>> Narrator: Live from San Francisco. It's theCUBE! Covering DevNet Create 2017. Brought to you by Cisco. (tech music) >> Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here, live in San Francisco, for theCUBE's exclusive two-day coverage of Cisco system's new inaugural event called DevNet Create. An extension and an augmentation of DevNet. Their classic Cisco Developer Program. Again, augmenting and creating some intelligence that's AI augmented intelligence. I'm John Furrier. Peter Burris bringing a lot of intelligence here. With Craig McLuckie who's the founder and CEO of Heptio. Cube alumni. Been on many times. Guru in the cloud. Great the see you Craig. Thanks for coming on. >> Thanks so much for having me back on. >> Thanks for coming in. More importantly about this event is really the community extension for Cisco. Cisco ingratiating into the community of open source and developers in a big way. But not like brute force. It's a very humble event. Small event in San Francisco. Really you see the connection of app dynamics with the networking. And again, developers want DevOps. They want infrastructure as code. They want the scale of the internet. That's the purpose, your thoughts on this event? >> Yeah, so far I've been very impressed. It feels like a pretty authentic developer orientated event. The sessions so far have been quite accessible. And generally pretty well thought through. I think Cisco is doing a very great job of actually doing exactly what you're saying. Which is creating an event that's relevant to the developer that isn't necessarily tied to Cisco's interest. And establishing themselves in terms of thought leadership and actually creating a narrative that works with the community. >> Yea. One of the thoughts that we're talking about in conversations that we're seeing on the Cube. Especially this year. Is really the two waves that are clearly emerging in the digital transformation is cloud and data. And cloud being, you know, public cloud. Private cloud, hybrid. Essentially large scale resource data creating value. And the application developers really taking advantage of that. And you can't look further than containers and Kubernetes. As a key thread to bridging these two worlds of pretty much unlimited capacity in terms of compute. Obviously pricing. Business models and operational models are different by vendor. But the emergence of multi cloud points to, to me. The future. I personally don't think it's ready for primetime. But certainly I would say directionally correct. But hybrid clouds is a reality. So developers are going to have on prim and off prim. But how do they connect it all? How do you orchestrate it all? This is a core channel and I know your working on a FDO. And it's near and dear to your heart. You thought of the state of the industry with respect that Kubernetes, containers. And how app developers can get that freedom without being a networking guru. Really truly getting infrastructures code without a lot of, well I got to run this with that. I just want seamless cross connection between applications. >> Yeah, I think we're definately... You know a couple of things are true. One is, it's been spectacular to see the amount of progress we've made in this community in the past three years. Going from a situation where we're just seeing the spark of awareness around containers. As a frameworks packaging deploy applications. You know, into an environment to become rarely something that most every organization out there is looking at. To solve both difficult longstanding challenges in the active space. But also to open up this wall of multi cloud. To create opportunities for people to move their compute around. In this increasingly androgynous world. And its been interesting, you know, last year. To see a growing awareness of the importance of multi cloud. I think there's two things that have been really motivating that from my side. You know, one is being and understanding that it really isn't a one horse race anymore. We're really starting to see a surge in effort from both Microsoft and Google. And that's generating a lot of relevance for folks who want to run in this multi cloud world. And the second thing we start to see is a legitimate interest in this edge computing phenomenon. As organizations are aware of the implications of increasing volumes of data showing up in their networks. Showing up on premises. Showing up in these environments. Having the flexibility to move compute into those. Cause as you can see it's huge. And so obviously I'm a little bit bias. I think Kubernetes and containers are an amazing platform. I rarely, you know, tap into both of these growing sort of four points awareness. One is being able to create a natural compute fabric that decouples your applications and services from the cloud provider. That allows you to look at the cloud provider as both an infrastructure offering. But also to judiciously pull through services that are special that you might need. But then also having the flexibility to offer up your own services and then move that around from environment to environment. It's been quite wonderful the watch that start to take shape. >> Craig you've also got some good insight into architecture. You actually know the cloud game. You worked at Google. And Google's got some great stuff. Got Tensorflow coming out. You're seeing kind of that going on. And I would agree with you. It's not a one horse race anymore. Absolutely. However there's a lot of pressure on the businesses. The customer impact to deploy in this digital transformation. Is, pressure cooker's hotter than ever. >> Absolutely. >> I mean Ford just fired its CEO. Stocks down 39%. He's two years into his transformation. How the hell does a CXO transform their business if they've got a gun to their head? What's your advice for the guys out there that don't want to be the next Mark Field's? Who have to essentially run as fast as they can without disrupting operations and also try to perform top line revenue. Which is isn't easy apps. I mean it's a tough spot. Your thoughts? >> No, it is really interesting. You know, I tend to think about IT as this kind of rarely