data's the new oil, >> Sure! And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And software defined, AI driven automation, but that's not necessarily only to the goal in road, right? There's issues. >> Right. >> So is trust, you think? >> Absolutely. >> The next great competitive differentiator? >> Absolutely. I think in the long run it will be. If you look at, for example, the way that companies like Facebook and Equifax have really damaged, in pretty profound ways, the public perception of them as trustworthy actors in, not just the corporate space, right? But in the political space for Facebook, in the economic space for Equifax. And we have to be able to recognize that those associations of a major company with that level of failure are really lasting, right? Those things don't get forgotten in one news cycle. So I think we have to recognize that today people don't know who to trust, right? It used to be that you could trust the big names, the big Fortune 500 companies. >> The blue chips, right. >> The blue chips, right. >> Right. >> And then it was the little fly by night companies that you didn't really know whether you could trust, and maybe you'd be more cautious in dealing with them. Now the public has no way of understanding which companies will genuinely fulfill the trust in the relationship >> Right. >> that the customer gives them. And so there's a huge opportunity from a competitive standpoint for companies to step up and actually earn that trust and say, in a way that can be backed up by action and results, "Your data's safe with us," right? "Your property's safe with us. "Your bank account is safe with us. "Your personal privacy is safe with us. "Your votes are safe with us. "Your news is safe with us." >> Right. >> Right? And that's the next step. >> But everyone is so cynical that, unfortunately Walter Cronkite is dead, right? >> Sure. >> We don't trust politicians anymore. We don't trust news anymore. We don't trust, now more and more, the companies. So it's a really kind of rough world in the trust space. >> Yeah! >> So do you see any kind of (chuckles) silver lining? I mean, how do we execute in this kind of crazy world where you just don't know? >> Well, what I like to say is that you have to be cautiously optimistic about this because society simply doesn't keep going without some level of trust, right? Markets depend on trust. Democracy depends on trust. Neighborhoods depend on trust, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> So either trust comes back into our lives at some deep level or everything falls apart. Frankly, those are the only choices. So if nature abhors a vacuum, and right now we have a vacuum of trust, then there's a huge opportunity for people to start stepping into that space and filling that void. So I'd like to focus on the positive potential here rather than the worst case scenario, right? The worst case scenario is, we keep going as things have been going and trust in our most important institutions continues to crumble. Well, that just ends in societal collapse >> Right, right. >> one way or the other. If we don't want to do that, and I presume that if there's anything we can all agree on, it's that that's not where we want to go. >> Right. >> Then now is the time for companies, if need be, to come together and say, "We have to step into this space "and create new trusted institutions and practices "that will help stabilize society and drive progress "in ways that aren't just reflected in GDP "but are reflected in human wellbeing, "happiness, a sense of security, a sense of hope. "A sense that technology actually does gives us a future "that we want to to be happy about moving into." >> Right, right. >> Right? >> So I'll give you the last word. >> Sure. >> We'll end on a positive note. What are some examples of companies or practices that you see out there as kind of shining lights that other people should be either aware of, emulate. Let's talk about the positive before we >> Sure. cut you lose. >> Well, one thing that I mentioned already is the AI partnership that has come together with companies that are really leading the conversation along with a lot of other organizations like AI Now, which is an organization on the East Coast that's doing a lot of fantastic work. There are a lot of companies supporting research into ethical development, design, and implementation of new technologies. That's something we haven't seen before, right? This is something that's only happened in the last two or three years. It's an incredibly positive development. Now we just have to make sure that the recommendations that are developed by these groups are actually taken onboard and implemented. And it'll be up to many of the industry leaders to set an example of how that can be done because they have the resources >> Right. >> and the ability to lead in that way. I think one of the other things that we can look at is that people are starting to become less naive about technology. Perhaps the silver lining of the loss of trust is the ability of consumers to be a little wiser, a little more appropriately critical and skeptical, and to figure out ways that they can, in fact, protect their interests. That they can actually seek out and determine who earns their trust. >> Right. >> Where their data is safest. And so I'm optimistic that there will be a sort of meeting, if you will, of the public interest and the interests of technology developers who really need the public to be on board, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> You can't make a better world if society doesn't want to come along with you. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So my hope is, and I'm cautiously optimistic about that, that these forces will come together and create a future for us that we actually want to move into. >> All right, good. I don't want to leave on a sad note! >> Great, yes. >> Dr. Shannon Vallor, she's positive about the future. It's all about trust. Thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> I'm Jeff Frick, she's Dr. Shannon. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you next time. (upbeat techno music)

>>Hey everyone. Welcome back to Miami. Lisa Martin here live with the Cube at IFS Unleashed 2022. We're so excited to be here. We just had a great conversation with Ifss, CEO of Darren Rouse. Now we've got another exciting conversation. F1 is here. You know how much I love f1. Christian Peterson joins us as well, the Chief Product Officer at ifs, and Sean Edwards IT business partner at Aston Martin. F1. Guys, it's great to have you on the program. Thank you for having >>Us. Thank you >>Very much. We were talking about F one. We probably could have an entire conversation just on that, but Christian, I wanna talk with you. It's been three years since the Cube has covered ifs obviously for obvious reasons during that time. So much momentum has happened. IFS cloud was launched about 18 months ago. Give our audience an o, a flavor of IFS, cloud and some of the milestones that you've hit in such a short time period. >>Yeah, I mean IFS cloud is really transformational in many ways. It's transformational for first and foremost for our customers in what enables them to do, but also transformational for us from a technology perspective, how we work and how we do everything. And at the end of the day, it has really surfaced, served around the the, the fact of what we need to do for our customers. And what we saw our customers often do back then, or any company, was they were out looking for EAP solutions or FSM Solutions or EAM Solutions or what have you. And then they were trying to stitch it all together and we, we said like, Hang on a second, these these traditional software s, those are some that I'm guilty. You know, there's some that we actually invented over the years together with analysts. So we invented EER P and we invented CRM and EAM and all these different things. >>But at the end of the day, customers really want a solution to what they are, they are what they're dealing with. And so in these conversations it became very clear that and very repeated conclusions from the conversations that customers wanted something that could manage and help them optimize the use of their assets. Regardless of what industry you're in, assets is such a key component. Either you are using your assets or you're producing assets. Second thing is really get the best use of of your people, your teams and your crew. How do you get the right people on the right job at the same time? How do you assemble the right crew with the right set of skills in the crew? Get them to the right people at the same time. So, and then the final thing is of course customers, you know all the things that you need to do to get customers to answer these ultimate questions, Will you buy from this company again? And they should say yes. That's the ultimate results of moments of service. So that's how we bring it all together and that's what we have been fast at work at. That's what IFS cloud is all about. >>And you, you talked about IFS cloud, being able to to help customers, orchestrate assets, people, customers, Aston Martin being one of those customers. Shawn, you came from ifs so you have kind of the backstory but just give the audience a little bit of, of flavor of your role at Aston Martin and then let's dig into the smart factory. >>Sure. So I previously worked at IFS as a manufacturing consultant. So my bread and butter is production planning in the ERP sector. So we, I Aston Martin didn't have an ERP system pre IFS or a legacy system that wasn't working for them and the team couldn't rely upon it. So what we did was bring IFS in. I was the consultant there and as IFS always preached