>> From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this a CUBE conversation. >> Hello, and welcome to this CUBE conversation, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here, in our Palo Alto, California studios, here with our quarantine crew. We're getting all the remote interviews during this time of COVID-19. We've got two great remote guests here, Rachini Moosavi who's the Executive Director of Analytical Services and Data Governance at UNC Healthcare, and Sonya Jordan, Enterprise Analytics Manager of Data Governance at UNC Health. Welcome to theCUBE, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for having us. >> So, I'm super excited. University of North Carolina, my daughter will be a freshman this year, and she is coming, so hopefully she won't have to visit UNC Health, but looking forward to having more visits down there, it's a great place. So, thanks for coming on, really appreciate it. Okay, so the conversation today is going to be about how data and how analytics are helping solve problems, and ultimately, in your case, serve the community, and this is a super important conversation. So, before we get started, talk about UNC Health, what's going on there, how you guys organize, how big is it, what are some of the challenges that you have? >> SO UNC Health is comprised of about 12 different entities within our hospital system. We have physician groups as well as hospitals, and we serve, we're spread throughout all of North Carolina, and so we serve the patients of North Carolina, and that is our primary focus and responsibility for our mission. As part of the offices Sonya and I are in, we are in the Enterprise Analytics and Data Sciences Office that serves all of those entities and so we are centrally located in the triangle area of North Carolina, which is pretty central to the state, and we serve all of our entities equally from our Analytics and Data Governance needs. >> John: You guys got a different customer base, obviously you've got the clinical support, and you got the business applications, you got to be agile, that's what it's all about today, you don't need to rely on IT support. How do you guys do that? What's the framework? How do you guys tackle that problem of being agile, having the data be available, and you got two different customers, you got all the compliance issues with clinical, I can only imagine all the regulations involved, and you've got the business applications. How do you handle those? >> Yeah, so for us in the roles that we are in, we are fully responsible for more of the data and analytics needs of the organization, and so we provide services that truly are balanced across our clinician group, so we have physicians, and nurses, and all of the other ancillary clinical staff that we support, as well as the operational needs as well, so revenue cycle, finance, pharmacy, any of those groups that are required in order to run a healthcare system. So, we balance our time amongst all of those and for the work that we take on and how we continuously support them is really based on governance at the end of the day. How we make decisions around what the priorities are and what needs to happen next, and requires the best insights, is really how we focus on what work we do next. As for the applications that we build, in our office, we truly only build analytical applications or products like visualizations within Tableau as well as we support data governance platforms and services and so we provide some of the tools that enable our end users to be able to interact with the information that we're providing around analytics and insights, at the end of the day. >> Sonya, what's your job? Your title is Analytics Manager of Data Governance, obviously that sounds broad but governance is obviously required in all things. What is your job, what is your day-to-day roles like? What's your focus? >> Well, my day-to-day operations is first around building a data governance program. I try to work with identifying customers who we can start partnering with so that we can start getting documentation and utilizing a lot of the programs that we currently have, such as certification, so when we talk about initiatives, this is one of the initiatives that we use to partner with our stakeholders in order to start bringing visibilities to the various assets, such as metrics, or universes that we want to certify, or dashboards, algorithm, just various lists of different types of assets that we certify that we like to partner with the customers in order for them to start documenting within the tools, so that we can bring visibility to what's available, really focusing on data literacy, helping people to understand what assets are available, not only what assets are available, but who owns them, and who own the asset, and what can they do with it, making sure that we have great documentation in order to be able to leverage literacy as well. >> So, I can only imagine with how much volume you guys are dealing from a data standpoint, and the diversity, that the data warehouse must be massive, or it must be architected in a way that it can be agile because the needs, of the diverse needs. Can you guys share your thoughts on how you guys look on the data warehouse challenge and opportunity, and what you guys are currently doing? >> Well, so- >> Yeah you go ahead, Rachini. >> Go ahead, Sonya. >> Well, last year we implemented a tool, an enterprise warehouse, basically behind a tool that we implemented, and that was an opportunity for Data Governance to really lay some foundation and really bring visibility to the work that we could provide for the enterprise. We were able to embed into probably about six or seven of the 13 initiatives, I was actually within that project, and with that we were able to develop our stewardship committee, our data governance council, and because Rachini managed Data Solutions, our data solution manager was able to really help with the architect and integration of the tools. >> Rachini, your thoughts on running the data warehouse, because you've got to have flexibility for new types of data sources. How do you look at that? >> So, as Sonya just mentioned, we upgraded our data warehouse platform just recently because of these evolving needs, and like a lot of healthcare providers out there, a lot of them are either one or the other EMRs that are top in the market. With our EMR, they provide their own data warehouse, so you have to factor almost the impact of what they bring to the table in with an addition to all of those other sources of data that you're trying to co-mingle and bring together into the same data warehouse, and so for us, it was time for us to evolve our data warehouse. We ended up deciding on trying to create a virtual data warehouse, and in doing so, with virtualization, we had to upgrade our platform, which is what created that opportunity that Sonya was mentioning. And by moving to this new platform we are now able to bring all of that into one space and it's enabled us to think about how does the community of analysts interact with the data? How do we make that available to them in a secure way? In a way that they can take advantage of reusable master data files that could be our source of truth within our data warehouse, while also being able to have the flexibility to build what they need in their own functional spaces so that they can get the wealth of information that they need out of the same source and it's available to everyone. >> Okay, so I got to ask the question, and I was trying to get the good stuff out first, but let's get at the reality of COVID-19. You got pre-COVID-19 pandemic, we're kind of in the middle of it, and people are looking at strategies to come out of it, obviously the world will be changed, higher with a lot of virtualization, virtual meetings, and virtual workforce, but the data still needs to be, the business still needs to run, but data will be changing different sources, how are you guys responding to that crisis because you're going to be leaned on heavily for more and more support? >> Yeah it's been non-stop since March (laughs). So, I'm going to tell you about the reporting aspects of it, and then I'd love to turn it over to Sonya to tell you about some of the great things that we've actually been able to do to it and enhance our data governance program by not wasting this terrible event and this opportunity that's come up. So, with COVID, when it kicked off back in March, we actually formed a war room to address the needs around reporting analytics and just insights that our executives needed, and so in doing so, we created within the first week, our first weekend actually, our first dashboard, and within the next two weeks we had about eight or nine other dashboards that were available. And we continuously add to that. Information is so critical to our executives, to our clinicians, to be able to know how to address the evolving needs of COVID-19 and how we need to respond. We literally, and I'm not even exaggerating, at this very moment we have probably, let's see, I think it's seven different forecasts that we're trying to build all at the same time to try and help us prepare for this new recovery, this sort of ramp up efforts, so to your point, it started off as we're shutting down so that we can flatten the curve, but now as we try to also reopen at the same time while we're still meeting the needs of our COVID patients, there's this balancing act that we're trying to keep up with and so analytics is playing a critical factor in doing that. >> Sonya, your thoughts. First of all, congratulations, and action is what defines the players from the pretenders in my mind, you're seeing that play out, so congratulations for taking great action, I know you're working hard. Sonya, your thoughts, COVID, it's putting a lot of pressure? It highlights the weaknesses and strengths of what's kind of out there, what's your thoughts? >> Well, it just requires a great deal of collaboration and making sure that you're documenting metrics in a way where you're factoring true definition because at the end of the day, this information can go into a dashboard that's going to be visualized across the organization, I think what COVID has done was really enhanced the need and the understanding of why data governance is important and also it has allowed us to create a lot of standardization, where we we're standardizing a lot of