>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE! Covering AWS re:Invent 2018. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services, Intel, and their ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at AWS re:Invent 2018 at the Sands Convention Center and all over Vegas. I don't know how many people are here. We haven't gotten the official word. 60,000, 70,000, I don't know. There's a lot of people. We're excited to have our next guest, but before we get in, happy to be joined by Lauren Cooney. Lauren, great to see you, as always. >> Great to see you, as well. >> You know, one of my favorite things about doing Cube interviews is we learn about new industries that we didn't even know about. So, while we're here talking about IT, it's really about the application of IT that I think is really more interesting, more fun, and a great learning experience. So, we're really excited to have our next guest on. He is Kevin Smith, the director of MIS for Transcore. Kevin, great to see you. >> Hello. >> And many time Cube alumni, Sazzala Reddy. He is the CTO and co founder of Datrium. Sazzala, great to see you. >> Happy to be here. >> So, Kevin before we get into it, tells us a little about Transcore. What are you guys all about? >> Basically, we are the leading toll authority for kind of of Continental United States and we are trying to expand that throughout the world. We do the whole engineer all the way through manufacturing of toll systems for vehicles and cars throughout the U.S. So, the little stickers in you car all the way up to the readers that read them. They're coming through my place some how or some other. >> So, everything from the reader in the car-- >> Yup, the little sticker tag that sticks in your window or suction cups in. Wherever you are, yes you may hate us, but I'm not the one collecting the tolls. (laughs) >> I don't like it when you miss the picture. >> Well, let's input some design here. (laughs) >> Trust me, I've tried. (laughs) >> But then the huge back in process to pull that up, get it into the system, billing systems. >> Yeah, all integrated. Yep. >> And how big is the company? How long has it been around? >> We were acquired by Roper. We've been many divisions, but Los Alamos was technically, founding fathers 1954. >> 1954, so you've been around a long time >> Oh yeah, yes. They started with cows. >> RFID's on cows? >> Yes, tracking cows in the pastures of New Mexico. (laughs) >> With the little tags in their ears I imagine. Alright, great. We can talk about traffic probably all day long, but that's not why were here. That's not your day job you're not out there with the little RFID scanner. >> Not anymore, thank God. >> Let's talk about some of the challenges 'cause you know, obviously, the toll business has been around for a long time. But the automation of tolls has really changed a lot over the last five years. You probably know better than me from somebody in the booth taking my money and giving me a receipt to some places it's almost exclusively electronic. So, how's that business grown, and what have been some of the accompanying challenges have you seen that been grown? >> Part of the performance issues we were running into was the quantity. Because the man is gone from the booth, we have to produce more tags that become more readable. So, that creates more back in work, more transactions. And, in the long run, producing more tags. You know, we've gone to millions and millions of tags being produced, in a quarter, to where it was just hundreds of thousands. So, with that requires scalability that we can grow with our systems and our systems we had just wasn't doing it. >> So, you got the manufacturing of the tags as well, I didn't even think of the manufac- you got to make them in the first place, too. >> That is our bread and butter. Manufacturing those tags and the millions of millions of transactions that we test, because we have to test every tag that goes out the door. Every tag gets tested. >> How far away do they work, on those readers? I'm just curious. >> It depends on your speed. We've tested up to 200 miles an hour. And I think it's, like, 40-50 feet? So, as long as you're going under 200 miles an hour, we can get ya. >> Okay, so, how did you meet Sazzala in Datrium? How did that come about? >> We went looking for a product that could give us a one stop solution. We wanted something that was basically, I wanted to get out of the storage business, I wanted to get out of the management business. I didn't want to be having to worry about all these different vendors, all these different solutions. And Datrium was able to provide that. Compared to some of the other products that we were looking at, we did test with other products, and Datrium came out on top. They gave us the total package. >> Sazzala, when you looked at this oppurtunity, what did you see? Anything unique and different? What were some of the challenges that you tried to figure out how to help Kevin? >> So, what we are finding is that more and more companies, every company is a software company, every company is a data company, right? Every body wants to move faster. Everybody wants to things faster. I can't wait for my movie to start in two seconds. I'm like, Why is it taking two seconds? So, everybody wants things faster. We live in this instant economy where everything needs to be either you transform or you die. So, how do we make that transition into the speed? How do you build your data center, whatever your doing, to match that speed of innovation? Any system you're going to deploy in a data center, has to be not in the way. It has to be less management, less overhead. Look at Amazon, very successful because there is less to manage. And, you mostly manage your applications. That's what the business moral is going to be going forward. That's why people like the Cloud. Why does CIO like the Cloud? Not because it's cooler, or whatever, but because it makes things faster. It's expensive, yeah, but it makes things faster in some ways. >> Go ahead. >> I was going to say, on issue we ran into and we came to him with was our CAD designers. 