customer first, well customer first did come and I jumped to support the team. So we've implemented a fully RP solution to manage the production control and the material traceability all the way through from design until delivery to track. And we've mo most recently implemented a warehouse solution at Trackside as well. So we are now tracking our parts going out with the garage. So that's a really exciting time for RFS. In terms of the smart factory, it's not built yet. >>We're we're supposed to move next year. So that's really exciting cause we're quadrupling our footprint. So going from quite a small factory spread out across the North Hampton Share countryside, we're going into one place quadruple in our footprint. And what we're gonna start looking at is using the technology we're implementing there. So enabling 5G to springboard our IFFs implementations going forward with the likes of Internet of things to connect our 15 brand new CMC machines, but also things like R F I D. So that comes with its own challenges on a Formula One car, but it's all about speed of data capture, single point of truth. And IFFs provides that >>And well, Formula One, the first word that comes to mind is speed. >>Absolutely. Second >>Word is crazy. >>We, we are very unique in terms of most customers Christian deals with, they're about speed but also about profit and efficiency. That doesn't matter to us. It is all about time. Time is our currency and if we go quicker in designing and manufacturing, which ifs supports ultimately the cargo quicker. So speed is everything. >>And and if we, if we think of of people, customers and assets at Asset Martin F one, I can't, I can't imagine the quantity of assets that you're building every race weekend and refactoring. >>Absolutely. So a Formula one car that drives out of the garage is made up of 13,000 car parts, most of which, 50% of which we've made in house. So we have to track that all the way through from the smallest metallic component all the way up to the most complex assembly. So orchestrating that and having a single point of truth for people to look at and track is what IFFs has provided us. >>Christian, elaborate on that a little bit in terms of, I mean, what you're facilitating, F1 is such a great example of of speed we talked about, but the fact that you're setting up the car every, every other weekend maybe sometimes back to back weeks, so many massive changes going on. You mentioned 50% of those 13,000 parts you manufacture. Absolutely. Talk about IFS as being a catalyst for that. >>I mean the, it's, it's fascinating with Formula One, but because as a technology geek like me, it's really just any other business on steroids. I mean we talk, we talk about this absolutely high tech, super high tech manufacturing, but even, even before that, the design that goes in with CFDs and how you optimize for different things and loose simulation software for these things goes into manufacturing, goes into wind tunnels and then goes on track. But guess what, when it's on track, it's an asset. It's an asset that streams from how many sensors are on the car, >>I think it's over 10,000 >>Sensors, over 10,000 sensors that streams maybe at 50 hertz or 50 readings. So every lap you just get this mountain of data, which is really iot. So I always say like F one if one did IOT before anybody invented the term. >>Absolutely. >>Yep. You know, F1 did machine learning and AI before anybody thought about it in terms of pattern recognition and things like that with the data. So that's why it's fascinating to work with an organization like that. It's the, it's the sophistication around the technologies and then the pace what they do. It's not that what they do is actually so different. >>It is, it absolutely isn't. We just have to do it really quickly. Really >>Quickly. Right. And the same thing when you talk about parts. I mean I was fascinated of a conversation with, with one of your designers that says that, you know, sometimes we are, we are designing a part and this, the car is now ready for production but the previous version of that part has not even been deployed on the car yet. So that's how quick the innovation comes through and it's, it's, it's fascinating and that's why we like the challenge that Esther Martin gives us because if we can, if we can address that, there's a lot of businesses we can make happy with that as far, >>So Sha I talk a little bit about this is, so we're coming up, there's what four races left in the 2022 season, but this is your busy time because that new car, the 23 car needs to be debuted in what February? So just a few months time? >>Absolutely. So it's a bit cancer intuitive. So our busiest time is now we're ramping up into it. So we co, we go into something called car build which is from December to December to February, which is our end point and there's no move in that point. The car has gotta go around that track in February. So we have got to make those 13,000 components. We've gotta design 'em, we've gotta make 'em and then we've gotta get 'em to the car in February for our moment of service. They said it on stage. Our moment of service as a manufacturing company is that car going around the track and we have to do it 24 times next year and we've gotta start. Well otherwise we're not gonna keep up. >>I'm just gonna ask you what a, what a moment, what's a moment of service in f1 and you're saying basically getting that >>Functional car >>On the track quickly, as quickly as possible and being able to have the technology underpinning that's really abstracting the complexity. >>Absolutely. So I would say our customer ultimately is the driver and the fans they, they need to have a fast car so they can sport it and they ultimately drive it around the track and go get first place and be competitive. So that is our moment of service to our drivers is to deliver that car 24 times next year. >>I imagine they might be a little demanding >>They are and I think it's gonna be exciting with Alonzo coming in, could the driver if we've gotta manage that change and he'll have new things that he wants to try out on a car. So adds another level of complexity to that. >>Well how influential are the drivers in terms some of the, the manufacturing? Like did they, are they give me kind of a a sense of how Alon Fernando Alanzo your team and ifs maybe collaborate, maybe not directly but >>So Alonzo will come in and suggest that he wants cars to work a certain way so he will feed back to the team in terms of we need this car, we need this car part to do this and this car part to do that. So then we're in a cycle when he first gets into the car in that February, we've then gotta turnaround car parts based off his suggestions. So we need to do that again really quickly and that's where IFS feeds in. So we have to have the release and then the manufacturer of the component completely integrated and that's what we achieve with IFFs and >>It needs to be really seamless. >>Absolutely. If, if we don't get it right, that car doesn't go out track so there's no moving deadline. >>Right. That's the probably one of the industries where deadlines do not move. Absolutely. We're so used to things happening in tech where things shift and change and reorgs, but this is one where the dates are set in their firm. >>Absolutely. And we have to do anything we can do to get that car on the track. So yeah, it's just a move. >>Christian, talk about the partnership a little bit from your standpoint in terms of how influential has Aston Martin F1 been in IFS cloud and its first 18 months. I was looking at some stats that you've already gotten 400,000 plus users in just a short time period. How influential are your customers in the direction and even the the next launch 22 R too? >>I mean our customers do everything plain and simple. That's that's what it is. And we have, we have a partnership, I think about every single customer as a partner of ours and we are partnering in taking technology to the next level in terms of, of the outputs and the benefits it can create for our customers. That's what it's all, all about. And I, I always think about these, these three elements I think I mentioned in our state as well. I think the partnership we have is a partnership around innovation. Innovation doesn't not only come from IFS or the technology partner, it comes from discussions, requirements, opportunities, what if like all these things. So innovation comes from everywhere. There's technology driven innovation, there's customer driven innovation, but that's part of the partnership. The second part of the partnership is inspiration. So with innovation you inspire. So when you innovate on something new that inspires new innovation and new thinking and that's again the second part of the partnership. And then the third part is really iterate and execute, right? Because it's great that we can now innovate and we can agree on what we need to do, but now we need to put it into products, put it in technology and put it into actual use. That's when the benefits comes and that's when we can start bringing the bell. >>And I think it's really intrinsically linked. I mean if you look at progress with Formula One teams and their innovation, it's all underpinned by our technology partners and that's why it's so important. The likes of Christian pushes the product and improves it and innovates it because then we can realize the benefits and ultimately save time and go faster. So it's really important that our, our partners and certainly inform one, push the boundaries and find that technology. >>And I think one of the things that we also find very, very important is that we actually understand our customers and can talk the language. So I think that was one of