>> From Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018. Brought to you by NetApp. Welcome to theCUBE, we are on the ground in the NetApp booth at SAP SAPPHIRE 2018. I'm Lisa Martin, I'm hanging out with Keith Townsend. Today we are joined by RJ Bibby, who is the SAP Global Alliance Chief of Staff at NetApp. RJ, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, we're so glad you guys are here. >> So, this, is a huge event. There are, I've heard 20,000 attendees live, but they were saying at the keynote this morning, Bill McDermott was, over a million people are expected to engage with the SAP experience both in person and online, that's enormous, enormous. SAP and NetApp have been partners for 17 plus years now. Right, you've got thousands of customers that run SAP on NetApp. What's current with the partnership? What's going on there from your perspective? >> Well thanks Lisa, thanks Keith. But first off I want to thank you all for being here. We're ecstatic for having theCUBE in our booth. We haven't been back here as a sponsor in a couple years. So being a platinum sponsor, 40 people here on the ground from all over the world. Like you said, we're about 26,000 people this week. So, really busy, we're in our 18th year. This year, as a partnership with SAP. To answer that question, it's really exciting. We have a very unique partnership with SAP. It's a true 360 partnership, and what I mean by that. One, we co-innovate together. So we're doing co-innovation where NetApp on SAP on NetApp. What that mean is basically a lot of the SAP products, like hybris, like Ariba, SuccessFactors are built on NetApp. We're doing co-innovation on blockchain, on HANA, IOT. So, we're really looking at that next phase of automation in data management. And we'll get into data management in a bit. We're both customers to each other. We just had our CIO met with a customer success office this morning to talk about some of the integrations of products that we're doing. Second year in a row SAP has been our largest customer. So the growth on that end is great, and then lastly the GODA market, and that's really what I really do from the alliance side. So, heavily around HANA acceleration. How we constantly are helping our customers move to HANA with our NetApp data fabric and ONTAP, our core signature products that deploy SAP. And we're very focused on industry, very focused on a global to local partner for life. We both have really warm, loyal customers. And then there's a kind of G100 strategic approach too. So that's the partnership, it's been a lot of fun. And we're gonna see where it goes in 2018. >> So RJ, talk to us a little bit more. Add some color on this relationship between Netapp and SAP in the market. NetApp, data driven company. SAP, probably the premier data analysis, analytics. We saw on stage from customer experience all the way to backend. You can't do that without a solid, robust infrastructure that's focused on SAP. What are some of the key technologies and strategy that NetApp and SAP have teamed together, bring together such successes? >> No, great question Keith. Really it goes down to the core of data. So NetApp has done a transformation the last two years, where we're gonna be now the data management company for hybrid cloud. So in that core, customers are looking to do a bunch of different things with NetApp. We want to manage, transport, analyze and protect data. A lot of data on SAP. So they're modernizing their data centers, how do we move to the hybrid cloud? With our ONTAP product, which is really a software capability, really turning into a software company in the cloud, as is SAP. So the core products of HANA, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Field Glass, Concur, all the things from an operations standpoint that's been automated for their business is kind of built on NetApp. Is built on NetApp, a lot of them. So our approach to the customer is how do we help the experience? And, we're doing that transformation internally, so we're going through it with SAP. There's lessons there. SAP did this and moved to a kind of cloud company a couple years ago on NetApp. Those are some of the core instances, but there's a modernizing a data center approach, there's a hybrid cloud. But it still just comes down to, oh my God, data runs my business. I'm really scared about it from protection. There's too much of it. How do I monetize? What are the analytics behind it? And that's what NetApp is really on the forefront of doing. Our CIO talked about this, this week. He's going to talk about it this week, about choice. What we're hearing for customers is, I need choice. I need to move my data around on PRAM, into whatever hybrid hyperscaler environment you want fast, efficient, with analytics read outs. So that's kind of the approach we're starting to take to market. I find it to be a very consultative of approach where it's Mister Customer, SAP NetApp, whoever your hybrid cloud choice is, who your SI is, the other technology partners are. We're all together collectively, almost like a innovation program for a customer approach. And that's kind of, not my secret, but one of my secrets of how we're going to market with the sales teams. >> I'm curious, NetApp is 26 years old. 26 years young maybe. I worked there I was telling you, for a few years as well. On marketing, which was awesome. Lot of evolution from a storage perspective. You say NetApp runs a SAP, SAP runs a NetApp as well. Talk to us about this maybe SAP as an influencer of the evolution of NetApp from storage company to now as you said, data authority for hybrid cloud. >> Yeah, no great question. I think it started where we wanted, we saw that software was kind of taking over. The automation, right? So it's almost like storage is a service. In my four years at NetApp, we never approach SAP as a partner or the customer talking about storage or infrastructure per se. Kind of around this data management methodology a while back. I think SAP has been an influencer internally fpr us in a couple regards. One they have the state of the art, a lot of the software operations. Things that we needed to run the business. There's been some kinks, there's some things that we probably need to customize that fit our business. NetApp's really unique, we're about 6 billion dollars, with 10,000 employees, with three business units. And we're a very unique company. The culture is awesome, we're empowered. Salespeople on the ground are empowered. Me helping run the alliance, we can be very strategic on how and what we want to do. Hey, we want to have CUBE at SAPPHIRE, absolutely do it, as an example. So, with that empowerment, we've been able to look at the best of breed in tools. And I think the tools are helping us from looking at the business and really how the customer experience. I'll give you one example on that. We're listening to our customers and how they want to transform their data, in their data on SAP. Well, I need to also be able to look at the analytics internally on okay, does my customer need a technical refresh? What are they doing on SAP? Is it SAP on Oracle? What products do they have of NetApp? Do our salespeople properly enabled on selling SAP on Cloud? Are they talking to their counterparts at the account from SAP, from a CISCO or Fujitsu, AWS, and then