Alan Cohen, DCVC | CUBEConversation, September 2019
>>from our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California It is a cute conversation. >>Hey, welcome back already, Jeffrey. Here with the cue, we're in our pal Amato Studios for acute conversation or excited, have ah, many Time Cube alone. I has been at all types of companies. He's moving around. We like to keep him close because he's got a great feel for what's going on. And now he's starting a new adventure. Eso really happy to welcome Alan Cohen back to the studio. Only great to see you. >>Hey, Draft, how are you >>in your new adventure? Let's get it right. It's the D C v c your partner. So this is ah, on the venture side. I'm gonna dark. You've gone to the dark side of the money side That is not a new firm, dark side. You know what's special about this town of money adventure right now, but you guys kind of have a special thesis. So tell us about yeah, and I think you've spoken >>to Matt and Zack. You know my partners in the past, So D. C. V. C is been in the venture business for about a decade and, um, you know, the 1st 5 years, the fund was very much focused on building, ah, lot of the infrastructure that we kind of take for granted. No things have gone into V m wear and into Citrix, and it's AWS, and hence the data collect of the D. C out of D. C. V. C. Really, the focus of the firm in the last five years and going forward is an area we call deep tech, which think about more about the intersection of science and engineering so less about. How do you improve the IittIe infrastructure? But how do you take all this computational power and put it to work in in specific industries, whether it's addressing supply chains, new forms of manufacturing, new forms of agriculture. So we're starting to see all that all the stuff that we've built our last 20 years and really apply it against kind of industrial transformation. So and we're excited. We just raise the $725 million fund. So we I got a little bit of ammunition to work with, >>Congratulate says, It's fun. Five. That's your eighth fund. Yeah, and really, it's consistent with where we're seeing all the time about applied a I and applied machine. Exactly. Right in New York, a company that's gonna build a I itt s'more the where you applying a i within an application, Where you applying machine, learning within what you do. And then you can just see the applications grow exactly right. Or are you targeting specific companies that are attacking a particular industrial focus and just using a eyes, their secret sauce or using deep taxes or secret uh, all of the above? Right. So, like I >>did when I think about D c v c like it's like so don't think about, um, I ops or throughput Orban with think about, um uh, rockets, robots, microbes, building blocks of effectively of human life and and of materials and then playing computational power and a I against those areas. So a little bit, you know, different focus. So, you know, it's the intersection of compute really smart computer science, but I'll give you a great example of something. It would be a little bit different. So we are investors and very active in a company called Pivot Bio, which is not exactly a household name. Pivot bio is a company that is replacing chemical fertilizer with microbes. And what I mean by that is they create microbes they used. So they've used all this big data and a I and computational power to construct microbes that when you plant corn, you insert the microbe into the planting cycle and it continuously produces nitrogen, which means you don't have to apply fertilizer. Right? Which fertilizer? Today in the U. S. A. $212 billion industry and two things happen. One you don't have. All of the runoff doesn't leech into the ground. The nitrous does. Nitrogen doesn't go into the air, and the crop yield has been a being been between about 12 and 15% higher. Right? >>Is it getting put? You know, the food industry is such a great place, and there's so many opportunities, both in food production. This is like beyond a chemical fertilizer instead of me. But it's great, but it's funny because you think of GMO, right? So all food is genetically modified. It's just It took a long time in the past because you had to get trees together, and yet you replant the pretty apples and throw the old apple trees away. Because if you look at an apple today versus an apple 50 years, 100 years, right, very, very different. And yet when we apply a man made kind of acceleration of that process than people, you know, kind of pushed back Well, this is this is not this is not nature, So I'm just curious in, in, in in, Well, this is like a microbe, you know? You know, they actually it is nature, right? So nature. But there'll be some crazy persons that wait, This is not, you know, you're introducing some foreign element into Well, you could take >>potash and pour it on corn. Or you could create a use, a microbe that creates nitrogen. So which one is the chemical on which one is nature, >>right, That that's why they get out. It's a funny part of that conversation, but but it's a different area. So >>you guys look, you guys spent a lot of time on the road. You talked a lot of startups. You talked a lot of companies. You actually talked to venture capitalists and most of the time where you know, we're working on the $4 trillion I t sector, not an insignificant sector, right? So that's globally. It's that's about the size of the economy. You know, manufacturing, agriculture and health care is more like 20 to $40 billion of the economy. So what we've also done is open the aperture to areas that have not gone through the technical disruption that we've seen an I t. Right now in these industries. And that's what's that mean? That's why I joined the firm. That's why I'm really excited, because on one hand you're right. There is a lot of cab you mentioned we were talking before. There is a