the key things in our engagement, Martin from the beginning is that we had a set of people that really understand Formula One felt it on their bodies and can have the conversation. So when the Formula One teams they say something, then we actually understand what we're talking about. So for instance, when we talk about, you know, track side inventory, well it's not that different from what a field service technician have in his van when he goes service. The only difference is when you see something happening on track, you'll see the parts manager go out to the pit lane with a tablet and say like, oh we need this, we need that, we need this and we need that. And then we'll go back and pick it and put it on the car and the car is service and maintain and off go. Absolutely. >>Yeah that speed always impresses me. >>It's unbelievable. >>Shannon, last question for you. From a smart factory perspective, you said you're moving in next year. What are some of the things that you are excited about that you think are really gonna be transformative but IFS is doing? >>So I think what I'm really excited about once we get in is using the technology they've already put in terms of 5G networks to sort of springboard that into a further IFS implementation. Maybe IFFs cloud in terms of we always struggle to keep the system up to date with, with what's physically happening so that the less data entry and the more automatic sort of data capture, the better it is for the formula on team cuz we improve our our single point of truth. So I'm really excited to look at the internet of things and sort of integrate our CNC machines to sort of feed that information back into ifs. But also the RFID technology I think is gonna be a game changer when we go into the new factory. So really >>Excited. Excellent. Well well done this year. We look forward to seeing Alonso join the team in 23. Fingers >>Crossed. >>Okay. Fingers crossed. Christian, Jeanette, it's been a pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and how ifs asked Martin are working together, how you really synergistically working together. We appreciate your time. >>Thank you very much for having us. Our >>Thanks for having us. And go Aston >>Woo go Aston, you already here first Lisa Martin, no relation to Aston Martin, but well, I wanna thank Christian Peterson and Shannon Edwards for joining me, talking about IFS and Aston Martin team and what they're doing at Speed and Scale. Stick around my next guest joins me in a minute. >>Thank you.

okay we're back digging into trusted infrastructure with paris are good at he's a senior consultant for product marketing and storage at dell technologies pastor welcome to the cube good to see you great to be with you dave yeah coming from hyderabad awesome so i really appreciate you uh coming on the program let's start with talking about your point of view on what cyber security resilience means to to dell generally but storage specifically yeah so for something like storage you know we are talking about the data layer name and if you look at cyber security it's all about securing your data applications and infrastructure it has been a very mature field at the network and application layers and there are a lot of great technologies right from you know enabling zero trust uh advanced authentications uh identity management systems and so on and and in fact you know with the advent of you know the the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning really these detection tools for cyber securities have really evolved in the network and application spaces so for storage what it means is how can you bring them to the data layer right how can you bring you know the principles of zero trust to the data layer uh how can you leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to look at you know access patterns and make intelligent decisions about maybe an indicator of a compromise and identify them ahead of time just like you know how it's happening and other of of applications and when it comes to cyber resilience it's it's basically a strategy which assumes that a threat is imminent and it's a good assumption with the severity and the frequency of the attacks that are happening and the question is how do we fortify the infrastructure in this rich infrastructure to withstand those attacks and have a plan a response plan where we can recover the data and make sure the business continuity is not affected so that's uh really cyber security and cyber resiliency at storage layer and of course there are technologies like you know network isolation um immutability and all these principles need to be applied at the storage level as well let me have a follow up on that if i may the intelligence that you talked about that ai and machine learning is that do you do you build that into the infrastructure or is that sort of a separate software module that that points at various you know infrastructure components how does that work both dave right at the data storage level we have come up with various data characteristics depending on the nature of data we developed a lot of signals to see what could be a good indicator of a compromise um and there are also additional applications like cloud iq is the best example which is like an infrastructure wide health monitoring system for dell infrastructure and now we have elevated that to include cyber security as well so these signals are being gathered at cloud iq level and other applications as well so that we can make those decisions about compromise and we can either cascade that intelligence and alert stream upstream for uh security teams um so that they can take actions in platforms like sign systems xtr systems and so on but when it comes to which layer the intelligence is it has to be at every layer where it makes sense where we have the information to make a decision and being closest to the data we have we are basically monitoring you know the various parallels data access who is accessing um are they crossing across any geo fencing is there any mass deletion that is happening or a mass encryption that is happening and we are able to uh detect uh those uh patterns and flag them as indicators of compromise and in allowing automated response manual control and so on for i.t teams yeah thank you for that explanation so at dell technologies world we were there in may it was one of the first you know live shows that that we did in the spring certainly one of the largest and i interviewed shannon champion and my huge takeaway from the storage side was the degree to which you guys uh emphasized security uh within the operating systems i mean really i mean power max more than half i think of the features were security related but also the rest of the portfolio so can you talk about the the security aspects of the dell storage portfolio specifically yeah yeah so when it comes to data security and broadly data availability right in the context of cyber resiliency um dell storage uh this you know these elements have been at the core of our um a core strength for the portfolio and a source of differentiation for the storage portfolio you know with almost decades of collective experience of building highly resilient architectures for mission critical data something like power max system which is the most secure storage platform for high-end enterprises um and now with the increased focus on cyber security we are extending those core technologies of high availability and adding modern detection systems modern data isolation techniques to offer a comprehensive solution to the customer so that they don't have to piece together multiple things to ensure data security or data resiliency but a well-designed and well-architected solution by design is uh delivered to them to ensure cyber protection at the data layer got it um you know we were talking earlier to steve kenniston and pete gear about this notion of dell trusted infrastructure how does storage fit into that as a component of that sort of overall you know theme yeah and you know and let me say this if you could adjust because a lot of people might be skeptical that i can actually have security and at the same time not constrict my organizational agility that's old you know not an or it's an and how do you actually do that if you could address both of those that would be great definitely so for dell trusted infrastructure cyber resiliency is a key component of that and just as i mentioned you know uh air gap isolation it really started with you know power protect cyber recovery you know that was the solution more than three years ago we launched and that was first in the industry which paved way to you know kind of data isolation being a core element of data management and you know for data infrastructure and since then we have implemented these technologies within different storage platforms as well so the customers have the flexibility depending on their data landscape they can approach they can do the right data isolation architecture right either natively from the storage platform or consolidate things into the backup platform and isolate from there and and the other key thing we focus in trusted infrastructure delta dell trusted infrastructure is you know the goal of simplifying security for the customers so one good example here is uh you know risk being able to respond to these cyber threats or indicators of compromise is one thing but an i.t security team may not be looking at the dashboard of the storage systems constantly right storage administration admins may be looking at it so how can we build this intelligence and provide this upstream platforms so that they have a single pane of glass to understand security landscape across applications across networks firewalls