(light upbeat music) >> Hey, everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's day two live coverage of VMware Explore 2022 from Moscone Center in San Francisco. Lisa Martin here as your host with Dave Nicholson. We've got a couple of guests here and we have some props on set. Get a load of this Nature Fresh Farms produce. Keith Bradley joins us, the VP of IT from Nature Fresh Farms, and Alison Biers is back, as well, director of marketing at Edge Solutions for Dell. Guys, welcome back to the program and thanks for bringin' some food. >> Well, thank you, yeah. >> Thank you so much. >> So, Keith, talk to us a little bit about technology from Nature Fresh Farm's perspective. How do we look at this farming organization as a tech company? >> As technical, we're something that measures everything we grow. So, we're 200 acres of greenhouse, spanning probably about 3 or 400 acres of land. Everything's entirely environmentally controlled. So, the peppers that we have in front of you, the tomatoes, they're all grown and controlled from everything they get from light to moisture to irrigation and nutrients. So, we do all that. >> So, should I be able to taste the Dell goodness in these cucumbers, for example? >> I'd like to say Nature Fresh slash Dell good. >> Connect the dots for us. So, let's go through that sort of mental exercise of how are these end products for consumers better because of what you're doing in IT? >> So, one of the things that we've been able to do, and one of the transformations we made is we are now able to run our ETLs. So, analyze the data realtime at the Edge. So, making decisions which used to be only once a day based on analytics to now multiple times a day. Our ETLs used to take 8 to 10 hours to run. Now they run- >> So, extraction, transformation and load. >> Yep, yep. >> Okay. So, we consider it a party foul if you use a TLA and you don't find it the first time. >> Okay. >> But you get a pass 'cause you're an actual and real person. >> I'll give you that one. >> I already had a claim laid on that. I'm sorry, so continue. >> Yeah, yeah. So, it allowed now the growers to make multiple decisions and then you start adding the next layer. As we expanded our technology base, we started introducing AI into it. So now, AI is even starting to make decisions before the grower even knows to make them based on historical data. So, it's allowed us to become more proactive in protecting the health and longevity and even taste of that plant and the product coming out to you. >> That's awesome. Alison, talk to us about from Dell's perspective how is it helping Nature Fresh to simplify the Edge which there's a lot of complexity there? You talked about the size of the organization but how do you help simplify it? >> I think Nature Fresh had a lot of common problems that we see customers have. So, they had some really interesting ambitions to improve their produce and do it in a GMO free way and really bring a quality product to their customer. But yet, they were each solving their problems on their individual farms in different ways. And so, one of the ways that we were able to help was to consolidate a lot of those silos as they were expanding the scope and scale of what they really wanted to do from a technology perspective. And then being able to do that in a secure way that's delivering the insights they need when they need them right there at the Edge is really critical. >> I think it's wonderful that we have the actual stuff here. Because we often talk in these abstract terms about outcomes. There's your outcome right there. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> But talk about this growing in the soil somewhere. You have growers. It's not an abstraction. These are actual actual people. Where does the technology organism interface occur here? You have organically grown crops. Where's that interface? Where's the first technology involved in this process? Literally physically. >> Physically. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a shack with a server in it somewhere? >> So, we actually have, we have a core data center at the center of Nature Fresh set up basically where everything ends up. We have our Edge. So, we have computers, we're at the Edge analyzing stuff. But if you want to go right back to the grassroots of where it actually is, is it's right at, not dirt, but a ground up coconut husk. That is what the plants are grown in. And we analyze the data right there, 'cause that is our first Edge. And people think that's static for us. The Edge isn't static. 'Cause the Edge now moves. We have a plant that grows. Then we pick it. And then we have to store it and then we have to ship it. So, our Edge actually does move from area to area to area. So, statically one thing isn't the same all the time. It's a hard thing to say how it all starts but it's just a combination of everything from natural gas to everything. >> Okay, then are those, 'cause we think of things in terms of like internet of things and these sensors. >> Oh yeah. >> Things are being gathered. So, you've got stuff happily growing in husks and then being picked. What's the next step there? Where is that aggregated? Where does that go? Is that all going straight back to your data center or are there sort of intermediate steps in the process? >> So, what we do is we actually store everything at the Edge, and we do daily processes right there. And then it aggregates that data and it drops it down from a large number to a smaller number to go to the core. >> Got it. >> And then that way, at the core, it does the long term analysis. 'Cause again, a lot of the data that we collect, we don't need to keep. A lot of it is the temperature was X, the temperature was X, the temperature, we don't need that. So, it aggregates it all down. So, that way the information coming to the core doesn't overwhelm it. Because we do store enough information. And to give you an idea of how our 1.8 million plants are living and breathing. We actually have estimated 1.8 million plants throughout our 200 acres. >> At any moment. >> Yeah. >> That's how many plants they're tracking. And so, that realtime information is helping to make sure that they water the plants precisely with the amount that they need, that they're fertilizing them. And you were telling me about how the life of a plant, you're really maintaining that plant over the life of 12 months. So, if you make a mistake at any point along the line, then you're dealing with that in terms of their yield throughout the life of the plant. But you aggregate a lot of that data right there on site so that you're not having to send so much back to the cloud or to the core. And you do that a lot with VxRail as well as other technology you have on site. Right? >> Yeah. Our VxRail is the center of the core of how we process things. It allowed us to even expand, not even just for compute but GPUs for our AIs to do it. So, it's what we did. And it allowed us to mold how we do things. >> Alison, question for you, this sounds like a dynamic Edge the way that you described it, Keith, and you described it so eloquently. How does the partnership that Dell has with Nature Fresh, how is Dell enabling and accelerating and advancing its Edge solutions based on what you're seeing here and this need for realtime data analytics. >> Well, we spend a lot of time with customers like Keith and also across all kinds of other industries. And what we see is that they have a really common set of problems. They're all trying to derive realtime data right then and there so that they can make business decisions that impact their profitability and their competitiveness and all of their customers experience their product quality. And what we see a lot of times is that they have a common set of concerns around security. How to manage all of the hardware that they're implementing. And at the same time, they really want to be an enabler for the business outcome. So, people have creative ideas and they come to IT hoping for support in that journey. If you're managing everything as a snowflake, it becomes really hard and untenable. So, I think one of the things that we have as our mission is to help customers simplify their Edge so that they can be the enabler that's helping the business to transform and modernize. One of the things I really admire about Nature Fresh Farms is that they decided it from a full organization perspective. So, everybody from the operational technologists to the IT to the business decision makers and leaders at the company, they all decided to modernize together. And so, I think from a partnership perspective, too, that's one of the areas that we try to work with our customers on is really talking about total transformation and modernization. >> So, it sounds like, Keith, there was an appetite there as Alison was saying for a digital transformation and IT transformation. Talk to me a little bit about from a historical perspective, how old Nature Fresh is and how did you get the team on board sounds so eloquent. How did you get the team on board to go, "This is what we need to do and technology needs to fuel our business because it's going to impact the end user, consumer of our fabulous English cucumbers." >> So, it's actually really neat. Our owner, Pete Quiring, when he first started out he really wanted to embrace technology. And this is going back right to 2000. 2000 is when we first had our first planting. And he was actually a builder by nature. He actually was a builder and fabricator and he built greenhouses for other companies. But he said they're getting a little bigger and it's the labor amount, and the number of growers he needed for a range was getting exponentially higher. So, he was one of the first ones that said, "I'm going to put a computer right in the middle and control this 16 acre range." >> It's a pretty visionary view when you really think about it. He's trying to operate his farm. >> Yeah. >> Right? >> From one single computer. >> Operationalize it. It's really cool. >> So, it was neat concept and it was actually very much not a normal concept then. You go back to 2000, people weren't talking about internet of things. They didn't talk about automation. It wasn't there. And he basically said, this is the way to go. And unfortunately, he thought, "I'll sell it to somebody. I'll grow it, I'll put a product in for a year and I'll sell it." And then guess what happened? He didn't sell it. He says, "Ah, it's not big enough. I'll build another phase two." And then his comment to me was after he built the fourth phase, he says, "I guess I'm in the pepper and cucumber business now." And that's what he is just grown. But he said it was a great relationship we had and it's a great concept. And it even goes back, and I know we talked about before, is the computer allowed one senior grower to control large number of acreages. Where before, you'd need multiple growers that know exactly what to do, 'cause they'd have to manually change all these things. Now, from a single computer they can see everything that's going on in the entire range. >> You mentioned temperature and water. And this is kind of out of the blue question, but how have global circumstances and increases in the cost of fertilizer affected you? Or is that fertilizer that's not the type that you use in your operation? You have any insight into that. >> Yeah, everything has, the global change in cost has changed everybody. I don't think there's anybody that's exempt from it. The only thing that we've been able to do is we're able to control it. We don't need to rely on, I guess you can say, rely on the weather to help us do things. We can control how much is. And we recycle all of our water. So, what the plant doesn't absorb today for nutrients, we'll put it back in the system, sterilize- >> Wait, when you say 200 acres, it's all enclosed? >> Yep, 200 acres. >> 200 acres of greenhouse. >> Yep, at 200 acres of greenhouse entirely enclosed. >> Okay, okay. >> There is not a single portion of our greenhouse that's actually gets exposed to the outside. And if you ever see a picture of a greenhouse and you see one of these lovely plants here wet, that's not true. That's just a nice to make it look better. >> Spray it for the photo. >> Yeah, yeah. They spray it for the photo. But actually everything is dry. That water goes directly to the roots and we monitor how much we put in and how much comes out. And then we recycle it. We even get so much recycling, we run natural gas generators to heat the water to heat the greenhouse. We take the burn-off of natural gas, the CO2, and funnel that into the greenhouse to give it natural stimulant. >> So, this is starting to remind me of "The Martian", if you read the book or if you seen the movie. >> Oh yeah. >> But planting the potatoes inside the hab, in the habitat. >> Yeah, and you cut 'em in half and the little ones grow with that next ones. But yep, we recycle everything that we do. And that's what we do. >> That's amazing. >> And all that information at their fingertips. Really, I think what technology is enabling you all to do is focus on what you all are good at, which is focusing on your farming operation and not necessarily the technology. So, one of the places I think we deliver some value is in validating a lot of the solutions so that customers don't have to figure that all out themselves. >> Yeah, 'cause I'm not a security expert. I don't always understand the true depth of security, but that's where that relationship is. We need this and we need that. And we need a secure way to let those communicate. And we can hand that off to the experts at Dell and let us do what we do best. >> What have been some of the changes? In the last couple of years, we've seen the security elevate skyrocket to a board level conversation. Ransomware is a when, not if, we get attacked. How does Dell help you from a security perspective ensure that what you're able to do ultimately gets these products to market in a secure fashion so that all that data that you're generating isn't exposed? >> So, like I said, I agree 100%. It's not matter of if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen. So, one of the things that we've actually done is we started to use Dell solution, the PowerProtect Data Manager to back up our solutions on the VxRail. And it actually did twofold for us. It allowed us to do a lot of database manipulation from restores and stuff like that. But we're now actually even investing in the cyber recovery vault that gives us that protection. And it allows us to now look at how long will it take us to get back up. And we're doing some tests right now and the last test we did is we're able to get back up going as a company from a full attack in about an hour. >> Wow. >> We've actually done a few simulations now. So, we are able to recover what our core needs are within an hour. >> Which is a very different metric than simply saying, "Oh, the data's available." >> Yeah. >> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You get zero credit for that. We need our operations to be back up and running. >> Even that hour is stressful to our growers. >> Sure. >> It's a variable within a variable because if you go in the summer when it's super hot, they'll be very stressed out within an hour. And then you got nice calm weather day, it's not as bad. But the weather can change in how they have to close the vents. And you're not just closing one vent, you're closing 32, 64, 100 acres of vents. And you're changing irrigation cycle. You need that automation to do it for you. >> How do you let people eat these things after all the care that goes into it? I'm going to feel mildly guilty for just about a second and a half before I sink my teeth into the cucumber. >> Oh, but that's the joy of it. That's one of the things that I love. >> This is serious. You're proud of this, aren't you? >> Oh yeah. You know what? There's not single person at Nature Fresh that isn't proud of what we do each day. We enjoy what we do and it's a culture that makes us strive to do better every day. It's just a great feeling to be there every day and to just enjoy what you're doing. >> And see, it's real. It's real. Isn't it great? Isn't it great to be a part of? My background's in economics. I think of these things in terms of driving efficiency. And this is just a beautiful thing. When you control those variables, you leverage the technology and what's the end result? You're essentially uplifting everything in the world. >> Yeah, so true. >> Not to get philosophical on ya. >> Right, and feeding the world, especially during the last couple of years, that access. One of the things we learned in the pandemic, one of many, is access to realtime data isn't a nice to have anymore, it's essential. >> Yeah. >> So true. >> And so, the story that you're telling here, the impact to the growers, enabling them to focus what you were saying, Alison, on what they do best, Dell Technologies, VxRail enabling Nature Fresh to focus on what it does best, ultimately delivering food to people during the last couple of years was huge. >> Yeah, and allowing even at a reduced labor number for us to keep growing and doing things by automation. We still need labor in the greenhouse to pick, prune and do stuff like that. But again, we're looking into technologies to help offset that. But again, it was one of those things that we just had to be efficient at everything we do. And we drove that through everything we have. >> Well, and you guys haven't stopped. Right? >> Yeah. >> You're continuing to figure out, he was just telling me a little bit about what their next step is. So, just getting more and more accurate, more intelligence as they grow. So, it's the possibilities, that's what's exciting to me about Edge. I think this example is great, 'cause it's so relatable. Everybody can understand what the Edge is in this context. And it's really driven by the fact that you can put compute into so many different places now. It's more though a matter about how do you gather it? How do you do it in a way where you can actually understand and glean information and insights from it? And that, I think, is what you all are really focused on. >> Yeah, yeah, information is key. >> It is key. What's next from Dell's perspective for Edge computing technologies? what are some of the things you guys got cooking? >> Yeah, we're going to try to help customers to continue to simplify their Edge. So, to deliver those insights that they need where they need them, to do it in a really secure way. I know we talked about security but to do it in really a zero trust fashion. And to help customers to do it also in a zero IT fashion. Because in this example, it's the growers that are out there in the fields, or in your greenhouse in this sense, helping people that aren't necessarily IT specialists to be able to get all the benefits from the technology. >> So, do you think that VxRail technology could be used to optimize say the production of olive oil? I'm looking here and we have the makings of a pretty good salad. >> Yeah, you do. >> There you go. >> It obviously doesn't just apply to food production. >> Yeah, it really goes across the board. Whether we're talking about manufacturing or retail or energy, putting technology right there at the point of data creation and being able to figure out how to manage that inflow of data, be able to figure out which portion of the data is really valuable, and then driving decisions and being able to understand and intelligently make decisions for your business based on that data is really important. >> Keith, what's next? Give us, as we wrap out this segment here, what's next from a technology perspective? You mentioned a couple things you're looking into. >> Yeah, so I think automation is really going to change the way we do things. And automation within the greenhouse is truly just becoming a reality. It's funny we go back and we say, can we do this stuff? And now it's like, oh, even three years ago, I don't think we were quite ready for it, but now it's right there. So, I see us doing a lot more work with vendors like Dell and to do automatic picking, automatic scouting, all that stuff that we do by hand, do it in an automated fashion. >> And at scale, right? >> Yeah. >> That's the important part. I think when you're managing a snowflake, you can only do it to some level, and to be able to automate it and to be able to break down those silos, you're going to be able to apply it to so many parts of your business. >> Yeah, wide applicability. Guys, thank you so much for joining us, sharing the Nature Fresh, Dell story, bringing us actual product. This is so exciting. We congratulate you on how you're leveraging technology in a really innovative way. And we look forward to hearing what's next. Maybe we'll see you at Dell Technologies World next year. >> Sounds great. >> Sounds great. >> Thank you so much. >> All right, our pleasure, guys. >> Thank you. >> For our guests and Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from VMware Explorer 2022. Dave and I will be right back with our next guest. So, stick around. (light upbeat music)

thecube presents dell technologies world brought to you by dell good afternoon everyone welcome back to thecube's third day of coverage live from the show floor at dell technologies world 2022 lisa martin here with dave vellante we've been having lots of great conversations the last day and a half one of the things we love to do is really hear from the voice of dell's customers and we're going to do that next please welcome jonathan suckler the senior director of product marketing for dell and keith bradley the vp of i.t at nature fresh farms guys welcome hey great to be here thank you great thank you for letting us be here of course thanks for joining us so jonathan we're going to start with you we've been hearing a lot about we've been talking about ai for decades we've been hearing a lot about ai at the show it's it's so it's pervasive right it's in our refrigerators and our thermostats and our cars and that hockey puck thing that's in the kitchen that plays music when you're cooking right what's going on what is do you think from dell's perspective is fueling the adoption of ai now you know there's it i think that there's this huge interest in ai right now and you and you you're definitely pointed out a lot of the great success stories around ai but the the real benefit of is that you know with with with artificial intelligence applied to a lot of business problems you can solve them in ways that are that are much quicker than you would expect you know and you can solve them in ways you wouldn't have expected uh uh you know then than than you do what's really surprising though is as a as many as many people are interested in in using it and and all of the benefits that come from it though is that we really don't see the adoption being as quick as we would like to right i mean i want to say that like 80 percent of companies out there want to use ai they're testing ai you know they're they're they're planning uh projects around ai applications but when you ask them what's in production it really is still it's an innovator's game like you know companies like like nature fresh farms with uh what they're doing is truly at the tip of the spear what are some of the challenges jonathan that you're seeing from an adoption perspective of 80 say we want to actually be able to leverage this emerging technology in production the challenges are i think the pers it's a perceived challenge issue right i think there's like three big issues that people perceive as being uh barriers to adoption um the first one is pretty obvious it's cost right they they see artificial intelligence you they hear about all of the uh you know specialized hardware and and the software and the new and the people and the talent you've got to acquire to uh as being a barrier to that and they don't see the benefit or they they balance that against the benefit i think there's an issue also with uh complexity right because at the same time that you know you're building these these infrastructures around what you need to do for an artificial intelligence-enabled application there's this expectation that it needs to be separate and different and special and that becomes an issue from a management perspective right uh and i think finally uh it's uh it's change right i mean you you're you're bringing in new talent new new skill sets you're bringing in new technology and i think a lot of companies still today you know look at that as being like well what if if i do this am i really going to see the benefit if i am i stuck going down a path that i that i'm going to change later on and i think that's really the issue uh you know those but they're all perceived issues they're they're in in reality they're really not that true i mean keith has this done that nature fresh farms has done some incredible stuff right with with ai in an area that i i would never have guessed being a ripe for that kind of innovation you know so lisa keith knows that i love you know fresh tomatoes i live in the northeast where it's cold six months a year so we plant our tomatoes at memorial day weekend yeah right and then maybe you're lucky if you get tomatoes late august september and then you're done however you and i met a couple years ago you sent me all these vegetables i think i was popping the tomatoes like candy and then i interviewed you you were live in the giant greenhouse and it's just amazing what you guys have going to jonathan's point you're using ai to really create you know sustainable continuing flow of awesome vegetables tell us more about nature fresh so at nature fresh farms we're a 200 acre greenhouse just shy of 200 acres growing bell peppers and tomatoes and one of the biggest use cases for us in our ai is everything we do we need to be proactive so we need that ai to not be reactive to climate change to what happens to the weather to be proactive so it changes before the plant reacts because every time the plant will doesn't do as great we've lost production from it so we're always using our ai to help increase the yield per square meter inside of our greenhouses so everything from the growth the length the weight of the plant we monitor everything we want to know every aspect of that plant's life it's almost like doing an ekg on a plant 24 by 7 and wanting to know everything out of it how old is is the company nature fresh farms started in 1999 so we're just hitting 23 years now so we started off as a 16 acre little greenhouse our owner kind of got into it saying i think this is going to be new and he was one of the first ones to say i want to be all computers i want to do it culturally this is this was not an upsell or a hard sell for you from the vp of i.t perspective no no he's always been one saying that technology will change the greenhouse industry and that by adding technology the expertise is in the growers and letting technology help them do more because when we first started in the greenhouse industry you'd need a grower for every range so every 16 acre range would need a very senior grower now we have one grower that does 64 or almost 100 acres of greenhouse he'll have junior growers but he's able to do so much more so where do you specifically apply the ai can you talk about that uh so we talk specifically we apply the ai in almost all areas anything from picking the plant to the climate of the plant we'll do all those areas even on the packing line we actually have uh one robot well not a robot story a machine that looks at a box of tomatoes and basically tells us which one doesn't match the proper red because how you see red how you guys see red is slightly different so it'll tell us that this red tomato doesn't match so change out the right one so when it goes down the line into the consumers they're all exactly the same so it looks unified it looks beautiful like that how about that you're sending out red tomatoes yeah yeah that's what we do now what is dell's role in all this so dell's role has helped us grow what we do we started off with power scale and vxrail and stuff like that so everything's hosted on that and they have been a great partner at finding that solution to them i've been able to go to them and say hey i'm running into a storage problem i'm running into a compute problem they've been able to find a validated solution for us to use and to put out there and help us grow and then the next part that was really great that we've really now done is it's scalable as we're growing we've been able to community add more compute and more storage but not have to take things down to do it and that's what we really wanted to do yeah no i i think and i think what you're talking about there is really the one of the big issues that i was talking about earlier which is around complexity and cost right you know one of the answers to doing artificial intelligence in the enterprise is making sure that you can maintain and have an infrastructure that scales that's part of everything else and and to do that you've got to virtualize it and you know with power uh with a dell vxrail and power scale which it's all running vmware uh with with the uh with the containers and the vms on top of that actually managing you know and running those applications it takes a lot of the complexity of of worrying about where you're going to how you're going to manage that infrastructure and who's going to do it who's going to back it up how are you going to how you're going to you know keep costs down so it really really helps i think yeah yep and we just love it because we're able to take that solution make it better and make it do more and more every day and it's it's allowed our growers to see exponential time where they did it years ago it used to be overnight to get results sometimes from our system doing it now we're seeing it in real time and that's where i it really got to that point now where we're being reactive proactive to the to the plant the weather to stuff we know exactly what needs to happen before happens and that makes the plant grow more and that's what we're always aiming to do you know if you don't mind one of the things that i you were telling me about i think is really fascinating so is this idea that you know you need to have a data scientist you need a whole new staff to manage these applications these these technologies but you were talking about your growers are actually yeah they're actually data scientists that way right that's what we like to call them we call them grower scientists right now green sciences data scientists yeah because they've researched this data they know what the plant does and it's it's been a neat transition we talked about that how they went from being out in the greenhouse so much to being in front of the computer now but now with the help of ai they're more able to get back out into the greenhouse to now watch the plants see what's going on and be a part of the growth again and they said it's been great but they're the ones that are looking at these numbers every day every second if it's not remotely from home it's remote on the greenhouse they're launching everything because yeah think about they're watching 64 acres of land and making sure that does everything it needs to do so lisa this is a really good example of sort of distributed data at work right about this whole notion of data mesh where you have domain experts actually own the data you know they know they can bring context to the data it's not somebody who's just oh it's just data i don't really know what to do with it it's somebody who actually knows what it what it means that to me is a future use case that's going to explode yep it's like me i i look at their data and they always tease me because i'll look at it and i'll go yeah i have no idea but it's giving you numbers so are they right or not and it's a it's always a joke in the in the plant that i like ah you don't got question marks so it's working and then i'll go to them and say is this right and then they'll say yep we're on we're getting what we need i love the idea that you know we've we've heard of this term citizens citizen scientists or citizen data scientists and you have a grower data scientist yeah and i think that eliminates you talk again those problems like or challenges i mentioned earlier that kind of eliminates the complexity issue you know the uncertainty issue the fear of change when you've got your own uh teams who are who know what they need to do and they have the data to do it it just changes the game right yeah and the other two we found is i've always believed in it myself if you love what you do yeah you commit so much more to it and our growers they love what they do so their passion just exudes into the data and then it comes right back into the product well the technology is an enabler of their passion really i'm curious keith how the obviously the events of the last two years have been quite challenging how has ai been a facilitator of what seems like a competitive differentiation for your company uh it actually really accelerated it because we really had to invest in it that's when we started the the big journey to the vx rail the power protect data management we really had to invest in and then we heavily invested in the ai we've always had some lingerie in the background and it's always been there and we've been using it for years and years now but it really brought it right to the forefront though we have to do this better and we had to really push everything and as we grew it became more and more apparent that we were taking that road that investment was paying off for us now yeah how do i buy ai from you so you know it's interesting like i said we want to make it easy for for customers to implement an ai solution at dell and it's not so much that you go out and you buy an ai right or something like that what you're doing is is you're you're making your infrastructure ready for the applications that you need to run right and so at dell we have this uh these predefined uh architectures that we call validated designs they're validated uh to work in you know in a co in any a common environment we take the you know we take the guesswork out of uh how to put these systems together uh and in the case of artificial intelligence you know we we validate with our partners like uh uh vmware and like nvidia to make sure that the technologies work together so that they fit into the existing infrastructure they already have and uh you know in a way it's i think of it as virtualized ai but i think even more importantly it's it's ai for for any company it's not not for the not for the special scientists and you know not for the not for the uh the researcher at the university it's it's for you know it's for nature fresh farms with vxrail it's software defined you're able to bring in a gpu you've got the flexibility to do that for example yeah whereas with the traditional you know the old days you wouldn't be able to do that you'd be you'd have a lot of time on your hands and a lot of compute power you spent a lot of money doing what you need to do yeah oh yeah we'd be spending all the time working at it growing it and doing more and it just made our life easier not to manage the life the managed life cycle of the ai systems that we have is so much easier now because it's all predefined it's all it's all ready to go upgrade process all that is built into it yeah so life cycle is much easier from the i.t side so keith talk to talk to those folks in the audience who might have those those perceived challenges or limitations that jonathan was talking about because you're making it sound like this has been such an enabler of a business that's 23 years old we're taking growers who are experts at growing and they're playing and loving playing with data and ai how do you how do you advise folks to really eliminate some of those preconceived challenges that are out there i would say you have to sit there and just dive in you have to actually start to do it but you have to think about not where you the first two steps say where we want to be five steps from now and then say talk to a partner like dell with us and say this is where we want to get to this is and then figure out a way how to get there and committing to that path you can't get frustrated the first few times ai is very flustering sometimes the first few pass don't work and just saying going back to the drawing board each time we'll do it we've had a couple experiments where it didn't work and we didn't get the results we wanted and we had to just say let's change our thought process and how do we optimize this ai and then all of a sudden we started getting the right results but that it's it's like uh falling over the first time you fall over as a child it's gonna hurt but each time he gets a little less each time failure is progress yeah that's right that's right fail fast yeah failure can be a good f word yeah if you but you have to be open-minded yep oh yes every minute every minute you have to be open-minded and you have to you have to think outside the box too and that's the biggest part of things it's just not accepting things and just saying we have to do it but you have to have the culture that will embrace that and it sounds like the growers these are people that are expert and growing how it sounds like it wasn't an uphill battle to get them to come on board and become these citizen growers data scientists well you know it was funny because with the technology it kind of gave them that work-life balance that they didn't have before their life was inside the greenhouse because the plants grow 24 by 7. so now all of a sudden they just kept growing they could they could go home they kept doing their thing they could go home at five o'clock and because of the vdi solutions and stuff like that and the ai that's helping them grow they can kind of turn off and instead of having to come in sunday morning and that the the one joke we used to have is that on sundays if you're in church and there's clouds had come rolling out all the growers would stand up and leave because they had to go to their church they had to go back to their farm now the system does that automatically for them so they're able to get their work life home balance back so it was different for them it was a jump for them anybody that's not used to technology and jumping into it is hard but once they started to see the benefits and what more yield they can get and the home work life balance it was amazing there's no i can't underestimate the work-life balance enough i think it's challenge it's a very challenging thing for people in any industry to achieve we've we've seen that in the last two years with you know do i live at work do i work from home so achieving that is kudos to you and for del for enabling that because that's that's big that that affects everybody guys thank you so much for joining us talking about ai what you're doing at nature fresh the future what's possible yeah and how you buy ai from dell no i think it's great i think you know nature fresh farms is a great euro you've been a great like a great partner for sure but also this great kind of beacon to show people how it can be done and i think it's just a thank you very much we really enjoyed it excellent well thanks for thanks for bringing the beacon on the show we appreciate it we want to thank you for watching for our guests i'm lisa martin for dave vellante i'm lisa martin i should say you're watching thecube day three of our coverage live from the show floor of dell tech world 2022 stick around we'll be right back with our next guest after a short break [Music] you

>> From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with digital coverage of Exascale Day. Made possible by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Hey, welcome back everybody Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are celebrating Exascale Day. 10, 18, I think it's the second year of celebrating Exascale Day, and we're really excited to have our next guest and talk about kind of what this type of compute scale enables, and really look a little bit further down the road at some big issues, big problems and big opportunities that this is going to open up. And I'm really excited to get in this conversation with our next guest. He is Bryan Pijanowski the Professor of Landscape and Soundscape Ecology at Purdue University. Bryan, great to meet you. >> Great to be here. >> So, in getting ready for this conversation, I just watched your TED Talk, and I just loved one of the quotes. I actually got one of quote from it that's basically saying you are exploring the world through sound. I just would love to get a little deeper perspective on that, because that's such a unique way to think about things and you really dig into it and explain why this is such an important way to enjoy the world, to absorb the world and think about the world. >> Yeah, that's right Jeff. So the way I see it, sound is kind of like a universal variable. It exists all around us. And you can't even find a place on earth where there's no sound, where it's completely silent. Sound is a signal of something that's happening. And we can use that information in ways to allow us to understand the earth. Just thinking about all the different kinds of sounds that exist around us on a daily basis. I hear the birds, I hear the insects, but there's just a lot more than that. It's mammals and some cases, a lot of reptiles. And then when you begin thinking outside the biological system, you begin to hear rain, wind, thunder. And then there's the sounds that we make, sounds of traffic, the sounds of church bells. All of this is information, some of it's symbolic, some of it's telling me something about change. As an ecologist that's what I'm interested in, how is the earth changing? >> That's great and then you guys set up at Purdue, the Purdue Center for Global Soundscapes. Tell us a little bit about the mission and some of the work that you guys do. >> Well, our mission is really to use sound as a lens to study the earth, but to capture it in ways that are meaningful and to bring that back to the public to tell them a story about how the earth kind of exists. There's an incredible awe of nature that we all experience when we go out and listen into to the wild spaces of the earth. I've gone to the Eastern Steppes of Mongolian, I've climbed towers in the Paleotropics of Borneo and listened at night. And ask the question, how are these sounds different? And what is a grassland really supposed to sound like, without humans around? So we use that information and bring it back and analyze it as a means to understand how the earth is changing and really what the biological community is all about, and how things like climate change are altering our spaces, our wild spaces. I'm also interested in the role that people play and producing sound and also using sound. So getting back to Mongolia, we have a new NSF funded project where we're going to be studying herders and the ways in which they use sonic practices. They use a lot of sounds as information sources about how the environment is changing, but also how they relate back to place and to heritage a special sounds that resonate, the sounds of a river, for example, are the resonance patterns that they tune their throat to that pay homage to their parents that were born at the side of that river. There's these special connections that people have with place through sound. And so that's another thing that we're trying to do. In really simple terms, I want to go out and, what I call it sounds rather simple, record the earth-- >> Right. >> What does that mean? I want to go to every major biome and conduct a research study there. I want to know what does a grassland sound like? What is a coral reef sound like? A kelp forest and the oceans, a desert, and then capture that as baseline and use that information-- >> Yeah. >> For scientific purposes >> Now, there's so much to unpack there Bryan. First off is just kind of the foundational role that sound plays in our lives that you've outlined in great detail and you talked about it's the first sense that's really activated as we get consciousness, even before we're born right? We hear the sounds of our mother's heartbeat and her voice. And even the last sense that goes at the end a lot of times, in this really intimate relationship, as you just said, that the sounds represent in terms of our history. We don't have to look any further than a favorite song that can instantly transport you, almost like a time machine to a particular place in time. Very, very cool. Now, it's really interesting that what you're doing now is taking advantage of new technology and just kind of a new angle to capture sound in a way that we haven't done before. I think you said you have sound listening devices oftentimes in a single location for a year. You're not only capturing sound, the right sound is changes in air pressure, so that you're getting changes in air pressure, you're getting vibration, which is kind of a whole different level of data. And then to be able to collect that for a whole year and then start to try to figure out a baseline which is pretty simple to understand, but you're talking about this chorus. I love your phrase, a chorus, because that sound is made up of a bunch of individual inputs. And now trying to kind of go under the covers to figure out what is that baseline actually composed of. And you talk about a bunch of really interesting particular animals and species that combine to create this chorus that now you know is a baseline. How did you use to do that before? I think it's funny one of your research papers, you reach out to the great bird followers and bird listeners, 'cause as you said, that's the easiest way or the most prolific way for people to identify birds. So please help us in a crowdsource way try to identify all the pieces that make this beautiful chorus, that is the soundscape for a particular area. >> Right, yeah, that's right. It really does take a team of scientists and engineers and even folks in the social sciences and the humanities to really begin to put all of these pieces together. Experts in many fields are extremely valuable. They've got great ears because that's the tools that they use to go out and identify birds or insects or amphibians. What we don't have are generalists that go out and can tell you what everything sounds like. And I'll tell you that will probably never ever happen. That's just way too much, we have millions of species that exist on this planet. And we just don't have a specific catalog of what everything sounds like, it's just not possible or doable. So I need to go out and discover and bring those discoveries back that help us to understand nature and understand how the earth is changing. I can't wait for us to eventually develop that catalog. So we're trying to develop techniques and tools and approaches that allow us to develop this electronic catalog. Like you're saying this chorus, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a species specific chorus, it can be a chorus of all these different kind of sounds that we think relate back to this kind of animal or that kind of animal based upon the animals instrument-- >> Right, great. >> And this is the sound. >> Now again, you know, keep it to the exascale theme, right? You're collecting a lot of data and you mentioned in one of the pieces I've dug up, that your longest study in a single location is 17 years. You've got over 4 million recordings. And I think you said over 230 years if you wanted to listen to them all back to back. I mean, this is a huge, a big data problem in terms of the massive amount of data that you have and need to run through an analysis. >> Yeah, that's right. We're collecting 48,000 data points per second. So that's 48 kilohertz. And then so you multiply everything and then you have a sense of how many data points you actually have to put them all together. When you're listening to a sound file over 10 minutes, you have hundreds of sounds that exist in them. Oftentimes you just don't know what they are, but you can more or less put some kind of measure on all of them and then begin to summarize them over space and time and try to understand it from a perspective of really science. >> Right, right. And then I just love to get your take as you progress down this kind of identification road, we're all very familiar with copyright infringement hits on YouTube or social media or whatever, when it picks up on some sound and the technology is actually really sophisticated to pick up some of those sound signatures. But to your point, it's a lot easier to compare against the known and to search for that known. Then when you've got this kind of undefined chorus that said we do know that there can be great analysis done that we've seen AI and ML applied, especially in the surveillance side on the video-- >> Right. >> With video that it can actually do a lot of computation and a lot of extracting signal from the noise, if you will. As you look down the road on the compute side for the algorithms that you guys are trying to build with the human input of people that know what you're listening to, what kind of opportunities do you see and where are we on that journey where you can get more leverage out of some of these technology tools? >> Well, I think what we're doing right now is developing the methodological needs, kind of describe what it is we need to move into that new space, which is going to require these computational, that computational infrastructure. So, for example, we have a study right now where we're trying to identify certain kinds of mosquitoes (chuckling) a vector-borne mosquitoes, and our estimates is that we need about maybe 900 to 1200 specific recordings per species to be able to put it into something like a convolutional neural network to be able to extract out the information, and look at the patterns and data, to be able to say indeed this is the species that we're interested in. So what we're going to need and in the future here is really a lot of information that allow us to kind of train these neural networks and help us identify what's in the sound files. As you can imagine the computational infrastructure needed to do that for data storage and CPU, GPU is going to be truly amazing. >> Right, right. So I want to get your take on another topic. And again the basis of your research is really all bound around the biodiversity crisis right? That's from the kind of-- >> Yeah. >> The thing that's started it and now you're using sound as a way to measure baseline and talk about loss of species, reduced abundancies and rampant expansion of invasive species as part of your report. But I'd love to get your take on cities. And how do you think cities fit the future? Clearly, it's an efficient way to get a lot of people together. There's a huge migration of people-- >> Right. >> To cities, but one of your themes in your Ted Talk is reconnecting with nature-- >> Yeah. >> Because we're in cities, but there's this paradox right? Because you don't want people living in nature can be a little bit disruptive. So is it better to kind of get them all in a tip of a peninsula in San Francisco or-- >> Yeah. >> But then do they lose that connection that's so important. >> Yeah. >> I just love to get your take on cities and the impacts that they're have on your core research. >> Yeah, I mean, it truly is a paradox as you just described it. We're living in a concrete jungle surrounded by not a lot of nature, really, honestly, occasional bird species that tend to be fairly limited, selected for limited environments. So many people just don't get out into the wild. But visiting national parks certainly is one of those kinds of experience that people oftentimes have. But I'll just say that it's getting out there and truly listening and feeling this emotional feeling, psychological feeling that wraps around you, it's a solitude. It's just you and nature and there's just no one around. >> Right. >> And that's when it really truly sinks in, that you're a part of this place, this marvelous place called earth. And so there are very few people that have had that experience. And so as I've gone to some of these places, I say to myself I need to bring this back. I need to tell the story, tell the story of the awe of nature, because it truly is an amazing place. Even if you just close your eyes and listen. >> Right, right. >> And it, the dawn chorus in the morning in every place tells me so much about that place. It tells me about all the animals that exist there. The nighttime tells me so much too. As a scientist that's spent most of his career kind of going out and working during the day, there's so much happening at night. Matter of fact-- >> Right. >> There's more sounds at night than there were during the day. So there is a need for us to experience nature and we don't do that. And we're not aware of these crises that are happening all over the planet. I do go to places and I listen, and I can tell you I'm listening for things that I think should be there. You can listen and you can hear the gaps, the gaps and that in that chorus, and you think what should be there-- >> Right. >> And then why isn't it there? And that's where I really want to be able to dig deep into my sound files and start to explore that more fully. >> It's great, it's great, I mean, I just love the whole concept of, and you identified it in the moment you're in the tent, the thunderstorm came by, it's really just kind of changing your lens. It's really twisting your lens, changing your focus, because that sound is there, right? It's been there all along, it's just, do you tune it in or do you tune it out? Do you pay attention? Do not pay attention is an active process or a passive process and like-- >> Right. >> I love that perspective. And I want to shift gears a little bit, 'cause another big environmental thing, and you mentioned it quite frequently is feeding the world's growing population and feeding it-- >> Yeah. >> In an efficient way. And anytime you see kind of factory farming applied to a lot of things you wonder is it sustainable, and then all the issues that come from kind of single output production whether that's pigs or coffee or whatever and the susceptibility to disease and this and that. So I wonder if you could share your thoughts on, based on your research, what needs to change to successfully and without too much destruction feed this ever increasing population? >> Yeah, I mean, that's one of the grand challenges. I mean, society is facing so many at the moment. In the next 20 years or so, 30 years, we're going to add another 2 billion people to the planet, and how do we feed all of them? How do we feed them well and equitably across the globe? I don't know how to do that. But I'll tell you that our crops and the ecosystem that supports the food production needs the animals and the trees and the microbes for the ecosystem to function. We have many of our crops that are pollinated by birds and insects and other animals, seeds need to be dispersed. And so we need the rest of life to exist and thrive for us to thrive too. It's not an either, it's not them or us, it has to be all of us together on this planet working together. We have to find solutions. And again, it's me going out to some of these places and bringing it back and saying, you have to listen, you have to listen to these places-- >> Right. >> They're truly a marvelous. >> So I know most of your listening devices are in remote areas and not necessarily in urban areas, but I'm curious, do you have any in urban areas? And if so, how has that signature changed since COVID? I just got to ask, (Bryan chuckling) because we went to this-- >> Yeah. >> Light switch moment in the middle of March, human activity slowed down-- >> Yeah. >> In a way that no one could have forecast ever on a single event, globally which is just fascinating. And you think of the amount of airplanes that were not flying and trains that we're not moving and people not moving. Did you have any any data or have you been able to collect data or see data as the impact of that? Not only directly in wherever the sensors are, but a kind of a second order impact because of the lack of pollution and the other kind of human activity that just went down. I mean, certainly a lot of memes (Bryan chuckling) on social media of all the animals-- >> Yeah. >> Come back into the city. But I'm just curious if you have any data in the observation? >> Yeah, we're part of actually a global study, there's couple of hundred of us that are contributing our data to what we call the Silent Cities project. It's being coordinated out of Europe right now. So we placed our sensors out in different areas, actually around West Lafayette area here in Indiana, near road crossings and that sort of thing to be able to kind of capture that information. We have had in this area here now, the 17 year study. So we do have studies that get into areas that tend to be fairly urban. So we do have a lot of information. I tell you, I don't need my sensors to tell me something that I already know and you suspect is true. Our cities were quiet, much quieter during the COVID situation. And it's continued to kind of get a little bit louder, as we've kind of released some of the policies that put us into our homes. And so yes, there is a major change. Now there have been a couple of studies that just come out that are pretty interesting. One, which was in San Francisco looking at the white-crowned sparrow. And they looked at historical data that went back something like 20 years. And they found that the birds in the cities were singing a much softer, 30% softer. >> Really? >> And they, yeah, and they would lower their frequencies. So the way sound works is that if you lower your frequencies that sound can travel farther. And so the males can now hear themselves twice as far just due to the fact that our cities are quieter. So it does have an impact on animals, truly it does. There was some studies back in 2001, during  the September, the 9/11 crisis as well, where people are going out and kind of looking at data, acoustic data, and discovering that things were much quieter. I'd be very interested to look at some of the data we have in our oceans, to what extent are oceans quieter. Our oceans sadly are the loudest part of this planet. It's really noisy, sound travels, five times farther. Generally the noise is lower frequencies, and we have lots of ships that are all over the planet and in our oceans. So I'd really be interested in those kinds of studies as well, to what extent is it impacting and helping our friends in the oceans. >> Right, right, well, I was just going to ask you that question because I think a lot of people clearly understand sound in the air that surrounds us, but you talk a lot about sound in ocean, and sound as an indicator of ocean health, and again, this concept of a chorus. And I think everybody's probably familiar with the sounds of the humpback whale right? He got very popular and we've all seen and heard that. But you're doing a lot of research, as you said, in oceans and in water. And I wonder if you can, again, kind of provide a little bit more color around that, because I don't think you people, maybe we're just not that tuned into it, think of the ocean or water as a rich sound environment especially to the degree as you're talking about where you can actually start to really understand what's going on. >> Yeah, I mean, some of us think that sound in the oceans is probably more important to animals than on land, on the terrestrial side. Sound helps animals to navigate through complex waterways and find food resources. You can only use site so far underwater especially when it gets to be kind of dark, once you get down to certain levels. So there many of us think that sound is probably going to be an important component to measuring the status of health in our oceans. >> It's great. Well, Bryan, I really enjoyed this conversation. I've really enjoyed your Ted Talk, and now I've got a bunch of research papers I want to dig into a little bit more as well. >> Okay.(chuckling) >> It's a fascinating topic, but I think the most important thing that you talked about extensively in your Ted Talk is really just taking a minute to take a step back from the individual perspective, appreciate what's around us, hear, that information and I think there's a real direct correlation to the power of exascale, to the power of hearing this data, processing this data, and putting intelligence on that data, understanding that data in a good way, in a positive way, in a delightful way, spiritual way, even that we couldn't do before, or we just weren't paying attention like with what you know is on your phone please-- >> Yeah, really. >> It's all around you. It's been there a whole time. >> Yeah. (both chuckling) >> Yeah, Jeff, I really encourage your viewers to count it, just go out and listen. As we say, go out and listen and join the mission. >> I love it, and you can get started by going to the Center for Global Soundscapes and you have a beautiful landscape. I had it going earlier this morning while I was digging through some of the research of Bryan. (Bryan chuckling) Thank you very much (Bryan murmurs) and really enjoyed the conversation best to you-- >> Okay. >> And your team and your continued success. >> Alright, thank you. >> Alright, thank you. All right, he's Bryan-- >> Goodbye. >> I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. (Bryan chuckling) for continuing coverage of Exascale Day. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. (calm ambient music)