processes that we currently had in correct place but just enhancing them. >> You know, not to go on a tangent, but I will, it's funny how the reality has kind of pulled back, exposed a lot of things, whether it's the remote work situation, people are VPNing, not under provision with the IT side. On the data side, everyone now understands the quality of the data. I mean, I got my kids talking progression analysis, "Oh, the curves are all wrong," I mean people are now seeing the science behind the data and they're looking at graphs all the time, you guys are in the visualization piece, this really highlights the need of data as a story, because there's an impact, and two, quality data. And if you don't have the data, the story isn't being told and then misinformation comes out of it, and this is actually playing out in real time, so it's not like it's just a use case for the most analytics but this again highlights the value of proposition of what you guys do. What's your personal thoughts on all this because this really is playing out globally. >> Yeah, it's been amazing how much information is out there. So, we have been extremely blessed at times but also burdened at times by that amount of information. So, there's the data that's going through our healthcare system that we're trying to manage and wrangle and do that data storytelling so that people can drive those insights to very effective decisions. But there's also all of this external data that we're trying to be able to leverage as well. And this is where the whole sharing of information can sometimes become really hard to try and get ahead of, we leverage the Johns Hopkins data for some time, but even that, too, can have some hiccups in terms of what's available. We try to use our State Department of Health and Human Services data and they just about updated their website and how information was being shared every other week and it was making it impossible for us to ingest that into our dashboards that we were providing, and so there's really great opportunities but also risks in some of the information that we're pulling. >> Sonya, what's your thoughts? I was just having a conversation this morning with the Chief of Analytics and Insight from NOA which is the National Oceanic Administration, about weather data and forecasting weather, and they've got this community model where they're trying to get the edges to kind of come in, this teases out a template. You guys have multiple locations. As you get more democratized in the connection points, whether it's third-party data, having a system managing that is hard, and again, this is a new trend that's emerging, this community connection points, where I think you guys might also might be a template, and your multiple locations, what's your general thoughts on that because the data's coming in, it's now connected in, whether it's first-party to the healthcare system or third-party. >> Yeah, well we have been leveraging our data governance tool to try to get that centralized location, making sure that we obtain the documentations. Due to COVID, everything is moving very fast, so it requires us to really sit down and capture the information and when you don't have enough resources in order to do that, it's easy to miss some very important information, so really trying to encourage people to understand the reason why we have data governance tools in order for them to leverage, in order to capture the documentation in a way that it can tell the story about the data, but most of all, to be able to capture it in a way so that if that person happened to leave the organization, we're not spending a lot of time trying to figure out how was this information created, how was this dashboard designed, where are the requirements, where are the specifications, where are the key elements, where does that information live, and making sure we capture that up front. >> So, guys, you guys are using Informatica, how are they helping you? Obviously, they have a system they're getting some great feedback on, how are you using Informatica, how is it going, and how has that enabled you guys to be successful? >> Yeah, so we decided on Informatica after doing a really thorough vetting of all of the other vendors in the industry that could provide us these services. We've really loved the capabilities that we've been able to provide to our customers at this point. It's evolving, I think, for us, the ability to partner with a group like Prominence, to be able to really leverage the capabilities of Informatica and then be really super, super hyper focused on providing data literacy back to our end users and making that the full intent of what we're doing within data governance has really enabled us to take the tools and make it something that's specific to UNC Health and the needs that our end users are verbalizing and provide that to them in a very positive way. >> Sonya, they talk about this master catalog, and I've talked to the CEO of Informatica and all their leaders, governance is a big part of it, and I've always said, I've always kind of had a hard time, I'm an entrepreneur, I like to innovate, move fast, break things, which is kind of not the way you work in the data world, you don't want to be breaking anything, so how do you balance governance and compliance with innovation? This has been a key topic and I know that you guys are using their enterprise data catolog. Is that helping? How does that fit in, is that part of it? >> Well, yeah, so during our COVID initiatives and building these telos dashboards, these visualizations and forecast models for executive leaders, we were able to document and EMPower you, which we rebranded Axon to EMPower, we were able to document a lot of our dashboards, which is a data set, and pretty much document attributes and show lineage from EMPower to EDC, so that users would know exactly when they start looking at the visualization not only what does this information mean, but they're also able to see what other sources that that information impacts as well as the data lineage, where did the information come from in EDC. >> So I got to ask the question to kind of wrap things up, has Informatica helped you guys out now that you're in this crisis? Obviously you've implemented before, now that you're in the middle of it, have you seen any things that jumped out at you that's been helpful, and are there areas that need to be worked on so that you guys continue to fight the good fight, come out of this thing stronger than before you came in? >> Yeah, there is a lot of new information, what we consider as "aha" moments that we've been learning about, and how EMPower, yes there's definitely a learning curve because we implemented EDC and EMPower last year doing our warehouse implementation, and so there's a lot of work that still needs to be done, but based on where we were the first of the year, I can say we have evolved tremendously due to a lot of the pandemic issues that arised, and we're looking to really evolve even greater, and pilot across the entire organization so that they can start leveraging these tools for their needs. >> Rachini you got any thoughts on your end on what's worked, what you see improvements coming, anything to share? >> Yeah, so we're excited about some of the new capabilities like the marketplace for example that's available in Axon, we're looking forward to being able to take advantage of some of these great new aspects of the tool so that we can really focus more on providing those insights back to our end users. I think for us, during COVID, it's really been about how do we take advantage of the immediate needs that are surfacing. How do we build all of these dashboards in record-breaking time but also make sure that folks understand exactly what's being represented within those dashboards, and so being able to provide that through our Informatica tools and service it back to our end users, almost in a seamless way like it's built into our dashboards, has been a really critical factor for us, and feeling like we can provide that level of transparency, and so I think that's where as we evolve that we would look for more opportunities, too. How do we make it simple for people to get that immediate answers to their questions, of what does the information need without it feeling like they're going elsewhere for the information. >> Rachini, thank you so much for your insight, Sonya as well, thanks for the insight, and stay safe. Sonya, behind you, I was pointing out, that's your artwork, you painted that picture. >> Yes. >> Looks beautiful. >> Yes, I did. >> You got two jobs, you're an artist, and you're doing data governance. >> Yes, I am, and I enjoy painting, that's how I relax (laughs). >> Looks great, get that on the market soon, get that on the marketplace, let's get that going. Appreciate the time, thank you so much for the insights, and stay safe and again, congratulations on the hard work you're doing, I know there's still a lot more to do, thanks for your time, appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> It's theCUBE conversation, I'm John Furrier at the Palo Alto studios, for the remote interviews with Informatica, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: Live from Anaheim, California, it's theCUBE, covering Nutanix .NEXT 2019, brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back everyone, to theCUBE's live coverage of Nutanix .NEXT here in Anaheim, California. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Ferrier. We have two guests for this segment. We have PJ Farmer, she is the Director, Cloud Product Management at TierPoint. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you, I'm very excited. >> Rebecca: And we have David Hines, VP, Architecture and Engineering at TierPoint. Thanks, David. >> Yes, thank you. >> So, for our viewers that maybe unfamiliar with TierPoint, can you tell us all about this St. Louis based company, what you do, give us an introduction. >> Oh, absolutely. So, TierPoint is a managed services, data services, and colocation provider. We have a broad footprint. We have over 40 data centers in the United States, and we have a broad portfolio of services we offer because we're really interested in meeting customers where they are in their digital transfortation, or transformation, excuse me. So everything from colo to cloud and beyond, we offer because customers come to us for a consultative approach. They have a problem, they needed solutions, and we can offer them those solutions, right. So we manage all of that. >> So you're helping them with their digital transformations and everything. >> Absolutely. >> And where does Nutanix come into play here? >> So, Nutanix is a part of that cloud services really that we're offering our customers, but also giving them a dedicated environment really that they can manage their workloads, but also have some more control, security, compliance, so that overall, the customers end up with a solution that helps them drive their business forward. And of course, TierPoint, our goal is to make sure that we're taking care of all that underlying infrastructure and systems and components, so again, the customer can focus on driving their business forward, and taking that burden off of IT and Nutanix is a great platform that really helps enable us and enable our customers, at the end of the day. >> Talk about the technical challenges you guys had before Nutanix, after Nutanix. What changed, what was the journey like, how did the door open up for them? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, I think overall, we as technologists, work very hard to piece together solutions, varied solutions, to provide a platform for our customers that they can consume, but that is challenging, right, as a company, technology changes quickly. There are a lot of different vendors in the marketplace offering a lot of different technologies, and I think one of the things that we see as a huge value for Nutanix, is they've got a very complete platform, across the spectrum. It's not just a box with compute and storage. It is so much more than that, and so for us, that's very exciting, it's very intriguing, and something that really helps us be efficient, and also our customers, be efficient. >> So, digital transformation is something that we're talking about so much, on theCUBE in general, here at this show. What are you hearing from customers and what is sort of their bugaboos and their pain points? >> So, we recently had a customer who, their hypervisor of choice is something they're super familiar with, right. They have a great amount of comfort, but over time they can see, there could be some cost savings in Nutanix, with going with the Acropolis hypervisor that's included. So our customer came to us and said, hey, can you help us with this? Said, absolutely. So they are in our data center, we're taking care of them, we are consulting through their transformation and they are starting out with what they're comfortable with and as time changes and as they mature and transition, we're gonna help them get there, right. We're gonna help them change, if it's a hypervisor, if it's a different service, if it's a different way to set it up and present it out to their innovative IT developers, right. We're gonna help them do that. >> Talk about, can you guys share your insight into how you're operating the business? I mean obviously, you've got customers, a lot of customers. What's it like, operating this? 'Cause you got developers out there who want applications to be supported. I'm sure you got latency challenges around. We went to the cloud, a lot of multi-cloud conversations. People still gotta store stuff in their data centers or colos. So the edge, the network change, all these things are evolving. What's going on inside your company, in terms of how you operate? >> So, that's a great question. So, it is challenging to keep up with that landscape as it evolves but we are investing heavily in that. So the great thing about TierPoint, is we are in these edge markets. That is one of our real value adds, and so we're investing very heavily in our network. We also have some really strong partnerships with carriers that give us that on-ramp into the hyperscale. So it really helps complete that multi-cloud story that customers need. So yeah, they can come to us, colocate that equipment that they really have to hold on to, mainframes, mid-range servers, other legacy systems, while gaining that connectivity to those hyperscale environments. And then there's the middle, the middle where we provide a layer, like Nutanix, that gives them that enterprise type cloud. But again, it's dedicated to them, it's in our data center, it's local to their other systems, while also getting that reach to the hyperscale. So it's a really, really powerful story for us. >> On the hypervisor challenge question, this is interesting, we hear people saying, I got Hyper-Vi, I got Hyper-V, I got VMware, I wanna just use, Nutanix' got their own hypervisor. AVH has been an interesting product for Nutanix. The full stack is compelling for a lot of customers, but you guys probably have a lot of customers who wanna parole their own, or bring their own hypervisor. How do you deal with that, does that fit in to the value proposition? >> Well, I think there is some talk about the hypervisor, maybe being irrelevant, like it's obsolete, it's not something to be concerned about, and I think Dave said it earlier, best today, he said that-- >> John: You could be nice when you say that, by the way. >> I'm sorry, what? >> John: A lot of people are saying that. >> Well, yeah, a lot of people are saying that. I just think it's less of a focus, right, because TierPoint helps people focus on what is innovative, what is your business outcome, what are you really doing for your business? So I feel like the hypervisor is just less of a focus, right, than it is necessarily, not important. >> It's more commodity now. >> Yeah. >> It is, and we don't want the customers to have to focus on that, because again, IT really needs to drive business, not be a drag on business and so the less that they have to focus, as an IT organization, on the maintenance and management of infrastructure, and even up the stack towards operating systems, where we can take that burden off of them, then again, they can be a leader for their business and driving the business as a whole, not be held back. >> Okay, what's the playbook for doing that, not being a drag on the business? Because that's what everyone wants to do but they might have legacy stuff. What's the playbook? >> The playbook, is being a part of that business discussion and when the business itself is making decisions about how to drive forward, IT has that seat at the table, and again, is thinking about, how can we drive savings or cost cutting, how can we enable transactions, how can we enable the customer base? And not thinking about, oh, do I have my storage system updated, am I dealing with the old boxes that I have to replace, and do I have power and cooling problems in a data center. They don't need to be dealing with that. They need to be up front with the business, making business decisions. >> What you're talking about, really represents a complete shift in the role of the technologist. Do they have the skills to be thinking about, they obviously, can think about more than just the maintenance, and do I have the storage, and things like that. But does there need to be much more education around these business strategy questions that they should be thinking about? As you said, this is their role, to really help the business transform. >> David: Yeah. >> So, I think that often times I see people feel like they are just technology, oh, I'm just hands on keyboard, I'm doing this, but what their exposure and their natural interests, lead them to have a broad picture of how things can work, what is expected, and how do these things operate, what have I had experience with, and when they have a seat at the table and they're making, with the business decisions, they have value to add there. Right. That value is in that perspective, what they've seen, because that may not be forefront for some of the other business leaders at the table, right? And it is a collaborative discussion, that generates quality output, that generates innovation, that generates thinking outside of the box, and unique solutions that really lead the market. >> But I do think it really does, to your point, mean new education, new skills for these IT technologists and so that's part of, we've gone through this at TierPoint, transforming the engineers and the technologists that we have working on our staff and really teaching them new ways to work, new ways to think, new ways to collaborate, so that they're helping us move the business forward and not sitting behind a keyboard, isolated from the business itself. >> I was gonna ask you about the skill gap 'cause one of the things that comes up as the shift at DevOps is happening, with more development going on to make the infrastructure programmable so it's not a drag on the business, changing roles are a huge thing 'cause Nutanix essentially, the values, they enable new things to happen, the result is consolidation, so it's not consolidation as the primary. You get consolidation as a benefit of what they do. So people be like, whoa, what do I do now? But the benefit is people shift. So the IT Ops role has changed, it's best probably to get it before the operations. Where do you guys see that trend evolving? Because if this continues with AI and automation, you can almost imagine it's completely programmable infrastructure. >> Yeah, we do see a consolidation of Siloed Technologists, right, so this idea of I'm only a network engineer, I'm only a storage engineer, I'm only a cloud engineer, that is definitely going away and again, we've done this at TierPoint. We've kind of mixed those roles, right, educate the staff, but from additional education programmability, somebody'd be able to do the automation and the development in an engineering role verses having a separate development team working on that. It's gonna be really important as companies evolve their groups. >> I think you've had a lot of infrastructure engineers that 20 years ago, 15 years ago, knew Pearl, they knew scripting, they knew these things, and as time has gone on, now they know APIs, now they know RESTful APIs, now they're interacting, but we all know, in IT, it's always change and it's always learning, I mean, you got into this, right. So I think a lot of the infrastructure engineers, over time, are finding they were already automating things in some ways and they're becoming more mature in the ways that they automate things, right? I think it's a great transition as they go on, yeah. >> So, talk about the relationship with