lot of capital in venture, but there's not a CZ much targeted at the's area. So you have a larger part of global economy and then a much more of specific focus on it. >>Yeah, I think it's It's such a you know, it's kind of the future's here kind of the concept because no one knows, you know, the rate of which tech is advancing across all industries currently. And so that's where you wake up one day and you're like, Oh, my goodness, you know, look at the impacts on transportation. Look at the impacts on construction of the impacts on health care. Look at the impacts on on agriculture. So the opportunity is fantastic and still following the basic ideas of democratizing data. Not using a sample of old data but using, you know, real time analytics on hold data sets. You know, all these kind of concepts that come over really, really well to a more commercial application in a nightie application. Yeah. So, Jeff, I'm kind of like >>looking over your shoulder. And I'm looking at Tom Friedman's book The world is flat. And you know, if we think about all of us have been kind of working on the Internet for the last 20 years, we've done some amazing things like we've democratized information, right? Google's fairly powerful part of our lives. We've been able to allow people to buy things from all over the world and ship it. So we've done a lot of amazing things in the economy, but it hasn't been free. So if I need a 2032 c r. 20 to 32 battery for my key fob for my phone, and I buy it from Amazon and it comes in a big box. Well, there's a little bit of a carbon footprint issue that goes with that. So one of our key focus is in D. C V. C, which I think is very unique, is we think two things can happen is that weaken deal with some of the excess is over the economy that we built and as well as you know, unlock really large profit pulls. At the end of the day, you know, it has the word Venture Patrol says the word capital, right? And so we have limited partners. They expect returns. We're doing this obviously, to build large franchises. So this is not like this kind of political social thing is that we have large parts of the economy. They were not sustainable. And I'll give you some examples. Actually, you know, Jeff Bezos put out a pledge last week to try to figure out how to turn Amazon carbon neutral. >>Pretty amazing thing >>right with you from the was the richest person Now that half this richest person in the world, right? But somebody who has completely transformed the consumer economy as well as computing a comedy >>and soon transportation, right? So people like us are saying, Hey, >>how can we help Jeff meet his pledge? Right? And like, you know, there are things that we work on, like, you know, next generation of nuclear plants. Like, you know, we need renewables. We need solar, but there's no way to replace electricity. The men electricity, we're gonna need to run our economy and move off of coal and natural gas, Right? So, you know, being able to deal with the climate impacts, the social impacts are going to be actually some of the largest economic opportunities. But you can look at it and say, Hey, this is a terrible problem. It's ripping people across. I got caught in a traffic jam in San Francisco yesterday upon the top of the hill because there was climate protest, right? And you know, so I'm not kind of judging the politics of that. We could have a long conversation about that. The question is, how do you deal with these real issues, right and obviously and heady deal with them profitably and ethically, and I think that something is very unique about you know, D. C. V. C's focus and the ability to raise probably the largest deep tech fund ever to go after. It means that you know, a lot of people who back us also see the economic opportunity. And at the end of day there, you know, a lot of our our limited partners, our pension funds, you know, in universities, like, you know, there was a professor who has a pension fund who's gotta retire, right? So a little bit of that money goes into D C V C. So we have a responsibility to provide a return to them as well as go after these very interesting opportunities. >>So is there any very specific kind of investment thesis or industry focus Or, you know, kind of a subset within, you know, heavy lifting technology and science and math. That's a real loaded question in front of that little. So we like problems >>that can be solved through massive computational capability. And so and that reflects our heritage and where we all came from, right, you and I, and folks in the industry. So, you know, we're not working at the intersection of lab science at at a university, but we would take something like that and invest in it. So we like you know we have a lot of lessons in agriculture and health care were, surprisingly, one of the largest investors in space. We have investments and rocket labs, which is the preferred launch vehicle for any small satellite under two and 1/2 kilograms. We are large investors and planet labs, which is a constellation of 200 small satellites over investors and compel a space. So, uh, well, you know, we like space, and, you know, it's not space for the sake of space. It's like it's about geospatial intelligence, right? So Planet Labs is effectively the search engine for the planet Earth, right? They've been effectively Google for the planet, right? Right. And all that information could be fed to deal with housing with transportation with climate change. Um, it could be used with economic activity with shipping. So, you know, we like those kinds of areas where that technology can really impact and in the street so and so we're not limited. But, you know, we also have a bio fund, so we have, you know, we're like, you know, we like agriculture and said It's a synthetic biology types of investments and, you know, we've still invest in things like cyber we invest in physical security