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Dan Sheehan, COO | theCUBE on Cloud 2021


 

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the special presentation from theCUBE, where we're exploring the future of cloud and its business impact in the coming decade, kind of where we've come from and where we're going. My name is Dave Vellante, and with me is a CIO/CTO/COO, and longtime colleague, Dan Sheehan. Hello, Dan, how're you doing? >> Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Thank you for having me. >> Yeah, you're very welcome. So folks, Dan has been in the technology industry for a number of years. He's overseen, you know, large-multi, tens of millions of dollar ERP application development efforts, He was a CIO of a marketing, you know, direct mail company. Dan, we met at ADVO, it seems like such a (snickers) long time ago. >> Yeah, that was a long time ago, back in Connecticut. Back in the early 2000s. >> Yeah, ancient days. But pretty serious data for back then, you know, the early 2000s, and then you did a six-year stint as a EVP and CIO at Dunkin' Brands. I remember I came out to see you when I was starting Wikibon and trying to understand. >> Oh yeah. >> You know, what the CIOs cared about. You were so helpful and thanks for that. And that was a big deal. I mean, Dunkin', 17,000 points of distribution. I mean, that was sort of a complicated situation, right? >> Oh yeah. >> So, great experience. >> I mean, when you get involved with franchisees and trying to make everybody happy, yes, that was a lot of fun. >> And then you had a number of other roles, one was as COO at Modell's, and then to fast-forward, Beacon Health. You were EVP and CIO there. And you also, it looked like you had a kind of a business and operational role. You helped the company get acquired by Anthem Blue Cross. So awesome, congrats on that. That must've been a great experience. >> It was. A year of my life, yes. (both laugh) >> You're still standing. So anyway, you can see Dan, he's like this multi-tool star, he's seen a lot of changes in the technology business. So Dan, again, welcome back. Dan Sheehan. >> Oh, thank you. >> So when you started in your career, you know, there was no cloud, right? I mean, you had to do everything. It's funny, I remember I was... You probably know Bill Rucci, CIO of Hartford Steam Boiler. I remember we were talking one day, and this again was pre-cloud and he said, you know, I'm thinking, do I really need to manage my own email? I mean, back then, we did everything. So you had to provision infrastructure so you could write apps, and that was important. That frustrated CFOs, but it was a necessary piece of the value chain. So how have you seen that sort of IT value contribution shift over the years? Let's start there. >> Ah, well, I think it comes down to demand versus capacity. If you look at where companies want to go, they want to do a lot with technology. Technology has taken on a larger role. It's no longer and has not been a, so to speak, cost center. So I think the demand for making change and driving a company forward or reducing costs, there are other executives, peers to the CIO, to the CTO that are looking to do more, and when it comes to doing more, that means more demand, and you step back and you look at what the CIO has for capacity. Looking at Quick Solution's data, solutions in the cloud is appealing, and there are, you know, times where other functions talk to a vendor and see that they can get a vertical solution done pretty quickly. They go off and take that on, or it could be, you know, a ServiceNow capability that you want to implement across the company, and you do that just like an ERP type of roll up. But the bottom line is there are solutions out there that have pushed, I would say the IT organization to look at their capacity versus demand, and sometimes you can get things done quicker with a cloud type of solution. >> So how did you look at that shadow IT as a CIO? Was it something that kind of ticked you off or like you're sort of implying that it made you better? >> Well, I think it does ultimately make you better, but I think you have to partner with the functions because if you don't, you get these types of scenarios, and I've been involved in these just as well. You are busy with, you know, fulfilling your objectives as the leader of IT, and then you get a knock on the door from, let's say marketing or operations, and they say, hey, we just purchased this X solution and we want to integrate it with A, B and C. Well, that was not on the budget or on the IT roadmap or the IT strategy that was linked to the IT, I'm sorry, to the business strategy, and all of a sudden now you have more demand versus the capacity, and then you have to go start reprioritizing. So it's more of, yeah, kind of disrupted, but at the same time, it pushed, you know, the needle of the company forward. But it's all about just working together to make it happen. And that's a lot of, you know, hard conversations when you have to start reprioritizing capacity. >> Well, so let's talk about that alignment. I mean, there's always been a sort of a schism between IT and its ability to deliver, manage demand, and the business will always want you to go faster. They want IT to develop the systems, you know, of course, for less and then they want you to eat the cost of maintaining them, so (chuckles) there's been that tension. But in many ways, that CIO's job is alignment. I mean, it seems to me anyway that schism has certainly narrowed and the cloud's been been part of that, but what do you see as that trajectory over the years and where do you see it going? >> Well, I think it's going to continue to move forward, and depending upon the service, you know, companies are going to take advantage of those services. So yes, some of the non-mission critical capabilities that you would want to move out to the cloud or have somebody else do it, so to speak, that's going to continue to happen because they should be able to do it a lot cheaper than you can, just like use you mentioned a few moments ago about email. I did not want to maintain, you know, exchange service and keeping that all up and running. I moved quickly to Microsoft 365 and that's been a world of difference, but that's just one example. But when you have mission critical apps, you're going to have to make a decision if you want to continue to house them in-house or push them out to an AWS and house them there. So maybe you don't need a large data center and you can utilize some of the best and brightest around security, around managing size of the infrastructure and getting some of their engineering help, which can help. So it just depends upon the application, so to speak, or a function that you're trying to support. And you got to really look at your enterprise architecture and see where that makes sense. So you got to have a hybrid. I see and I have, you know, managed towards a hybrid way of looking at your architecture. >> Okay, so obviously the cloud played a role in that change, and of course, you were in healthcare too so you had to be somewhat careful, >> Yep. >> With the cloud. But you mentioned this hybrid architecture. I mean, from a technologist standpoint and a business standpoint, what do you want out of, you know, you hear a hybrid, multi, all the buzz words. What are you looking for then? Is it a consistent experience? Is it a consistent security? Or is it sort of more horses for courses, where you're trying to run a workload in the right place? What's your philosophy on that? >> Well, I mean, all those things matter, but you're looking at obviously, cost, you're looking at engagement. How does these services engage? Whether it's internal employees or external clients who you're servicing, and you want to get to a cost structure that makes sense in terms of managing those services as well as those mission critical apps. So it comes down to looking at the dollars and cents, as well as what type of services you can provide. In many cases, if you can provide a cheaper and increase the overall services, you're going to go down that path. And just like we did with ServiceNow, I did that at Beacon and also at DentaQuest two healthcare companies. We were able to, you know, remove duplicated, so to speak, ticketing systems and move to one and allow a better experience for the internal employee. They can do self-service, they can look at metrics, they can see status, real-time status on where their request was. So that made a bigger difference. So you engaged the employee differently, better, and then you also reduce your costs. >> Well, how about the economics? I mean, your experience that cloud is cheaper. You hear a lot of the, you know, a lot of the legacy players are saying, oh, no cloud's super expensive. Wait till you get that Amazon bill. (laughs) What's the truth? >> Well, I think there's still a lot of maturing that needs to go on, because unfortunately, depending upon the company, so let's use a couple of examples. So let's look at a startup. You look at a startup, they're probably going to look at all their services being in the cloud and being delivered through a SaaS model, and that's going to be an expense, that's going to be most likely a per user expense per month or per year, however, they structure the contract. And right out of the gate, that's going to be a top line expense that has to be managed going forward. Now you look at companies that have been around for a while, and two of the last companies I worked with, had a lot of technical debt, had on-prem applications. And when you started to look at how to move forward, you know, you had CFOs that were used to going to buy software, capitalize in that software over, you know, five years, sometimes three years, and using that investment to be capitalized, and that would sit below the line, so to speak. Now, don't get me wrong, you still have to pay for it, it's just a matter of where it sits. And when you're running a company and you're looking at the financials, not having that cost on your operational expenses, so to speak, if you're not looking at the depreciation through those numbers, that was advantageous to a CFO many years ago. Now you come to them and say, hey, we're going to move forward with a new HR system, and it's all increasing the expense because there's nothing else to capitalize. Those are different conversations, and all of a sudden your expenses have increased, and yes, you have to make sure that the businesses behind you, with respects to an ROI and supporting it. >> Yeah, so as long as the value is there, and that's a part of the alignment. I want to ask you about cloud pricing strategies because you mentioned ServiceNow, you know, Salesforce is in there, Workday. If you look at the way these guys price, it's really not true cloud pricing in a way, cause they're going to have you sign up for an annual license, you know, a lot of times you got pay up front, or if you want a discount, you're going to have to sign up for two years or three years. But now you see guys like Snowflake coming in, you know, big high-profile IPO. They actually charge you on a consumption-based model. What are your thoughts on that? Do you see that as sort of a trend in the coming decade? >> No, I absolutely think it's going to be on a trend, because consumption means more transactions and more transactions means more computing, and they're going to look at charging it just like any other utility charges. So yes, I see that trend continuing. Did a big deal with UltiPro HR, and yeah, that was all based upon user head count, but they were talking about looking at their payroll and changing their costing on payroll down the road. With their merger, or they went from being a public company to a private company, and now looking to merge with Kronos. I can see where time and attendance and payroll will stop being looked at as a transaction, right? It's a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly, however the company pays, and yes, there is dollars to be made there. >> Well, so let me ask you as a CIO and a business, you know, COO. One of the challenges that you hear with the cloud is okay, if I get my Amazon bill, it's something that Snowflake has talked about, where you know, to me, it's the ideal model, but on the other hand, the transparency is not necessarily there. You don't know what it's going to be at the end of (mumbles) Would you rather have more certainty as to what that bill's going to look like? Or would you rather have it aligned with consumption and the value to the business? >> Well, you know, that's a great question, because yes, I mean, budgets are usually built upon a number that's fixed. Now, no, don't get me wrong. I mean, when I look at the wide area network, the cost for internet services, yes, sometimes we need to increase and that means an increase in the overall cost, but that consumption, that transactional, that's going to be a different way of having to go ahead and budget. You have to budget now for the maximum transactions you anticipate with a growth of a company, and then you need to take a look at that you know, if you're budgeting. I know we were on a calendar fiscal year, so we started up budgeting process in August and we finalized at sometime in the end of October, November for the proceeding year, and if that's the case, you need to get a little bit better on what your consumptions are going to be, because especially if you're a public company, going out on the street