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Jason Thomas, Cole, Scott & Kissane | CUBEConversation, October, 2019


 

(upbeat music) >> From the SiliconANGLE media office, in Boston Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. (upbeat music) Now, here's your host, Dave Vellante. >> Hi everybody, welcome to this cube conversation. This is part of our CIO series and Jason Thomas is here, he's the CIO of Cole, Scott, and Kissane. CSK is Florida's largest civil defense law firm. Cube along Jason Thomas, great to see you again, thanks for coming on. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> So, let's talk a little bit about, the firm. largest firm in Florida, the focus is on Civil Defense, so you got lawyers, you got paralegals running around, you got demanding clients. What's the business like that's driving your technology strategy? >> so when I I'm new to legal, so this, I've been here about almost four years now, so I started January. a whole different world. I came from, from Startup Biotech, that line of business and a completely different animal. it's some of what you imagine, very always on the go, very busy, lot of business, we open dozens of cases a day, new cases, so a lot of things going on. >> Really event driven? >> Yeah very, very busy, so and you know technology's, you know the firm has taken stance that, technology is very important, to the firm and, we want to use the best technology possible, to make us as efficient as possible, so that's the chief driver, for tech at the law firm. >> So tech, you know, 15 years ago, whatever it was like, take an email to SaaS, right? So, but I would imagine you're focusing a lot on just attorney and employee productivity, maybe collaboration, document management, compliance. Are those some of the hot topics? And how are you applying technology to deal with those? >> Yep, so that is a big drive, efficiency, using technology to be efficient, and to make our folks productive. What we don't want to see, and that you see sometimes, you throw a whole bunch of technology at folks thinking that it's going to make them efficient and productive, and actually, it could be the greatest technology in the world for one place, and apply it, and you put it in another firm, and it makes us unproductive, so that's kind of the magic there. Kind of a trick to figuring out, what is it that actually is going to make us productive? >> Are there pretty clear swim lanes in your firm? Or is there a lot of shadow IT going on? Because I would imagine a lot of the frustration of, you know, IT folks is, you get the shadow IT, they bring in a point product, and that IT goes, "CIO's calling clean up this crime scene," and is that a problem in your firm specifically? Or even your industry? Or is it pretty much hey, let the tech folks figure out what the right tool for the job is? >> so in my mind the trick here is, it's not going to be any one person, or any practice group that's going to define what's the best option, what's the best tech. I mean thankfully for me, I do try and drive most of the tech out the firm, but the key is, you have to understand how the business runs. Just because it's cool tech, or it's working at one firm, doesn't mean it's going to apply or work in others. So, I spent a lot of time, in conversations with, a lot of the partners and associates. I try to make myself available as much, just to chat, see what they're doing. see what could make them more efficient. Sometimes if you don't ask, they don't even tell you, but if you ask the question, you can learn a lot in 20 minutes from somebody. And that kind of helps me decide, okay, what is going to make sense, or what's the next thing I should be looking at, to help folks out. >> So basically, Columbo questions, for those of you who remember Columbo, kind of ask your basic questions? What about work flow, how do you spend your time? What kinds of questions would you ask attorneys? >> honestly they could be calling about something completely unrelated to what, you know, what I'm thinking. It just could be as simple as, "Hey I'm this thing with this program where I'm trying to do X and this is the way we're doing now. Is there a better way to do it?" Or, it could be as simple as, we just kind of fall into the conversation based on other things. You know. They just want to talk to somebody sometimes. But they're not necessarily going to bring it up, or just don't have the time, they don't have the time. >> So a lot of times in theCUBE we get caught up, We love the tech, we talk about data science, and machine learning, and block chains and everything else, but then there's this basic blocking and tackling, that the CIO has to worry about. I wondered if you could share your perspectives based on your experience, just in terms of, some of the advice you might give to, organizations that are maybe growing, maybe haven't had the experience of a CIO that's been around the block, maybe in different industries? But some of the basic blocking and tackling that you see, that maybe doesn't happen in organizations, that really needs to happen. >> the expectation, or when you're thinking about, thinking about what the next thing is for the firm, or for your company, you also want to kind of think, you want to think long term as well. You want to think three to five years out. So, if we do this now and based on our current, growth projections, will this work for us in three years? Will this work for us in five years? Or what's our game plan? Maybe we start small, and, expand from there, but you don't want to just plan for the immediate you want to plan for the future. That's kind of, I think that's what CIO should be doing. It's not just about the tech, or is it going to work in our environment, but is it going to work for us down the road. Because we don't want, nobody, CFOs don't want to hear, and CEOs don't want to hear that, hey, yeah we just bought this thing last year, but, yeah we're going to have to buy something new now because it doesn't work anymore. >> But it does happen sometimes? >> It happens all the time, you know. >> Right, I remember, it goes a ways back now, but the federal rules of civil procedure, I think it was 2006, and everybody was rushing to plug holes because the courts ruled that electronic material was evidentiary, for whatever, seven years or something. So everybody was like okay, we need to have a system that allows us to comply. So, they went out and bought email archiving systems, which they knew they were going to have to throw away in three or four year. So how do you deal with it? Do you face that? Especially in a compliance oriented world, and you just try to sort of balance the cost and the throw away nature of that initiative with something more strategic? How do you deal with that? And how do you communicate that to the powers that be? >> Number one, no one likes to be held at gunpoint, number one, and especially my boss, so. I mean he gets it right, I mean there's regulations. But I will say, nothing happens as fast as everyone says it's going to happen. so there's always that idea. There's always this panic, oh we've got to put this in, and honestly I feel like tech folks use an excuse, and of course I do too. Say like, oh you all this is awesome. You know, we get to put something new in and, you know no one's going to say no and, it's not always the best approach, and again you kind of have to look at it long term, holistically for the business. You know, what is really going to happen in a few years? Is this technology going to even be a thing in a few years? Or is it just like, just to satisfy an immediate solution? Because again, I don't want, the last thing I hate doing is putting something in and telling my boss that it has to be replaced. He hates hearing that, and I don't want to tell him that either, quite frankly it's embarrassing. >> I don't blame your boss. >> Yeah it's embarrassing, it's just, let's do it right the first time. >> How do you do planning? I mean obviously there's a technology component, of planning, but I'm inferring from what you say that the end of technology is kind of the, the last thing you should be worrying about. You should be worried about the direction of the firm, the business, the growth plan, how do you do, as CIO, planning and how do you align that with the business? >> conversations, so lots of conversations. Lots of conversations with the attorneys. continued conversations with my boss, the CEO, and sometimes I'm not really great about it sometimes. And, you know, weeks will go by, you know, and I won't even have a conversation with him, about what's going on, and he wants to know what's going on. He doesn't understand all of it, but in those, you know, 15, 20 minute conversations, you'll be surprised what you'll learn. What's going on in the business that you didn't, or I didn't know about, and from there I can make decisions about, you know, six months from now, or next year, or during budgeting season, what it is that we need because, budgeting season is not really the time that you need to try and figure out what you want to do for next year. You want to have a plan months before that. You know, You already want to have kind of an idea of what you want to do, I mean, I've been talking to my CFO since, the beginning of summer about things we want to do for 2020. you know, six months, nine months, ahead of time, so. >> So, do you do basically annual planning? Do you try to look out further? Do you formally document that stuff? >> Every quarter, so we have, we kind of have most of the conversations with our, with my CFO and COO. every quarter we have kind of a list of projects/ what is it we want to do for the next couple quarters. We just kind of, track that and based on what we're seeing and how we do, then we, basically we plan each quarter, is how it comes down to. And we have a, we'll call it a white board, a virtual white board of what we're doing and what we want to do. >> But relatively near the midterm planning, you know doing like five year plannings though right? >> No. >> Waste of time to try to do that, or? At least in your business, maybe in pharmaceuticals? >> At least for us it was really, it's hard for us, to do that because of how quickly we grew over the last, again I've only been here almost four years, but even when I started, in 2015, I think we had somewhere around 300 plus attorneys. Now we're somewhere in the 475 range, I'm not saying no one saw that happening, but I don't think we expected that. I mean business has been great and we're happy, and we're fortunate to have it, but you can only plan so much. but do the best you can with the data you have. >> And for organization structure, you report to the CFO, is that correct? >> CEO. >> CEO? Okay so the, so you're a peer essentially of the CFO, is that right? >> Yeah. >> So you talk to the CFO about budgeting? >> Yeah. >> So you've got the CEO's >> More of the nitty gritty you know the details and numbers. >> What's that conversation