(upbeat music) >> From the Cube studios in Palo Alto in Boston connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is the CUBE Conversation. >> Hey everybody this is Dave Vellante and welcome to the special CUBE Conversation. I'm really excited to have Keith Bradley here he's the Vice President of IT at Nature Fresh Farms. Keith good to see you. >> Hey, good to see you too there Dave. >> All right, first of all I got to thank you for sending me these awesome veggies. I got these wonderful peppers. I got red, orange. I got the yellow. I got to tell you Keith these tomatoes almost didn't make it. It's my last one on the vine. >> (Laughs) >> These guys are like candy. It's amazing. >> Yap. They are the tasty thing. >> Wonderful. >> You know what, I'll probably just join you right here now too. I'll have one right here right now and I'll join you right now. >> My kids love these but I'm not bringing them home. And then I got these other grape tomatoes and then I've got these mini pepper poppers that are so sweet. You know which one I'm talking about here. And then we've got the tomatoes on the vine. I mean, it's just unbelievable that you guys are able to do this in a greenhouse. Big cukes, little cukes. Wow. Thank you so much for sending these. Delicious. Really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Well thank you for having them. It's a great little tree and it's something that I know you're going to enjoy. And I love for everybody to have it and there's not a person I haven't seen that hasn't enjoyed our tomatoes and peppers. >> Now tell me more about Nature Fresh Farms. Let's talk about your business I want to spend some time on that. We've got IoT, we got a data lifecycle. All kinds of cool stuff, scanners. Paint a picture for us. >> I like to even go... If you don't mind. I like to even go back to where our roots actually came from. So Peter Quiring, our owner actually was a builder by nature and he was actually back in the year 2000 really wanted to get into the greenhouse because he was a manufacturer. And he built our phase one facility back in 2000 under the concept that he said, "there's computers out there." And Peter will be the first one to say, "I don't know how to use them, "but I know that it can do a lot for us." So even back in 2000, we were starting to experiment with using the computers back then to control the greenhouse, to do much of the functionality. Then he bought it under the concept as our sister company, South Essex Fabricating that he would sell the greenhouse turnkey to somebody else. Well, talking to him and I've been around since about phase two. He basically said, "when I built phase three, "which is our first 32 acre range, I realized that is actually in the pepper business now," and he realized he was a grower and then he fell in love with the industry. And again, kept pushing how we can do things automated? How do we can do things? How do we get more yield, more everything out of what we do? And as a lover of technology he made it a great environment for everybody including the growers to work in and to just do something new. >> Well, I mean the thing that we know that as populations grow we're not getting more land. Okay (laughs). So, you have to get better yield and the answer is not to just pound vegetables with pesticides. So maybe talk about how you guys are different from sort of a conventional farming approach, just in terms of maybe your yield, how you treat the plants, how you're able to pick throughout the year, give us some insight there. >> So basically I'll start with through the lifecycle of a pepper. So it's basically planted at a propagator and then it comes to our facility and it comes in the little white boxes here behind me. And they actually are usually about that tall. They're about a foot tall. Maybe a little more when they come to us. And right from that point in time, we start keeping track of everything. How much we put water, how much water it doesn't take, what nutrients it takes, how much it weighs. We actually weigh the vines to know how much they are in real time. We do everything top to bottom. So we actually control the life cycle of the plant. On top of that, we also look and have a whole bio scout division. So it's a group of people that are starting to use AI to actually look at how the bugs are attacking the plants. And then at the same time, we release a good bug that will eventually die off to kill the bugs that are starting to harm the plant. So it basically allows us to basically do as close to natural way of growing a plant as possible without spraying or doing anything like that at night. It's actually funny 'cause there's a lot pictures out there and you think that a greenhouse, it's going to be wet in here. And actually for the most part, it is dry all the time. Like I'm very hot, it's very dry and it's just how we work. We don't let anything inside. We control everything in that plant's life. And now with our newest range, we even control how much light it gets. So we basically give it light all night too. And even some nights when it's a little days out, not like today, but when it's a little dark out and the sun's not up there, we'll actually make sure it gets more light to get that more yield out of it. So we can grow 24/7 12 months a year. >> Okay Keith. So it sounds like you're using data and AI to really inform you as to nature's best formula for the good bugs, the bad bugs, the lighting to really drive yields and quality. >> Yeah, we analyze, like I said, everything from the edge that we collect, like I said, we have over 2000 sensors out in the greenhouse and we keep expanding it more and more every year to collect everything from the length of the vine, the weight of the vine in real time. And we basically collect it from the day the plant is born to the day that we actually take it all out to be composted. We know how much light it got. Does it need to get light that day? We analyze everything in general and it allows us to take that data back in real time to make it better and to look at the past data to do better again. Like you hear, some times we have actually have a cart going by here now. That data from that cart, we'll go back to our growers and they will know how much weight they got out of that row in the next 15 to 20 minutes. So they can actually look, okay, how did that plant react to the sun, how's tomorrow? Does it need more nutrients? Does it need a little less? They take all that data from the core and make sure it's all accurate and as up to date as possible. >> So Keith, and maybe even you can give us approximations, but so how much acreage do you have? And how much acreage would you need with conventional farming techniques to get the kind of yields and quality that you guys are able to achieve? >> So we own 160 acres of greenhouse that's actually under glass. It's actually 200 acres total of land but what's 160 acres approximately of greenhouse that's actually under glass. 'A' we're always constantly growing. Our demand is up that that's why we grow so fast. Usually you're looking at both 12 to one. So for every foot squared of space, you're looking for equivalent is about 12 feet squared for a conventional farm. That's the general average. Mostly because we can harvest year round, we can continually harvest. We maximize the harvest amount and everything total. >> I'm also interested in your regime, your team. So obviously you're supporting from an IT perspective, but you've got all this AI going on. You've got this data life cycle. So what does the data team look like? >> We're actually... I always laugh though. I like to call our growers are basically data analysts. They're not really part of my IT team, but they basically have learned the role of how to analyze data. So we'll have basically one or two junior growers, per range. So probably about, I'd say about, we have about 10 to 12 junior growers and then one senior grower per whole farm. So probably about three or four senior growers at any one time. But my IT staff is actually about a team of four, five, including myself. And we are always constantly looking at how to improve data and how to automate the process. That's what drives us to do more. And that's where the robots even come in is every time we look at something, it's not even from an IT perspective, but even just from a picking perspective, how do we automate this? How do we do a better tomorrow? How do we continually clean this up? And it just never ends. And every year we look back, okay, it cost us a dollar per meter squared or per foot square for the people down South in America there now. We look at that and how do we do that better next year? How do we do better the next day? And it's a constant looking and it's something we look at refining and now that's why we're going so much into AI 'cause we want to not look at the data and decide what to do. We want the data to tell us what to do. >> You guys are on the cutting edge. I mean this is the future of farming. I wonder if we could talk about the IT, what does the IT group look like in the future of farming? I mean you guys, what's your infrastructure look like? Are you all in the cloud or you can't be in the cloud because this is really an extent of an IoT or an edge use case. Paint a picture of the IT infrastructure for us if you would. >> So the IT infrastructure it's a very large amount at the edge. We take a lot of the information from the edge and we bring it back to our core to do our analyzing. But for the most part, we don't really leverage the cloud much yet and most of it is on-prem. We are starting to experiment with moving out to the cloud. And a lot of it is, you'll laugh though, is because the farming and agriculture industry really was stagnant for a long time and not really stagnant, but just didn't really progress as fast as the rest of the world. So now they're just starting to catch up and realizing, wow, this is a growing industry. We can do a lot of cool things with technology in this range. And now it's just exploded. So I'm going to say in the next five to 10 years, you're going to see a lot more private clouds and things like that happening with us. I know we're right now starting to just look at creating with the VxRail, a private cloud, and a concept like that to start to test that water again of how to analyze and how to do more things onsite and in the cloud and leverage everything top to bottom. >> So you've got your own servers at the edge... So Intel based servers, what's your storage infrastructure look like? Maybe describe the network a little bit. >> Yap. Okay. So we are basically, I'll admit here, we are a Dell factory. We're basically everything top to bottom. Right now we're on an FX2, Dell FX2 platform. It's basically our core platform we've been using for the last five years. It does all of our analitics and stuff like that. And we have just transformed our unstructured data to Isilon. It's been one of the best things for us to clean that up and make things move forward. It was actually one of those things that management actually looked at me and kind of looked at me and said, "what are you nuts?" Because we basically bought our first Isilon and then four months later, I said, "I love this. I got to have more," because everybody loved it so much in the way of store things. So we actually doubled the size of it within four months, which was a great... It was actually very seamless to do, but we're now also in a position where the FX2 in that stage type of situation didn't quite work for us to expand it. It wasn't as easy to expand. So we wanted to get away that we could expand at a moment's notice. We can change, we can scale out much faster and do things easier. So that's why we're transforming to a VxRail to basically clean that up and allow us to expand as we grow. >> So you're essentially trying to replicate the agility and speed of the cloud but like you say, you're an edge use case. So you can't do everything in cloud. Is that the right way to think about it? You mentioned private cloud but just sort of cloud experience, but at the edge. >> Yeah. We try to keep everything at the edge. It just makes it a lot easier to control. Because we're so big. Think about it like you are bringing all this information back from everywhere. It's a lot of data to come back to one spot. So we're trying to push that more, to keep it at the edge so that we can analyze it right there in the moment instead of having to come back and do it but yeah. And I think you'll see in the next few years, a lot of change to the cloud, I think it'll start to be there, but again, like I said, the private cloud will probably be the way most will go. >> Okay. So I got to ask you then, I mean, you've really tested that agility over the last 60 days with this COVID pandemic. How were you able to respond? What role did data play? You had supply chain considerations. Obviously, you got a lot of online ordering going on. You got to get produce out. You've got social distancing. How were you able to handle that crisis? >> Well it was a really great thing for our team. Our team really came together in a great way. We had a lot of people that did have to go home and we started because we had so many ranges all over, already about a year and a half ago we started implementing an SD-WAN solution to allow us to connect to different areas and to do all kinds of stuff. So it was actually very quick for us to be able to send the others home. We used our VeloCloud SD-WAN to expand it. It was very seamless and we just started sending people home left, right and center. The staff that had to stay here, like the workers out in the greenhouse here now are offshore labor as we call it. They work great. They worked with at every moment of the day and they dug right in. We haven't lost heartbeat. Like actually our orders have gone up in the last... Through this COVID experience more than anything else. And it's really learned... It really helped from an IT perspective and I laugh about this and it's one of the greatest things about what I do, I love this moment, is where sometimes we were very hesitant to jump on this video collaboration. I said, "hey, that's a great way of doing this." But sometimes people they're very stuck in their ways and they love it and they're like, "I don't know about this whole team Zoom "and all that fun stuff," but because of this, they've now embraced it and it's actually really changed the way even they've worked. So in a way, it kind of sped up the processes of us becoming more agile that way in a way that would've taken a long time. They now love teams. They love being able to communicate that way. They love being able to just do a quick call. All that functionality has changed and even made us more efficient that way. (mumbles) >> How does this all affect your IT budget allocation? Did you get more budget? Was it flat budget? Did you have to shift budget to sort of work from home and securing the remote workers? Can you sort of describe that dynamic? >> So it did, I'll be true, there's no way around it to not up my budge. They basically said, "yep, "you have to do what you have to do. "We have to continue to function, "we cannot let our greenhouse go down "and what do you need to do to make it happen?" So I quickly contacted Dell and got things coming and improve our infrastructure as much as we could to get ready. I contacted (mumbles). I basically made it so that my team can support every single part of our facet from home if they actually had to go home. So for example, if I had to get stuck at home, I could do every single part of my job from home, including the growers as much as possible. So say our senior grower had to get home. I locked him up. He has to be able to see everything and do everything. So we actually expanded that very quickly and it was a cost to us. But again, there's no technology we didn't implement that we hadn't talked about before. We just hadn't said, "you know what? It's just not the right time to try that." And now we just went ahead and we just said, we got to do it now. And there's not one part of our aspect that we don't reuse. >> Was Dell able to deliver? Did they have supply constraint issues? I mean, I know there's been huge demand for that whole remote worker. Were able to get what you needed in time? >> Yeah. You know what, I think that we hit it a little ahead of the scope of when things started to go bad, our senior management, our president and all that. He basically said, "you know Keith, "we got to get ready on this. "We got to get some stuff coming." We never ran out of some things. The quirkiest thing and it is just a reality, the biggest thing was webcams was to kind of trying to get webcams. Other than that, there was issues with UPS and Purolator and FedEx because they were just inundated too. But for the most part, we kept everything moving. There wasn't a time that I was actually really waiting on something that we had to have. One of the other great things of our senior team that's here is they've really given me the latitude to say, "what do you need and how do you need to do it?" And so I have my own basically storage area of stuff everywhere. And my team does laugh at me 'cause they call me a hoarder and I basically have too much. And we were able to use either some older stuff or some newer stuff and combine it and we got everything running. There was only a little hiccups here and there but nothing ever is going to go perfect. >> Yeah. But it's enabling business results. We've asked a lot of it pros like yourself like what do you expect the shape of the recovery? And obviously our hearts go out to those small businesses that have been decimated. You're clearly seeing industries like airlines and hospitality and restaurants are obviously in rough shape, but there is a bifurcated story here. Some businesses and it sounds like in this camp where the pandemic was actually a tailwind, your online demand is up, food, vegetables, people... There were a lot of meat shortages. So people really turn to vegetables, is that right? Is that the shape of the recovery actually, is maybe not even V-shape, it's been a tailwind for Nature Fresh Farms. >> Yeah. You know what? It has been a tailwind and that's the right way to say it. We've just increased our yieldage. We've increased that, it's not unnew for us, that's been the biggest driving force for us is basically the demand for our product and building fast enough to keep up to that demand. Like we continually build and expand. We've got more ranges being built in the coming years like looking towards the 21, 22, 23 year. It's just going to just continue to expand and that is purely because of demand. And this COVID just again, escalated that little bit 'cause everybody's like, I really want the peppers and like you learned, we actually do have some tasty peppers and tomatoes. So it does make it a nice little treat to have at home for the kids. >> Well, it's an amazing story of tech meets farming. And as you said for years your industry kind of became quiet when it came to tech, but this is the future of farming, in my opinion. And Keith, thanks so much for coming on the CUBE and sharing the story of Nature Fresh Farms. >> Well, thank you for having me. It's been a great pleasure. >> Alright. Thank you for watching everybody this is Dave Vellante for the CUBE and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> From the Cube studios in Palo Alto in Boston connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is the CUBE Conversation. >> Hey everybody this is Dave Vellante and welcome to the special CUBE Conversation. I'm really excited to have Keith Bradley here he's the Vice President of IT at Nature Fresh Farms. Keith good to see you. >> Hey, good to see you too there Dave. >> All right, first of all I got to thank you for sending me these awesome veggies. I got these wonderful peppers. I got red, orange. I got the yellow. I got to tell you Keith these tomatoes almost didn't make it. It's my last one on the vine. >> (Laughs) >> These guys are like candy. It's amazing. >> Yap. They are the tasty thing. >> Wonderful. >> You know what, I'll probably just join you right here now too. I'll have one right here right now and I'll join you right now. >> My kids love these but I'm not bringing them home. And then I got these other grape tomatoes and then I've got these mini pepper poppers that are so sweet. You know which one I'm talking about here. And then we've got the tomatoes on the vine. I mean, it's just unbelievable that you guys are able to do this in a greenhouse. Big cukes, little cukes. Wow. Thank you so much for sending these. Delicious. Really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Well thank you for having them. It's a great little tree and it's something that I know you're going to enjoy. And I love for everybody to have it and there's not a person I haven't seen that hasn't enjoyed our tomatoes and peppers. >> Now tell me more about Nature Fresh Farms. Let's talk about your business I want to spend some time on that. We've got IoT, we got a data lifecycle. All kinds of cool stuff, scanners. Paint a picture for us. >> I like to even go... If you don't mind. I like to even go back to where our roots actually came from. So Peter Quiring, our owner actually was a builder by nature and he was actually back in the year 2000 really wanted to get into the greenhouse because he was a manufacturer. And he built our phase one facility back in 2000 under the concept that he said, "there's computers out there." And Peter will be the first one to say, "I don't know how to use them, "but I know that it can do a lot for us." So even back in 2000, we were starting to experiment with using the computers back then to control the greenhouse, to do much of the functionality. Then he bought it under the concept as our sister company, South Essex Fabricating that he would sell the greenhouse turnkey to somebody else. Well, talking to him and I've been around since about phase two. He basically said, "when I built phase three, "which is our first 32 acre range, I realized that is actually in the pepper business now," and he realized he was a grower and then he fell in love with the industry. And again, kept pushing how we can do things automated? How do we can do things? How do we get more yield, more everything out of what we do? And as a lover of technology he made it a great environment for everybody including the growers to work in and to just do something new. >> Well, I mean the thing that we know that as populations grow we're not getting more land. Okay (laughs). So, you have to get better yield and the answer is not to just pound vegetables with pesticides. So maybe talk about how you guys are different from sort of a conventional farming approach, just in terms of maybe your yield, how you treat the plants, how you're able to pick throughout the year, give us some insight there. >> So basically I'll start with through the lifecycle of a pepper. So it's basically planted at a propagator and then it comes to our facility and it comes in the little white boxes here behind me. And they actually are usually about that tall. They're about a foot tall. Maybe a little more when they come to us. And right from that point in time, we start keeping track of everything. How much we put water, how much water it doesn't take, what nutrients it takes, how much it weighs. We actually weigh the vines to know how much they are in real time. We do everything top to bottom. So we actually control the life cycle of the plant. On top of that, we also look and have a whole bio scout division. So it's a group of people that are starting to use AI to actually look at how the bugs are attacking the plants. And then at the same time, we release a good bug that will eventually die off to kill the bugs that are starting to harm the plant. So it basically allows us to basically do as close to natural way of growing a plant as possible without spraying or doing anything like that at night. It's actually funny 'cause there's a lot pictures out there and you think that a greenhouse, it's going to be wet in here. And actually for the most part, it is dry all the time. Like I'm very hot, it's very dry and it's just how we work. We don't let anything inside. We control everything in that plant's life. And now with our newest range, we even control how much light it gets. So we basically give it light all night too. And even some nights when it's a little days out, not like today, but when it's a little dark out and the sun's not up there, we'll actually make sure it gets more light to get that more yield out of it. So we can grow 24/7 12 months a year. >> Okay Keith. So it sounds like you're using data and AI to really inform you as to nature's best formula for the good bugs, the bad bugs, the lighting to really drive yields and quality. >> Yeah, we analyze, like I said, everything from the edge that we collect, like I said, we have over 2000 sensors out in the greenhouse and we keep expanding it more and more every year to collect everything from the length of the vine, the weight of the vine in real time. And we basically collect it from the day the plant is born to the day that we actually take it all out to be composted. We know how much light it got. Does it need to get light that day? We analyze everything in general and it allows us to take that data back in real time to make it better and to look at the past data to do better again. Like you hear, some times we have actually have a cart going by here now. That data from that cart, we'll go back to our growers and they will know how much weight they got out of that row in the next 15 to 20 minutes. So they can actually look, okay, how did that plant react to the sun, how's tomorrow? Does it need more nutrients? Does it need a little less? They take all that data from the core and make sure it's all accurate and as up to date as possible. >> So Keith, and maybe even you can give us approximations, but so how much acreage do you have? And how much acreage would you need with conventional farming techniques to get the kind of yields and quality that you guys are able to achieve? >> So we own 160 acres of greenhouse that's actually under glass. It's actually 200 acres total of land but what's 160 acres approximately of greenhouse that's actually under glass. 'A' we're always constantly growing. Our demand is up that that's why we grow so fast. Usually you're looking at both 12 to one. So for every foot squared of space, you're looking for equivalent is about 12 feet squared for a conventional farm. That's the general average. Mostly because we can harvest year round, we can continually harvest. We maximize the harvest amount and everything total. >> I'm also interested in your regime, your team. So obviously you're supporting from an IT perspective, but you've got all this AI going on. You've got this data life cycle. So what does the data team look like? >> We're actually... I always laugh though. I like to call our growers are basically data analysts. They're not really part of my IT team, but they basically have learned the role of how to analyze data. So we'll have basically one or two junior growers, per range. So probably about, I'd say about, we have about 10 to 12 junior growers and then one senior grower per whole farm. So probably about three or four senior growers at any one time. But my IT staff is actually about a team of four, five, including myself. And we are always constantly looking at how to improve data and how to automate the process. That's what drives us to do more. And that's where the robots even come in is every time we look at something, it's not even from an IT perspective, but even just from a picking perspective, how do we automate this? How do we do a better tomorrow? How do we continually clean this up? And it just never ends. And every year we look back, okay, it cost us a dollar per meter squared or per foot square for the people down South in America there now. We look at that and how do we do that better next year? How do we do better the next day? And it's a constant looking and it's something we look at refining and now that's why we're going so much into AI 'cause we want to not look at the data and decide what to do. We want the data to tell us what to do. >> You guys are on the cutting edge. I mean this is the future of farming. I wonder if we could talk about the IT, what does the IT group look like in the future of farming? I mean you guys, what's your infrastructure look like? Are you all in the cloud or you can't be in the cloud because this is really an extent of an IoT or an edge use case. Paint a picture of the IT infrastructure for us if you would. >> So the IT infrastructure it's a very large amount at the edge. We take a lot of the information from the edge and we bring it back to our core to do our analyzing. But for the most part, we don't really leverage the cloud much yet and most of it is on-prem. We are starting to experiment with moving out to the cloud. And a lot of it is, you'll laugh though, is because the farming and agriculture industry really was stagnant for a long time and not really stagnant, but just didn't really progress as fast as the rest of the world. So now they're just starting to catch up and realizing, wow, this is a growing industry. We can do a lot of cool things with technology in this range. And now it's just exploded. So I'm going to say in the next five to 10 years, you're going to see a lot more private clouds and things like that happening with us. I know we're right now starting to just look at creating with the VxRail, a private cloud, and a concept like that to start to test that water again of how to analyze and how to do more things onsite and in the cloud and leverage everything top to bottom. >> So you've got your own servers at the edge... So Intel based servers, what's your storage infrastructure look like? Maybe describe the network a little bit. >> Yap. Okay. So we are basically, I'll admit here, we are a Dell factory. We're basically everything top to bottom. Right now we're on an FX2, Dell FX2 platform. It's basically our core platform we've been using for the last five years. It does all of our analitics and stuff like that. And we have just transformed our unstructured data to Isilon. It's been one of the best things for us to clean that up and make things move forward. It was actually one of those things that management actually looked at me and kind of looked at me and said, "what are you nuts?" Because we basically bought our first Isilon and then four months later, I said, "I love this. I got to have more," because everybody loved it so much in the way of store things. So we actually doubled the size of it within four months, which was a great... It was actually very seamless to do, but we're now also in a position where the FX2 in that stage type of situation didn't quite work for us to expand it. It wasn't as easy to expand. So we wanted to get away that we could expand at a moment's notice. We can change, we can scale out much faster and do things easier. So that's why we're transforming to a VxRail to basically clean that up and allow us to expand as we grow. >> So you're essentially trying to replicate the agility and speed of the cloud but like you say, you're an edge use case. So you can't do everything in cloud. Is that the right way to think about it? You mentioned private cloud but just sort of cloud experience, but at the edge. >> Yeah. We try to keep everything at the edge. It just makes it a lot easier to control. Because we're so big. Think about it like you are bringing all this information back from everywhere. It's a lot of data to come back to one spot. So we're trying to push that more, to keep it at the edge so that we can analyze it right there in the moment instead of having to come back and do it but yeah. And I think you'll see in the next few years, a lot of change to the cloud, I think it'll start to be there, but again, like I said, the private cloud will probably be the way most will go. >> Okay. So I got to ask you then, I mean, you've really tested that agility over the last 60 days with this COVID pandemic. How were you able to respond? What role did data play? You had supply chain considerations. Obviously, you got a lot of online ordering going on. You got to get produce out. You've got social distancing. How were you able to handle that crisis? >> Well it was a really great thing for our team. Our team really came together in a great way. We had a lot of people that did have to go home and we started because we had so many ranges all over, already about a year and a half ago we started implementing an SD-WAN solution to allow us to connect to different areas and to do all kinds of stuff. So it was actually very quick for us to be able to send the others home. We used our VeloCloud SD-WAN to expand it. It was very seamless and we just started sending people home left, right and center. The staff that had to stay here, like the workers out in the greenhouse here now are offshore labor as we call it. They work great. They worked with at every moment of the day and they dug right in. We haven't lost heartbeat. Like actually our orders have gone up in the last... Through this COVID experience more than anything else. And it's really learned... It really helped from an IT perspective and I laugh about this and it's one of the greatest things about what I do, I love this moment, is where sometimes we were very hesitant to jump on this video collaboration. I said, "hey, that's a great way of doing this." But sometimes people they're very stuck in their ways and they love it and they're like, "I don't know about this whole team Zoom "and all that fun stuff," but because of this, they've now embraced it and it's actually really changed the way even they've worked. So in a way, it kind of sped up the processes of us becoming more agile that way in a way that would've taken a long time. They now love teams. They love being able to communicate that way. They love being able to just do a quick call. All that functionality has changed and even made us more efficient that way. (mumbles) >> How does this all affect your IT budget allocation? Did you get more budget? Was it flat budget? Did you have to shift budget to sort of work from home and securing the remote workers? Can you sort of describe that dynamic? >> So it did, I'll be true, there's no way around it to not up my budge. They basically said, "yep, "you have to do what you have to do. "We have to continue to function, "we cannot let our greenhouse go down "and what do you need to do to make it happen?" So I quickly contacted Dell and got things coming and improve our infrastructure as much as we could to get ready. I contacted (mumbles). I basically made it so that my team can support every single part of our facet from home if they actually had to go home. So for example, if I had to get stuck at home, I could do every single part of my job from home, including the growers as much as possible. So say our senior grower had to get home. I locked him up. He has to be able to see everything and do everything. So we actually expanded that very quickly and it was a cost to us. But again, there's no technology we didn't implement that we hadn't talked about before. We just hadn't said, "you know what? It's just not the right time to try that." And now we just went ahead and we just said, we got to do it now. And there's not one part of our aspect that we don't reuse. >> Was Dell able to deliver? Did they have supply constraint issues? I mean, I know there's been huge demand for that whole remote worker. Were able to get what you needed in time? >> Yeah. You know what, I think that we hit it a little ahead of the scope of when things started to go bad, our senior management, our president and all that. He basically said, "you know Keith, "we got to get ready on this. "We got to get some stuff coming." We never ran out of some things. The quirkiest thing and it is just a reality, the biggest thing was webcams was to kind of trying to get webcams. Other than that, there was issues with UPS and Purolator and FedEx because they were just inundated too. But for the most part, we kept everything moving. There wasn't a time that I was actually really waiting on something that we had to have. One of the other great things of our senior team that's here is they've really given me the latitude to say, "what do you need and how do you need to do it?" And so I have my own basically storage area of stuff everywhere. And my team does laugh at me 'cause they call me a hoarder and I basically have too much. And we were able to use either some older stuff or some newer stuff and combine it and we got everything running. There was only a little hiccups here and there but nothing ever is going to go perfect. >> Yeah. But it's enabling business results. We've asked a lot of it pros like yourself like what do you expect the shape of the recovery? And obviously our hearts go out to those small businesses that have been decimated. You're clearly seeing industries like airlines and hospitality and restaurants are obviously in rough shape, but there is a bifurcated story here. Some businesses and it sounds like in this camp where the pandemic was actually a tailwind, your online demand is up, food, vegetables, people... There were a lot of meat shortages. So people really turn to vegetables, is that right? Is that the shape of the recovery actually, is maybe not even V-shape, it's been a tailwind for Nature Fresh Farms. >> Yeah. You know what? It has been a tailwind and that's the right way to say it. We've just increased our yieldage. We've increased that, it's not unnew for us, that's been the biggest driving force for us is basically the demand for our product and building fast enough to keep up to that demand. Like we continually build and expand. We've got more ranges being built in the coming years like looking towards the 21, 22, 23 year. It's just going to just continue to expand and that is purely because of demand. And this COVID just again, escalated that little bit 'cause everybody's like, I really want the peppers and like you learned, we actually do have some tasty peppers and tomatoes. So it does make it a nice little treat to have at home for the kids. >> Well, it's an amazing story of tech meets farming. And as you said for years your industry kind of became quiet when it came to tech, but this is the future of farming, in my opinion. And Keith, thanks so much for coming on the CUBE and sharing the story of Nature Fresh Farms. >> Well, thank you for having me. It's been a great pleasure. >> Alright. Thank you for watching everybody this is Dave Vellante for the CUBE and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello, everyone, and welcome to theCUBE's presentation of the "AWS Startup Showcase." This is season three, episode one. The focus of this episode is AI/ML: Top Startups Building Foundational Models, Infrastructure, and AI. It's great topics, super-relevant, and it's part of our ongoing coverage of startups in the AWS ecosystem. I'm your host, John Furrier, with theCUBE. Today, we're excited to be joined by Jay Marshall, VP of Business Development at Neural Magic. Jay, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Hey, John, thanks so much. Thanks for having us. >> We had a great CUBE conversation with you guys. This is very much about the company focuses. It's a feature presentation for the "Startup Showcase," and the machine learning at scale is the topic, but in general, it's more, (laughs) and we should call it "Machine Learning and AI: How to Get Started," because everybody is retooling their business. Companies that aren't retooling their business right now with AI first will be out of business, in my opinion. You're seeing massive shift. This is really truly the beginning of the next-gen machine learning AI trend. It's really seeing ChatGPT. Everyone sees that. That went mainstream. But this is just the beginning. This is scratching the surface of this next-generation AI with machine learning powering it, and with all the goodness of cloud, cloud scale, and how horizontally scalable it is. The resources are there. You got the Edge. Everything's perfect for AI 'cause data infrastructure's exploding in value. AI is just the applications. This is a super topic, so what do you guys see in this general area of opportunities right now in the headlines? And I'm sure you guys' phone must be ringing off the hook, metaphorically speaking, or emails and meetings and Zooms. What's going on over there at Neural Magic? >> No, absolutely, and you pretty much nailed most of it. I think that, you know, my background, we've seen for the last 20-plus years. Even just getting enterprise applications kind of built and delivered at scale, obviously, amazing things with AWS and the cloud to help accelerate that. And we just kind of figured out in the last five or so years how to do that productively and efficiently, kind of from an operations perspective. Got development and operations teams. We even came up with DevOps, right? But now, we kind of have this new kind of persona and new workload that developers have to talk to, and then it has to be deployed on those ITOps solutions. And so you pretty much nailed it. Folks are saying, "Well, how do I do this?" These big, generational models or foundational models, as we're calling them, they're great, but enterprises want to do that with their data, on their infrastructure, at scale, at the edge. So for us, yeah, we're helping enterprises accelerate that through optimizing models and then delivering them at scale in a more cost-effective fashion. >> Yeah, and I think one of the things, the benefits of OpenAI we saw, was not only is it open source, then you got also other models that are more proprietary, is that it shows the world that this is really happening, right? It's a whole nother level, and there's also new landscape kind of maps coming out. You got the generative AI, and you got the foundational models, large LLMs. Where do you guys fit into the landscape? Because you guys are in the middle of this. How do you talk to customers when they say, "I'm going down this road. I need help. I'm going to stand this up." This new AI infrastructure and applications, where do you guys fit in the landscape? >> Right, and really, the answer is both. I think today, when it comes to a lot of what for some folks would still be considered kind of cutting edge around computer vision and natural language processing, a lot of our optimization tools and our runtime are based around most of the common computer vision and natural language processing models. So your YOLOs, your BERTs, you know, your DistilBERTs and what have you, so we work to help optimize those, again, who've gotten great performance and great value for customers trying to get those into production. But when you get into the LLMs, and you mentioned some of the open source components there, our research teams have kind of been right in the trenches with those. So kind of the GPT open source equivalent being OPT, being able to actually take, you know, a multi-$100 billion parameter model and sparsify that or optimize that down, shaving away a ton of parameters, and being able to run it on smaller infrastructure. So I think the evolution here, you know, all this stuff came out in the last six months in terms of being turned loose into the wild, but we're staying in the trenches with folks so that we can help optimize those as well and not require, again, the heavy compute, the heavy cost, the heavy power consumption as those models evolve as well. So we're staying right in with everybody while they're being built, but trying to get folks into production today with things that help with business value today. >> Jay, I really appreciate you coming on theCUBE, and before we came on camera, you said you just were on a customer call. I know you got a lot of activity. What specific things are you helping enterprises solve? What kind of problems? Take us through the spectrum from the beginning, people jumping in the deep end of the pool, some people kind of coming in, starting out slow. What are the scale? Can you scope the kind of use cases and problems that are emerging that people are calling you for? >> Absolutely, so I think if I break it down to kind of, like, your startup, or I maybe call 'em AI native to kind of steal from cloud native years ago, that group, it's pretty much, you know, part and parcel for how that group already runs. So if you have a data science team and an ML engineering team, you're building models, you're training models, you're deploying models. You're seeing firsthand the expense of starting to try to do that at scale. So it's really just a pure operational efficiency play. They kind of speak natively to our tools, which we're doing in the open source. So it's really helping, again, with the optimization of the models they've built, and then, again, giving them an alternative to expensive proprietary hardware accelerators to have to run them. Now, on the enterprise side, it varies, right? You have some kind of AI native folks there that already have these teams, but you also have kind of, like, AI curious, right? Like, they want to do it, but they don't really know where to start, and so for there, we actually have an open source toolkit that can help you get into this optimization, and then again, that runtime, that inferencing runtime, purpose-built for CPUs. It allows you to not have to worry, again, about do I have a hardware accelerator available? How do I integrate that into my application stack? If I don't already know how to build this into my infrastructure, does my ITOps teams, do they know how to do this, and what does that runway look like? How do I cost for this? How do I plan for this? When it's just x86 compute, we've been doing that for a while, right? So it obviously still requires more, but at least it's a little bit more predictable. >> It's funny you mentioned AI native. You know, born in the cloud was a phrase that was out there. Now, you have startups that are born in AI companies. So I think you have this kind of cloud kind of vibe going on. You have lift and shift was a big discussion. Then you had cloud native, kind of in the cloud, kind of making it all work. Is there a existing set of things? People will throw on this hat, and then what's the difference between AI native and kind of providing it to existing stuff? 