(upbeat music) >> Announcer: Live from New Orleans, Louisiana, It's theCUBE, covering .NEXT Conference 2018. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back. We're here in New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm Stu Miniman with my co-host Keith Townsend. And we're thrilled to welcome to the program, two N users here at the show. We have Sharon Haris, who is the CTO of Assulta Medical Centers out of Israel. I also have Paul Stallings, he's the Vice President of IT infrastructure services, Guidewell with Florida Blue. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thanks for having us. >> Alright, Paul let's start with you. Just give us a little bit about your role and your organization. >> Sure, I work for Guidewell. We're a health solutions company. We started out as an insurance company, primarily. Now we've moved to a solutions. So, we are the provider side and the payer side. I run IT infrastructure services, which is the shared services among five different companies under the Guidewell brand. >> Great and Sharon? >> Assulta Medical Centers is the largest chain of private hospitals in Israel. We have four hospitals and four clinics spreading across the country from North to South. We are connecting about one million radiology tests and examinations per year, and about 15% of the in-house surgeries in Israel. >> Yeah, well luckily both of you, in your industries, my usual joke is, nothing's changing. You have huge budgets. (laughing) Unlimited staff. And no challenges. >> Sharon: At all. >> Paul, before we get into the Nutanix solutions of course you're using, tell us about some of the drivers for change in your business, your work. You know, some of the challenges and opportunities you're facing. >> Yeah, sure. We are really in a growth mode in our organization. In the last six years, we've actually grown to these five companies. We went from an eight billion dollar company to a $16 billion company. We're in a huge trajectory and transformation is the key. And we have to have high availability. We have to be able to meet our customer's needs. We have to be able to scale and be agile. And that's thrown at me every day. >> Stu: Sharon? >> Yeah, now we're in the healthcare industry. We have both ends. On one end, we have to maintain stability and performance and redundancy. Because we are working 24-7, 365 days a year. And on the other end, we must be innovative in innovation, and make everything for our user and customers very available, very approachable, because users don't want to come to our clinics and hospitals. They want to do everything from home. So, as much as we can, we are giving them the opportunity to do it. >> Stu: Yeah, digitization. >> So, Paul that's amazing growth, eight billion to 16 billion. Whether it's organic, inorganic. That's a major shift in capability. What have been some of the primary challenges from a technology perspective as you guys have gone through that major growth period. >> Yeah, I think the velocity is one of the biggest challenges for us. Being able to grow, we really need solutions that we can really want to modually grow, want pay to grow and scale better. It's really hard when you have that much growth to do the legacy where you think about, in the next three years I need this much capacity, because it's unpredictable because the growth is so fast. If that makes sense. >> Yeah, it's impossible to forecast. >> Right, absolutely. >> It's impossible. >> I had a CIO that tells me the data costs are getting out of control. I say, you know what? As long as the data is growing, that means that the business is growing. >> Paul: Absolutely. >> So, hard drives are definitely the thing that you want to buy. So, as you both deal with growth, stability, capability challenges, What appeals about the Nutanix story to you? >> I think one of the things that I just mentioned. That pay to grow opportunity is huge for us. The simplicity is huge. The availability and really trying to get to automation. I really have to do more with less. We're growing so fast, I can't even onboard folks fast enough. So, I think that simplicity, that automation and that pay to grow model is great for us. >> So, we're in the digital era. So we need to supply our users once again, as I said before, digital application. And to be able to execute those needs very quickly. And we're looking towards the cloud. And you can't really have public cloud readiness in services, unless you have private cloud readiness in services. So, Nutanix for me is the best solution for automation, as Paul said. And to begin the process to achieve the collection between private and public cloud. >> That's an interesting point. Could you expand on that? What do you mean by, what does private cloud mean to you? And most customers you hear, oh, we're doing some development. We're trying some new products in the public cloud. You flipped that some. >> Yeah, I spoke here yesterday in one of the session. And I ask the audience, how much time it takes to fire up a ritual machine from a template? And the answer was like between half and hour and one hour. I thought, one hour, that's cool. And how much time it takes for you to take this machine and join it to the CRM or the SharePoint or the Epic or the SAP farm? And the answer was about a week. So, where did seven days go? Why is the gap so huge between one hour and a week? And the answer is because the lack of automation. For me, the public cloud is exactly like, sorry, private cloud is exactly like public cloud. The same services, the same abilities to execute and generate services level. Not server level, because server level would be Dell. Like if you, 10 or 15 years ago, we are already there. Services level is the same ability that we have in the public level. >> Paul, I would love to hear your comments on how Cloud fits into your environment. >> Yeah, absolutely. 