like? Is it obviously you've got to justify, show a business case, or is it more sort of hate space? >> So here's the good news. I got lucky again. the CFO is very technology forward and so he understands that it drives a lot of efficiencies within the firm. So he gets it but he's been in the history long enough to get it and knows that we can, again he's efficiency a lot, but there's just a lot of efficiencies, and a lot of inefficiencies seen in a lot of what folks do in law firms that no one takes the time to sit down and say okay why do you do it like this? there's got to be a better way. Well this is the way I just do it, and so, we've been able to kind of adjust a lot of those work flows, or change those work flows to make it more cost effective for the business. Like even things simple as, just manage print service, you know, do we store 100 toners in the back somewhere and then wait for someone to, say that they're out of toners? That's not very efficient. and it's very expensive actually, so you put in a much more efficient process in place for toners. Because we're a paperless firm, but you know, I mean we still have to print, so. >> So, the joke about the paperless office was something like paperless bathroom. So, the other way around, I want to ask you about security. Are you the defacto Chief Information Security Officer, or do you have a CISO, or? >> I do not have a CISO that is me, so that'll be me. >> So, that is you. Alright so let's talk security. So, what is the state of security and as you see it? it's constantly evolving. Security practitioners tell us that they got so many tools, they got, they might have a SEC ops team, you may or may not, it may be something embedded in your team, but they've got to respond, they've got to respond, sometimes it's hard to figure out what they should respond to, prioritization, the data, keeping up with the bad guys, all that stuff. What's your state of security? >> so I think these days, it's not really, it's not really about having the best firewall, or the best, outside protection, so I think a lot of the attacks that are happening now, not that they don't happen form the outside, but a lot of it is a lot of social engineering, and a lot of everything. They're taking advantage of the the ignorance of the users, for lack of a better way to say it, so a lot of it's coming in through email, malicious links, and they're taking advantage of the inside, and bad practices, and bad policies, and/or lack of So, I think based on what we see in the news now, and what you read about, it seems like there's a breech every week somewhere. And when it comes down to it you find out that X company didn't, didn't use a strong hashing. For assaulting, on the hashes for their passwords. Like simple simple, just basic basic stuff. It's not like some massive operation like you see in a movie where you know, they're making this big plan to break in a building and it pans out and they're sneaking in you know, from the ceiling and all that kind of stuff. They're just basic stuff, they're just passwords. How can passwords, reused passwords, just databases of passwords everywhere, out in the dark where you can just buy, and they're just utilizing simple stuff like that. It's not even complicated anymore, it's just, it's a lot of social engineering. >> Often times I say that bad user behavior trumps good security every time, I wanted to ask you about the state of the self security in the industry. So you are reinforced, we were there, and Steven Schmidt stood up and he said, "Look at this narrative from the vendor community that says security is broken, isn't productive. It hurts the industry at the same time." I was at VM world recently a couple months ago, last month actually, Pat Kelsinger basically stood up and said security is broken and we're here to fix it, they bought, you know made a big acquisition of carbon black a local company, so you have these two different, you know, polarizing opinions, I don't necessarily feel like the state of security is great. I look back every year I say do I feel more secure or not, you know remember art cove yellow, every year RSA would write his letter. but what are your thoughts on that? Are you basically saying hey, it's, a lot of times it's user behavior, it's things that maybe, you know it's education, is security a do over? I guess is my question. >> A do over in the sense that I think it just comes out to basic education. I have, you'd be, we're in tech and we understand security and we have all these grand ideas and technologies and vendors and software that we use to do different things on all these fancy dashboards. But, if you ask the basic person off the street about, I think I saw a skit on Twitter the other day and you know there was this guy going around asking them, asking people, you know, what's your Facebook password, or you know how complex is it and they'll just give them their passwords and stuff you know, and I mean there's just a lack of basic education, so all us security buffs walk around, and they don't understand what we're talking about, but they don't need to understand what we're talking about. We just need to be able to look, to just have a basic security awareness and training with folks. I have a friend who works in industry, or in a nonprofit that does, that helps folks who've been you know kind of, harassed or abused online. And she's saying, she's telling me, she's like, "Look you guys are great you're really smart, but these folks, they don't know the basic stuff like hey you know someone keeps logging into my internet, and I keep seeing someone, you know, these weird things in my yard, like cameras in my yard and, can I do this with my phone, and oh well I can't use, like, my dogs name for my Facebook password? Like this is just basic stuff that nobody knows. It's not because they're stupid it's just, they just don't know." And so, like we're up here, and your average everyday person is just on this level. >> How about ransom ware? Obviously a hot topic in the business. what should people be, what should they know and what should they be doing? >> at a basic level security ware is training, it's very simple to do, there's a lot of, no that I'm, pushing products there's plenty of products out there. Secure great ones that kind of help your user, or teach them what not to do, or what to look for. we run a fishing campaign in our firm every once in a while and at this point no one clicks on anything without asking. I mean I get direct emails and I say hey, how's this look? Does it look like I should click it or, you know, does it look legit, I mean it's great. They ask now, they know not to do it. Whereas, I mean that's how they get you. That's how they get most of these places. Especially from we get a lot of, we constantly hear about small firms or smaller clients/companies getting hacked, we constantly get emails from them all the time. They'll get hacked and then we'll get the the emails with the links or whatever. that's one on the user side. On the IT side, we just really need to take it back to the basics, let's make sure we have, backups, and a backup policy, and a data protection policy, and an instant response plan. Let's have a plan here, let's not react when something happens, let's just have a plan. Honestly at our firm, we do have backups, we have layered strategy, but there's just some basic things that we don't do, like you know, IT folks, we don't, we don't keep things on our desktop. Let's start with us, you know we're supposed to be the leadership, in this regard, so let's not keep stuff on our desk let's keep stuff on the network. Let's keep it protected. Make sure it's part of the backup schedule. things like that, I think you just start there, because I was you know, I was just reading about, there's an article that came out yesterday, I think it was Washington Post, and it was talking about the ransomer incident in Baltimore a few months ago. They're just now finding out that the, even the IT folks had stuff on their local computers that couldn't be recovered, important documentation. So, this is just data protection 101. You know, we've got to take it back to the basics, take it back. >> Last question, is just kind of your career, so you mentioned before, you were in, I think you said health care, or? >> Yeah so I worked with MSP, so I worked with a lot of start ups. >> So, how'd you get here how'd you become a CIO? People out there may be, you know people in tech, they aspire perhaps to stay in tech, but they want maybe more of a management role. What was your path, and what kind of advice would you give them? >> what I would say is, so it worked out where, I was I was a lead at the company I was at here in Mass at the time, and so long story short my wife had an opportunity in Orlando, we moved, and I said I would never work for a law firm, ever. because I was, when my current boss found out I was coming we have a, a long relationship. When I was in, grew up in Florida and so part of that yeah, okay so I was in the right place at the right time and I knew somebody, that's why it's important to stay on top of networking. Always be networking, not for any other reason, just get to know people, you know. the tough thing that I had growing in the industry, I didn't get involved early on, which I should've. I should've gone to events, things like that. Get to know folks because if the people don't know you, why are they going to hire you? It's easier to get in somewhere, or get an opportunity, if they at least know you, or know your name, or know somebody that knows you. That's number one, so I'm big on that. as soon as I moved back here I've already started, I have quarterly lunches with some of the CIOs at different firms, I just put myself put there. Just hey I'm here, want to get together for lunch? It's that simple. number two make sure this is what you want to do, it's a lot of it, and you hear this all the time, a lot of it has to do with personalities and people. You're managing personalities and people half the time. You are not just doing the tech. If you think you're just going to be doing tech, or you're just going to be doing cool stuff, not the case. So, make sure you can, you know, make sure you know what you're getting into because it's, it's very challenging. >> Now that's great, great advice, so network, it's not, I like to say it's not who you know it's who knows you, so get out there. And then, Love it because, a lot of times I would imagine it's thankless. Right, you hear, >> Yep. >> You hear a lot of the chatter when something goes wrong, >> It's like a defense of a football team, you know, it's fine until, >> Until somebody scores. >> And someone gets sacked you know what I mean, otherwise no one cares. >> Alright Jason well thanks for the update, really appreciate you coming on theCUBE again. >> Thank you. >> Alright you're welcome, alright keep it right there buddy. We will be back with our next segment, right after this short break. (mood music)

