(soft music) >> Welcome back everyone, is Supercloud 22 live in the Palo Alto office. Our stage performance we're streaming virtually it's our pilot event, our inaugural event, Supercloud 22. I'm John fury, with my coach Dave Vellante. Got a featured Keynote conversation with Kit Colbert. Who's the CTO of VMware, got to delay it all out. Break it down, Kit, great to see you. Thanks for joining us for Supercloud 22 our inaugural event. >> Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. >> So we had great distinguished panels coming up through. We heard Victoria earlier to the Keynote. There's a shift happening. The shift has happened that's called cloud. You just published a white paper that kind of brings out these new challenges around the complexity of how companies want to run their business. >> Yep. >> It's not born in the cloud, it's cloud everywhere. Seems to be the theme. What's your take on Supercloud? what's the roadmap for multicloud? >> Yeah, well, the reason that we got interested in this was just talking to our customers and the reality is everybody is using multiple clouds today, multiple public clouds, they got things on-prem, they got stuff at the edge. And so their applications are essentially distributed everywhere. And the challenges they start running into there is that there's just a lot of heterogeneity there. There's like different APIs, different capabilities, inconsistencies, incompatibility, in terms of workload, placement, data, migration, security, as we just heard about, et cetera. And so I think everyone's struggling with trying to figure out how do I drive consistency across all that diversity and what sort of consistency do I want? And one of the things that became really interesting in our conversations with customers is that there is no one size fits all that different folks are in different places. And the types of consistency that they want to prioritize will be different based on their individual business requirements. And so this started forming a picture for us saying, okay, what we need are a set of capabilities of multi-cloud cross cloud services that deliver that consistency across all the different environments where applications may be running. And that is what formed the early thinking and sort of the paper that we wrote on it, as well as some of the work and that I think eventually leads to this vision of Supercloud, right? 'Cause I think you guys have the right idea, which is, hey, how does all this stuff come together? And what does that bigger picture look like? And so I think between the sort of the native services that are there individually for each cloud that offer great value by the way, and people definitely should be taking advantage of in addition to another set of services, which are multi-cloud that go across clouds and provide that consistency, looking at that together. That's my picture where super cloud is. >> So the paper's called, the era of multi-cloud services arrive, VMware executive outlook for IT, leaders and decision makers, I'm sure you can get on your website. >> Yep. >> And in there, you talked about, well, first of all, I think you would agree that multicloud has fundamentally been a symptom of multi-vendor or M&A, I mean, you talked about that in the paper, right? >> Yeah. >> It was never really a strategy. It was just like, hey, we woke up in the 2020s and here we are with multiple clouds, right? >> Yeah, it was one of those situations where most folks that we talked to didn't plan to be multi-cloud now that's changed a little bit in the past year or two. >> Sure. >> But certainly in the earlier days of cloud, people would go all in saying, hey, I'm going to go all in on one, one of the major hyperscalers and go for it there. And that's great and offers a lot of advantages, right? There is internal consistency there. There's usually pretty good integration between their services so on and so forth. The problem though that you start facing is that to your point, acquisitions, you acquire companies using a different cloud. Okay, now I got two different clouds or sometimes you have the phenomenon of shadow IT, still happening where some random line of business is going to go off and use a different cloud for whatever reason. The other thing that we've seen is that over time that you may have standardized on one, but then over time technology changes, another cloud makes major advancements in the state of the art, or let's say in machine learning and you say, hey, I want to go to this other cloud for that. So what we start to see is that people now are choosing public clouds based on best of breed service capabilities, and that they're going to make those decisions that fairly fine grained manner, right? Sometimes down to the team, the line of business, et cetera. And so this is where customers and companies find themselves. Now it's like, oh boy, now have all these clouds. And what's happened is that they kind of dealt with it in an ad hoc manner. They would spin up individual operations teams, security teams, et cetera, that specialized in each of the clouds. They had knowledge about how to do that. But now people found that, okay, I'm duplicating all this. There's not really consistency in my approach here. Is there a better way? And I think this is, again, the