were investors and evolve, which is the lead system for dealing with active shooters and venues. Israel's Fordham, which is a drone security company. So, um, but they're all built on a Iot and massive >>mess. Educational power. I'm just curious. Have you private investment it if I'm tree of a point of view because you got a point of view. Most everything on the way. Just hear all this little buzz about Quantum. Um, you know, a censure opened up their new innovation hub in the Salesforce tower of San Francisco, and they've got this little dedicated kind of quantum computer quanta computer space. And regardless of how close it is, you know there's some really interesting computational opportunities last challenges that we think will come with some period of time so we don't want them in encryption and leather. We have lost their quantum >>investments were in literally investors and Righetti computing. Okay, on control, cue down in Australia, so no, we like quantum. Now, Quantum is a emerging area like it's we're not quite at the X 86 level of quantum. We have a little bit of work to get there, but it offers some amazing, you know, capabilities. >>One thing >>that also I think differentiates us. And I was listening to What you're saying is we're not afraid. The gold long, I mean a lot of our investments. They're gonna be between seven and 15 years, and I think that's also it's very different if you follow the basic economics adventure. Most funds are expected to be about 10 years old, right? And in the 1st 3 or four years, you do the bulk of the preliminary investing, and then you have reserves traditional, you know, you know, the big winners emerged that you can continue to support the companies, some of ours, they're going to go longer because of what we do. And I think that's something very special. I'm not. Look, we'd like to return in life of the fun. Of course, I mean, that's our do share a responsibility. But I think things like Quantum some of these things in the environment. They're going to take a while, and our limited partners want to be in that long ride. Now we have a thesis that they will actually be bigger economic opportunities. They'll take longer. So by having a dedicated team dedicated focus in those areas, um, that gives us, I think, a unique advantage, one of one of things when we were launching the fund that we realized is way have more people that have published scientific papers and started companies than NBA's, um, in the firm. So we are a little bit, you know, we're a little G here. That >>that's good. I said a party one time when I was talking to this guy. You were not the best people at parties we don't, but it is funny. The guy was He was a VC in medical medical tech, and I didn't ask him like So. Are you like a doctor? Did you work in a hospital where you worked at A at a university that doesn't even know I was investment banker on Wall Street and Michael, that's that's how to make money move. But do you have? Do you have the real world experience of being in the trenches? Were Some of these applications are being used, but I'm also curious. Where do you guys like to come in? ABC? What's your well, sweets? Traditionally >>we are have been a seed in Siri's. A investor would like to be early. >>Okay, Leader, follow on. Uh, everybody likes the lead, right? Right, right, right. You know what? Your term feet, you >>know? Yeah, right. And you have to learn howto something lead. Sometimes you follow. So we you know, we do both. Okay, Uh, there are increasing as because of the size of the fund. We will have the opportunity to be a little bit more multi stage than we traditionally are known for doings. Like, for example, we were seed investors in little companies, like conflict an elastic that worked out. Okay, But we were not. Later stage right. Investors and company likes companies like that with the new fund will more likely to also be in the later stages as well for some of the big banks. But we love seed we love. Precede. We'd like three guys in in a dog, right? If they have a brilliant >>tough the 7 50 to work when you're investing in the three guys in a dog and listen well and that runs and runs and you know you >>we do things we call experiments. Just you know, uh, we >>also have >>a very unique asset. We don't talk about publicly. We have a lot of really brilliant people around the firm that we call equity partners. So there's about 60 leaning scientists and executives around the world who were also attached to the firm. They actually are, have a financial stake in the firm who work with us. That gives us the ability to be early Now. Clearly, if you put in a $250,000 seed investment you don't put is the same amount of time necessarily as if you just wrote a $12 million check. What? That's the traditional wisdom I found. We actually work. Address this hard on. >>Do you have any? Do you have any formal relationships within the academic institutions? How's that >>work? Well, well, I mean, we work like everybody else with Stanford in M I t. I mean, we have many universities who are limited partners in the fund. You know, I'll give you an example of So we helped put together a company in Canada called Element A I, which actually just raised $150 million they, the founder of that company is Ah, cofounder is a fellow named Joshua Benji. Oh, he was Jeff Hinton's phD student. Him in the Vatican. These guys invented neural networks ing an a I and this company was built at a Yasha his position at the University of Montreal. There, 125 PhDs and a I that work at this firm. And so we're obviously deeply involved. Now, the Montreal A icing, my child is one of the best day I scenes in the world and cool food didn't and oh, yeah, And well, because of you, Joshua, because everybody came out of his leg, right? So I think, Yes, I think so. You know, we've worked with Carnegie Mellon, so we do work with a lot of universities. I