>> Narrator: Live, from Madrid, Spain, it's theCUBE, covering HPEE Discover Madrid 2017, brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Welcome back to Madrid, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, and we're here with my co-host Peter Burris, and this is day one of HPEE Discover Madrid. Susan Blocher is here, she's the vice-president of portfolio marketing at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Bruce Trevarthen joins her. He's the CEO and founder, I believe, of Layer X. Welcome back, both of you, to theCUBE. >> Thank you David. >> All right so Susan, big show for you guys, and we have these six months cadence of big messages >> Susan: Yes. >> And customer shows, so what are we going to hear this afternoon at the keynotes? >> Wow. I'll tell you we've got a lot of exciting news to talk about. First of all, the way customers are consuming IT is really changing, cloud is changing the game. We got some amazing announcements to talk about around how we're going to help customers in the hybrid IT space consume IT differently. We're going to talk about how we're helping them manage across multi-cloud environments. We're going to talk about bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to the data center which is really transformational. So, lot's of exciting news here. >> Good, okay! So we'll be covering the keynotes here just actually in about a half hour or so, we kick off. Meg, Antonio >> Yes. you've got a new leader so we're going to hear from him, we've been hearing from him for some time now. >> Very exciting. >> Looking forward to hearing from him. Okay, Bruce. It's been awhile since we talked about layerX. Tell us what's transpired in the last couple years. Set up layerX, what you guys are all about and what's new. >> Sure, so it's a cloud service provider based out of New Zealand. Multiple platforms giving us that resilience. You know, that sort of general cloud people all know what cloud is these days. But really for us the journey it just continues. We keep, from a strategy point of view we keep looking at where is cloud adoption at, where is cloud going, are these hyperscale providers going to enter every country and every market? And really, sort of, make us, sort of in country boutique operators less relevant. So you're always asking that question and then you're sort of hit with this new wave of expectations down from the clients. Hybrid IT has been the big push in the last 12 months and what's really encouraging for us when we get hit with this new sort of level of interest and a slight tangent on this manage services delivery is that HPE already thinking the same way. They've already come up with a product line that's going to plug that gap. So we work very closely with HPE with their edge line and the OEM team globally, to deliver HPE hardware on customer site or on premise. And then we put our own software on that, we link it back into the core V-grid environment, and that really, for a customer they keep those workloads on site where they need to be. And then you've got that public cloud environment for the disaster recovery and the workloads that don't need to be on site. >> So let's unpack that a little bit. Tagline, Hewlett Packard Enterprises uses make hybrid IT simple, that's the objective. >> [Susan]- That's right. >> You know, IT is complicated, hybrid IT is complicated. What's the starting point to make it simple Bruce, from your perspective? Is it to make the infrastructure as invisible as possible, is it bringing the cloud upward model? Maybe talk about those steps. >> Sure. Well, I mean, one of the first things we try to do to make it simple is we don't mention cloud. We talk ultimately about what workload is the customer consuming and where do they belong? And so, we're invariably seeing more and more workloads that really shouldn't go centralized in a data center they should be on site. So, GPU accelerated desktops for oil and gas research, or some of our clients doing 3D engineering, you know, CAD design work. You can put that in a data center, and we have, but then you're at the mercy of the fiber connections. Speed of the fiber connection, the resilience of the fiber connection, and the cost absolutely. And so keeping some of those workloads on site just makes sense. But how can you then leverage the benefit of that centralized IT in the event of a disaster if all of your workloads are actually on site? And that's where it's got to be hybrid. You can have those workloads on site but all your files and all that capability is sort of mirrored in the cloud environment. So if you have a fiber cut, then you can use a cellular network to get there. Or if you have an on site disaster, then you can spend the equivalent resources in the data center, but on demand, rather than dedicated to you. >> We like to say that customers want or the way that we summarize it at Wikibon is, customers want the cloud experience where the data demands. >> Dave: 'cause we do talk about cloud >> 'cause we do talk about cloud periodically. Well, but you have to, because at the end of the day it's driving a new way of thinking. Not just about the technology, but how you solve business problems. And it comes back to how do you think about the business problem