with some numbers, those numbers could vary based upon a high transaction volume and the cost, and maybe you're not getting the results on the top end, on the revenue side. So I think, yeah, it's going to be an interesting dilemma as we move forward. >> Yeah. So, I mean, it comes back to alignment, doesn't it? I mean, I know in our small example, you know, we're doing now, we were used to be physical events with theCUBE, now it's all virtual events and our Amazon bill is going through the roof because we're supporting all these users on these virtual events, and our CFO's like, well, look at this Amazon bill, and you say, yeah, but look at the revenue, it's supporting. And so to your point, if the revenue is there, if the ROI is there, then it makes sense. You can kind of live with it because you're growing with it, but if not, then you really got to question it. >> Yeah. So you got to need to partner with your financial folks and come up with better modeling around some of these transactional services and build that into your modeling for your budget and for your, you know, your top line and your expenses. >> So what do you think of some of these SaaS companies? I mean, you've had a lot of experience. They're really coming at it from largely an application perspective, although you've managed a lot of infrastructure too. But we've talked about ServiceNow. They've kind of mopped up in the ITSM. I mean, there's nobody left. I mean, ServiceNow has sort of taken over the whole (mumbles) You know, Salesforce, >> Yeah. >> I guess, sort of similarly, sort of dominating the CRM space. You hear a lot of complaints now about, you know, ServiceNow pricing. There is somebody the other day called them the Oracle of ITSM. Do you see that potentially getting disrupted by maybe some cloud native developers who are developing tools on top? You see in, like, for instance, Datadog going after Splunk and LogRhythm. And there seem to be examples popping up. Well, what's your take on all this? >> No, absolutely. I think cause, you know, when we were talking about back when I first met you, when I was at the ADVO, I mean, Oracle was on it's, you know, rise with their suite of capabilities, and then before you know it, other companies were popping up and took over, whether it was Firstbeat, PeopleSoft, Workday, and then other companies that just came into play, cause it's going to happen because people are going to get, you know, frustrated. And yes, I did get a little frustrated with ServiceNow when I was looking at a couple of new modules because the pricing was a little bit higher than it was when I first started out. So yes, when you're good and you're able to provide the right services, they're going to start pricing it that way. But yes, I think you're going to get smaller players, and then those smaller players will start grabbing up, so to speak, market share and get into it. I mean, look at Salesforce. I mean, there are some pretty good CRMs. I mean, even, ServiceNow is getting into the CRM space big time, as well as a company like Sugar and a few others that will continue to push Salesforce to look at their pricing as well as their services. I mean, they're out there buying up companies, but you just can't automatically assume that they're going to, you know, integrate day one, and it's going to take time for some of their services to come and become reality, so to speak. So yes, I agree that there will be players out there that will push these lager SaaS companies, and hopefully get the right behaviors and right pricing. >> I've said for years, Dan, that I've predicted that ServiceNow and Salesforce are on a collision course. It didn't really happen, but it's starting to, because ServiceNow, the valuation is so huge. They have to grow into other markets much in the same way that Salesforce has. So maybe we'll see McDermott start doing some acquisitions. It's maybe a little tougher for ServiceNow given their whole multi-instance architecture and sort of their own cloud. That's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. >> Yeah. Yeah. You got to play in that type of architecture, let's put it that way. Yes, it'll be interesting to see how that does play out. >> What are your thoughts on the big hyperscalers; Amazon, Microsoft, Google? What's the right strategy there? Do you go all in on one cloud like AWS or are you more worried about lock-in? Do you want to spread your bets across clouds? How real is multi-cloud? Is it a strategy or more sort of a reality that you get M and A and you got shadow IT? What's your take on all that? >> Yeah, that's a great question because it does make you think a little differently around you know, where to put all your eggs. And it's getting tougher because you do want to distribute those eggs out to multiple vendors, if you would, service providers. But, you know, for instance we had a situation where we were building a brand new business intelligence data warehouse, and we decided to go with Microsoft as its core database. And we did a bake-off on business analytic tools. We had like seven of them at Beacon and we ended up choosing Microsoft's Power BI, and a good part of that reason, not all of it, but a good part of it was because we felt they did everything else that the Tableau's and others did, but, you know, Microsoft would work to give, you know, additional capabilities to Power BI if it's sitting on their database. So we had to take that into consideration, and we did and we ended up going with Power BI. With Amazon, I think Amazon's a little bit more, I'll put it horizontal, whereby they can help you out because of the database and just kind of be in that data center, if you would, and be able to move some of your homegrown applications, some of your technical debt over to that, I'll say cloud. But it'll get interesting because when you talk about integration, when you talk about moving forward with a new functionality, yeah, you have to put your architecture in a somewhat of a center point, and then look to see what is easier, cheaper, cost-effective, but, you know, what's happening to my functionality over the next three to five years. >> But it sounds like you'd subscribe to a horses for courses approach, where you put the right workload in the right cloud, as opposed to saying, I'm going to go all in on one cloud and it's going to be, you know, same skillset, same security, et cetera. It sounds like you'd lean toward the former versus going all in with, you know, MANO cloud. >> Yeah, I guess again, when I look at the architecture. There will be major, you know, breaks if you would. So yes, there is somewhat of a, you know, movement to you know, go with one horse. But, you know, I could see looking back at the Beacon architecture that we could, you know, lift and put the claims adjudication capabilities up in Amazon and then have that conduct, you know, the left to right claims processing, and then those transactions could then be moved into Microsoft's data warehouse. So, you know, there is ways to go about spreading it out so that you don't have all those eggs in one basket and that you reduce the amount of risk, but that weighed heavily on my mind. >> So I was going to ask you, how much of a factor lock-in is it? It sounds like it's more, you know, spreading your eggs around, as you say and reducing your risk as opposed to, you know, worried about lock-in, but as a CIO, how worried are you about lock-in? Where is that fit in the sort of decision tree? >> Ah, I mean, I would say it's up there, but unfortunately, there's no number one, there's like five number ones, if you would. So it's definitely up there and it's something to consider when you're looking at, like you said, the cost, risk integration, and then time. You know, sometimes you're up against the time. And again, security, like I said. Security is a big key in healthcare. And actually security overall, whether you're retail, you're going to always have situations no matter what industry, you got to protect the business. >> Yeah, so I want to ask you about security. That's the other number one. Well, you might've been a defacto CSO, but kind of when we started in this business security was the problem of the security teams, and you know, it's now a team sport. But in thinking about the cloud and security, how big of a concern is the cloud? Is it just more, you're looking for consistency and be able to apply the corporate edicts? Are there other concerns like the shared responsibility model? What are your thoughts on security in the cloud? >> Well, it probably goes back to again, the industry, but when I looked at the past five years in healthcare, doing a lot of work with the CMS and Medicaid, Medicare, they had certain requirements and certain restrictions. So we had to make sure that we follow those requirements. And when you got audited, you needed to make sure that you can show that you are adhering to their requirements. So over the past, probably two years with Amazon's government capabilities that those restrictions have changed, but we were always looking to make sure that we owned and managed how we manage the provider and member data, because yes, we did not want to have obviously a breach, but we wanted to make sure we were following the guidelines, whether it's state or federal, and then and even some cases healthcare guidelines around managing that data. So yes, top of mind, making sure that we're protecting, you know, in my case so we had 37 million members, patients, and we needed to make sure that if we did put it in the cloud or if it was on-prem, that it was being protected. And as you mentioned, recently come off of, I was going to say Amazon, but it was an acquisition. That company that was looking at us doing the due diligence, they gave us thumbs up because of how we were managing the data at the lowest point and all the different levels within the architecture. So Anthem who did the acquisition, had a breach back in, I think it was 2015. That was top of mind for them. We had more questions during the due diligence around security than any other functional area. So it is critical, and I think slowly, some of that type of data will get up into the cloud, but again, it's going to go through some massive risk management and security measures, and audits, because how fragile that is. >> Yeah, I mean, that could be a deal breaker in an acquisition. I got two other questions for you. One is, you know, I know you follow the technologies very closely, but there's all the buzz words, the digital transformation, the AI, these new SaaS models that we talked about. You know, a lot of CIOs tell me, look, Dave, get the business right and the technology is the easy part. It's people, it's process. But what are you seeing in terms of some of this new stuff coming out, there's machine learning, you know, obviously massive scale, new cloud workloads. Anything out there that really excites you and that you could see on the horizon that could be, you know, really change agents for the next decade? >> Yeah, I think we did some RPA, robotics on some of the tasks that, you know, where, you know, if the analysis types of situations. So I think RPA is going to be a game changer as it continues to evolve. But I agree with what you just said. Doing this for quite a while now, it still comes down to the people. I can get the technology to do what it needs to do as long as I have the right requirements, so that goes back to people. Making sure we have the partnership that goes back to leadership and the people. And then the change management aspects. Right out of the gate, you should be worrying about how is it going to affect and then the adoption and engagement. Because adoption is critical, because you can go create the best thing you think from a technology perspective, but if it doesn't get used correctly, it's not worth the investment. So I agree, whether it's digital transformation or innovation, it still comes down to understanding the business model and injecting and utilizing technology to grow or reduce costs, grow the business or reduce costs. >> Yeah, usage really means value. Sorry, my last question. What's the one thing that vendors shouldn't do? What's the vendor no-no that'll alienate CIO's? >> To this day, I still don't like, there's a company out there that starts with an O. I still don't like it to that, every single technology module, if you would, has a separate sales rep. I want to work with my strategic partners and have one relationship and that single point of contact that spark and go back into their company and bring me whatever it is that we're looking at so that I don't get, you know, for instance from that company that starts with an O, you know, 17 calls from 17 different sales reps trying to sell me 17 different things. So what irritates me is, you know, you have a company that has a lot of breadth, a lot of, you know, capability and functional, you know that I may want. Give me one person that I can deal with. So a single point of contact, then that makes my life a lot easier. >> Well, Dan Sheehan, I really appreciate you spending some time on theCUBE, it's always a pleasure catching up with you and really appreciate you sharing your insights with our audience. Thank you. >> Oh, thank you, David. I appreciate the opportunity. You have a great day. >> All right. You too. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE on Cloud. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next guest right after the short break. Awesome, Dan.

