(snazzy music) >> From Boston, Massachusetts, it's the CUBE, covering WTG Transform 2019, brought to you by Winslow Technology Group. >> Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman and this is the CUBE exclusive coverage of WTG Transform 2019. It's the Winslow Technology's Dell MC user group, and therefore, we are always thrilled when, not only do we have a user on the program, but we have a local user who's also the Chief Information Officer. Shawn Rothman, who is the Chief Information Officer, CIO, of the town of Weymouth. Coming up from the south shore, a nice easy drive when the traffic isn't too bad. Shawn, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you, glad to be here. It's Boston though, so there is no such thing as the traffic being easy. >> Yeah, the traffic and the weather. Just wait a little while, it'll change greatly. We've got the mast plate right behind us with Fenway, and yeah, it is starting to get to the evening. You know, Friday commute back. But uh, you're probably going to the Sox game, so you won't have to worry about that. >> Exactly. That's my plan, is to wait it out. >> All right. So, as I mentioned, town of Weymouth about 12 miles from where we're sitting right now. You know, you're the CIO. Give us a little bit about, you know, what that means to be the CIO of a town here in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. >> Yeah, so you know, IT is so different when you get out of the corporate setting. We have a lot of high needs or requirements. There's a lot of public safety needs, things like that, that are consuming often. But the drive isn't always there to take advantage of it, so we've been continually working to grow new things, to grow new technology in Weymouth. We uh, I'm really struggling, sorry. >> Yeah, no it's great Shawn. Give us a little bit about, you know, what you can, how many people that you've served in the community, and your team itself, how many people you've managed, just to give us a little bit of a scope. >> So, in Weymouth we have about 500 full time employees within the town side and another, you know, more than 2,000 if you take in our schools. Now we have a separate IT department for our schools. We share combined networks, so we have a private dark fiber network that runs throughout the town that we share. I provide services for police, fire, DPW, emergency management, finance, all the things that you kind of do, public works. It's a lot of different areas. There's a lot of different needs and ways that we can meet the needs of the public. >> Okay, that's awesome. So underneath that, so infrastructure is a piece of what your group owns, yes? >> Yes. >> Give us a little bit, kind of scope that out for us, what that means when kind of the pieces that allow you to deliver those services to your constituents. >> Right, so it starts with lots of things people don't see, right? So, IT is often very hidden. If we're doing our job well, people don't really notice us. So, like I said, we have dark fiber all throughout the town that enables us to do everything from public safety communication, data replication, allows for DR so we have multiple sites for our data. We run Compellent SANs, based off running Dell servers, running VM ware. And, we run two different set ups. One at the town hall and another at my police department, and that provides my disaster recovery and things like that. From there, then you start looking towards facing of customers. We need to run bills for taxes, and water, and utilities, things like that, so, all those pieces start to play in. We're continually looking to grow in that area, so, one of the areas that we're actually looking at right now is increasing our presence online, as far as people's ability to apply for permits online to have inspectional services done online, to pay their bills online. You know, I think everybody wants their experience online to be Amazon, right? Go, open up your cart, buy up, put a bunch of things in there, hit pay, and be done. And, that's the direction we're trying to move, these days. >> Shawn, some of the fascinating conversations I've had in the last few years is when you talk to government agencies, municipalities, and the like, and that word gets thrown out, digital transformation, and what that means from you. Right, you know, today, you know, me? I live in a town here in Massachusetts. Yeah, gosh, why can't everything just be something that, I talk to my home assistant and it just gets done magically, and it's nice and easy? But you know, it's a journey that we all need to go on and there's some things that, you know, you don't have unlimited budget and unlimited head count to be able to manage that, so talk to us a little bit about, you know, does digital transformation mean something in your world? And, how are you helping to deliver some of those mobile enabled services? >> Yeah, so that really, I run into really two challenges there, well multiple challenges, more than two, but two really big challenges. One is getting people used to the idea of doing things in a way that they haven't done it before. You don't need to come to the town hall, go online and do it. You have to understand that billing, if you pay online, you pay with a credit card, there's charges that get assumed. With Amazon, that gets eaten by the product managers and things like that. Well, we don't have that, so those are surprise fees for people. So, those are challenges to teach people about. We also then have problems with teaching people within the town. Hey, I've always done my business x way. People come and see me, they do things, they fill out this form, they move along, and it's kind of transforming their abilities to understand and move in that technical age, also. Those are kind of the two biggest areas. Outside of that, is, you know, the up side is huge. We're talking to another community that has kind of gone to these things online, and they say they're getting like 40 to 60 percent of their building permits between midnight and 6:00 AM. That's a whole new world for the way the government has worked in the past. >> Yeah. Shawn, come