Nutanix. What's it like, partnering with them? They got a lot of momentum in enabling a partner strategy. We saw news with Hewlett Packard enterprise, potential channel opportunity there. They're a partner centric, they're partner friendly. What's it like, working with them? >> Fantastic, I mean absolutely fantastic, from go, see our customers were coming to us wanting to, they brought Nutanix to us, honestly, they came up. A lot of people that use Nutanix are like fans of Nutanix, right, you've seen some of those, and so our customers brought Nutanix to us, and as we began to see this trend, and we decided to make a private cloud product out of it, we engage with Nutanix. They've provided so many resources, they've been there for us, been very responsive. It's really been a natural and easy collaboration with them. And like you said, they do everything through partners so that has made it easy. We are another partner, right? They enable us, they know that part of their success is our success and vice versa, so it's almost like an extension of the team, which is fantastic. >> So what do you say to the new Nutanix customer that comes in, 'cause I agree with you, they're very hardcore loyal fans because they took a chance and they see benefits, so they took a chance and it paid off. It's like gambling, you put a number on the roulette wheel and it comes up black or red, whatever. They've had great success there and their promoter score is 90. But what about new people, are like, hey, I heard this Nutanix thing is out there, or software. How are you guys looking at these new opportunities, when is Nutanix a good fit? 'Cause you gotta balance it all for all your customers. >> Yeah. >> Depending on what they wanna do. >> Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Honestly, for us it's really about enabling the higher order applications and workloads for our customers, so I don't know, unless the customer themselves is really bringing Nutanix to us, that we're having that conversation. It's really like, look, this is a solution that's gonna provide you the capabilities, and again, trying to not have the customer really worry too much about that and let us own that relationship, and as PJ mentioned, Nutanix has invested very heavily, not only in the partnership but also developing this platform and solution for us so it's been-- >> So you guys could provide it, if no one asks, just provide the best solution. >> Absolutely. >> Right. >> And that's the key, right? >> I want to ask you a question about geographics. So, I'm based in Boston, John's based in the Valley, you're a technology company based in St. Louis. I'm interested, we may just come to this with our east coast, west coast biases and I'm just, what's it like to be a technology company in St. Louis, in the heartland, do you feel part of the community? >> Oh absolutely, in fact, St. Louis really has been, you see several articles about all the startup tech in St. Louis because it is an affordable place to live. You have access to all the cities, usually direct flights, right, so from a community perspective, there's a lot more technology startups than you might think in St. Louis, but they do have access to-- >> Rebecca: And great barbecue too. >> Great barbecue, absolutely. And it really is a beautiful place. You also have lots of parks, lots of rivers, lots of outdoor, I mean, it's kinda surprising, honestly. We have a main technology center also, in Raleigh, North Carolina, so we are split between the two. >> David: Yeah. >> We do a lot of flights back and forth. >> WWT is out there too. >> RTP, yeah, the research truck will park in North Carolina, as a very big tech hub, so that split really provides a balance. There's a very big business hub in St. Louis and a lot of collaborational partnerships there from the business side, but also that Raleigh Tech Hub on the east coast is really a huge benefit to us. And a lot of our partners are there, >> PJ: And like a lot of-- >> Nutanix actually, is right there, down the street. >> We'll have to come down and visit you in North Carolina. My daughter's going to UNC >> Oh, okay. >> So I gotta find some excuses to get down there. >> That'd be great. >> Anytime. >> Maybe see your business. >> Some TierPoint shows. >> Oh, that's right. >> Exactly. >> And do a little, couple interviews. >> Anytime. >> Anytime. >> Well, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE. It was great talking to you. >> Yeah, we really enjoyed it. >> Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, for John Ferrier, you are watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: Live from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, it's theCube, covering Women in Data Science conference 2018. Brought to you by Stanford. >> Welcome back to theCube. I'm Lisa Martin and we're live at Stanford University, the third annual Women in Data Science conference, WiDS. This is a great one day technical event with keynote speakers, with technical vision tracks, career panel and some very inspiring leaders. It's also expected to reach over 100,000 people today, which is incredible. So we're very fortunate to be joined by our next guest, Ruth Marinshaw, the CTO for Research Computing at Stanford University. Welcome to theCube, Ruth. >> Thank you. It's an honor to be here. >> It's great to have you here. You've been in this role as CTO for Research Computing at Stanford for nearly six years. >> That's correct. I came here after about 25 years at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. >> So tell us a little bit about what you do in terms of the services that you support to the Institute for Computational Mathematics and Engineering. >> So our team and we're about 17 now supports systems, file systems storage, databases, software across the university to support computational and data intensive science. So ICME, being really the home of computational science education at Stanford from a degree perspective, is a close partner with us. We help them with training opportunities. We try to do some collaborative planning, event promotion, sharing of ideas. We have joint office hours where we can provide system support. Margot's graduate students and data scientists can provide algorithmic support to some thousands of users across the campus, about 500 faculty. >> Wow. So this is the third year for WiDS, your third year here. >> Ruth: It is. >> When you spoke with Margot Gerritsen, who's going to be joining us later today, about the idea for WiDS, what were some of your thoughts about that? Did you expect it to make as big of >> Ruth: No. >> an impact? >> No, no people have been talking about this data tsunami and the rise of big data, literally for 10 years, but actually it arrived. This is the world we live in, data everywhere, that data deluge that had been foreseen or promised or feared was really there. And so when Margot had the idea to start WiDS, I actually thought what a nice campus event. There are women all over Stanford, across this disciplines who are engaged in data science and more who should. Stanford, if anything, is known for its interdisciplinary research and data science is one of those fields that really crosses the schools and the disciplines. So I thought, what a great way to bring women together at Stanford. I clearly did not expect that it would turn into this global phenomenon. >> That is exactly. I love that word, it is a phenomenon. It's a movement. They're expecting, there's, I said over a 100,000 participants today, at more than 150 regional events. I think that number will go up. >> Ruth: Yes. >> During the day. And more than 50 countries. >> Ruth: Yes. >> But it shows, even in three years, not only is there a need for this, there's a demand for it. That last year, I think it was upwards of 75,000 people. To make that massive of a jump in one year and global impact, is huge. But it also speaks to some of the things that Margot and her team have said. It may have been comfortable as one of or the only woman at a boardroom table, but maybe there are others that aren't comfortable and how do we help them >> Ruth: Exactly. >> and inspire them and inspire the next generation. >> Exactly. I think it's a really very powerful statement and demonstration of the importance of community and building technical teams in making, as you said, people comfortable and feeling like they're not alone. We see what 100,000 women maybe joining in internationally over this week for these events. That's such a small fraction compared to what the need probably is to what the hunger probably is. And as Margot said, we're a room full of women here today, but we're still such a minority in the industry, in the field. >> Yes. So you mentioned, you've been here at Stanford for over five years, but you were at Chapel Hill before. >> Ruth: Yes. >> Tell me a little bit about your career path in the STEM field. What was your inspiration all those years ago to study this? >> My background is actually computational social sciences. >> Lisa: Oh interesting. >> And so from an undergraduate and graduate perspective and this was the dawn of western civilization, long ago, not quite that long (Lisa laughs) but long ago and even then, I was drawn to programming and data analysis and data sort of discovery. I as a graduate student and then for a career worked at a demographic research center at UNC Chapel Hill, where firsthand you did data science, you did original data collection and data analysis, data manipulation, interpretation. And then parlayed that into more of a technical role, learning more programming languages, computer hardware, software systems and the like. And went on to find that this was really my love, was technology. And it's so exciting to be here at Stanford from that perspective because this is the birthplace of many technologies and again, referencing the interdisciplinary nature of work here, we have some of the best data scientists in the world. We have some of the best statisticians and algorithm developers and social scientists, humanists, who together can really make a difference in solving, using big data, data science, to solve some of the pressing problems. >> The social impact that data science and computer science alone can make with ideally a diverse set of eyes and perspectives looking at it, is infinite. >> Absolutely. And that's one reason I'm super excited today, this third WiDS for one of the keynote