advent of a lot of the thinking of multi-cloud services and Supercloud. >> And I think one of the things too, in listening to you talk is that the old model used to be, solve complexity with more complexity. Okay, and customers don't want that from what we're observing. And what you're saying is they've seen the benefits of DevOps, DevSecOps. So they know the value. >> Yep. >> 'Cause they've been on, say one native cloud. Now they say, okay, I'm on premise and we heard from Victoria said, there's a lot of private cloud going on, but essentially makes that another cloud, out by default as well. So hybrid is multicloud. >> Hybrid is a subset, yeah. Hybrid is like, we kind of had this evolution of thinking, right? Where you kind of had all the sort of different locations. And then I think hybrid was attempt to say, okay, let's try to connect one location or a set of locations on premises with a public cloud and have some level of consistency there. But really what we look at here with multicloud or Supercloud is that that's really a generalization of that. And we're not talking about one or two locations on prem in one cloud. We're talking about everything now. And moreover, I think hybrid cloud tended to focus a lot on sort of core infrastructure and management. This looks across the board, we're talking about security, we're talking about application development, talking about end user experience. Things like Zero Trust. We're talking about infrastructure, data. So it goes much, much broader, I think than when we talked about hybrid cloud a few years ago. >> So in your paper you've essentially, Kit, laid out an early framework. >> Yep. >> Let's call it for what we call Supercloud, what you call cross cloud services. So what do you see as the technical enablers that are, the salient aspects of again multi-cloud or Supercloud? >> Yep. Well, so for me it comes down to, so, okay, taking a step back. So we have this problem, right? Where you have a lot of diversity across different clouds and customers are looking for some levels of consistency. But as I said, rarely do I see two customers that want exactly the same types of consistency. And so what we're trying to do is step back. And first of all, establish a taxonomy and by that I mean, one of the different types of consistency that you might want. And so there's things around infrastructure consistency, security consistency, software supply chain security is probably the top of mind one that I hear from customers. Application and application services of things like databases, messaging streaming services, AIML services, et cetera, and user capabilities and then of course, data as well. And so in the paper we say, okay, here's these kind of five areas of consistency. And that's the first piece, the second one then turns more to an architectural question of what exactly is a multi-cloud service. What does that mean for a cloud service to be multi-cloud and what are the properties there? So essentially we said, okay, we see three different types of those. There's one where that service could run on a single cloud, but could support multiple clouds. So think about for instance, a service that does cost analysis. Now it may have maybe executing on AWS let's say, but it could do cost analysis for Azure or Google or AWS or anybody, right? So that's the first type. The second type is a bit more advanced where now you're saying, I can actually instantiate that same service into multiple clouds. And we see that oftentimes with things like databases that have a lot of performance latency, et cetera, requirements, and that you can't be accessing that database remotely, that doesn't, from a different cloud, that's going to be too slow. You have it on the same cloud that you're in. And so again, you see various vendors out there, implementing that, where that database can be instantiated wherever you'd like. And then the third one would be going even further. And this is where we really get into some of the much more difficult use cases where customers want a workload to be on prem. And sometimes, especially for those that are very regulatory compliant, they may need even in an air gap or disconnected environment. So there, can you take that same service, but now run it without your operators, being able to manage it 24/7. So those are the three categories. So are a single cloud supporting, single cloud instance supporting multiple clouds, multi-cloud instance, multi-cloud instance disconnected. >> So you're abstracting you as the the R&D arm you're abstracting that complexity. How do you handle this problem where you've got one cloud maybe has a better service than the other clouds? Do you have to devolve to the lowest common denominator or? How do you mask that? >> Well, so that's a really good question and we've debated it and there's been a lot of thought on it. Our current point of view is that we really want to leave it, up to the company themselves to make that decision. Again, cause we see different use cases. So for instance, I talk to customers in the defense sector and they are like, hey, if a foreign adversary is attacking one of these public cloud that we're in, we got to be able to evacuate our applications from there, sometimes in minutes, right? In order to maintain our operational