Published Date : Jan 22 2021

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Hello, Dan, how're you doing? Hey, Dave, how are you doing? He's overseen, you know, large-multi, Back in the early 2000s. I remember I came out to see you I mean, that was sort of a I mean, when you get And then you had a It was. So anyway, you can see Dan, I mean, you had to do everything. and there are, you know, and then you have to go and then they want you to eat and you can utilize some you know, you hear a hybrid, and then you also reduce your costs. You hear a lot of the, you know, and yes, you have to make sure cause they're going to have you and now looking to merge with Kronos. and a business, you know, COO. and then you need to take a look at that and you say, yeah, but look at and build that into your So what do you think of you know, ServiceNow pricing. and then before you know it, and sort of their own cloud. You got to play in that to multiple vendors, if you you know, same skillset, and that you reduce the amount of risk, and it's something to consider and you know, it's now a team sport. that you can show that and that you could see on Right out of the gate, you What's the one thing that and functional, you know that I may want. I really appreciate you I appreciate the opportunity. And thank you for watching everybody.

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Dan Sheehan, CIO/DTO/COO | CUBE On Cloud


 

>> Go on my lead. >> Dan: All right, very good. >> Five, four. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the special presentation from theCUBE, where we're exploring the future of cloud and its business impact in the coming decade, kind of where we've come from and where we're going. My name is Dave Vellante, and with me is a CIO/CTO/COO, and longtime colleague, Dan Sheehan. Hello, Dan, how're you doing? >> Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Thank you for having me. >> Yeah, you're very welcome. So folks, Dan has been in the technology industry for a number of years. He's overseen, you know, large-multi, tens of millions of dollar ERP application development efforts, He was a CIO of a marketing, you know, direct mail company. Dan, we met at ADVO, it seems like such a (snickers) long time ago. >> Yeah, that was a long time ago, back in Connecticut. Back in the early 2000s. >> Yeah, ancient days. But pretty serious data for back then, you know, the early 2000s, and then you did a six-year stint as a EVP and CIO at Dunkin' Brands. I remember I came out to see you when I was starting Wikibon and trying to understand. >> Oh yeah. >> You know, what the CIOs cared about. You were so helpful and thanks for that. And that was a big deal. I mean, Dunkin', 17,000 points of distribution. I mean, that was sort of a complicated situation, right? >> Oh yeah. >> So, great experience. >> I mean, when you get involved with franchisees and trying to make everybody happy, yes, that was a lot of fun. >> And then you had a number of other roles, one was as COO at Modell's, and then to fast-forward, Beacon Health. You were EVP and CIO there. And you also, it looked like you had a kind of a business and operational role. You helped the company get acquired by Anthem Blue Cross. So awesome, congrats on that. That must've been a great experience. >> It was. A year of my life, yes. (both laugh) >> You're still standing. So anyway, you can see Dan, he's like this multi-tool star, he's seen a lot of changes in the technology business. So Dan, again, welcome back. Dan Sheehan. >> Oh, thank you. >> So when you started in your career, you know, there was no cloud, right? I mean, you had to do everything. It's funny, I remember I was... You probably know Bill Rucci, CIO of Hartford Steam Boiler. I remember we were talking one day, and this again was pre-cloud and he said, you know, I'm thinking, do I really need to manage my own email? I mean, back then, we did everything. So you had to provision infrastructure so you could write apps, and that was important. That frustrated CFOs, but it was a necessary piece of the value chain. So how have you seen that sort of IT value contribution shift over the years? Let's start there. >> Ah, well, I think it comes down to demand versus capacity. If you look at where companies want to go, they want to do a lot with technology. Technology has taken on a larger role. It's no longer and has not been a, so to speak, cost center. So I think the demand for making change and driving a company forward or reducing costs, there are other executives, peers to the CIO, to the CTO that are looking to do more, and when it comes to doing more, that means more demand, and you step back and you look at what the CIO has for capacity. Looking at Quick Solution's data, solutions in the cloud is appealing, and there are, you know, times where other functions talk to a vendor and see that they can get a vertical solution done pretty quickly. They go off and take that on, or it could be, you know, a ServiceNow capability that you want to implement across the company, and you do that just like an ERP type of roll up. But the bottom line is there are solutions out there that have pushed, I would say the IT organization to look at their capacity versus demand, and sometimes you can get things done quicker with a cloud type of solution. >> So how did you look at that shadow IT as a CIO? Was it something that kind of ticked you off or like you're sort of implying that it made you better? >> Well, I think it does ultimately make you better, but I think you have to partner with the functions because if you don't, you get these types of scenarios, and I've been involved in these just as well. You are busy with, you know, fulfilling your objectives as the leader of IT, and then you get a knock on the door from, let's say marketing or operations, and they say, hey, we just purchased this X solution and we want to integrate it with A, B and C. Well, that was not on the budget or on the IT roadmap or the IT strategy that was linked to the IT, I'm sorry, to the business strategy, and all of a sudden now you have more demand versus the capacity, and then you have to go start reprioritizing. So it's more of, yeah, kind of disrupted, but at the same time, it pushed, you know, the needle of the company forward. But it's all about just working together to make it happen. And that's a lot of, you know, hard conversations when you have to start reprioritizing capacity. >> Well, so let's talk about that alignment. I mean, there's always been a sort of a schism between IT and its ability to deliver, manage demand, and the business will always want you to go faster. They want IT to develop the systems, you know, of course, for less and then they want you to eat the cost of maintaining them, so (chuckles) there's been that tension. But in many ways, that CIO's job is alignment. I mean, it seems to me anyway that schism has certainly narrowed and the cloud's been been part of that, but what do you see as that trajectory over the years and where do you see it going? >> Well, I think it's going to continue to move forward, and depending upon the service, you know, companies are going to take advantage of those services. So yes, some of the non-mission critical capabilities that you would want to move out to the cloud or have somebody else do it, so to speak, that's going to continue to happen because they should be able to do it a lot cheaper than you can, just like use you mentioned a few moments ago about email. I did not want to maintain, you know, exchange service and keeping that all up and running. I moved quickly to Microsoft 365 and that's been a world of difference, but that's just one example. But when you have mission critical apps, you're going to have to make a decision if you want to continue to house them in-house or push them out to an AWS and house them there. So maybe you don't need a large data center and you can utilize some of the best and brightest around security, around managing size of the infrastructure and getting some of their engineering help, which can help. So it just depends upon the application, so to speak, or a function that you're trying to support. And you got to really look at your enterprise architecture and see where that makes sense. So you got to have a hybrid. I see and I have, you know, managed towards a hybrid way of looking at your architecture. >> Okay, so obviously the cloud played a role in that change, and of course, you were in healthcare too so you had to be somewhat careful, >> Yep. >> With the cloud. But you mentioned this hybrid architecture. I mean, from a technologist standpoint and a business standpoint, what do you want out of, you know, you hear a hybrid, multi, all the buzz words. What are you looking for then? Is it a consistent experience? Is it a consistent security? Or is it sort of more horses for courses, where you're trying to run a workload in the right place? What's your philosophy on that? >> Well, I mean, all those things matter, but you're looking at obviously, cost, you're looking at engagement. How does these services engage? Whether it's internal employees or external clients who you're servicing, and you want to get to a cost structure that makes sense in terms of managing those services as well as those mission critical apps. So it comes down to looking at the dollars and cents, as well as what type of services you can provide. In many cases, if you can provide a cheaper and increase the overall