Published Date : Oct 1 2019

SUMMARY :

From the SiliconANGLE media office, Cube along Jason Thomas, great to see you again, so you got lawyers, you got paralegals running around, it's some of what you imagine, very always on the go, and you know technology's, So tech, you know, 15 years ago, whatever it was like, in the world for one place, and apply it, and you put it the key is, you have to understand how the business runs. completely unrelated to what, you know, But some of the basic blocking and tackling that you see, just plan for the immediate you want to plan for the future. and you just try to sort of balance the cost and it's not always the best approach, and again you kind of let's do it right the first time. the business, the growth plan, how do you do, as CIO, What's going on in the business that you didn't, most of the conversations with our, with my CFO and COO. but do the best you can with the data you have. in law firms that no one takes the time to So, the other way around, I want to ask you about security. So, what is the state of security and as you see it? the dark where you can just buy, a local company, so you have these two different, you know, I think I saw a skit on Twitter the other day and you know what should people be, what should they know and that we don't do, like you know, IT folks, we don't, a lot of start ups. and what kind of advice would you give them? just get to know people, you know. I like to say it's not who you know it's who knows you, And someone gets sacked you know what I mean, really appreciate you coming on theCUBE again. We will be back with our next segment,

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Jason Thomas, Cole, Scott & Kissane | CUBEConversation, October, 2019


 