as well as storage infrastructure and and compute infrastructure so that's one of the key ways where how we are helping simplify the um kind of the ability to uh respond ability to detect and respond these threads uh in real time for security teams and you mentioned you know about zero trust and how it's a balance of you know not uh kind of restricting users or put heavy burden on you know multi-factor authentication and so on and this really starts with you know what we are doing is provide all the tools you know when it comes to advanced authentication uh supporting external identity management systems multi-factor authentication encryption all these things are intrinsically built into these platforms now the question is the customers are actually one of the key steps is to identify uh what are the most critical parts of their business or what are the applications uh that the most critical business operations depend on and similarly identify uh mission critical data where part of your response plan where it cannot be compromised where you need to have a way to recover once you do this identification then the level of security can be really determined uh by uh by the security teams by the infrastructure teams and you know another you know intelligence that gives a lot of flexibility for for even developers to do this is today we have apis um that so you can not only track these alerts at the data infrastructure level but you can use our apis to take concrete actions like blocking a certain user or increasing the level of authentication based on the threat level that has been perceived at the application layer or at the network layer so there is a lot of flexibility that is built into this by design so that depending on the criticality of the data criticality of the application number of users affected these decisions have to be made from time to time and it's as you mentioned it's it's a balance right and sometimes you know if if an organization had a recent attack you know the level of awareness is very high uh against cyber attacks so for a time you know these these settings may be a bit difficult to deal with but then it's a decision that has to be made by security teams as well got it so you're surfacing what may be hidden kpis that are being buried inside for instance the storage system through apis upstream into a dashboard so that somebody you know dig into the storage tunnel extract that data and then somehow you know populate that dashboard you're saying you're automating that that that workflow that's a great example and you may have others but is that the correct understanding absolutely and it's a two-way integration let's say a detector an attack has been detected at a completely different layer right in the application layer or at a firewall we can respond to those as well so it's a two-way integration we can cascade things up as well as uh respond to threats that have been detected elsewhere uh through the api that's great all right api for power skill is the best example for that uh excellent so thank you appreciate that give us the last word put a bow on this and and bring this segment home please absolutely so a dell uh storage portfolio um using advanced data isolation um with air gap having machine learning based algorithms to detect uh indicators of compromise and having ripple mechanisms um with granular snapshots being able to recover data and restore applications to maintain business continuity is what we deliver to customers uh and these are areas where a lot of innovation is happening a lot of product focus as well as you know if you look at the professional services all the way from engineering to professional services the way we build these systems the very we configure and architect these systems cyber security and protection is a key focus uh for all these activities and dell.com securities is where you can learn a lot about these initiatives that's great thank you you know at the recent uh reinforce uh event in in boston we heard a lot uh from aws about you know detent and response and devops and machine learning and some really cool stuff we heard a little bit about ransomware but i'm glad you brought up air gaps because we heard virtually nothing in the keynotes about air gaps that's an example of where you know this the cso has to pick up from where the cloud leaves off but as i was in front and so number one and number two we didn't hear a ton about how the cloud is making the life of the cso simpler and that's really my takeaway is is in part anyway your job and companies like dell so paris i really appreciate the insights thank you for coming on thecube thank you very much dave it's always great to be in these uh conversations all right keep it right there we'll be right back with rob emsley to talk about data protection strategies and what's in the dell portfolio you're watching the cube [Music] you

the cyber security landscape has changed dramatically over the past 24 to 36 months rapid cloud migration has created a new layer of security defense sure but that doesn't mean csos can relax in many respects it further complicates or at least changes the ciso's scope of responsibilities in particular the threat surface has expanded and that creates more seams and cisos have to make sure their teams pick up where the hyperscaler clouds leave off application developers have become a critical execution point for cyber assurance shift left is the kind of new buzz phrase for devs but organizations still have to shield right meaning the operational teams must continue to partner with secops to make sure infrastructure is resilient so it's no wonder that in etr's latest survey of nearly 1500 cios and it buyers that business technology executives cite security as their number one priority well ahead of other critical technology initiatives including collaboration software cloud computing and analytics rounding out the top four but budgets are under pressure and csos have to prioritize it's not like they have an open checkbook they have to contend with other key initiatives like those just mentioned to secure the funding and what about zero trust can you go out and buy xero trust or is it a framework a mindset in a series of best practices applied to create a security consciousness throughout the organization can you implement zero trust in other words if a machine or human is not explicitly allowed access then access is denied can you implement that policy without constricting organizational agility the question is what's the most practical way to apply that premise and what role does infrastructure play as the enforcer how does automation play in the equation the fact is that today's approach to cyber resilient type resilience can't be an either or it has to be an and conversation meaning you have to ensure data protection while at the same time advancing the mission of the organization with as little friction as possible and don't even talk to me about the edge that's really going to keep you up at night hello and welcome to the special cube presentation a blueprint for trusted infrastructure made possible by dell technologies in this program we explore the critical role that trusted infrastructure plays in cyber security strategies how organizations should think about the infrastructure side of the cyber security equation and how dell specifically approaches securing infrastructure for your business we'll dig into what it means to transform and evolve toward a modern security infrastructure that's both trusted and agile first up are pete gear and steve kenniston they're both senior cyber security consultants at dell technologies and they're going to talk about the company's philosophy and approach to trusted infrastructure and then we're going to speak to paris arcadi who's a senior consultant for storage at dell technologies to understand where and how storage plays in this trusted infrastructure world and then finally rob emsley who heads product marketing for data protection and cyber security he's going to take a deeper dive with rob into data protection and explain how it has become a critical component of a comprehensive cyber security strategy okay let's get started pete gear steve kenniston welcome to the cube thanks for coming into the marlboro studios today great to be here dave thanks dave good to see you great to see you guys pete start by talking about the security landscape you heard my little rap up front what are you seeing i thought you wrapped it up really well and you touched on all the key points right technology is ubiquitous today it's everywhere it's no longer confined to a monolithic data center it lives at the edge it lives in front of us it lives in our pockets and smartphones along with that is data and as you said organizations are managing sometimes 10 to 20 times the amount of data that they were just five years ago and along with that cyber crime has become a very profitable enterprise in fact it's been more than 10 years since uh the nsa chief actually called cyber crime the biggest transfer of wealth in history that was 10 years ago and we've seen nothing but accelerating cyber crime and really sophistication of how those attacks are perpetrated and so the new security landscape is really more of an evolution we're finally seeing security catch up with all of the technology adoption all the build out the work from home and work from anywhere that we've seen over the last couple of years we're finally seeing organizations and really it goes beyond the i t directors it's a board level discussion today security's become a board level discussion yeah i think that's true as well it's like it used to be the security was okay the secops team you're responsible for security now you've