'Cause we're in the health industry, private cloud is paramount. But we really need the hybrid because we want to be able to burst and scale and have that agility. But to a lot of things that Sharon said, I do need that automation, I do need the scaleability, but I definitely need some commonality on my stacks. I have a shared services. I have to build a scale. I have to be able to have best prices. I need to be able to compete and collaborate with the private and public sectors. >> So, let's talk about some of the services that Nutanix offers. First let's start in the private cloud. A lot of great announcements. One of the things that, I have actually from Nutanix, I've heard about them is basically what they're delivering in AFF. I'm sorry, AFS, a foul services solution. Are you guys using any of those foul or type solutions within your own environment? >> No yet, we are not using the foul solution in biomechanics, but we're using the other services such as the big data verification with the Cloud data, because we are using, actually, a built environment for our new research development company that we signed in, big data, cloud data, dupe and in line, and we did it very quickly, and stability-wise and performance-wise, and file services-wise, because it's big data, you know? It's a different kind of perception over there, and Nutanix gives us very quickly a deployment and services that we needed for this project. >> Could you just expand on that? When you say it was a fast deployment, you know, days? >> Yeah, our CEO signed the contract with this company and said, okay, I want it to be ready in like, two weeks from now. And then I thought, okay I can do it traditionally, and it would probably take me a month, or even more, and I can do it with Nutanix, and Nutanix wasn't ready in this time, with Cloud Data verification. Nutanix promised me that they would support me 100%, I got a letter from the VP of R&D of Nutanix, that they would support me, and they would get the certification. Now, most of the vendors that want to sell you something they say, "yeah, we'll get it, no worries", and they deliver. First of all, they give us full support, in the duration of the implementation of the environment. And, they did get the certification a few months later. So, performance-wise, we did the test, so I know that it works. We've duplicated the Cloud there, by the way, when there was performance issues, it was, Cloud Data fine-tuned what we need to do. It wasn't Nutanix' at all. Really, I really like this product, but they really deliver, so, performance-wise, execution-wise, and stability. >> We met the deadline that your-- >> I met the deadline, the medical staff is behind schedule, but I did my part. >> So Paul, what are any, is there any particular service that you use within the Nutanix Private Cloud that you want to talk about? >> Well, we're pretty new to the Nutanix suite of services, but one thing that's unique about our organization is we're one of the first to not do x86, but do power systems as well. So, we wanted that one pane of glass, one cloud management system that we can actually do all of our workloads. So we really just, we started x86 but we just recently got our power infrastructure up and running, about 100 nodes, and that's working well as well. And we're happy to have both sides of the fence, and really look at all our workload through that single pane of glass. >> Great, can you tell me what workload are you running on that, and do you have any AIX that you might look to put on that, now that that's going to be supported? >> Yeah, so we're really now starting to look at things with Kubernetes, then we've started putting our open enrollment applications on, because that's really our season now, right? It's kind of our busiest timeframe, when I have the highest availability, I have to be able to scale, and want to have zero downtimes. So, that one click, we love those kind of capabilities, and that's really helping us with our new applications for open enrollment. >> So, let's talk about Nutanix' vision. You both are cloud-forward thinking organizations, as you look at Zy, as you look at integration of calm with the major cloud providers, what are your initial thoughts? >> I think that, you know, I think that Zy's really interesting, where I can have those recovery options. You know, I really think we really got to move infrastructure to resiliency, and make sure it's resilient, but it's always nice to have that backup and be able to click over very quickly, as opposed to traditional recovery model where you back it up and you have to restore it. We don't want to restore. We want to be able to bring that back up and have that high availability. So I'm really interested in the Zy piece. >> Yeah, and we got the budget for the DR this year. And, we needed to take into consideration the best DR module for Assulta. Now, to be honest with you, if a regulation would allow us, I wouldn't think twice. But this is a variable that I need to check with my legal department, but technology-wise Zy is a amazing solution. In terms of cloud as a centerfold, I believe that there is no other option. There's no other option but to build your private and move it towards public cloud services. By the way, the main barrier for me is the human barrier. Because we need to train our personnel, we need to change the way they think, we need to combine between