>> Announcer: Live from San Francisco, it's The Cube covering DevNet Create 2017 brought to you by Cisco. >> Welcome back here, we're live here in San Francisco for SiliconANGLE's the Cube's exclusive 2 days of coverage for Cisco's inaugural event DevNet Create, building on their 3 year old successful DevNet program which is Cisco core developer program now foraying out into the world of cloud native developers, open source, great move for Cisco. Our next guest, Wissam Ali-Ahmad, lead solutions architect with Splunk. Good to see you. >> Good to see you too, John. >> Here with Peter Burris of course, my co-host. >> Wissam: Hi, Peter. >> So Splunk being here is an important thing because you guys have been riding the wave for cloud, certainly your relationship with Amazon web service is well known, very successful. Splunk as a company went public, well known. You guys really, really hit a niche around big data and how cloud has helped you guys accelerate your business. So you've been transformed, but continuing to grow, so you're riding that wave, but now Cisco's on the wave, and Cisco's been involved in the wave. But from a relationship standpoint, oh yeah, we're the networking guys, we're going to come in and help Docker with this, we're going to come in and help Splunk with this, so they've been kind of a helper, not the main player. This is a new way to get back in and be really enabled for the cloud world. What's your reaction to this move by Cisco? >> I mean, we have a great partnership with Cisco for many years. And I think, you know, Splunk plays a good, as you said, we're a good player there. We integrate well. I mean, all the initiatives Cisco's involved with, we have integrations with Cisco on many levels with different technology. And also Splunk, the deal is with Splunk is that you need to bring invisibly to everything, and Splunk is that platform where you have access to all that data throughout all, all is like all that machine data so you have access to all that data, not only application data, not only network data. You need to look at everything these days. Especially when there's attacks. You know we heard recently, of course everybody heard about WannaCry, and to the tech, that attack, you need to look at everything, because you could someone bring in a laptop behind the firewall even, and they can be affected already, and if you don't have access to see what they're doing, not just from a network perspective, like what apps in the cloud they're accessing, you know, what other files on the locally, so, because you have access to all that data in Splunk, you should be able to get better visibility. >> And you guys have a unique position in the sense that you're close, again, to the machine. You know, logs and data We had Amanda on from Cisco, who was, in her tribe as a developer, she's not necessarily a network engineer, but she's brought on that mojo in from the developer community. When she was first day on the job, you know, they were doing some Python, some rest API stuff, you know, basic 101 stuff, but she didn't want to do an app that was showing hey, how many Twitter followers do I have? She had to go in and look at the devices. So now the opportunity with IOT is that for Cisco to make and expose the network for programmability >> Wissam: Right. >> And extend it. How are they going to do that? I mean you're closer to those guys in your relationship, but that's what everyone wants. They want the infrastructure to just go, that's DevOps >> Right. Yeah, they want the edge to come to them. They want data to be more accessible to all the users. And then so Cisco's on that path, definitely on that path, to get more infrastructure visibility in the data center and the networks, so they're definitely on that path of doing that. >> And let me build on this, so if we think about the various components associated with some of the things that Splunk does. A leader in the application of machine and AI and big data related technologies, to solving business problems. The algorithms for doing this have been around for a long time. The hardware couldn't do it, so you had to write really tight software to do it, and you were one of the first companies out there to really do that. And then it was, we'll point all that at sources of data, that you can apply these technologies, to create better business value. And there were two places where people did it. Web logs, for online marketing, and IT, since IT technology throws off an enormous amount of data. So as I think about it, the relationship with Cisco is especially interesting, because Cisco is going to be one of those companies that encourages people to create new sources of data and a lot of it, IOT and other places, and bring it back to companies and technologies that have a proven track record for generating value out of that data. So talk a bit about how Splunk intends to, going back to what John said, riding that wave. The algorithms are here, the hardware can do it, now we've got to get access to more of the data, and here comes Cisco being really serious about moving a lot of