capabilities. And so there, there does need to be at least common denominator approach just because of that requirement. I see other folks, you look at the financial banking industries they're also regulated. I think for them, it's oftentimes 90 days to get out of the cloud, so they can do a little bit of re-architecture. You got times rolled the sleeves and change some things. So maybe it's not quite as strict. Whereas other companies say, you know what? I want to take advantage of these best of breed services native to the clouds. So we don't try to prescribe a certain approach there, but we say, you got to align it with what your business requirements are. >> How about the APIs layer? So one of the things we've said is that we felt like a super pass was a requirement of the Supercloud because it's a purpose built pass that helps you with that objective, whatever that is. And you say in the paper for developers each cloud provider has unique infrastructure interfaces and APIs that add work and slow the pace of their releases for operators. Each additional cloud increases the complexity of their architecture, fragmenting security, performance optimization and cost management. So are you building a super pass? What's your philosophy? Victoria said, we want to have our cake, we want to eat at two and we want to lose weight. So how do you do that? >> Yeah, so I think it's, so first things first, what the paper is trying to present in the end is really sort of an architectural point of view on how to approach this, right? And then, yeah, we at VMware, we've got a lot of solutions, towards some of those things, but we also realize we can't do everything ourselves, right? The space is too large. So it's very much a partner strategy there. Now that being said, on things like on the past side, we are doing a lot for instance around Tanzu, which is our modern apps portfolio products. And the focus there really is to, yes, provide some of that consistency across different clouds, enabling customers to take advantage of either cross cloud paths type services or cloud native or native cloud services, I should say. And so we really give customers that choice. And I think that's for us where it's at, because again, we don't see it as a one size fits for all. >> So there's your cake at edit to too. So you're saying the developer experience can be identical across clouds. >> Yep. >> Unless the developers don't want it to be. >> Yeah, and maybe the team makes that decision. Look there's a lot of reasons why you may want to make that or may not. The reality is that these native cloud services do add a lot of value and oftentimes are very easy to consume, to get started with, to get going. And so trade off you got to think about, and I don't think there's a right answer. >> So Kit, I got to ask on you. You said you can't do it alone. >> Yeah. >> VMware, I know for a fact, you guys have been working on this for many, many years. >> Yep. >> (indistinct) remember, I interviewed him in 2016 when he did the deal with AWS with Andy Jassy that really moved the needle. Things got really great from there with VMware. So would you be open to a consortium to oversee cause you guys have a lot of investment in this as a company, but I also don't hear you trying to do the lock in thing. So yeah, would you guys be open to a consortium to kind of try to figure out what these buildings blocks look like? Or is it a bag of Legos what people want? >> Absolutely, and you know what we offer in the paper is really just a starting point. It's pretty simple, we're trying to define a few basic of the taxonomy and some outlines sketches if you will, of what that architectural picture might look like. But it's very much that like just a starting point, and this is not something we can do alone. This is something that we really need the entire industry to rally around. Cause again, I think what's important here are standards. >> Yeah. >> That there's got to be, this sort of decomposition of functionality, breakdown in the different, sort of logical layers of functionality. What do those APIs or interfaces look like? How do we ensure interoperability? Because we do want people to be able to get the best of breed, to be able to bring together different vendor solutions to enable that. >> And I was watching, it was had a Silicon a day just last week, talking about their advances in Silicon. What's you guys position on that because you're seeing the (indistinct) as players, almost getting more niche and more better at the hardware matters more, Silicon speed, latency GPUs, So that seems to me be an enabler opportunity for the ecosystem to innovate at the past and SAS relationship. Where do you guys see? Where are you guys strong and where do you need work to do on? If you had to say there was some white space at VMware like say, hey, we own this area. We we're solid here. Here's some white spaces that VMware could use some help with. >> Yeah, well I think the infrastructure space, you just mentioned is clearly one that we've been focused on for a long time. We're expanding into the modern app space, expanding into security. We've been strong and end user for a while. So a lot of the different multi-cloud capabilities we've actually been to your point developing for a while. And I think