system guys and networking, and security guys, because now it's one box. So it's quite the challenge, but Nutanix makes a difference. >> Alright, it's the first time for both of you attending this show, Paul, start with you, if you can tell us what brought you to the show, what you're hoping to accomplish, what you've learned so far, general experiences here. >> Yeah, so you know, Nutanix is really helping us build out our private cloud. We definitely know that even though healthcare has a lot of regulatory requirements, we don't want to do full public, we know we're going to have to start moving more and more into the cloudspace. So, we know there's different cloud players out there, but we want to have that mobility of our workloads and move them in and out, and move them back to our environment, and move them from cloud provider to cloud provider and I've definitely started hearing about a lot of the services that Nutanix provides, that it enables those kind of solutions, and I want to learn more about those. >> For me, Nutanix is bringing to the table new ideas, new perception, and the most important thing that they gave us, giving us things that we need. And you talked about Zy, you talked about Com, there's been a new concept and they are always moving ahead and they bring the market to chase them. If I could say this way. And for me, the most important thing is that everything is posted in one box, and able to do it very simple by automation processes. >> So one question around people, you're growing at, doubling the organization, as you go out and look for staff to augment your existing staff, and innovate the change, how does Nutanix help or hinder in the hiring process? Like, onboarding new employees, you said onboarding is a challenge, onboarding and training, commentary around that? >> Yeah, so, you know, people are our most precious assets, right? And, when you hire new, you want to get the best people you can get, right? So, I think that we definitely tried to identify folks that have the type of aptitude we need. We're not always able to find the folks that are skilled with all the solutions we need, because cloud is so diverse, and converge is so diverse with the stacks, but we actually are doing a better job with finding the right talent, or training the ones that we have up, and to prepare and give the training to the new folk that are coming through the door. But our onboarding is definitely an opportunity for us, and I think we'll be able to scale a little bit better with onboarding as we look at automation, automation is going to be the key to getting folks onboarded faster. >> So Sharon, what about you? How has Nutanix helped with your, not necessarily onboarding, because growth is not necessarily changed, but people change. >> Yeah, people change. And the market has changed as well. And people must understand, that they should embrace the change. Even I change each and every day. I learn new things, I implement new things, I dare and I challenge my organization, and I have to convince my finance and my CIO and my CEO that this technology, whether Nutanix or other technology, is the right technology for our organization. Now, Nutanix is helping us in terms of innovation because of the fact that we're beginning to sign contracts with startups. And, we have to build them labs, and combine them with our production environment but do it very smartly, in a sophisticated way. So, Nutanix with the microsegmentation and other features that they are having is very helpful for us in this area, as well. >> Last thing I wanted to ask: lessons learned. You're relatively new in this space, but always things that you look back and say, "What could I have done better", "What I wish I knew a little better", Paul, start with you as to talking with your peers, what would you recommend to them, and what changes might they make? >> You know, I think we're so new into it, we don't have a lot of lessons learned yet, because we're just really going into production with a lot of the systems that we have, especially on the AIXI and the power side, but I do think that we are doing a debrief, probably coming up in the next 30 days to really identify if there are opportunities that we could probably do differently. Now, I will say that I do want to look at the whole private cloud to public cloud opportunities and really understand what those challenges are, because I think from an application perspective, that we don't always build applications that we plan to bring back. So, I need to really partner with my development shops, that when they build applications, how do we make sure that we can bring those workloads back, and I want to understand some of those cost models. >> That's awesome. >> I would say choosing the right use case and to prepare for the implementation, plan as much as you can, because those things will make or break if you're a beginner. If you're already accustomed to things, you know what to do. But if you're a beginner, those things are very important and combined with a good or very good integrator because, once again, if you want to succeed in this project, because it's not a project, it's not that service that we install. If you go with this method, then you didn't learn anything. So, if you want to get the best out of Nutanix, and thanks, to offer a lot of services we discussed, you should do it. >> Alright, Sharon and Paul, thank you so much for sharing your stories. For Keith Townsend and Stu Miniman, we always love to talk to all the users here, and I'm glad to be able to bring them to you, thanks so much for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)