would, I would say his university's worked with multiple venture firm Ah, >>such an important pipeline for really smart, heavy duty, totally math and tech tech guys. All right, May, that's for sure. Yeah, you always one that you never want to be the smartest guy in the room, right, or you're in the wrong room is what they say you said is probably >>an equivalent adventure. They always say you should buy the smallest house in the best neighborhood. Exactly. I was able to squeeze its PCB sees. I'm like, the least smart technical guy in the smartest technical. There >>you go. That's the way to go. All right, Alan. Well, thanks for stopping by and we look forward. Thio, you bring in some of these exciting new investment companies inside the key, right? Thanks for the time. Alright. He's Alan. I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube. We're Interpol about the studios. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
SUMMARY :
from our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, We like to keep him close because he's got a great feel for what's going on. You know what's special about this town of money adventure right now, but you guys kind of have a special thesis. um, you know, the 1st 5 years, the fund was very much focused on building, build a I itt s'more the where you applying a i within an application, So a little bit, you know, different focus. acceleration of that process than people, you know, kind of pushed back Well, this is this is not this Or you could create a use, It's a funny part of that conversation, but but it's a different area. You actually talked to venture capitalists and most of the time where you know, Yeah, I think it's It's such a you know, it's kind of the future's here kind of the concept because no one And you know, And at the end of day there, you know, a lot of our our limited partners, our pension funds, Or, you know, kind of a subset within, you know, heavy lifting technology So we like you know we have a lot of lessons in agriculture and health care Um, you know, a censure opened up their new innovation hub in the Salesforce tower of San Francisco, you know, capabilities. And in the 1st 3 or four years, you do the bulk of the preliminary investing, Do you have the real world experience of being in the trenches? we are have been a seed in Siri's. Your term feet, you So we you know, Just you know, uh, put is the same amount of time necessarily as if you just wrote a $12 million check. I'll give you an example of So we helped put together a company in Canada called Yeah, you always one that you never want to be the smartest guy in the room, They always say you should buy the smallest house in the best neighborhood. you bring in some of these exciting new investment companies inside the key, right?
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS :
ENTITIES
Entity | Category | Confidence |
---|---|---|
Jeff Hinton | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Jeff | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Alan Cohen | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Joshua | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Jeffrey | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Matt | PERSON | 0.99+ |
NBA | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Carnegie Mellon | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Alan | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Canada | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
Joshua Benji | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Jeff Bezos | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Australia | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
Stanford | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Silicon Valley | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
Zack | PERSON | 0.99+ |
San Francisco | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
$725 million | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
September 2019 | DATE | 0.99+ |
Tom Friedman | PERSON | 0.99+ |
$4 trillion | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
Pivot Bio | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
AWS | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Amazon | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
$150 million | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
New York | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
100 years | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
three guys | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
$12 million | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
$250,000 | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
50 years | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ | |
Pivot bio | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Thio | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Element A I | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Siri | TITLE | 0.99+ |
Five | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
four years | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
University of Montreal | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
U. S. A. | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
200 small satellites | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
Today | DATE | 0.99+ |
last week | DATE | 0.99+ |
two things | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
1/2 kilograms | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
Fordham | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
yesterday | DATE | 0.99+ |
Amato Studios | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
both | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
one | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
15% | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
Draft | PERSON | 0.98+ |
today | DATE | 0.98+ |
$40 billion | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