services, you're going to go down that path. And just like we did with ServiceNow, I did that at Beacon and also at DentaQuest two healthcare companies. We were able to, you know, remove duplicated, so to speak, ticketing systems and move to one and allow a better experience for the internal employee. They can do self-service, they can look at metrics, they can see status, real-time status on where their request was. So that made a bigger difference. So you engaged the employee differently, better, and then you also reduce your costs. >> Well, how about the economics? I mean, your experience that cloud is cheaper. You hear a lot of the, you know, a lot of the legacy players are saying, oh, no cloud's super expensive. Wait till you get that Amazon bill. (laughs) What's the truth? >> Well, I think there's still a lot of maturing that needs to go on, because unfortunately, depending upon the company, so let's use a couple of examples. So let's look at a startup. You look at a startup, they're probably going to look at all their services being in the cloud and being delivered through a SaaS model, and that's going to be an expense, that's going to be most likely a per user expense per month or per year, however, they structure the contract. And right out of the gate, that's going to be a top line expense that has to be managed going forward. Now you look at companies that have been around for a while, and two of the last companies I worked with, had a lot of technical debt, had on-prem applications. And when you started to look at how to move forward, you know, you had CFOs that were used to going to buy software, capitalize in that software over, you know, five years, sometimes three years, and using that investment to be capitalized, and that would sit below the line, so to speak. Now, don't get me wrong, you still have to pay for it, it's just a matter of where it sits. And when you're running a company and you're looking at the financials, not having that cost on your operational expenses, so to speak, if you're not looking at the depreciation through those numbers, that was advantageous to a CFO many years ago. Now you come to them and say, hey, we're going to move forward with a new HR system, and it's all increasing the expense because there's nothing else to capitalize. Those are different conversations, and all of a sudden your expenses have increased, and yes, you have to make sure that the businesses behind you, with respects to an ROI and supporting it. >> Yeah, so as long as the value is there, and that's a part of the alignment. I want to ask you about cloud pricing strategies because you mentioned ServiceNow, you know, Salesforce is in there, Workday. If you look at the way these guys price, it's really not true cloud pricing in a way, cause they're going to have you sign up for an annual license, you know, a lot of times you got pay up front, or if you want a discount, you're going to have to sign up for two years or three years. But now you see guys like Snowflake coming in, you know, big high-profile IPO. They actually charge you on a consumption-based model. What are your thoughts on that? Do you see that as sort of a trend in the coming decade? >> No, I absolutely think it's going to be on a trend, because consumption means more transactions and more transactions means more computing, and they're going to look at charging it just like any other utility charges. So yes, I see that trend continuing. Did a big deal with UltiPro HR, and yeah, that was all based upon user head count, but they were talking about looking at their payroll and changing their costing on payroll down the road. With their merger, or they went from being a public company to a private company, and now looking to merge with Kronos. I can see where time and attendance and payroll will stop being looked at as a transaction, right? It's a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly, however the company pays, and yes, there is dollars to be made there. >> Well, so let me ask you as a CIO and a business, you know, COO. One of the challenges that you hear with the cloud is okay, if I get my Amazon bill, it's something that Snowflake has talked about, where you know, to me, it's the ideal model, but on the other hand, the transparency is not necessarily there. You don't know what it's going to be at the end of (mumbles) Would you rather have more certainty as to what that bill's going to look like? Or would you rather have it aligned with consumption and the value to the business? >> Well, you know, that's a great question, because yes, I mean, budgets are usually built upon a number that's fixed. Now, no, don't get me wrong. I mean, when I look at the wide area network, the cost for internet services, yes, sometimes we need to increase and that means an increase in the overall cost, but that consumption, that transactional, that's going to be a different way of having to go ahead and budget. You have to budget now for the maximum transactions you anticipate with a growth of a company, and then you need to take a look at that you know, if you're budgeting. I know we were on a calendar fiscal year, so we started up budgeting process in August and we finalized at sometime in the end of October, November for the proceeding year, and if that's the case, you need to get a little bit better on what your consumptions are going to be, because especially if you're a public company, going out on the street with some numbers, those numbers could vary based upon a high transaction volume and the cost, and maybe you're not getting the results on the top end, on the revenue side. So I think, yeah, it's going to be an interesting dilemma as we move forward. >> Yeah. So, I mean, it comes back to alignment, doesn't it? I mean, I know in our small example, you know, we're doing now, we were used to be physical events with theCUBE, now it's all virtual events and our Amazon bill is going through the roof because we're supporting all these users on these virtual events, and our CFO's like, well, look at this Amazon bill, and you say, yeah, but look at the revenue, it's supporting. And so to your point, if the revenue is there, if the ROI is there, then it makes sense. You can kind of live with it because you're growing with it, but if not, then you really got to question it. >> Yeah. So you got to need to partner with your financial folks and come up with better modeling around some of these transactional services and build that into your modeling for your budget and for your, you know, your top line and your expenses. >> So what do you think of some of these SaaS companies? I mean, you've had a lot of experience. They're really coming at it from largely an application perspective, although you've managed a lot of infrastructure too. But we've talked about ServiceNow. They've kind of mopped up in the ITSM. I mean, there's nobody left. I mean, ServiceNow has sort of taken over the whole (mumbles) You know, Salesforce, >> Yeah. >> I guess, sort of similarly, sort of dominating the CRM space. You hear a lot of complaints now about, you know, ServiceNow pricing. There is somebody the other day called them the Oracle of ITSM. Do you see that potentially getting disrupted by maybe some cloud native developers who are developing tools on top? You see in, like, for instance, Datadog going after Splunk and LogRhythm. And there seem to be examples popping up. Well, what's your take on all this? >> No, absolutely. I think cause, you know, when we were talking about back when I first met you, when I was at the ADVO, I mean, Oracle was on it's, you know, rise with their suite of capabilities, and then before you know it, other companies were popping up and took over, whether it was Firstbeat, PeopleSoft, Workday, and then other companies that just came into play, cause it's going to happen because people are going to get, you know, frustrated. And yes, I did get a little frustrated with ServiceNow when I was looking at a couple of new modules because the pricing was a little bit higher than it was when I first started out. So yes, when you're good and you're able to provide the right services, they're going to start pricing it that way. But yes, I think you're going to get smaller players, and then those smaller players will start grabbing up, so to speak, market share and get into it. I mean, look at Salesforce. I mean, there are some pretty good CRMs. I mean, even, ServiceNow is getting into the CRM space big time, as well as a company like Sugar and a few others that will continue to push Salesforce to look at their pricing as well as their services. I mean, they're out there buying up companies, but you just can't automatically assume that they're going to, you know, integrate day one, and it's going to take time for some of their services to come and become reality, so to speak. So yes, I agree that there will be players out there that will push these lager SaaS companies, and hopefully get the right behaviors and right pricing. >> I've said for years, Dan, that I've predicted that ServiceNow and Salesforce are on a collision course. It didn't really happen, but it's starting to, because ServiceNow, the valuation is so huge. They have to grow into other markets much in the same way that Salesforce has. So maybe we'll see McDermott start doing some acquisitions. It's maybe a little tougher for ServiceNow given their whole multi-instance architecture and sort of their own cloud. That's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. >> Yeah. Yeah. You