'Cause we're a lot of people take some of these tools and apply it to either existing stuff almost, and it's not really a lift and shift, but it's kind of like bolting on AI to something else, and then starting with AI first or native AI. >> Absolutely. It's a- >> How would you- >> It's a great question. I think that probably, where I'd probably pull back to kind of allow kind of retail-type scenarios where, you know, for five, seven, nine years or more even, a lot of these folks already have data science teams, you know? I mean, they've been doing this for quite some time. The difference is the introduction of these neural networks and deep learning, right? Those kinds of models are just a little bit of a paradigm shift. So, you know, I obviously was trying to be fun with the term AI native, but I think it's more folks that kind of came up in that neural network world, so it's a little bit more second nature, whereas I think for maybe some traditional data scientists starting to get into neural networks, you have the complexity there and the training overhead, and a lot of the aspects of getting a model finely tuned and hyperparameterization and all of these aspects of it. It just adds a layer of complexity that they're just not as used to dealing with. And so our goal is to help make that easy, and then of course, make it easier to run anywhere that you have just kind of standard infrastructure. >> Well, the other point I'd bring out, and I'd love to get your reaction to, is not only is that a neural network team, people who have been focused on that, but also, if you look at some of the DataOps lately, AIOps markets, a lot of data engineering, a lot of scale, folks who have been kind of, like, in that data tsunami cloud world are seeing, they kind of been in this, right? They're, like, been experiencing that. >> No doubt. I think it's funny the data lake concept, right? And you got data oceans now. Like, the metaphors just keep growing on us, but where it is valuable in terms of trying to shift the mindset, I've always kind of been a fan of some of the naming shift. I know with AWS, they always talk about purpose-built databases. And I always liked that because, you know, you don't have one database that can do everything. Even ones that say they can, like, you still have to do implementation detail differences. So sitting back and saying, "What is my use case, and then which database will I use it for?" I think it's kind of similar here. And when you're building those data teams, if you don't have folks that are doing data engineering, kind of that data harvesting, free processing, you got to do all that before a model's even going to care about it. So yeah, it's definitely a central piece of this as well, and again, whether or not you're going to be AI negative as you're making your way to kind of, you know, on that journey, you know, data's definitely a huge component of it. >> Yeah, you would have loved our Supercloud event we had. Talk about naming and, you know, around data meshes was talked about a lot. You're starting to see the control plane layers of data. I think that was the beginning of what I saw as that data infrastructure shift, to be horizontally scalable. So I have to ask you, with Neural Magic, when your customers and the people that are prospects for you guys, they're probably asking a lot of questions because I think the general thing that we see is, "How do I get started? Which GPU do I use?" I mean, there's a lot of things that are kind of, I won't say technical or targeted towards people who are living in that world, but, like, as the mainstream enterprises come in, they're going to need a playbook. What do you guys see, what do you guys offer your clients when they come in, and what do you recommend? >> Absolutely, and I think where we hook in specifically tends to be on the training side. So again, I've built a model. Now, I want to really optimize that model. And then on the runtime side when you want to deploy it, you know, we run that optimized model. And so that's where we're able to provide. We even have a labs offering in terms of being able to pair up our engineering teams with a customer's engineering teams, and we can actually help with most of that pipeline. So even if it is something where you have a dataset and you want some help in picking a model, you want some help training it, you want some help deploying that, we can actually help there as well. You know, there's also a great partner ecosystem out there, like a lot of folks even in the "Startup Showcase" here, that extend beyond into kind of your earlier comment around data engineering or downstream ITOps or the all-up MLOps umbrella. So we can absolutely engage with our labs, and then, of course, you know, again, partners, which are always kind of key to this. So you are spot on. I think what's happened with the kind of this, they talk about a hockey stick. This is almost like a flat wall now with the rate of innovation right now in this space. And so we do have a lot of folks wanting to go straight from curious to native. And so that's definitely where the partner ecosystem comes in so hard 'cause there just isn't anybody or any teams out there that, I literally do from, "Here's my blank database, and I want an API that does all the stuff," right? Like, that's a big chunk, but we can definitely help with the model to delivery piece. >> Well, you guys are obviously a featured company in this space. Talk about the expertise. A lot of companies are like, I won't say faking it till they make it. You can't really fake security. You can't really fake AI, right? So there's going to be a learning curve. They'll be a few startups who'll come out of the gate early. You guys are one of 'em. Talk about what you guys have as expertise as a company, why you're successful, and what problems do you solve for customers? >> No, appreciate that. Yeah, we actually, we love to tell the story of our founder, Nir Shavit. So he's a 20-year professor at MIT. Actually, he was doing a lot of work on kind of multicore processing before there were even physical multicores, and actually even did a stint in computational neurobiology in the 2010s, and the impetus for this whole technology, has a great talk on YouTube about it, where he talks about the fact that his work there, he kind of realized that the way neural networks encode and how they're executed by kind of ramming data layer by layer through these kind of HPC-style platforms, actually was not analogous to how the human brain actually works. So we're on one side, we're building neural networks, and we're trying to emulate neurons. We're not really executing them that way. So our team, which one of the co-founders, also an ex-MIT, that was kind of the birth of why can't we leverage this super-performance CPU platform, which has those really fat, fast caches attached to each core, and actually start to find a way to break that model down in a way that I can execute things in parallel, not having to do them sequentially? So it is a lot of amazing, like, talks and stuff that show kind of the magic, if you will, a part of the pun of Neural Magic, but that's kind of the foundational layer of all the engineering that we do here. And in terms of how we're able to bring it to reality for customers, I'll give one customer quote where it's a large retailer, and it's a people-counting application. So a very common application. And that customer's actually been able to show literally double the amount of cameras being run with the same amount of compute. So for a one-to-one perspective, two-to-one, business leaders usually like that math, right? So we're able to show pure cost savings, but even performance-wise, you know, we have some of the common models like your ResNets and your YOLOs, where we can actually even perform better than hardware-accelerated solutions. So we're trying to do, I need to just dumb it down to better, faster, cheaper, but from a commodity perspective, that's where we're accelerating. >> That's not a bad business model. Make things easier to use, faster, and reduce the steps it takes to do stuff. So, you know, that's always going to be a good market. Now, you guys have DeepSparse, which we've talked about on our CUBE conversation prior to this interview, delivers ML models through the software so the hardware allows for a decoupling, right? >> Yep. >> Which is going to drive probably a cost advantage. Also, it's also probably from a deployment standpoint it must be easier. Can you share the benefits? Is it a cost side? Is it more of a deployment? What are the benefits of the DeepSparse when you guys decouple the software from the hardware on the ML models? >> No you actually, you hit 'em both 'cause that really is primarily the value. Because ultimately, again, we're so early. And I came from this world in a prior life where I'm doing Java development, WebSphere, WebLogic, Tomcat open source, right? When we were trying to do innovation, we had innovation buckets, 'cause everybody wanted to be on the web and have their app and a browser, right? We got all the money we needed to build something and show, hey, look at the thing on the web, right? But when you had to get in production, that was the challenge. So to what you're speaking to here, in this situation, we're able to show we're just a Python package. So whether you just install it on the operating system itself, or we also have a containerized version you can drop on any container orchestration platform, so ECS or EKS on AWS. And so you get all the auto-scaling features. So when you think about that kind of a world where you have everything from real-time inferencing to kind of after hours batch processing inferencing, the fact that you can auto scale that hardware up and down and it's CPU based, so you're paying by the minute instead of maybe paying by the hour at a lower cost shelf, it does everything from pure cost to, again, I can have my standard IT team say, "Hey, here's the Kubernetes in the container," and it just runs on the infrastructure we're already managing. So yeah, operational, cost and again, and many times even performance. (audio warbles) CPUs if I want to. >> Yeah, so that's easier on the deployment too. And you don't have this kind of, you know, blank check kind of situation where you don't know what's on the backend on the cost side. >> Exactly. >> And you control the actual hardware and you can manage that supply chain. >> And keep in mind, exactly. Because the other thing that sometimes gets lost in the conversation, depending on where a customer is, some of these workloads, like, you know, you and I remember a world where even like the roundtrip to the cloud and back was a problem for folks, right? We're used to extremely low latency. And some of these workloads absolutely also adhere to that. But there's some workloads where the latency isn't as important. And we actually even provide the tuning. Now, if we're giving you five milliseconds of latency and you don't need that, you can tune that back. So less CPU, lower cost. Now, throughput and other things come into play. But that's the kind of configurability and flexibility we give for operations. >> All right, so why should I call you if I'm a customer or prospect Neural Magic, what problem do I have or when do I know I need you guys? When do I call you in and what does my environment look like? When do I know? What are some of the signals that would tell me that I need Neural Magic? >> No, absolutely. So I think in general, any neural network, you know, the process I mentioned before called sparcification, it's, you know, an optimization process that we specialize in. Any neural network, you know, can be sparcified. So I think if it's a deep-learning neural network type model. If you're trying to get AI into production, you have cost concerns even performance-wise. I certainly hate to be too generic and say, "Hey, we'll talk to everybody." But really in this world right now, if it's a neural network, it's something where you're trying to get into production, you know, we are definitely offering, you know, kind of an at-scale performant deployable solution for deep learning models. >> So neural network you would define as what? Just devices that are connected that need to know about each other? What's the state-of-the-art current definition of neural network for customers that may think they have a neural network or might not know they have a neural network architecture? What is that definition for neural network? >> That's a great question. So basically, machine learning models that fall under this kind of category, you hear about transformers a lot, or I mentioned about YOLO, the YOLO family of computer vision models, or natural language processing models like BERT. If you have a data science team or even developers, some even regular, I used to call myself a nine to five developer 'cause I worked in the enterprise, right? So like, hey, we found a new open source framework, you know, I used to use Spring back in the day and I had to go figure it out. There's developers that are pulling these models down and they're figuring out how to get 'em into production, okay? So I think all of those kinds of situations, you know, if it's a machine learning model of the deep learning variety that's, you know, really specifically where we shine. >> Okay, so let me pretend I'm a customer for a minute. I have all these videos, like all these transcripts, I have all these people that we've interviewed, CUBE alumnis, and I say to my team, "Let's AI-ify, sparcify theCUBE." >> Yep. >> What do I do? I mean, do I just like, my developers got to get involved and they're going to be like, "Well, how do I upload it to the cloud? Do I use a GPU?" So there's a thought process. And I think a lot of companies are going through that example of let's get on this AI, how can it help our business? >> Absolutely. >> What does that progression look like? Take me through that example. I mean, I made up theCUBE example up, but we do have a lot of data. We have large data models and we have people and connect to the internet and so we kind of seem like there's a neural network. I think every company might have a neural network in place. >> Well, and I was going to say, I think in general, you all probably do represent even the standard enterprise more than most. 'Cause even the enterprise is going to have a ton of video content, a ton of text content. So I think it's a great example. So I think that that kind of sea or I'll even go ahead and use that term data lake again, of data that you have, you're probably going to want to be setting up kind of machine learning pipelines that are going to be doing all of the pre-processing from kind of the raw data to kind of prepare it into the format that say a YOLO would actually use or let's say BERT for natural language processing. So you have all these transcripts, right? So we would do a pre-processing path where we would create that into the file format that BERT, the machine learning model would know how to train off of. So that's kind of all the pre-processing steps. And then for training itself, we actually enable what's called sparse transfer learning. So that's transfer learning is a very popular method of doing training with existing models. So we would be able to retrain that BERT model with your transcript data that we have now done the pre-processing with to get it into the proper format. And now we have a BERT natural language processing model that's been trained on your data. And now we can deploy that onto DeepSparse runtime so that now you can ask that model whatever questions, or I should say pass, you're not going to ask it those kinds of questions ChatGPT, although we can do that too. But you're going to pass text through the BERT model and it's going to give you answers back. It could be things like sentiment analysis or text classification. You just call the model, and now when you pass text through it, you get the answers better, faster or cheaper. I'll use that reference again. >> Okay, we can create a CUBE bot to give us questions on the fly from the the AI bot, you know, from our previous guests. >> Well, and I will tell you using that as an example. So I had mentioned OPT before, kind of the open source version of ChatGPT. So, you know, typically that requires multiple GPUs to run. So our research team, I may have mentioned earlier, we've been able to sparcify that over 50% already and run it on only a single GPU. And so in that situation, you could train OPT with that corpus of data and do exactly what you say. Actually we could use Alexa, we could use Alexa to actually respond back with voice. How about that? We'll do an API call and we'll actually have an interactive Alexa-enabled bot. >> Okay, we're going to be a customer, let's put it on the list. But this is a great example of what you guys call software delivered AI, a topic we chatted about on theCUBE conversation. This really means this is a developer opportunity. This really is the convergence of the data growth, the restructuring, how data is going to be horizontally scalable, meets developers. So this is an AI developer model going on right now, which is kind of unique. >> It is, John, I will tell you what's interesting. And again, folks don't always think of it this way, you know, the AI magical goodness is now getting pushed in the middle where the developers and IT are operating. And so it again, that paradigm, although for some folks seem obvious, again, if you've been around for 20 years, that whole all that plumbing is a thing, right? And so what we basically help with is when you deploy the DeepSparse runtime, we have a very rich API footprint. And so the developers can call the API, ITOps can run it, or to your point, it's developer friendly enough that you could actually deploy our off-the-shelf models. We have something called the SparseZoo where we actually publish pre-optimized or pre-sparcified models. And so developers could literally grab those right off the shelf with the training they've already had and just put 'em right into their applications and deploy them as containers. So yeah, we enable that for sure as well. >> It's interesting, DevOps was infrastructure as code and we had a last season, a series on data as code, which we kind of coined. This is data as code. This is a whole nother level of opportunity where developers just want to have programmable data and apps with AI. This is a whole new- >> Absolutely. >> Well, absolutely great, great stuff. Our news team at SiliconANGLE and theCUBE said you guys had a little bit of a launch announcement you wanted to make here on the "AWS Startup Showcase." So Jay, you have something that you want to launch here? >> Yes, and thank you John for teeing me up. So I'm going to try to put this in like, you know, the vein of like an AWS, like main stage keynote launch, okay? So we're going to try this out. So, you know, a lot of our product has obviously been built on top of x86. I've been sharing that the past 15 minutes or so. And with that, you know, we're seeing a lot of acceleration for folks wanting to run on commodity infrastructure. But we've had customers and prospects and partners tell us that, you know, ARM and all of its kind of variance are very compelling, both cost performance-wise and also obviously with Edge. And wanted to know if there was anything we could do from a runtime perspective with ARM. And so we got the work and, you know, it's a hard problem to solve 'cause the instructions set for ARM is very different than the instruction set for x86, and our deep tensor column technology has to be able to work with that lower level instruction spec. But working really hard, the engineering team's been at it and we are happy to announce here at the "AWS Startup Showcase," that DeepSparse inference now has, or inference runtime now has support for AWS Graviton instances. So it's no longer just x86, it is also ARM and that obviously also opens up the door to Edge and further out the stack so that optimize once run anywhere, we're not going to open up. So it is an early access. So if you go to neuralmagic.com/graviton, you can sign up for early access, but we're excited to now get into the ARM side of the fence as well on top of Graviton. >> That's awesome. Our news team is going to jump on that news. We'll get it right up. We get a little scoop here on the "Startup Showcase." Jay Marshall, great job. That really highlights the flexibility that you guys have when you decouple the software from the hardware. And again, we're seeing open source driving a lot more in AI ops now with with machine learning and AI. So to me, that makes a lot of sense. And congratulations on that announcement. Final minute or so we have left, give a summary of what you guys are all about. Put a plug in for the company, what you guys are looking to do. I'm sure you're probably hiring like crazy. Take the last few minutes to give a plug for the company and give a summary. >> No, I appreciate that so much. So yeah, joining us out neuralmagic.com, you know, part of what we didn't spend a lot of time here, our optimization tools, we are doing all of that in the open source. It's called SparseML and I mentioned SparseZoo briefly. So we really want the data scientists community and ML engineering community to join us out there. And again, the DeepSparse runtime, it's actually free to use for trial purposes and for personal use. So you can actually run all this on your own laptop or on an AWS instance of your choice. We are now live in the AWS marketplace. So push button, deploy, come try us out and reach out to us on neuralmagic.com. And again, sign up for the Graviton early access. >> All right, Jay Marshall, Vice President of Business Development Neural Magic here, talking about performant, cost effective machine learning at scale. This is season three, episode one, focusing on foundational models as far as building data infrastructure and AI, AI native. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. Thanks for watching. (bright upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone and welcome to theCUBE's coverage day one of CloudNativeSecurityCon '23. Lisa Martin here with John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Dave and John, great to have you guys on the program. This is interesting. This is the first inaugural CloudNativeSecurityCon. Formally part of KubeCon, now a separate event here happening in Seattle over the next couple of days. John, I wanted to get your take on, your thoughts on this being a standalone event, the community, the impact. >> Well, this inaugural event, which is great, we love it, we want to cover all inaugural events because you never know, there might not be one next year. So we were here if it happens, we're here at creation. But I think this is a good move for the CNCF and the Linux Foundation as security becomes so important and there's so many issues to resolve that will influence many other things. Developers, machine learning, data as code, supply chain codes. So I think KubeCon, Kubernetes conference and CloudNativeCon, is all about cloud native developers. And it's a huge event and there's so much there. There's containers, there's microservices, all that infrastructure's code, the DevSecOps on that side, there's enough there and it's a huge ecosystem. Pulling it as a separate event is a first move for them. And I think there's a toe in the water kind of vibe here. Testing the waters a little bit on, does this have legs? How is it organized? Looks like they took their time, thought it out extremely well about how to craft it. And so I think this is the beginning of what will probably be a seminal event for the open source community. So let's listen to the clip from Priyanka Sharma who's a CUBE alumni and executive director of the CNCF. This is kind of a teaser- >> We will tackle issues of security together here and further on. We'll share our experiences, successes, perhaps more importantly, failures, and help with the collecting of understanding. We'll create solutions. That's right. The practitioners are leading the way. Having conversations that you need to have. That's all of you. This conference today and tomorrow is packed with 72 sessions for all levels of technologists to reflect the bottoms up, developer first nature of the conference. The co-chairs have selected these sessions and they are true blue practitioners. >> And that's a great clip right there. If you read between the lines, what she's saying there, let's unpack this. Solutions, we're going to fail, we're going to get better. Linux, the culture of iterating. But practitioners, the mention of practitioners, that was very key. Global community, 72 sessions, co-chairs, Liz Rice and experts that are crafting this program. It seems like very similar to what AWS has done with re:Invent as their core show. And then they have re:Inforce which is their cloud native security, Amazon security show. There's enough there, so to me, practitioners, that speaks to the urgency of cloud native security. So to me, I think this is the first move, and again, testing the water. I like the vibe. I think the practitioner angle is relevant. It's very nerdy, so I think this is going to have some legs. >> Yeah, the other key phrase Priyanka mentioned is bottoms up. And John, at our predictions breaking analysis, I asked you to make a prediction about events. And I think you've nailed it. You said, "Look, we're going to have many more events, but they're going to be smaller." Most large events are going to get smaller. AWS is obviously the exception, but a lot of events like this, 500, 700, 1,000 people, that is really targeted. So instead of you take a big giant event and there's events within the event, this is going to be really targeted, really intimate and focused. And that's exactly what this is. I think your prediction nailed it. >> Well, Dave, we'll call to see the event operating system really cohesive events connected together, decoupled, and I think the Linux Foundation does an amazing job of stringing these events together to have community as the focus. And I think the key to these events in the future is having, again, targeted content to distinct user groups in these communities so they can be highly cohesive because they got to be productive. And again, if you try to have a broad, big event, no one's happy. Everyone's underserved. So I think there's an industry concept and then there's pieces tied together. And I think this is going to be a very focused event, but I think it's going to grow very fast. >> 72 sessions, that's a lot of content for this small event that the practitioners are going to have a lot of opportunity to learn from. Do you guys, John, start with you and then Dave, do you think it's about time? You mentioned John, they're dipping their toe in the water. We'll see how this goes. Do you think it's about time that we have this dedicated focus out of this community on cloud native security? >> Well, I think it's definitely time, and I'll tell you there's many reasons why. On the front lines of business, there's a business model for security hackers and breaches. The economics are in favor of the hackers. That's a real reality from ransomware to any kind of breach attacks. There's corporate governance issues that's structural challenges for companies. These are real issues operationally for companies in the enterprise. And at the same time, on the tech stack side, it's been very slow movement, like glaciers in terms of security. Things like DNS, Linux kernel, there are a lot of things in the weeds in the details of the bowels of the tech world, protocol levels that just need to be refactored. And I think you're seeing a lot of that here. It was mentioned from Brian from the Linux Foundation, mentioned Dan Kaminsky who recently passed away who found that vulnerability in BIND which is a DNS construct. That was a critical linchpin. They got to fix these things and Liz Rice is talking about the Linux kernel with the extended Berkeley Packet Filtering thing. And so this is where they're going. This is stuff that needs to be paid attention to because if they don't do it, the train of automation and machine learning is going to run wild with all kinds of automation that the infrastructure just won't be set up for. So I think there's going to be root level changes, and I think ultimately a new security stack will probably be very driven by data will be emerging. So to me, I think this is definitely worth being targeted. And I think you're seeing Amazon doing the same thing. I think this is a playbook out of AWS's event focus and I think that's right. >> Dave, what are you thoughts? >> There was a lot of talk in, again, I go back to the progression here in the last decade about what's the right regime for security? Should the CISO report to the CIO or the board, et cetera, et cetera? We're way beyond that now. I think DevSecOps is being asked to do a lot, particularly DevOps. So we hear a lot about shift left, we're hearing about protecting the runtime and the ops getting much more involved and helping them do their jobs because the cloud itself has brought a lot to the table. It's like the first line of defense, but then you've really got a lot to worry about from a software defined perspective. And it's a complicated situation. Yes, there's less hardware, yes, we can rely on the cloud, but culturally you've got a lot more people that have to work together, have to share data. And you want to remove the blockers, to use an Amazon term. And the way you do that is you really, if we talked about it many times on theCUBE. Do over, you got to really rethink the way in which you approach security and it starts with culture and team. >> Well the thing, I would call it the five C's of security. Culture, you mentioned that's a good C. You got cloud, tons of issues involved in cloud. You've got access issues, identity. you've got clusters, you got Kubernetes clusters. And then you've got containers, the fourth C. And then finally is the code itself, supply chain. So all areas of cloud native, if you take out culture, it's cloud, cluster, container, and code all have levels of security risks and new things in there that need to be addressed. So there's plenty of work to get done for sure. And again, this is developer first, bottoms up, but that's where the change comes in, Dave, from a security standpoint, you always point this out. Bottoms up and then middle out for change. But absolutely, the imperative is today the business impact is real and it's urgent and you got to pedal as fast as you can here, so I think this is going to have legs. We'll see how it goes. >> Really curious to understand the cultural impact that we see being made at this event with the focus on it. John, you mentioned the four C's, five with culture. I often think that culture is probably the leading factor. Without that, without getting those teams aligned, is the rest of it set up to be as successful as possible? I think that's a question that's- >> Well to me, Dave asked Pat Gelsinger in 2014, can security be a do-over at VMWorld when he was the CEO of VMware? He said, "Yes, it has to be." And I think you're seeing that now. And Nick from the co-founder of Palo Alto Networks was quoted on theCUBE by saying, "Zero Trust is some structure to give to security, but cloud allows for the ability to do it over and get some scale going on security." So I think the best people are going to come together in this security world and they're going to work on this. So you're going to start to see more focus around these security events and initiatives. >> So I think that when you go to the, you mentioned re:Inforce a couple times. When you go to re:Inforce, there's a lot of great stuff that Amazon puts forth there. Very positive, it's not that negative. Oh, the world is falling, the sky is falling. And so I like that. However, you don't walk away with an understanding of how they're making the CISOs and the DevOps lives easier once they get beyond the cloud. Of course, it's not Amazon's responsibility. And that's where I think the CNCF really comes in and open source, that's where they pick up. Obviously the cloud's involved, but there's a real opportunity to simplify the lives of the DevSecOps teams and that's what's critical in terms of being able to solve, or at least keep up with this never ending problem. >> Yeah, there's a lot of issues involved. I took some notes here from some of the keynote you heard. Security and education, training and team structure. Detection, incidents that are happening, and how do you respond to that architecture. Identity, isolation, supply chain, and governance and compliance. These are all real things. This is not like hand-waving issues. They're mainstream and they're urgent. Literally the houses are on fire here with the enterprise, so this is going to be very, very important. >> Lisa: That's a great point. >> Some of the other things Priyanka mentioned, exposed edges and nodes. So just when you think we're starting to solve the problem, you got IOT, security's not a one and done task. We've been talking about culture. No person is an island. It's $188 billion business. Cloud native is growing at 27% a year, which just underscores the challenges, and bottom line, practitioners are leading the way. >> Last question for you guys. What are you hoping those practitioners get out of this event, this inaugural event, John? >> Well first of all, I think this inaugural event's going to be for them, but also we at theCUBE are going to be doing a lot more security events. RSA's coming up, we're going to be at re:Inforce, we're obviously going to be covering this event. We've got Black Hat, a variety of other events. We'll probably have our own security events really focused on some key areas. So I think the thing that people are going to walk away from this event is that paying attention to these security events are going to be more than just an industry thing. I think you're going to start to see group gatherings or groups convening virtually and physically around core issues. And I think you're going to start to see a community accelerate around cloud native and open source specifically to help teams get faster and better at what they do. So I think the big walkaway for the customers and the practitioners here is that there's a call to arms happening and this is, again, another signal that it's worth breaking out from the core event, but being tied to it, I think that's a good call and I think it's a well good architecture from a CNCF standpoint and a worthy effort, so I give it a thumbs up. We still don't know what it's going to look like. We'll see what day two looks like, but it seems to be experts, practitioners, deep tech, enabling technologies. These are things that tend to be good things to hear when you're at an event. I'll say the business imperative is obvious. >> The purpose of an event like this, and it aligns with theCUBE's mission, is to educate and inspire business technology pros to action. We do it in theCUBE with free content. Obviously this event is a for-pay event, but they are delivering some real value to the community that they can take back to their organizations to make change. And that's what it's all about. >> Yep, that is what it's all about. I'm looking forward to seeing over as the months unfold, the impact that this event has on the community and the impact the community has on this event going forward, and really the adoption of cloud native security. Guys, great to have you during this keynote analysis. Looking forward to hearing the conversations that we have on theCUBE today. Thanks so much for joining. And for my guests, for my co-hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's day one coverage of CloudNativeSecurityCon '23. Stick around, we got great content on theCUBE coming up. (upbeat music)

>>Well, hi everybody, John Walls here on the cube. And thank you for joining us here for this cube conversation today. And we're talking about data. Of course, it's a blessing and the respect that it's become such a valuable asset. So many companies around the world, it's also a curse, obviously, because it is certainly can be vulnerable. It is under attack and Druva is all about protecting your data and preventing those attacks. And with us to talk about that a little bit more in depth as Jaspreet Singh, who is the founder and CEO at Druva and Steven Manley, who was the company's CTO. Gentlemen, thanks for being with us here on the queue. Good to see you. >>Thank you. Thank you, John. >>So Jaspreet, let me just begin with you. Let's, let's talk about the larger picture of data these days. And, and we read, it seems as though every day about some kind of invasion, you know, where some ransomware attack it's become all too commonplace. So if you wouldn't maybe just set the stage a little bit for the state of ransomware here in 2021. >>That's right. John, I think Lansing has now a new national security threat and at the scene, uh, all around us, this, uh, almost every single day, we hear about businesses getting hit with a, a new ransomware attack, uh, ransomware 1.0 was more a malware situation impacting our data. And as you know, the pandemic transformed the entire data landscape, like the application, the terror, the entire supply chain delivery model as to be more online, more connected, which, you know, for this mortar stores, this whole approach towards a malware coming in, we're also seeing ransomware 2.0, it is all about like insider techs or, or, or in general security misconfiguration, which could lead to data being exfiltrated or traded off in the market. So in general, as data is far more connected, far more expected to be online security techs from either malware or human oriented security issues are becoming more and more dominant threat to, to our, our entire data landscape. Right? >>Yeah. So, so Steven, if you would, I'd like you to just to follow up on this, this, uh, uh, will the landscape to take one of Jaspreet's terms here about what you're seeing in terms of, of kind of these evolving threats now, um, used to be probably, I don't know, five, six years ago, it was a very different, uh, set of problems and challenges and companies maybe weren't as laser focused as they are now. Um, maybe take us through that, that process, what has happened with regard to the client base that you see and you're working with in terms of their recognition and other steps that they need to take going forward as they modernize their operations? >>Yeah. You know, I th I think there's, there's two things we see from, uh, from sort of a technical perspective. The first one is in just pre-call that ransomware 1.0, ransomware 1.0, uh, is mainstream at this point, you know, so, so you, you can go out there and you don't have to be an expert hacker there's ransomware as a service. You know, your average, your average teenager can basically download a ransomware attack kit, uh, you know, get, get a pretty lightweight cloud account and attack school districts, hospitals, municipal organizations, whatever it is, you know, with what we would consider the traditional ransomware and, and that's become ubiquitous. And that's why we see all these reports of, there are multiple ransomware attacks every minute, you know, in the United States and around the world. So, so that's, that's, that's one part which is you're going to get hit. >>Now you'll probably get heading in with the more traditional ransomware, but, you know, like any industry, the ransomware people have evolved. And so it's as just breed said, they are constantly innovating. And so what we're seeing now from, uh, from sort of a marketplace standpoint is, you know, getting smarter about the ransomware attack. So, so laying low, longer, uh, you know, sort of corrupting or attacking data a little bit more slowly. So it's harder to detect specifically attacking backup infrastructure so that you won't be able to recover exfiltrating data. So that, so that now you can have sort of two types of threats, one that your data is encrypted, and the other is if you don't pay us, we're just going to post it on the internet. So, so you've got stage one, which is ubiquitous, and you've got to protect yourself against that because anyone can be attacked at any time. And then you've got stage two where it's getting smarter and that's where organizations then have to step up their game and say, I've got to keep my backup safer. Uh, I've got to be able to detect things a little bit more easily, and I need to start really understanding my data footprint. So I understand what can be exfiltrated and what that's going to mean to me as a business. >>So, Jess, um, to that point, that Steven was just talking about how the organizations need to get smarter in terms of your communications that you're having with the folks in the C-suite, um, is that point, is that you, if they readily identified today, I mean, are, do they get it, um, are the, is the communication going out to their stakeholders, are the business priorities being aligned appropriately? I mean, what, what are organizations and specifically on that executive level, what are they doing right now? Um, in terms of, of preparation in terms of protections that, that, uh, again, are so necessary, I would think. >>Yeah, absolutely. So I think we do see customers truly making strides to solving the problem. There's not a one facet that, you know, one solution fits all problem either, right? So there's, there's, there's, there's a whole productive nature of preventing ransomware detection and response. There's a readiness aspect of it, but what happens when you do get here now that recovery element to it, how do I recover in time in shape from a attack like this, the customers are evolving. They're understanding at the same time, they actually deploying appropriate technologies to, to put all the three aspects of solving the solution. What does Stickney like any of the security challenge? This is, uh, you know, there's not a one application solve all problems. Typically the OLAP and controls built by a multiple group and multiple parties to make sure you're ready to response towards a tech like this. >>And just to jump in, because one of the things I find fascinating as we go through this, the customer conversations I have, I've I've been doing, you know, sort of data protection for a long time. We won't get into that, but, but most of my time I'd spent talking to, you know, VPs of it. Maybe I'd see a CIO. It's fascinating. Now we will have conversations with boards of directors because it becomes such a big issue. And the focus is, is, is so different, right? Because they understand that this isn't just like a usual backup and recovery, or even the traditional disaster recovery that you might do from a natural disaster or some sort of hardware outage. They're seeing that there are so many stages now to an orchestrator recovery. These customers we work with where it's, it's, it's not just about, I need a little bit to technology. They're really looking for how do I operationalize all of this? You know, because once you're up at the board of directors, this is no longer a which product is better than X, Y, or Z. It's a discussion about who can really insulate me from the risk, because these, these can be business sending events. If you're not careful, >>Right? I mean, you're ready. This is a great point. And actually, Steven, I hadn't really thought about these fiduciary responsibilities that boards have. And obviously we think about operations. We think about PNL, right? We think about all, but I hadn't really thought about how also data protection. And I want to talk about data resiliency, how those come into play, as well as those board decisions are made. So let's talk about resiliency. I want you guys to explain this concept to me. Um, so the, you know, what, what's the distinction between protection and resiliency because to me, they're, they're maybe not exactly synonymous, but they're kind of cousins in some respects. So a Jaspreet, if you will talk about resiliency and how you define that. >>Sure. So I just see what I mentioned, right? The prediction was more about how do I actually save guard my data to actually, you know, recover from an incident right there, didn't say residency is all about being ready to respond in time, right? The forward-leaning pusher of making sure, you know, am I ready to not just recover from a very, uh, you know, age, old problem of application failure or, or human errors, but also a cyber attack or a, you know, a true age incident or a cyber recovery or security incident, which I'm prepared to respond in a appropriate SLA across the board. Right. Uh, and resiliency also goes beyond, you know, just the nature of data itself, right? You're, you're talking about applications, environments ecosystem to truly understand that the enterprise operation needs it. Data needs to be holistic. We talked through how do I get my business online, faster. Right. And that's the two nature of differentiation between, uh, protection going towards resiliency. >>And then as obviously driving a lot of your product development. Right. And, and, and I know you've got the data resilience, resiliency, cloud, um, service that you're offering now. So Steven blitz blitz, let's dive into that a little bit. Um, what was the Genesis of that offering and, and what do you see as its primary advantages to your clients? >>Yeah, so, so I think, I think there's, there's really those, those tier two key words there it's resiliency and it's cloud. So just brief, kind of walked about how your resiliency is that step forward. It's that shift left, whatever term you want to use. To me, the best part about the cloud is, and like I said, I've been doing this for a long time and I've yet to meet a customer. Who's come to me and said, I really wish I could spend more money and more time on my data protection infrastructure. I love sticking together, multiple separate products. It's just a great use of my time. Right? Nobody says that what they really say is, could you just solve this problem for me? This is, this is hard capacity planning and patching and upgrades and tying together all the different components from up to seven different vendors. >>This is hard work. And I just need this to work. I need this to work seamlessly. And so we, we, we looked at that cloud part and we said, well, when you think of cloud, you think of something that's flexible. You think of something that's on demand. You think of something that does the job for you. And so, you know, when we talk about this data resiliency cloud, it's about, you know, moving onto your front foot, getting aggressive, being ready for what's coming, but having, you know, frankly, Druva do it for you as opposed to saying here's some technology, good luck. You know, Mr. And Mrs. Customer, you know, we've got this solved for you, it's our job to take care of it. >>And to add to it, you know, this entire resiliency question cannot be solved to a simple, a software is approach is a fundamental belief because the same network, the same principles of operation, the same people involved, you know, what, what those are involved around the primary application that the resiliency aspect has to be air gap appropriately, not just at the data level, but ID and operations limit as well. Right? So a notion of a cloud, almost a social distancing for your data, right? And you're in your ego to the enterprise that, Hey, if anything happens to my primary network application stack data, my second Bree cloud, my redundancy cloud is ready to respond inappropriate, define SNDs to recover my Buddhist business holistically as a combination of integrating with SecOps as a combination of truly integrating disaster recovery elements with cyber recovery elements, truly understanding application recovery from a backup and recovery point of view. So holistically understanding the notion of resiliency and simplifying it to the elements of public cloud. Yes, sir. >>How do you bend that for your clients? Because as you both pointed out, they have different needs, right? And they have, they have different obviously different that they're involved in different sectors of different operations with different priorities and all that. How is the data resiliency cloud, uh, providing them with the kind of flexibility and aid, the kind of adaptability that you need in order to conform it for what you need and not necessarily, you know, what someone else in another sector is, is all about. >>So, so for me, there's a couple of things that, that is great about, about being the data resiliency cloud. One is that we've got well over 3,500 customers, which means that no matter what segment you're looking in, you're not going to be alone, right? If you're, if you're healthcare, if you're finance, if you're a manufacturing, Druva, Druva understands, you know, what you, and many of, of your similar sort of companies look like, which enables us to work in a lot of ways and enables us to understand what trends are happening across your industry, whether it's, you know, ransomware attacks that are coming across, you know, say manufacturing space and how those look or what data growth looks like, or what type of applications are important in those industries. So it's, it's really useful for us to be able to say, we understand these different verticals because we've got such a broad customer base. >>I think the second thing that comes in then is every customer. I meet the number one question they asked me, and Amanda might not be the first one, but it's the one they want to ask. It's always, how am I doing compared to everybody else? And so it's really useful to, to be able to sit down and say, look in your industry. This is what we see as the standards right now. So this is where you fall. You're sort of maybe a stage two, everybody else's at stage three will help you move forward. You, our industry as a whole is actually ahead of many of the other industries, but this is what's coming next for it for others. And so it's really useful for those customers to understand where they sit in respect to, to sort of the broader marketplace. And so that's one of the values I think we bring is that we do have such a broad understanding of our customers because we are a service as opposed to just selling software. >>Yeah. And those customers too, um, as you've talked about, they're looking maybe at their, their, their competitive landscape and trying to decide, okay, are we keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak? Um, but all of you, all of us, we're all trying to, we're trying to keep up with the bad guys. And so in terms of that going forward, what does that challenge for you at Druva in terms of being anticipatory in terms of trying to recognize, uh, their trends and their movements and, and therefore we're thinking so that you can be that, that great, uh, protective mechanism, you can be that prophylactic measure that stands between a company and something bad from happening. >>So I I'll start. And then, uh, it's funny cause, uh, you know, just breed and I had just this morning, we were actually talking about some of the future of ransomware protection and one of the things that we are using a lot in driven, and I get every company says they're doing it is the use of AIML, especially in detecting, uh, sort of unusual trends. Um, but, but you know, but I think we're different than most because the AIML we use is again, across, you know, two and a half billion backups every year, right? Because we, we get, we get visibility across everybody. So it's not just isolated, but we're looking at things like, you know, unusual access patterns in the data and usual access patterns based on administrators, because like Jaspreet said, said at the beginning, one of the things we see the ransomware attackers doing is they're trying to get entire control of your environment because if I control your environment, if I control your phone system, your email, I can get control of your backup application and delete everything. >>So we're even doing things to sort of prevent, oh, you know, we were getting unusual administrative access patterns. Let's stop that. We're getting unusual recovery patterns. Maybe that's somebody trying to steal data out. Let's track that. So our use of AIML is across a much broader data set than anybody else. And it's looking at a lot more than just, you know, sort of data, data pattern changes took to a much broader set of things. And, and basically, again, it's, it's sort of a, a bi-weekly meeting we have where Jaspreet comes in with more ideas that basically for our, for, for our team to start to go, what else can we do? Because the landscape keeps changing. >>And on top of it, I think also if you think about data protection or even data storage was never designed from a security point of view, it was always designed from a point of view of recoverability of data tool. Application issues are basically not corruption, but security or the thinking help us also fundamentally understand how do we think about elements of zero trust all around the platform and how do you make sure to what Steven mentioned, if your IDP gets compromised, if you do have a bad actor, enter a data protection solution, make us, how do you still make sure levels of automatization immutability like multiple levels of control that it plays to make sure no bad actor take construct control and true recoverability resiliency is possible across a variety of scenarios and Trudy customer driven SLA. So both foundationally, uh, we've, we've truly built something which is now, uh, it's very deep in and focused on security. The same time as Steven mentioned to understanding of customer landscape really helps us understand bad actors thought more, better, and more faster than many of our, uh, in the industry competition. >>Well, the need is great. That's for sure. And gentlemen, I want to thank you for the time today to talk about, uh, what Druva is doing and wish you continued success down the road. Thanks to you both. >>Thank >>You. All right. We've been talking about data, keeping it safe, keeping your data safe. That's what Druva is all about. And I'm John Walls and you've been watching the cube.

(upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back to theCUBES's coverage of Dockercon 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We have Justin Cormack, CTO of Docker. Was also involved in the CNCF technical oversight and variety of other technical activities. Justin, great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE Virtual this year, again, twice in a row and maybe next year will be in person but certainly hybrid, great to see you. >> Yeah, great to see you too. Yeah, in person would be nice one of these days, yes. >> Yeah, when we get real life back. It's almost there, I can feel it, but there's so much activity. One of the things that we've been talking about, certainly in theCUBE and even here at DockerCon, same story. The pandemic really hasn't truly impacted developer community, because most of the people have been working remotely and virtually for many, many decades. And if you think about just in the past 10 years, all the innovation in cloud has come from virtual teams, open-source softwares, always had good kind of governance and a democratization of kind of how it becomes built. So not a bit's been skipped during the pandemic. In fact, if anything supply chain of software development has increased. So- >> Yeah, I think that it's definitely true that open-source was really the place that pioneered remote working. And a lot of the work methods the people worked out to do open-source as in communication and things like that, were things that people have adopted. It's a slightly different community. I'd say open-source projects like meetings less than some other organizations, but there was definitely that pioneering thing. And a lot of the companies that started off remote first, were in open-source software, and they started off for those reasons as well because developers were already working like that, and they could just hire them and they could continue to work like that. >> Yeah, one of the upsides of all this is that people won't tolerate even zoom or in person meetings that just go on, 15, 30 minutes good call. Why do we have a meeting? What's the purpose? (faintly speaking) the way to go. Let's get into the developer community. One of the things I love about DockerCon this year 2021 is the envelopes being pushed again almost to another level, it's almost a new level, this next level of containers is bringing more innovation to the table and productivity and simplicity. Some of the same messages last year but now more than ever, stuff's going on. What are you hearing directly from the community? You talk to a lot of the developers out of the millions of developers in the Docker ecosystem. What are they saying now in 2021? What's going on in their mind? >> Yeah, I think it's an area... More and more people are using Docker, and they're using it every day and it's a change that's been going on, obviously for a while, but it begins to sort of, as it spreads, the kind of developers using Docker, so different from... When I started at Docker, coming up for six years ago, it was a very bleeding edge type thing for early adopters. Now it's everywhere, millions and millions of ordinary developers are using Docker every day. And the kinds of things that's telling us is, well, some of this stuff that we thought, well, five years ago was an amazing breakthrough and simplicity. Now that's on its own still too hard. One of the things I mentioned in my keynote was that, we're talking to developers who just primarily have been working windows all their life but more and more applications being shipped on Linux. And they using Linux containers, but they find Docker files really hard because they have really, Linux shell scrapes and not a windows developer doesn't know how to use a Linux shell script. And it's bringing it down to that next level of use where you can adopt these things more easily, the pitched to the kind of level of developer who is just thinking about their language, their APIs and they don't want to have to learn kind of lots of new things to do Docker. They'll learn some, but they really wanted to kind of integrate better into the environments they work in and help them more. We've been working on a lot of detailed instructions about like how to use Docker better with JavaScript and Python, because people have told us, be specific about these things, tell us exactly how I do make things work well with the way I'm doing things now. >> What is the big upside for containers for the folks watching? And last year, one of the most popular sessions was the one-on-one Peter McKay did, which was fascinating, packed with people. And the adoption of containers is going everywhere and enabling a lot of growth. What's the main message to these new developers that are coming on board to ecosystem. >> I think what's happening is that people are gradually, very slowly starting to think about containers in a different way. When we started, the question everyone kept asking was about containers and VMS, what's the difference? That question didn't really, kind of really address what the big fundamental changes that containers made to how people work was. I'd like to think about it in terms of the physical shipping containers, like people are concerned about like, can you escape from the box? Can I get out of a container? These kinds of questions. This is not really the important question about containers is kind of escape from the box. The question is, what does it enable you to build? The shipping container let us build the supply chains that let people build products and factories and things that would never have been possible without the ability to actually just ship things in a routine and predictable and reliable and secure way, getting that content and the things that come in the container and you actually work more effectively. And, so I think that now we're talking about like what's the effect of containers on the industry as a whole? What are the things that we can learn about repeatability and documentation and metadata and reliability, that we kind of talked about a little bit before, but these are becoming the important use cases for containers. Containers are really about, they're not about that kind of security and escape piece, there're about the content, the supply chain and your actual process of working. >> What do you, first of all, great call out on the security piece. I want to get that in a second. I think that's a killer one. You've mentioned supply chain, can you define software supply chain, and is that where the automation value comes in? Because a lot of people are talking about automation is improving the developer experience. So can you clarify quickly, what do you mean by the software supply chain? And is that where automation comes in? Am I getting that right? >> Yeah, so the software supply chain is really that process by which you get components of software to build your applications. Around 99% of companies are using open-source software to build applications. And the vast majority of the pieces of any modern application art consists mainly of open-source software and some tries source software, and some software that people are writing themselves. But you've got to get these components in, you've got to make sure that they're updated and scanned and they're reliable. And that's the software supply chain is that process for bringing in components that you're using to build your applications. And so, the way automation comes in, is just because there's so much of the software dealing with it manually is just difficult, and it's an ongoing process of build and test and CI and all those scanning and all those processes. And I think as software developers, we fundamentally know that the most valuable things are the things that we automate. They're the things that we do all the time and they're important. And that a lot of building a software is about building repeatable processes, rather than just doing things one by one, because we know that we have to keep updating software, we have to keep fixing bags, we have to keep improving software. And so you've got to be able to keep doing these things, and automation is what helps us do that. >> I was talking to Dana Lawson the VP of Engineering at GitHub, and she and I were chatting about this one topic. I want to get your thoughts on it, because she was definitely of the camp of automation helps with productivity. No doubt, check, double check there. The question I have for you is how do you see the impact on say the developer experience and innovation specifically? Because, okay, I can see the productivity, okay, something happens a bunch of times automated. Then you start thinking about supply chain, then you thought about developer experience and ultimately with Kubernetes around the corner, with the relationship with containers, you can see the cloud-native benefits from an innovation standpoint. Can you share your thoughts on the automation impact to experience for the developer and the innovation strategies they need? >> Well, I think that one of the ways we're trying to think about everything we do at Docker is that we should be helping build processes rather than helping you do something once, because, if you do something three times, you want to automate it, but what if the first time you did it, that could also build that automated process. And if it was, why isn't it as easy to make something automated as it is to do it once? There's no real reason why it shouldn't be. And I think that kind of... I was having a conversation with someone the other day about how they would... They had kind of reversed their thinking and they found that often it was easier to start with automation and harder to do things manually. And that's a kind of real reversal of that kind of role between automation and doing stuff run, so, and it's not how we think about it, but I think it's really interesting to think about that kind of thing, and how could we make automation really, really simple. >> Well, that's a great example when you have that kind of environment, and certainly the psychology is better to have automation but if everyone's saying it's hard to do manual, that means they're at some sort of scale, right? So scale matters, right? So as you start getting the SRE vibes going, and you start getting Cloud Scale in cloud-native apps, that's going to be cool. Now, the question I want to ask you, because while the other thing that's happening is more people are coming into open-source than ever before, not just young developers, but also end users. Not like the hardcore-end users, looking like classic enterprises are coming in. So as more developers come in and increase over the year, what does that mean for the experience for developers? Now you have, does that change it? How do you view that? Because as more developers come in, you have institutional knowledge, you have scale, you have learnings, what's your thoughts on on the impact as the population of developers increase? How does Docker view that? >> Yeah, now, I think it's really interesting trend. It's been very visible in CNCF for the last few years. We've been seeing a lot more active end-user, company's doing open-source. Spotify has been one of the examples with a backstage project they brought into CNCF and other areas where they work. And I think it's part of this growing trend that's really important to Docker, Docker is a bottom up technology adoption company. Developers are using Docker because it works for them and they love it. And developers are doing open-source in their companies because open-source works for them and they love it. And it works for their business as well. And whereas historically like the the model was, you would buy kind of large enterprise products, with big procurement deals that were often not what the developers wanted, but now you're getting developers saying, what we want to do is adopt these open-source projects, because we know how they work, we already understand that we know how to integrate them better into our processes. And I think it's that developer lad demand that's really important, and it's the kind of integration that developers want to do, the kind of products that they want to work with, because they understand them and love them, and they had targeted at developers and that's incredibly important. And I think that's very much where Docker's focused and we really want to... Open-source is of the core of everything we've always done. We've built with the open-source community, and we've kind of come from that kind of environment. And we built things that we love as developers and that other developers love. >> Talk about your thoughts on security. Obviously it's always built in from the beginning, Shift-Left is the ethos, day two operations, AI apps, whatever people want to call that. Post-deployment mode, security has to be at the center of this, containers can be a great solution and give some great flexibility for developers. Can you talk about your view and Docker view on the security posture and situation? >> Yeah, I think Shift-Left is incredibly important because just doing things late, everyone knows is the wrong thing from the point of view of productivity. But I think Shift-Left can just mean, ask the developers to do everything, which is really a bit too much. I think that sometimes things need to be shifted even further left than people have actually thought. So like, why are you expecting developers to scan components to see if they're allowed to use? If they should be using them or they should be updated, why hasn't that happened before the developer even gets there? I think there's a, I sorted my keynote about this whole piece, about trusted content. And it's really important that we really shift that even further left, so it's long before it gets to the developer, those things that are happening. Security, it's a huge area, of course, but it's very much, we need to help developers because security is non-obvious. I think the more you understand about security, the more you understand that it doesn't come naturally to people and they need to be helped with it, and they need to learn a lot about things in a way to, I found myself that, learning how to think like an attacker is a really important way of thinking about how to secure softwares, like what what would they do rather than just thinking about the normal kind of, oh, this works in the (faintly speaking) What happens if things go wrong? That you have to think about as well. So there's a lot of work to do to educate and help and build tools that help developers there. And it's been really good working with Snyk, cause they're a very developer focused security company, that's why we chose to work with them. Whereas historically, security companies have been very oriented towards kind of the operator side of it, not the development side, not the developer experience. And the other piece is really around supply chain security. That's just kind of a new security area. And it's very important from the container point of view, because one of the things containers let you do is really control the components that you're using to build applications and manage them better. And so we can really build tooling that helps you manage, that helps you understand what's in a container, helps you understand where it came from, how it was built and automate those processes and sign and authenticate them as well. And we've been working with CNCF on Nature V2, which is for signing revamp of the container signing process, because people really want to know who originated this container? Where did it come from? What did they say is in it? There's a lot of work about build up materials and composition analysis and all those things that you need to know about. What's in a container, and the... >> Everyone wants to know what's in a container. If you've got a Kubernetes cluster for instance, that's all highly secure and in comes a container, how do you know what the... There's no perimeter, right? So again, as you said, thinking like an attack vector there, you got to understand that, this is where the action is, right? This is where a lot of work's being done on this idea of always on security. You don't know when the container's coming in. during the run stage, you're running a business now, it's not just build and share, your running infrastructure. >> Absolutely, you really want full control about everything that goes into it, and you want to know where everything that you're running in production came from, and you pretty tired of this, and that's your end to end supply chain. It's everything from developer inputs through the build process and grow to production. And in production, understanding whether it needs to be updated and whether there's new discover vulnerabilities and whether it's being attacked and how that relates back to what came into it in the first place. >> Lot more intelligence, lot more monitoring. You guys are enabling all that I know it's cool. Great stuff. Hey, I want to get your thoughts on just what got you here on the calendar, looking at the DockerCon '21 event, and we're having a fun time here with, we're on theCUBE track, get the keynote track. But if you look at the sessions that's going on, you got, and I'll get your comment on this, cause it's really interesting how it's cleverly laid out this is. You've got the classic run share build and then you've got a track called accelerate, interesting metadata around these labels. Take us through, because this basically shows the maturation of containers. We already talked about the relationship, somewhat with Kubernetes, everyone kind of sees that direction clearly, but you got acceleration, which is a key new track, but run, share, build, what's your reaction to that? Share your observations of what the layout of those names and what it means to an enterprise and people building. >> Yeah, (faintly speaking) has been Docker's kind of motto for a long time. It kind of encapsulates that kind of process of like, the developer building application, the collaborative piece that's really important about sharing content in containers and then obviously putting into production because that's the aim. But, accelerate is incredibly important too. Developers are just being asked to do a lot. Everything is software, there's a lot of software, and a lot of software has to be created and we've got to make it easier to do this. And that kind of getting quickly from idea to business outcomes and results is what modern software teams are really driving at. And, I think we've really been focused this last year on what the team needs to succeed, and especially, small focused teams delivering business value. It's how we're structured internally as well and is how our customers, to a large extent are structured. And there's that kind of focus on accelerating those business outcomes and the feedback loops from your ideas to what the feedback that your customers give you at helping you understand that it's really important. >> Talk about final question for you in terms of the topic here, cloud, hybrid cloud, multicloud, this is, put multicloud asides more hype. Everyone has multiple clouds, but it speaks to the general distributed computing architecture when you talk about public cloud and on-premises cloud operations. So modern developers looking at that as, okay, distributed environment, edge, whatever you're going to call it. What's your view of Docker as it goes forward for the folks watching, who have experience with Docker, loved the vibe, loved the open-source, but now I've got to start thinking about putting the containers everywhere. What's the Docker pitch, so to speak, with a tech story that they should walk away with from you? What's the story, what's the pitch? >> Yeah, so containers everywhere has been a sort of emerging trend for a while, the last year or so. The whole Kubernetes at the edge thing has really exploded with people experimenting with lots and lots of different architectures for different kinds of environments at the edge. What's totally clear is that people want to be able to update software really easily at the edge the way you can in the cloud. We can't have the sort of, there's no point in shipping a modern piece of manufacturing equipment that you can't update the software on, because the software is how it works, more and more equipment is becoming very general purpose, people making general purpose robots, general purpose factories, general purpose everything which need to be specialized into the application they're going to run that week. And also people are getting more and more feedback and data and feedback from the data. So if you're building something that runs on a farm, you're getting permanent feedback about how well it's doing and how well the crops are growing was coming back. And so everywhere you've got this, we need to update. And everywhere you need to update, you want containers because containers are the simple reliable way to update software. >> I know you talked about CNCF and your role there. Also the CTO of Docker, I have to ask cause we were just covered Coop con and cloud-native con just last month and this month. And it's clear that Kubernetes is becoming boringly good in a way that's good to be boring, right? It means it's working. And it's becoming more cloud-native con than Coop-con. That has been kind of editorial observation, which speaks to what we feel is a trend towards more cloud-native discussions, less about Kubernetes. So, it's still Kubernetes stuff going on, don't get me wrong, just saying it's not as controversial in the sense that people kind of clearly understand why that's important, and all the discussions now seem to be on cloud-native modern developer workflows. What's your reaction to that? Do you agree, if not, what's your take? >> Yeah, I think that's definitely true. Kubernetes is definitely much more boring. Everyone is using it. They're using it in production now vastly more than they were a few years ago, when it was just experiment, experiment, experiment, now it's production scale out. The ecosystem in CNCF is kind of huge. There's so many little bits that have to be filled in storage and networking and all that. So there's actually a lot of pieces that are around Kubernetes, but, there's definitely more of a focus coming on the developer experience there. Compared to DockerCon, the audience at Coop Con is incarnated kind of still much more operator focused rather than developer focused. And it's very nice coming to DockerCon, just to feel like being amongst that developer community, Coop Con still has a way to gauge to have more of a real developer audience, but the project is starting to pair with a more developer focused kind of aim or things like backstage from Spotify is a really interesting one where it's about operations, but it's a developer portal focused things. So, I think it's happening, and there's a lot more talk about that. There's a whole bunch of infrastructure, there's a lot more security projects in CNCF than they were before. And we're doing a lot of work on supply chain security and CNCF just released a white paper on that few days ago. So there's a lot of work there that touches on developer needs. I still think that audience (faintly speaking) that much different from DockerCon which is I think 80% developers and maybe 10% infrastructure rather than the other way round. >> I think if you're going to get operators it can be SRE/platformleads. The platform leads are definitely inside DockerCon now than they've ever been before from my observation. So, but that speaks to the sign of the times. Most development teams have an SRE in the team, not an SRE team. They're just starting to see much more integration amongst the kind of a threaded or threaded teams or whatnot. So... >> Yeah. (faintly speaking) Operate your apps is the model. And I think that it's going to lead to more and more crossover between these communities. It's what DevOps was supposed to be about, somehow got diverted into building DevOps teams instead of working together, but we'll get there. >> It's clear from my standpoint, at least from reporting here is that, from the DockerCon and community at large, cloud-native community, having end-to-end work-load visibility on developer test run, everything seems to be the consensus, without a doubt. And then having multiple teams, and then having some platform, have some flexing people moving between teams for the most part, but built insecurity, built in SRE, built in DevOps, DevSecOps, all the way from end-to-end. >> Absolutely, we know that that's what does work best, it's where most organizations are heading at different speeds, because it's very different from the traditional architecture. It takes time to get there, but that's the model that has come out of microservices that really containers enabled and allow that model to happen. And it's the team architecture of containers. >> Hey, monolithic applications have monolithic organizations, microservices have microservices teams. Justin, great to have you on theCUBE for this conversation. If folks watching this interview, check out Justin's keynote, came from the main stage, great stuff. Justin, thanks for coming on theCUBE, we really appreciate your time and insight. >> Thank you, good to see you again. >> Okay, this is theCUBES's coverage of DockerCon 2021 Virtual. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. >> Hey, welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, Host of theCUBE here in Palo Alto, California, for a special conversation with an industry analyst who's been, who travels a lot, does a lot of events, covers the industry, up and down, economically and also some of the big trends, to talk about how the at scale problem that the COVID-19 is causing. Whether it's a lot of people are working at home for the first time, to at scale network problems, the pressure points that this is exposing for what I would call the mainstream world is a great topic. Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research, friend of theCUBE. Zeus, welcome back to theCUBE. Good to see you remotely. We're, as you know, working in place here. I came to the studio for, with our quarantine crew here, to get these stories out, 'cause they're super important. Thanks for spending the time. >> Hi, yeah, thanks, it's certainly been an interesting last couple months and we're probably, maybe half way through this, I'm guessing. >> Yeah, and no matter what happens the new reality of this current situation or mess or whatever you want to call it is the fact that it has awakened what us industry insiders have been seeing for a long time, big data, new networks, cloud native, micro-services, kind of at scale, scale out infrastructure, kind of the stuff that we've been kind of covering is now exposed for the whole world to see on a Petri dish that is called COVID-19, going, "Wow, this world has changed." This is highlighting the problems. Can you share your view of what are some of those things that people are experiencing for the first time and what's the reaction, what's your reaction to it all? >> Yeah, it's been kind of an interesting last couple of months when I talk to CIO's about how they're adapting to this. You know, when, before I was an analyst, John, I was actually in corporate IT. I was part of a business continuity plans group for companies and the whole definition of business continuity's changed. When I was in corporate IT, we thought of business continuity as being able to run the company with a minimal set of services for a week or a month or something like that. So, for instance, I was in charge of corporate technology and financial services firm and we thought, "Well, if we have 50 traders, can we get by with 10", right? Business continuity today is I need to run the entire organization with my full staff for an indefinite period of time, right? And that is substantially different mandate than thinking of how I run a minimal set of services to just maintain the bare minimum business operations and I think that's exposed a lot of things for a lot of companies. You know, for instance, I've talked to so many companies today where the majority of their employees have never worked remote. For you or I, we're mobile professionals. We do this all the time. We travel around. We go to conferences. We do this stuff all, it's second nature. But for a lot of employees, you think of contact center agents, in store people, things like that, they've never worked from home before. And so, all of a sudden, the new reality is they've got to set up a computer in the kitchen or their bedroom or something like that and start working from home. Also for companies, they've never had to think about a world where everybody worked remotely, right? So the VP in Infrastructure would have, the cloud apps they have, the remote access technology they have was set up for a subset of users, maybe 10%, maybe 15%, but certainly not everybody. And so now we're seeing corporate networks get crushed. All the cloud providers are getting crushed. I know some of the conferencing companies, the video companies are having to double, triple capacity. And so I think to your point when you started this, we would have seen this eventually with all the data coming in and all the new devices being connected. I think what COVID did was just accelerate it just to the point where it's exposed to everything at once. >> Yeah, and you know, I have a lot of, being an entrepreneur and done a lot of corporate legal contracts. The word force majeure is always a phrase that's a legal jargon, which means act of God or so to speak, something you can't control. I think what's interesting to your point is that the playbook in IT, even some of the most cutting edge IT, is forecasting some disruption, but never like this. And also disaster recovery and business continuity, as you mentioned, have been practices, but state of the art has been percentages of overall. But disaster recovery was a hurricane, or a power outage, so generators, fail over sites or regions of your cloud, not a change in a new vector. So the disruption is not disruption. It's an amplification of a new work stream. That's the disruption. That's what you're saying. >> Yeah, you know, that's correct. Business continuity used to be very data center-focused. It was, how do I get my power? How do I create some, replicate my office and have 50 desks in here, instead of 500? But now it's everybody working remotely, so I got to have ways for them to collaborate. I have to have ways for them to talk to customers. I have to have ways for them to deliver services. I have to enable people to do what they did in the office, but not in the office, right? And so that's been the big challenge and I think it's been an interesting test for CIO's that have been going through digital transformation plans. I think it's shifted a lot of budgets around and made companies look at the way they do things. There's also the social aspect of a job. People like to go to the office. They like to interact with co-workers. And I've talked to some companies where they're bringing in medical doctors, they're bringing in psychologists to talk to their employees, because if you're never worked from home before, it's quite a big difference. The other aspect of this that's underappreciated, I think, is the fact that now our kids are home, right? >> John: Yeah. (laughter) >> So we've got to contend with that. And I know that the first day that the shelter in place order got put in place for the San Francisco area, a new call, I believe a new version of Call of Duty had just come out. You know, we had some new shows pop up in Netflix, some series continuances. So now these kids who are at home are bored. They're downloading content. They're playing games. At the same time, we're trying to work and we're trying to do video calls and we're trying to bring in multiple video streams or even if they're in classrooms, they're doing Zoom-based calls, that type of thing, or using WebEx or an application like that, and it's played havoc on corporate networks, not just company networks, and so... >> Also Comcast and the providers, AT&T. You've got the fiber seems to be doing well, but Comcast is throttling. I mean, this is the crisis. It's a new vector of disruption. But how do you develop... >> Yeah, YouTube said that they're going to throttle down. Well, I think what this is is it makes you look at how you handle your traffic. And I think there's plenty of bandwidth out there. And even the most basic home routers are capable of prioritizing traffic and I think there's a number of IT leaders I've talked who have actually gone through the steps of helping their employees understand how you use your home networking technology to be able to prioritize video and corporate voice traffic over top. There are corporate ways to do that. You know, for instance, Aruba and Extreme Networks both offer these remote access points where you just plug 'em in and you're connected through a corporate network and you pick up all the policies. But even without that, there's ways to do with home. So I think it's made us rethink networking. Instead of the network being a home network, a WiFi network, a data center network, right, the Internet, we need to think about this grand network as one network and then how we control the quality of a cloud app when the person's home to the cloud, all the way back to the company, because that's what drives user experience. >> I think you're highlighting something really important. And I just want to illustrate and have you double down on more commentary on this, because I think, you know, the one network where we're all part of one network concept shows that the perimeter's dead. That's what we've been saying about the cloud, but also if you think about just the crimes of opportunity that are happening. You've got the hacker and hacking situation. You have all kinds of things that are impacted. There's crimes of opportunity, and there's disruption that's happening because of the opportunity. Can you just share more and unpack that concept of this one network? What are some of the things that business are thinking about now? You've got the VPN. You've got collaboration tools that sometimes are half-baked. I mean, I love Zoom and all, but Zoom is crashing too. I mean, WebEx is more corporate-oriented, but not really as strong as what Zoom is for the consumer. But still they have an opportunity, but they have a challenge as well. So all these work tools are kind of half-baked too. (laughing) >> Well, the thing is they were never designed... I remember seeing in an interview that Chuck Robbins had on CNBC where he said, "We didn't design WebEx to support everybody working from home". It just, that wasn't even a thought. Nowhere did he ever go to his team and say, build this for the whole world to connect, right? And so, every one of the video providers and the cloud collaboration providers have problems, and I don't really blame them, because this is a dynamic we were never expecting to see. I think you brought up a good point on the security side. We, a lot has been written about how more and more companies are moving to these online tools, like Zoom and WebEx and applications like that to let us communicate, but what does that mean from a security perspective? Now`all of sudden I have people working from home. They're using these Web-based applications. I remember a conversation I had about six months ago with one of the world's most famous hackers who does nothing but penetration tests now. He said that the cloud-based applications are his number one entry point into companies and to penetrate them, because people's passwords and things like that are fairly weak. So, now we're moving everything to the cloud. We're moving everything to these SaaS apps, right? And so now it's creating more exposure points. We've got fishers out there that are using the term COVID or Corona as a way to get people to click on links they shouldn't. And so now our whole security paradigm has blown up, right? So we used to have this hard shell we could drop around our company. We can't do that anymore. And we have to start worrying about things on an app-by-app basis. And it's caused companies to rethink security, to look at multi-factor authentication tools. I think those are a lot better. We have to look at Casb tools, the cloud access tools, kind of monitor what apps people are using, what they're not using. Trying to cut down on the use of consumer tools, right? So it's a lot for the security practice to take ahold of too. And you have to understand, even from a company standpoint, your security operations center was built on the concept they pull all their data into one location. SOC engineers aren't used to working remotely as well, so that's a big change as well. How do I get my data analyzed and to my SOC engineers when they're working from home? >> You know, we have coined the term Black Friday for the day after, you know, Thanksgiving. >> Thanksgiving, yeah. >> You know, the big surge, but that's a term to describe that first experience of, holy shit, everyone's going to the websites and they all crashed. So we're kind of having that same moment now, to your point earlier. So I want to read a statement that was on Nima Baidey's LinkedIn. He's at Google now, former Pivotal guy. You probably know him. He had a little graphic that says, "Who led the digital transformation of your company?" It's got a poll with a question mark. "A) Your CEO, B) your CTO, or C) COVID-19"? And it circles COVID-19 and that's the image and that's the meme that's going around. But the reality is it is highlighting it and I want to get your thoughts on this next track of thinking around how people may shift their focus and their spend, because, hey, hybrid cloud's great and multicloud's the next big wave, but screw multicloud. If I can't actually fix my current situation, maybe I'll push off some of the multicloud stuff or maybe I won't. So, how do you see the give and get of project prioritization, because I think this is going to wake everyone up. You mentioned security, clearly. >> Yeah, well, I think it has woken everybody up and I think companies now are really rethinking how they operate. I don't believe we're going to stop traveling. I think once this is over, people are going to hop back on planes. I also don't believe that we'll never go back into the office. I think the big shift here though, John, is we will see more acceptance to hire people out of region. I think that it's proved that you don't have to be in the office, right, which will drive these collaboration tools. And I also think we'll see less use of desktop phones and more use of video means. So now that people are getting used to using these types of tools, I think they're starting to like the experience. And so voice calls get replaced by video calls and that is going to crush our networks in buildings. So we've got WiFi 6 coming. We've got 5G coming, right. We've got lots of security tools out there. And I think you'll see a lot of prioritization to the network and that's kind of an interesting thing, because historically, the network didn't get a lot of C level time, right? It was those people in the basement. We didn't really know what they did. I'm a former network engineer. I was treated that way. (laughing) But most digital organizations now have to come to the realization that they're network-centric, and then so the network is the business and that's not something that anybody's ever put a lot of focus on. But if you look at the building blocks of digital IoT, mobility, cloud, the writing's been on the wall for a while, and I've written this several times. But you need to pay more attention to the network. And I think we're finally going to see that transition, some prioritization of dollars there. >> Yeah, I will attest you have been very vocal and right on point on that, so props to that. I do want to also double amplify your point. The network drives everything, that's clear. I think the other thing that's interesting and used to be kind of a cliche in a pejorative way is the user is the product. I think that's a term that's been coined to Facebook. You know, you're data. You're the product. If you're the product, that's a problem, you know. To describe Facebook as the app that monetizes you, the user. I think this situation has really pointed out that yes, it's good to be the product. The user value and the network are two now end points of the spectrum. The network's got to be kick ass from the ground up, but the user is the product now, and it should be, in a good way, not exploiting. So I think if you're thinking about user-centric value, how my kid can play Call of Duty, how my family can watch the new episode on Netflix, how I can do a kick ass Zoom call, that's my experience. The network does its job. The application service takes advantage of making me happy. So I think this is interesting, right. So we're getting a new thing here. How real do you think that is? Where are we on the spectrum of that nirvana? >> I think we're rapidly approaching that. I think it's been well documented that 2020 was the year that customer experience become the number one brand differentiate, right. In fact, I think it was actually 2018 that that happened, but Walker and Gartner and a few other companies would be 2020. And what that means is that if you're a business, you need to provide exemplary customer service in order to gain share. I think one of the things that was lost in there is that employee experience has to be best in class as well. And so I think a lot of businesses over-rotated the spin away from employee experience to customer experience, and rightfully so, but now they got to rotate back to make sure their workers have the right tools, have the right services, have the right data, to do their jobs better, because when they do, they can turn around and provide customers better experience. So this isn't just about training your people to service customers well. It's about making sure people have the right data, the right information to do their jobs, to collaborate better, right. And there's really a tight coupling now between the consumer and the employee, or the customer and the employee. And, you know, Corona kind of exposed to that, 'cause it shows that we're all connected, in a way. And the connection of people, whether they're the customers or employees or something, that businesses have to focus on. So I think we'll see some dollars sign back to internal, not just customer facing. >> Yeah, well, great insight. And, first of all, we all connect to your great CUBE alumni. But you're also right up the street in California. We're in Palo Alto. You're in San Mateo. You literally could have driven here, but we're sheltering in place. >> We're sheltered in place. >> Great insight and, you know, thanks for sharing that and I think it's good content for people, you know, be aware of this. Obviously they're living in it right now, but I think the world is going to be back to business soon, but it's never going to be the same. I think it's digital... >> No, it'll never be the same. I think this is a real watershed point for the way we work and the way we treat our employees and our customers. I think you'll see a lot of companies make a lot of change. And that's good for the whole industry, 'cause it'll drive innovation. And I think we'll have some innovation come out of this that we never saw before. >> Quick final word for the folks that are on this big wave that's happening. It's reality. It's the current situation now. What's your advice for them as they get on their surfboard, so to speak, and ride this wave? What's your advice to them? >> Yeah, I think use this opportunity to find those weak points in your networks and find out where the bottlenecks are, because I think having everybody work remotely exposes a lot of problems in processes and where a lot of the hiccups happen. But I do think my final word is invest in the network. I think a lot of the networks out there have been badly under-invested in, which I think is why people get frustrated when they're in stadiums or hotels or casinos. I think the world is shifting. Applications and people are becoming network-centric. And if those don't work, nothing works. And I think that's really been proven over the last couple months. If our networks can't handle the traffic and our networks can't handle what we're doing, nothing works. >> You know, you and I could do a podcast show called "No Latency"... >> (mumbles) so it'll be good. >> Zeus, thanks for coming on. I appreciate taking the time. >> No problem, John. >> Stay safe. And I want to follow up with you and get a check in further down the road, in a couple days or maybe next week, if you can. >> Yeah, looking forward to it. >> Thanks a lot. Okay, I'm John Furrier here in Palo Alto Studios doing the remote interviews, getting the quick stories that matter, help you out, and (mumbles) great guest there. Check out ZK Research, a great friend of theCUBE, cutting edge, knows the networking. This is an important area. The network, the users' experience is critical. Thanks for coming and watching today. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. (lighthearted music)

>>from Santa Clara, California In the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the queue covering altitude 2020. Brought to you by aviatrix. >>Okay, welcome back to altitude. 2020 for the folks on the Livestream. I'm John Furrier Steve Mullaney with CEO of aviatrix for our first of two customer panels on cloud with Cloud Network Architects. We got Bobby. Will be They gone. Luis Castillo, National Instruments. David should nick with fact set. Guys, welcome >>to the stage for this digital >>event. Come on up. >>Hey, good to see you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. >>Okay. Customer panel. This is my favorite part. We get to hear the real scoop. Get the gardener. Given this the industry overview. Certainly multi clouds, very relevant. And cloud native networking is the hot trend with live stream out there in the digital events of guys. Let's get into it. The journey is you guys are pioneering this journey of multi cloud and cloud native networking and soon going to be a lot more coming. So I want to get into the journey. What's it been like? Is it really got a lot of scar tissue? Uh, what is some of the learnings >>Yeah, absolutely. So multi Cloud is whether or not we accepted as network engineers is a reality. Um, like Steve said about two years ago, companies really decided to to just to just bite the bullet and move there. Whether or not whether or not we accept that fact, we need to now create a consistent architecture across across multiple clouds and that that is challenging, um, without orchestration layers as you start managing different different tool sets and different languages across different clouds. So that's it's it's really important to start thinking about that. You >>guys are on the other Panelists here this different phases of this journey. Some come at it from a networking perspective. Some comment from a problem. Troubleshooting. Which What's your experiences? >>Yeah, so, uh, from a networking perspective, it's been incredibly exciting. It's kind of a once in a generational opportunity to look at how you're building out your network. You can start to embrace things like infrastructure as code that maybe your peers on the systems teams have been doing for years. But it just never really worked on Prem, so it's really it's really exciting to look at all the opportunities that we have And then all the interesting challenges that come up that you, uh, that you get to tackle >>and in fact said, you guys are mostly aws, right? >>Right now, though, where we are looking at multiple clouds, we have production workloads running in multiple clouds today. But a lot of the initial work has been with them, >>and you see it from a networking perspective. That's where you guys are coming at it from. Yep. Yeah. So >>we evolved more from a customer requirement. Perspective started out primarily is AWS. But as the customer needed mawr resources manager like HPC, you know, Azure A D. Things like that. Even recently, Google do analytics. Our journey has evolved into more of a multi cloud environment. >>Steve weigh in on the architecture because this has been the big conversation. I want you to lead this sector. >>Yeah, so I mean, I think you guys agreed that journey. It seems like the journey started a couple of years ago got real serious. The need for multi cloud, whether you're there today. Of course it's going to be there in the future, so that's really important. I think the next thing is just architecture. I love to hear what you you had some comments about architecture matters. It all starts. I mean, every enterprise I talked to maybe talk about architecture in the importance of architecture. Maybe Bobby >>is from architectural perspective. We started our journey five years ago. Wow. Okay. And we're just now starting our fourth evolution of our network architect. Okay? And we call it networking security. Net sec versus just network on that. Fourth generation architectures be based primarily upon Palo Alto networks and aviatrix aviatrix doing the orchestration piece of it. But that journey came because of the need for simplicity, the need for a multi cloud orchestration without having to go and do reprogramming efforts across every cloud as it comes along. >>Right? I guess. The other question, I I also had around architectures also, Louise, maybe just talk about I know we've talked a little bit about scripting right and some of your thoughts on that. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so for us, we started, We started creating Ah, the network constructs with cloud formation. And we've stuck with that, for the most part. What's interesting about that is today on premise, we have a lot of a lot of automation around around how we provision networks, but confirmation has become a little bit like the new manual for us. So we're now having issues with having the automate that component and making it consistent with our on premise architecture, making it consistent with azure architecture and Google Cloud. So it's really interesting to see to see companies now bring that layer of abstraction that SD Wan brought to the to the wan side. Now it's going up into into the cloud networking architectures, >>right? So on the fourth generation of you mentioned, you're 1/4 gen architecture. What do you guys? What have you learned? Is there any lessons? Scar tissue, what to avoid? What worked? What was some of the >>one of the biggest lesson there is that when you think you finally figured it out, you haven't right? Amazon will change something as you change something, you know, transit gateway, the game changer eso uh, and listening to the business requirements is probably the biggest thing we need to do up front. But I think from a simplicity perspective, we said We don't want to do things four times. We want two things. One time we want to have a right to an AP I, which aviatrix has and have them do the orchestration for us so that we don't have to do it four times. How >>important is architecture in the progression, is it? You guys get thrown in the deep end to solve these problems or you guys zooming out and looking at it. I mean, how are you guys looking at the architecture? >>I mean, you can't get off the ground if you don't have the network there. So all of those things we've gone through similar evolutions. We're on our fourth or fifth evolution. Uh, I think about what We started off with Amazon without a direct connect gateway without a transit gateway without ah, a lot of the things that are available today kind of the 80 20 that Steve was talking about. Just because it wasn't there doesn't mean we didn't need it, so we >>needed to figure out a way to do it. We >>couldn't say. You need to come back to the network team in a year. Maybe Amazon will have a solution for you. We need to do it now and evolve later and maybe optimize or change. Really, you're doing things in the future, But don't sit around and wait. You can't. >>I'd love to have you guys each individually answer this question for the livestream that comes up a lot. A lot of cloud architects out in the community. What should they be thinking about? The folks that are coming into this proactively and are realizing the business benefits are there? What advice would you guys give them? An architecture, which should be they be thinking about and what some guiding principles you could share. >>So I would start with, ah, looking at an architectural model that that can, that can spread and and give consistency the different two different cloud vendors that you will absolutely have to support. Um, cloud vendors tend to want to pull you into using their native tool set, and that's good. If only it was realistic, too. Talk about only one cloud, but because it doesn't, it's it's, um, it's super important to talk about and have a conversation with the business and with your technology teams about a consistent model. >>How do I do my day one work so that I'm not spending 80% of my time troubleshooting or managing my network. Because if I'm doing that, then I'm missing out on ways that I can make improvements to embrace new technologies. So it's really important early on to figure out how do I make this as low maintenance as possible so that I can focus on the things that the team really should be focusing on. >>Bobby. Your advice? The architect. I >>don't know what else I can add to. That simplicity of operations is gives key. >>Alright, so the holistic view of Day two operation you mentioned let's could jump in. Day one is you're getting stuff set up. Day two is your life after. This is what you're getting at, David. So what does that look like? What are you envisioning as you look at that 20 mile stare out post multi cloud world one of the things that you want in a day to operations? >>Yeah, infrastructure as code is really important to us. So how do we How do we design it so that we can fit start making network changes and putting them into like, a release pipeline and start looking at it like that rather than somebody logging into a router cli and troubleshooting things on an ad hoc nature. So moving more towards the Devil Ops model. >>Here's the thing I had on that day two. >>Yeah, I would. I would love to add something. So in terms of day two operations, you can you can either sort of ignore the day two operations for a little while where you get well, you get your feet wet, um, or you can start approaching it from the beginning. The fact is that the cloud native tools don't have a lot of maturity in that space. And when you run into an issue, you're gonna end up having a bad day, going through millions and millions of logs just to try to understand what's going on. So that's something that the industry just now is beginning to realize. It's It's such a such a big gap. >>I think that's key, because for us, we're moving to more of an event driven or operations. In the past. Monitoring got the job done. It is impossible to modern monitor something that's not there when the event happens, right, so the event driven application and then detection is important. >>I think Gardner is about the Cloud Native wave coming into networking. That's going to be a serious thing. I want to get you guys perspective. I know you have different views of how you came into the journey and how you're executing. And I always say the beauty's in the eye of the beholder and that kind of applies the networks laid out. So, Bobby, you guys do a lot of high performance encryption both on AWS and Azure. That's kind of a unique thing for you. How are you seeing that impact with multi cloud? >>And that's a new requirement for us to where we, uh we have a requirement to encrypt, and they never get the question Should encryption and encrypt. The answer is always yes, you should encrypt. You should get encrypt for perspective. We we need to moderate a bunch of data from our data centers. We have some huge data centers on. Getting that data to the cloud is is timely experiencing some cases, So we have been mandated that we have to encrypt everything, leaving the data center. So we're looking at using the aviatrix insane mode appliances to be able to decrypt you know 10 20 gigabytes of data as it moves to the cloud itself. David, you're using >>terra form. You've got fire net. You've got a lot of complexity in your network. What do you guys look at the future for your environment? >>Yes. So something exciting that we're working on now is fire net. So for our security team, they obviously have a lot of a lot of knowledge based around Polito on with our commitments to our clients, you know, it's it's it's not very easy to shift your security model to a specific cloud vendor it So there's a lot of stock to compliance and things like that where being able to take some of what you've you know you've worked on for years on Prem and put it in the cloud and have the same type of assurance that things were gonna work and be secure in the same way that they are on Prem helps make that journey into the cloud a lot easier. >>And you guys got scripting and get a lot of things going on. What's your what's your unique angle on this? >>Um, yeah. No, absolutely so full disclosure. I'm not not not an aviatrix customer yet. >>It's okay. We want to hear the truth. So that's good. Tell >>us what you're thinking about. What's on your mind. >>No, really, Um, when you when you talk about, um, implementing the to like this, it's It's really just really important. Teoh talk about automation and focus on on value. So when you talk about things like encryption and thinks like so you're encrypting tunnels and encrypting the path and those things are, should it should should be second nature, Really? When you when you look at building those back ends and managing them with your team, it becomes really painful. So tools like aviatrix that that had a lot of automation. It's out of out of sight, out of mind. You can focus on the value you don't have to focus on. >>I got to ask, You guys are seeing the traces here. They're their supplier to the sector, but you guys are customers. Everyone's pitching your stuff that people are not going to buy my stuff. How >>do you >>guys have that conversation with the suppliers, like the cloud vendors and other folks? What's the What's the leg or a P? I all the way you got to support this. What are some >>of the >>what are some of your requirements? How do you talk to and evaluate people that walk in and want Teoh knock on your door and pitch you something? What's the conversation like? >>It's definitely It's definitely a p. I driven. Um, we we definitely look at the at the structure of the vendors provide before we select anything. Um, that that is always first of mine. And also, what problem are we really trying to solve? Usually people try to sell or try to give us something that isn't really valuable. Like implementing Cisco solution on the on the cloud isn't really doesn't really add a lot of value. >>David, what's your conversations like with suppliers? So you have a certain new way to do things as becomes more agile, essentially networking and more dynamic. What are some of the conversations with the other incumbents or new new vendors that you're having what you require? >>So ease of use is definitely, definitely high up there. We've had some vendors come in and say, Hey, you know, when you go to set this up, we're gonna want to send somebody on site and they're going to sit with you for a day to configure. And that's kind of a red flag. Wait a minute. You know, we really if one of my really talented engineers can't figure it out on his own, what's going on there and why is that? So, uh, you know, having having some ease of use and the team being comfortable with it and understanding it is really important. >>How about you in the old days was Do a bake off winner takes all. I mean, is it like that anymore? What's evolving Bake off >>last year for us to win, So But that's different now, because now when you when you get the product, you install the product in AWS in azure or have it up and running a matter of minutes. And the key is, can you be operational within hours or days instead of weeks? But we also have the flexibility to customize it to meet your needs, because you want to be. You would be put into a box with the other customers who have needs that pastor cut their needs. >>You can almost see the challenge of you guys are living where you've got the cloud immediate value, how you can roll a penny solutions. But then you have might have other needs. So you got to be careful not to buy into stuff that's not shipping. So you're trying to be proactive in the same time. Deal with what you got here. How do you guys see that evolving? Because multi cloud to me is definitely relevant. But it's not yet clear how to implement across. How do you guys look at this? Bakes versus, you know, future solutions coming? How do you balance that? >>Um, so again. So right now we were. We're taking the the ad hoc approach and experimenting with the different concepts of cloud on demand, really leveraging the native constructs of each cloud. But but there's there's a breaking point. For sure you don't you don't get to scale this like like Simone said, and you have to focus on being able to deliver Ah, developer their their sandbox play area for the things that they're trying to build quickly. And the only way to do that is with some sort of consistent orchestration layer that allows you to. >>So you spent a lot more stuff becoming pretty quickly. >>I was very. I do expect things to start to start maturing quite quite quickly this year, >>and you guys see similar trends. New stuff coming fast. >>Yeah, the one of the biggest challenge we've got now is being able to segment within the network, being able to provide segmentation between production, non production workloads, even businesses, because we support many businesses worldwide and and isolation between those is a key criteria there. So the ability to identify and quickly isolate those workloads is key. >>So the cios that are watching are saying, Hey, take that hill, do multi cloud and then the bottoms up organization cause you're kind of like off a little bit. It's not how it works. I mean, what is the reality in terms of implementing, you know, and as fast as possible because the business benefits are clear, but it's not always clear in the technology how to move that fast. What are some of the barriers of blockers? One of the enabler, >>I think the reality is, is that you may not think of multi cloud, but your businesses, right? So I think the biggest barriers there is understanding what the requirements are and how best to meet those requirements. I think in a secure manner, because you need to make sure that things are working from a latency perspective, that things work the way they did and get out of the mind shift that, you know, if the Tier three application in the data center it doesn't have to be a Tier three application in the cloud, so lift and shift is not the way to go. >>Scale is a big part of what I see is the competitive advantage of all of these clouds, and it used to be proprietary network stacks in the old days and then open systems came. That was a good thing. But as clouds become bigger, there's kind of an inherent lock in there with the scale. How do you guys keep the choice open? How you guys thinking about interoperability? What is some of the conversations that you guys were having around those key concepts? >>Well, when we look at when we look at the from a networking perspective, it's really key for you to just enable enable all the all the clouds to be able to communicate between them. Developers will will find a way to use the cloud that best suits their business. Um and and like Like you said, it's whether whether you're in denial or not of the multi cloud fact that your company is in already, Um, that's it becomes really important for you to move quickly. >>Yeah, and the A lot of it also hinges on how well is the provider embracing what that specific cloud is doing? So are they swimming with Amazon or azure and just helping facilitate things? They're doing the heavy lifting AP I work for you or are they swimming upstream? And they're trying to hack it all together in a messy way, and so that helps you stay out of the lock in, because there, you know if they're doing if they're using Amazon native tools to help you get where you need to be, it's not like Amazon's going to release something in the future that completely, uh, you know, makes you have designed yourself into a corner. So the closer they're more cloud native, they are, the more, uh, the easier it is to, uh >>to the boy. But you also need to be aligned in such a way that you can take advantage of the cloud Native technology of limits sets. T J W. Is a game changer in terms of cost and performance. Right. So to completely ignore, that would be wrong. But, you know, if you needed to have encryption teaching double encrypted, so you need to have some type of a gateway to do the VPN encryption. So the aviatrix, too, will give you the beauty of both worlds. You can use T. W or the gateway real >>quick in the last minute we have. I want to just get a quick feedback from you guys. I hear a lot of people say to me, Hey, the pick The best cloud for the workload you got, then figure out multi cloud behind the scenes. So that seems to be Do you guys agree with that? I mean, is it doing one cloud across the whole company or this workload works great on AWS. That work was great on this from a cloud standpoint. Do you agree with that premise? And then what is multi cloud stitch them all together? >>Yeah, um, from from an application perspective, it it can be per workload, but It can also be an economical decision. Certain enterprise contracts will will pull you in one direction that value. Um, but the the network problem is still the same. >>It doesn't go away. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be trying to fit a square into a round hole, right? So if it works better on that cloud provider, then it's our job to make sure that that service is there. People can use >>it. Yeah, I agree. You just need to stay ahead of the game. Make sure that the network infrastructure is there. Secure is available and is multi cloud capable. >>Yeah. At the end of the day, you guys just validating that. It's the networking game now. Cloud storage. Compute Check. Networking is where the action is. Awesome. Thanks for your insights. Appreciate you coming on the Cube. Appreciate it. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we will soon be taking off on our way to altitude please keep your seatbelts fastened and remain in your seats we will be experiencing turbulence until we are above the clouds ladies and gentlemen we are now cruising at altitude sit back and enjoy the ride [Music] altitude is a community of thought leaders and pioneers cloud architects and enlightened network engineers who have individually and are now collectively leading their own IT teams and the industry on a path to lift cloud networking above the clouds empowering Enterprise IT to architect design and control their own cloud network regardless of the turbulent clouds beneath them it's time to gain altitude ladies and gentlemen Steve Mulaney president and CEO of aviatrix the leader of multi cloud networking [Music] [Applause] all right good morning everybody here in Santa Clara as well as to the what millions of people watching the livestream worldwide welcome to altitude 2020 alright so we've got a fantastic event today really excited about the speakers that we have today and the experts that we have and really excited to get started so one of the things I wanted to just share was this is not a one-time event this is not a one-time thing that we're gonna do sorry for the aviation analogy but you know sherry way aviatrix means female pilot so everything we do as an aviation theme this is a take-off for a movement this isn't an event this is a take-off of a movement a multi-cloud networking movement and community that we're inviting all of you to become part of and-and-and why we're doing that is we want to enable enterprises to rise above the clouds so to speak and build their network architecture regardless of which public cloud they're using whether it's one or more of these public clouds so the good news for today there's lots of good news but this is one good news is we don't have any powerpoint presentations no marketing speak we know that marketing people have their own language we're not using any of that in those sales pitches right so instead what are we doing we're going to have expert panels we've got Simone Rashard Gartner here we've got 10 different network architects cloud architects real practitioners they're going to share their best practices and there are real-world experiences on their journey to the multi cloud so before we start and everybody know what today is in the u.s. it's Super Tuesday I'm not gonna get political but Super Tuesday there was a bigger Super Tuesday that happened 18 months ago and maybe eight six employees know what I'm talking about 18 months ago on a Tuesday every enterprise said I'm gonna go to the cloud and so what that was was the Cambrian explosion for cloud for the price so Frank kibrit you know what a Cambrian explosion is he had to look it up on Google 500 million years ago what happened there was an explosion of life where it went from very simple single-cell organisms to very complex multi-celled organisms guess what happened 18 months ago on a Tuesday I don't really know why but every enterprise like I said all woke up that day and said now I'm really gonna go to cloud and that Cambrian explosion of cloud went meant that I'm moving from very simple single cloud single use case simple environment to a very complex multi cloud complex use case environment and what we're here today is we're gonna go and dress that and how do you handle those those those complexities and when you look at what's happening with customers right now this is a business transformation right people like to talk about transitions this is a transformation and it's actually not just the technology transformation it's a business transformation it started from the CEO and the boards of enterprise customers where they said I have an existential threat to the survival of my company if you look at every industry who they're worried about is not the other 30 year old enterprise what they're worried about is the three year old enterprise that's leveraging cloud that's leveraging AI and that's where they fear that they're going to actually get wiped out right and so because of this existential threat this is CEO lead this is board led this is not technology led it is mandated in the organization's we are going to digitally transform our enterprise because of this existential threat and the movement to cloud is going to enable us to go do that and so IT is now put back in charge if you think back just a few years ago in cloud it was led by DevOps it was led by the applications and it was like I said before their Cambrian explosion is very simple now with this Cambrian explosion and enterprises getting very serious and mission critical they care about visibility they care about control they care about compliance conformance everything governance IT is in charge and and and that's why we're here today to discuss that so what we're going to do today is much of things but we're gonna validate this journey with customers did they see the same thing we're gonna validate the requirements for multi-cloud because honestly I've never met an enterprise that is not going to be multi-cloud many are one cloud today but they all say I need to architect my network for multiple clouds because that's just what the network is there to support the applications and the applications will run and whatever cloud it runs best in and you have to be prepared for that the second thing is is architecture again with IT in charge you architecture matters whether it's your career whether it's how you build your house it doesn't matter horrible architecture your life is horrible forever good architecture your life is pretty good so we're gonna talk about architecture and how the most fundamental and critical part of that architecture and that basic infrastructure is the network if you don't get that right nothing works right way more important and compute way more important than storm dense storage network is the foundational element of your infrastructure then we're going to talk about day 2 operations what does that mean well day 1 is one day of your life that's who you wire things up they do and beyond I tell everyone in networking and IT it's every day of your life and if you don't get that right your life is bad forever and so things like operations visibility security things like that how do I get my operations team to be able to handle this in an automated way because it's not just about configuring it in the cloud it's actually about how do I operationalize it and that's a huge benefit that we bring as aviatrix and then the last thing we're going to talk and it's the last panel we have I always say you can't forget about the humans right so all this technology all these things that we're doing it's always enabled by the humans at the end of the day if the humans fight it it won't get deployed and we have a massive skills gap in cloud and we also have a massive skill shortage you have everyone in the world trying to hire cloud network architects right there's just not enough of them going around so at aviatrix we as leaders do we're gonna help address that issue and try to create more people we created a program and we call the ACE program again an aviation theme it stands for aviatrix certified engineer very similar to what Cisco did with CCI ease where Cisco taught you about IP networking a little bit of Cisco we're doing the same thing we're gonna teach network architects about multi-cloud networking and architecture and yeah you'll get a little bit of aviatrix training in there but this is the missing element for people's careers and also within their organization so we're gonna we're gonna go talk about that so great great event great show when to try to keep it moving I'd next want to introduce my my host he's the best in the business you guys have probably seen him multiple million times he's the co CEO and co-founder of tube Jon Fourier okay awesome great great speech they're awesome I'd totally agree with everything you said about the explosion happening and I'm excited here at the heart of Silicon Valley to have this event it's a special digital event with the cube and aviatrix were we live streaming to millions of people as you said maybe not a million maybe not really take this program to the world this is a little special for me because multi-cloud is the hottest wave and cloud and cloud native networking is fast becoming the key engine of the innovation so we got an hour and a half of action-packed programming we have a customer panel two customer panels before that Gartner is going to come on talk about the industry we have a global system integrators we talk about how they're advising and building these networks and cloud native networking and then finally the Aces the aviatrix certified engineer is gonna talk more about their certifications and the expertise needed so let's jump right in and let's ask someone rashard to come on stage from Gartner check it all up [Applause] okay so kicking things off sitting started gartner the industry experts on cloud really kind of more to your background talk about your background before you got the gardener yeah before because gardener was a chief network architect of a fortune five companies with thousands of sites over the world and I've been doing everything and IT from a C programmer in a 92 a security architect to a network engineer to finally becoming a network analyst so you rode the wave now you're covering at the marketplace with hybrid cloud and now moving quickly to multi cloud is really was talking about cloud natives been discussed but the networking piece is super important how do you see that evolving well the way we see Enterprise adapt in cloud first thing you do about networking the initial phases they either go in a very ad hoc way is usually led by non non IT like a shadow I to your application people are some kind of DevOps team and it's it just goes as it's completely unplanned decreed VP sees left and right with different account and they create mesh to manage them and their direct connect or Express route to any of them so that's what that's a first approach and on the other side again it within our first approach you see what I call the lift and shift way we see like enterprise IT trying to basically replicate what they have in a data center in the cloud so they spend a lot of time planning doing Direct Connect putting Cisco routers and f5 and Citrix and any checkpoint Palo Alto divides that the audinate that are sent removing that to that cloud and I ask you the aha moments gonna come up a lot of our panels is where people realize that it's a multi cloud world I mean they either inherit clouds certainly they're using public cloud and on-premises is now more relevant than ever when's that aha moment that you're seeing where people go well I got to get my act together and get on this well the first but even before multi-cloud so these two approach the first one like the ad hoc way doesn't scale at some point idea has to save them because they don't think about the two they don't think about operations they have a bunch of VPC and multiple clouds the other way that if you do the left and shift wake they cannot take any advantages of the cloud they lose elasticity auto-scaling pay by the drink these feature of agility features so they both realize okay neither of these ways are good so I have to optimize that so I have to have a mix of what I call the cloud native services within each cloud so they start adapting like other AWS constructor is your construct or Google construct then that's what I call the optimal phase but even that they realize after that they are very different all these approaches different the cloud are different identities is completely difficult to manage across clouds I mean for example AWS has accounts there's subscription and in adarand GCP their projects it's a real mess so they realize well I can't really like concentrate use the cloud the cloud product and every cloud that doesn't work so I have I'm doing multi cloud I like to abstract all of that I still wanna manage the cloud from an API to interview I don't necessarily want to bring my incumbent data center products but I have to do that in a more API driven cloud they're not they're not scaling piece and you were mentioning that's because there's too many different clouds yes that's the piece there so what are they doing whether they really building different development teams as its software what's the solution well this the solution is to start architecting the cloud that's the third phase I call that the multi cloud architect phase where they have to think about abstraction that works across cloud fact even across one cloud it might not scale as well if you start having like 10,000 security group in AWS that doesn't scale you have to manage that if you have multiple VPC it doesn't scale you need a third party identity provider so it barely scales within one cloud if you go multiple cloud it gets worse and worse see way in here what's your thoughts I thought we said this wasn't gonna be a sales pitch for aviatrix you just said exactly what we do so anyway I'm just a joke what do you see in terms of where people are in that multi-cloud so a lot of people you know everyone I talked to started in one cloud right but then they look and they say okay but I'm now gonna move to adjourn I'm gonna move do you see a similar thing well yes they are moving but they're not there's not a lot of application that use a tree cloud at once they move one app in deserve one app in individuals one get happen Google that's what we see so far okay yeah I mean one of the mistakes that people think is they think multi-cloud no one is ever gonna go multi-cloud for arbitrage they're not gonna go and say well today I might go into Azure because I got a better rate of my instance that's never do you agree with that's never going to happen what I've seen with enterprise is I'm gonna put the workload in the app the app decides where it runs best that may be a sure maybe Google and for different reasons and they're gonna stick there and they're not gonna move let me ask you infrastructure has to be able to support from a networking team be able to do that do you agree with that yes I agree and one thing is also very important is connecting to that cloud is kind of the easiest thing so though while their network part of the cloud connectivity to the cloud is kind of simple I agree IPSec VP and I reckon Express that's a simple part what's difficult and even a provisioning part is easy you can use terraform and create v pieces and v nets across which free cloud providers right what's difficult is the day-to-day operations so it's what to find a to operations what is that what does that actually mean this is the day-to-day operations after you know the natural let's add an app let's add a server let's troubleshoot a problem so so your life something changes how would he do so what's the big concerns I want to just get back to this cloud native networking because everyone kind of knows with cloud native apps are that's been a hot trend what is cloud native networking how do you how do you guys define that because that seems to be the oddest part of the multi cloud wave that's coming as cloud native networking well there's no you know official garner definition but I can create one on and if another spot is do it I just want to leverage the cloud construct and a cloud epi I don't want to have to install like like for example the first version was let's put a virtual router that doesn't even understand and then the cloud environment right if I have if I have to install a virtual machine it has to be cloud aware it has to understand the security group if it's a router it has to be programmable to the cloud API and and understand the cloud environment you know one things I hear a lot from either see Saussure CIOs or CXOs in general is this idea of I'm definitely on going API so it's been an API economy so API is key on that point but then they say okay I need to essentially have the right relationship with my suppliers aka clouds you call it above the clouds so the question is what do i do from an architecture standpoint do I just hire more developers and have different teams because you mentioned that's a scale point how do you solve this this problem of okay I got AWS I got GCP or Azure or whatever do I just have different teams or just expose api's where is that optimization where's the focus well I take what you need from an android point of view is a way a control plane across the three clouds and be able to use the api of the cloud to build networks but also to troubleshoot them and do they to operation so you need a view across a three cloud that takes care of routing connectivity that's you know that's the aviatrix plug of you right there so so how do you see so again your Gartner you you you you see the industry you've been a network architect how do you see this this plane out what are the what are the legacy incumbent client-server on-prem networking people gonna do well these versus people like aviatrix well how do you see that plane out well obviously all the incumbent like Arista cisco juniper NSX right they want to basically do the lift and ship or they want to bring and you know VM I want to bring in a section that cloud they call that NSX everywhere and cisco monks bring you star and the cloud recall that each guy anywhere right so everyone what and and then there's cloud vision for my red star and contrail is in the cloud so they just want to bring the management plane in the cloud but it's still based most of them it's still based on putting a VM them in controlling them right you you extend your management console to the cloud that's not truly cloud native right cloud native you almost have to build it from scratch we like to call that cloud naive clown that so close one letter yeah so that was a big con surgeon reinvent take the tea out of cloud native it's cloud naive that went super viral you guys got t-shirts now I know you love but yeah but that really ultimately is kind of double edged sword you got to be you can be naive on the on the architecture side and rolling out but also suppliers are can be naive so how would you define who's naive and who's not well in fact they're evolving as well so for example in Cisco you it's a little bit more native than other ones because they're really scr in the cloud you can't you you really like configure API so the cloud and NSX is going that way and so is Arista but they're incumbent they have their own tools is difficult for them they're moving slowly so it's much easier to start from scratch Avenue like and you know a network happiness started a few years ago there's only really two aviatrix was the first one they've been there for at least three or four years and there's other ones like al kira for example that just started now that doing more connectivity but they wanna create an overlay network across the cloud and start doing policies and trying abstracting all the clouds within one platform so I gotta ask you I interviewed an executive at VMware Sanjay Pune and he said to me at RSA last week oh the only b2 networking vendors left Cisco and VMware what's your respect what's your response to that obviously I mean when you have these waves as new brands that emerge like aviation others though I think there'll be a lot of startups coming out of the woodwork how do you respond to that comment well there's still a data center there's still like a lot of action on campus and there's the one but from the cloud provisioning and clown networking in general I mean they're behind I think you know in fact you don't even need them to start to it you can if you're small enough you can just keep if you're in AWS you can user it with us construct they have to insert themselves I mean they're running behind they're all certainly incumbents I love the term Andy Jesse's that Amazon Web Services uses old guard new guard to talk about the industry what does the new guard have to do the new and new brands that emerge in is it be more DevOps oriented neck Nets a cops is that net ops is the programmability these are some of the key discussions we've been having what's your view on how you this programmability their most important part is they have to make the network's simple for the dev teams and from you cannot have that you cannot make a phone call and get every line in two weeks anymore so if you move to that cloud you have to make the cloud construct as simple enough so that for example a dev team could say okay I'm going to create this VP see but this VP see automatically being associate to your account you cannot go out on the internet you have to go to the transit VP see so there's a lot of action in terms of the I am part and you have to put the control around them too so to make it as simple as possible you guys both I mean you're the COC aviatrix but also you guys a lot of experience going back to networking going back to I call the OSI mace which for us old folks know what that means but you guys know what this means I want to ask you the question as you look at the future of networking here a couple of objectives oh the cloud guys they got networking we're all set with them how do you respond to the fact that networking is changing and the cloud guys have their own networking what some of the pain points that's going on premises and these enterprises so are they good with the clouds what needs what are the key things that's going on in networking that makes it more than just the cloud networking what's your take on well as I said earlier that once you you could easily provision in the cloud you can easily connect to that cloud is when you start troubleshooting application in the cloud and try to scale so this that's where the problem occurs see what you're taking on it and you'll hear from the from the customers that that we have on stage and I think what happens is all the cloud the clouds by definition designed to the 80/20 rule which means they'll design 80% of the basic functionality and they'll lead to 20% extra functionality that of course every Enterprise needs they'll leave that to ISVs like aviatrix because why because they have to make money they have a service and they can't have huge instances for functionality that not everybody needs so they have to design to the common and that's they all do it right they have to and then the extra the problem is that Cambrian explosion that I talked about with enterprises that's holy that's what they need that they're the ones who need that extra 20% so that's that's what I see is is there's always gonna be that extra functionality the in in an automated and simple way that you talked about but yet powerful with up with the visible in control that they expect of on prep that that's that kind of combination that yin and the yang that people like us are providing some I want to ask you were gonna ask some of the cloud architect customer panels it's the same question this pioneers doing some work here and there's also the laggers who come in behind the early adopters what's gonna be the tipping point what are some of those conversations that the cloud architects are having out there or what's the signs that they need to be on this multi cloud or cloud native networking trend what are some the signals that are going on in their environment what are some of the thresholds or things that are going on that there can pay attention to well well once they have application and multiple cloud and they have they get wake up at 2:00 in the morning to troubleshoot them they don't know it's important so I think that's the that's where the robber will hit the road but as I said it's easier to prove it it's ok it's 80s it's easy use a transit gateway put a few V PCs and you're done and use create some presents like equinox and do Direct Connect and Express route with Azure that looks simple is the operations that's when they'll realize ok now I need to understand our car networking works I also need a tool that give me visibility and control not button tell me that I need to understand the basic underneath it as well what are some of the day in the life scenarios that you envision happening with multi Bob because you think about what's happening it kind of has that same vibe of interoperability choice multi-vendor because you have multi clouds essentially multi vendor these are kind of old paradigms that we've lived through the client server and internet working wave what are some of those scenarios of success and that might be possible it would be possible with multi cloud and cloud native networking well I think once you have good enough visibility to satisfy your customers you know not only like to keep the service running an application running but to be able to provision fast enough I think that's what you want to achieve small final question advice for folks watching on the live stream if they're sitting there as a cloud architect or a CXO what's your advice to them right now in this more because honestly public cloud check hybrid cloud they're working on that that gets on-premise is done now multi clouds right behind it what's your advice the first thing they should do is really try to understand cloud networking for each of their cloud providers and then understand the limitation and is what there's cloud service provider offers enough or you need to look to a third party but you don't look at a third party to start with especially an incumbent one so it's tempting to say on and I have a bunch of f5 experts nothing against that five I'm going to bring my five in the cloud when you can use a needle be that automatically understand Easy's and auto scaling and so on and you understand that's much simpler but sometimes you need you have five because you have requirements you have like AI rules and that kind of stuff that you use for years you cannot do it's okay I have requirement and that met I'm going to use legacy stuff and then you have to start thinking okay what about visibility control about the tree cloud but before you do that you have to understand the limitation of the existing cloud providers so first try to be as native as possible until things don't work after that you can start taking multi-cloud great insight somewhat thank you for coming someone in charge with Gardner thanks for sharing informatica is known as the leading enterprise cloud data management company we are known for being the top in our industry in at least five different products over the last few years especially we've been transforming into a cloud model which allows us to work better with the trends of our customers in order to see agile and effective in the business you need to make sure that your products and your offerings are just as relevant in all these different clouds than what you're used to and what you're comfortable with one of the most difficult challenges we've always had is that because we're a data company we're talking about data that a customer owns some of that data may be in the cloud some of that data may be on Prem some of that data may be actually in their data center in another region or even another country and having that data connect back to our systems that are located in the cloud has always been a challenge when we first started our engagement with aviatrix we only had one plan that was Amazon it wasn't till later that a jerk came up and all of a sudden we found hey the solution we already had in place for her aviatrix already working in Amazon and now works in Missouri as well before we knew what GCP came up but it really wasn't a big deal for us because we already had the same solution in Amazon and integer now just working in GCP by having a multi cloud approach we have access to all three of them but more commonly it's not just one it's actually integrations between multiple we have some data and ensure that we want to integrate with Amazon we have some data in GCP that we want to bring over to a data Lake assure one of the nice things about aviatrix is that it gives a very simple interface that my staff can understand and use and manage literally hundreds of VPNs around the world and while talking to and working with our customers who are literally around the world now that we've been using aviatrix for a couple years we're actually finding that even problems that we didn't realize we had were actually solved even before we came across the problem and it just worked cloud companies as a whole are based on reputation we need to be able to protect our reputation and part of that reputation is being able to protect our customers and being able to protect more importantly our customers data aviatrix has been helpful for us in that we only have one system that can manage this whole huge system in a simple easy direct model aviatrix is directly responsible for helping us secure and manage our customers not only across the world but across multiple clouds users don't have to be VPN or networking experts in order to be able to use the system all the members on my team can manage it all the members regardless of their experience can do different levels of it one of the unexpected advantages of aviatrix is that I don't have to sell it to my management the fact that we're not in the news at 3 o'clock in the morning or that we don't have to get calls in the middle of the night no news is good news especially in networking things that used to take weeks to build or done in hours I think the most important thing about a matrix is it provides me a Beatrix gives me a consistent model that I can use across multiple regions multiple clouds multiple customers okay welcome back to altitude 2020 for the folks on the livestream I'm John for Steve Mulaney with CEO of aviatrix for our first of two customer panels on cloud with cloud network architects we got Bobby Willoughby they gone Luis Castillo of National Instruments David should Nick with fact set guys welcome to the stage for this digital event come on up [Applause] [Music] hey good to see you thank you okay okay customer panelist is my favorite part we get to hear the real scoop gets a gardener given this the industry overview certainly multi clouds very relevant and cloud native networking is the hot trend with a live stream out there and the digital event so guys let's get into it the journey is you guys are pioneering this journey of multi cloud and cloud native networking and is soon gonna be a lot more coming so we want to get into the journey what's it been like is it real you got a lot of scar tissue and what are some of the learnings yeah absolutely so multi cloud is whether or not we we accepted as a network engineers is is a reality like Steve said about two years ago companies really decided to to just to just bite the bullet and and and move there whether or not whether or not we we accept that fact we need to now create a consistent architecture across across multiple clouds and that that is challenging without orchestration layers as you start managing different different tool sets and different languages across different clouds so that's it's really important that to start thinking about that guys on the other panelists here there's different phases of this journey some come at it from a networking perspective some come in from a problem troubleshooting which what's your experiences yeah so from a networking perspective it's been incredibly exciting it's kind of a once-in-a-generation 'el opportunity to look at how you're building out your network you can start to embrace things like infrastructure as code that maybe your peers on the systems teams have been doing for years but it just never really worked on bram so it's really it's really exciting to look at all the opportunities that we have and then all the interesting challenges that come up that you that you get to tackle an effect said you guys are mostly AWS right yep right now though we're we are looking at multiple clouds we have production workloads running in multiple clouds today but a lot of the initial work has been with Amazon and you've seen it from a networking perspective that's where you guys are coming at it from yep we evolved more from a customer requirement perspective started out primarily as AWS but as the customer needed more resources from Azure like HPC you know as your ad things like that even recently Google Google Analytics our journey has evolved into more of a multi cloud environment Steve weigh in on the architecture because this has been the big conversation I want you to lead this second yeah so I mean I think you guys agree the journey you know it seems like the journey started a couple years ago got real serious the need for multi cloud whether you're there today of course it's gonna be there in the future so that's really important I think the next thing is just architecture I'd love to hear what you you know had some comments about architecture matters it all starts I mean every Enterprise I talk to maybe talk about architecture and the importance of architecture maybe Bobby it's a fun architecture perspective we sorted a journey five years ago Wow okay and we're just now starting our fourth evolution of our network marketer and we call it networking security net SEC yeah versus Justice Network yeah and that fourth generation architectures be based primarily upon Palo Alto Networks an aviatrix I have Atrix doing the orchestration piece of it but that journey came because of the need for simplicity ok the need for a multi cloud orchestration without us having to go and do reprogramming efforts across every cloud as it comes along right I guess the other question I also had around architectures also Louis maybe just talk about I know we've talked a little bit about you know scripting right and some of your thoughts on that yeah absolutely so so for us we started we started creating the network constructs with cloud formation and we've we've stuck with that for the most part what's interesting about that is today on premise we have a lot of a lot of automation around around how we provision networks but cloud formation has become a little bit like the new manual for us so we we're now having issues with having the to automate that component and making it consistent with our on premise architecture making it consistent with Azure architecture and Google cloud so it's really interesting to see to see companies now bring that layer of abstraction that SEO and brought to the to the web side now it's going up into into the into the cloud networking architecture so on the fourth generation of you mentioned you're in the fourth gen architecture what do you guys what have you learned is there any lessons scar tissue what to avoid what worked what was some of the that's probably the biggest list and there is that when you think you finally figured it out you have it right Amazon will change something as you or change something you know transit gateways a game changer so in listening to the business requirements is probably the biggest thing we need to do up front but I think from a simplicity perspective we like I said we don't want to do things four times we want to do things one time we won't be able to write to an API which aviatrix has and have them do the orchestration for us so that we don't have to do it four times how important is architecture in the progression is it you guys get thrown in the deep end to solve these problems or you guys zooming out and looking at it it's that I mean how are you guys looking at the architecture I mean you can't get off the ground if you don't have the network there so all of those that we've gone through similar evolutions we're on our fourth or fifth evolution I think about what we started off with Amazon without a direct connect gate without a trans a gateway without a lot of the things that are available today kind of the 80/20 that Steve was talking about just because it wasn't there doesn't mean we didn't need it so we needed to figure out a way to do it we couldn't say oh you need to come back to the network team in a year and maybe Amazon will have a solution for it right you need to do it now and in evolve later and maybe optimize or change the way you're doing things in the future but don't sit around and wait you can't I'd love to have you guys each individually answer this question for the live stream because it comes up a lot a lot of cloud architects out in the community what should they be thinking about the folks that are coming into this proactively and/or realizing the business benefits are there what advice would you guys give them an architecture what should be they be thinking about and what are some guiding principles you could share so I would start with looking at an architecture model that that can that can spread and and give consistency they're different to different cloud vendors that you will absolutely have to support cloud vendors tend to want to pull you into using their native toolset and that's good if only it was realistic to talk about only one cloud but because it doesn't it's it's it's super important to talk about and have a conversation with the business and with your technology teams about a consistent model how do I do my day one work so that I'm not you know spending 80 percent of my time troubleshooting or managing my network because I'm doing that then I'm missing out on ways that I can make improvements or embrace new technologies so it's really important early on to figure out how do I make this as low maintenance as possible so that I can focus on the things that the team really should be focusing on Bobby your advice the architect I don't know what else I can do that simplicity operations is key right all right so the holistic view of j2 operation you mentioned let's can jump in day one is your your your getting stuff set up day two is your life after all right this is kind of what you're getting at David so what does that look like what are you envisioning as you look at that 20 mile stare at post multi-cloud world what are some of the things that you want in a day to operations yeah infrastructure is code is really important to us so how do we how do we design it so that we can fit start making network changes and fitting them into like a release pipeline and start looking at it like that rather than somebody logging into a router seoi and troubleshooting things on in an ad hoc nature so moving more towards the DevOps model yes anything on that day - yeah I would love to add something so in terms of day 2 operations you can you can either sort of ignore the day 2 operations for a little while where you get well you get your feet wet or you can start approaching it from the beginning the fact is that the the cloud native tools don't have a lot of maturity in that space and when you run into an issue you're gonna end up having a bad day going through millions and millions of logs just to try to understand what's going on so that's something that that the industry just now is beginning to realize it's it's such as such a big gap I think that's key because for us we're moving to more of an event-driven operations in the past monitoring got the job done it's impossible to modern monitor something there's nothing there when the event happens all right so the event-driven application and then detection is important yeah I think Gardiner was all about the cloud native wave coming into networking that's going to be here thing I want to get your guys perspectives I know you have different views of how you came on into the journey and how you're executing and I always say the beauties in the eye of the beholder and that kind of applies the network's laid out so Bobby you guys do a lot of high-performance encryption both on AWS and Azure that's kind of a unique thing for you how are you seeing that impact with multi cloud yeah and that's a new requirement for us to where we we have a requirement to encrypt and they never get the question should I encryption or not encrypt the answer is always yes you should encrypt when you can encrypt for our perspective we we need to migrate a bunch of data from our data centers we have some huge data centers and then getting that data to the cloud is the timely expense in some cases so we have been mandated that we have to encrypt everything leave from the data center so we're looking at using the aviatrix insane mode appliances to be able to encrypt you know 10 20 gigabits of data as it moves to the cloud itself David you're using terraform you got fire Ned you've got a lot of complexity in your network what do you guys look at the future for yours environment yeah so something exciting that or yeah now is fire net so for our security team they obviously have a lot of a lot of knowledge base around Palo Alto and with our commitments to our clients you know it's it's it's not very easy to shift your security model to a specific cloud vendor right so there's a lot of stuck to compliance of things like that where being able to take some of what you've you know you've worked on for years on Bram and put it in the cloud and have the same type of assurance that things are gonna work and be secured in the same way that they are on prem helps make that journey into the cloud a lot easier and Louis you guys got scripting and get a lot of things going on what's your what's your unique angle on this yeah no absolutely so full disclosure I'm not a not not an aviatrix customer yet it's okay we want to hear the truth that's good Ellis what are you thinking about what's on your mind no really when you when you talk about implementing the tool like this it's really just really important to talk about automation and focus on on value so when you talk about things like encryption and things like so you're encrypting tunnels and crypting the path and those things are it should it should should be second nature really when you when you look at building those back ends and managing them with your team it becomes really painful so tools like a Beatrix that that add a lot of automation it's out of out of sight out of mind you can focus on the value and you don't have to focus on so I gotta ask you guys I'll see aviatrix is here they're their supplier to this sector but you guys are customers everyone's pitching you stuff people are not going to buy my stuff how do you guys have that conversation with the suppliers like the cloud vendors and other folks what's that what's it like we're API all the way you got to support this what are some of the what are some of your requirements how do you talk to and evaluate people that walk in and want to knock on your door and pitch you something what's the conversation like it's definitely it's definitely API driven we we definitely look at the at the PAP i structure of the vendors provide before we select anything that that is always first in mind and also what a problem are we really trying to solve usually people try to sell or try to give us something that isn't really valuable like implementing a solution on the on the on the cloud isn't really it doesn't really add a lot of value that's where we go David what's your conversation like with suppliers you have a certain new way to do things as as becomes more agile and essentially the networking and more dynamic what are some of the conversation is with the either incumbents or new new vendors that you're having what do what do you require yeah so ease of use is definitely definitely high up there we've had some vendors come in and say you know hey you know when you go to set this up we're gonna want to send somebody on site and they're gonna sit with you for your day to configure it and that's kind of a red flag what wait a minute you know do we really if one of my really talented engineers can't figure it out on his own what's going on there and why is that so I you know having having some ease-of-use and the team being comfortable with it and understanding it is really important Bobby how about you I mean the old days was do a bake-off and you know the winner takes all I mean is it like that anymore but what's the Volvic a bake-off last year for us do you win so but that's different now because now when you when you get the product you can install the product and they double your energy or have it in a matter of minutes and so the key is is they can you be operational you know within hours or days instead of weeks but but do we also have the flexibility to customize it to meet your needs could you want to be you want to be put into a box with the other customers when you have needs that your pastor cut their needs yeah almost see the challenge that you guys are living where you've got the cloud immediate value depending how you can roll up any solutions but then you have might have other needs so you got to be careful not to buy into stuff that's not shipping so you're trying to be proactive at the same time deal with what you got I mean how do you guys see that evolving because multi-cloud to me is definitely relevant but it's not yet clear how to implement across how do you guys look at this baked versus you know future solutions coming how do you balance that so again so right now we we're we're taking the the ad hoc approach and experimenting with the different concepts of cloud and and really leveraging the the native constructs of each cloud but but there's a there's a breaking