data around. What do you think? >> I mean, we like when people bring in a lot of data into Splunk. We also have been focusing a lot on the personas. On the, we call the Sherlock, the data Sherlock. Right, so that unique persona is where they need to look at, how do I make sense of my data? Not only just about bringing data, but how do I make sense of that data. What are solutions? What are use case I need to have better impact on the business? So we're actually helping solve real kind of business use cases. This morning, Yelp had a webinar about how they use Splunk driving all the web infrastructure for Yelp, the Yelp back end for all their-- >> Peter: This is still in the IT? >> Yeah. >> Peter: It's not Yelps marketing group, this is still in the IT? >> But they are correlating that with other business use cases, yes. >> Of course, it will start coming together. So where do you see some of these use cases popping up, now that Cisco is helping to create those new sources, and get people to, you know, acculturating people to the idea that these are sources of value, business value. Where do you see some of the new use cases? >> There's a lot of use cases now coming up around business analytics, around IOT as you mentioned. And an added element of machine learning across different data sources. So if I want to look at not just performance of one service, let's say my elevator, I want to see how that's going to affect other areas of my business, too. So you're able to see not only the power of correlating that data, but also be able to apply machine learning on that data. So there's a lot of use cases around business analytics. Security's always there, because security, as you know, attack vectors are getting complex every few months or so, so you need to also chase that, and you need to look at all the data, the behaviors in that data, to get better predictability, to get better prevention detection. >> So Splunk is emerging as a great software company for a lot of IT pros, but it still is more in the op side. How is this conference and the likelihood or the notion that developers are increasingly going to be part of that use case, it's utilizing data and data-related services to better understand operations, but find new ways of creating value out of the capabilities provided by that. What's the developer angle here for Splunk? >> Great question. We actually are focusing a lot on developer tools. So Splunk, being a platform. I always say Splunk is a full-feature platform for machine data and big data. So it's open in the sense that developers can develop their own content on Splunk. They can extend what we have. So an example of that is, the recent project called Mexico Contaro. So that's a project full that's looking at internet usage and coverage on Mexico, in Mexico City and across all the cities. And this was using Splunk to end Meraki API's, and bring all that data together, and network data to try to give exposure to kind of like government analytics. And that's a neat case because not necessarily only IT, but also helping all the goods out there. >> So Cisco, Meraki and other sources, plus Splunk to be able to get deep visibility into a number of ways, you know, a very complex system like Mexico City, which is about as complex as you get, actually operates. >> Wissam: Yes. That's one, yeah. >> Tell about the Splunk direction now, because everyone's been questioning about the public offering, because you're not putting numbers out there, active community, it's not that you guys aren't being transparent, but you've got to go to the next level of growth. Obviously Cisco's coming at the cloud native world. We see the cloud native compute foundation, really with great support of the Linux foundation. New open source stuff's going on all the time. How is Splunk looking at the future right now? What's next? I mean obviously security, we heard that at Dot Conf last year, but you guys have really a good position with the data. You have good account names. You've got great blue chip customers. What's next? What's the product solution look like for you guys? What's the new architecture? What's the new plan? >> I think more listening, looking at all the scale, and cloud and listen to the customers, making the data onboarding easier, making it more scalable, covering more use cases that we talked about. Innovate a lot of areas around machine learning, all that to cover more of the use cases, so we're definitely moving forward to go the next step beyond just-- >> So let's take another example. So DevOps, right, everyone loves the DevOps. It's not like a solution, you can't buy DevOps, you just got to do it, right? So that's pretty clear. You can't just write an Agile manifesto and say, "We're DevOps." You got to have a vision, maybe write a manifesto just to get the people motivated, but put the right people in place, let the things organically develop. So the question is, what is an ideal architecture, and what is a best practice, from your standpoint, where you've seen examples of people who've transformed into this DevOps world, where they really