[Announcer] From the SiliconANGLE Media office in Boston, Massachusetts. It's the CUBE. Now, here's your host Dave Vellante. >> Hi everybody, welcome to this CUBE conversation. We're here again with Jason Thomas who is the CIO of Cole, Scott and Kissane, CSK, Law Firm in Florida. And we're going to talk tech a little bit and specifically going to focus a little bit on the infrastructure, architecture, some of the tools and products that Jason is using. How he is applying technology. Good to see you again, Jason. Thank you for coming on. >> Thank you. >> So we know about your law firm. Largest civil defense law firm in Florida. Very fast growing. You know, I think you said 400 plus attorneys, right? So, growing for the last three or four years from about 300 or so, right? So very fast growing, dynamic. Doing awesome, that's great. Congratulations. I want to talk about your infrastructure. So, paint us a picture of what your shop looks like. And we'll get into it. >> Yup, so I am very big on centralization. So, when I first arrived at the firm we had a lot of data sprawl is the best way to put it. You know, just kind of servers everywhere. Different offices. And I said the first thing we need to do is take all of this. We need to get everything in the data center. That's just going to make life much easier, as much as possible. So, at this point all we really see in any given office is a main controller and a print server. That's it. And, other than that, everything else is in the data center where we use Pure Storage on the back end for our SAN, for our high performance type applications. For our document management where we've moved or in the process of moving all of that to the Cloud. That's much more efficient that way. Sitting on an all FlashArrays is not, does not make sense as far as PDFs and word documents go you are not going to see the crush or data reduction there. And so, we've got that there so, we've got kind of a multi-layer strategy. Not to say that I'm paranoid, but I'm kind of paranoid when it comes to data protection and data loss. And so we started as simple as our file servers, for example, we have shadow copies enabled. That's the simplest, it's free. So, if someone deletes a random file or something, rather than going to our, we don't even have to go to our backup system. We just take a look, some snapshots, go back and restore that. If it's, you know, something simple like that. That way, even if we wanted to let an end user restore a file, we could, but we handle that. >> So it's not self-serve. >> Yeah, it's not self-serve but we do it for them. But, it's a basic tech can do that. You don't have to call the system admin to handle that. Anything further than that, then yeah, we go to the backups and then part of our backup... Our next step in our backup strategy, we are a Rubrik shop, so we have a brick, a brick as they call it in our data, in our backup data center. We have another data center just for backups. So, that all gets stored. The Rubrik, it's completely immutable, and it's got decent retention on that. So... >> Did you bring in RubriK, or was it there? >> I brought in Rubrik, yeah. >> OK, why did you bring in Rubrik? >> We were using, and you had mentioned earlier in the segment, when we started out, we were much smaller than we were years ago. We were using a product that was probably geared more towards SMB, and we needed something a little more enterprise. So, we brought in Rubrik a couple of years ago. >> OK. >> And we've done some, we haven't had to use it, thankfully haven't had to use it much. It's there and we do obviously do testing on it on a regular basis. I have spun up a VM on it which is awesome that I might personally ruined a VM myself it wouldn't boot But luckily it was a test VM so I was able to spin one up there. So it works as advertised. It's awesome, very fast. And then we've also got another data center outside the state of Florida where we have another, basically, it's basically a replica or duplicate of what we have in our main data center and we replicate Pure to Pure. We have another Pure Storage unit in that data center and we use their replication technology and snap-shotting to put everything there as well. >> OK, and what about the network? What's that look like? >> So, we have, right now we have thirteen offices now and they're all on MPLS private network and we've got secondary and third internet connections for backup or internet in general. We're looking at some type of SD-WAN strategy, it means a lot of things to a lot of folks, but for us we like to kind of take advantage of those secondary and third connections and create our own kind of private network if we have an issue with the MPLS. >> And you're a VMware shop, right? >> Yup. >> And you're also, you put stuff in the Cloud. What's your Cloud provider? >> Yup, so, and then our kind of final layer in that, part of that strategy, is I did want to have the option and look in the future to put, to replicate to the Cloud, so I got in touch with Clumio, they're pretty new, new on the street, but the CEO and I know a few of the folks there from other industries and other places and I have a lot of trust in what they're doing. Basically, we are basically replicating all our servers to the AWS Cloud using Clumio, so it's... it integrates in the vCenter and basically sends all of the date up to the AWS cloud. And so, I get the same type of retention as a Rubrik. We get seven years retention, and it's immutable as well, so that's my, kind of my backup of the back up plan. In the future, who knows. We may not even need the DR site anymore. We may just go straight, if we need a failover, we just failover to AWS vCenter in the Cloud. We've got our Clumio backups there and we have the ability to spin up VMs there as well. >> So, okay. So you've got a VMware running on AWS. >> mm-hm >> And that's what you're using in Clumio to protect correct. And why Clumio and not Rubrik if you are a Rubrik shop? >> The management piece. The simplicity of the interface. It's...I like the way they manage everything for you, so you don't even need to have agents on the servers. You basically, it's under their account, you simply install a appliance locally in your environment, a virtual appliance, and they take care of the rest. And you're just presented with an interface, a GUI interface to do whatever, whether it is to do restores, or monitor, or check up on the indexing of the data. That's all, it's pretty simple. There's really not much to do. It's the simplicity of the solution that was really attractive and it's in my mind, it's a no brainer as far as cost and effectiveness. >> And, it's Pure SaaS model is my understanding, >> Pure SaaS. >> Correct? So you're not installing any hardware or >> Nope, no hardware. No agents. It's simply an integration into vCenter and you just let it do it's thing. And that's it. >> It's interesting, I mean you look at the history of SaaS. It kind of started with CRM, kind of went from CBL, to Salesforce, you had Exchange, went to Gmail, and then eventually Office 365. You saw ServiceNow actually took a while, they kind of disrupted BMC, but that took about, you know a decade. Workday was much faster, right? Workday took, who was it... PeopleSoft I guess was the main HR product. So do you feel like a backup is next, or sort of this hybrid world, this mix of sort of on-prem backup folks, and traditional backup and SaaS, or do you think like many of these other, not that these other companies go away, I mean Teradata's going to be doing still well. You have Snowflake disrupting them. But do you see the SaaS backup as something that's going to have legs? >> Yeah, because when you talk about Cloud, it's still, depending on what you want to do, putting your entire infrastructure on the Cloud, it, I mean, it's expensive. You, everyone is preaching Cloud, Cloud, Cloud, but you kind of have to look at it and say, okay, does it really make, from a cost perspective, it doesn't always make sense. It's very expensive to spend above the Azure or AWS. You know once, once you put all the storage and compute costs. But, things like backup, it totally makes sense, and honestly it's been going on at least a decade right, between Carbonite and Mozy and all these players >> Sure, right, and Endpoint. >> You know, so people have been doing it, I mean, Clumio, what they have done has just taken it to the Enterprise and they're taking advantage of different storage tiers in Amazon. I mean, it's not, there's nothing, there's nothing complex I would say, or they didn't come up with something amazing. They just figured, they took something and made... >> Don't tell that to the engineers (jovial laughter) >> I'm sure, listen guys, I'm sure there's a lot of complexity to the engineering behind it, but basically all they've done is put a nice interface on top of something, and they've taken all the complexity out of, you know, setting up your own AWS account. And managing all your buckets. And all that, you know. They're handling, taking care of all of that and doing it for you, basically. And how they do it, you know, I don't know. But definitely different storage tiers and mixes of that to make all of that happen. But they just make it super simple and super affordable, is the other piece. It's very affordable in my mind as opposed to other directions I could go with Cloud backup. >> Yeah, you've mentioned that a couple of times. First, it's amazing to me how, it's like you're compressing the innovation cycles and backup. I mean it was. It just feels like recently you were Cohesity, Rubrik, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was all about simplicity... >> Yup. >> And they, each of those companies, as I'm sure Veritas and Dell EMC, and Commvault. They all have Cloud plays, right, so I'm still trying to understand what's different about Clumio. It sounds like it's Pure SaaS, that's a different.. I mean you've mentioned cost a few times. Maybe add some color to that. >> They basically done, what they've done they've taken what Rubrik has done. So I'll back up to when I first look at Rubrik. Basically, the phone call that I got was "Hey man, I'm telling you this is like totally disruptive and it's going to blow you away." And I'm like "Dude. It's backups. You're not going to blow my mind. Give me a break." And he's like, "Just give me a chance." And I was like, "All right, all right. Come in and blow my mind." And literally I was like man, why didn't I think of this. >> It blew your mind. >> It blew my mind. (laughter) And I was like literally like... You put a web interface on top of the entire thing and you basically have to do nothing. It does all the indexing. It's like a search. If I want to search for a file, I just simply type the name of the file like I would in Google, and it just searches across. I don't have to know where it exists. I just need to know that it's there. And basically, what Clumio has done, they've just taken that and just put it into the Cloud. They've done this similar thing: they index all of your VMs, and then if I need to restore a file or search for something, I just type the name of the file and it says here's all of the hits that I got, what do you want to restore? You know, where as, I remember back in the day, or more like two years ago, if you needed to restore something, you kind of, okay, where was it? What was the location? What was the exact path? And you got to go D drive, and this folder and this folder. There's none of that anymore even. It's just they've even taken the work out of that so you don't even need... the same reason we went with Pure is you don't need a storage admin and you don't really need a backup admin, per se. You don't need a person spending a lot of time, or devoting a lot of time to the process. It just works. You don't need a babysitter is what it comes down to. So where as, you have one of these legacy type storage arrays or backup systems, you have to babysit it. Nobody has time to babysit that. >> So they've abstracted all of that complexity away and it's going to be interesting to see how the industry responds. It's like the NFL, this industry is a copycat industry, and so at the same time they have a big install base. And people don't generally like to migrate, right, off of something to something else. >> So here's, so what I'll say to that is, and that part stinks, no one likes to migrate off of anything but you're not really migrating off of anything. You don't really have to do much. You just pop something in, you just pop an appliance in, and it really takes care of the rest, like even with Rubrik and Clumio, once you pop that appliance in your environment, hardware or virtual, it integrates integrating into your vCenter environment and it knows what's in there and just asks you, "Hey, which of these do you want to back up; What kind of policy do you want on; how often do you want to backup?" And you just check a box, check boxes. >> So Clumio is not physical hardware? >> No, it's virtual. >> Virtual appliance. >> I think it's like does the management on-prem, it's kind of like a data mover of sorts. >> Today, it's just narrow, right? It's VMware on AWS. >> Correct. >> Presumably there's a road map there. >> I believe there's a road map for my understanding. I would have to think so. I'm not, I'm kind of Cloud agnostic as far as who the player is. Whether it's AWS, Azure, or TCP. But I have colleagues who, they're an Azure shop and that's what we do. And I get that, and so I would imagine, I understand that they probably have Azure and TCP on the road map. >> Well they raised a bunch of dough so I'm sure they've got a road map. >> They've got to do something with it, right. (jovial laughter) Because the backup is so simple, so there's not a lot of engineering. >> Okay. So you don't have a dedicated storage admin or backup admin. >> No. >> Did you used to? >> Before I got there, there was no SAN actually, so there was no storage, but yes, there was a lot of time spent on the backup piece. Managing the backups. Just monitoring it, make sure things were... a lot of time devoted to that. Now there's not a lot of time spent on that. >> And was it qualified people doing it or was it lawyers and paralegals doing the backup? >> Definitely lawyers. (jovial laughter) So yeah, it was our sys-admins. Now they worry about other stuff that's important. >> What do they worry about? How have you shifted that resource? >> A lot of our focus now is moving to exchange in the Cloud. Office 365. So there's quite a bit of work that goes into that, especially given our, some integrations that we have with our case management software and all that. So there's a lot time being devoted to that right now. So our plan is to move next year. >> Okay. So a lot of tactical stuff that you have to get done. >> Yup. >> Last question. I always love to ask this. Things that vendors do that drive you crazy, that you want to tell them "stop doing this?" >> There is not, everyone has a solution for something, and not everybody needs that solution for your one niche. I mean, you go to some of these conferences now and there's billions of vendors, well not billions, but there's just dozens and dozens of vendors and it's almost like some of them are just kind of monetizing that one little thing that I don't really need. So, backups. I need Cloud backups. Storage. I need storage. Outside of that, there's just... and the best way to put it is that I've talked to some colleagues and they're just going through what we like to call vendor fatigue. It's just continuous. It's just all of the time. Someone always has a solution for something. It's not that I don't want anybody to do something, but your solutions are just not for everybody. And it just doesn't work. >> Well the thing is that you're getting pitched all the time and you're experienced. So look at, tell me what it is, what it does, what it costs, and give me five minutes and I'll tell you if it fits my business or not. If it does, I'm going to want to know more. If it doesn't, hey, respect my time. >> Yeah. Usually it's for me, I'm approaching them, I'm approaching a vendor for a solution, not the other way around. If you're approaching me, I'm probably, yeah, I don't have time to answer every call or email. I try to. But usually it's me saying, "hey, we need something for this." And then every once in a while you'll get a Rubrik or Clumio or a Pure come around and well that looks cool. >> Now, is that going to blow your mind? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, sure. >> But then you find out. >> If it doesn't, then I owe you dinner. All right, all right. >> Then they blow your mind. And that happens. Remember, I'm not saying that doesn't happen. It's just very rare. >> Well a big part of this is that so much venture capital has poured into the tech business in the last ten years. And what do they do with that VC: they promote. They hire sales people. >> Yup. >> They hire go to market so they're under a lot of pressure and are churning through those guys. So they're calling guys like you, trying to get you in a headlock to buy something. It sounds like sometimes it's counter-productive. >> Yeah, I get it, and that's their job that they have to do. I have a policy, I try to answer every email, at least, "I can't" or "I'm not interested." At least that much. I try not to ignore folks, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. >> Good, well thank you for sharing all that insight, Jason. It's great to have you back on. >> Yeah, thank you. >> All right, welcome. All right, thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante from the CUBE. See you next time. (upbeat music)