differently. I love New Zealand, I've been there a couple times. I've worked with a lot of customers and the minute that you said New Zealand I was like, right! How do, how does the cloud experience, how are you solving problems differently than you did a few years ago because of not only the HPEE partnership, but thinking differently about these problems? >> Thinking differently is definitely something you have to do to stay relevant, right, to keep up with the market. Almost ten years ago we thought what we felt was a little differently, when we adopted the HPEE 3PAR, and that really was a technology that gave us the ability to change our mind regarding storage. Spin forward now to 2017. In April this year we put in our first HPE Synergy platform. This month we're just putting in our second HPE Synergy platform. And Synergy gives us for compute what HPE 3PAR gave us for storage. The ability to change our mind, to be programmatic or autonomous with the deployment of resources for a customer need. And so for a public cloud environment, that's basically spinning up compute nodes as required for the demand within the clusters. But it also introduces by way of the technology capability, a new channel, or a new revenue opportunity. Because now we can actually programmatically spin up compute nodes of any flavor, for a customer in a private cloud environment. So this is physical tend to the customer opposed to virtual, you know, cloud. We can do that just as easily as we can a VN because of Synergy. >> And that's really exciting. I think what Bruce is really representing here is that he can focus on business outcomes for his customers. And you, Dave, you said it makes the infrastructure transparent. Transparent but underneath that is really differentiated capability and value like the ability to spin up and spin down composable infrastructure on demand. Like the ability to bring world class security to that infrastructure. So all of those things are underpinning the services that layerX is able to deliver. >> So I would think part of making Hybrid IT simple is not just throwing a bunch of products at your customers. >> Right. >> We heard on the last financial call that HPE is changing the way... >> Exactly. >> ...it reports. It's going to report hybrid IT, which is essentially your portfolio. >> Susan: Exactly. >> So it's server, storage, networking and relevant services around that >> That' right. >> Susan: And software. >> And software that powers all that, so talk about how you're going to market and how that aligns with how you guys want to buy. >> Yeah, well think about it from, let's talk about it from the layerX perspective. When you look at Synergy, that is not a piece of hardware, that is truly software defined intelligence built into innovative hardware. Based on our Gen 10 server platform, which in and of itself is the world's most secure industry standard server platform because we have built in silicon route of trust, and things like that, so what you get is all of that put together. All of that integrated. That software defined intelligence, the technology innovation, the infrastructure innovation. And wrappered with the services that both support the layerX company and their customers. >> Maybe talk about your customers a bit more. What are they really pushing you hard to do? What are the big challenges they face, and how are you addressing those? >> One of the most common conversations with cloud is obviously cost. Everyone's trying to commoditize this resource to the Nth degree every day, but the vGrid which is the our brand for our cloud platform, The vGrid position really is around performance and reliability and we back that up through HPE hardware platforms and a software stack that enables that. But our customers are really driving us to make sure that we stay relevant. Not only with that performance and reliability but still on cost. Even though we are giving them enterprise and beyond capabilities as an SMB, cost is still a major defective for an SMB. So for us to keep our overheads low we need automation. You know we're not going to go put in, no disrespect to the product line, but we're not going to go and put in maybe an Apollo or a CloudLine solution, we're going to stick with Synergy and previously the ProLion because of the added value wrapped around that that actually gives us the peace of mind and the operational efficiency through our engineering team to get the work done far more effectively. Now with Synergy takes it up to a whole new level because this is all composable now. My CTO mentioned to me the other day they just put in a new 8450 3PAR. And he said, "All I had to do "was create the CPG's in the 3PAR and OneView did the rest." He's like I don't have to go into all these other steps that he used to have to do. So, it saves time and time is expensive. Not only from a human resource point of view, but go to market speed. >> Well, converged hardware was about having a common set of support technologies. The whole notion of hyperconverge starting to converge the actual administrative tasks. But what I remember, the last time that I was in New Zealand and talked with large users, was a real emphasis on analytics because of New Zealand being an island with great resources in