speakers, Latanya from Harvard. She's going to be talking, she's from government and sort of political science, but she's going to be talking about data science from the policy perspective and also the privacy perspective. >> Lisa: Oh yes. >> I think that this data science provides such great opportunity, not just to have the traditional STEM fields participating but really to leverage the ethicists and the humanists and the social sciences so we have that diversity of opinions shaping decision making. >> Exactly. And as much as big data and those technologies open up a lot of opportunities for new business models for corporations, I think so does it also in parallel open up new opportunities for career paths and for women in the field all over the world to make a big, big difference. >> Exactly. I think that's another value add for WiDS over it's three years is to expose young women to the range of career paths in which data science can have an impact. It's not just about coding, although that's an important part. As we heard this morning, investment banking, go figure. Right now SAP is talking about the impact on precision medicine and precision healthcare. Last year, we had the National Security Agency here, talking about use of data. We've had geographers. So I think it helps broaden the perspective about where you can take your skills in data science. And also expose you to the full range of skills that's needed to make a good data science team. >> Right. The hard skills, right, the data and statistical analyses, the computational skills, but also the softer skills. >> Ruth: Exactly. >> How do you see that in your career as those two sides, the hard skills, the soft skills coming together to formulate the things that you're doing today? >> Well we have to have a diverse team, so I think the soft skills come into play not just from having women on your team but a diversity of opinions. In all that we do in managing our systems and making decisions about what to do, we do look at data. They may not be data at scale that we see in healthcare or mobile devices or you know, our mobile health, our Fitbit data. But we try to base our decisions on an analysis of data. And purely running an algorithm or applying a formula to something will give you one perspective, but it's only part of the answer. So working as a team to evaluate other alternative methods. There never is just one right way to model something, right. And I think that, having the diversity across the team and pulling in external decision makers as well to help us evaluate the data. We look at the hard science and then we ask about, is this the right thing to do, is this really what the data are telling us. >> So with WiDS being aimed at inspiring and educating data scientists worldwide, we kind of talked a little bit already about inspiring the younger generation who are maybe as Maria Callaway said that the ideal time to inspire young females is first semester of college. But there's also sort of a flip side to that and I think that's reinvigorating. >> Yes. >> That the women who've been in the STEM field or in technology for awhile. What are some of the things that you have found invigorating in your own career about WiDS and the collaboration with other females in the industry? >> I think hearing inspirational speakers like Maria, last here and this year, Diane Greene from Google last year, talk about just the point you made that there's always opportunity, there's always time to learn new things, to start a new career. We don't have to be first year freshmen in college in order to start a career. We're all lifelong learners and to hear women present and to see and meet with people at the breakout sessions and the lunch, whose careers have been shaped by and some cases remade by the opportunity to learn new things and apply those skills in new areas. It's just exciting. Today for this conference, I brought along four or five of my colleagues from IT at Stanford, who are not data scientists. They would not call themselves data scientists, but there are data elements to all of their careers. And watching them in there this morning as they see what people are doing and hear about the possibilities, it's just exciting. It's exciting and it's empowering as well. Again back to that idea of community, you're not in it alone. >> Lisa: Right. >> And to be connected to all of these women across a generation is really, it's just invigorating. >> I love that. It's empowering, it is invigorating. Did you have mentors when you were in your undergraduate >> Ruth: I did. >> days? Were they males, females, both? >> I'd say in undergraduate and graduate school, actually they were more males from an academic perspective. But as a graduate student, I worked in a programming unit and my mentors there were all females and one in particular became then my boss. And she was a lifelong mentor to me. And I found that really important. She believed in women. She believed that programming was not a male field. She did not believe that technology was the domain only of men. And she really was supportive throughout. And I think it's important for young women as well as mid-career women to continue to have mentors to help bounce ideas off of and to help encourage inquiries. >> Definitely, definitely. I'm always surprised every now and then when I'm interviewing females in tech, they'll say I didn't have a mentor. >> Lisa: Oh. >> So I had to become one. But I think you know we think maybe think of mentors in an earlier stage of our careers, but at a later stage we talked about that reinvigoration. Are you finding WiDS as a source of maybe not only for you to have the opportunity to mentor more women but also are you finding more mentors of different generations >> Oh sure. >> as being part of WiDS? >> Absolutely, think of Karen Mathis, not just Margot but Karen, getting to know her. And we go for sort of walks around the campus and bounce ideas of each other. I think it is a community for yes, for all of us. It's not just for the young women and we want to remain engaged in this. The fact that it's global now, I think a new challenge is how do we leverage this international community now. So our opportunities for mentorship and partnership aren't limited to our local WiDS. They're an important group. But how do we connect across those different communities? >> Lisa: Exactly. >> They're international now. >> Exactly. I think I was on Twitter last night and there was the WiDS New Zealand about to go live. >> Yeah, yeah. >> And I just thought, wow it's this great community. But you make a good point that it's reached such scale so quickly. Now it's about how can we learn from women in different industries in other parts of the world. How can they learn from us? To really grow this foundation of collaboration and to a word you said earlier, community. >> It really is amazing though that in three years WiDS has become what it has because if you think about other organizations, special interest groups and the like, often they really are, they're not parochial. But they tend to be local and if they're national, they're not at this scale. >> Right. >> And so again back to it's the right time, it's the right set of organizers. I mean Margot, anything that she touches, she puts it herself completely into it and it's almost always successful. The right people, the right time. And finding ways to harness and encourage enthusiasm in really productive ways. I think it's just been fabulous. >> I agree. Last question for you. Looking back at your career, what advice would you have given young Ruth? >> Oh gosh. That's a really great question. I think to try to connect as much as you can outside your comfort zone. Back to that idea of mentorship. You think when you're an undergraduate, you explore curricula, you take crazy classes, Chinese or, not that that's crazy, but you know if you're a math major and you go take art or something. To really explore not just your academic breadth but also career opportunities and career understanding earlier on that really, oh I want to be a doctor, actually what do you know about being a doctor. I don't want to be a statistician, well why not? So I think to encourage more curiosity outside the classroom in terms of thinking about what is the world about and how can you make a difference. >> I love that, getting out of the comfort zone. One of my mentors says get comfortably uncomfortable and I love that. >> Ruth: That's great, yeah. >> I love that. Well Ruth, thank you so much for joining us on theCube today. It's our pleasure to have you here and we hope you have a great time at the event. We look forward to talking with you next time. >> We'll see you next year. >> Lisa: Excellent. >> Thank you. Buh-bye. >> I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCube live from Stanford University at the third annual Women in Data Science conference. #WiDS2018, join the conversation. After this short break, I'll be right back with my next guest. Stick around. (techno music)