Published Date : Oct 1 2019

SUMMARY :

It's the CUBE. Good to see you again, Jason. You know, I think you said 400 plus attorneys, And I said the first thing we need to do You don't have to call the system admin to handle that. and you had mentioned earlier in the segment, and we use their replication technology and snap-shotting it means a lot of things to a lot of folks, And you're also, you put stuff in the Cloud. and look in the future to put, to replicate to the Cloud, So you've got a VMware running on AWS. And why Clumio and not Rubrik if you are a Rubrik shop? so you don't even need to have agents on the servers. and you just let it do it's thing. I mean you look at the history of SaaS. it's still, depending on what you want to do, I mean, Clumio, what they have done has just taken it to the Enterprise and they've taken all the complexity out of, you know, It just feels like recently you were Cohesity, Rubrik, Maybe add some color to that. and it's going to blow you away." the same reason we went with Pure is you don't need and it's going to be interesting and so at the same time they have a big install base. and it really takes care of the rest, it's kind of like a data mover of sorts. Today, it's just narrow, right? And I get that, and so I would imagine, I understand so I'm sure they've got a road map. They've got to do something with it, right. a lot of time devoted to that. So yeah, it was our sys-admins. So there's a lot time being devoted to that right now. So a lot of tactical stuff that you have to get done. that you want to tell them "stop doing this?" I mean, you go to some of these conferences now and I'll tell you if it fits my business or not. I don't have time to answer every call or email. If it doesn't, then I owe you dinner. And that happens. And what do they do with that VC: trying to get you in a headlock to buy something. Yeah, I get it, and that's their job that they have to do. It's great to have you back on. All right, thank you for watching everybody.

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Jason Thomas, Cole, Scott & Kissane | Pure Accelerate 2019


 