got the developers are involved the business lines are involved it's part of onboarding for most companies you know steve this concept of zero trust it was kind of a buzzword before the pandemic and i feel like i've often said it's now become a mandate but it's it's it's still fuzzy to a lot of people how do you guys think about zero trust what does it mean to you how does it fit yeah i thought again i thought your opening was fantastic in in this whole lead into to what is zero trust it had been a buzzword for a long time and now ever since the federal government came out with their implementation or or desire to drive zero trust a lot more people are taking a lot more seriously because i don't think they've seen the government do this but ultimately let's see ultimately it's just like you said right if if you don't have trust to those particular devices uh applications or data you can't get at it the question is and and you phrase it perfectly can you implement that as well as allow the business to be as agile as it needs to be in order to be competitive because we're seeing with your whole notion around devops and the ability to kind of build make deploy build make deploy right they still need that functionality but it also needs to be trusted it needs to be secure and things can't get away from you yeah so it's interesting we attended every uh reinforce since 2019 and the narrative there is hey everything in this in the cloud is great you know and this narrative around oh security is a big problem is you know doesn't help the industry the fact is that the big hyperscalers they're not strapped for talent but csos are they don't have the the capabilities to really apply all these best practices they're they're playing whack-a-mole so they look to companies like yours to take their r your r d and bake it into security products and solutions so what are the critical aspects of the so-called dell trusted infrastructure that we should be thinking about yeah well dell trusted infrastructure for us is a way for us to describe uh the the work that we do through design development and even delivery of our it system so dell trusted infrastructure includes our storage it includes our servers our networking our data protection our hyper converged everything that infrastructure always has been it's just that today customers consume that infrastructure at the edge as a service in a multi-cloud environment i mean i view the cloud as really a way for organizations to become more agile and to become more flexible and also to control costs i don't think organizations move to the cloud or move to a multi-cloud environment to enhance security so i don't see cloud computing as a panacea for security i see it as another attack surface and another uh aspect in front that organizations and and security organizations and departments have to manage it's part of their infrastructure today whether it's in their data center in a cloud or at the edge i mean i think it's a huge point because a lot of people think oh data's in the cloud i'm good it's like steve we've talked about oh why do i have to back up my data it's in the cloud well you might have to recover it someday so i don't know if you have anything to add to that or any additional thoughts on it no i mean i think i think like what pete was saying when it comes to when it comes to all these new vectors for attack surfaces you know people did choose the cloud in order to be more agile more flexible and all that did was open up to the csos who need to pay attention to now okay where can i possibly be attacked i need to be thinking about is that secure and part of the part of that is dell now also understands and thinks about as we're building solutions is it is it a trusted development life cycle so we have our own trusted development life cycle how many times in the past did you used to hear about vendors saying you got to patch your software because of this we think about what changes to our software and what implementations and what enhancements we deliver can actually cause from a security perspective and make sure we don't give up or or have security become a whole just in order to implement a feature we got to think about those things yeah and as pete alluded to our secure supply chain so all the way through knowing what you're going to get when you actually receive it is going to be secure and not be tampered with becomes vitally important and pete and i were talking earlier when you have tens of thousands of devices that need to be delivered whether it be storage or laptops or pcs or or whatever it is you want to be you want to know that that that those devices are can be trusted okay guys maybe pete you could talk about the how dell thinks about it's its framework and its philosophy of cyber security and then specifically what dell's advantages are relative to the competition yeah definitely dave thank you so we've talked a lot about dell as a technology provider but one thing dell also is is a partner in this larger ecosystem we realize that security whether it's a zero trust paradigm or any other kind of security environment is an ecosystem uh with a lot of different vendors so we look at three areas one is protecting data in systems we know that it starts with and ends with data that helps organizations combat threats across their entire infrastructure and what it means is dell's embedding security features consistently across our portfolios of storage servers networking the second is enhancing cyber resiliency over the last decade a lot of the funding and spending has been in protecting or trying to prevent cyber threats not necessarily in responding to and recovering from threats right we call that resiliency organizations need to build resiliency across their organization so not only can they withstand a threat but they can respond recover and continue with their operations and the third is overcoming security complexity security is hard it's more difficult because of the things we've talked about about distributed data distributed technology and and attack surfaces everywhere and so we're enabling organizations to scale confidently to continue their business but know that all all the i.t decisions that they're making um have these intrinsic security features and are built and delivered in a consistent security so those are kind of the three pillars maybe we could end on what you guys see as the key differentiators that people should know about that that dell brings to the table maybe each of you could take take a shot at that yeah i think first of all from from a holistic portfolio perspective right the uh secure supply chain and the secure development life cycle permeate through everything dell does when building things so we build things with security in mind all the way from as pete mentioned from from creation to delivery we want to make sure you have that that secure device or or asset that permeates everything from servers networking storage data protection through hyper converge through everything that to me is really a key asset because that means you can you understand when you receive something it's a trusted piece of your infrastructure i think the other core component to think about and pete mentioned as dell being a partner for making sure you can deliver these things is that even though those are that's part of our framework these pillars are our framework of how we want to deliver security it's also important to understand that we are partners and that you don't need to rip and replace but as you start to put in new components you can be you can be assured that the components that you're replacing as you're evolving as you're growing as you're moving to the cloud as you're moving to a more on-prem type services or whatever that your environment is secure i think those are two key things got it okay pete bring us home yeah i think one of one of the big advantages of dell is our scope and our scale right we're a large technology vendor that's been around for decades and we develop and sell almost every piece of technology we also know that organizations are might make different decisions and so we have a large services organization with a lot of experienced services people that can help customers along their security journey depending on whatever type of infrastructure or solutions that they're looking at the other thing we do is make it very easy to consume our technology whether that's traditional on-premise in a multi-cloud environment uh or as a service and so the best of breed technology can be consumed in any variety of fashion and know that you're getting that consistent secure infrastructure that dell provides well and dell's forgot the probably top supply chain not only in the tech business but probably any business and so you can actually take take your dog food and then and allow other billionaire champagne sorry allow other people to you know share share best practices with your with your customers all right guys thanks so much for coming thank you appreciate it okay keep it right there after this short break we'll be back to drill into the storage domain you're watching a blueprint for trusted infrastructure on the cube the leader in enterprise and emerging tech coverage be right back concern over cyber attacks is now the norm for organizations of all sizes the impact of these attacks can be operationally crippling expensive and have long-term ramifications organizations have accepted the reality of not if but when from boardrooms to i.t departments and are now moving to increase their cyber security preparedness they know that security transformation is foundational to digital transformation and while no one can do it alone dell technologies can help you fortify