point for sure you don't you don't get to scale this like Alexa mom said and you have to focus on being able to deliver a developer they're their sandbox or they're their play area for the for the things that they're trying to build quickly and the only way to do that is with the with with some sort of consistent orchestration layer that allows you to so use a lot more stuff to be coming pretty quickly hides area I do expect things to start to start maturing quite quite quickly this year and you guys see similar trend new stuff coming fast yeah part of the biggest challenge we've got now is being able to segment within the network being able to provide segmentation between production on production workloads even businesses because we support many businesses worldwide and and isolation between those is a key criteria there so the ability to identify and quickly isolate those workloads is key so the CIOs that are watching or that are saying hey take that he'll do multi cloud and then you know the bottoms-up organization Nick pops you're kind of like off a little bit it's not how it works I mean what is the reality in terms of implementing you know in as fast as possible because the business benefits are but it's not always clear in the technology how to move that fast yeah what are some of the barriers one of the blockers what are the enablers I think the reality is is that you may not think you're multi-cloud but your business is right so I think the biggest barriers there is understanding what the requirements are and how best to meet those requirements and then secure manner because you need to make sure that things are working from a latency perspective that things work the way they did and get out of the mind shift that you know it was a cheery application in the data center it doesn't have to be a Tier three application in the cloud so lift and shift is is not the way to go yeah scale is a big part of what I see is the competitive advantage to a lot these clouds and needs to be proprietary network stacks in the old days and then open systems came that was a good thing but as clouds become bigger there's kind of an inherent lock in there with the scale how do you guys keep the choice open how're you guys thinking about interoperability what are some of the conversations and you guys are having around those key concepts well when we look at when we look at the upfront from a networking perspective it it's really key for you to just enable enable all the all the clouds to be to be able to communicate between them developers will will find a way to use the cloud that best suits their their business need and and like like you said it's whether whether you're in denial or not of the multi cloud fact that then your company is in already that's it becomes really important for you to move quickly yeah and I a lot of it also hinges on how well is the provider embracing what that specific cloud is doing so are they are they swimming with Amazon or Azure and just helping facilitate things they're doing the you know the heavy lifting API work for you or are they swimming upstream and they're trying to hack it all together in a messy way and so that helps you you know stay out of the lock-in because they're you know if they're doing if they're using Amazon native tools to help you get where you need to be it's not like Amazon's gonna release something in the future that completely you know makes you have designed yourself into a corner so the closer they're more than cloud native they are the more the easier it is to to deploy but you also need to be aligned in such a way that you can take advantage of those cloud native technologies will it make sense tgw is a game changer in terms of cost and performance right so to completely ignore that would be wrong but you know if you needed to have encryption you know teach Adobe's not encrypted so you need to have some type of a gateway to do the VPN encryption you know so the aviatrix tool give you the beauty of both worlds you can use tgw with a gateway Wow real quick in the last minute we have I want to just get a quick feedback from you guys I hear a lot of people say to me hey the I picked the best cloud for the workload you got and then figure out multi cloud behind the scenes so that seems to be do you guys agree with that I mean is it do I go Mull one cloud across the whole company or this workload works great on AWS that work was great on this from a cloud standpoint do you agree with that premise and then witness multi-cloud stitch them all together yeah from from an application perspective it it can be per workload but it can also be an economical decision certain enterprise contracts will will pull you in one direction that value but the the network problem is still the same doesn't go away yeah yeah yeah I mean you don't want to be trying to fit a square into a round Hall right so if it works better on that cloud provider then it's our job to make sure that that service is there and people can use it agree you just need to stay ahead of the game make sure that the network infrastructure is there secure is available and is multi cloud capable yeah I'm at the end of the day you guys just validating that it's the networking game now cloud storage compute check networking is where the action is awesome thanks for your insights guys appreciate you coming on the panel appreciate it thanks thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay welcome back on the live feed I'm John fritz T Blaney my co-host with aviatrix I'm with the cube for the special digital event our next customer panel got great another set of cloud network architects Justin Smith was aura Justin broadly with Ellie Mae and Amit Oh tree job with Koopa welcome to stage [Applause] all right thank you thank you okay he's got all the the cliff notes from the last session welcome back rinse and repeat yeah yeah we're going to go under the hood a little bit I think I think they nailed the what we've been reporting and we've been having this conversation around networking is where the action is because that's the end of the day you got a move a pack from A to B and you get workloads exchanging data so it's really killer so let's get started Amit what are you seeing as the journey of multi cloud as you go under the hood and say okay I got to implement this I have to engineer the network make it enabling make it programmable make it interoperable across clouds and that's like I mean almost sounds impossible to me what's your take yeah I mean it it seems impossible but if you are running an organization which is running infrastructure as a cordon all right it is easily doable like you can use tools out there that's available today you can use third-party products that can do a better job but but put your architecture first don't wait architecture may not be perfect put the best architecture that's available today and be agile to iterate and make improvements over the time we get to Justin's over here so I have to be careful when I point a question in Justin they both have the answer but okay journeys what's the journey been like I mean is there phases we heard that from Gartner people come in to multi cloud and cloud native networking from different perspectives what's your take on the journey Justin yeah I mean from our perspective we started out very much focused on one cloud and as we started doing errands we started doing new products the market the need for multi cloud comes very apparent very quickly for us and so you know having an architecture that we can plug in play into and be able to add and change things as it changes is super important for what we're doing in the space just in your journey yes for us we were very ad hoc oriented and the idea is that we were reinventing all the time trying to move into these new things and coming up with great new ideas and so rather than it being some iterative approach with our deployments that became a number of different deployments and so we shifted that tore in the network has been a real enabler of this is that it there's one network and it touches whatever cloud we want it to touch and it touches the data centers that we need it to touch and it touches the customers that we need it to touch our job is to make sure that the services that are available and one of those locations are available in all of the locations so the idea is not that we need to come up with this new solution every time it's that we're just iterating on what we've already decided to do before we get the architecture section I want to ask you guys a question I'm a big fan of you know let the app developers have infrastructure as code so check but having the right cloud run that workload I'm a big fan of that if it works great but we just heard from the other panel you can't change the network so I want to get your thoughts what is cloud native networking and is that the engine really that's the enabler for this multi cloud trend but you guys taken we'll start with Amit what do you think about that yeah so you are gonna have workloads running in different clouds and the workloads would have affinity to one cloud over other but how you expose that it matter of how you are going to build your networks how we are gonna run security how we are going to do egress ingress out of it so it's a big problem how do you split says what's the solution what's the end the key pain points and problem statement I mean the key pain point for most companies is how do you take your traditionally on-premise network and then blow that out to the cloud in a way that makes sense you know IP conflicts you have IP space you pub public eye peas and premise as well as in the cloud and how do you kind of make a sense of all of that and I think that's where tools like a v8 ryx make a lot of sense in that space from our site it's it's really simple its latency its bandwidth and availability these don't change whether we're talking about cloud or data center or even corporate IT networking so our job when when these all of these things are simplified into like s3 for instance and our developers want to use those we have to be able to deliver that and for a particular group or another group that wants to use just just GCP resources these aren't we have to support these requirements and these wants as opposed to saying hey that's not a good idea our job is to enable them not to disable them do you think you guys think infrastructure is code which I love that I think it's that's the future it is we saw that with DevOps but I do start getting the networking is it getting down to the network portion where it's network is code because storage and compute working really well is seeing all kubernetes and service master and network as code reality is it there is got work to do it's absolutely there I mean you mentioned net DevOps and it's it's very real I mean in Cooper we build our networks through terraform and on not only just out of fun build an API so that we can consistently build V nets and VPC all across in the same unit yeah and even security groups and then on top an aviatrix comes in we can peer the networks bridge bridge all the different regions through code same with you guys but yeah everything we deploy is done with automation and then we also run things like lambda on top to make changes in real time we don't make manual changes on our network in the data center funny enough it's still manual but the cloud has enabled us to move into this automation mindset and and all my guys that's what they focus on is bringing what now what they're doing in the cloud into the data center which is kind of opposite of what it should be that's full or what it used to be it's full DevOps then yes yeah I mean for us was similar on-premise still somewhat very manual although we're moving more Norton ninja and terraform concepts but everything in the production environment is colored Confirmation terraform code and now coming into the datacenter same I just wanted to jump in on a Justin Smith one of the comment that you made because it's something that we always talk about a lot is that the center of gravity of architecture used to be an on-prem and now it's shifted in the cloud and once you have your strategic architecture what you--what do you do you push that everywhere so what you used to see at the beginning of cloud was pushing the architecture on prem into cloud now I want to pick up on what you said to you others agree that the center of architect of gravity is here I'm now pushing what I do in the cloud back into on pram and and then so first that and then also in the journey where are you at from 0 to 100 of actually in the journey to cloud DUI you 50% there are you 10% yes I mean are you evacuating data centers next year I mean were you guys at yeah so there's there's two types of gravity that you typically are dealing with no migration first is data gravity and your data set and where that data lives and then the second is the network platform that interrupts all that together right in our case the data gravity sold mostly on Prem but our network is now extending out to the app tier that's going to be in cloud right eventually that data gravity will also move to cloud as we start getting more sophisticated but you know in our journey we're about halfway there about halfway through the process we're taking a handle of you know lift and shift and when did that start and we started about three years ago okay okay go by it's a very different story it started from a garage and one hundred percent on the clock it's a business spend management platform as a software-as-a-service one hundred percent on the cloud it was like ten years ago right yes yeah you guys are riding the wave love that architecture Justin I want to ask user you guys mentioned DevOps I mean obviously we saw the huge observability wave which is essentially network management for the cloud in my opinion right yeah it's more dynamic but this isn't about visibility we heard from the last panel you don't know what's being turned on or turned off from a services standpoint at any given time how is all this playing out when you start getting into the DevOps down well this this is the big challenge for all of us as visibility when you talk transport within a cloud you know we very interesting we we have moved from having a backbone that we bought that we own that would be data center connectivity we now I work for as or as a subscription billing company so we want to support the subscription mindset so rather than going and buying circuits and having to wait three months to install and then coming up with some way to get things connected and resiliency and redundancy I my backbone is in the cloud I use the cloud providers interconnections between regions to transport data across and and so if you do that with their native solutions you you do lose visibility there are areas in that that you don't get which is why controlling you know controllers and having some type of management plane is a requirement for us to do what we're supposed to do and provide consistency while doing it a great conversation I loved when you said earlier latency bandwidth I think availability with your sim pop3 things guys SLA I mean you just do ping times between clouds it's like you don't know what you're getting for round-trip times this becomes a huge kind of risk management black hole whatever you want to call blind spot how are you guys looking at the interconnects between clouds because you know I can see that working from you know ground to cloud I'm per cloud but when you start doing with multi clouds workload I mean SL leis will be all over the map won't they just inherently but how do you guys view that yeah I think we talked about workload and we know that the workloads are going to be different in different clouds but they are going to be calling each other so it's very important to have that visibility that you can see how data is flowing at what latency and what our ability is hour is there and our authority needs to operate on that so it's solely use the software dashboard look at the times and look at the latency in the old days strong so on open so on you try to figure it out and then your day is you have to figure out just and what's your answer to that because you're in the middle of it yeah I mean I think the the key thing there is that we have to plan for that failure we have to plan for that latency and our applications it's starting start tracking in your SLI something you start planning for and you loosely couple these services and a much more micro services approach so you actually can handle that kind of failure or that type of unknown latency and unfortunately the cloud has made us much better at handling exceptions a much better way you guys are all great examples of cloud native from day one and you guys had when did you have the tipping point moment or the Epiphany of saying a multi clouds real I can't ignore it I got to factor it into all my design design principles and and everything you're doing what's it was there a moment or was it was it from day one now there are two divisions one was the business so in business there was some affinity to not be in one cloud or to be in one cloud and that drove from the business side so it has a cloud architect our responsibility was to support that business and other is the technology some things are really running better in like if you are running dot network load or you are going to run machine learning or AI so that you have you would have that preference of one cloud over other so it was the bill that we got from AWS I mean that's that's what drives a lot of these conversations is the financial viability of what you're building on top of it which is so we this failure domain idea which is which is fairly interesting is how do I solve or guarantee against a failure domain you have methodologies with you know back-end direct connects or interconnect with GCP all of these ideas are something that you have to take into account but that transport layer should not matter to whoever we're building this for our job is to deliver the frames in the packets what that flows across how you get there we want to make that seamless and so whether it's a public internet API call or it's a back-end connectivity through Direct Connect it doesn't matter it just has to meet a contract that you signed with your application folks yeah that's the availability piece just on your thoughts on that I think any comment on that so actually multi clouds become something much more recent in the last six to eight months I'd say we always kind of had a very much an attitude of like moving to Amazon from our private cloud is hard enough why complicate it further but the realities of the business and as we start seeing you know improvements in Google and Asia and different technology spaces the need for multi cloud becomes much more important as well as those are acquisition strategies I matured we're seeing that companies that used to be on premise that we typically acquire are now very much already on a cloud and if they're on a cloud I need to plug them into our ecosystem and so that's really change our multi cloud story in a big way I'd love to get your thoughts on the clouds versus the clouds because you know you compare them Amazon's got more features they're rich with features I see the bills are haiku people using them but Google's got a great Network Google's networks pretty damn good and then you got a sure what's the difference between the clouds who where they've evolved something whether they peak in certain areas better than others what what are the characteristics which makes one cloud better do they have a unique feature that makes Azure better than Google and vice versa what do you guys think about the different clouds yeah to my experience I think there is the approach is different in many places Google has a different approach very devops friendly and you can run your workload like your network can spend regions time I mean but our application ready to accept that MS one is evolving I mean I remember ten years back Amazon's network was a flat network we will be launching servers and 10.0.0.0 mode multi-account came out so they are evolving as you are at a late start but because they have a late start they saw the pattern and they they have some mature set up on the I mean I think they're all trying to say they're equal in their own ways I think they all have very specific design philosophies that allow them to be successful in different ways and you have to kind of that in mine is your architectural and solution for example Amazon has a very much a very regional affinity they don't like to go cross region in their architecture whereas Google is very much it's a global network we're gonna think about as a global solution I think Google also has advantages there to market and so it has seen what asier did wrong it's seen what AWS did wrong and it's made those improvements and I think that's one of their big advantage at great scale to Justin thoughts on the cloud so yeah Amazon built from the system up and Google built from the network down so their ideas and approaches are from a global versus or regional I agree with you completely that that is the big number one thing but the if you look at it from the outset interestingly the the inability or the ability for Amazon to limit layer 2 broadcasting and and what that really means from a VPC perspective changed all the routing protocols you can use all the things that we have built inside of a data center to provide resiliency and and and make things seamless to users all of that disappeared and so because we had to accept that at the VPC level now we have to accept it at the LAN level Google's done a better job of being able to overcome those things and provide those traditional Network facilities to us it's just great panel can go all day here's awesome so I heard we could we'll get to the cloud native naive question so kind of think about what's not even what's cloud is that next but I got to ask you had a conversation with a friend he's like when is the new land so if you think about what the land was at a data center when is the new link you get talking about the cloud impact so that means st when the old st was kind of changing into the new land how do you guys look at that because if you think about it what lands were for inside a premises was all about networking high speed but now when you take the win and make essentially a land do you agree with that and how do you view this trend and is it good or bad or is it ugly and what's what you guys take on this yeah I think it's the it's a thing that you have to work with your application architect so if you are managing networks and if you're a sorry engineer you need to work with them to expose the unreliability that would bring in so the application has to hand a lot of this the difference in the Layton sees and and the reliability has to be worked through the application there land when same concept as it be yesterday I think we've been talking about for a long time the erosion of the edge and so is this is just a continuation of that journey we've been on for the last several years as we get more and more cloud native when we start about API is the ability to lock my data in place and not be able to access it really goes away and so I think this is just continuation that thing I think it has challenges we start talking about weighing scale versus land scale the tooling doesn't work the same the scale of that tooling is much larger and the need to automation is much much higher in a way than it was in a land that's what we're seeing so much infrastructure as code yeah yeah so for me I'll go back again to this its bandwidth and its latency right that bet define those two land versus win but the other thing that's comes up more and more with cloud deployments is where is our security boundary and where can I extend this secure aware appliance or set of rules to protect what's inside of it so for us we're able to deliver VRS or route forwarding tables for different segments wherever we're at in the world and so they're they're trusted to talk to each other but if they're gonna go to someplace that's outside of their their network then they have to cross a security boundary and where we enforce policy very heavily so for me there's it's not just land when it's it's how does environment get to environment more importantly that's a great point and security we haven't talked to yet but that's got to be baked in from the beginning that's architecture thoughts on security are you guys are dealing with it yeah start from the base have app to have security built in have TLS have encryption on the data I transit data at rest but as you bring the application to the cloud and they are going to go multi-cloud talking to over the Internet in some places well have apt web security I mean I mean our principals day Security's day zero every day and so we we always build it into our design we load entire architecture into our applications it's encrypt everything it's TLS everywhere it's make sure that that data is secured at all times yeah one of the cool trends at RSA just as a side note was the data in use encryption piece which is a homomorphic stuff was interesting all right guys final question you know we heard on the earlier panel was also trending at reinvent we take the tea out of cloud native it spells cloud naive okay they got shirts now he being sure he's gonna got this trend going what does that mean to be naive so if you're to your peers out there watching a live stream and also the suppliers that are trying to you know supply you guys with technology and services what's naive look like and what's native look like when is someone naive about implementing all this stuff so for me it's because we are in hundred-percent cloud for us its main thing is ready for the change and you will you will find new building blocks coming in and the network design will evolve and change so don't be naive and think that it's static you wall with the change I think the big naivety that people have is that well I've been doing it this way for twenty years and been successful it's going to be successful in cloud the reality is that's not the case you have to think some of the stuff a little bit differently and you need to think about it early enough so that you can become cloud native and really enable your business on cloud yeah for me it's it's being open minded right the the our industry the network industry as a whole has been very much I am smarter than everybody else and we're gonna tell everybody how it's going to be done and we have we fell into a lull when it came to producing infrastructure and and and so embracing this idea that we can deploy a new solution or a new environment in minutes as opposed to hours or weeks or four months in some cases is really important and and so you know it's are you being closed-minded native being open-minded exactly and and it took a for me it was that was a transformative kind of where I was looking to solve problems in a cloud way as opposed to looking to solve problems in this traditional old-school way all right I know we're out of time but I ask one more question so you guys so good it could be a quick answer what's the BS language when you the BS meter goes off when people talk to you about solutions what's the kind of jargon that you hear that's the BS meter going off what are people talking about that in your opinion you here you go that's total B yes what what triggers use it so that I have two lines out of movies that are really I can if the if I say them without actually thinking them it's like 1.21 jigowatts how you're out of your mind from Back to the Future right somebody's gonna be a bank and then and then Martin ball and and Michael Keaton and mr. mom when he goes to 22 21 whatever it takes yeah those two right there if those go off in my mind somebody's talking to me I know they're full of baloney so a lot of speeds would be a lot of speeds and feeds a lot of data did it instead of talking about what you're actually doing and solutioning for you're talking about well I does this this this and okay 220 221 anytime I start seeing the cloud vendor start benchmarking against each other it's your workload is your workload you need to benchmark yourself don't don't listen to the marketing on that that's that's all I'm a what triggers you and the bsp I think if somebody explains you a not simple they cannot explain you in simplicity then that's a good one all right guys thanks for the great insight great panel how about a round of applause practitioners DX easy solutions integrating company than we service customers from all industry verticals and we're helping them to move to the digital world so as a solutions integrator we interface with many many customers that have many different types of needs and they're on their IT journey to modernize their applications into the cloud so we encounter many different scenarios many different reasons for those migrations all of them seeking to optimize their IT solutions to better enable their business we have our CPS organization it's cloud platform services we support AWS does your Google Alibaba corkle will help move those workloads to wherever it's most appropriate no one buys the house for the plumbing equally no one buys the solution for the networking but if the plumbing doesn't work no one likes the house and if this network doesn't work no one likes a solution so network is ubiquitous it is a key component of every solution we do the network connectivity is the lifeblood of any architecture without network connectivity nothing works properly planning and building a scalable robust network that's gonna be able to adapt with the application needs its when encountering some network design and talking about speed the deployment aviatrix came up in discussion and we then further pursued an area DHT products that incorporated aviatrix is part of a new offering that we are in the process of developing that really enhances our ability to provide cloud connectivity for the lance cloud connectivity there's a new line of networking services that we're getting into as our clients move into hybrid cloud networking it is much different than our traditional based services an aviatrix provides a key component in that service before we found aviatrix we were using just native peering connections but there wasn't a way to visualize all those peering connections and with multiple accounts multiple contacts for security with a v8 church we were able to visualize those different peering connections of security groups it helped a lot especially in areas of early deployment scenarios were quickly able to then take those deployment scenarios and turn them into scripts that we can then deploy repeatedly their solutions were designed for work with the cloud native capabilities first and where those cloud native capabilities fall short they then have solution sets that augment those capabilities I was pleasantly surprised number one with the aviatrix team as a whole in their level of engagement with us you know we weren't only buying the product we were buying a team that came on board to help us implement and solution that was really good to work together to learn both what aviatrix had to offer as well as enhancements that we had to bring that aviatrix was able to put into their product and meet our needs even better aviatrix was a joy to find because they really provided us the technology that we needed in order to provide multi cloud connectivity that really added to the functionality that you can't get from the basic law providing services we're taking our customers on a journey to simplify and optimize their IT infrastructure aviatrix certainly has made my job much easier okay welcome back to altitude 2020 for the digital event for the live feed welcome back I'm John Ford with the cube with Steve Mulaney CEO aviatrix for the next panel from global system integrators the folks who are building and working with folks on their journey to multi cloud and cloud native networking we've got a great panel George Buckman with dxc and Derek Monahan with wwt welcome to the stage [Applause] [Music] okay you guys are the ones out there advising building and getting down and dirty with multi cloud and cloud native networking we heard from the customer panel you can see the diversity of where people come into the journey of cloud it kind of depends upon where you are but the trends are all clear cloud native networking DevOps up and down the stack this has been the main engine what's your guys take of the disk journey to multi cloud what do you guys seeing yeah it's it's critical I mean we're seeing all of our enterprise customers enter into this they've been through the migrations of the easy stuff you know now they're trying to optimize and get more improvement so now the tough stuffs coming on right and you know they need their data processing near where their data is so that's driving them to a multi cloud environment okay we heard some of the edge stuff I mean you guys are exactly you've seen this movie before but now it's a whole new ballgame what's your take yeah so I'll give you a hint so our practice it's not called the cloud practice it's the multi cloud practice and so if that gives you a hint of how we approach things it's very consultative and so when we look at what the trends are let's look a little year ago about a year ago we were having conversations with customers let's build a data center in the cloud let's put some VP C's let's throw some firewalls with some DNS and other infrastructure out there and let's hope it works this isn't a science project so what we're trying we're starting to see is customers are starting to have more of a vision and we're helping with that consultative nature but it's totally based on the business and you got to start understanding how the lines of business are using the apps and then we evolved into that next journey which is a foundational approach to what are some of the problem statement customers are solving when they come to you what are the top things that are on their my house or the ease of use of jelly all that stuff but what specifically they did digging into yeah some complexity I think when you look at multi cloud approach in my view is network requirements are complex you know I think they are but I think the approach can be let's simplify that so one thing that we try to do and this is how we talk to customers is let's just like you simplify an aviatrix simplifies the automation orchestration of cloud networking we're trying to simplify the design the planning implementation of infrastructure across multiple workloads across multiple platforms and so the way we do it is we sit down we look at not just use cases and not just the questions in common we anticipate we actually build out based on the business and function requirements we build out a strategy and then create a set of documents and guess what we actually build in the lab and that lab that we platform we built proves out this reference architecture actually works absolutely we implement similar concepts I mean we they're proven practices they work great so well George you mentioned that the hard part is now upon us are you referring to networking what is specifically were you getting at Tara so the easy parts done now so for the enterprises themselves migrating their more critical apps or more difficult apps into the environments you know they've just we've just scratched the surface I believe on what enterprises that are doing to move into the cloud to optimize their environments to take advantage of the scale and speed to deployment and to be able to better enable their businesses so they're just now really starting the >> so do you get you guys see what I talked about them in terms of their Cambrian explosion I mean you're both monster system integrators with you know top fortune enterprise customers you know really rely on you for for guidance and consulting and so forth and boy they're networks is that something that you you've seen I mean does that resonate did you notice a year and a half ago and all of a sudden the importance of cloud for enterprise shoot up yeah I mean we're seeing it okay in our internal environment as yeah you know we're a huge company or right customer zero or an IT so we're experiencing that internal okay and every one of our other customers so I have another question oh I don't know the answer to this and the lawyer never asks a question that you don't know the answer to but I'm gonna ask it anyway d XE @ wwt massive system integrators why aviatrix yep so great question Steve so I think the way we approach things I think we have a similar vision a similar strategy how you approach things how we approach things that it worldwide technology number one we want to simplify the complexity and so that's your number one priorities let's take the networking but simplify it and I think part of the other point I'm making is we have we see this automation piece as not just an afterthought anymore if you look at what customers care about visibility and automation is probably the at the top three maybe the third on the list and I think that's where we see the value and I think the partnership that we're building and what I what I get excited about is not just putting yours in our lab and showing customers how it works it's Co developing a solution with you figuring out hey how can we make this better right mr. piller is a huge thing Jenna insecurity alone Network everything's around visibility what automation do you see happening in terms of progression order of operations if you will it's the low-hanging fruit what are people working on now and what are what are some of the aspirational goals around when you start thinking about multi cloud and automation yep so I wanted to get back to answer that question I want to answer your question you know what led us there and why aviatrix you know in working some large internal IT projects and and looking at how we were going to integrate those solutions you know we like to build everything with recipes where Network is probably playing catch-up in the DevOps world but with a DevOps mindset looking to speed to deploy support all those things so when you start building your recipes you take a little of this a little of that and you mix it all together well when you look around you say wow look there's this big bag of a VHS let me plop that in that solves a big part of my problems that I have to speed to integrate speed to deploy and the operational views that I need to run this so that was 11 years about reference architectures yeah absolutely so you know they came with a full slate of reference architectures already the out there and ready to go that fit our needs so it's very very easy for us to integrate those into our recipes what do you guys think about all the multi vendor interoperability conversations that have been going on choice has been a big part of multi cloud in terms of you know customers want choice didn't you know they'll put a workload in the cloud that works but this notion of choice and interoperability is become a big conversation it is and I think our approach and that's why we talk to customers is let's let's speed and be risk of that decision making process and how do we do that because the interoperability is key you're not just putting it's not just a single vendor we're talking you know many many vendors I mean think about the average number of cloud applications a customer uses a business and enterprise business today you know it's it's above 30 it's it's skyrocketing and so what we do and we look at it from an Billy approaches how do things interoperate we test it out we validate it we build a reference architecture it says these are the critical design elements now let's build one with aviatrix and show how this works with aviatrix and I think the the important part there though is the automation piece that we add to it invisibility so I think the visibility is what's what I see lacking across the industry today and the cloud needed that's been a big topic yep okay in terms of aviatrix that you guys see them coming in there one of the ones that are emerging and the new brands emerging with multi cloud you still got the old guard incumbents with huge footprints how our customers dealing with that that kind of component in dealing with both of them yeah I mean where we have customers that are ingrained with a particular vendor and you know we have partnerships with many vendors so our objective is to provide the solution that meets that client and you they all want multi vendor they all want interoperability correct all right so I got to ask you guys a question while we were defining de to operations what does that mean I mean you guys are looking at the big business and technical components of architecture what does de two operations mean what's the definition of that yeah so I think from our perspective my experience we you know de to operations whether it's it's not just the you know the orchestration piece and setting up and let it a lot of automate and have some you know change control you're looking at this from a data perspective how do I support this ongoing and make it easy to make changes as we evolve that the the cloud is very dynamic the the nature of how that fast is expanding the number of features is astonishing trying to keep up to date with a number of just networking capabilities and services that are added so I think day to operation starts with a fundable understanding of you know building out supporting a customer's environments and making it the automation piece easy from from you know a distance I think yeah and you know taking that to the next level of being able to enable customers to have catalog items that they can pick and choose hey I need this network connectivity from this cloud location back to this on pram and being able to have that automated and provisioned just simply by ordering it for the folks watching out there guys take a minute to explain as you guys are in the trenches doing a lot of good work what are some of the engagement that you guys get into how does that progress what is that what's what happens there they call you up and say hey I need multi-cloud or you're already in there I mean take us through why how someone can engage to use a global si to come in and make this thing happen what's looks like typical engagement look like yeah so from our perspective we typically have a series of workshops in a methodology that we kind of go along the journey number one we have a foundational approach and I don't mean foundation meaning the network foundation that's a very critical element we got a factor in security we got a factor in automation so we think about foundation we do a workshop that starts with education a lot of times we'll go in and we'll just educate the customer what does VPC sharing you know what is a private link and Azure how does that impact your business you know customers I want to share services out in an ecosystem with other customers and partners well there's many ways to accomplish that so our goal is to you know understand those requirements and then build that strategy with them thoughts George oh yeah I mean I'm one of the guys that's down in the weeds making things happen so I'm not the guy on the front line interfacing with the customers every day but we have a similar approach you know we have a consulting practice that will go out and and apply their practices to see what those and when do you parachute in yeah when I then is I'm on the back end working with our offering development leads for the networking so we understand or seeing what customers are asking for and we're on the back end developing the solutions that integrate with our own offerings as well as enable other customers to just deploy quickly to meet their connectivity needs it so the patterns are similar great final question for you guys I want to ask you to paint a picture of what success looks like and you know for name customers you don't forget in reveal of kind of who they are but what does success look like in multi-cloud as you as you paint a picture for the folks here and watching on the live stream it's if someone says hey I want to be multi-cloud I got to have my operations agile I want full DevOps I want programmability security built in from day zero what does success look like yeah I think success looks like this so when you're building out a network the network is a harder thing to change than some other aspects of cloud so what we think is even if you're thinking about that second cloud which we have most of our customers are on to public clouds today they might be dabbling in that is you build that network foundation an architecture that takes in consideration where you're going and so once we start building that reference architecture out that shows this is how to sit from a multi-cloud perspective not a single cloud and let's not forget our branches let's not forget our data centers let's not forget how all this connects together because that's how we define multi-cloud it's not just in the cloud it's on Prem and it's off Prem and so collectively I think the key is also is that we provide them an hld you got to start with in a high-level design that can be tweaked as you go through the journey but you got to give a solid structural foundation and that networking which we think most customers think as not not the network engineers but as an afterthought we want to make that the most critical element before you start the journey Jorge from your seed had a success look for you so you know it starts out on these journeys often start out people not even thinking about what is gonna happen what what their network needs are when they start their migration journey to the cloud so I want this success to me looks like them being able to end up not worrying about what's happening in the network when they move to the cloud good guys great insight thanks for coming on share and pen I've got a round of applause the global system integrators [Applause] [Music] okay welcome back from the live feed I'm shuffle with the cube Steve Eleni CEO of aviatrix my co-host our next panel is the aviatrix certified engineers also known as aces this is the folks that are certified their engineering they're building these new solutions please welcome Toby Foster min from Attica Stacy linear from Terra data and Jennifer Reid with Victor Davis to the stage I was just gonna I was just gonna rip you guys and say where's your jackets and Jen's got the jacket on okay good love the aviatrix aces pile of gear there above the clouds soaring to new heights that's right so guys aviatrix aces love the name I think it's great certified this is all about getting things engineered so there's a level of certification I want to get into that but first take us through the day in the life of an ace and just to point out Stacey's a squad leader so he's like a squadron leader Roger and leader yeah squadron leader so he's got a bunch of aces underneath him but share your perspective day-in-the-life Jeff we'll start with you sure so I have actually a whole team that works for me both in the in the North America both in the US and in Mexico and so I'm eagerly working to get them certified as well so I can become a squad leader myself but it's important because one of the the critical gaps that we've found is people having the networking background because they're you graduate from college and you have a lot of computer science background you can program you've got Python but networking in packets they just don't get and so just taking them through all the processes that it's really necessary to understand when you're troubleshooting is really critical mm-hmm and because you're gonna get an issue where you need to figure out where exactly is that happening on the network you know is my my issue just in the V PCs and on the instant side is a security group or is it going on print and this is something actually embedded within Amazon itself I mean I should troubleshot an issue for about six months going back and forth with Amazon and it was the vgw VPN because they were auto-scaling on two sides and we ended up having to pull out the Cisco's and put in aviatrix so I could just say okay it's fixed and actually actually helped the application teams get to that and get it solved yeah but I'm taking a lot of junior people and getting them through that certification process so they can understand and see the network the way I see the network I mean look I've been doing this such for 25 years but I got out when I went in the Marine Corps that's what I did and coming out the network is still the network but people don't get the same training they get they got in the 90s it's just so easy just write some software and they work takes care of itself yes I'll be will get I'll come back to that I want to come back to that that problem solved with Amazon but Toby I think the only thing I have to add to that is that it's always the network fault as long as I've been in network have always been the network's fault and I'm even to this day you know it's still the network's fault and part of being a network guy is that you need to prove when it is and when it's not your fault and that means you need to know a little bit about a hundred different things to make that and now you got a full stack DevOps you gotta know a lot more times another hundred and these times are changing yeah they say you're a squadron leader I get that right what is what does a squadron leader first can you describe what it is I think probably just leading all the network components of it but not they from my perspective when to think about what you asked them was it's about no issues and no escalation soft my day is a good that's a good day yes it's a good day Jennifer you mentioned the Amazon thing this brings up a good point you know when you have these new waves come in you have a lot of new things newly use cases a lot of the finger-pointing it's that guy's problem that girl's problem so what is how do you solve that and how do you get the young guns up to speed is there training is that this is where the certification comes in well is where the certification is really going to come in I know when we we got together at reinvent one of the the questions that that we had with Stephen the team was what what should our certification look like you know she would just be teaching about what aviatrix troubleshooting brings to bear but what should that be like and I think Toby and I were like no no no that's going a little too high we need to get really low because the the better someone can get at actually understanding what actually happening in the network and and where to actually troubleshoot the problem how to step back each of those processes because without that it's just a big black box and they don't know you know because everything is abstracted in Amazon Internet and Azure and Google is substracted and they have these virtual gateways they have VPNs that you just don't have the logs on it's you just don't know and so then what tools can you put in front of them of where they can look because there are full logs well as long as we turned on the flow logs when they built it you know and there's like each one of those little things that well if they had decided to do that when they built it it's there but if you can come in later to really supplement that with training to actual troubleshoot and do a packet capture here as it's going through then teaching them how to read that even yeah Toby we were talking before we came on up on stage about your career you've been networking all your time and then you know you're now entering a lot of younger people how is that going because the people who come in fresh they don't have all the old war stories they don't know you talk about you know that's dimmer fault I walk in bare feet in the snow when I was your age I mean it's so easy now right they say what's your take on how you train the young P so I've noticed two things one is that they are up to speed a lot faster in generalities of networking they can tell you what a network is in high school level now where I didn't learn that too midway through my career and they're learning it faster but they don't necessarily understand why it's that way or you know everybody thinks that it's always slash 24 for a subnet and they don't understand why you can break it down smaller why it's really necessary so the the ramp up speed is much faster for these guys that are coming in but they don't understand why and they need some of that background knowledge to see where it's coming from and why is it important and old guys that's where we thrive Jennifer you mentioned you you got in from the Marines health spa when you got into networking how what was it like then and compared it now almost like we heard earlier static versus dynamic don't be static cuz then you just set the network you got a perimeter yeah no there was no such thing ya know so back in the day I mean I mean we had banyan vines for email and you know we had token ring and I had to set up token ring networks and figure out why that didn't work because how many of things were actually sharing it but then actually just cutting fiber and running fiber cables and dropping them over you know shelters to plug them in and oh crap they swung it too hard and shattered it now I gotta be great polished this thing and actually shoot like to see if it works I mean that was the network crimped five cat5 cables to run an Ethernet you know and then from that just said network switches dumb switches like those were the most common ones you had then actually configuring routers and you know logging into a Cisco router and actually knowing how to configure that and it was funny because I had gone all the way up and was a software product manager for a while so I've gone all the way up the stack and then two and a half three years ago I came across to to work with entity group that it became Victor Davis but we went to help one of our customers Davis and it was like okay so we need to fix the network okay I haven't done this in 20 years but all right let's get to it you know because it really fundamentally does not change it's still the network I mean I've had people tell me well you know when we go to containers we will not have to worry about the network and I'm like yeah you don't I do and then with this were the program abilities it really interesting so I think this brings up the certification what are some of the new things that people should be aware of that come in with the aviatrix ace certification what are some of the highlights can you guys share some of the some of the highlights around the certifications I think some of the importance is that it's it doesn't need to be vendor specific for network generality or basic networking knowledge and instead of learning how Cisco does something or how Palo Alto does something we need to understand how and why it works as a basic model and then understand how each vendor has gone about that problem and solved it in a general that's true in multi cloud as well you can't learn how cloud networking works without understanding how a double u.s. senator and GCP are all slightly the same but slightly different and some things work and some things don't I think that's probably the number one take I think having a certification across clouds is really valuable cuz we heard the global si help the business issues what does it mean to do that is it code is that networking is it configuration is that aviatrix what is the I mean op C aviatrix is the ASA certification but what is it about the multi cloud that makes it multi networking and multi vendor easy answer is yes so you got to be a generalist getting your hands and all you have to be right it takes experience because it's every every cloud vendor has their own certification whether that's hops and advanced networking and advanced