The world is flat | TITLE | 0.98+ |
Vatican | LOCATION | 0.97+ |
about 10 years old | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
20 | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
Planet Labs | ORGANIZATION | 0.97+ |
32 | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
One | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
15 years | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
125 PhDs | QUANTITY | 0.96+ |
eighth fund | QUANTITY | 0.96+ |
Venture Patrol | ORGANIZATION | 0.95+ |
Michael | PERSON | 0.95+ |
Palo Alto, California | LOCATION | 0.95+ |
one time | QUANTITY | 0.94+ |
Israel | LOCATION | 0.94+ |
1st 5 years | QUANTITY | 0.93+ |
ABC | ORGANIZATION | 0.93+ |
one day | QUANTITY | 0.92+ |
One thing | QUANTITY | 0.92+ |
Salesforce | ORGANIZATION | 0.91+ |
Earth | LOCATION | 0.9+ |
$212 billion | QUANTITY | 0.9+ |
1st 3 | QUANTITY | 0.89+ |
last 20 years | DATE | 0.87+ |
last five years | DATE | 0.86+ |
under two | QUANTITY | 0.85+ |
about 60 leaning | QUANTITY | 0.84+ |
about a decade | QUANTITY | 0.82+ |
Eso | PERSON | 0.8+ |
Yasha | PERSON | 0.77+ |
Orban | PERSON | 0.76+ |
Prakash Rajamani & Ronnie Ray, Cisco | Cisco Live EU 2019
(upbeat music) >> Live from Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE covering Cisco Live Europe, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Hello everyone welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage here in Barcelona, Spain for Cisco Live Europe 2019. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, with Stu Miniman and Dave Alonte also here doing interviews. Our next guests, two guests from the DNA center platform, Cisco, the agent platform team, Prakash Rajamani, director of product management, Cisco and Ronnie Ray, vice president of product management, Cisco, the DNA center platform growing 70% of the use cases, software distractions, API automation. Congratulations. Great success. Thanks for joining us. >> Thanks John. >> Big Fan of the DNA center. You guys have made great progress. Take a step through us. The positioning, how things are rolling, what's some of the feedback? Where's the DNA center platform at right now for Cisco? >> Yup. >> So DNA center was launched about 80 months back and it's probably one of the products in Cisco that has completely started to transform how we do the selling motions. So this is one of the key drivers of Cisco moving into light sensing mode switch, more software like. Now as part of how we do management Typically and traditionally it has been very much a manual driven process there's some reporting but it is a lot of expert light capabilities that you need to have to do management of the infrastructure then it's kind of moving that access to where you can now do machine-lift management. Of course it doesn't solve all the use cases absolutely as you mentioned, more than 70% but there's a whole host of new capabilities that you have to put on top and that's where developers come in because this is a platform that's built for developers to be able to extend it's capabilities to really look at solving problems for our customers. >> I think you know, after listening to all the announcements in temp based networking, ACI anywhere, hyperflex anywhere, data at the center of the value, data centered as you guys say, it's clever but I think it highlights what you guys are doing because you're talking about programmability of the network as two worlds collide actually three worlds collide, Cloud, On Premises and Edge into one network, you have a network, the network is key it's getting bigger, to cross domains is a big theme here, these are hard problems that are being solved by Cisco more complex cause there's more moving parts but it still has to operate as one network. This is essentially highlights the success of the DNA platform, am I kind of getting it right or is that kind of in line with how you guys see it? >> Sure, I mean I think Cisco DNA centered I mean if you look at the evolution we started in the network domain. You're absolutely right we have kind of extended to the brand change, there's nine integrations that are happening with the data center integrations, happening with the cloud, so yeah absolutely looking at the fabric that we launched about 18 months back now extending and stretching to all of those domains and wherever users connect and wherever users go to and that's of Cisco data center but think about that as we kind of do that, yes there is a change that also required not just in the product but also in the IT process because earlier companies had silos of things and now those silos will be forced to work together and CI was one that our network folks that support us because really they want to see cross domain bring power to the organizations but we are the enabler of making that happen. >> No brainer. >> Prakash, I'd love for you to take us inside ya know, we love looking at the product management piece here because you've had a lot of constituencies. You've got the internal product teams that all I'm sure want to get in and mature and expand their used cases. You've got all your partners that are building the platform. You've got the customers asking for feedback You've got a - ya know, a lot of options to choose from which is a good thing but you've obviously got limited resources. So take us inside that, what you've learned over the last year and how you helped prioritize and move this product forward so fast over the last 18 months. >> So one of the main things we did when we started with Data Center is to start thinking and having the vision to get a data center platform. With that in mind, every feature, every capability that we built in the product was built API first before we built a UI around it. Right? That has helped us immensely in the last couple releases we've started delivering features as APIs even before it had a face to it, and I think