with modern security modern security is built on three pillars protect your data and systems by modernizing your security approach with intrinsic features and hardware and processes from a provider with a holistic presence across the entire it ecosystem enhance your cyber resiliency by understanding your current level of resiliency for defending your data and preparing for business continuity and availability in the face of attacks overcome security complexity by simplifying and automating your security operations to enable scale insights and extend resources through service partnerships from advanced capabilities that intelligently scale a holistic presence throughout it and decades as a leading global technology provider we'll stop at nothing to help keep you secure okay we're back digging into trusted infrastructure with paris sarcadi he's a senior consultant for product marketing and storage at dell technologies parasaur welcome to the cube good to see you great to be with you dave yeah coming from hyderabad awesome so i really appreciate you uh coming on the program let's start with talking about your point of view on what cyber security resilience means to to dell generally but storage specifically yeah so for something like storage you know we are talking about the data layer name and if you look at cyber security it's all about securing your data applications and infrastructure it has been a very mature field at the network and application layers and there are a lot of great technologies right from you know enabling zero trust advanced authentications uh identity management systems and so on and and in fact you know with the advent of you know the the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning really these detection tools for cyber securities have really evolved in the network and the application spaces so for storage what it means is how can you bring them to the data layer right how can you bring you know the principles of zero trust to the data layer uh how can you leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to look at you know access patterns and make intelligent decisions about maybe an indicator of a compromise and identify them ahead of time just like you know how it's happening and other ways of applications and when it comes to cyber resilience it's it's basically a strategy which assumes that a threat is imminent and it's a good assumption with the severity of the frequency of the attacks that are happening and the question is how do we fortify the infrastructure in the switch infrastructure to withstand those attacks and have a plan a response plan where we can recover the data and make sure the business continuity is not affected so that's uh really cyber security and cyber resiliency and storage layer and of course there are technologies like you know network isolation immutability and all these principles need to be applied at the storage level as well let me have a follow up on that if i may the intelligence that you talked about that ai and machine learning is that do you do you build that into the infrastructure or is that sort of a separate software module that that points at various you know infrastructure components how does that work both dave right at the data storage level um we have come with various data characteristics depending on the nature of data we developed a lot of signals to see what could be a good indicator of a compromise um and there are also additional applications like cloud iq is the best example which is like an infrastructure wide health monitoring system for dell infrastructure and now we have elevated that to include cyber security as well so these signals are being gathered at cloud iq level and other applications as well so that we can make those decisions about compromise and we can either cascade that intelligence and alert stream upstream for uh security teams um so that they can take actions in platforms like sign systems xtr systems and so on but when it comes to which layer the intelligence is it has to be at every layer where it makes sense where we have the information to make a decision and being closest to the data we have we are basically monitoring you know the various parallels data access who is accessing um are they crossing across any geo fencing uh is there any mass deletion that is happening or a mass encryption that is happening and we are able to uh detect uh those uh patterns and flag them as indicators of compromise and in allowing automated response manual control and so on for it teams yeah thank you for that explanation so at dell technologies world we were there in may it was one of the first you know live shows that that we did in the spring certainly one of the largest and i interviewed shannon champion and a huge takeaway from the storage side was the degree to which you guys emphasized security uh within the operating systems i mean really i mean powermax more than half i think of the features were security related but also the rest of the portfolio so can you talk about the the security aspects of the dell storage portfolio specifically yeah yeah so when it comes to data security and broadly data availability right in the context of cyber resiliency dell storage this you know these elements have been at the core of our um a core strength for the portfolio and the source of differentiation for the storage portfolio you know with almost decades of collective experience of building highly resilient architectures for mission critical data something like power max system which is the most secure storage platform for high-end enterprises and now with the increased focus on cyber security we are extending those core technologies of high availability and adding modern detection systems modern data isolation techniques to offer a comprehensive solution to the customer so that they don't have to piece together multiple things to ensure data security or data resiliency but a well-designed and well-architected solution by design is delivered to them to ensure cyber protection at the data layer got it um you know we were talking earlier to steve kenniston and pete gear about this notion of dell trusted infrastructure how does storage fit into that as a component of that sort of overall you know theme yeah and you know and let me say this if you could adjust because a lot of people might be skeptical that i can actually have security and at the same time not constrict my organizational agility that's old you know not an ore it's an end how do you actually do that if you could address both of those that would be great definitely so for dell trusted infrastructure cyber resiliency is a key component of that and just as i mentioned you know uh air gap isolation it really started with you know power protect cyber recovery you know that was the solution more than three years ago we launched and that was first in the industry which paved way to you know kind of data isolation being a core element of data management and uh for data infrastructure and since then we have implemented these technologies within different storage platforms as well so that customers have the flexibility depending on their data landscape they can approach they can do the right data isolation architecture right either natively from the storage platform or consolidate things into the backup platform and isolate from there and and the other key thing we focus in trusted infrastructure dell infra dell trusted infrastructure is you know the goal of simplifying security for the customers so one good example here is uh you know being able to respond to these cyber threats or indicators of compromise is one thing but an i.t security team may not be looking at the dashboard of the storage systems constantly right storage administration admins may be looking at it so how can we build this intelligence and provide this upstream platforms so that they have a single pane of glass to understand security landscape across applications across networks firewalls as well as storage infrastructure and in compute infrastructure so that's one of the key ways where how we are helping simplify the um kind of the ability to uh respond ability to detect and respond these threads uh in real time for security teams and you mentioned you know about zero trust and how it's a balance of you know not uh kind of restricting users or put heavy burden on you know multi-factor authentication and so on and this really starts with you know what we're doing is provide all the tools you know when it comes to advanced authentication uh supporting external identity management systems multi-factor authentication encryption all these things are intrinsically built into these platforms now the question is the customers are actually one of the key steps is to identify uh what are the most critical parts of their business or what are the applications uh that the most critical business operations depend on and similarly identify uh mission critical data where part of your response plan where it cannot be compromised where you need to have a way to recover once you do this identification then the level of security can be really determined uh by uh by the security teams by the infrastructure teams and you know another you know intelligence that gives a lot of flexibility uh for for even developers to do this is today we have apis um that so you can not only track these alerts at the data infrastructure level but you can use our apis to take concrete actions like blocking a certain user or increasing the level of authentication based on the threat level that has been perceived at the application layer or at the network layer so there is a lot of flexibility that is built into this by design so that depending on the criticality