that's exactly, again, what went into this like what we started noticing was all of our different product teams were reacting to the same thing and we weren't necessarily talking about it together yet. >> Like what? >> Well, this whole challenge of multiple clouds of dealing with that heterogeneity of wanting choice and flexibility into where to place a workload or where to place a virtual desktop or whatever it might be. And so each of the teams was responding individually to that customer feedback. And so I think what we recognized was like, hey, let's up level this, and what's the bigger picture. And what's the sort of common architecture across all of it, right? So I think that's what the really interesting aspect here was is that this is very much driven by what we're hearing directly from customers. >> You kind of implied just recently that the paper was pretty straightforward, pretty basic, early days, but it's well thought out. And one of the things you talked about was the type of multi-cloud services. >> Yep. >> You had data plan and user services, security infrastructure, which is your wheelhouse and application services. >> Yep. >> And you sort of went to detail defining those where is management and all that. So these are the ones you're going after. What about management? What are your thoughts on that? >> Yeah, so it's a really good question we debated this for a long time. Does management actually get a separate sort of layer that we could add a six one perhaps, or is it sort of baked in to the different ones? And we kind of went with the ladder where it sort of baked in there's infrastructure management, there's modern app management, there's management and users. It's kind of management for each security obviously. So we see a lot of different management plans, control plans across each of those different layers. Now does there need to be a separate one that has its own layer? Arguably yes, I mean, I think there are good arguments for that, and this is exactly why we put this out there though, is to like get people to read it, people to give give us feedback. And going back to the consortium idea, let's come together as a group of practitioners across the industry to really figure out an industry viewpoint on this. >> So what are the trade offs there? So what would be the benefit of having that separate layer? I presume it's simpler to do it the way you've done it, but what would be the benefit of having a separate. >> Yeah, I think it was probably more about simplicity to start with, like you could imagine like 20 different layers. and maybe that's where it's going to go, but also I think it's how do you define the layer? And for us it was more around sort of some of these functional aspects as an infrastructure versus application level versus end user and management is more of a commonality across those. But again, I could see our arguments be made. >> Logical place to start. >> Yeah. >> The other thing you said in here multi-cloud application services can route request for a particular service such as a database and deploy the service on the correct individual cloud, using the most appropriate technology for the use case, et cetera, et cetera. >> Yep. >> That to me, sounds like a metadata problem. And so can you talk about how you you've approach that? You mentioned AWS RDS, great examples as your sequel on Oracle Database, et cetera, et cetera and multiple endpoint. How do you approach that? >> Yeah, well, I think there's a bunch of different approaches there. And so again, so the idea is that, and I know there's been reference to sort of like the operating system for Supercloud. What does that look like, right? But I think it totally, we don't actually use that term, but I do like the concept of an operating system. 'Cause a lot of things you just talk about there, these are things operating systems. Do you got to have a scheduler? And so you look across many different clouds and you got to figure out, okay, where do I actually want in this case, let's say a database instance to go and be provisioned. And then really it's up to, I think the vendor or in this case, the multi-cloud service creator to define how they want to want to do that. They could leverage the native cloud services or they could build their own technology. Which a lot of the vendors are doing. And so the point though, is that really you get this night from a end user standpoint, it goes back to your complexity, simplicity question, you get the simplicity of a single API that the implementation you don't really need to deal with. 'Cause you're like, I'm getting a service and I need the database and has certain properties and I want it here versus there versus wherever. But it's up to that multi-cloud service to figure out a lot of those implementation specifics. >> So are you the Supercloud OS? >> I think it is VMware's goal to become the Supercloud OS for sure. But like any good operating system, as we said, like it's all about applications, right? So you have a platform point of view, but you got to partner widely. >> And you got to get the hardware relationship. >> Yes. >> The Silicon chips. >> Yep. >> Right. >> Yeah, and actually that was a good point. I want to go back to that one. 