some respects and less resources in others, energy, telecommunications. How is the modern economy of New Zealand with some of the constraints that it faces driving the use of digital technology to lift up industry, services, and the quality of life in New Zealand? >> We're seeing that in a very far reaching kind of industry verticals. And more so now with obviously IOT's become a pretty hot topic, but IOT backed by all the smart and on-demand composable architecture is really making a difference to primary industries, making them more productive more effective, more efficient. But really the customers in New Zealand we're a nation of early adopters. We have 96% of our companies are six or less people. So, we're dealing with SMB's that have to box above their weight. They have to adapt, they have to do more with less. You know all of this cliches that really encumber the average small company, and we have a lot of them. So the demands from an IT perspective are give me what my enterprise counterparts have but at a per user, or resource unit per month kind of model so cloud just makes so much sense for them. >> Susan, big takeaways from Madrid? What do you want the world to walk away with? >> Well I think first of all, when we say we're going to help make hybrid IT simple, what we're talking about and really exemplified with layerX is we're talking about from the edge to the core to the cloud. So, really end to end. The other really exciting thing that we're here talking about is AI, artificial intelligence. Deep learning, machine learning. And you talked about it in the context of edge computing and IOT which is obviously super hot, but we are also bringing AI to the data center. So as we look at-- >> Peter: In other words, making data center operations, IT operations, >> Making the data center autonomous, self healing, self managing. You look at the automobile industry, autonomous cars, right? Well think about how that's going to be applied to autonomous data centers. That's what we're going to be talking about. >> Shoes for the cobbler's children. >> You got it. >> Well, and think about the impact that has on the business where you're allowing people not to spend money on whatever, lung provisioning, >> Right. >> And server management, but really focusing on some other more strategic aspects of their business whether it's digital transformation, AI, other data-oriented activities. >> Exactly. >> Sometimes the data has to be here and you want to make sure that when the data's there it has the same services are available to the business, >> Susan: Yes. >> to take advantage of that asset where it is. >> Real time analytics for the data that matters to our customers at the edge and in the cloud, as well as applying that same AI to the telemetry of the data center and using that to make the data center more efficient, more effective, more autonomous and self-healing. >> Awesome. So, keynotes are coming up very shortly. We'll be running those on our twitch channel twitch.com/siliconangle. You can check those out obviously at HPE as well, HPE.com Susan and Bruce, thanks very much for coming to theCUBE, >> Thank you so much, appreciate it. >> setting up the afternoon. Really appreciate your time. >> No problem. >> Thank you. >> Alright, keep right there buddy. We'll be back after the keynotes. This is theCUBE. We're live from HPE Discover, Madrid. (electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's the Cube, covering HPE Discover 2017. Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. (techno music) >> Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in Las Vegas for the Cube's exclusive three-day coverage, we're on day two of HPE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Discover 2017. I'm John Furrier, my cohost Dave Vellante. Our next guest is Susan Blocher, Vice President of Marketing, Data Center Infrastructure Group, part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Welcome back to the Cube, great to see you. >> Great to see you both again. >> So a lot of great stuff, so I want to just going to, a lot of buzz, Gen-10, a lot of new capabilities. Let's get right into it. Hard news, what's the update? What's going down at the show? >> We made the magic happen for this discoverer. It's just really exciting. So, hard news, we really focused on three areas for our customers: new levels of agility across their hybrid IT infrastructure, which means automation, better performance enhancements, taking things that used to be very manual and making them run sort of seamlessly, number one. Number two, security, and we're talking breakthrough security. So this is where we've been able to leverage some unique opportunities like the fact that we build our own silicane to put a silicane root of trust, or an immutable fingerprint, right into our silicane that can never be changed. That fingerprint will not let infected firmware startup. No matter, you know, as long as the firmware is the right firmware, it'll boot up seamlessly. If it's in any way been compromised you will, it will not let that server boot up. Super secure infrastructure. Last but not least, our customers were telling us economic control. We need economic control. We need cloud-like economics. We need pay-as-you-go. We need