>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas It's The Cube Covering VMworld 2017. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back to The Cube. Continuing coverage of VMworld 2017. Day two of the event, lots of exciting conversations that we've had so far. I'm Lisa Martin with my cohost Dave Vellante-- >> Hey. >> Hey! We're excited to be cohosting together, right Dave? >> That's right. >> Of course! And we have Cube alumni Calline Sanchez, Vice President of IBM Enterprise Storage Systems. Welcome back to The Cube. >> Thank you for inviting me. It's always great to have discussions with you. >> Yeah. So, talk to us, we're at VMworld day two, what's new with IBM and VMware? >> So what was great about working, or walking through the expo floor, is hearing conversations about data backup, like as they say with the IBM Backup Bar-- >> It's hot! >> They have, and also this idea that we work to optimize data within the entire stack. So yeah, you have your base infrastructure, but you layer on top of that things that support the digital experience. >> Why is backup so hot? Why now? >> Well, so my favorite reason is because of tape. Tape allows you to cheaply store data, so it's like about a cent per gig. That's a big deal. And I don't know, I suspect you like really good deals on shoes, bags, et cetera, I know I do. So that's what's great about tape, is it's cost effective as well as it's a high performer, high capacity element that we intend to deliver. >> OK, so I buy that. I've always been a fan of the economic argument for tape. Let me ask you another question, and see if you see this, Calline. It seems like when virtualization came into vogue, people had to re-architect their backup for a variety of reasons, less physical resources, et cetera. Is cloud affecting the way in which people think about backup and if so, how? >> So we support cloud service providers. As they say with tape, if you're cost effective and you can meet certain performance and capacity requirements well, you usually are part of the stack associated with the delivery into the cloud service provider data centers worldwide. So all I'm saying is that it's relevant, it's important that we continue to innovate, associate with what's required with regards to tape. >> Well, while we're on the subject of tape, let's carry that through. The conventional wisdom from the spinning disk and now the flash guys, oh, tape, tape is dead, I've been hearing tape is dead since I've been in this business, which is now quite a long time. What's kept tape alive, it's obviously the economics, but it's got to be more than that. It's got to be easier to use, it's got to be functional, what kind of innovations have occurred around tape to make it continue to be viable? >> So I would say our focus on enhancing spectrum archive. It used to be called a linear tape file system, and really it's this idea of a USB for file access or data access. So we keep working on focusing and delivering data access patterns that are actually efficient for our clients, simple to use, and we enable automation, which has been something that's great based on Ed Walsh's focus or strategy for our storage portfolio, and I know you've just heard that we had two awesome growth quarters within IBM Storage and our goal is to continue that through modernizing our entire portfolio. >> Three would make a trend, I told Ed. And he's like, "Come on, gimme a break." No, but it is awesome to see IBM's storage business growing again and hopefully that can continue. >> So speaking of innovation, and you talked about tape and people think tape's been dead for a long time, but you're talking about it as a core component of cloud strategies for businesses. How has IBM evolved your messaging, your positioning, as technologies have evolved and customers are now going, "We have to keep a ton of data," Michael Dowd talked about the importance of data today being at the CEO agenda level. Talk to us about how some of the innovations IBM is doing to help customers understand the relevance of different types of storage according to data growth but also going from data centers to centers of data. >> Great question. So, one thing that's really interesting, being that I'm from the lab, we have delivered, or our intent is to accelerate the entire roadmap as it relates to tape, so that we stay ahead of the delivery path and meet the requirements based on clients worldwide whether they're scientific clients based on some of the advanced data that is required, as well as cloud service providers. They say, "Hey, we're expecting you to innovate "and deliver as quickly as possible." And sometimes it's like the requests are quite interesting and fascinating based on just even the digital or the analytics of measuring like, temperatures in data centers. And what we're doing with Rocky interface based on ethernet interfaces. The clients are pushing us with regards to improving overall and delivering to meet the cloud economics that they require, as well as the attributes of. >> What's changed at IBM, if anything, I'm inferring something's changed because I've always said, one of the criticisms I've had of IBM storage is the pace with which it was able to get products out of engineering and to the marketplace, and that pace has accelerated quite dramatically. I don't know if it's new leadership, you mentioned Ed Walsh before, or there's been a change in the philosophy, am I dreaming or have I noticed-- >> No, you're completely accurate. So when we're talking about development or delivery, we're so much more agile that we really work to reduce the complexity of delivery, and we're delivering major functions or complex things to more simple, and getting client input sooner, and