>> from Austin, Texas. It's Theo Cube covering your storage accelerate 2019. Brought to you by pure storage. How >> do you all how to do Dave Great Legal garden with you? Yes, I am Lisa Martin with David Lantana. And can you guess we're in Texas were at pure Accelerate 2019 Day one of our coverage here and the Buzzy Expo Hall. Pleased to welcome one of Pierre's customers to the Q B of Jason Thomas, the CEO of Coal, Scott Hussein or C. S K Legal Jason. Welcome to the program. So talk to us a little bit about si es que legal. You're based out of Florida. You're CEO. Give us a little bit of a picture of the law firm, your I T environment and your role. ISS leader of information >> So cold, Scott is saying, >> has been around >> 20 plus years. I joined about three and 1/2 years ago, Um, and we have now this one. We have 13 officers. We just opened up 13th office. We're the largest law firm in Florida currently, and only in Florida. Interestingly enough, I actually live and work out of Boston, but you know, these days there's no reason why you can't work remote. I go, they're off enoughto needed. >> You can avoid the hurricanes by living in >> a snowstorm over >> hurting any >> day because I've been a >> good pro sports in Boston. Better, better college sports in Florida. >> Yeah, No one cares about college sports. >> Best of both worlds. All right, so we're here Appear. You guys have been appear customer for a while. But give us this This picture of the legal landscape from a data volume perspective, I could imagine tons of documentation. I think you guys have hundreds of attorneys. What were some of the challenges three years ago when you were looking for the ideal long? You know, storage service is that you were really looking to four companies like your help eliminate and allow you to really deliver on the business needs. >> So we're heavy, heavy volume, business tons and tons of documents. Um, And when I came on board 39 years ago, the ever start of iron was basically a lot of physical servers, a lot of local storage which, quite frankly, scared me. I came from my previous company. I was that I came from a nap shop And that was when my first initiatives was bringing in a sand into the firm and centralizing all the storage on also setting up D r a cz. Well, along with that. So it started evaluation process pretty much within a few months, coming on board the firm. >> So you knew Netapp. Sorry, Dave. You knew Net up your pure customer perspective. Of what? For some of those things that you were looking for that when you found pure was, like, checks all the boxes. >> I can tell you what I wasn't looking for. It was I wasn't looking to hire a storage admin. So I want to find something super simple demand something that I could manage or any of the guys could manage any this this admits, could manage. So that was like starting point of the evaluation. >> So you had a bunch of sounds like discreet Dad asked direct access storage, and he said that concern you, presumably because it was hard to manage to get a handle on. So you wanted to consolidate >> way had if we had our sequel No sequel box go down down for a day, and, uh, do you ever stole from backups in previous night. Not really a good set up at the time >> in our most of your attorneys century, located in one location. Are they distributed there? >> They're spread out all across up and down floors. So we have 13 offices. So between there, they're all over the place. But a lot of work remote down, too. So that's becoming a big thing as well. So the >> reason I asked you to get the pendulum swinging right, you had almost ass, and then you went to a sin. And now this. You got the head you get cloud. I don't know if you're taking advantage of cloud, are you? >> Uh, we are actually we a lot of our software now that we've slowly start to move a lot of our main main line products to the cloud or a cloud edition of this product. So I would say we're probably 50 to 60% cloud now. >> Yes. So you were tied up in the keynotes this morning, but one of the things we heard in the key notice you could have the pure management experience. No matter where your data lives, bring the the pure cloud experience to your date on Prim and the public cloud hybrid. Is that something that's appealing to you? Is that resonate? Yeah. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. It makes it. Look, I can I can actually blogging appear one of my phone if I want to, you know, and check the room. Not that I ever do. Quite. I'll say I never really need to look at >> it. Well, your c i o. Right. I mean, you got other things to worry about. Get my I would like >> to be involved with fingers in it. >> It's interesting. So I mean, you know, a lot of time CEOs, they don't they let, but your tech I love your technical. See a lot of that. A lot of technical CEOs as well, but But also, you don't want to hire a storage admin. Correct. So you want general is to be able to deal this stuff. Okay, so you know your question. Why? Why pure? What would you look at? And >> so we looked at, um, way looked at HP street power. Big name. Um, we looked at fewer and we looked at 10 tree and I pretty much especially with three part I knew that would be management heavy so that when I toss that one out pretty quickly, not that it's not a great product. But it just wasn't for me or what I was >> the right fit. >> You're not right for us. So we came down the pier and 10 tree. I had a had a buddy who worked at another law firm, and he's like and he was like, Look, just don't even waste time just go pure And it's a phrase that I use Sometimes I stole from him, but he he's like, Dude, this is like storage crack. You'll love it. >> Storage crack. Wow, They need a T shirt. That first >> first hit's free. Okay, so that was the right fit for you. It was your peer was appear that that enticed you. That's obviously take a bit. I presume you take a lot of hair advice. >> Lot appeared, but we didn't even do a POC. >> Wow, this is this is a good period that you obviously trust. >> All right, how to >> see was the interface yet you showed me the interface on a phone call one time, and he's like, this is it. I'm like, That's it. >> What did you actually bring in. What are you using? >> I'm sorry, >> What products That you're actually using, What? Or with pure >> Oh, so I'm sorry. Um Exchange sequel. Um, that our main line, our bookkeeping time, time and building. All that that that's that's the meaning of >> all the legal absent all the legal dated the data stores. Which product from pure is that? Do you know a fan? Is it? Uh, it's the all flash array. Yeah. >> I'm sorry. Yes, it's the FBI. >> Yeah. Okay. And so, thinking about before and after hell kind of a as is and the to be how would you compare and contrast two when you brought it in the pre in the post >> your environment. >> Oh, for your business. >> That's Ah, good question. I felt more comfortable sleeping at night. You know why? Just the reliability of the ease of management. You know, if we need to bring up a volume or expanded volume, we could do it very quickly. It doesn't. It doesn't take a rocket science to do it. And from everyone I spoke to I mean, I can't I'm not I can't speak to it, but I can't. I don't I don't believe I've ever talked anybody that's had an outage or whether you raise gone down. In fact, it seems that they tell me before we even know if there's, you know, an issue. Andi. They jump on it right away. So we've never had never had now has never had an issue, never had an issue with an upgrade. It's been fantastic. That supports awesome. >> No need for a rocket scientist or a storage admin, >> and you're sleeping better. This is very, very good thing so far this interview. So in terms of the traditional storage model that you're well familiar with, as you said, you know, being very familiar with netapp it a previous role, the whole every three years. Allies like it. We've got to switch things out, disrupting operations here, comes along with the Evergreen model, and we go, How much of that is marketing and how much of that really actually means? And I know you're a big >> you're in my mind. So yeah, I was like, Oh, so I'm pre paying for support or, you know, But you know what? One side. Once I understood what it really waas and the advantages of of it inmate sentence. We didn't. We didn't I didn't think we would upgrade as much as we have already. We've already gone through to storage up, raising two controller upgrades. So that's really where where it really makes sense is when you're doing storage controller upgrade. So if you want to start our small, which we do is start a little bit small in the beginning. And then then our business grew like crazy and our storage needs expanded. So we went through at least two upgrades for years. >> So you you bring in a rare you paying basically perpetual license up front boom. And then and then you're doing the evergreen model. And then now you're on a subscription in perpetuity, is that correct? Okay, so you you essentially go from cap Ex Op X over the life cycle, and then when you add capacity, you're paying for that capacity, and then >> you just like you return the equipment, you get your money back, and then, uh, you get new equipment >> is truly non disruptive. >> We've been through to upgrades and to control operates with your major upgrades and, um, both of them we did at 5 p.m. Just not that the firm close. If I were anything but, you know, just to feel comfortable. I don't know how you do it at five, and it's okay because you know, if anything goes down from five and if no one's working right, so But here, obviously, we're always attorneys are always on and know they're really smooth. No problems. Every I mean, they got a great strategy and method to the upgrades way stayed up the entire time. >> I mean, it is a big issue for practitioners. We we've done some quantification over the years, and it was like the minimum to migrate. Honore was $50,000. When you add it all in people's time, the cost of the array, the complexity and you're saying first of all, sound reasonable, right kind of number, right? I mean, that's probably gonna make room for the conservative right. Is that essentially been eliminated? I mean, it gives you some planning, I guess are >> pretty much. And as far as the planning goes, you know, these these guys take care of all that. So when we're ready to make the switch, they just log in and do their thing, and then it's done, >> and in terms of training for yourself or your team. When you've done these two upgrades that what's that process been like? >> Log in and figure it out. I mean, >> it sounds pretty simple. >> There's not much to it. Yeah. >> So what's on the C I ose mind these days? Obviously, you don't stay awake at night now thinking about story. >> I stay awake for security, for >> talk about that data >> breach security seems like every every week. Now it it seems I'm on my Twitter feed and this is there's a new breech home. It just it's It's almost got to the point where, you know, it's just another thing that happens. >> So what's your challenge there? Is it managing all these tools? Is it knowing what to respond to it? Is it the skill sets all of the above? My >> biggest thing is, I believe in lots of redundancy. So, um, so one. Starting with the pure we have, we have a second array in another data center outside the state, so we replicate the to raise between each other. That's that's what we started with that side. We also running, you know, regular backups. We run rubric for that. And we also now have just oh, establishing cloud strategy for backups. Immutable. Um, long, long retention. So we also send our backup to the cloud as well. So now I'm feeling like I can sleep. Probably can sleep late now. I just gotta wait for somebody for something to happen, I guess, and makes sure, and hopefully your strategy is pretty solid here. >> Okay, so D r and backup are part of that overall data protection and security strategy that extends obviously into the perimeter device, etcetera, etcetera. So you have a SEC ops team. How do you weigh? >> Don't have a dedicated no. See. So, >> Well, you're the C cell. >> I'm exactly exactly so. Sher Sher bulls with a small group of us that are also the security team. And we've got a pretty I think we've got at this point a pretty solid security sack. Always room for improvement. Always looking at the new stuff. What's out there? I mean, there's all kinds of cool tech out there. Sometimes I get a little overboard with the team, gets a little upset with me because, you know, I just want to see I want to do another POC, and they're like we have three running. >> Okay, Like you guys have a pretty solid foundation running on pure that you stone to me, like, kind of appear customer for life. So they should at least give you a T shirt. Um, Adam, >> give me atleast >> a T shirt. >> I'll tell you one what really sold me within the first year was we had a We had a B m that wouldn't wouldn't boot up and we couldn't figure out what was going on. So we thought initially thought was a V m where issue and so we call support and you can really figure out. They said it was a pure issue. We call so decide to call Pure. One night I was 89 o'clock at night and decide to give it a shot, and the guy got on the phone and come to find. Now there was some issue with the data stores of'em where it was crossed, her data stores and one was deleted. Oh, apparently maybe me had deleted a small data store that had nothing on it, but apparently it was linked to the data store. This b m for some unknown reason known. Behold, bmr issue. But the guy on the line actually knew of resource within pure. That was That was a big bm weren't guy and he came in. He actually logged in and help us unlinked to data stores. So totally not appear issue. But, you know, he went the extra mile to help us recover that GM gotta back up the same night. >> You know, we got to go, But I ask you a question. You work. You have a lot of vendors you've experienced. What, Avengers do that really tick you off? That they should stop doing? How's your chance? >> I don't like the term road map. >> Really? >> Any time I hear road map, it means, you know >> we don't have it. You >> don't have >> yet, >> But we're gonna look into that so don't do business with people that have no road. >> Jason, thank you so much for share your candor with David. Me on the key. We appreciate it. Congratulations on all your success. >> Thank you >> for David. Dante. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube at pure accelerate 19. Thanks for watching