the ability to get capacity on demand. Those are the things that we really innovated on for this year. >> One of the things that's coming out, we had Bob Moran on the security thing. >> Yeah. >> And James Morrison >> Yes. >> I want to call him Jim Morrison >> Oh, exciting. >> I used to be >> I know. >> a big Doors fan. >> Yeah. >> I respect his name, I'm sure he gets that all the time. >> Yeah. The security on the silicane >> Yeah. >> is interesting to me because now you're seeing things like block changes, immutable environments wherevpeople have this trust relationship. That really hits the ransomeware side of things really in a big way. >> Susan: Yes. >> What else is that hitting? That is, to me, the big news, is that, is the security at the server-level because there's no perimeter anymore in this cloud-like environment, so this is kind of a cool way, explain more, just take minute to talk about the security piece because I think to me that's game-changer. >> It's super fascinating, and you know, I'm quoting somebody else, so I'm blatantly stealing somebody's line, but I was reading an article where somebody said firmware is a cesspool of Trojan horse opportunity for cyber attackers, and that took me aback because I was like, Boy, those are some strong words there, but really with all of the investment that companies have made over the years in data security, application security, network security, no one was focusing on the servers, and frankly, there's a million lines of code, and I'm sure Bob said that, there's a million lines of code booting up to get your servers up and running that no one has protected up until now. And so, we recognize about two years ago, that this was a huge threat, and increasing everyday, and boy, two years later, we're in the nick of time, to give customers really the peaace of mind of that security. >> One of the things that Wikibon just put out in terms of reports on research that I find fascinating that ties into this trend that I want to get your reaction on is, I think they're the only research firm that put this out actually, is they actually size the true private cloud market at about 260 billion, and that's not including the hybrid piece. That means, on-prem, cloud-like capabilities for on-premise data centers, which means, hey, that's not really going away, so it points to that narrative that, oh, data centers are moving to the cloud, so that's kind of probably not going to happen any time soon, but the cloud-like capabilities are there. But one of the interesting stats is that, is billions of dollars in cost-shift from labor, to hire differentiated, higher yield, or differentiated stuff inside the organization. So IT's not getting smaller, it's getting changing. >> Susan: That's right. >> So, how are you guys taking the Gen-10 and other things, and helping customers abstract away those tasks? >> Yeah, exactly. So look, all of our customers are really doing hybrid IT now, and so they're doing some things on-premise, they're doing some things off-premise, and frankly, it makes sense. But there's a tremendous amount of compromises that they have to make on both sides of the coin, and so what we've been talking about, a new compute experience, and that's really what we mean. It's not saying that you should have everything on-premise, or that you should move everything to the cloud. It's really saying, how do we give you the best end to end experience across agility, security, and economic control, so that the trade-offs that you're making, are not trade-offs on the pros or cons of those side loads of IT, but really looking at it from a what kind of business outcomes do I need to drive, and that's how I make my decisions. >> So, if you go back to around 2010, John, we were talking the Cube about a couple of observations. And it sort of coincided with the ascendancy of the public cloud. We said that the hyper-scale guys will spend time, engineering time, to save money, and then automate stuff, but the Enterprise guys, they'll spend money to save time. They don't have all of those engineering resources and we talked about that for a while, and it kind of got old and sort of boring. Fast-forward to 2017, and that's exactly what happened is vendors have put in a lot of effort to create cloud-like capabilities, and to John's point, is you're seeing a shift in staffing away from undifferentiated stuff, so talk about what that means for the data center infrastructure group, sort of how you position and how you talk to customers and message them about your role and how you add value. >> Yeah, absolutely. So look, first of all, we don't talk about just data center infrastructure. I think that's really where it starts because frankly, customers are talking about their data, they're talking about their applications, they're talking about how to bring intelligence to their hybrid IT experience, and so what we're talking to them about, is really how do we bring that together for them? We're talking about software-defined intelligence, how we're leveraging HPE One View to automate the deployment of applications across what could be a complex apology, but doing it absolutely in an automated seamless way. We're talking about how we're taking iLo and building the security in, but we're