that has helped us prioritize and make sure that we are able to meet the demands going demands of customer or partner we had a customer who was like "I need this feature now" and we were hands strapped, we had a big back log, we couldn't get things done but the fact that we were able to get the APIs we were able to work with the customer and say "Hey here you can wire these three APIs and you can get what you're looking for" and he was like "Wow, that's so simple and I'm on my own" he was happy, we are happy we are able to manage our back log better. So I think the main strategy for us that's working is going API first on a pragmatic basis. This is us moving completely software driven as Ronnie was highlighting earlier in that relevant process that is helping us get there and that's part of it >> Well, it's customers a lot I mean they get to roll their own if you will without having be customized, it's still standardized with the APIs >> That's right, right? I mean the benefit is as you start getting into the 30% used case where "Hey, what's coming out of the box is not meeting exactly what I do today" we provide very grander APIs to very business driven, simplified interned APIs. The grander APIs allows the customer who wants to say I want A, B and then D and E to move forward compared to intern based API who is using the pride in the simplicity in driving that formula. >> Yeah, Ronnie I'm wondering if we can up level for a second here cause feedback I've gotten over the last year. Ya know, a year ago we heard Cisco is moving heavily towards software. When I talked to a lot of the partners both technology partners and channel partners they said this had a ripple effect inside Cisco it's not so much okay here's the skews and here's the new boards and here's the products but I need to sell a solution and therefore that's platforms that I have to have and therefore everything needs to work together and I have to think API first and like it does significant changes to how Cisco is, the joke I used to have is Cisco is like 100 companies and some people were like "Well, maybe it's 100, maybe it's 200." But today it's now something like platform is a unifying place, is that what is your solution set part of that drive and is that something you're seeing more broadly inside Cisco? >> Certainly, I think you're absolutely right that is does have a unifying effect if I might put it that way. >> Yeah Right? Because there's so many different capabilities that existed in different tools that are coalescing on Cisco data central and which is becoming part of the platform which is now customizable by our entire development community but think how fast that happens in a now within the sales force, within Cisco as a company there is no more cross domain knowledge that'll be required because now it operates different parts it can tune different things, that also means that is supposed to change the business model because going into software and kind of bringing it together and is increasing Cisco is obviously ya know foyering into softer subscriptions, this is a key product that's kind of supporting that, so in many ways it's not just the technology, it's not just APIs but also as a business process that's changing Cisco just like it'll change customers. >> One of the things we're seeing is a lot of design thinking principles this year. Love the new positioning bridged to the future bridged to tomorrow, wherever it goes but it's clean. Connecting the worlds are connecting together through the network get that. What has been some of the challenges and opportunities you guys are seeing around simplicity? Love this API, exposing API allows for customization, I love the broader intent based templates are great but it's hard to make things simple. Can you just elaborate on how you guys are thinking about the product short, medium, long term in terms of continuing to work the back log, I'm sure the feature list is growing like crazy but you got a challenge to make it simpler. >> Absolutely >> How hard is it? What does it entail? Share some insight there. >> So lets take the question in two parts and Prakash can talk to the product simplicity because that is a certainly something that we've got to manage very very carefully but think about also when simple doesn't just mean usable product, it also means a product that can fit into the ecosystem and make the process simpler. So there's a lot of deeper understanding that we are developing through the learning as we work with customers and how do we embed how do we make customers life easier how do we make the process easier and then after goal is how do we make their operational expenses lower? Because we want them to go faster, we want them to go faster at a lower cost and so there's a certainly both learning and investment that's happening there and the product side Prakash. >> On the product side it's about how we used to build to how we are building right now the way we used to do was a new feature comes in it goes to the device layer first the device team builds it puts CLI around it ships it off, sends it to the management team and the management team says "Oh, I got to support this feature" They go, they wrap a UI around it to support the feature, ships. Now we have flipped it turn completely around we start with like what is a customer's work field? What do they need to do and how can we do it in the minimal steps? Once we identify that we push that down to saying "Here is what the user interface looks like here are the three steps that they need to do. That trickles down to saying what we need as an APA on the device layer to develop the feature so we've gone down from going a bottom up way to build a product to a top down, customer driven, used case driven way to build a product. That means we are addressing the customer head on from a simplicity perspective and that's basically what has made us