got to play in that type of architecture, let's put it that way. Yes, it'll be interesting to see how that does play out. >> What are your thoughts on the big hyperscalers; Amazon, Microsoft, Google? What's the right strategy there? Do you go all in on one cloud like AWS or are you more worried about lock-in? Do you want to spread your bets across clouds? How real is multi-cloud? Is it a strategy or more sort of a reality that you get M and A and you got shadow IT? What's your take on all that? >> Yeah, that's a great question because it does make you think a little differently around you know, where to put all your eggs. And it's getting tougher because you do want to distribute those eggs out to multiple vendors, if you would, service providers. But, you know, for instance we had a situation where we were building a brand new business intelligence data warehouse, and we decided to go with Microsoft as its core database. And we did a bake-off on business analytic tools. We had like seven of them at Beacon and we ended up choosing Microsoft's Power BI, and a good part of that reason, not all of it, but a good part of it was because we felt they did everything else that the Tableau's and others did, but, you know, Microsoft would work to give, you know, additional capabilities to Power BI if it's sitting on their database. So we had to take that into consideration, and we did and we ended up going with Power BI. With Amazon, I think Amazon's a little bit more, I'll put it horizontal, whereby they can help you out because of the database and just kind of be in that data center, if you would, and be able to move some of your homegrown applications, some of your technical debt over to that, I'll say cloud. But it'll get interesting because when you talk about integration, when you talk about moving forward with a new functionality, yeah, you have to put your architecture in a somewhat of a center point, and then look to see what is easier, cheaper, cost-effective, but, you know, what's happening to my functionality over the next three to five years. >> But it sounds like you'd subscribe to a horses for courses approach, where you put the right workload in the right cloud, as opposed to saying, I'm going to go all in on one cloud and it's going to be, you know, same skillset, same security, et cetera. It sounds like you'd lean toward the former versus going all in with, you know, MANO cloud. >> Yeah, I guess again, when I look at the architecture. There will be major, you know, breaks if you would. So yes, there is somewhat of a, you know, movement to you know, go with one horse. But, you know, I could see looking back at the Beacon architecture that we could, you know, lift and put the claims adjudication capabilities up in Amazon and then have that conduct, you know, the left to right claims processing, and then those transactions could then be moved into Microsoft's data warehouse. So, you know, there is ways to go about spreading it out so that you don't have all those eggs in one basket and that you reduce the amount of risk, but that weighed heavily on my mind. >> So I was going to ask you, how much of a factor lock-in is it? It sounds like it's more, you know, spreading your eggs around, as you say and reducing your risk as opposed to, you know, worried about lock-in, but as a CIO, how worried are you about lock-in? Where is that fit in the sort of decision tree? >> Ah, I mean, I would say it's up there, but unfortunately, there's no number one, there's like five number ones, if you would. So it's definitely up there and it's something to consider when you're looking at, like you said, the cost, risk integration, and then time. You know, sometimes you're up against the time. And again, security, like I said. Security is a big key in healthcare. And actually security overall, whether you're retail, you're going to always have situations no matter what industry, you got to protect the business. >> Yeah, so I want to ask you about security. That's the other number one. Well, you might've been a defacto CSO, but kind of when we started in this business security was the problem of the security teams, and you know, it's now a team sport. But in thinking about the cloud and security, how big of a concern is the cloud? Is it just more, you're looking for consistency and be able to apply the corporate edicts? Are there other concerns like the shared responsibility model? What are your thoughts on security in the cloud? >> Well, it probably goes back to again, the industry, but when I looked at the past five years in healthcare, doing a lot of work with the CMS and Medicaid, Medicare, they had certain requirements and certain restrictions. So we had to make sure that we follow those requirements. And when you got audited, you needed to make sure that you can show that you are adhering to their requirements. So over the past, probably two years with Amazon's government capabilities that those restrictions have changed, but we were always looking to make sure that we owned and managed how we manage the provider and member data, because yes, we did not want to have obviously a breach, but we wanted to make sure we were following the guidelines, whether it's state or federal, and then and even some cases healthcare guidelines around managing that data. So yes, top of mind, making sure that we're protecting, you know, in my case so we had 37 million members, patients, and we needed to make sure that if we did put it in the cloud or if it was on-prem, that it was being protected. And as you mentioned, recently come off of, I was going to say Amazon, but it was an acquisition. That company that was looking at us doing the due diligence, they gave us thumbs up because of how we were managing the data at the lowest point and all the different levels within the architecture. So Anthem who did the acquisition, had a breach back in, I think it was 2015. That was top of mind for them. We had more questions during the due diligence around security than any other functional area. So it is critical, and I think slowly, some of that type of data will get up into the cloud, but again, it's going to go through some massive risk management and security measures, and audits, because how fragile that is. >> Yeah, I mean, that could be a deal breaker in an acquisition. I got two other questions for you. One is, you know, I know you follow the technologies very closely, but there's all the buzz words, the digital transformation, the AI, these new SaaS models that we talked about. You know, a lot of CIOs tell me, look, Dave, get the business right and the technology is the easy part. It's people, it's process. But what are you seeing in terms of some of this new stuff coming out, there's machine learning, you know, obviously massive scale, new cloud workloads. Anything out there that really excites you and that you could see on the horizon that could be, you know, really change agents for the next decade? >> Yeah, I think we did some RPA, robotics on some of the tasks that, you know, where, you know, if the analysis types of situations. So I think RPA is going to be a game changer as it continues to evolve. But I agree with what you just said. Doing this for quite a while now, it still comes down to the people. I can get the technology to do what it needs to do as long as I have the right requirements, so that goes back to people. Making sure we have the partnership that goes back to leadership and the people. And then the change management aspects. Right out of the gate, you should be worrying about how is it going to affect and then the adoption and engagement. Because adoption is critical, because you can go create the best thing you think from a technology perspective, but if it doesn't get used correctly, it's not worth the investment. So I agree, whether it's digital transformation or innovation, it still comes down to understanding the business model and injecting and utilizing technology to grow or reduce costs, grow the business or reduce costs. >> Yeah, usage really means value. Sorry, my last question. What's the one thing that vendors shouldn't do? What's the vendor no-no that'll alienate CIO's? >> To this day, I still don't like, there's a company out there that starts with an O. I still don't like it to that, every single technology module, if you would, has a separate sales rep. I want to work with my strategic partners and have one relationship and that single point of contact that spark and go back into their company and bring me whatever it is that we're looking at so that I don't get, you know, for instance from that company that starts with an O, you know, 17 calls from 17 different sales reps trying to sell me 17 different things. So what irritates me is, you know, you have a company that has a lot of breadth, a lot of, you know, capability and functional, you know that I may want. Give me one person that I can deal with. So a single point of contact, then that makes my life a lot easier. >> Well, Dan Sheehan, I really appreciate you spending some time on theCUBE, it's always a pleasure catching up with you and really appreciate you sharing your insights with our audience. Thank you. >> Oh, thank you, David. I appreciate the opportunity. You have a great day. >> All right. You too. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE on Cloud. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next guest right after the short break. Awesome, Dan.