'Cause we designed the product. And, the rendering was just dragging on our old systems. And, we went from two to three minutes rendering to seconds rendering new graphics. And, so, before they were like I'm not going to save it yet, I'm not going to re-render it. Now, they're re-rendering every time they're making a change. It helps in performance, it helps the application, and it helps increase the productivity of my CAD designers. >> Right. I was going to say, it was probably the customer service pretty significant, as well, so they can get the version that they want. >> Definitely, definitely. And, you know, the nice thing is is Datrium allowed us to scale. We couldn't go out and just Okay, revamp everything. You got to do baby steps. And Datrium gave us that scaleabilty, to where I could add anything from 1 to 128 nodes. You know, I was able to increase performance by just adding a server node, or increase the rights by adding a data node. That's the flexibilty that I needed from a vendor. >> So, when you said that Datrium had the whole package, you looked at some other solutions out there. When you were trying to find the whole package at the beginning of the process, what were the key attributes that you said I would love to get all these from one place? >> I was looking for performance and scale. Which I got. I was looking for back-up. God, I wanted to get out of the back-up business. I was tired of tapes, I was tired of third-party solutions. >> Tire of tapes? (laughs) >> Trust me. Shh, don't tell the tape vendors here. >> Tape is good, if you have the right application. >> Security, I stay awake at night. I lead our security teams. I stay awake worrying about Is my data protected? You know, with their encryption, that gave me that whole protection. And the last thing was DR. DR is adorned in every IT manager, every IT director, every, you know, CTO. And, with their whole Cloud shift, that DR? What DR, it's done. It just happens. And those four things is kind of what led us to finding Datrium. 'Cause some of them gave us one or two, but not everyone could give us all four of the options that we were looking for. >> What I love about the story is those are kind of concrete savings and doing your job easier. What your excited about is enabling your CAD designer, your kind of proactive sales process, your proactive design, your proactive innovation to actually move faster. That's not a cost saving mechanism. That's really a transformational, kind of positive revenue, side of the tale that I don't think is told enough. People focus on the cost savings and execution. That's not what it's about. It's really about innovating and growing your business faster. Do you think? >> Oh no, our ROI, that we calculated in, was just on hardware. Just on my cost savings that I could put a penny to. The time, it's so great. I mean, my CAD designers producing product faster, my developers are asking for more VMs. For me to spin up because the speed is so much faster. We're used to being Oh, don't touch it. I got this guy tuned exactly where I want it. We got the memory. But now, they're asking for more and more, and it's my in users, who are really the engineers, my manufacturing people, they're wanting more and more out of the product and Datirum is delivering. I don't go to dashboard and look to try and figure out how to tweak it anymore. I don't have any complaints. And, if I don't have any complaints, were doing something right. >> That's a good thing. >> So, it just works? >> Oh, it was beyond just works. >> Literally. >> Trust me, I was ready when we bought product to bring in a whole team and I was like, Oh, I'm going to have to hire all these people. And the guy came in and he goes, Okay, turn it on. Okay we're done. I was like, Nu-uh. He goes, Oh yeah, you have to plug that cord in back there. I was like, Wow. 'Cause, you know, usually it's-- >> I'm looking at a number right now, and it is 617% three year ROI. >> It's across many customers (mumbles) >> I totally believe you with what-- >> So we are aiming for a U.S. designer came and asked me one day, What should I aim for as a design principle? I said, We should aim for zero UI. That's what we should do. It should be transparent, it should just work. That's what we really aim for. I'm not saying we have zero UI today, but that's our goal. >> It's good to have goals. >> Let's just make it work automatically, right? That's kind of the goal. >> Well, and that was one thing, we wanted something integrated, so we didn't have to go looking. And, that's one thing I tell the engineers all the time. I go into the UI just to kind of see how cool the systems running. You know, because there is no issues. It just works. Everything's integrated, I don't have to go in and click and click and click and click to get through stuff. It just works and integrates well. We're a big Vmware shop, big Dell server shop. All of that, one-stop shop. I was telling Sazzala, you know, it's great when I get the e-mail that there's a problem with my Datrium system before my help desk is getting the notification. I can't buy that service. >> So, Kevin, there's a lot of peers that will be watching this show. Peers of you. Having gone through this process and now you are on the other side and you're on to some new things, in terms of innovation, what would you share with a peer whose trying to sort some of this out? It's a confusing landscape. There's so many options, and you got to do your day job, too. Besides, putting out new technology. What would you share with a peer if you're sitting down over a beverage on a Friday afternoon? >> You know, I would talk to them about having that capability, really a performance scale. Being able to not worry about controllers, not worrying about what SSDs you got to put into something to make it work. Pop 'em in. SSDs are cheap nowadays. Pop 'em in. It increases your reads. Going back to the whole no more third-party solutions for back-ups. Every SIS admin, every manager knows, back-ups are only good for restores. That's the only reason you do a back-up, is 'cause you got to do that restore. And, it becomes invisible. It's all running in the background. I don't even think about it anymore. My old systems, we still think about. That aren't on the Datrium product yet, but all our production (scoffs) When I'm backing up every hour, and my RTO almost becomes zero if something happens, you can't ask for that. That's critical, I think, for every manager, every director, even the SIS admins. No one wants to really think about back-ups. And, when you're comparing your products, take a look at that. How quick can you get something back up when that hard drive went out, you know? That's critical. And, of course, DR is, you know, everyone needs that checkbox checked for recovering. It just comes right away, with that. >> We've run out of time. Going to ask you the big question. Do you sleep better? >> Oh, much better. (laughs) Easily now. Yes. Now I get to worry about other things. Like keeping my CFO happy about something else. >> And, I've got a list of people we need to introduce to you. Definitely. >> Fortunately, you always move through your next point of failure. Once you fix one spot. Watch Lucy check out the chocolate-- >> Hey, but if I can have this one off my plate, that's one better for me. >> Well, Kevin, thanks a lot for telling your story. It's a really impressive story And, I'll think of you as I go across a Dumbarton Bridge some time. >> Think about that, yes! >> Absolutely. >> Thank you for having me. >> Sazzala, great to see you, as always. Lauren, lots of fun. I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCube. We're at AWS re:Invent 2018. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)