partner input sooner than later. Where as previously, it was like we worked for over a year sometimes on technologies or advancements and it would take a while for those clients to then adopt. Now, we have to deliver something a heck of a lot faster than we had done before. >> And are customers part of that innovation process? It sounds like-- >> They are. >> That's been a big change-- >> So we're big. Historically, we always talked about betas. Now we're talking about alphas, and some of these original demos in order to grow our understanding of the use case in the very early phases. And usually we did not have this type of discussions prior, at least in my experience, but now it's like it's a requirement. So, with new leadership is a component, as we discussed, but also this idea of really focused agility. Delivering to the marketplace faster, listening to our clients, so that means improvement based on how we go to market as well. Because it's important that we deliver value to our clients or we're not relevant. >> We were talking earlier to another guest, a competitive company, and we were talking about the anatomy of a transaction, and we were going through it and at one point he said that it hits a mainframe in an associated database and he said, "And that's OK." So we know the mainframe, alive and well, we've done a bunch of Cube activities, we were there at the Z13 launch at the Jazz at Lincoln, which was a great event. >> That's awesome. >> And so, give us the update on what's happening there. You guys have made some new announcements there, new DS8000 class systems, new Z systems, what's going on at that transaction world? >> So I would say two, or actually three major things that are part of that announcement to collaborate with Z is improvement based on modernizing our service support structure, which is like remote code load, things like that, so that we can have experts remotely, via a control center, help clients load latest levels of code as well as new feature function. The second element that I would say is, lead with flash. So we've optimized flash storage that complements specifically some of the ZOS, the System Z workload, which is significant for us to deliver to the marketplace as well. And then third, is this idea of Z hyperlink. Z hyperlink is this idea of, like, synch iO. It's a different structure that, yes, it'll take a while for adoption, we have a number of our alphas that are working in partnership with us to solution. Well, we're going to be doing replication, and also some of the iO streams differently than we had in the past. >> Question for you on the alphas. >> Yeah. >> From a business perspective, since so much has changed, lots of announcements just in the last 36 hours, as technology changes rapidly and stop-run tech companies are, like you said, poised to deliver agility faster, when you're talking with alphas, as you said, kind of in the nascent stages of a use case being developed, what are some of the key business metrics that your alpha clients are articulating to you that, when we get to x stage of this alpha, we need to be able to demonstrate x, y, z back to the business, thinking of cost reductions, resource allocations, faster time to market, what are some of those business KPI's that you're hearing from your clients? >> Yeah. So I would say it's price performance as well as capacity based on the amount of data growth. So those three things are fundamental components that come up quite often. Now, it usually is made very clear to us that things like security, like quality, that's job one. That's table stakes. Like, if we want to have fine dining, we'll just assume there's going to be this nice handkerchief as well as tablecloth. Well, security and quality are just fundamental. So they want to think about those things less. Because they're just naturally being delivered via whatever technology we're putting out or delivering from the lab. >> Alright, let's bring it back to VMworld. We're here. VMware, VMworld, what do you guys got going here, what's the relevance of all the activity that you have going to this event? >> So what's great about the event is we have the data backup bar that's associated with what we're doing with Spectrum Protect Plus. What I personally like and love about the Spectrum Protect Plus is simplicity. It's delivering this idea of usability. Which is important because we received feedback from our clients in very early stages on how we deliver. So we have a data backup bar to discuss some of that technology and actually run through specific downloads which I think is great, cause you get feedback out on the floor immediately to ensure that we're improving. The other aspect of our booths is discussing things, some of the fundamental infrastructure just like we talked previously on tape, as well as DS8000, cause DS8000 is not only a mainframe attach, but it's attachment agnostic. So we support aspects of distributive storage as well. For instance, we have some of the VMware enhancements that will allow us to more efficiently capture or reclaim data in thin provision volumes, and VMware has been fundamental in partnering with us to deliver. >> So continue to go to market approaches with VMware on the backup side, also on the cloud foundation side for IBM? >> Yes. >> Excellent. Thank you so much for stopping by The Cube again and sharing your thoughts and what's going on with the industry and how IBM is moving forward with respect to innovation and working with clients together. >> Right. Wonderful. Thank you. >> For my cohost Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. >> Stick around, you're watching day two of The Cube's coverage of VMworld 2017, we'll be right back. [Upbeat Synth Music]