successful in moving the ball forward on this one. >> What has been some of the customer feedback? Can you share some anecdotes around some of the early customers you started rolling this out and what are the ones receiving on the receiving end today saying? >> So when you see from a simplicity feedback perspective I have a large retail store rolling out like maybe 60 APs in a single store over night and they've gone from having that be done over three nights to one person spending 20 minutes putting all the APs up going to the tool and the tool recognizing everything that's come up and deployed. So it's a night and day transformation on how it used to be to how it is right now. So the simplicity >> Sounds like the old way was >> Sounds like you saved a night in a day >> Manually configure, go put a wireless ping to it >> Yep, the old way was yeah you go you plugged the AP, you come back you look at the tool, the AP is there >> Check the channel, stuff is there. >> Map it to the right controller, do all the mappings Now you don't have to do anything just plug the APs and upload preloaded to say these APs are going to the store. The tool takes care of the rest of the stuff that's how simple it is become >> It's almost like old way new way What why are we doing that? And it's good when they have consistent environments with policies there's definitely more expansion. I get that, what about other used cases? Wireless is one hot one, I could see that branch off it's deployments what are some of the popular used cases that you're seeing in the customer base I know you got a broad base but what are the ones what are the patterns that are emerging out of this? >> So let me start another then have Ronnie chime in on the used cases he's seen. Some of the ones that are probably very transformational is that on the policy based used case, we have companies turning around and creating small subdivisions within their organizations. We have a large government in Yasha who is deploying that, they have 20 divisions. Earlier to do that it's extremely complex. They have to go in, they have to understand what division, who is using on which device, which ports mapped to them, just planning that it says it's so huge. For the new policy different approach that we have going, they don't have to know about anything they just need to know Prakash works for division A, Ronnie works for division B assign me to respective divisions, as I come in my policy gets right over to the network. I deploy the network as is, as I speak that is basically the level of simplicity that has changed and that all ties back to doing your network from a policy perspective not a networking from a feature perspective. >> Got it, Ronnie any comments on used case on your end? >> Yeah absolutely so think about we've talked about assurance we launched segmentation that's doing very very well of course even with when all of the public acknowledgement that goes with it but an interesting used case that's come up which is in fact in the keynote this week at Cisco live is about IUT extensions. So Data seto owa is extending to the factory floor, the production equipment and transportation and these are tremendous neo opportunities that are both for companies to kind of look at IT and OT and how this comes together, again going back to the unification simplification theme that do many more things at the same time they try to make it in a rationally much more operable. >> Okay so lot of progress in 18 months give us the road map going forward. We're at the beginning of 2019 what you'll be looking for, can a high level show show us what we should expect to see down the road >> K so from a road map perspective it's in a think about that we've been very focused on getting the customer value. Now the lens is kind of shifting to how do we deal with large enterprise capabilities? So both the hardening of the system itself, how do we look at, for example multiple clusters opening up in diverse locations will give us geo diversity and support there from that perspective and high availability. So these are enterprise class features every large customer requires it and as they move from smaller deployments to full scale deployments that is something that the labs look to need >> Yeah, Prakash when I heard you talking about things I need to think a little bit differently. It's like okay I'm used to going into the deploy and it's going to take me three days wait how do I learn about the fact that I can do it now in a couple of hours? What kind of training or retraining or education is that part of what you're doing in your team or where does that happen? >> It's part of the education, part of the videos we double up and publish to customers so that they don't think about this as I'm going to approach my same 20 steps and think that I'm going do that through data center except that I'm going to do that through a user interface. The first thing that we tell them is like "You're going to do 20" You're going to do two. Right? So the immediate feedback is oh does it address everything I want to do? And so that's the 70% used case more would rather say yes it addresses only thing is we have simplified it, we have compressed it so you don't have to go and go through all these 20 steps but instead get it done in two, so the watts have helped some of the trainings that you have done has helped even talking to from a sales process the customer to know "Hey this is what I'm embracing" so when they come in they don't come in with I'm going to run my network the same way but no no I'm going to run it differently has helped us immensely to make the transition >> Well guys, congratulations on a great successful product, big fan I love that thing, I think it's going to be the future there's a lot more head room there that's cause we're looking at automations the devnet zone we're in is showing massive growth. The appetite for