>> Narrator: Live, from Washington, DC, it's the Cube. Covering AWS Public Sector Summit 2017. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services, and its partner ecosystem. >> Well welcome back to our nations' capitol, Washington, DC, hosting this week's AWS Public Sector Summit 2017. You're live, here on the Cube, which of course is the flagship broadcast of the Siliconangle TV, where my partner in crime John Fourier always likes to say, we extract the single from the noise, don't we John? >> That's right, we're here. >> Yeah, we are. >> In D.C. >> In DC and it's a little warm, it's a little toasty inside but outside especially. 95 and humidity, Jeff Raleigh could attest to that. He just pulled into town from Columbus, Ohio. Jeff, good to see you, the Senior VP and GM of Cloud at Ellucian, so thank you for being with us Jeff. >> Absolutely, John and John, happy to be here. >> You bet, so Ellucian, a leader in higher education software, we've talked a little bit about the company. 2,400 institutions around the world with which you work. Most of those, about 2,000 here in the US. Let's talk about that work, the kind of nature of the work first and then we'll jump into a little bit about how they're playing in the Cloud these days. >> Sure absolutely happy to, so the Ellucian's got a sole focus in higher education. So it's really the only industry that we serve. We serve the industry really from a software, enterprise software prospective. So that's really helping from an ERP perspective, HR finance, but really our bread and butter is the student system and it's really the systems around helping students achieve success. As they, go to a community college or go to a four year public or four year private. It's really about helping those students drive success. And actually get the successful outcomes. And we do that with registration, with advisement, with recruiting systems, so there's a full breadth of software that an institution needs in order to help a student successfully go through that process of getting a degree and ultimately getting a job. >> Well John and I can both relate to that. He's got a daughter who's transferring over to Cal Berkeley. Going to be going to school there. I've got a niece starting at UNC Wilmington that I'm helping out, I love the registration help. So, you and I need to talk about it. >> Absolutely. >> A question is how do you get the kids into the schools they want, is there a back door Trojan horse? >> We can't manipulate that much. But you talk about your company does data rich inside pour, which I thought that was an interesting way to kind of look at things. Like we have this huge treasure trove of information and data but yet maybe there's somewhat of a disconnect in interpreting that data and then putting it value, putting it to use. What do you see with regard to that in the higher education space? >> You know, I think John, that's a great question. That's actually a really big focus of ours in terms of unlocking that data. If you think about the systems that have been on campus for 30 years right. You've got all kinds of information about the students that have attended, the classes that they take and how well they've succeeded, the types of advising that they needed. But how do you unlock all of the rich information so that you can take that information, drive some insight and then just drive better outcomes? We've been working on a platform, we call it Ethos and what we basically built is a new data model for higher education where we've looked at all of those different systems and we've basically harmonized to a new data model that really sits above all of those systems. And we begin now to extract all of that information out from those systems, into a data model that's really designed around bringing role based or persona based insight. And we call it role based analytics. That basically is designed around answering the top five to seven questions that all of the people that are on campus have. So if you're a registrar and you want to know what classes should I be adding that I need extras of. Well, that's a tough question to answer, we unlock the answer to that through the Ethos platform and the new persona based analytics that we're developing. Cause when we sit down and we talk to presidents of a school or we talk to the provost, one of the things that they want is they want to know that the people that they have working on campus for student outcomes are getting access to the information that they need to do their jobs better. And so that's been a clear mandate from our customers to help them do a better job of using the information that they're collecting. >> How do you guys deal with the data science side of this Because it's interesting is that you're using data aggressively, Cloud's perfect for that. You got a lot of compute available, how are you guys taking that legacy environment and kind of putting overlay on top of a really high, functional analytic system? >> That's a great question John. So what we do is we enable all of our software, whether it be on premise software, most of our customers still run a lot of their software on premise. And what we've built for those systems is a set of restful APIs that we deliver wherever that software runs to push that data into an AWS cloud environment where we begin putting that data in the columnar databases that are really built and constructed to help get insight very, very quickly from that data. The most important part of doing that is really sitting down and talking to the person that has the question to understand, what's the question that you're trying to answer that you haven't been able to answer? And then building the visualization that they need that actually helps them answer that question. But we took it one step further, and what we did is we basically said, we know through our research that that first question really just always yields another question. Which then yields another question and so what we did is we built a heuristic capability into the analytic platform that based on the user, based on who they are, based on the role that they had at a school and based on other people that look like them and act like them and have that role. The system begins to learn the questions that are being asked and then where are they navigating to? What are the next questions, so that we actually begin presenting the users not just with the answer to the first question that they have, but actually to, we believe that now that you've got the answer to this, that this is where you're going to go next from an inside perspective. The next types of questions so we begin to guide the users and that's really where that guided nature comes from. >> So what's the next question John's going to ask then? >> This brings up the whole cognitive computing thing. The idea that predictive analytics are one thing, you've got prescription analytics also you've got the notion of recommendation engines. All kinds of cool things that are just sitting out there waiting to be applied, the question is how do you get the data, that's the number one problem. >> That's a good one, so we've got, one of the solutions that we have in our CR Import folio is called Advise. And what we do with that product is we actually bring all of the student data, so we bring their attendance data, we bring their health records, we bring all of the grades that they have. And we then build cohorts where we have like students. And what we begin to do is we begin to build a predictive model to find students that are at risk. That based on these attendance patters in these classes, we know that this set of students is likely to have a poor outcome. And so what we want to do is not just identify that, well, now they're at risk but it's the predictive side of, well what should you do, what is the actual intervention that you need to take that's going to drive a better outcome? So the solution actually takes all the data and does two things. First, it identifies who are the students that we want to be working with, could be at risk, could be hypos right, could by high potential students that we want to accelerate. But then it's about driving the actual actions and the interactions with those students. It is not just about identifying well, Johnny's going to be in trouble, it's well, okay, what should we do for Johnny to help him get out of trouble? And so it's both sides of that. So, it is about polling all of the data which means you need to understand where the data lives. We have an advantage there over, pretty much everyone else in higher education because those 2,400 institutions that we have, they are running a massive amount of our software from a portfolio perspective. So we know where the data is, so we know how to go out and get it. And then if you look at our partner, ecosystem we have over 130 partners that also serve higher education with us. And we know what data they have and we are enabling all of those partners to leverage the Ethos platform. To be able to share that data, both from an integration and interoperability perspective. But also to feed that cloud analytic solution as well. >> One of the cool things you're doing with AWS, I'll say, they pretty much run the table on public cloud, we see the numbers there. They're in the chapter of their company or divisions, like the way a company, I call the team period. I call it the enterprise years. Govnow is like really going, it's like reinvent size. It's getting to that level, what's the impact that that's having and what are some of the things that you're doing with AWS inside the public sector that's notable. >> That's a great question, I think one of the big things is we have a really, really strong go to market partnership with AWS. And I say the go to market side because we've had a really strong technical partnership with them for many years. Where we've been working with them as they've developed new services and we've been able to leverage those services to build micro applications, to build elastic applications, all of that. And that's great form a technical perspective but now it's about bringing all of that to market. We have a very strong joint partnership with. >> John: How many years has it gone back? >> About two and a half, three years. So our enterprise agreement is two and half years old. We were doing work with them before that. But it's about two and a half years old and when I look at that, we deploy all of our cloud applications solely on AWS. So they are the sole cloud provider for us. We've expanded our cloud offering outside of the United States, we're in Dublin, we have a data center in Sydney, Australia. And we are just expanded into their new data center in the eastern Canada area in Montreal. And that's helped us from a go to market because what they bring for us, is they bring that credibility of delivering cloud infrastructure. We bring credibility of delivering higher education solutions that solve specific problems that only exist in higher education. It's that combination when you go to market to basically say the world's leading infrastructure cloud provider partnered with the world's leading solution provider in higher education. That's an unbeatable solution for us. >> So I got to ask you the question that people might ask. Hey, I've not been following AWS public sector. I see the Wall Street Journal articles, they're killing it. How would you describe their current state of innovation, their current presence in the public sector market as of right now? >> I think the lens that I really have is really around that higher education, so community colleges, public four year schools and they are highly focused on it. They have a team of dedicated people that are just focused on higher education. They work with us kind of from a joint perspective and