security or whatever it might be yeah they can take the test but they have no idea how to figure out what's wrong with that system and the same thing with any certification but it's really getting your hands in there and actually having to troubleshoot the problems you know actually work the problem you know and calm down it's going to be okay I mean because I don't know how many calls I've been on or even had aviatrix join me on it's like okay so everyone calm down let's figure out what's happening it's like we've looked at that screen three times looking at it again it's not gonna solve that problem right but at the same time you know remaining calm but knowing that it really is I'm getting a packet from here to go over here it's not working so what could be the problem you know and actually stepping them through with those scenarios but that's like you only get that by having to do it you know and seeing it and going through it and then I have a question so we you know I just see it we started this program maybe months ago we're seeing a huge amount of interest I mean we're oversubscribed on all the training sessions we've got people flying from around the country even with coronavirus flying to go to Seattle to go to these events were oversubscribed good is that watching leader would put there yeah is that something that you see in your organization's are you recommending that to people do you see I mean I'm just I guess I'm surprised I'm not surprised but I'm really surprised by the demand if you would of this multi cloud network certification because it really isn't anything like that is that something you guys can comment on or do you see the same things in your organization's I say from my side because we operate in the multi cloud environment so it really helps and it's beneficial for us yeah I think I would add that uh networking guys have always needed to use certifications to prove that they know what they know right it's not good enough to say yeah I know IP addresses or I know how a network works and a couple little check marks or a little letters buying helps give you validity um so even in our team we can say hey you know we're using these certifications to know that you know enough of the basics and enough of the understandings that you have the tools necessary right so I guess my final question for you guys is why an eighth certification is relevant and then second part is share what the livestream folks who aren't yet a certified or might want to jump in to be AVH or certified engineers why is it important so why is it relevant and why shouldn't someone want to be an ace-certified I'm uses the right engineer I think my views a little different I think certification comes from proving that you have the knowledge not proving that you get a certification to get no I mean they're backwards so when you've got the training and the understanding and the you use that to prove and you can like grow your certification list with it versus studying for a test to get a certification and have no understanding of ok so that who is the right person that look at this is saying I'm qualified is it a network engineer is it a DevOps person what's your view you know is it a certain you know I think cloud is really the answer it's the as we talked like the edge is getting eroded so is the network definitions eating eroded we're getting more and more of some network some DevOps some security lots and lots of security because network is so involved in so many of them that's just the next progression there I would say I expand that to more automation engineers because we have those now probably extended as well well I think that the training classes themselves are helpful especially the entry-level ones for people who may be quote-unquote cloud architects but I've never done anything and networking for them to understand why we need those things to really work whether or not they go through to eventually get a certification is something different but I really think fundamentally understanding how these things work it makes them a better architect makes them better application developer but even more so as you deploy more of your applications into the cloud really getting an understanding even from our people who have tradition down on Prem networking they can understand how that's going to work in the cloud - well I know we've got just under 30 seconds left I want to get one more question than just one more for the folks watching that are maybe younger that don't have that networking training from your experiences each of you can answer why is it should they know about networking what's the benefit what's in it for them motivate them share some insights and why they should go a little bit deeper in networking Stacey we'll start with you we'll go down I'd say it's probably fundamental right if you don't deliver solutions networking use the very top I would say if you fundamental of an operating system running on a machine how those machines talk together as a fundamental change is something that starts from the base and work your way up right well I think it's a challenge because you you've come from top down now you're gonna start looking from bottom up and you want those different systems to cross communicate and say you built something and you're overlapping IP space not that that doesn't happen but how can I actually make that still operate without having to reappear e-platform it's like those challenges like those younger developers or sis engineers can really start to get their hands around and understand those complexities and bring that forward in their career they got to know the how the pipes are working and because know what's going some plumbing that's right and the works a how to code it that's right awesome thank you guys for great insights ace certified engineers also known as aces give a round of applause thank you okay all right that concludes my portion thank you Steve thanks for have Don thank you very much that was fantastic everybody round of applause for John Currier yeah so great event great event I'm not going to take long we've got we've got lunch outside for that for the people here just a couple of things just call to action right so we saw the Aces you know for those of you out on the stream here become a certified right it's great for your career it's great for knowledge is is fantastic it's not just an aviatrix thing it's gonna teach you about cloud networking multi-cloud networking with a little bit of aviatrix exactly what the Cisco CCIE program was for IP network that type of the thing that's number one second thing is is is is learn right so so there's a there's a link up there for the four to join the community again like I started this this is a community this is the kickoff to this community and it's a movement so go to what a v8 community bh6 comm starting a community at multi cloud so you know get get trained learn I'd say the next thing is we're doing over a hundred seminars in across the United States and also starting into Europe soon will come out and will actually spend a couple hours and talk about architecture and talk about those beginning things for those of you on the you know on the livestream in here as well you know we're coming to a city near you go to one of those events it's a great way to network with other people that are in the industry as well as to start to learn and get on that multi-cloud journey and then I'd say the last thing is you know we haven't talked a lot about what aviatrix does here and that's intentional we want you you know leaving with wanting to know more and schedule get with us in schedule a multi our architecture workshop session so we we sit out with customers and we talk about where they're at in that journey and more importantly where they're going in that in-state architecture from networking compute storage everything and everything you heard today every panel kept talking about architecture talking about operations those are the types of things that we saw we help you cook define that canonical architecture that system architecture that's yours so for so many of our customers they have three by five plotted lucid charts architecture drawings and it's the customer name slash aviatrix arc network architecture and they put it on their whiteboard that's what what we and that's the most valuable thing they get from us so this becomes their twenty-year network architecture drawing that they don't do anything without talking to us and look at that architecture that's what we do in these multi hour workshop sessions with customers and that's super super powerful so if you're interested definitely call us and let's schedule that with our team so anyway I just want to thank everybody on the livestream thank everybody here hopefully it was it was very useful I think it was and joined the movement and for those of you here join us for lunch and thank you very much [Applause] [Music]

(electronic music) >> From Santa Clara, California in the heart of Silicon Valley, its theCUBE. Covering Altitude 2020, brought to you by Aviatrix. (electronic music) >> Female pilot: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, we will soon be taking off on our way to altitude. (upbeat music) Please keep your seat belts fastened and remain in your seat. We will be experiencing turbulence, until we are above the clouds. (thunder blasting) (electronic music) (seatbelt alert sounds) Ladies and gentlemen, we are now cruising at altitude. Sit back and enjoy the ride. (electronic music) >> Female pilot: Altitude is a community of thought leaders and pioneers, cloud architects and enlightened network engineers, who have individually and are now collectively, leading their own IT teams and the industry. On a path to lift cloud networking above the clouds. Empowering enterprise IT to architect, design and control their own cloud network, regardless of the turbulent clouds beneath them. It's time to gain altitude. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Mullaney, president and CEO of Aviatrix. The leader of multi-cloud networking. (electronic music) (audience clapping) >> Steve: All right. (audience clapping) Good morning everybody, here in Santa Clara as well as to the millions of people watching the livestream worldwide. Welcome to Altitude 2020, all right. So, we've got a fantastic event, today, I'm really excited about the speakers that we have today and the experts that we have and really excited to get started. So, one of the things I wanted to share was this is not a one-time event. This is not a one-time thing that we're going to do. Sorry for the Aviation analogy, but, you know, Sherry Wei, aviatrix means female pilot so everything we do has an aviation theme. This is a take-off, for a movement. This isn't an event, this is a take-off of a movement. A multi-cloud networking movement and community that we're inviting all of you to become part of. And why we're doing that, is we want to enable enterprises to rise above the clouds, so to speak and build their network architecture, regardless of which public cloud they're using. Whether it's one or more of these public clouds. So the good news, for today, there's lots of good news but this is one good news, is we don't have any PowerPoint presentations, no marketing speak. We know that marketing people have their own language. We're not using any of that, and no sales pitches, right? So instead, what are we doing? We're going to have expert panels, we've got Simon Richard, of Gartner here. We've got ten different network architects, cloud architects, real practitioners that are going to share their best practices and their real world experiences on their journey to the multi-cloud. So, before we start, everybody know what today is? In the U.S., it's Super Tuesday. I'm not going to get political, but Super Tuesday there was a bigger, Super Tuesday that happened 18 months ago. And Aviatrix employees know what I'm talking about. Eighteen months ago, on a Tuesday, every enterprise said, "I'm going to go to the cloud". And so what that was, was the Cambrian explosion, for cloud, for the enterprise. So, Frank Cabri, you know what a Cambrian explosion is. He had to look it up on Google. 500 million years ago, what happened, there was an explosion of life where it went from very simple single-cell organisms to very complex, multi-cell organisms. Guess what happened 18 months ago, on a Tuesday, I don't really know why, but every enterprise, like I said, all woke up that day and said, "Now I'm really going to go to cloud" and that Cambrian explosion of cloud meant that I'm moving from a very simple, single cloud, single-use case, simple environment, to a very complex, multi-cloud, complex use case environment. And what we're here today, is we're going to go undress that and how do you handle those, those complexities? And, when you look at what's happening, with customers right now, this is a business transformation, right? People like to talk about transitions, this is a transformation and it's actually not just a technology transformation, it's a business transformation. It started from the CEO and the Boards of enterprise customers where they said, "I have an existential threat to the survival of my company." If you look at every industry, who they're worried about is not the other 30-year-old enterprise. What they're worried about is the three year old enterprise that's leveraging cloud, that's leveraging AI, and that's where they fear that they're going to actually wiped out, right? And so, because of this existential threat, this is CEO led, this is Board led, this is not technology led, it is mandated in the organizations. We are going to digitally transform our enterprise, because of this existential threat and the movement to cloud is going to enable us to go do that. And so, IT is now put back in charge. If you think back just a few years ago, in cloud, it was led by DevOps, it was led by the applications and it was, like I said, before the Cambrian explosion, it was very simple. Now, with this Cambrian explosion, an enterprise is getting very serious and mission critical. They care about visibility, they care about control, they care about compliance, conformance, everything, governance. IT is in charge and that's why we're here today to discuss that. So, what we're going to do today, is much of things but we're going to validate this journey with customers. >> Steve: Did they see the same thing? We're going to validate the requirements for multi-cloud because, honestly, I've never met an enterprise that is not going to be multicloud. Many are one cloud today but they all say, " I need to architect my network for multiple clouds", because that's just what, the network is there to support the applications and the applications will run in whatever cloud it runs best in and you have to be prepared for that. The second thing is, is architecture. Again, with IT in charge, you, architecture matters. Whether its your career, whether its how you build your house, it doesn't matter. Horrible architecture, your life is horrible forever. Good architecture, your life is pretty good. So, we're going to talk about architecture and how the most fundamental and critical part of that architecture and that basic infrastructure is the network. If you don't get that right, nothing works, right? Way more important than compute. Way more important than storage. Network is the foundational element of your infrastructure. Then we're going to talk about day two operations. What does that mean? Well day one is one day of your life, where you wire things up they do and beyond. I tell everyone in networking and IT -- it's every day of your life. And if you don't get that right, your life is bad forever. And so things like operations, visibility, security, things like that, how do I get my operations team to be able to handle this in an automated way because it's not just about configuring it in the cloud, it's actually about how do I operationalize it? And that's a huge benefit that we bring as Aviatrix. And then the last thing we're going to talk and it's the last panel we have, I always sayyou can't forget about the humans, right? So all this technology, all these things that we're doing, it's always enabled by the humans. At the end of the day, if the humans fight it, it won't get deployed. And we have a massive skills gap, in cloud and we also have a massive skills shortage. You have everyone in the world trying to hire cloud network architects, right? There's just not enough of them going around. So, at Aviatrix, we said as leaders do, "We're going to help address that issue and try to create more people." We created a program, what we call the ACE Program, again, aviation theme, it stands for Aviatrix Certified Engineer. Very similar to what Cisco did with CCIEs where Cisco taught you about IP networking, a little bit of Cisco, we're doing the same thing, we're going to teach network architects about multicloud networking and architecture and yeah, you'll get a little bit of Aviatrix training in there, but this is the missing element for people's careers and also within their organizations. So we're going to go talk about that. So, great, great event, great show. We're going to try to keep it moving. I next want to introduce, my host, he is the best in the business, you guys have probably seen him multiple, many times, he is the co-CEO and co founder of theCUBE, John Furrier. (audience clapping) (electronic music) >> John: Okay, awesome, great speech there, awesome. >> Yeah. >> I totally agree with everything you said about the explosion happening and I'm excited, here at the heart of silicon valley to have this event. It's a special digital event with theCUBE and Aviatrix, where we're live-streaming to, millions of people, as you said, maybe not a million. >> Maybe not a million. (laughs) Really to take this program to the world and this is really special for me, because multi-cloud is the hottest wave in cloud. And cloud-native networking is fast becoming the key engine, of the innovations, so we got an hour and a half of action-packed programming. We have a customer panel. Two customer panels. Before that Gartner's going to come out, talk about the industry. We have global system integrators, that will talk about, how their advising and building these networks and cloud native networking. And then finally the ACE's, the Aviatrix Certified Engineers, are going to talk more about their certifications and the expertise needed. So, let's jump right in, let's ask, Simon Richard to come on stage, from Gartner. We'll kick it all off. (electronic music) (clapping) >> John: Hi, can I help you. Okay, so kicking things off, getting started. Gartner, the industry experts on cloud. Really kind of more, cue your background. Talk about your background before you got to Gartner? >> Simon: Before being at Gartner, I was a chief network architect, of a Fortune 500 company, that with thousands of sites over the world and I've been doing everything in IT from a C programmer, in the 90, to a security architect, to a network engineer, to finally becoming a network analyst. >> So you rode the wave. Now you're covering the marketplace with hybrid cloud and now moving quickly to multi-cloud, is really what everyone is talking about. >> Yes. >> Cloud-native's been discussed, but the networking piece is super important. How do you see that evolving? >> Well, the way we see Enterprise adapting, cloud. The first thing you do about networking, the initial phases they either go in a very ad hoc way. Is usually led by none IT, like a shadow IT, or application people, sometime a DevOps team and it just goes as, it's completely unplanned. They create VPC's left and right with different account and they create mesh to manage them and they have Direct Connect or Express Route to any of them. So that's the first approach and on the other side. again within our first approach you see what I call, the lift and shift. Where we see like enterprise IT trying to, basically replicate what they have in a data center, in the Cloud. So they spend a lot of time planning, doing Direct Connect, putting Cisco routers and F5 and Citrix and any checkpoint, Palo Alto device, that in a sense are removing that to the cloud. >> I got to ask you, the aha moment is going to come up a lot, in one our panels, is where people realize, that it's a multi-cloud world. I mean, they either inherit clouds, certainly they're using public cloud and on-premises is now more relevant than ever. When's that aha moment? That you're seeing, where people go, "Well I got to get my act together and get on this cloud." >> Well the first, right, even before multi-cloud. So there is two approach's. The first one, like the adult way doesn't scare. At some point IT has to save them, 'cause they don't think about the tools, they don't think about operation, they have a bunch of VPC and multiple cloud. The other way, if you do the lift and shift way, they cannot take any advantages of the cloud. They lose elasticity, auto-scaling, pay by the drink. All these agility features. So they both realize, okay, neither of these ways are good, so I have to optimize that. So I have to have a mix of what I call, the cloud native services, within each cloud. So they start adapting, like all the AWS Construct, Azure Construct or Google Construct and that's what I call the optimal phase. But even that they realize, after that, they are all very different, all these approaches different, the cloud are different. Identities is constantly, difficult to manage across clouds. I mean, for example, anybody who access' accounts, there's subscription, in Azure and GCP, their projects. It's a real mess, so they realized, well I don't really like constantly use the cloud product and every cloud, that doesn't work. So I have, I'm going multi-cloud, I like to abstract all of that. I still want to manage the cloud from an EPI point of view, I don't necessarily want to bring my incumbent data center products, but I have to do that and in a more EPI driven cloud environment. >> So, the not scaling piece that you where mentioning, that's because there's too many different clouds? >> Yes. >> That's the least they are, so what are they doing? What are they, building different development teams? Is it software? What's the solution? >> Well, the solution is to start architecting the cloud. That's the third phase. I called that the multi-cloud architect phase, where they have to think about abstraction that works across cloud. Fact, even across one cloud it might not scale as well, If you start having like ten thousand security agreement, anybody who has that doesn't scale. You have to manage that. If you have multiple VPC, it doesn't scale. You need a third-party, identity provider. In variously scales within one cloud, if you go multiple cloud, it gets worse and worse. >> Steve, weigh in here. What's your thoughts? >> I thought we said this wasn't going to be a sales pitch for Aviatrix. (laughter) You just said exactly what we do, so anyway, that's a joke. What do you see in terms of where people are, in that multi-cloud? So, like lot of people, you know, everyone I talk to, started at one cloud, right, but then they look and then say okay but I'm now going to move to Azure and I'm going to move to... (trails off) Do you see a similar thing? >> Well, yes. They are moving but there's not a lot of application, that uses three cloud at once, they move one app in Azure, one app in AWS and one app in Google. That's what we see so far. >> Okay, yeah, one of the mistakes that people think, is they think multi-cloud. No one is ever going to go multi-cloud, for arbitrage. They're not going to go and say, well, today I might go into Azure, 'cause I get a better rate on my instance. Do you agree? That's never going to happen. What I've seen with enterprise, is I'm going to put the workload in the app, the app decides where it runs best. That may be Azure, maybe Google and for different reasons and they're going to stick there and they're not going to move. >> Let me ask you guys-- >> But the infrastructure, has to be able to support, from a networking team. >> Yes. >> Be able to do that. Do you agree with that? >> Yes, I agree. And one thing is also very important, is connecting to the cloud, is kind of the easiest thing. So, the wide area network part of the cloud, connectivity to the cloud is kind of simple. >> Steve: I agree. >> IP's like VPN, Direct Connect, Express Route. That's the simple part, what's difficult and even the provisioning part is easy. You can use Terraform and create VPC's and Vnet's across your three cloud provider. >> Steve: Right. >> What's difficult is that they choose the operation. So we'll define day two operation. What does that actually mean? >> Its just the day to day operations, after you know, the natural, lets add an app, lets add a server, lets troubleshoot a problem. >> Something changes, now what do you do? >> So what's the big concerns? I want to just get back to the cloud native networking, because everyone kind of knows what cloud native apps are. That's been the hot trend. What is cloud native networking? How do you guys, define that? Because that seems to be the hardest part of the multi-cloud wave that's coming, is cloud native networking. >> Well there's no, you know, official Gartner definition but I can create one on the spot. >> John: Do it. (laughter) >> I just want to leverage the Cloud Construct and the cloud EPI. I don't want to have to install, like a... (trails off) For example, the first version was, let's put a virtual router that doesn't even understand the cloud environment. >> Right. If I have if I have to install a virtual machine, it has to be cloud aware. It has to understand the security group, if it's a router. It has to be programmable, to the cloud API. And understand the cloud environment. >> And one thing I hear a lot from either CSO's, CIO's or CXO's in general, is this idea of, I'm definitely not going API. So, its been an API economy. So API is key on that point, but then they say. Okay, I need to essentially have the right relationship with my suppliers, aka you called it above the clouds. So the question is... What do I do from an architectural standpoint? Do I just hire more developers and have different teams, because you mentioned that's a scale point. How do you solve this problem of, okay, I got AWS, I got GCP, or Azure, or whatever. Do I just have different teams or do I just expose EPI's? Where is that optimization? Where's the focus? >> Well, I think what you need, from a network point of view is a way, a control plane across the three clouds. And be able to use the API's of the cloud, to build networks but also to troubleshoot them and do day to day operation. So you need a view across the three clouds, that takes care of routing, connectivity. >> Steve: Performance. >> John: That's the Aviatrix plugin, right there. >> Steve: Yeah. So, how do you see, so again, your Gartner, you see the industry. You've been a network architect. How do you see this this playing out? What are the legacy incumbent client server, On Prem networking people, going to do? >> Well they need to.. >> Versus people like a Aviatrix? How do you see that playing out? >> Well obviously, all the incumbents, like Arista, Cisco, Juniper, NSX. >> Steve: Right. >> They want to basically do the lift and shift part, they want to bring, and you know, VMware want to bring in NSX on the cloud, they call that "NSX everywhere" and Cisco want to bring in ACI to the cloud, they call that "ACI Anywhere". So, everyone's.. (trails off) And then there's CloudVision from Arista, and Contrail is in the cloud. So, they just want to bring the management plane, in the cloud, but it's still based, most of them, is still based on putting a VM in them and controlling them. You extend your management console to the cloud, that's not truly cloud native. >> Right. >> Cloud native you almost have to build it from scratch. >> We like to call that cloud naive. >> Cloud naive, yeah. >> So close, one letter, right? >> Yes. >> That was a big.. (slurs) Reinvent, take the T out of Cloud Native. It's Cloud Naive. (laughter) >> That went super viral, you guys got T-shirts now. I know you're loving that. >> Steve: Yeah. >> But that really, ultimately, is kind of a double-edged sword. You can be naive on the architecture side and ruleing that. And also suppliers or can be naive. So how would you define who's naive and who's not? >> Well, in fact, their evolving as well, so for example, in Cisco, it's a little bit more native than other ones, because there really is, "ACI in the cloud", you can't really figure API's out of the cloud. NSX is going that way and so is Arista, but they're incumbent, they have their own tools, its difficult for them. They're moving slowly, so it's much easier to start from scratch. Even you, like, you know, a network company that started a few years ago. There's only really two, Aviatrix was the first one, they've been there for at least three or four years. >> Steve: Yeah. >> And there's other one's, like Akira, for example that just started. Now they're doing more connectivity, but they want to create an overlay network, across the cloud and start doing policies and things. Abstracting all the clouds within one platform. >> So, I got to ask you. I interviewed an executive at VMware, Sanjay Poonen, he said to me at RSA last week. Oh, there'll only be two networking vendors left, Cisco and VMware. (laughter) >> What's you're response to that? Obviously when you have these waves, these new brands that emerge, like Aviatrix and others. I think there'll be a lot of startups coming out of the woodwork. How do you respond to that comment? >> Well there's still a data center, there's still, like a lot, of action on campus and there's the wan. But from the cloud provisioning and cloud networking in general, I mean, they're behind I think. You know, you don't even need them to start with, you can, if you're small enough, you can just keep.. If you have AWS, you can use the AWS construct, they have to insert themselves, I mean, they're running behind. From my point of view. >> They are, certainly incumbents. I love the term Andy Jess uses at Amazon web services. He uses "Old guard, new guard", to talk about the industry. What does the new guard have to do? The new brands that are emerging. Is it be more DevOp's oriented? Is it NetSec ops? Is it NetOps? Is it programmability? These are some of the key discussions we've been having. What's your view, on how you see this programmability? >> The most important part is, they have to make the network simple for the Dev teams. You cannot make a phone call and get a Vline in two weeks anymore. So if you move to the cloud, you have to make that cloud construct as simple enough, so that for example, a Dev team could say, "Okay, I'm going to create this VPC, but this VPC automatically associates your account, you cannot go out on the internet. You have to go to the transit VPC, so there's lot of action in terms of, the IAM part and you have to put the control around them to. So to make it as simple as possible. >> You guys, both. You're the CEO of Aviatrix, but also you've got a lot of experience, going back to networking, going back to the, I call it the OSI days. For us old folks know what that means, but, you guys know what this means. I want to ask you the question. As you look at the future of networking, you hear a couple objections. "Oh, the cloud guys, they got networking, we're all set with them. How do you respond to the fact that networking's changing and the cloud guys have their own networking. What's some of the paying points that's going on premises of these enterprises? So are they good with the clouds? What needs... What are the key things that's going on in networking, that makes it more than just the cloud networking? What's your take on it? >> Well as I said earlier. Once you could easily provision in the cloud, you can easily connect to the cloud, its when you start troubleshooting applications in the cloud and try to scale. So that's where the problem occurred. >> Okay, what's your take on it. >> And you'll hear from the customers, that we have on stage and I think what happens is all the clouds by definition, designed to the 80-20 rule which means they'll design 80% of the basic functionality. And then lead to 20% extra functionality, that of course every Enterprise needs, to leave that to ISV's, like Aviatrix. Because why? Because they have to make money, they have a service and they can't have huge instances, for functionality that not everybody needs. So they have to design to the common and that, they all do it, right? They have to and then the extra, the problem is, that Cambrian explosion, that I talked about with enterprises. That's what they need. They're the ones who need that extra 20%. So that's what I see, there's always going to be that extra functionality. In an automated and simple way, that you talked about, but yet powerful. With the up with the visibility and control, that they expect of On Prem. That kind of combination, that Yin and the Yang, that people like us are providing. >> Simon I want to ask you? We're going to ask some of the cloud architect, customer panels, that same question. There's pioneer's doing some work here and there's also the laggards who come in behind their early adopters. What's going to be the tipping point? What are some of these conversations, that the cloud architects are having out there? Or what's the signs, that they need to be on this, multi-cloud or cloud native networking trend? What are some of the signal's that are going on in the environment? What are some of the thresholds? Are things that are going on, that they can pay attention to? >> Well, once they have the application on multiple cloud and they have to get wake up at two in the morning, to troubleshoot them. They'll know it's important. (laughter) So, I think that's when the rubber will hit the road. But, as I said, it's easier to prove, at any case. Okay, it's AWS, it's easy, user transit gateway, put a few VPC's and you're done. And you create some presents like Equinox and do a Direct Connect and Express Route with Azure. That looks simple, its the operations, that's when they'll realize. Okay, now I need to understand! How cloud networking works? I also need a tool, that gives me visibility and control. But not only that, I need to understand the basic underneath it as well. >> What are some of the day in the life scenarios. you envision happening with multi-cloud, because you think about what's happening. It kind of has that same vibe of interoperability, choice, multi-vendor, 'cause they're multi-cloud. Essentially multi-vendor. These are kind of old paradigms, that we've lived through with client server and internet working. What are some of the scenarios of success, that might be possible? Will be possible, with multi-cloud and cloud native networking. >> Well, I think, once you have good enough visibility, to satisfy your customers, not only, like to, keep the service running and application running. But to be able to provision fast enough, I think that's what you want to achieve. >> Simon, final question. Advice for folks watching on the Livestream, if they're sitting there as a cloud architect or CXO. What's your advice to them right now, in this market, 'cause obviously, public cloud check, hybrid cloud, they're working on that. That gets on premises done, now multi-cloud's right behind it. What's your advice? >> The first thing they should do, is really try to understand cloud networking. For each of their cloud providers and then understand the limitations. And, is what the cloud service provider offers enough? Or you need to look to a third party, but you don't look at a third party to start with. Especially an incumbent one, so it's tempting to say "I have a bunch of F5 experts", nothing against F5. I'm going to bring my F5 in the Cloud, when you can use an ELB, that automatically understand eases and auto scaling and so on. And you understand that's much simpler, but sometimes you need your F5, because you have requirements. You have like iRules and that kind of stuff, that you've used for years. 'cause you cannot do it. Okay, I have requirement and that's not met, I'm going to use Legacy Star and then you have to start thinking, okay, what about visibility control, above the true cloud. But before you do that you have to understand the limitations of the existing cloud providers. First, try to be as native as possible, until things don't work, after that you can start thinking of the cloud. >> Great insight, Simon. Thank you. >> That's great. >> With Gartner, thank you for sharing. (electronic music) >> Welcome back to ALTITUDE 2020. For the folks in the live stream, I'm John Furrier, Steve Mullaney, CEO of Aviatrix. For our first of two customer panels with cloud network architects, we've got Bobby Willoughby, AEGON Luis Castillo from National Instruments and David Shinnick with FactSet. Guys, welcome to the stage for this digital event. Come on up. (audience clapping) (upbeat music) Hey good to see you, thank you. Customer panel, this is my favorite part. We get to hear the real scoop, we get the Gardener giving us the industry overview. Certainly, multi-cloud is very relevant, and cloud-native networking is a hot trend with the live stream out there in the digital events. So guys, let's get into it. The journey is, you guys are pioneering this journey of multi-cloud and cloud-native networking and are soon going to be a lot more coming. So I want to get into the journey. What's it been like? Is it real? You've got a lot of scar tissue? What are some of the learnings? >> Absolutely. Multi-cloud is whether or not we accept it, as network engineers is a reality. Like Steve said, about two years ago, companies really decided to just bite the bullet and move there. Whether or not we accept that fact, we need to not create a consistent architecture across multiple clouds. And that is challenging without orchestration layers as you start managing different tool sets and different languages across different clouds. So it's really important to start thinking about that. >> Guys on the other panelists here, there's different phases of this journey. Some come at it from a networking perspective, some come in from a problem troubleshooting, what's your experiences? >> From a networking perspective, it's been incredibly exciting, it's kind of once in a generational opportunity to look at how you're building out your network. You can start to embrace things like infrastructure as code that maybe your peers on the systems teams have been doing for years, but it just never really worked on-prem. So it's really exciting to look at all the opportunities that we have and all of the interesting challenges that come up that you get to tackle. >> And effects that you guys are mostly AWS, right? >> Yeah. Right now though, we are looking at multiple clouds. We have production workloads running in multiple clouds today but a lot of the initial work has been with Amazon. >> And you've seen it from a networking perspective, that's where you guys are coming at it from? >> Yup. >> Awesome. How about you? >> We evolve more from a customer requirement perspective. Started out primarily as AWS, but as the customer needed more resources from Azure like HPC, Azure AD, things like that, even recently, Google analytics, our journey has evolved into more of a multi-cloud environment. >> Steve, weigh in on the architecture because this is going to be a big conversation, and I wanted you to lead this section. >> I think you guys agree the journey, it seems like the journey started a couple of years ago. Got real serious, the need for multi-cloud, whether you're there today. Of course, it's going to be there in the future. So that's really important. I think the next thing is just architecture. I'd love to hear what you, had some comments about architecture matters, it all starts, every enterprise I talked to. Maybe talk about architecture and the importance of architects, maybe Bobby. >> From architecture perspective, we started our journey five years ago. >> Wow, okay. >> And we're just now starting our fourth evolution over network architect. And we call it networking security net sec, versus just as network. And that fourth-generation architecture should be based primarily upon the Palo Alto Networks and Aviatrix. Aviatrix to new orchestration piece of it. But that journey came because of the need for simplicity, the need for a multi-cloud orchestration without us having to go and do reprogramming efforts across every cloud as it comes along. >> I guess the other question I also had around architecture is also... Luis maybe just talk about it. I know we've talked a little bit about scripting, and some of your thoughts on that. >> Absolutely. So for us, we started creating the network constructs with cloud formation, and we've stuck with that for the most part. What's interesting about that is today, on-premise, we have a lot of automation around how we provision networks, but cloud formation has become a little bit like the new manual for us. We're now having issues with having to automate that component and making it consistent with our on-premise architecture and making it consistent with Azure architecture and Google cloud. So, it's really interesting to see companies now bring that layer of abstraction that SD-WAN brought to the wound side, now it's going up into the cloud networking architecture. >> Great. So on the fourth generation, you mentioned you're on the fourth-gen architecture. What have you learned? Is there any lessons, scratch issue, what to avoid, what worked? What was the path that you touched? >> It's probably the biggest lesson there is that when you think you finally figured it out, you haven't. Amazon will change something, Azure change something. Transit Gateway is a game-changer. And listening to the business requirements is probably the biggest thing we need to do upfront. But I think from a simplicity perspective, like I said, we don't want to do things four times. We want to do things one time, we want be able to write to an API which Aviatrix has and have them do the orchestration for us. So that we don't have to do it four times. >> How important is architecture in the progression? Is it do you guys get thrown in the deep end, to solve these problems, are you guys zooming out and looking at it? How are you guys looking at the architecture? >> You can't get off the ground if you don't have the network there. So all of those, we've gone through similar evolutions, we're on our fourth or fifth evolution. I think about what we started off with Amazon without Direct Connect Gateway, without Transit Gateway, without a lot of the things that are available today, kind of the 80, 20 that Steve was talking about. Just because it wasn't there doesn't mean we didn't need it. So we needed to figure out a way to do it, we couldn't say, "Oh, you need to come back to the network team in a year, and maybe Amazon will have a solution for it." We need to do it now and evolve later and maybe optimize or change the way you're doing things in the future. But don't sit around and wait, you can't. >> I'd love to have you guys each individually answer this question for the live streams that comes up a lot. A lot of cloud architects out in the community, what should they be thinking about the folks that are coming into this proactively and, or realizing the business benefits are there? What advice would you guys give them on architecture? What should be they'd be thinking about, and what are some guiding principles you could share? >> So I would start with looking at an architecture model that can spread and give consistency to the different cloud vendors that you will absolutely have to support. Cloud vendors tend to want to pull you into using their native tool set, and that's good if only it was realistic to talk about only one cloud. But because it doesn't, it's super important to talk about, and have a conversation with the business and with your technology teams about a consistent model. >> And how do I do my day one work so that I'm not spending 80% of my time troubleshooting or managing my network? Because if I'm doing that, then I'm missing out on ways that I can make improvements or embrace new technologies. So it's really important early on to figure out, how do I make this as low maintenance as possible so that I can focus on the things that the team really should be focusing on? >> Bobby, your advice there, architecture. >> I don't know what else I can add to that. Simplicity of operations is key. >> So the holistic view of day two operations you mentioned, let's can jump in day one as you're getting stuff set up, day two is your life after. This is kind of of what you're getting at, David. So what does that look like? What are you envisioning as you look at that 20-mile stair, out post multi-cloud world? What are some of the things that you want in the day two operations? >> Infrastructure as code is really important to us. So how do we design it so that we can start fit start making network changes and fitting them into a release pipeline and start looking at it like that, rather than somebody logging into a router CLI and troubleshooting things in an ad hoc nature? So, moving more towards a dev-ops model. >> You guys, anything to add on that day two? >> Yeah, I would love to add something. In terms of day two operations you can either sort of ignore the day two operations for a little while, where you get your feet wet, or you can start approaching it from the beginning. The fact is that the cloud-native tools don't have a lot of maturity in that space and when you run into an issue, you're going to end up having a bad day, going through millions and millions of logs just to try to understand what's going on. That's something that the industry just now is beginning to realize it's such a big gap. >> I think that's key because for us, we're moving to more of an event-driven or operations. In the past, monitoring got the job done. It's impossible to monitor something that is not there when the event happens. So the event-driven application and then detection is important. >> Gardner is all about the cloud-native wave coming into networking. That's going to be a serious thing. I want to get your guys' perspective, I know you have each different views of how you come into the journey and how you're executing. And I always say the beauty's in the eye of the beholder and that applies to how the network's laid out. So, Bobby, you guys do a lot of high-performance encryption, both on AWS and Azure. That's a unique thing for you. How are you seeing that impact with multi-cloud? >> That's a new requirement for us too, where we have an increment to encrypt. And then if you ever get the question, should I encrypt, should I not encrypt? The answer is always yes. You should encrypt when you can encrypt. For our perspective, we need to migrate a bunch of data from our data centers. We have some huge data centers, and getting that data to the cloud is a timely expense in some cases. So we have been mandated, we have to encrypt everything, leave in the data center. So we're looking at using the Aviatrix insane mode appliances to be able to encrypt 10, 20 gigabits of data as it moves to the cloud itself. >> David, you're using Terraform, you've got FireNet, you've got a lot of complexity in your network. What do you guys look at the future for your environment? >> So many exciting that we're working on now as FireNet. So for our security team that obviously have a lot of knowledge base around Palo Alto, and with our commitments to our clients, it's not very easy to shift your security model to a specific cloud vendor. So there's a lot of SOC 2 compliance and things like that were being able to take some of what you've worked on for years on-prem and put it in the cloud and have the same type of assurance that things are going to work and be secure in the same way that they are on-prem, helps make that journey into the cloud a lot easier. >> And Louis, you guys got scripting, you got a lot of things going on. What's your unique angle on this? >> Absolutely. So for disclosure, I'm not an Aviatrix customer yet. (laughs) >> It's okay, we want to hear the truth, so that's good. Tell us, what are you thinking about? What's on your mind? >> When you talk about implementing a tool like this, it's really just really important to talk about automation focus on value. When you talk about things like encryption and things like so you're encrypting tunnels and encrypting the path, and those things should be second nature really. When you look at building those back-ends and managing them with your team, it becomes really painful. So tools like Aviatrix that add a lot automation it's out of sight, out of mind. You can focus on the value, and you don't have to focus on this. >> So I got to ask you guys. I see Aviatrix was here, they're supplier to this sector, but you guys are customers. Everyone's pitching your stuff, people knock on you, "Buy my stuff." How do you guys have that conversation with the suppliers, like the cloud vendors and other folks? What's it like? We're API all the way? You've got to support this? What are some of your requirements? How do you talk to and evaluate people that walk in and want to knock on your door and pitch you something? What's the conversation like? >> It's definitely API driven. We definitely look at the API structure that the vendors provide before we select anything. That is always first of mine and also, what problem are we really trying to solve? Usually, people try to sell or try to give us something that isn't really valuable, like implementing a Cisco solution on the cloud doesn't really add a lot of value, that's where we go. >> David, what's your conversation like with suppliers? Do you have a certain new way to do things? As it becomes more agile, essentially networking, and getting more dynamic, what are some of the conversations with either in commits or new vendors that you're having? What do you require? >> Ease of use is definitely high up there. We've had some vendors come in and say, "Hey, when you go to set this up, "we're going to want to send somebody on-site." And they're going to sit with you for a day to configure it. And that's a red flag. Well, wait a minute, do we really, if one of my really talented engineers can't figure it out on his own, what's going on there and why is that? Having some ease of use and the team being comfortable with it and understanding it is really important. >> Bobby, how about you? Old days was, do a bake-off and the winner takes all. Is it like that anymore? What's evolving? Bake-off last year for but still win. But that's different now because now when you get the product, you can install the product in AWS and Azure, have it up running in a matter of minutes. So the key is that can you be operational within hours or days instead of weeks? But do we also have the flexibility to customize it, to meet your needs? Because you don't want to be put into a box with the other customers when you have needs that are past their needs. >> I can almost see the challenge that you guys are living, where you've got the cloud immediate value, depending how you can roll up any solutions, but then you might have other needs. So you've got to be careful not to buy into stuff that's not shipping. So you're trying to be proactive and at the same time, deal with what you got. How do you guys see that evolving? Because multi-cloud to me is definitely relevant, but it's not yet clear how to implement across. How do you guys look at this baked versus future solutions coming? How do you balance that? >> Again, so right now, we're taking the ad hoc approach and experimenting what the different concepts of cloud are and really leveraging the native constructs of each cloud. But there's a breaking point for sure. You don't get to scale this like someone said, and you have to focus on being able to deliver, developers their sandbox or their play area for the things that they're trying to build quickly. And the only way to do that is with some consistent orchestration layer that allows you to-- >> So you expect a lot more stuff to becoming pretty quickly in that area. >> I do expect things to start maturing quite quickly this year. >> And you guys see similar trend, new stuff coming fast? >> Yeah. Probably the biggest challenge we've got now is being able to segment within the network, being able to provide segmentation between production, non-production workloads, even businesses, because we support many businesses worldwide and isolation between those is a key criteria there. So the ability to identify and quickly isolate those workloads is key. So the CIOs that are watching are saying, "Hey, take that hill, do multi-cloud." And then you have the bottoms up organization, "Pause, you're like off a little bit, it's not how it works." What is the reality in terms of implementing as fast as possible? Because the business benefits are clear, but it's not always clear on the technology how to move that fast. What are some of the barriers, what are the blockers, what are the enablers? >> I think the reality is that you may not think you're multi-cloud, but your business is. So I think the biggest barrier there is understanding what the requirements are and how best to meet those requirements in a secure manner. Because you need to make sure that things are working from a latency perspective that things work the way they did and get out of the mind shift that it was a tier-three application and the data center, it doesn't have to be a tier-three application in the cloud. So, lift and shift is not the way to go. >> Scale is a big part of what I see is the competitive advantage by these clouds and used to be proprietary network stacks in the old days, and then open systems came, that was a good thing. But as cloud has become bigger, there's an inherent lock-in there with the scale. How do you guys keep the choice open? How are you guys thinking about interoperability? What are some of the conversations that you guys are having around those key concepts? >> When we look at from a networking perspective, it's really key for you to just enable all the class to be able to communicate between them. Developers will find a way to use the cloud that best suits their business needs. And like you said, it's whether you're in denial or not, of the multi-cloud fact that your company is in already that's it becomes really important for you to move quickly. >> Yeah. And a lot of it also hinges on how well is the provider embracing what that specific cloud is doing? So, are they swimming with Amazon or Azure and just helping facilitate things, and they're doing the heavy lifting API work for you? Or are they swimming upstream and they're trying to hack it all together in messy way? And so that helps you stay out of the lock-in because there, if they're using Amazon native tools to help you get where you need to be, it's not like Amazon is going to release something in the future that completely makes you have designed yourself into a corner. So the closer, more than cloud-native they are, the more, the easier it is to deploy. >> Which also need to be aligned in such a way that you can take advantage of those cloud-native technologies. Will it make sense? TGW is a gamechanger in terms of cost and performance. So to completely ignore that, would be wrong. But if you needed to have encryption, TGW is not encrypted, so you need to have some type of Gateway to do the VPN encryption. So, the Aviatrix tool will give you the beauty of both worlds. You can use TGW or the Gateway. Real quick on the last minute we have, I want to just get a quick feedback from you guys. I hear a lot of people say to me, "Hey, pick the best cloud for the workload you got, then figure out multicloud behind the scenes." Do you guys agree with that? Do I go more to one cloud across