of the data criticality of the application number of users affected these decisions have to be made from time to time and it's as you mentioned it's it's a balance right and sometimes you know if if an organization had a recent attack you know the level of awareness is very high against cyber attacks so for a time you know these these settings may be a bit difficult to deal with but then it's a decision that has to be made by security teams as well got it so you're surfacing what may be hidden kpis that are being buried inside for instance the storage system through apis upstream into a dashboard so that somebody could you know dig into the storage tunnel extract that data and then somehow you know populate that dashboard you're saying you're automating that that that workflow that's a great example and you may have others but is that the correct understanding absolutely and it's a two-way integration let's say a detector an attack has been detected at a completely different layer right in the application layer or at a firewall we can respond to those as well so it's a two-way integration we can cascade things up as well as respond to threats that have been detected elsewhere um uh through the api that's great all right hey api for power skill is the best example for that uh excellent so thank you appreciate that give us the last word put a bow on this and and bring this segment home please absolutely so a dell storage portfolio um using advanced data isolation um with air gap having machine learning based algorithms to detect uh indicators of compromise and having rigor mechanisms with granular snapshots being able to recover data and restore applications to maintain business continuity is what we deliver to customers uh and these are areas where a lot of innovation is happening a lot of product focus as well as you know if you look at the professional services all the way from engineering to professional services the way we build these systems the way we we configure and architect these systems um cyber security and protection is a key focus uh for all these activities and dell.com securities is where you can learn a lot about these initiatives that's great thank you you know at the recent uh reinforce uh event in in boston we heard a lot uh from aws about you know detent and response and devops and machine learning and some really cool stuff we heard a little bit about ransomware but i'm glad you brought up air gaps because we heard virtually nothing in the keynotes about air gaps that's an example of where you know this the cso has to pick up from where the cloud leaves off but that was in front and so number one and number two we didn't hear a ton about how the cloud is making the life of the cso simpler and that's really my takeaway is is in part anyway your job and companies like dell so paris i really appreciate the insights thank you for coming on thecube thank you very much dave it's always great to be in these uh conversations all right keep it right there we'll be right back with rob emsley to talk about data protection strategies and what's in the dell portfolio you're watching thecube data is the currency of the global economy it has value to your organization and cyber criminals in the age of ransomware attacks companies need secure and resilient it infrastructure to safeguard their data from aggressive cyber attacks [Music] as part of the dell technologies infrastructure portfolio powerstor and powermax combine storage innovation with advanced security that adheres to stringent government regulations and corporate compliance requirements security starts with multi-factor authentication enabling only authorized admins to access your system using assigned roles tamper-proof audit logs track system usage and changes so it admins can identify suspicious activity and act with snapshot policies you can quickly automate the protection and recovery process for your data powermax secure snapshots cannot be deleted by any user prior to the retention time expiration dell technologies also make sure your data at rest stays safe with power store and powermax data encryption protects your flash drive media from unauthorized access if it's removed from the data center while adhering to stringent fips 140-2 security requirements cloud iq brings together predictive analytics anomaly detection and machine learning with proactive policy-based security assessments monitoring and alerting the result intelligent insights that help you maintain the security health status of your storage environment and if a security breach does occur power protect cyber recovery isolates critical data identifies suspicious activity and accelerates data recovery using the automated data copy feature unchangeable data is duplicated in a secure digital vault then an operational air gap isolates the vault from the production and backup environments [Music] architected with security in mind dell emc power store and powermax provides storage innovation so your data is always available and always secure wherever and whenever you need it [Music] welcome back to a blueprint for trusted infrastructure we're here with rob emsley who's the director of product marketing for data protection and cyber security rob good to see a new role yeah good to be back dave good to see you yeah it's been a while since we chatted last and you know one of the changes in in my world is that i've expanded my responsibilities beyond data protection marketing to also focus on uh cyber security marketing specifically for our infrastructure solutions group so certainly that's you know something that really has driven us to you know to come and have this conversation with you today so data protection obviously has become an increasingly important component of the cyber security space i i don't think necessarily of you know traditional backup and recovery as security it's to me it's an adjacency i know some companies have said oh yeah now we're a security company they're kind of chasing the valuation for sure bubble um dell's interesting because you you have you know data protection in the form of backup and recovery and data management but you also have security you know direct security capability so you're sort of bringing those two worlds together and it sounds like your responsibility is to to connect those those dots is that right absolutely yeah i mean i think that uh the reality is is that security is a a multi-layer discipline um i think the the days of thinking that it's one uh or another um technology that you can use or process that you can use to make your organization secure uh are long gone i mean certainly um you actually correct if you think about the backup and recovery space i mean people have been doing that for years you know certainly backup and recovery is all about the recovery it's all about getting yourself back up and running when bad things happen and one of the realities unfortunately today is that one of the worst things that can happen is cyber attacks you know ransomware malware are all things that are top of mind for all organizations today and that's why you see a lot of technology and a lot of innovation going into the backup and recovery space because if you have a copy a good copy of your data then that is really the the first place you go to recover from a cyber attack and that's why it's so important the reality is is that unfortunately the cyber criminals keep on getting smarter i don't know how it happens but one of the things that is happening is that the days of them just going after your production data are no longer the only challenge that you have they go after your your backup data as well so over the last half a decade dell technologies with its backup and recovery portfolio has introduced the concept of isolated cyber recovery vaults and that is really the you know we've had many conversations about that over the years um and that's really a big tenant of what we do in the data protection portfolio so this idea of of cyber security resilience that definition is evolving what does it mean to you yeah i think the the analyst team over at gartner they wrote a very insightful paper called you will be hacked embrace the breach and the whole basis of this analysis is so much money has been spent on prevention is that what's out of balance is the amount of budget that companies have spent on cyber resilience and cyber resilience is based upon the premise that you will be hacked you have to embrace that fact and be ready and prepared to bring yourself back into business you know and that's really where cyber resiliency is very very different than cyber security and prevention you know and i think that balance of get your security disciplines well-funded get your defenses as good as you can get them but make sure that if the inevitable happens and you find yourself compromised that you have a great recovery plan and certainly a great recovery plan is really the basis of any good solid data protection backup and recovery uh philosophy so if i had to do a swot analysis we don't have to do the wot but let's focus on the s um what would you say are dell's strengths in this you know cyber security space as it relates to data protection um one is we've been doing it a long time you know we talk a lot about dell's data protection being proven and modern you know certainly the experience that we've had over literally three decades of providing enterprise scale data protection solutions to our customers has really allowed us to have a lot of insight into what works and what doesn't as i mentioned to you one of the unique differentiators of our solution is the cyber recovery vaulting solution that we introduced a little over five years ago five six years parapatek cyber