interesting optimization problem. The thing you try to maximize is velocity. You have to be able to use technology to solve core organizational problems. You have to be able to point technology to business. You have to be able to move from this world. Where technology was being delivered in a traditional products fashion. To the world where technology is being delivered as a service. If you look at Tesla. Tesla's no longer a car that is just a standard car. It's actually almost a service. Like the technology that's being deployed into the Tesla evolves day to day. The car's becoming better and richer and more amazing. And so CIO's have to start looking at this as an optimization problem. Where you want to optimize for velocity. You have to maintain an effective posture around risk management. And then, inside that you want to achieve an acceptable SLA. This is the really interesting thing is that a lot of folks are looking for like four nines, five nines, six nines, whatever crazy availability you're looking at. Except that the higher you're pushing your availability. The further back you have to pull on your velocity. And so for me, the most exciting thing. In terms of... I have these conversations with CIO's that are looking to make transform into this new world. It's helping them understand this balance between code velocity and availability, reliability. The underlying systems. Understand the role that some of these modern automated orchestration systems are playing. As a way to drive up your ability to move far. So without necessarily driving down your general service availability. And then, looking at ways to transform the organization itself. From being a technology organization that is throwing tech over the fence. To a much more nimble sort of smaller teams that are delivering up technology as a sort of services. It's an amazing time to be a part of this transformation. >> So we think... You've done a lot of research on this. Let's see if I can find your statements in there and just get a sense of how you think about these things. Is that at the end of the day. A business institutionalizer's work around the assets that are core to its mission. And John and I were talking about this before hand. In the old days, the biggest asset, most important asset. Was the hardware. So you institutionalize the work around the hardware. And then it became your application portfolio. Whether it was SCP or something else. And you institutionalize work around that. Today, our observation. Here's the test. Is that the asset that's most important is your data. And you're going to reinstitutionalize work around the data. And how you use that data and imply that data to a lot of different business activities. What do you think about that? Is data becoming that kind of central asset around which IT and hopefully even the digital business gets reinstitutionalized along the lines of what you're saying? >> Yes, absolutely. I think it's really important to understand that. There's really two components to this. You know, IT is information technology. It is literally just the process of making sense of data and information. >> Right. >> And presenting it in a way that you can make effective business decisions. >> So we're going back to our roots in many respects. >> Right. >> DP, data processing. (laughing) >> But it's also... It's also about experience. >> It's what? >> It's also about creating an experience. >> Right. >> For the customers. So I think at the heart of it this IT transformation is around two things. It's allowing modern businesses to generate a better understanding of the customer. Though the leverage use of data. >> Based on customer created data. >> Based on customer created data and observable information about the customers. And then it's based on experience. It's using that the create in crafts a richer, more satisfying better experience for the underlying customer. And obviously data is central to both of those. But the experiential side of it has a lot more than. You can't look at that purely as a data processing thing. There's a sort of mechanism that you need to do to create those wonderful experiences. And you can start leaning into things like artificial intelligence as a way to drive and prove experiences. You can lean into U Form Factors and sort of new ways to connect customers with their businesses. As a way to try that experience. And you know, the products themselves are becoming increasingly evolved. Like, I've certainly seen recently and talking to auto manufacturers. Is owning awareness that the car itself has to be creating a ongoing and sort of richer and more interesting experience. It has to be more interestingly tied to the customer. >> So software and data are connecting? >> So software and data are coming together. And software's allowing businesses to gain insight. And then you know, the data is allowing the software to create a more relevant experiences. You can't really separate those two things. >> Well software is data. At the end of the day software is data. (laughing) You go back to Yobach Deterian, that's what he said many years ago. But bring us back to Heptio for a second. So if you take a look at Kubernetes. And we agree Kubernetes. You know, in the last three months the Cube's had what, fifty thousand shows or something like that. (laughing) And we got a lot of very, very bright guests on it. >> Feels like it. >> And we've had... And Kubernetes has been a consistent theme. Containers are important. These technologies from managing and orchestrating these containers is going to be especially important. And Kubernetes is right in the mix. But Kubernetes kind of looks like an infrastructure almost a... I don't want to say a nerd. But you know what I mean? It's just not.. Heptio is taking it.. Is how you use that a little bit better. And what should you do with some of these concepts of design? Which is the one thing you didn't mention when you started talking about this stuff. How does design? Experience plus design come into play here? Especially through a tool set like Heptio? >> Oh, it's interesting. You know, at the end of the day I think there's two components to the