Published Date : Sep 17 2019

SUMMARY :

Brought to you by pure storage. And can you guess we're in Texas were at pure Accelerate Interestingly enough, I actually live and work out of Boston, but you know, good pro sports in Boston. You know, storage service is that you were I was that I came from a nap shop And that was when my first initiatives was So you knew Netapp. I can tell you what I wasn't looking for. So you had a bunch of sounds like discreet Dad asked direct access storage, and he said that concern and, uh, do you ever stole from backups in previous night. in our most of your attorneys century, located in one location. So the You got the head you get cloud. So I would say we're probably 50 Is that something that's appealing to you? I want to, you know, and check the room. I mean, you got other things to worry about. So I mean, you know, a lot of time CEOs, they don't they let, so we looked at, um, way looked at HP street power. So we came down the pier and 10 tree. That first I presume you take a lot of hair advice. see was the interface yet you showed me the interface on a phone call one time, and he's like, What did you actually bring in. All that that that's that's the meaning of Do you know a fan? Yes, it's the FBI. of a as is and the to be how would you compare and contrast two before we even know if there's, you know, an issue. So in terms of the traditional storage model that you're well familiar with, So yeah, I was like, Oh, so I'm pre paying for support or, you know, over the life cycle, and then when you add capacity, you're paying for that capacity, I don't know how you do it I mean, it gives you some planning, I guess are And as far as the planning goes, you know, these these guys take care of all that. and in terms of training for yourself or your team. I mean, There's not much to it. Obviously, you don't stay awake at night now thinking about story. where, you know, it's just another thing that happens. you know, regular backups. So you have a SEC ops team. Don't have a dedicated no. See. you know, I just want to see I want to do another POC, and they're like we have three running. So they should at least give you a T shirt. you know, he went the extra mile to help us recover that GM gotta back up the same night. You know, we got to go, But I ask you a question. we don't have it. Jason, thank you so much for share your candor with David. You're watching the Cube at pure accelerate 19.

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Donnie Williams & Eric Herzog | Cisco Live EU 2019


 