'Cause you mentioned that earlier, the innovation that we're seeing, things like arm processors and like graviton and a lot of these things happening. And so I think that's another really interesting area where you're seeing tremendous innovation there in the public cloud. One of the challenges though for public cloud is actually at scale and that it takes longer to release newer hardware at that scale. So in some cases, if you want bleeding edge stuff, you can't go with public cloud 'cause it's just not there yet, right? So that's again, another interesting thing where you... >> Well, some will say that they launch 5,000 new services, every year at AWS. >> No, but I'm talking, >> They have some bleeding edge stuff. >> Well, no, no, no, sorry, sorry, let me clarify, let me clarify. I'm not talking about the software, I'm talking about the hardware side. >> Okay, got it, okay. >> Like the Silicon? >> Yeah, like the latest and greatest GPU, FBGA. >> Why can't they? >> 'Cause cause they do like tens of thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them. >> Oh just because it's just so many. >> It's a scale. Yeah, that's the point, right? >> Right. >> And it's fundamental to the model in terms of how big they are. And so that's why we do see some customers who need, who have very specialized hardware requirements, need to do it in the private cloud, right on prem or possibly a colo. >> Or edge. >> Or edge. >> Edge is a great example of... >> But we often see, again, people like the latest bleeding edge GPUs, whatever they are, even something a bit more experimental that they're going to go on on prem for that. >> Yeah. >> And so look, do not want to disparage the public cloud, please don't take that away. It's just an artifact when it gets to heart, like software they can scale and they do (indistinct). >> Well it's context of the OS conversation, OS has to right to hardware and enable applications. >> Where I was getting caught up in that is Kit, is they're all developing their own Silicon and they're developing it, most of it's arm based and they're developing at a much, much faster cycle. They can go from design to tape out much faster than Intel historically has. And you're seeing it. >> Intel just posted along. >> Yeah, I think if you look at the overall system, you're absolutely right. >> Yeah, but it's the deployment because of the scale 'cause at one availability zone and another and another region and that's. >> Well, yeah, but so counter point to what I just said would be, hey, like they have very well controlled environments, very well controled system. So they don't need to support a million different configuration settings or whatever they've got theirs that they use, right? So from a system standpoint and so forth. Yeah, I agree that there's a lot they can do there. I was speaking specifically, to different types of hardware accelerators being a bit of a (indistinct). >> If it's not in the 5,000 services that they offer, you can't get it, whereas on-prem you can say, I want that, here it is. >> I'm not saying that on-prem is necessarily fundamentally better in any way. I'm just saying for this particular area >> It's use case driven. >> It is use, and that's the whole point of all this, right? Like and I know a lot of people in their heads associate VMware with on-prem, but we are not dogmatic at all. And you know, as you guys know, but many people may not like we partner with all the public cloud hyperscalers. And so our point of view is very much, much more nuance saying, look, we're happy to run workloads wherever you want to. In fact, that's what we hear from customers. They want to run them everywhere, but it's about finding the right tool for the right job. And that's what really what this multi-cloud approach. >> Yeah, and I think the structural change of the virtualization hypervisor this new shift to V2 Supercloud, this something happening fundamentally that's use case driven, it's not about dogma, whatever. I mean, cloud's great. But native clouds have the pros and cons. >> And I would say that Supercloud, prerequisite for Supercloud has got to be running in a public cloud. But I'd say it also has to be inclusive of on-prem data. >> Yes, absolutely. >> And you're not going to just move all that data into prem, maybe in the fullness of time, but I don't personally believe that, but you look at what Goldman Sachs has done with AWS they've got their on-prem data and they're connecting to the AWS cloud. >> Yep. >> What Walmart's doing with Azure and that's going to happen in a lot of different industries. >> Yeah. >> Well I think security will drive that too. We had that conversation because no one wants to increase the surface area. Number one, they want complexity to be reduced and they want economic benefits. That's the super cloud kind of (indistinct). >> It's a security but it's also differentiatable advantage that you actually have on prem that you don't necessarily. >> Right, well, we're going to debate this now, Kit, thank you for coming on and giving that Keynote, we're going to have a panel to debate and discuss the blockers that enablers to Supercloud. And there are some enablers and potentially blockers. >> Yep, absolutely. >> So we'll get, into that, okay, up next, the panel to discuss, blockers and enablers are Supercloud after this quick break. (soft music)