I know that my cloud business that I'm responsible for, it is the fastest growing part of Ellucian today. So in June of 2016, we actually surpassed, form a growth perspective we started growing much faster than the on premise side of our business. And that's in large part because of what AWS has enabled us to do, so from a training perspective, from a sales motion perspective, from a marketing and positioning perspective. It's a big focus for them. >> Would you consider them, like the perception of them would be they're getting traction, they've cleared the runway, they're at cruising altitude. Where are they in the mind share of higher eds? >> I definitely think, they've cleared the runway. They are clearly going past that 10,000 foot and up there. For us, one of the main reasons we chose AWS was that factor, they already had traction. They were well known and well understood and that really helps us. Prior to that, we were doing a co location where we were managing a bunch of infrastructure, that was a hard sell, cause let's face it, we're software people, not infrastructure people. When we started bringing AWS to the table and basically talking about that's where we deploy. That took a lot of questions around scale, security, elasticity and it basically put it all to rest. So we no longer have to contend with those questions because AWS is well known in the higher education space. So it really worked well for us. >> So when you sit down with a new client or new perspective client, the two of you, you come in with this great resume and I think is where it's kind of interesting to me, universities are these fountains of innovation and creative thinking. IT, maybe not so much, because it's very institutional. There's a lot of legacy baggage they're bringing along. So what are the impediments that you run into in terms of talking to folks who might be, not doubters, but maybe a little resistant to change or maybe have a little change aversion. I mean how do you go about bringing them along on that journey? >> What's interesting in terms of higher education is there's actually a couple things that are happening that really help us with that, that are happening. But to answer the first question John which was when we get into that, not really a battle. But when we get into that dialogue, where they're like well I'm not really sure that moving to the cloud is the right thing. There's an analyst that covers higher education and she's made a statement that basically is, by 2020, a no cloud policy on campus is going to be much like a no internet policy on campus. Just not going to be a thing. And a lot of that is because a lot of providers are only building cloud solutions. That's all you're going to have access to. One of the things that's happening in higher education is in the IT space particularly, they're having a hard time finding those IT professionals. Because higher education isn't seen IT wise as a sexy place to go. And so a lot of those people that have been working in higher education for 25, 30 years, they're reaching that retirement age, and so. >> John: The main frame guys. >> Right, the main frame guys, the Unix guys. And where do you go find replacements for those. And so, they're recognizing that, okay, well that's going to be a problem for us. And right there's a lot of the infrastructure, on premise infrastructure is getting old. So does it make sense to put that capital investment into infrastructure or I got other capital investment for research and research equipment that I'd much rather put, if I'm a president, I'd much rather put the money there. That also leads to an easier conversation around that journey to the cloud, that journey of taking your enterprise systems and moving them to cloud environments. The other thing that we find is, the conversation is never really around cost savings. What it's really around is the redeployment of those IT resources to be better business partners, to be business analysts, to be people that can actually be change agents at the university to bring about change cause they're no longer managing operating systems or writing network patches or security patches. They've offloaded that to us and we've offloaded part of that work to AWS. >> Well, we appreciate the perspective. Like you said, it sounds like you've got quite a corner on the market, 2,400 partners, if you will out there. Many of those overseas, so congratulations on that front. >> Thank you. >> And I wish you continued success and thanks for joining us on The Cube, first time I think right? >> Yep, first time. >> We have rookies across the board. >> But you're now a Cube alumni. >> I appreciate it. >> Look forward to having you back. >> Thanks John and John, appreciate it. >> Back with more from Washington, DC at the AWS Public Sector Summit, 2017. You're watching live on the Cube. (upbeat music)

continues coverage of vmworld live 2010 on the scene at the Moscone Center South with special guest Pat Cal singer from EMC the president former Intel 30-year veteran welcome back to the cube back with the bloggers will upgrade from our last gig VMworld rockin here in VMware so Pat back back at the cube we'll go and we know you're really busy so so you've been at EMC now for almost a year what's it like there and you just acquired greenplum you've been busy since we last met so tell us quick update what you're doing the one-year is coming up and you got green Flint under your belt what does all this mean for EMC and then we'll talk about the keynote okay so well you know overall I think things are going on schedule if you think about it that way you know we said and coming into it we had certain agendas we did product announcements last week that we'll talk to you know that I'll cover in my super session today we've said we're gonna be acquisitive right we did art early in the year we just a green plum VMware's continued their quiz in nature they announced two acquisitions this morning you're personally I said we were going to be a disruptive entity in the industry well I think service model right he laid out key strategic directions for things like security right and how that starts to implement through the V shield directions also this model of IT as a service for IT as well as for service providers the key partnerships there so you know a major delivery through the Redwood technology that they did and and then here following up with you know some of the substance - you know showing the clear tangible progress against the directions that Paul was describing very consistent with a lot of the things you've been talking about sort of in preview fashion for shocking yeah we taught that UNC Rose storage is sexy and that what that went over real well since then M&A has been off the charts sizzling hot storage now we're here and and what we're seeing is proof points and you've done some things with green plum talk about what it all means in terms of proof points what proof points do you see that absolutely established the reality of cloud and that this is a mandate going forward as a future architecture whether it's developers mobility and talk about those proof points yeah and I think you know let's be careful I don't want to be too what while I am gonna answer your question I don't want to get too far ahead of my skis in the sense that there's still a lot more cloud washing than there is cloud substance and you know if you go back to the theme right to us you know virtual you know virtual roads actual clouds are trying to say there is some substance to it but still there's a lot of visionary directions here no that's said right as part of the be plowed a partner program that Paul described today you know these customers these part are putting up real cloud offerings today and those are becoming very real things like vCloud director real tools to implement those in place real customers like the Levi's example there were they're implementing this and what they do yeah we had Tom Peck on down at sapphire our CIO Levi's great story there yeah and you know I met with customers like Telstra yesterday right who is absolutely implementing services and delivering them to enterprise clients so I think that we've clearly in the hype cycle where you know the height great it's often well in excess of the reality and I think that's been the case for the last two years and now we're seeing in that hype cycle that the reality is starting to build where our real customers real services real applications are being deployed against this cloud model and sort of the mantra that we've been laying and we're seeing increasing industry momentum saying yes indeed we all need to rationalize our products our services against that cloud strategy so you've seen a lot of inflection points in your day as have we where do you see this one rating based on in the context of what you just said the whole cloud computing inflection point is it bigger than all the previous ones in your opinion or still remains to be seen well any anybody making such a prediction right you should think twice about right you know the validity of their claim that says but I think there's two aspects to it that I think indicate that it could be bigger than anything before yeah the first one is just the industry is bigger right IT and as the economy has grown an IT has grown as an percent of the economy we're just big now and IT truly is just a huge sector of the economy particularly for United States right Silicon Valley area you know this is our agenda for the world so as the economy's bigger and secondly this is disruptive in multiple dimensions of the industry the changes the infrastructure it changes the application model it changes the service model it affects service providers that affect system integrators many of the prior changes were not as disruptive across all of the strata of the industry so because it's bigger because it is more in across all dimensions of the industry I believe and certainly you know as Joe has talked about Joe touchier CEO has said this is the biggest how big I don't know but as this one feels like you know this is sooo not Amica last wave if I was a surfer yeah Joe's famous wave slot we had Microsoft on yesterday who's actually here but they can't really show anything and we talked about them about their hypervisor I asked a specific question about as the PC era reached the Stu glass ceiling the bloated PC chained to the desk the PC centric