Published Date : Dec 22 2020

SUMMARY :

Hello, Dan, how're you doing? Hey, Dave, how are you doing? He's overseen, you know, large-multi, Back in the early 2000s. I remember I came out to see you I mean, that was sort of a I mean, when you get And then you had a It was. So anyway, you can see Dan, I mean, you had to do everything. and there are, you know, and then you have to go and then they want you to eat and you can utilize some you know, you hear a hybrid, and then you also reduce your costs. You hear a lot of the, you know, and yes, you have to make sure cause they're going to have you and now looking to merge with Kronos. and a business, you know, COO. and then you need to take a look at that and you say, yeah, but look at and build that into your So what do you think of you know, ServiceNow pricing. and then before you know it, and sort of their own cloud. You got to play in that to multiple vendors, if you you know, same skillset, and that you reduce the amount of risk, and it's something to consider and you know, it's now a team sport. that you can show that and that you could see on Right out of the gate, you What's the one thing that and functional, you know that I may want. I really appreciate you I appreciate the opportunity. And thank you for watching everybody.

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Shekar Ayyar, VMware | VMworld 2019


 

>> live from San Francisco, celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage. It's the Cube covering Veum World 2019. Brought to you by VM Wear and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back here and live here in Mosconi North. The Emerald 2019 Cube Live coverage on Shopping Day Volante Jr Jr. Who's here? EVP general manager, Telco and Edge of Cloud for Vienna. Where Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. I know you're super busy. We don't have a lot of time. Get right to it. Um five g a big part of the key. No discussion that's gonna enable a whole bunch of Pakal the pregame show pre gaming not even talk about that. Also. Telco on the Edge Computing Big part Michael Dell said, Edges the future Now these air to emerging areas for you guys. What's the positioning? What's the update? >> No, absolutely. I mean, if you look a tw telecom infrastructure. For the longest time, telcos have played a role just as pure basic connectivity providers. And with five g coming on board, they finally have an opportunity to break out of that and redefine the cloud off the future. So for us the big opportunity around five g is not just the better provisioning off like Higher Man With Service is to consumer for voice and data buy the whole set off new enterprise service is that can be provided on top of this five g network. And in order to be able to do that, you really need to go in with a virtualized telco Cloud architecture. Underneath that, and so we are working with carriers globally now preparing them for five G with an architecture that's going to help them deploy. New service is faster for both their consumer as well as enterprise. >> Going to be the white knight at, so to speak. For these telcos because they've been struggling for years over the top and any kind of differentiates service is even in the network layer. Exactly. I've had tons of rack and stack machine, so they're after their well, well stacked up in terms of computer storage. Also connectivity to the edge. That's the back hall. So you have back haul, which is connectivity. Companies that have massive expertise in scale but fumbling in operational cloud natives that >> by not just that, but I also think that having the idea off on application platform that allows them to go and deploy service is faster and then decide whether they're just going to play at the network connectivity level or at the application tear or a full SAS tear. These are all options that are open to them now with this notion off. Telco five G coupled with an NFI and cloud telco cloud infrastructure. Underneath that and never before have they had this option to doing that. And this is now open to them >> and the cloud native is there greenfield for AP supporter having applications on top of it. Exact icing on the cake, right? >> Exactly, Exactly. And so they're all looking at core architectures and then, potentially, their radio architectures now all being opened up toe deploying new service is that are much faster to provisions and then extending that to EJ and >> five G's deploying. So we know it's out there. So it is pre game is Pat, Guzman said. You know, not even an inning Yet in the metaphor of baseball innings, I >> gotta ask you get my phone. That's not that's fake ill. I know it >> did that with four g to >> skeptic e stands for evolution, which is coming soon. >> That's vaporware for tell Coke language. The surface area is going to radically get bigger with this capability. Yeah, security's gonna be baked in. This is the number one concern for io ti. And more importantly, industrial I ot We've been reporting on silicon angle dot com. This is a national security issue because we're under cyber attacks. Town's getting locked out with ransomware critical infrastructure exposed. We're free country, and I want to be free. We don't lock down. So you have security built into this new promiscuous landscape that is called the coyote Edge. Because you wanna have no perimeter. You want the benefits of cloud. But one whole malware is in there. One take over physical device could cost lives. >> Yeah, there's a big concern. Yeah. What's your thoughts? Yeah, No. So I think there >> are two ways of looking at it. One is the way you looked at it in terms of the security perimeter expanding and then us making sure that we have the right level off infrastructure security baked in to enable this to be an easier, manageable security architecture. This is sort of the pitch you heard from Mia Mary, even in the context of our acquisition of carbon black and how we're thinking about baking security into the infrastructure, the other way of looking at this is if you think about some of the concerns around providers off telecom infrastructure today and how there might be or might not be security back doors. This is happening in today's hardware infrastructure. Okay, so in fact, I would argue that a sick software defined architecture, er, actually ends up providing you greater levels of security. Because what you now have is the option off running all of these network functions as secured as software workloads in a policy envelope that you can introspect. And then you can decide what kind of security you want to deploy on what kind of workload. >> That's an innovative approach. But it doesn't change much, really, from an infrastructure standpoint, does it? Or does it? >> No, it does, >> because now, instead of having a hardware box where you have to worry, I mean, if it's a close, hard red box and you don't quite know what is happening there, the question is, is that more secure than a infrastructure radio running the software that you can actually introspect. I would argue that the software defined approach is more secure than having a hardware box that you don't know. >> I would buy the premise that certainly we know that supply chain concerned. You know the speculation Super Micro, which never was proved. >> It doesn't matter who the vendor is or what the country is. It really is a concern in terms of not being able to introspect what has happened Going inside >> for my tea shop. I'm running VM where operating I want developers. So now you're going to tell Coz you revitalize their business model? They had a rule out appy. Now what did you see? That connecting is gonna be connective tissue between >> I'll think about it. I didn't feel goto a telco. We look at really three stakeholders in there. One is I t the second Is there be to be or enterprise facing business and then the 3rd 1 is their core and access network or the CTO. We're now have a value proposition of having a uniform architecture across all three stakeholders with the uniform ability to create applications and drop it on top of each of these infrastructures with the ability to manage and secure these again in a uniform way, not just that, but also make this work well with other cloud infrastructures private, hyper scale, public as well as EJ. >> That's table stakes. You have to do that. These jokers have to operate whatever >> well it is, But it's not. I mean, if you think about what the infrastructure off a tailcoat today is, it's far from that, because it's it's sort of a closed environment. You can't access anything from a telco environment in order to go build an application to it, and it does not resemble anything like any club >> you could enable Telco. Just I'm just kind of thinking connecting the dots here real time in the Cube. If I'm a telco, hell, I'll take that VM wear on a deli and see model. Make me a cloud and I'll sell Cloud Service is to markets that kind of >> it is. Actually it's a