got the ball rolling, got some change happening, and then scaled it. Can you give us a kind of a pattern that you've seen the customers? >> I have not seen personally a lot of that, but definitely there's transformation happening. It's not easy to move into that DevOps switch. You cannot do it overnight. So you need as much as possible tools that would actually give exposure, how am I doing, right? Am I pushing my code at the speed it's expected to be? Do I have bugs addressed early on? So that kind of exposure you need a system that will give you basically to analyze all that data too, and then at Splunk we have a story on DevOps. DevOps and application exposure monitoring and that. And the unique thing about Splunk is that you don't only look at what's inside the application, which was AMP's that do application management, but you should look at everything, so we look outside the black box. Not inside the app, but look at outside too, so we're going to give you exposure of your whole DevOp process You know, from the beginning, the whole condis integration, so I see Splunk helping organizations moving into that kind of new process. >> But there's an interesting relationship between tools and process, or tools and skills, so John, you'll probably laugh at this. Many years ago I found myself sitting in a room with the CEO of a very, very large pharmaceutical, me and a group of other other consultants, and he said, the discussion was, are we going to buy SAP or not? And after two hours of people arguing about it, he finally said, "Screw it, we're doing it, "I'm sick and tired of these process arguments. "We're just going to do what SAP says in the process." There's a relationship between the practices suggested by Splunk and the types of things that a business actually does in a DevOps sense. What is this, how is Splunk changing the notion of DevOps, and how is now as Splunk extends itself, how is DevOps and new practices and new ways of thinking, altering the way that Splunk delivers capability? >> I mean, we always listen to our customers. And then we've actually been looking at addressing use cases, like on DevOps, from a persona aspect. Like as a DevOp engineer, I won't be able to address this kind of issues, and we listen to that, and we try to address those, not only just by a tool, but also by looking at best practices around that. And sometimes we manifest those through apps. So Splunk can actually, you can publish an app as a developer if you're not happy as a customer, you can modify, take one of our existing free apps, and then modify them cue on process, so we're not kind of specific rigid to certain way, and I know DevOps, and Agile Ward, is not even like a religion, you know, you're not supposed to follow, you're supposed to be flexible in certain areas, and even implementing DevOps comes in Agile way too. >> But it's still pedagogical, and John in many respects, there's your manifesto for DevOps, right? Is your choice of tools and how they come together, and degree to which they're integrated kind of take priority. >> Well, you got eight minutes until you have to go up on stage and do your talk. Here we're live in San Francisco. What are you going to be speaking about when you hit the stage in eight minutes? You have seven minutes to explain (laughs). >> (Laughs) Deliver pitch. So I'll be focusing a lot on the integrations that we have with various Cisco products, so we have, with Splunk you're able to bring in a lot of the API, data through API integrations, so I'm going to show how easy that process is to bring that data if you have an API like Meraki or ACI or Ice. And I'll also be focusing more on how the data you can do it from the cloud, easy, without having an agent involved, without having any software you need to install to collect the data, and we'll be talking more about the Mexico Contaro case, and then do some fun live demos also. >> But Cisco's got good API's, people might not know that, but they are API'd up pretty well on the equipment and the gear and the platform. >> Yes, of course. >> Just commentary on that, your reaction to share for people who are not fluent in Cisco, in terms of their enablement of getting data out? >> Yes, Cisco has a lot of good API's, capabilities around sharing that data, the openness of it has been great, and made easy for us, even for our customers to bring that data, the API, that data into Splunk, so it's a matter of a few minutes now to point to that API and bring that data into Splunk, and yeah, that's good. >> Wissam Ali-Ahmad, going on stage in seven minutes, you got it all done, congratulations. Thanks for coming on The Cube. I know you've got your big speech here to the packed house. Inaugural event here, Cisco's DevNet Create. Thanks for coming on The Cube. >> Thank you, John. >> More live coverage here in San Fransciso. This is The Cube, I'm John Furrier, with my co-host Peter Burris. Stay with us as we get down to wrapping up day two. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break. >> Hi, I'm April Mitchell, and I'm the senior directory of strategy and plan