automation the appetite for configuration and scale and managing the complexity is a sweet spot I think that you guys had a nice formally hear looking forward to it. Final question for these guys Ronnie and Prakash are going to both answer it. Say something about DNA center platform that people should pay attention to that they might not hear in the mainstream chatter that's important that they should maybe want to kick the tires or understand it further, an area that they should know about that they might not hear about or they should know about what's the most important feature. Share some, share some insight. >> So again just looking at a little bit into the future of Cisco data center platform, right now we're kind of talking of APIs, there's capability that's coming in the future that will also deal with work flows and the work flows will be built on something which is machine built so there will be a lot of analytics in fact in a data center not only does automation but also extends data analytics so a lot of cool stuff that'll come there and again we'll talk about it more as we get to the next Cisco live. >> Prakash anything? >> I'm going to go a little more ground level people tend to talk about simplicity, talk about how we can do things way differently with data center and people tend to forget that we have not forgotten the network engineer who has been managing the network. We have APIs for you to do the same things you've done all along, create articles create re-lance, do some of the basic networking stuff so that it's not about this just as simple we also have the more detailed breakdown of the API so that you can still continue to know the nuts and the bolts and other things as well as much as the simple stuff so it's the >> It's an empowering all personas in the network from network engineer low level getting down and dirty to large scale automations, whatever the use case is you got the empowerment. >> Yep that's basically what I would like to >> That's awesome, well congratulations Again big fan, DNA center takeover here in the Devnet zone I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman Cube coverage day two of three days stay with us for more after this short break. (electronic music plays)
SUMMARY :
brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. growing 70% of the use cases, software distractions, Big Fan of the DNA center. and it's probably one of the products in Cisco of the network as two worlds collide looking at the fabric that we launched over the last year and how you helped So one of the main things we did when we the benefit is as you start getting into the 30% and here's the new boards and here's the products absolutely right that is does have that also means that is supposed to change Love the new positioning bridged to the future How hard is it? and the product side Prakash. as an APA on the device layer to develop the feature having that be done over three nights to Map it to the right controller, do all the mappings Wireless is one hot one, I could see that For the new policy different approach that we So Data seto owa is extending to the factory floor, We're at the beginning of 2019 that the labs look to need and it's going to take me three days wait some of the trainings that you have done has helped I think it's going to be the future and the work flows will be built on and people tend to forget that It's an empowering all personas in the network in the Devnet zone
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS :
ENTITIES
Entity | Category | Confidence |
---|---|---|
Ronnie | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Dave Alonte | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Prakash Rajamani | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Cisco | ORGANIZATION | 0.99+ |
Ronnie Ray | PERSON | 0.99+ |
John Furrier | PERSON | 0.99+ |
John | PERSON | 0.99+ |
Stu Miniman | PERSON | 0.99+ |
70% | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
20 divisions | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
20 steps | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
30% | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
Barcelona, Spain | LOCATION | 0.99+ |
last year | DATE | 0.99+ |
two guests | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
60 APs | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
two | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
three days | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
two parts | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
20 minutes | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
three steps | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
more than 70% | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
a year ago | DATE | 0.99+ |
Prakash | PERSON | 0.99+ |
both | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
one network | QUANTITY | 0.99+ |
today | DATE | 0.98+ |
one person | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
100 companies | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
theCUBE | ORGANIZATION | 0.98+ |
this year | DATE | 0.98+ |
nine integrations | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
three worlds | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
two worlds | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
18 months | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
200 | QUANTITY | 0.98+ |
three | QUANTITY | 0.97+ |
20 | QUANTITY | 0.96+ |
this week | DATE | 0.96+ |
one | QUANTITY | 0.96+ |
100 | QUANTITY | 0.95+ |
One | QUANTITY | 0.95+ |
tomorrow | DATE | 0.93+ |
Cisco Live Europe 2019 | EVENT | 0.92+ |
single store | QUANTITY | 0.91+ |
owa | LOCATION | 0.89+ |
DNA center | ORGANIZATION | 0.89+ |
division A | OTHER | 0.88+ |
over three nights | QUANTITY | 0.88+ |
couple | QUANTITY | 0.87+ |
2019 | DATE | 0.87+ |
about 80 months back | DATE | 0.85+ |
a night in a day | QUANTITY | 0.84+ |