also doing things like intelligence system tuning where we're partnering with Intel and really figuring out how to take what is the Intel turbo-boost mode, from their processors, and make it even better. And so a lot of applications can't take advantage of the turbo-boost mode because there's a bit of when you hit that high frequency, you get a little bit of jitter, and that jitter creates latency, and so a lot of applications like core banking, video streaming, high frequency trading, they can't use turbo-mode because of that jitter that creates latency. We've been able to figure out, partnering with Intel, how to dampen a little bit of that speed, but still get turbo-mood and eliminate that jitter, so no latency. For the first time, these applications have been able to take advantage of turbo-mode. And what we figured out is even though we dampened it a little bit, they actually perform better with that little bit of dampening than they would've if we had shot them up with full turbo mode, right? So super exciting innovations with that. >> Sounds like Pied Piper. (laughter) >> But this is the kind of innovation that's going on in the systems world, and another observation we've seen on the Cube is, we go to a lot of events, is that systems is back. There's kind of an under current going on in the industry where hardware and operating systems folks are now part of big transformations, whether it's hyper-scale or in-service providor and Enterprise, so how are you guys looking at the compute differently if the notion of a server is shifting, and they're maybe consuming IT differently, where the channel partner might become a provider, and all these things are going on, how do you guys look at this new style of computer, our Meg says the changing landscape of compute. >> The changing landscape. It's all about really understanding our customers, and who they are, and how we can look at their unique needs and then segment our value and our portfolio toward them, so you talked about hyper-scale users, like service providers, cloud service providers, small and medium sized businesses, Enterprise customers, Telco environments, high-performance computing, super computing. What we realize is that one size does not fit all, and that's really what it comes down to, and that's one of the trade-offs of the public cloud environment, there's lots of good things about public cloud, but one of the trade-offs is it's kind of commodity hardware and one size fits all, but if you're trying to do any kind of mission critical applications, like I said, high frequency trading, you need super computing capabilities, you need deep analytics, machine-learning, whatever the case might be, it's not... You really need to specialize the infrastructure, and HPE is right there working with our customers regardless of their needs and their segments, we've got the solutions that will help them do that. >> So one of the things I'm inferring from some of your comments, I want to ask you about marketing. I always struggle with marketing. (laughter) You're shifting the message from product, product, product to business impact. >> Susan: Yes! >> Okay, that's clear. What else is working in marketing these days? It's never one silver bullet, but there's belly to belly, there's events like this, there's obviously old-school email marketing, there's social media. What are you finding as a marketing problem? >> We talk a lot about digital transformation for our customers, but digital transformation has come to marketing, so that's the biggest thing. We have made a huge shift at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in digital marketing. So everything that we're doing, even an event like this, which is physical, but it used to be kind of a one-off. We do all this prep, and then the week would go by, and it would disappear, and that would be the end of it. We're learning to build snackable content assets that have life after life after life, we're really embracing the social media, we've built a whole new digital marketing platform, we've shifted from what I would call traditional demand generation into really reaching our customers through digital marketing in every country globally. Huge, amazing metamorphosis, and frankly, with the announcement of the new HPE compute experience, and the Gen-10 platform, and the world's most secure industry-standard servers, it is the perfect timing of bringing all of this incredible innovation of technology to market at the same time that we're innovating around marketing, so the next 12 months, it's going to be super exciting. >> Eating your own innovations, if it were. >> That's right, that's right. >> Congratulations on the Gen-10 launch, and all the great goodness you guys got going on the security thing, a big deal. >> A big deal. >> Looking forward to following up on that further after the show, to keep it going. Certainly, there's digital aspects here in the Cube will be available on Youtube.com, slash and the name of course, the Cube Gems and highlights, all available. Thanks so much for joining us on the Cube, really appreciate it, more live coverage from HP Discover 2017. After this short break, stay with us. I'm John Furrier with my co-host Dave Vellante. We'll be right back. (techno music)