very important part of our business model because most telcos would not move their own infrastructure from a network standpoint onto a public cloud. But they are eagerly awaiting the ability to operate their own network as a cloud, and if they can have somebody manage that for them, then that is very much within the >> you're enabling. An increase in the number of cloud service provides potentially the paint on the makeup of the telco tier one tier two tier three size. Pretty much >> potentially. I mean, it's taking an existing operator and having them operate in a more agile way and potentially increasing anew form off a cloud service >> provided telcos wouldn't move into the public cloud because of they want to control. And the cost is that right or it's >> mostly control. It's not about cost. It's about taking What is your sort of coordinating for, ah, packet corps or for a radio network? Yeah, and there is also an angle around competition, I think telcos our what in about the Amazons of the world and the azure eyes of the world potentially becoming a service provided >> themselves. And that's what I wanted to ask you about the business impact of all this discussion you guys were having is, you know, the cost for bits coming down. The amount of data is increasing faster. You got over the top providers just, you know, picking off the telcos. Telcos can't compete their infrastructures of so hardened. Will this all change that? >> Absolutely So. I think that it has the potential to changing all that. I don't think all the telcos will take advantage of it. Some off them might end up being more traditional and sort of sticking to where they were. But for those that are willing to make the leap, I mean, as an example, Vodafone is a customer that has actually gone in with this architecture with us. A. T and T is working with us with the Vela Cloud software from via Mary bringing a new form off branch computer branch connectivity through SD man. So these are all examples of telcos that are actually leading the >> charter. But if they don't lean in, they have this vision there either. Well, it's either because they're protected by their local government or they're going to go out of business. No, I would >> agree. I mean, it's sort of silly from our standpoint to be talking about five G and not thinking about this as the architecture for five, right? I mean, if you only focus on radio waves and your wireless network that's like a part of the problem, but you really need to have the ability to deploy these agile service's. Otherwise, you could get killed by >> the O. T. T. So how do you compete against the competition? What's the business plan that you have? C. Five G? We see that in the horizon that's evolving its evolution, so to speak. Pun intended on edge is certainly very relevant for enterprises, whether it's manufacturing or industrial or just people. Yeah, >> I'd say there are two things. One is a CZ. I'm sure you heard from folks at GM, where our vision is this notion of any any anywhere. We've talked about any cloud at any application that any device. So that becomes one of the strongest different chaining factors in terms of what V Amir can bring. Tow any of our customers compared to the competition, right? Nobody can actually make it really across these dimensions. If you then take that architecture and use that to deploy a telco cloud, we're now making investments that are telco specific that allow the tailcoat than take this and make the most out of it. As an example, we're investing in open stack we're investing in container ization. We just bought a company called Johanna and Johanna essentially allows the operator to go and provide metrics from their radio access networks. Use at that to train a learning engine and then feed that back so that the operator can tune their network to get like fewer dropped calls in the region. So if you combined technology like that with this, any cloud infrastructure that we have underneath that that's the best in class deployment methodology for any. Tell Cho to deploy >> five. Your business model metrics for you internally is get Maur deployments. What stage of development five G certainly is in a certain stage, but you know, edges there. Where is the Progress bar? If you're the kind of oh, >> it's actually mold phenomenally. I mean, every time we have conversations like this, we're moving about further in terms off. How many carriers are deploying on via mare on a telco cloud Architecture? How many subscribers are basically being serviced by an architectural like this? And then how many network functions are being deployed? Two of'em air architecture. So we are over 100 carriers now we are over. We have about 800 million subscribers, or so that about globally are being serviced by a V M Air supported network. On then, we have essentially over 120 network functions that >> are operating on top of you. Usually bring in all the same stuff that's announced that the show that stuff's gonna fold into the operating platform or Joe Chuckles have different requirements. Off course. It's >> both. We take the best of what is there from the sort of overall vehement factory and then as a team. My team then builds other widgets on top that are telco specific. >> How big is your your tam up Terry for you? >> Well, so the best way to look at it as telcos globally spend about a trillion dollars in capital investment and then probably to X that in terms of their operating expenditure over the course off all of the things that they do right? And out of that, I would say probably a tent off that. So if you take about $100 billion opportunity, opens itself up toe infrastructure investment in terms off the kinds of things that we're talking about now, they're not gonna move from like 0 200 of course. So if you take some period of time, I would say good subset off that $100 billion opportunity is gonna open itself up >> to it. This kind of business cases, eliminating that two x factor, at least reducing it. Is that exactly? That's not just that Service is that's, >> ah, cost reduction alternative. But then you have the ability to go deploy. Service is faster, so it's really a combination off both sort of carrot and the stick, right? I mean, the character here is the ability to go monetize More new service is with five G faster. The stick is that if you don't do it, Ortiz will get there faster and your costs off. Deploying your simple service is will increase his >> telcos, in your opinion, have what they have to do to get the DNA chops to actually be able to compete with the over to top OT T providers and be more agile. I mean, it's obviously sort of new skills that they have to bring in a new talent. Yeah, >> well, first and foremost, they need toe get to a point where their infrastructure is agile and they get into a business model off knowing how to monetize that agile infrastructure. So, for example, they could offer network as a service on a consume as you go basis. They could offer a platform as a service on top off that network in order for or titties to go build applications so they can do Rev shares with the forties. Or they could have offer. Full service is where they could go in and say, We are the conferencing provider for videoconferencing for enterprises. I mean, these are all models that >> the great conversation love to do. Your Palo Alto? Yes. Have you in our studio want to do more of a deep dive? We love the serious, super provocative, and it's important Final question for you. Though Pat Sr here on the Cube, lay asked him, Look back in the past 10 years. Yeah, look back in the next 10 years. What waves should everyone be riding? He said three things that working security and kubernetes humans being number one actually promoting convinced everyone for the ride, for obvious reasons, clouded. I get that, but networking Yeah, that's your world. That's changing. Which which events do you go to where you meet your audience out there in the telco because networking is a telco fundamental thing. Sure moving packets around. This is a big thing, >> eh? So far, operator networking related stuff, I would say. I mean the biggest shows that for us would be Mobile World Congress as an example, right? It's where many operators are. But I would also say that when we do our own events like this is the ember. But the movie forums in in Asia packers an example. A lot of the telco conversations I find they are best done one on one before. Yeah, the forums are our forums, but we will goto have one on one conversations or small group conversations >> with our telco customers. Locals Shakaar Thanks for spending. You get a hard stop. Very busy. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me >> here, Sugar Yaar, Who's here inside the Cube bringing down five G, which is still pregame. A few winning something first thing is gonna come up soon, but edges super hot. A lot of telco customers be back with more live coverage of the emerald after this short break