recovery is something which has become a unique capability for customers to adopt uh on top of their investment in dell technologies data protection you know the the unique elements of our solution already threefold and it's we call them the three eyes it's isolation it's immutability and it's intelligence and the the isolation part is really so important because you need to reduce the attack surface of your good known copies of data you know you need to put it in a location that the bad actors can't get to it and that really is the the the the essence of a cyber recovery vault interestingly enough you're starting to see the market throw out that word um you know from many other places but really it comes down to having a real discipline that you don't allow the security of your cyber recovery vault to be compromised insofar as allowing it to be controlled from outside of the vault you know allowing it to be controlled by your backup application our cyber recovery vaulting technology is independent of the backup infrastructure it uses it but it controls its own security and that is so so important it's like having a vault that the only way to open it is from the inside you know and think about that if you think about you know volts in banks or volts in your home normally you have a keypad on the outside think of our cyber recovery vault as having its security controlled from inside of the vault so nobody can get in nothing can get in unless it's already in and if it's already in then it's trusted exactly yeah exactly yeah so isolation is the key and then you mentioned immutability is the second piece yeah so immutability is is also something which has been around for a long time people talk about uh backup immunoability or immutable backup copies so immutability is just the the the additional um technology that allows the data that's inside of the vault to be unchangeable you know but again that immutability you know your mileage varies you know when you look across the uh the different offers that are out there in the market especially in the backup industry you make a very valid point earlier that the backup vendors in the market seems to be security washing their marketing messages i mean everybody is leaning into the ever-present danger of cyber security not a bad thing but the reality is is that you have to have the technology to back it up you know quite literally yeah no pun intended and then actually pun intended now what about the intelligence piece of it uh that's that's ai ml where does that fit for sure so the intelligence piece is delivered by um a solution called cybersense and cybersense for us is what really gives you the confidence that what you have in your cyber recovery vault is a good clean copy of data so it's looking at the backup copies that get driven into the cyber vault and it's looking for anomalies so it's not looking for signatures of malware you know that's what your antivirus software does that's what your endpoint protection software does that's on the prevention side of the equation but what we're looking for is we're looking to ensure that the data that you need when all hell breaks loose is good and that when you get a request to restore and recover your business you go right let's go and do it and you don't have any concern that what you have in the vault has been compromised so cyber sense is really a unique analytic solution in the market based upon the fact that it isn't looking at cursory indicators of of um of of of malware infection or or ransomware introduction it's doing full content analytics you know looking at you know has the data um in any way changed has it suddenly become encrypted has it suddenly become different to how it was in the previous scan so that anomaly detection is very very different it's looking for um you know like different characteristics that really are an indicator that something is going on and of course if it sees it you immediately get flagged but the good news is is that you always have in the vault the previous copy of good known data which now becomes your restore point so we're talking to rob emsley about how data protection fits into what dell calls dti dell trusted infrastructure and and i want to come back rob to this notion of and not or because i think a lot of people are skeptical like how can i have great security and not introduce friction into my organization is that an automation play how does dell tackle that problem i mean i think a lot of it is across our infrastructure is is security has to be built in i mean intrinsic security within our servers within our storage devices uh within our elements of our backup infrastructure i mean security multi-factor authentication you know elements that make the overall infrastructure secure you know we have capabilities that you know allow us to identify whether or not configurations have changed you know we'll probably be talking about that a little bit more to you later in the segment but the the essence is is um security is not a bolt-on it has to be part of the overall infrastructure and that's so true um certainly in the data protection space give us the the bottom line on on how you see dell's key differentiators maybe you could talk about dell of course always talks about its portfolio but but why should customers you know lead in to dell in in this whole cyber resilience space um you know staying on the data protection space as i mentioned the the the work we've been doing um to introduce this cyber resiliency solution for data protection is in our opinion as good as it gets you know the you know you've spoken to a number of our of our best customers whether it be bob bender from founders federal or more recently at delton allergies world you spoke to tony bryson from the town of gilbert and these are customers that we've had for many years that have implemented cyber recovery vaults and at the end of the day they can now sleep at night you know that's really the the peace of mind that they have is that the insurance that a data protection from dell cyber recovery vault a parapatex cyber recovery solution gives them you know really allows them to you know just have the assurance that they don't have to pay a ransom if they have a an insider threat issue and you know all the way down to data deletion is they know that what's in the cyber recovery vault is good and ready for them to recover from great well rob congratulations on the new scope of responsibility i like how you know your organization is expanding as the threat surface is expanding as we said data protection becoming an adjacency to security not security in and of itself a key component of a comprehensive security strategy rob emsley thank you for coming back in the cube good to see you again you too dave thanks all right in a moment i'll be back to wrap up a blueprint for trusted infrastructure you're watching the cube every day it seems there's a new headline about the devastating financial impacts or trust that's lost due to ransomware or other sophisticated cyber attacks but with our help dell technologies customers are taking action by becoming more cyber resilient and deterring attacks so they can greet students daily with a smile they're ensuring that a range of essential government services remain available 24 7 to citizens wherever they're needed from swiftly dispatching public safety personnel or sending an inspector to sign off on a homeowner's dream to protecting restoring and sustaining our precious natural resources for future generations with ever-changing cyber attacks targeting organizations in every industry our cyber resiliency solutions are right on the money providing the security and controls you need we help customers protect and isolate critical data from ransomware and other cyber threats delivering the highest data integrity to keep your doors open and ensuring that hospitals and healthcare providers have access to the data they need so patients get life-saving treatment without fail if a cyber incident does occur our intelligence analytics and responsive team are in a class by themselves helping you reliably recover your data and applications so you can quickly get your organization back up and running with dell technologies behind you you can stay ahead of cybercrime safeguarding your business and your customers vital information learn more about how dell technology's cyber resiliency solutions can provide true peace of mind for you the adversary is highly capable motivated and well equipped and is not standing still your job is to partner with technology vendors and increase the cost of the bad guys getting to your data so that their roi is reduced and they go elsewhere the growing issues around cyber security will continue to drive forward thinking in cyber resilience we heard today that it is actually possible to achieve infrastructure security while at the same time minimizing friction to enable organizations to move quickly in their digital transformations a xero trust framework must include vendor r d and innovation that builds security designs it into infrastructure products and services from the start not as a bolt-on but as a fundamental ingredient of the cloud hybrid cloud private cloud to edge operational model the bottom line is if you can't trust your infrastructure your security posture is weakened remember this program is available on demand in its entirety at thecube.net and the individual interviews are also available and you can go to dell security solutions landing page for for more information go to dell.com security solutions that's dell.com security solutions this is dave vellante thecube thanks for watching a blueprint for trusted infrastructure made possible by dell we'll see you next time