>> Live from Barcelona, Spain. It's the cue covering Sisqo Live Europe, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back >> to Barcelona. Everybody would adapt. Wrapping up day one of Sisqo live Barcelona Cube coverage. I'm David. Long day. He's stupid men. You're watching the Cube. The leader in live tech coverage. Donnie Williams is it director at Scott Equipment out of Louisiana. And Eric hurts August back. He's the CMO of IBM storage. Gentlemen, good to see you. Welcome. >> Thank you for having us. >> You're very welcome. So tell us about Scott equipment. What do you guys do? Look, what's the company all about were >> a heavy equipment dealer, So we've been we've been in the business for eighty years, privately owned company. And so we're we're We started out and farm implement eighty years ago by the founder, Thomas Scott, which is where the name Scott equipment comes from. And so we transition over the years, Teo construction equipment, Andi were now back in two thousand fourteen, we sold all of our the farm stores that handled all of that equipment. And now we're We're strictly servicing the construction industry and petrochemical in >> history. So your dealer of exactly what equipment and your services as well? >> Yes. We service that we were primarily a rental company. First then then we We also sell what we rent. We service service it and and also parts as well. So we're talking massive? Yes, they got. If you if you think our one of our main lines is Volvo, which you have you have you seen the show? Gold rush that that Volvo equipment you see there, that's that's what we sell. So is incredible machine. Yeah, Yeah, they are. Hada chance tio to play with one. I went Teo Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Where were their North America offices and had a chance to play with their largest excavator? That was That was >> fun. So is a lot of your Senate on sort of the maintenance business in the service business? >> Yes. So we were just mostly. Mirror is like a car dealership. If if you so we were like I said, we do sale service parts, all of that. >> So the business flow starts after the sale is made on >> exactly. Yes. We still like, Yeah, exactly. We get. We get equipment out there in the in the in the territory, and then the revenue continues tio to come in. >> So what are some of the challenges? The external challenges that are driving your business? You really >> are. The whole heavy equipment industry is It's kind of behind the times in my from a dealership perspective from from a manufacturer perspective there. They're somewhat up with technology, especially especially Volvo. But from a dealership there, there might mainly privately owned. So they're not there's not a whole lot of resource is in, and ah, in technology they don't. That's not a focus for them that they're they're focused on the business side of it. So what? We we're not When I first started the company ten, eleven years ago, now there was one guy servicing six hundred employees and and it was one eyed person, one i t person. So, as you can imagine, it was, it was a nightmare. Go. I mean, it's not the guy's fault. I don't blame him at all. Is this Is this the way that they had done business and not change bombed out, >> right? Exactly. Yeah. Guys >> find them. >> So their customer of ours for the versus stack, we have, ah, partner that they've been buying their IBM in their Cisco gear from. And then when they were doing a modernization effort, the reseller talk to Scott and said, Dani, what do you think? How about doing this? Converge infrastructure. Easier to play. It's after. So it all came through their existing channel. Part of that they were using for both IBM gear and Cisco Gear. >> So you wanted a solution. That one guy could run, right? We've now at least growing that company to house. We have six total in our in our department. So we've changed a lot since I started the eleven years ago. >> And why are they spending their time doing what? Premier >> Li? We do a lot of help desk on systems administration way do mostly, uh, are My focus is to make sure that our employees are satisfied that so they could take care of the customer, and that's that's the primary goal. And along with that comes comes systems administration. A cz. Well, so, But, >> you know, a full stack like this. I mean, the joke. You need more than one person, but it's going to be simplified. You know what you're buying, right? Predictable. And therefore, you shouldn't need to be seen on a basis. >> Yes, I like keeping things simple. Simple as possible. So that makes that makes my job easier. It makes my team's job easier. What >> kind of >> things you driving? Is it? You know, data protection, is it? You know what? What? What? What sort of, you know, use cases do you have on your stack >> on that Were from our were servicing on our with Francisco verse. Sorry versus stack. We are mostly it is all profit cloud were servicing applications. That's the supplement. Our court system. So we have reporting solutions. We were when we first bought it. The vs stack way were considering moving to another Air P system. Oh, and we would have that that infrastructure in place tio migrate to that. So we see what we still have that that actually on the table as a as an option >> for us, but the migration to a new Europe E system. Yes, we should talk afterwards. No, you >> were warning that it >> all about you. Of course, you don't want to convert if you don't have to write. But sometimes there's a business case. Sometimes it's hard to make you talk. Cloud in your in your future president were doing some that's ass stuff. >> Yeah, a little of that. I mean, anything. I mean things that that makes sense for us to to cloud I security services we're doing. Of course, probably most common is hosting email. Were doing a lot of that share point that that type of solution in the cloud >> How long you been with the company? Eleven years. Eleven years. Okay, So, thinking about the last decade, I mean, it's a lot of lot has changed. Yes. What's your What do you most proud of? What you like your biggest success that you can share with us. Oh, >> really? Building my the that dude the I T department and bringing our company into the twenty first system century from a from a technology perspective. I mean, like I said, we had one person that was that was handing. It was really impossible. I mean, you couldn't depend. Depends on one person. And and and, yeah, expect the company's or saw survive long term. Yeah, That one person had to say no a lot. Exactly. Right. Why would he? Just couldn't get everything >> done right? So that really that modernization? Yes, I know where you guys >> can. Ninety Mater, My team modernization play. The versus stack is heavily used for that. And, you know, as we said, on the earlier and every we had to see ESPN, we've also used it to do you know, to the next level from a night transformation to the future. Because in that case, as you know that was a CSP who uses it to service. You know, hundreds of customers all across the UK in a service model. And in this case, this is more of a mighty modernization. Take the old stuff, upgraded to what it was. They even have old IBM blade servers. That's how old the stuff wass old, actually, six played servers that must have been ten years old before they went to the Versus Stack. >> How many people in the company >> right now? We've actually sold off side since I've been with the company we sold off. Some of our non performing business units were probably roughly around five hundred fifty now. Okay, so I mean, we're Ah, we're actually more profitable now than we were eleven years ago from Ah, I mean, we have less employees, but our profitability is actually exceeded >> the name of simplification. Exactly. Right. So what's the biggest challenge you face Is the head of it today? The biggest, Probably >> the biggest challenge would be me wanting to implement technologies. They're not really not ready. I want it. I want tohave the competitive edge, that of the industry. I want to be able to be ahead of of the ahead of the curve. Uh, and that's probably the probably biggest challenge. And you're >> saying you can't Because the tech is ready or skills >> is just is just the industry just trying Teo. I work with vendors and getting getting them to be ready for I say, vendors, manufacturers, they're our vendors. Toe Get them Tio and other dealers as well. Teo Teo Albee. Acceptable to technology that's been there twenty years. >> What would you say is the but the top number one or the top things that IBM has done to make your life easier? And what's the one thing they could do that they're they're not doing that could make your life easier. What's the start with what they've done? You know whether successes, you know that >> really? Really. I mean, we've been a long time IBM customer. We have not, not just the versus Stack, but we also have the power system, which were actually runs are our core AARP. Um, okay. And so that we had long standing relationship with IBM, and the reliability is there. The trust is, >> there's well, a long term partnership. But what's the one thing they could do? One thing that you could If you could wave a wand and IBM will do x what would x B to make your life better? Uh, cut the price way. Go >> way. I should have prefaced that something that size >> on that topic. But you know, the power system thing brings up. You know, our friend Bob. Pity on who's running the cognitive systems group now You guys do with some stuff in a I talked about that a little bit. >> So what we've done is two things. First of all, we've been beauty inside of our system's ai ai all over the place. So, for example, we tear data which can weaken due not only to our own array, but literally two four hundred forty rays that have someone else's logo on them. It's all a eye dunce. When the data is hot, it's on the fastest here. So if you have fifteen thousand rpm drives in seventeen hundred rpm drives, it goes to fifteen thousand. When it cools off A. I automatically moves that the storage admin does nothing. You don't set policies, A takes care. We have flash and you have hard drive's same thing. It'll move around and you could have on IBM array talking to any AMC array. So all sorts of technology that we implement, that's a I in the box. Then, on top of that, what we've done is come up with a Siri's of a reference architectures for storage, as one of the critical elements in the platform. So we've done is create what we call a data pipeline. It involves not only our storage raise, but four pieces of our software spectrum scale, which is giant scale out file system, in fact, to fastest super computers in the world have almost half an exabyte of that software storage. With that software, our spectrum discover which we announced in queue for which is all about better management of metadata. So for a I workloads, big get anally work loves the data scientist doesn't prep the data. They can actually talk to what we do, and you could create all these meditate a template, then boom. They run a a ay workload on Thursday and then run a analytic workload on Friday. But all automated our archive and then our cloud objects towards. So all that is really think about it. Maura's an oval because when you're doing an A I system, you're constantly learning. So the thing you got to do is one you've got to have high performance and be ableto handle the analytics, which we do on flash. Okay, so the flashes connected, you've got to be able to move the date around. And part of thing with the spectrum Discover is that we can talk through an A P I to a piece of a AI software two piece of analytic software to piece of big data software, and they can literally go through that. AP I create templates for the metadata and then automatically suck what they need into their app and then munge it and then spirit back out and then obviously on the archives side, you want to be able to quickly recall the data, because if you think about a I system, it's like a human. So it's giving my Russian example. So I'm old enough. When I was a kid, there were bomb shelters in my neighborhood that people dug in the backyard. Then we have, you know, Nixon lightening up with the Chinese and we have Reagan and Gorbachev next, You know, the wall comes down right then. Next thing you know, there's no longer Soviet Union. All of a sudden, no, the Russians might get a little aggressive, even though they're no longer communist. And now, you see, depending on which political party. Either they're totally against us where they're totally helping us. But, you know, if they really were hacking systems whose whatever political party urine, they really were hacking our system, tried to manipulate the election pro or con. The point is, that's kind of like a cyber attack, and that's not a good thing. So we learn and it changes. So when a I system needs to understand and change constantly, learn. If all of a sudden you have flying cars, that's going to be different than a car with tires. Now, a lot of it, maybe the same, the interior, all the amenities. But the engine is going to be different. And there are companies, including the big Big three, four five who are actually working on flying cars, knows it will happen. But the A I system needs to understand and learn that and constantly learning. So the foundation has to be heavily resilient, heavily performance, heavily available, lasting one is an A I system going down on you, especially if you're in health care or big giant manufacturing. Like Volvo, his customer. When they're building those cranes and things, they must cost fifty sixty million dollars at that assembly line goes down its prey a big deal for them. So you need a I systems that always keep your other systems up and running. So you have to have that solid foundation storage underneath. >> Awesome. All right, we got to leave it there. Give the customer the last word. Donnie. First time in Barcelona, right? Yes. It ISS how you find in the show and the >> syphilis is awesome. This's my, actually my fifth, uh, Cisco lifers our first time in Europe, so yeah, enjoying it. >> Good. Good. Well, thank you, guys. For German of the >> correct. Thank you. Have you appreciate it? >> You're welcome. Alright. Keep right there, everybody. We'll be back to rap Day one. Sisqo live Barcelona watching you.

Published Date : Jan 29 2019

SUMMARY :

Sisqo Live Europe, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. He's the CMO of IBM storage. What do you guys do? the construction industry and petrochemical in So your dealer of exactly what equipment and your services as well? Gold rush that that Volvo equipment you see there, that's that's what we sell. So is a lot of your Senate on sort of the maintenance If if you so we were like I said, we do sale service parts, the in the in the territory, and then the revenue continues tio to Go. I mean, it's not the guy's fault. right? to Scott and said, Dani, what do you think? So you wanted a solution. We do a lot of help desk on systems And therefore, you shouldn't need to be seen on a basis. So that makes that makes my job So we see what we still have that that actually on the table as a as an option No, you Sometimes it's hard to make you talk. Were doing a lot of that share point that that type of solution in the cloud What you like your biggest success that you can share with us. I mean, you couldn't depend. to do you know, to the next level from a night transformation to the future. now than we were eleven years ago from Ah, I mean, we have less employees, So what's the biggest challenge you Uh, and that's probably the probably biggest challenge. is just is just the industry just trying Teo. You know whether successes, you know that And so that we had long standing relationship with IBM, One thing that you could If you could I should have prefaced that something that size But you know, the power system thing brings up. So the thing you got to do is one you've It ISS how you find in the show and the uh, Cisco lifers our first time in Europe, so yeah, For German of the Have you appreciate it? We'll be back to rap Day one.

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