Published Date : Aug 27 2019

SUMMARY :

Brought to you by VM Wear and its ecosystem partners. Edges the future Now these air to emerging areas for you guys. is not just the better provisioning off like Higher Man With Service is to and any kind of differentiates service is even in the network layer. These are all options that are open to them now with this notion off. and the cloud native is there greenfield for AP supporter having applications on top new service is that are much faster to provisions and then extending that You know, not even an inning Yet in the metaphor of baseball innings, I gotta ask you get my phone. promiscuous landscape that is called the coyote Edge. So I think there This is sort of the pitch you heard from Mia Mary, even in the context of our acquisition of carbon black But it doesn't change much, really, from an infrastructure standpoint, running the software that you can actually introspect. You know the speculation Super Micro, being able to introspect what has happened Going inside Now what did you see? One is I t the second Is there be to be or enterprise facing business and then the 3rd You have to do that. I mean, if you think about what the infrastructure off a tailcoat today is, you could enable Telco. But they are eagerly awaiting the ability to operate their of the telco tier one tier two tier three size. I mean, it's taking an existing operator and having them operate in a more And the cost is that right of the world potentially becoming a service provided You got over the top providers just, you know, picking off the telcos. Vodafone is a customer that has actually gone in with this architecture with us. it's either because they're protected by their local government or they're going to go out of business. I mean, it's sort of silly from our standpoint to be talking about five G and the O. T. T. So how do you compete against the competition? So that becomes one of the strongest different chaining factors in terms of what V Where is the Progress bar? I mean, every time we have conversations like this, Usually bring in all the same stuff that's announced that the show that stuff's We take the best of what is there from the sort of overall vehement factory Well, so the best way to look at it as telcos globally spend about a trillion dollars in capital This kind of business cases, eliminating that two x factor, I mean, the character here is the ability to go monetize More new service I mean, it's obviously sort of new skills that they have to bring in a new talent. in order for or titties to go build applications so they can do Rev shares with the forties. the great conversation love to do. I mean the biggest shows that for us would be Mobile World Congress as an example, right? with our telco customers. Thanks for having me here, Sugar Yaar, Who's here inside the Cube bringing down five G, which is still pregame.

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