whatever SI. So there's a lot of complexity, there's an art and a science to it. And it's in our transformation in SAP from the tools perspectives at the core of that. >> RJ let's talk about the alliance beyond just the SAP to NetApp. This is really complex, I mean even with the tools, you know, ONTAP on the cloud, ONTAP in your data center. ONTAP kind of in the fog later, wherever you want to say that's at. That normalizes the data, it kind of validates the NetApp as the data driven company. However, when you go to an enterprise and you say that, you know what, this thing that used to live at my data center is now spread across these three different environments. It's really hard to figure out. How do SIs play a role into shaping the strategy in this alliance? Yeah, that's a whole other layer right? The complexity, 'cause I find, I came from the SI side of the house. I worked at Accenture for a really long time prior to my career in the partnership side. You know, I think they're very good from a consultative approach of hey, how do we want to design this thing? How do we want to implement it? How do we want to run it? And where does everybody's silo of stuff or technologies fall into that? I think the art part of it is hey, as NetApp or with MRSI, hey man, how do we help design with you? How do we consult the end to end approach here? I think we're the expert from an end to end data management approach. So there's some butting of heads at times depending on which SI, because they do. They have these long standing executive partnerships. There's a lot of investment from SIs at the account. I was just at a leadership conference with Accenture. And they're spending three billion dollars on three different things around automation. One, training. They can't get people, it's still about people in process. How do we get the process and tools in place? Where do we need to go merger and acquisition on the latest products? And how do we implement with that ecosystem? So I always think it's a work in progress. It's gone well, I think that's something I'd like to see us improve on. I think the SAP to NetApp partnership is advanced. In a lot of regards to that. It's like anything, it's also like when you look at salespeople internally at NetApp with our transformation. How do you get people out of the conference zone talking to their infrastructure lead, their line of business lead. And elevate to the cloud conversation. Going to the CXO, I think the Chief Security Offer is the key executive now in our sales process. Because of data protection. And that's something that we do well, and that's something they own, and I'm always trying to be creative. There might lots of dollars to protect data. How do we turn that into a whole strategy conversation with all the partners? >> So let's go a little deeper on NetApp's value propositions. You know what? Infrastructure is infrastructure, why should it matter? How do you guys differentiate between your competitors and running S4 HANA, the cloud strategy, you know what, end memory databases, storage is no longer needed, that's not true, but what's the story? >> Good question. The story for us is the ONTAP product that we have, the software because what we can do is deploy SAP really fast. Really fast, just some stats. You can get 45% project timeline savings with our deployment of SAP. The secret sauce in that is, the tools of the replication in the snapshot. When you're doing constant development ongoing maintenance, we can do snapshots in real time. That is the key thing that keeps the production going live faster. >> You know, because CICD is not something that we do, I've managed SAP for a long time. And CICD wasn't exactly a concept in SAP. So we rely on the infrastructure a lot to do. So snapshots is an amazing example of how you bring the CICD approach to something that is stayed as SAP. You can't just shut down SAP for the weekend to apply a update five times a year. >> Correct, so hours and hours of down time, where we can do it in three hours. A lot of times it's real time. I was just at a HANA Conference in Vegas and we got a lot of one on one time with customers. It was awesome, and that was the biggest things they said they need more of NetApp. And the differentiator is we're continue to expand our approach to managing the data, and I need the replication and the cloning specifically to run the production value end to end. So that's the other part of it. It's really just doing that end to end landscape management of SAP and Non-SAP workloads. The one thing that's great about the cloud part of this is you do need a lot of storage, and it's software based storage. So I think the approach in NetApp is going in the right direction. I've been working with SAP as a partner now for 12 years. I think that this is probably the best momentum I've had with SAP ever. And one of the reasons why is one, data is the story, right? What does Bill McDermott always say? Data is now the currency. Well today he was saying now trust is the currency, which is completely true too. But from the data being the currency perspective, it's now the end game for both of us. So we've kind of, in all companies, have gone into the middle. That's kind of not only the messaging, but kind of the central thing we're trying to deliver value on. And the choice, I want to keep saying the fact that customers now want choice on where they put their data. That's the thing that we're really promoting here at SAPPHIRE this week. >> Last question RJ. >> Last? All day! >> I know, I know right? Speaking of choice, you mentioned customers want choice. They do want choice. You talked about value, delivering value. From a competitive perspective, customers have choice. They've got other storage vendors they can work with. Give us your best elevator pitch. What makes NetApp and SAP different and better than say, some of those, maybe orange colored competitors? >> Sure, no, no, it's a great question. The biggest differentiator is just the fact that we are the one company out there that can provide data management in any hybrid environment. AWS, a hyperscaler, Microsoft, Google, we're doing cloud volumes just announced a Google Cloud platform. You know, we're one of the premier technology from HANA and Azure. So I think number one it's that. Secondly, we can deploy SAP really quickly, which consumes licenses. So one, the customer really likes that. Two, SAP sales loves it 'cause then it gives them a chance to go back to the customer. And then just the end to end data management that we can provide our customers value. I would say choice one. >> Awesome, well I said a few minutes ago to Keith that Bill McDermott is probably the most energetic C level that I've ever seen. Your energy level RJ, right there with his. >> You know why? 'Cause it's go time, it's SAPPHIRE day one. >> The stage might have exploded if we had them both at the same time. >> That would've been fun. >> Pyrotechnics on day one! Well RJ thank you so much, not only for visiting with Keith and me this morning. But also of having theCube in the NetApp booth at SAPPHIRE. >> We love it, we can't wait. Thanks everybody. >> I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend at theCUBE on the ground at SAPPHIRE NOW day one. Stick around, we'll be right back with our next guest.