on. I live in a town here in Massachusetts. We are proud of our 300 year old legacy and the way things are done here, which is a little bit different than the conversation we're generally having in IT these days. >> Yes, for sure. (chuckling) >> Great. So, you mentioned a little bit, you know, I hear Compellent SANs. You've got disaster recovery and all these pieces, so tie us into this event. What brings you to WTG Transform? Of course, I know Compellant has a long history of the team here, Scott and the team, so how long have you been working with them? And, tell us a little bit about the relationship. >> We've had a Compellent SAN actually installed by Winslow, it's got to be nine plus years ago to get started, and it's just kind of been one of those things that grew. You know, we started with Compellent, and then Dell bought Compellent, and we had HP servers, and while it was nice to have everything together, so we moved to our Dell servers, but I love to come here and see kind of where things are moving, where Winslow is going, where there's opportunities for me kind of to meet people's needs in ways that they're looking for that maybe I don't know about, ways I can protect our data, ways I can protect my constituents and my residents. Those are all concerns, and this is a great opportunity for kind of see all those different pieces, to get my hands on things once in a while, or to hear something that would get me moving in a direction maybe I hadn't previously looked at. >> Shawn, is there any initiatives you have, or technologies that you're poking at that you'd like to understand more, or things that you're looking for from kind of the vendor community that would make your world easier? >> It's hard to know what you don't know, and so there's always something new. Every time I get here, I see something that I'm like, "Man, this could really be transformative for us." It's often different to figure out how and when to implement those things. So, I don't know that I have, you know, I don't know that thing I don't know yet, I think I haven't found that key hot button for this year, I don't think. >> You bring up a really good point, a question I actually asked for years is, how do you keep up? And, of course the answer is, I don't care if you're the smartest person at the most important company in the world, no one can keep up with all of it all the time. So, the question is, who do you rely on to help you to understand and learn some of those new things? >> Yeah, so I mean, we all look at things from media, and there's Spiceworks is a great community I use, but my VARs are kind of, that's really where the rubber meets the road for me, And, you know, Winslow has just been, there are many things that I would, I'll take and leave. There's technology I use, and if I had to replace it, I get rid of it. Well, Compellent, Winslow, that combo is, I mean, it's called dead-hand technology, I mean, it doesn't leave, it's not going any place. They're crucial to me, knowing where to go, how to go. They help me figure out road maps, they've always kind of gone above and beyond in making sure that my needs are met, and that I know the direction things are going before I get jammed into a spot where I can't get out. >> Yeah, so last question I have for you, Shawn. CIO of a town here in Massachusetts, where do you find it kind of different and the same compared to the peers that you'd be talking to at an event like this? >> It's hard to find other venues like this. There's some government run programs, but they're not the same. >> So, I guess just to, what I'm asking for is when you talk to your peers here, do you have some of the same concerns and the same looking at technology, or are there opportunities or challenges you have working for a town government that maybe the average mid-sized business wouldn't? >> Sorry, yeah. Yeah, I think we share a lot of security concerns. Security, I think our concerns are very much aligned, right, we're all worried about what's happening outside our environment, we're concerned about the weakest link, which tends to be our end users ability to click a button, but outside of that, when we get to like how business really works, at times we're very different, at times we're very similar. So, my needs for disaster recovery, again, two buildings across town, that works for me. If I lose those two buildings across town, two, three, four miles, I've lost everything I care about, where a company, you lose something, you need to have backups across the country. So, there's some different needs, but the reality is we both need to protect our data, we both want to provide quality service to the people that depend on us, we both want to be moving in positive directions, we both have constraints on our budgets. So, I think there's a lot of overlap for me that I can pick up information here, even if sometimes the exact model they use isn't the same as what I would use. >> All right, last question I have for you, Shawn is, when I travel, you know, I live about 26.2 miles from downtown Boston, but I say I'm from Boston because people definitely outside this country, and even across this country, don't necessary know much of Massachusetts, so when you talk to somebody, how do we put Weymouth on the map? >> So, Weymouth is on the south shore of Boston, but generally, I would say the same thing, I'm from Boston, but we're, like you said, I mean, we're less than 10 miles really from the edges of Boston. We're right along the water, we have one, actually, one of the busiest ports in Massachusetts, outside of Boston, itself, Boston harbor, and so, you know, we're kind of right here in the middle of everything. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well it's getting close to beach season, it's actually the first day of Summer here. So, Shawn, thank you so much for sharing this story, town of Weymouth, and what's happening in your world, really appreciate you joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> All right, we'll be back with more coverage here from WTG Transform 2019. I'm Stu Miniman, thanks for watching the CUBE. (snazzy music)