design. There's designing for the users. You know, honestly I want Kubernetes to be the most boring thing in the world. At the end of the day I want a business to not think about their infrastructure. Like it just needs to fade into the background and become this invisible substrate around which they live. >> Yeah-- >> The water in which they swim. >> I've said for years that the value of infrastructures immensely inversely proportional to the reach to which anybody know anything about it. >> Yes. Absolutely and so. For me, you know, my interest in Kubernetes. I don't want to necessarily show up and fade into the full brain of the developers who are using the technology. I want to fend in the background. I want them to be focused on the design activities that are helping them do their work and sort of succeed and create great outcomes. And so if I had one complaint about Kubernetes right now. It's too interesting. >> Too interesting? >> It's too interesting. We need to make it... >> Boring. >> Boring. (laughing) >> We need to like... >> Ubiquitous. Well no, I think a lot of people are working on it. Cause I think they've identified it as an opportunity to connect things and make it easier. So there's work being done. People are funding companies. >> Absolutely. >> So exciting is a relative term. >> So no, there's a lot of work to be done. >> What's the biggest challenges technically Kubernetes has? If it's going to be boring, what has to happen to make it boring? >> So it's interesting. You know, I think there's a number of things that need to be done. You know, one of which is that. When we were building Kubernetes we created this configuration sintex. Which is sort of Yaumul. It's effectively a simple seralisation of the underlying Kubernetes API's. And for new users of the system. The first thing they encounters is what we call the wall of Yaumul. Where all the Yaumul's ahead. Like it's a very daunting experience. And so we're thinking hard about ways to change that. So you create a much ore elegant experience. Have much better tooling. Have the experience of editing that sort of fade into the background of the developers functions. And then, to your earlier point about design. You know, making it really easy to use some additional concepts that other people have put forward. Creating higher degrees of usability and discoverabililty for other pieces. Through projects like what Microsoft's been doing with the Helm project is really important as well. So you can expect to see us make a significant down payment on trying to... You know Heptio make a significant down payment on trying to address the problem. >> Well, I'm certainly going to be following you. We got a lot of the Lennox Foundation. The CNCF's got out there. Final question for you is. Thoughts on multi cloud? What's your definition of multi cloud? What does it mean? We kind of commented earlier because certainly there's not a winner take all cloud game. There's going to be multiple cloud players. There might be even specialty clouds. As things get boring in that abstractional layer gets simplified with developer friendly interfaces. Clouds will emerge as resource pools. But what I multi cloud mean for you? What's the customer... How should they look at what multi cloud is and what is the path to multi cloud? >> Right. So you know, multi cloud. It's starts with nutragenetity. It starts with the ability to run your workloads in a variety of environments. So nutragenetity, first of all, surrounds the physical infrastructure provider. Not being tied into a single provider model. No one necessarily wants to move back to the wall of IBM circuit 1985. Where you're locked into a single provider and hopefully nobody gets fired for buying that provider. But the problem with it is it rarely softens the amount of intervention in a sea around that. You have these single points of intervention. The second thing that I think about is nutragenetity in terms of locality. The ability to create something that runs both at the network edge. It will perform for the computing sort of realm as Cisco has coined the term. In a data center location that is a potential customer. Sort of in one of their localities. Or in a public cloud. It's going to be about multi-regional support. Being able to pull an application that you can run in the US geography and then in other regions that have regulated requirements around data mobility. So we have to handle all of those things. And inside that, I think there's kind of three key attributes of evolving sophistication that people need to think about. The first is the cloud is just solving an infrastructure outsourcing problem. And that's the most sort of simplistic way of looking at it. Second thing about cloud is. It's a way to consume a broad array of interesting technologies as a service. Right. So, it could be a simple BM but it could also be a database or something else. It's moving the wall from this situation where that thing that you can see as a service is being provisioned by a ticket. Where there's an operator at the end of it. To a world where it's being provisioned by an API. And the final piece of it is being able to move your own infrastructure to that services realm. Your own technologies. The things that are running your business. And deliver them as a service into your own wall. And so for me, multi cloud means hitting that level of nutragenetity and then being able to provision arbitrary services at the end of the API. And then deliver your own sort of services in the same fabric. >> Craig McLuckie, founder and CEO of Heptio. Former Google Cloud leader. Certainly subject matter expert. Thanks for coming on. Great to see you again. >> Thank you for your time. >> I appreciate it. >> Appreciate it. Cube alumni. Always laying down the epic knowledge here inside the Cube. Bringing you the inaugural coverage of Cisco's DevNetCreate. Developer conference as they go out into the open source community. With the full force of Cisco. Of course the Cube's here. I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break. (tech music) >> Hi I'm April Mitchell and I'm the Senior Director of Strategy & Planning for Cisco DevNet.