view you've lived that generation it's not so much that it's irrelevant it's just that it's changing and and we're in a new era so what VMware is putting forth with this architecture and some of the things you've been working on you have a platform and you have agnostic devices that really changes the game on this PC centric I mean what do you see on them on the on the user centric side the key variables in the industry well I think you know number one any of these waves you know I predicted in 1990 the end of the mainframe varied 20 years later it still hasn't quite gone away right and that's that's it's not like these waves become the death of all prior you did some damage but it doesn't like immediately eliminate those prior technologies but the Nexus of innovation the foci of the industries new capabilities productivity applications is shifted and I think all of us today would say the PC right isn't that foci of innovation hey lots of apps are using it use it yeah hey I am much more productive on my laptop than animun iPad or iPhone or Android I mean you know I just you know just much more productive in that sense but you know I can't carry my laptop around in my pocket right clearly we're seeing the shift of innovation new application models new consumer centric usage models both the devices and the applications and I think as Steve Harrods akino talked about very much hey I want an app store like thing for my enterprise applications right where you see much of that consumerization coming to corporate IT as well so it has shifted right applications usage models will be device independent right they will become more sumer focus and essentially let's just say they're gonna be more iPhone like greater than how we'd get them and consume that at at to Orlando we sat down and we chatted about at a great chat and at the Cuban Orlando I asked you a question about apps and infrastructure and I asked you specifically our apps leading the way and showing the infrastructure and you answered no infrastructure as always was a leading indicator to apps but apps seem to have more momentum what is the VMware announcement today how does that shape that that thesis that you mentioned I mean obviously it looks like more enablement at the software level what can you share with it cuz that's real as a great point and what I want to bring that out again yeah yeah and the point I made there was hey you know we know a simple structural hardware guys right we create capabilities and then the apps guys come in and use them inefficiently and poorly but to enable new things a sort of that you know that gap right of capability in the infrastructure that then gets filled in by application vendors and I still believe fundamentally that's the case you don't write apps for infrastructure that doesn't exist yet you can't run an applications business that way so our job is the infrastructure guys is always to create these new gaps these new vacuums for the app guys that come and fill in and I think everything we're seeing is very much that case where all of a sudden there's lots of performance that's easily readily available you know think about how easy it is to deploy a VM today right literally you know if I would have had to go provision things buy some new servers get the port's alakay to get a network reroute you'll build up a new storage infrastructure it might be months for me to allow a major new application to occur literally now a few clicks we what do you see in the VMware announcement today given what you guys are doing in at the app level as the core enabler the disruptive enabler that's gonna really tip that over in terms of the innovation yeah they're anything new there well I think there are two aspects to it you know if you take the redwood the vCloud director and I think it really is this idea being able to rapidly with essentially no cost be able to create new virtual data center infrastructure be able to do it with the security model with policy based capabilities with the provisioning environment in the manager let's go with that is way profound right the second thing is all of all the things about spring right is not just being able to do infrastructure more rapidly it's not just encapsulating existing applications it's also enabling a new developer model for tomorrow's applications as well and that is truly right thrilling to anybody who's doing enterprise application development some of the CIOs we had on we're saying that they actually benched themselves against the cloud service providers do you see those two worlds the cloud service providers and big IT coming together or do you see the cloud service providers always having an edge over a big IT well I think there's an aspect to that that you it's not our job is to make the infrastructure as efficient on both sides of that equation as possible so that an IT guy isn't making the decision based on cost he's making the decision based on business relevant factors you know this is something hey you know I need to guarantee compliance in this application this is a business critical infrastructure element for me I'm gonna run into my infrastructure but I know the cost of doing so is still highly efficient I might Feder a tit with an external service right I might do tests and dev externally and when that's done I might bring it internally I might use Federation of outside compute capacity so that I don't need to build for peak I build for average and I spill over to rent VMs at quarter close or month close I might say boy I want to actually be able to take advantage and federated some of my key customers or channel partners or business partners I'm gonna have and I'd actually be able to them to be able to view me as their service provider right so hey just operate and utilize my applications right as one of my business partners as well and that's really the power of the vision that we're laying out it's not public versus private it's public and private and allow them to be federated together into hybrid services that give you the best of both worlds in a seamless agile manner Pat the M&A activities been hot you did a greenplum acquisition DMC bought cream plum which is a nice acquisition and rate act was very nice come on this is a game-changing acquisition by EMC to the cube we treat our guests nicely so it's hot so the horses are on the track I tweeted that and said hey everyone's out in the track right now the big guys Oracle EMC net AB so talk about what's happening why is the M&A activity so hot is it an indicated the fact that people have to retool faster is it an activity that they're behind is an activity that they need to move faster all of the above what is your view on that and you know what's next in M&A well I think it's a couple of different factors are at work and one is if you show up at my super session later today you know one of my slides is the three views of the cloud right the uber cloud model the Google's Amazon's I'll call it the vertical cloud model HP IBM and then I'll call it the virtual cloud model even seen anywhere right you know and of course you're right we contrast those three and what we're seeing I would say is those business models those industry structures those strategic frameworks are driving the consolidation of all of the medium and small players into one of those pictures so I think you can look at that lens and say everybody is taking M&A acquisitions to better implement and solidify their view of that strategy of these three different views of the cloud so right one is its industry structure that's going on second is you know after the downturn everybody's coming out of it cash rich right you know yeah yo people got money to spend there's a good time to do it right you know in that sense and you know so right there is a clear right earnestness to people saying okay right I can pay dividends I could buy back shares boy that's pretty innovative strategy isn't it right or let's go start you know taking more aggressive steps I think it also indicates that there are only so many exciting assets available right you know good assets that people could take actions on so you know and any buyer and seller market right prices get crazy when there's more buyers than there are three party people who followed your career know that you had Intel you were very Pro ecosystem and we just had some VCS on yesterday top DC's and cloud talking about how hot it is and they're looking for startups not the angel stuff but like real money real real technology talk about the ecosystem that's emerging in the startup community because so there are guys developing new cool stuff that very cloud centric that's yeah new so talk about your view there what you see and what your general opinion is well I think like any these waves there isn't just the wave of what goes on in terms of what the big guys do right there's new university research that's going on as some of that's exciting there's also than the adventure community great and with this wave you know it is so disruptive it changes consumer computing new consumer devices new consumer applications new enterprise infrastructure new enterprise applications and you know all of a sudden we're seeing a new round of dramatic VC activity again and they're not going into you know startups that are building a six and semiconductor sort of I grew up sort of saying let's go build new infrastructure components new applications that live on this new model and virtualization yeah absolutely it's all riding this cloud virtualization trend and you got just a stunning you know 17,000 people at VMworld I have one final question I know you I know you want to get a final question actually let me get my final question first in a new close I'll give you less word so you've been spend a lot of time in New England lately do you like it there you're gonna get a movie stir well we cry you out of here we've taken a second home Oh faster half time and my wife is actually loving this bicoastal a couple weeks a couple weeks there back and forth excellent ball season starting absolutely maybe the Red Sox so we had some readers point out on the blog that the Pat gal singer has the same exact track that Joe Tucci had CEO president CEO anything you want a nice they want you I want to say anything do I have no announcement that's great thanks so much I know you're super busy and coming on the show always thank you guys thanks thanks we right back