the whole company or this workload works great on AWS, that workload works great on this. From a cloud standpoint, do you agree with that premise, and then when is multi-cloud stitching altogether? >> From an application perspective, it can be per workload, but it can also be an economical decision, certain enterprise contracts will pull you in one direction to add value, but the network problem is still the same. >> It doesn't go away. >> You don't want to be trying to fit a square into a round hall. If it works better on that cloud provider, then it's our job to make sure that service is there and people can use it. >> I agree, you just need to stay ahead of the game, make sure that the network infrastructure is there, security is available and is multi-cloud capable. >> At the end of the day, you guys are just validating that it's the networking game now. Cloud storage, compute check, networking is where the action is. Awesome. Thanks for your insights guys, appreciate you coming on the panel. Appreciate it, thanks. (upbeat music) >> John: Our next customer panel, got great another set of cloud network architects, Justin Smith with Zuora, Justin Brodley with EllieMae and Amit Utreja with Coupa. Welcome to stage. (audience applauds) (upbeat music) >> All right, thank you. >> How are ya? >> Thank you. Thank You. >> Hey Amit. How are ya? >> Did he say it right? >> Yeah. >> Okay he's got all the cliff notes from the last session, welcome back. Rinse and repeat. We're going to go into the hood a little bit. And I think they nailed what we've been reporting, we've been having this conversation around, networking is where the action is because that's at the end of the day you got to move packet from A to B and you got workloads exchanging data. So it's really killer. So let's get started. Amit, what are you seeing as the journey of multicloud as you go under the hood and say, "Okay, I got to implement this. "I have to engineer the network, "make it enabling, make it programmable, "make it interoperable across clouds." That almost sounds impossible to me. What's your take? >> Yeah, it seems impossible but if you are running an organization which is running infrastructure as a code it is easily doable. Like you can use tools out there that's available today, you can use third party products that can do a better job. But put your architecture first, don't wait. Architecture may not be perfect, put the best architecture that's available today and be agile, to iterate and make improvements over the time. >> We get to Justin's over here, so I have to be careful when I point a question to Justin, they both have the answer. Okay, journeys, what's the journey been like? Is there phases, We heard that from Gardner, people come into multicloud and cloud native networking from different perspectives? What's your take on the journey, Justin? >> Yeah, from our perspective, we started out very much focused on one cloud and as we've started doing acquisitions, we started doing new products to the market, the need for multicloud becomes very apparent, very quickly for us. And so having an architecture that we can plug and play into and be able to add and change things as it changes is super important for what we're doing in the space. >> Justin, your journey. >> Yes. For us, we were very ad hoc oriented and the idea is that we were reinventing all the time, trying to move into these new things and coming up with great new ideas. And so rather than it being some iterative approach with our deployments that became a number of different deployments. And so we shifted that toward and the network has been a real enabler of this. There's one network and it touches whatever cloud we want it to touch, and it touches the data centers that we need it to touch, and it touches the customers that we needed to touch. Our job is to make sure that the services that are available in one of those locations are available in all of the locations. So the idea is not that we need to come up with this new solution every time, it's that we're just iterating on what we've already decided to do. >> Before we get the architecture section, I want to ask you guys a question? I'm a big fan of let the app developers have infrastructure as code, so check. But having the right cloud run that workload, I'm a big fan of that, if it works great. But we just heard from the other panel, you can't change the network. So I want to get your thoughts, what is cloud native networking? And is that the engine really, that's the enabler for this multicloud trend? What's you guys take? We'll start with Amit, what do you think about that? >> Yeah, so you're going to have workloads running in different clouds and the workloads would have affinity to one cloud or other. But how you expose that it's a matter of how you are going to build your networks. How you're going to run security. How you're going to do egress, ingress out of it so -- >> You said networking is the big problem to solve. >> Yes. >> What's the solution? What's the key pain points and problem statement? >> The key pain point for most companies is how do you take your traditionally on premise network and then blow it out to the cloud in a way that makes sense. You have IP conflicts, you have IP space, you have public IPs on premise as well as in the cloud. And how do you kind of make sense of all of that? And I think that's where tools like Aviatrix make a lot of sense in that space. >> From our side, it's really simple. It's a latency, it's bandwidth and availability. These don't change whether we're talking about cloud or data center, or even corporate IT networking. So our job when these all of these things are simplified into like, S3, for instance and our developers want to use those. We have to be able to deliver that and for a particular group or another group that wants to use just just GCP resources. We have to support these requirements and these wants, as opposed to saying, "Hey, that's not a good idea." No, our job is to enable them not to disable them. >> Do you guys think infrastructure is code? Which I love that, I think that's the future in this. We even saw that with DevOps. But as you start getting the networking, is it getting down to the network portion where its network as code? Because storage and compute working really well, we're seeing all Kubernetes on service mesh trend. Network has code, reality is it there? Is it still got work to do? >> It's absolutely there, you mentioned net DevOps and it's very real. In Coupa we build our networks through terraform and not only just terraform, build an API so that we can consistently build VNets and VPC all across in the same way. >> So you guys are doing it? >> Yup. And even security groups. And then on top and Aviatrix comes in, we can peer the networks bridge all the different regions through code. >> Same with you guys. >> Yeah. >> What do you think about this? >> Everything we deploy is done with automation and then we also run things like Lambda on top to make changes in real time, we don't make manual changes on our network. In the data center, funny enough, it's still manual but the cloud has enabled us to move into this automation mindset. And all my guys, that's what they focus on is bringing, now what they're doing in the cloud into the data center, which is kind of opposite of what it should be or what it used to be. >> It's full DevOps then? >> Yes. >> For us, it was similar on-prem is still somewhat very manual, although we're moving more and more to ninja and terraform type concepts. But everything in the production environment is code, confirmation terraform code and now coming into the data center same (mumbles). >> So I just wanted to jump in Justin Smith, one of the comment that you made, because it's something that we always talk about a lot is that the center of gravity of architecture used to be an on-prem and now it's shifted in the cloud. And once you have your strategic architecture, what do you do? You push that everywhere. So what you used to see at the beginning of cloud was pushing the architecture on-prem into cloud. Now, I want to pick up on what you said, do you others agree that the center of gravity is here, I'm now pushing what I do in the cloud back into on-prem? And then so first that and then also in the journey, where are you at from zero to 100 of actually in the journey to cloud? Are you 50% there, are you 10%? Are you evacuating data centers next year? Where are you guys at? >> Yeah, so there's there's two types of gravity that you typically are dealing with, with the migration. First is data, gravity and your data set, and where that data lives. And then the second is the network platform that wraps all that together. In our case, the data gravity solely mostly on-prem but our network is now extending out to the app tier, it's going to be in cloud. Eventually, that data, gravity will also move to cloud as we start getting more sophisticated but in our journey, we're about halfway there. About halfway through the process, we're taking a handle of lift and shift and -- >> Steve: And when did that start? >> We started about three years ago. >> Okay, okay. >> Well for Coupa it's a very different story. It started from a garage and 100% on the cloud. So it's a business plan management platform, software as a service run 100% on the cloud. >> That was was like 10 years ago, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> You guys are riding the wave of the architecture. Justin I want to ask you, Zuora, you guys mentioned DevOps. Obviously, we saw the huge observability wave, which essentially network management for the cloud, in my opinion. It's more dynamic, but this is about visibility. We heard from the last panel you don't know what's being turned on or turned off from a services standpoint, at any given time. How is all this playing out when you start getting into the DevOps down (mumbles)? >> This is the big challenge for all of us is visibility. When you talk transport within a cloud, very interestingly we we have moved from having a backbone that we bought, that we own, that would be data center connectivity. Zuora's a subscription billing company, so we want to support the subscription mindset. So rather than going and buying circuits and having to wait three months to install and then coming up with some way to get things connected and resiliency and redundancy. My backbone is in the cloud. I use the cloud providers interconnections between regions to transport data across and so if you do that with their native solutions, you do lose visibility. There are areas in that that you don't get, which is why controllers and having some type of management plane is a requirement for us to do what we're supposed to do and provide consistency while doing it. >> Great conversation. I loved what you said earlier latency, bandwidth, I think availability were your top three things. Guys SLA, just do ping times between clouds it's like, you don't know what you're getting for round trip time. This becomes a huge kind of risk management, black hole, whatever you want to call it, blind spot. How are you guys looking at the interconnect between clouds? Because I can see that working from ground to cloud on per cloud but when you start dealing with multiclouds workloads, SLAs will be all over the map, won't they just inherently. How do you guys view that? >> Yeah, I think we talked about workload and we know that the workloads are going to be different in different clouds, but they're going to be calling each other. So it's very important to have that visibility, that you can see how data is flowing at what latency and what availability is there and our authority needs to operate on that. >> So use the software dashboard, look at the times and look at the latency -- >> In the old days, Strongswan Openswan you try to figure it out, in the new days you have to figure out. >> Justin, what's your answer to that because you're in the middle of it? >> Yeah, I think the key thing there is that we have to plan for that failure, we have to plan for that latency in our applications. If certain things are tracking in your SLI, certain things are planning for and you loosely coupled these services in a much more microservices approach. So you actually can handle that kind of failure or that type of unknown latency and unfortunately, the cloud has made us much better at handling exceptions in a much better way. >> You guys are all great examples of cloud native from day one. When did you have the tipping point moment or the epiphany of saying a multiclouds real, I can't ignore it, I got to factor that into all my design principles and everything you're doing? Was there a moment or was it from day one? >> There are two reasons, one was the business. So in business, there were some affinity to not be in one cloud or to be in one cloud and that drove from the business side. So as a cloud architect our responsibility was to support that business. Another is the technology, some things are really running better in, like if you're running Dotnet workload or your going to run machine learning or AI so that you would have that preference of one cloud over other. >> Guys, any thoughts on that? >> That was the bill that we got from AWS. That's what drives a lot of these conversations is the financial viability of what you're building on top of. This failure domain idea which is fairly interesting. How do I solve our guarantee against a failure domain? You have methodologies with back end direct connects or interconnect with GCP. All of these ideas are something that you have to take into account but that transport layer should not matter to whoever we're building this for. Our job is to deliver the frames and the packets, what that flows across, how you get there? We want to make that seamless. And so whether it's a public internet API call or it's a back end connectivity through direct connect, it doesn't matter. It just has to meet a contract that you've signed with your application, folks. >> Yeah, that's the availability piece. >> Justin, your thoughts on that, any comment on that? >> So actually multiclouds become something much more recent in the last six to eight months, I'd say. We always kind of had a very much an attitude of like moving to Amazon from our private cloud is hard enough, why complicate it further? But the realities of the business and as we start seeing, improvements in Google and Azure and different technology spaces, the need for multicloud becomes much more important. As well as our acquisition strategies are matured, we're seeing that companies that used to be on premise that we typically acquire are now very much already on a cloud. And if they're on a cloud, I need to plug them into our ecosystem. And so that's really changed our multicloud story in a big way. >> I'd love to get your thoughts on the clouds versus the clouds, because you compare them Amazon's got more features, they're rich with features. Obviously, the bills are high to people using them. But Google's got a great network, Google's networks pretty damn good And then you got Azure. What's the difference between the clouds? Where do they fall? Where do they peak in certain areas better than others? What are the characteristics, which makes one cloud better? Do they have a unique feature that makes Azure better than Google and vice versa? What do you guys think about the different clouds? >> Yeah, to my experience, I think the approach is different in many places. Google has a different approach very DevOps friendly and you can run your workloads with your network can span regions. But our application ready to accept that. Amazon is evolving. I remember 10 years back Amazon's network was a flat network, we would be launching servers in 10.0.0/8, right. And then the VPCs came out. >> We'll have to translate that to English for the live feed. Not good. So the VPCs concept came out, multi account came out, so they are evolving. Azure had a late start but because they have a late start, they saw the pattern and they have some mature setup on the network. >> They've got around the same price too. >> I think they're all trying to say they're equal in their own ways. I think they all have very specific design philosophies that allow them to be successful in different ways and you have to kind of keep that in mind as you architect your own solution. For example, Amazon has a very regional affinity, they don't like to go cross region in their architecture. Whereas Google is very much it's a global network, we're going to think about as a global solution. I think Google also has advantage that it's third to market and so has seen what Azure did wrong, it seeing what AWS did wrong and it's made those improvements and I think that's one of their big advantage. >> They got great scale too. Justin thoughts on the cloud. >> So yeah, Amazon built from the system up and Google built from the network down. So their ideas and approaches are from a global versus original, I agree with you completely that is the big number one thing. But the if you look at it from the outset, interestingly, the inability or the ability for Amazon to limit layer to broadcasting and what that really means from a VPC perspective, changed all the routing protocols you can use. All the things that we had built inside of a data center to provide resiliency and make things seamless to users, all of that disappeared. And so because we had to accept that at the VPC level, now we have to accept that at the WAN level. Google's done a better job of being able to overcome those things and provide those traditional network facilities to us. >> Just a great panel, we could go all day here, it's awesome. So I heard, we will get to the cloud native naive questions. So kind of think about what's naive and what's cloud, I'll ask that next but I got to ask you I had a conversation with a friend he's like, "WAN is the new LAN?" So if you think about what the LAN was at a data center, WAN is the new LAN, cause you keep talking about the cloud impact? So that means ST-WAN, the old ST-WAN kind of changing. There's a new LAN. How do you guys look at that? Because if you think about it, what LANs were for inside a premises was all about networking, high speed. But now when you take the WAN and make it, essentially a LAN, do you agree with that? And how do you view this trend? Is it good or bad or is it ugly? What you guys take on this? >> Yeah, I think it's a thing that you have to work with your application architects. So if you are managing networks and if you're a server engineer, you need to work with them to expose the unreliability that it would bring in. So the application has to handle a lot of the difference in the latencies and the reliability has to be worked through the application there. >> LAN, WAN, same concept is that BS? Can you give some insight? >> I think we've been talking about for a long time the erosion of the edge. And so is this just a continuation of that journey we've been on for last several years. As we get more and more cloud native and we talked about API's, the ability to lock my data in place and not be able to access it really goes away. And so I think this is just continuation. I think it has challenges. We start talking about WAN scale versus LAN scale, the tooling doesn't work the same, the scale of that tooling is much larger. and the need to automation is much, much higher in a WAN than it wasn't a LAN. That's why you're seeing so much infrastructure as code. >> Yeah. So for me, I'll go back again to this, it's bandwidth and its latency that define those two LAN versus WAN. But the other thing that's comes up more and more with cloud deployments is whereas our security boundary and where can I extend this secure aware appliance or set of rules to protect what's inside of it. So for us, we're able to deliver VRFs or route forwarding tables for different segments wherever we're at in the world. And so they're trusted to talk to each other but if they're going to go to someplace that's outside of their network, then they have to cross the security boundary, where we enforce policy very heavily. So for me, there's it's not just LAN, WAN it's how does environment get to environment more importantly. >> That's a great point in security, we haven't talked it yet but that's got to be baked in from the beginning, this architecture. Thoughts on security, how you guys are dealing with it? >> Yeah, start from the base, have app to app security built in. Have TLS, have encryption on the data at transit, data at rest. But as you bring the application to the cloud and they're going to go multicloud, talking to over the internet, in some places, well have app to app security. >> Our principles day, security is day zero every day. And so we always build it into our design, build into our architecture, into our applications. It's encrypt everything, it's TLS everywhere. It's make sure that that data is secure at all times. >> Yeah, one of the cool trends at RSA, just as a side note was the data in use encryption piece, which is homomorphic stuff was interesting. Alright guys, final question. We heard on the earlier panel was also trending at re:Invent, we think the T out of cloud native, it spells cloud naive. They have shirts now, Aviatrix kind of got this trend going. What does that mean to be naive? To your peers out there watching the live stream and also the suppliers that are trying to supply you guys with technology and services, what's naive look like and what's native look like? When is someone naive about implementing all this stuff? >> So for me, because we are in 100% cloud, for us its main thing is ready for the change. And you will find new building blocks coming in and the network design will evolve and change. So don't be naive and think that it's static, evolve with the change. >> I think the biggest naivety that people have is that well, I've been doing it this way for 20 years, I've been successful, it's going to be successful in cloud. The reality is that's not the case. You got to think some of the stuff a little bit differently and you need to think about it early enough, so that you can become cloud native and really enable your business on cloud. >> Yeah for me it's being open minded. Our industry, the network industry as a whole, has been very much I'm smarter than everybody else and we're going to tell everybody how it's going to be done. And we fell into a lull when it came to producing infrastructure and so embracing this idea that we can deploy a new solution or a new environment in minutes as opposed to hours, or weeks or months in some cases, is really important in and so >> - >> It's naive being closed minded, native being open minded. >> Exactly. For me that was a transformative kind of where I was looking to solve problems in a cloud way as opposed to looking to solve problems in this traditional old school way. >> All right, I know we're at a time but I got to asked one more question, so you guys so good. Give me a quick answer. What's the BS language when you, the BS meter goes off when people talk to you about solutions? What's the kind of jargon that you hear, that's the BS meter going off? What are people talking about that in your opinion you here you go, "That's total BS?" What triggers you? >> So that I have two lines out of movies if I say them without actually thinking them. It's like 1.21 gigawatts are you out of your mind from Back to the Future right? Somebody's giving you all these wiz bang things. And then Martin Maul and Michael Keaton in Mr Mom when he goes to 220, 221, whatever it takes. >> Yeah. >> Those two right there, if those go off in my mind where somebody's talking to me, I know they're full of baloney. >> So a lot of speeds and feeds, a lot of speeds and feeds a lot of -- >> Just data. Instead of talking about what you're actually doing and solutioning for. You're talking about, "Well, it does this this this." Okay to 220, 221. (laughter) >> Justin, what's your take? >> Anytime I start seeing the cloud vendors start benchmarking against each other. Your workload is your workload, you need to benchmark yourself. Don't listen to the marketing on that, that's just awful. >> Amit, what triggers you in the BS meter? >> I think if somebody explains to you are not simple, they cannot explain you in simplicity, then it's all bull shit. >> (laughs) That's a good one. Alright guys, thanks for the great insight, great panel. How about a round of applause to practitioners. (audience applauds) (upbeat music) >> John: Okay, welcome back to Altitude 2020 for the digital event for the live feed. Welcome back, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE with Steve Mullaney, CEO Aviatrix. For the next panel from Global System Integrated, the folks who are building and working with folks on their journey to multicloud and cloud-native networking. We've got a great panel, George Buckman with DXC and Derrick Monahan with WWT, welcome to the stage. (Audience applauds) >> Hey >> Thank you >> Groovy spot >> All right (upbeat music) >> Okay, you guys are the ones out there advising, building, and getting down and dirty with multicloud and cloud-native networking, we just heard from the customer panel. You can see the diversity of where people come in to the journey of cloud, it kind of depends upon where you are, but the trends are all clear, cloud-native networking, DevOps, up and down the stack, this has been the main engine. What's your guys' take of this journey to multicloud? What do you guys think? >> Yeah, it's critical, I mean we're seeing all of our enterprise customers enter into this, they've been through the migrations of the easy stuff, ya know? Now they're trying to optimize and get more improvements, so now the tough stuff's coming on, right? They need their data processing near where their data is. So that's driving them to a multicloud environment. >> Yeah, we've heard some of the Edge stuff, I mean, you guys are-- >> Exactly. >> You've seen this movie before, but now it's a whole new ballgame, what's your take? Yeah, so, I'll give you a hint, our practice is not called the cloud practice, it's the multicloud practice, and so if that gives you a hint of how we approach things. It's very consultative. And so when we look at what the trends are, like a year ago. About a year ago we were having conversations with customers, "Let's build a data center in the cloud. Let's put some VPCs, let's throw some firewalls, let's put some DNS and other infrastructure out there and let's hope it works." This isn't a science project. What we're starting to see is customers are starting to have more of a vision, we're helping with that consultative nature, but it's totally based on the business. And you've got to start understanding how lines of business are using the apps and then we evolve into the next journey which is a foundational approach to-- >> What are some of the problems some of your customers are solving when they come to you? What are the top things that are on their mind, obviously the ease of use, agility, all that stuff, what specifically are they digging into? >> Yeah, so complexity, I think when you look at a multicloud approach, in my view is, network requirements are complex. You know, I think they are, but I think the approach can be, "Let's simplify that." So one thing that we try to do, and this is how we talk to customers is, just like you simplify in Aviatrix, simplifies the automation orchestration of cloud networking, we're trying to simplify the design, the plan, and implementation of the infrastructure across multiple workloads, across multiple platforms. And so the way we do it, is we sit down, we look at not just use cases, not just the questions we commonly anticipate, we actually build out, based on the business and function requirements, we build out a strategy and then create a set of documents, and guess what? We actually build it in a lab, and that lab that we platform rebuilt, proves out this reference architectural actually works. >> Absolutely, we implement similar concepts. I mean, they're proven practices, they work, right? >> But George, you mentioned that the hard part's now upon us, are you referring to networking, what specifically were you getting at there when you said, "The easy part's done, now the hard part?" >> So for the enterprises themselves, migrating their more critical apps or more difficult apps into the environments, ya know, we've just scratched the surface, I believe, on what enterprises are doing to move into the cloud, to optimize their environments, to take advantage of the scale and speed to deployment and to be able to better enable their businesses. So they're just now really starting to-- >> So do you guys see what I talked about? I mean, in terms of that Cambrian explosion, I mean, you're both monster system integrators with top fortune enterprise customers, you know, really rely on you for guidance and consulting and so forth, and deploy their networks. Is that something that you've seen? I mean, does that resonate? Did you notice a year and a half ago all of a sudden the importance of cloud for enterprise shoot up? >> Yeah, I mean, we're seeing it now. >> Okay. >> In our internal environment as well, ya know, we're a huge company ourselves, customer zero, our internal IT, so, we're experiencing that internally and every one of our other customers as well. >> So I have another question and I don't know the answer to this, and a lawyer never asks a question that you don't know the answer to, but I'm going to ask it anyway. DXC and WWT, massive system integrators, why Aviatrix? >> Great question, Steve, so I think the way we approach things, I think we have a similar vision, a similar strategy, how you approach things, how we approach things, at World Wide Technology. Number one, we want a simplify the complexity. And so that's your number one priority. Let's take the networking, let's simplify it, and I think part of the other point I'm making is we see this automation piece as not just an after thought anymore. If you look at what customers care about, visibility and automation is probably at the top three, maybe the third on the list, and I think that's where we see the value. I think the partnership that we're building and what I get excited about is not just putting yours and our lab and showing customers how it works, it's co-developing a solution with you. Figuring out, "Hey, how can we make this better?" >> Right >> Visibility is a huge thing, just in security alone, network everything's around visibility. What automation do you see happening, in terms of progression, order of operations, if you will? What's the low hanging fruit? What are people working on now? What are some of the aspirational goals around when you start thinking about multicloud and automation? >> So I wanted to get back to his question. >> Answer that question. >> I wanted to answer your question, you know, what led us there and why Aviatrix. You know, in working some large internal IT projects, and looking at how we were going to integrate those solutions, you know, we like to build everything with recipes. Network is probably playing catch-up in the DevOps world but with a DevOps mindset, looking to speed to deploy, support, all those things, so when you start building your recipe, you take a little of this, a little of that, and you mix it all together, well, when you look around, you say, "Wow, look, there's this big bag of Aviatrix. "Let me plop that in. That solves a big part "of my problems that I had, the speed to integrate, "the speed to deploy, and the operational views "that I need to run this." So that was what led me to-- >> John: So how about reference architectures? >> Yeah, absolutely, so, you know, they came with a full slate of reference architectures already out there and ready to go that fit our needs, so it was very easy for us to integrate those into our recipes. >> What do you guys think about all the multi-vendor inter-operability conversations that have been going on? Choice has been a big part of multicloud in terms of, you know, customers want choice, they'll put a workload in the cloud if it works, but this notion of choice and interoperability has become a big conversation. >> It is, and I think that our approach, and that's the way we talk to customers is, "Let's speed and de-risk that decision making process, "and how do we do that?" Because interoperability is key. You're not just putting, it's not just a single vendor, we're talking, you know, many many vendors, I mean think about the average number of cloud applications a customer uses, a business, an enterprise business today, you know, it's above 30, it's skyrocketing and so what we do, and we look at it from an interoperability approach is, "How do things inter-operate?" We test it out, we validate it, we build a reference architecture that says, "These are the critical design elements, "now let's build one with Aviatrix "and show how this works with Aviatrix." And I think the important part there, though, is the automation piece that we add to it and visibility. So I think the visibility is what I see lacking across industry today. >> In cloud-native that's been a big topic. >> Yep >> Okay, in terms of Aviatrix, as you guys see them coming in, they're one of the ones that are emerging and the new brands emerging with multicloud, you've still got the old guard encumbered with huge footprints. How are customers dealing with that kind of component in dealing with both of them? >> Yeah, I mean, we have customers that are ingrained with a particular vendor and you know, we have partnerships with many vendors. So our objective is to provide the solution that meets that client. >> John: And they all want multi-vendor, they all want interoperability. >> Correct. >> All right, so I got to ask you guys a question while we were defining Day-2 operations. What does that mean? You guys are looking at the big business and technical components of architecture, what does Day-2 operations mean, what's the definition of that? >> Yeah, so I think from our perspective, with my experience, we, you know, Day-2 operations, whether it's not just the orchestration piece in setting up and let it automate and have some, you know, change control, you're looking at this from a Day-2 perspective, "How do I support this ongoing "and make it easy to make changes as we evolve?" The cloud is very dynamic. The nature of how fast it's expanding, the number features is astonishing. Trying to keep up to date with the number of just networking capabilities and services that are added. So I think Day-2 operations starts with a fundamental understanding of building out supporting a customer's environments, and making the automation piece easy from a distance, I think. >> Yeah and, you know, taking that to the next level of being able to enable customers to have catalog items that they can pick and choose, "Hey I need this network connectivity "from this cloud location back to this on-prem." And being able to have that automated and provisioned just simply by ordering it. >> For the folks watching out there, guys, take a minute to explain as you guys are in the trenches doing a lot of good work. What are some of the engagements that you guys get into? How does that progress? What happens there, they call you up and say, "Hey I need some multicloud," or you're already in there? I mean, take us through how someone can engage to use a global SI, they come in and make this thing happen, what's the typical engagement look like? >> Derrick: Yeah, so from our perspective, we typically have a series of workshops in the methodology that we kind of go along the journey. Number one, we have a foundational approach. And I don't mean foundation meaning the network foundation, that's a very critical element, we got to factor in security and we got to factor in automation. So when you think about foundation, we do a workshop that starts with education. A lot of times we'll go in and we'll just educate the customer, what is VPC sharing? You know, what is a private link in Azure? How does that impact your business? We have customers that want to share services out in an ecosystem with other customers and partners. Well there's many ways to accomplish that. Our goal is to understand those requirements and then build that strategy with them. >> Thoughts George, on-- >> Yeah, I mean, I'm one of the guys that's down in the weeds making things happen, so I'm not the guy on the front line interfacing with the customers every day. But we have a similar approach. We have a consulting practice that will go out and apply their practices to see what those-- >> And when do you parachute in? >> Yeah, when I parachute in is, I'm on the back end working with our offering development leads for networking, so we understand and are seeing what customers are asking for and we're on the back end developing the solutions that integrate with our own offerings as well as enable other customers to just deploy quickly to meet their connectivity needs. So the patterns are similar. >> Right, final question for you guys, I want to ask you to paint a picture of what success looks like. You don't have to name customers, you don't have to get in and reveal who they are, but what does success look like in multicloud as you paint a picture for the folks here and watching on the live stream, if someone says, "Hey I want to be multicloud, I got to to have my operations Agile, I want full DevOps, I want programmability and security built in from Day-zero." What does success look like? >> Yeah, I think success looks like this, so when you're building out a network, the network is a harder thing to change than some other aspects of cloud. So what we think is, even if you're thinking about that second cloud, which we have most of our customers are on two public clouds today, they might be dabbling in it. As you build that network foundation, that architecture, that takes in to consideration where you're going, and so once we start building that reference architecture out that shows, this is how to approach it from a multicloud perspective, not a single cloud, and let's not forget our branches, let's not forget our data centers, let's not forget how all this connects together because that's how we define multicloud, it's not just in the cloud, it's on-prem and it's off-prem. And so collectively, I think the key is also is that we provide them an HLD. You got to start with a high level design that can be tweaked as you go through the journey but you got to give it a solid structural foundation, and that networking which we think, most customers think as not the network engineers, but as an after thought. We want to make that the most critical element before you start the journey. >> George, from your seat, how does success look for you? >> So, you know it starts out on these journeys, often start out people not even thinking about what is going to happen, what their network needs are when they start their migration journey to the cloud. So I want, success to me looks like them being able to end up not worrying about what's happening in the network when they move to the cloud. >> Steve: Good point. >> Guys, great insight, thanks for coming on and sharing. How about a round of applause for the global system integrators? (Audience applauds) (Upbeat music) >> The next panel is the AVH certified engineers, also known as ACEs. This is the folks that are certified, they're engineering, they're building these new solutions. Please welcome Toby Foss from Informatica, Stacey Lanier from Teradata, and Jennifer Reed with Viqtor Davis to the stage. (upbeat music) (audience cheering) (panelists exchanging pleasantries) >> You got to show up. Where's your jacket Toby? (laughing) You get it done. I was just going to rib you guys and say, where's your jackets, and Jen's got the jacket on. Okay, good. >> Love the Aviatrix, ACEs Pilot gear there above the Clouds. Going to new heights. >> That's right. >> So guys Aviatrix aces, I love the name, think it's great, certified. This is all about getting things engineered. So there's a level of certification, I want to get into that. But first take us through the day in the life of an ACE, and just to point out, Stacy is a squad leader. So he's, he's like a-- >> Squadron Leader. >> Squadron Leader. >> Yeah. >> Squadron Leader, so he's got a bunch of ACEs underneath him, but share your perspective a day in the Life. Jennifer, we'll start with you. >> Sure, so I have actually a whole team that works for me both in the North America, both in the US and in Mexico. So I'm eagerly working to get them certified as well, so I can become a squad leader myself. But it's important because one of the critical gaps that we've found is people having the networking background because you graduate from college, and you have a lot of computer science background, you can program you've got Python, but networking in packets they just don't get. So, just taking them through all the processes that it's really necessary to understand when you're troubleshooting is really critical. Because you're going to get an issue where you need to figure out where exactly is that happening on the network, Is my issue just in the VPCs? Is it on the instance side is a security group, or is it going on prem? This is something actually embedded within Amazon itself? I mean, I troubleshot an issue for about six months going back and forth with Amazon, and it was the VGW VPN. Because they were auto scaling on two sides, and we ended up having to pull out the Cisco's, and put in Aviatrix so I could just say, " okay, it's fixed," and actually helped the application teams get to that and get it solved. But I'm taking a lot of junior people and getting them through that certification process, so they can understand and see the network, the way I see the network. I mean, look, I've been doing this for 25 years when I got out. When I went in the Marine Corps, that's what I did, and coming out, the network is still the network. But people don't get the same training they got in the 90s. >> Was just so easy, just write some software, and they were, takes care of itself. I know, it's pixie dust.  >> I'll come back to that, I want to come back to that, the problem solved with Amazon, but Toby. >> I think the only thing I have to add to that is that it's always the network's fault. As long as I've been in networking, it's always been the network's fault. I'm even to this day, it's still the network's fault, and part of being a network guy is that you need to prove when it is and when it's not your fault. That means you need to know a little bit about 100 different things, to make that work. >> Now you got a full stack DevOps, you got to know a lot more times another hundred. >> Toby: And the times are changing, yeah. >> This year the Squadron Leader and get that right. What is the Squadron Leader firstly? Describe what it is. >> I think is probably just leading on the network components of it. But I think, from my perspective, when to think about what you asked them was, it's about no issues and no escalations. So of my day is like that, I'm happy to be a squadron leader. >> That is a good outcome, that's a good day. >> Yeah, sure, it is. >> Is there good days? You said you had a good day with Amazon? Jennifer, you mentioned the Amazon, and this brings up a good point, when you have these new waves come in, you have a lot of new things, new use cases. A lot of the finger pointing it's that guy's problem , that girl's problems, so how do you solve that, and how do you get the Young Guns up to speed? Is there training, is it this where the certification comes in? >> This is where the certifications really going to come in. I know when we got together at Reinvent, one of the questions that we had with Steve and the team was, what should our certification look like? Should we just be teaching about what AVH troubleshooting brings to bear, but what should that be like? I think Toby and I were like, No, no, no, no. That's going a little too high, we need to get really low because the better someone can get at actually understanding what's actually happening in the network, and where to actually troubleshoot the problem, how to step back each of those processes. Because without that, it's just a big black box, and they don't know. Because everything is abstracted, in Amazon and in Azure and in Google, is abstracted, and they have these virtual gateways, they have VPNs, that you just don't have the logs on, is you just don't know. So then what tools can you put in front of them of where they can look? Because there are full logs. Well, as long as they turned on the flow logs when they built it, and there's like, each one of those little things that well, if they'd had decided to do that, when they built it, it's there. But if you can come in later to really supplement that with training to actual troubleshoot, and do a packet capture here, as it's going through, then teaching them how to read that even. >> Yeah, Toby, we were talking before we came on up on stage about your career, you've been networking all your time, and then, you're now mentoring a lot of younger people. How is that going? Because the people who come in fresh they don't have all the old war stories, like they don't talk about it, There's never for, I walk in bare feet in the snow when I was your age, I mean, it's so easy now, right, they say. What's your take on how you train the young People. >> So I've noticed two things. One is that they are up to speed a lot faster in generalities of networking. They can tell you what a network is in high school level now, where I didn't learn that til midway through my career, and they're learning it faster, but they don't necessarily understand why it's that way here. Everybody thinks that it's always slash 24 for a subnet, and they don't understand why you can break it down smaller, why it's really necessary. So the ramp up speed is much faster for these guys that are coming in. But they don't understand why and they need some of that background knowledge to see where it's coming from, and why is it important, and that's old guys, that's where we thrive. >> Jennifer, you mentioned you got in from the Marines, it helps, but when you got into networking, what was it like then and compare it now? Because most like we heard earlier static versus dynamic Don't be static is like that. You just set the network, you got a perimeter. >> Yeah, no, there was no such thing. So back in the day, I mean, we had Banyan vines for email, and we had token ring, and I had to set up token ring networks and figure out why that didn't work. Because how many of things were actually sharing it. But then actually just cutting fiber and running fiber cables and dropping them over shelters to plug them in and all crap, they swung it too hard and shattered it and now I got to figure eight Polish this thing and actually should like to see if it works. I mean, that was the network , current cat five cables to run an Ethernet, and then from that I just said, network switches, dumb switches, like those were the most common ones you had. Then actually configuring routers and logging into a Cisco router and actually knowing how to configure that. It was funny because I had gone all the way up, I was the software product manager for a while. So I've gone all the way up the stack, and then two and a half, three years ago, I came across to work with Entity group that became Viqtor Davis. But we went to help one of our customers Avis, and it was like, okay, so we need to fix the network. Okay, I haven't done this in 20 years, but all right, let's get to it. Because it really fundamentally does not change. It's still the network. I mean, I've had people tell me, Well, when we go to containers, we will not have to worry about the network. And I'm like, yeah, you don't I do. >> And that's within programmability is a really interesting, so I think this brings up the certification. What are some of the new things that people should be aware of that come in with the Aviatrix A certification? What are some of the highlights? Can you guys share some of the highlights around the certifications? >> I think some of the importance is that it doesn't need to be vendor specific for network generality or basic networking knowledge, and instead of learning how Cisco does something, or how Palo Alto does something, We need to understand how and why it works as a basic model, and then understand how each vendor has gone about that problem and solved it in a general. That's true in multicloud as well. You can't learn how Cloud networking works without understanding how AWS and Azure and GCP are all slightly the same but slightly different, and some things work and some things don't. I think that's probably the number one take. >> I think having a certification across Clouds is really valuable because we heard the global s eyes as you have a business issues. What does it mean to do that? Is it code, is it networking? Is it configurations of the Aviatrix? what is, he says,the certification but, what is it about the multiCloud that makes it multi networking and multi vendor? >> The easy answer is yes, >> Yes is all of us. >> All of us. So you got to be in general what's good your hands and all You have to be. Right, it takes experience. Because every Cloud vendor has their own certification. Whether that's SOPs and advanced networking and event security, or whatever it might be, yeah, they can take the test, but they have no idea how to figure out what's wrong with that system. The same thing with any certification, but it's really getting your hands in there, and actually having to troubleshoot the problems, actually work the problem, and calm down. It's going to be okay. I mean, because I don't know how many calls I've been on or even had aviators join me on. It's like, okay, so everyone calm down, let's figure out what's happening. It's like, we've looked at that screen three times, looking at it again is not going to solve that problem, right. But at the same time, remaining calm but knowing that it really is, I'm getting a packet from here to go over here, it's not working, so what could be the problem? Actually stepping them through those scenarios, but that's like, you only get that by having to do it, and seeing it, and going through it, and then you get it. >> I have a question, so, I just see it. We started this program maybe six months ago, we're seeing a huge amount of interest. I mean, we're oversubscribed on all the training sessions. We've got people flying from around the country, even with Coronavirus, flying to go to Seattle to go to these events where we're subscribed, is that-- >> A good emerging leader would put there. >> Yeah. So, is that something that you see in your organizations? Are you recommending that to people? Do you see, I mean, I'm just, I guess I'm surprised or not surprised. But I'm really surprised by the demand if you would, of this MultiCloud network certification because there really isn't anything like that. Is that something you guys can comment on? Or do you see the same things in your organization? >> I see from my side, because we operate in a multiCloud environments that really helps and some beneficial for us. >> Yeah, true. I think I would add that networking guys have always needed to use certifications to prove that they know what they know. >> Right. >> It's not good enough to say, Yeah, I know IP addresses or I know how a network works. A couple little check marks or a little letters body writing helps give you validity. So even in our team, we can say, Hey, we're using these certifications to know that you know enough of the basics and enough of the understandings, that you have the tools necessary, right. >> I guess my final question for you guys is, why an ACE certification is relevant, and then second part is share with the live stream folks who aren't yet ACE certified or might want to jump in to be aviatrix certified engineers. Why is it important, so why is it relevant and why should someone want to be a certified aviatrix certified engineer? >> I think my views a little different. I think certification comes from proving that you have the knowledge, not proving that you get a certification to get an army there backwards. So when you've got the training and the understanding and you use that to prove and you can, like, grow your certification list with it, versus studying for a test to get a certification and have no understanding of it. >> Okay, so that who is the right person that look at this and say, I'm qualified, is it a network engineer, is it a DevOps person? What's your view, a little certain. >> I think Cloud is really the answer. It's the, as we talked like the edges getting eroded, so is the network definition getting eroded? We're getting more and more of some network, some DevOps, some security, lots and lots of security, because network is so involved in so many of them. That's just the next progression. >> Do you want to add something there? >> I would say expand that to more automation engineers, because we have those now, so I probably extend it beyond this one. >> Jennifer you want to? >> Well, I think the training classes themselves are helpful, especially the entry level ones for people who may be "Cloud architects" but have never done anything in networking for them to understand why we need those things to really work, whether or not they go through to eventually get a certification is something different. But I really think fundamentally understanding how these things work, it makes them a better architect, makes them better application developer. But even more so as you deploy more of your applications into the Cloud, really getting an understanding, even from people who have traditionally done Onprem networking, they can understand how that's going to work in Cloud. >> Well, I know we've got just under 30 seconds left. I want to get one more question then just one more, for the folks watching that are maybe younger than, that don't have that networking training. From your experiences each of you can answer why should they know about networking, what's the benefit? What's in it for them? Motivate them, share some insights of why they should go a little bit deeper in networking. Stacy, we'll start with you, we'll go then. >> I'll say it's probably fundamental, right? If you want to deliver solutions, networking is the very top. >> I would say if you, fundamental of an operating system running on a machine, how those machines start together is a fundamental changes, something that start from the base and work your way up. >> Jennifer? >> Right, well, I think it's a challenge. Because you've come from top down, now you're going to start looking from bottom up, and you want those different systems to cross-communicate, and say you've built something, and you're overlapping IP space, note that that doesn't happen. But how can I actually make that still operate without having to re IP re platform. Just like those challenges, like those younger developers or assistant engineers can really start to get their hands around and understand those complexities and bring that forward in their career. >> They get to know then how the pipes are working, and they're got to know it--it's the plumbing. >> That's right, >> They got to know how it works, and how to code it. >> That's right. >> Awesome, thank you guys for great insights, ACE Certified Engineers, also known as ACEs, give them a round of applause. (audience clapping) (upbeat music) >> Thank you, okay. All right, that concludes my portion. Thank you, Steve Thanks for having me. >> John, thank you very much, that was fantastic. Everybody round of applause for John Furrier. (audience applauding) Yeah, so great event, great event. I'm not going to take long, we got lunch outside for the people here, just a couple of things. Just to call the action, right? So we saw the ACEs, for those of you out of the stream here, become a certified, right, it's great for your career, it's great for not knowledge, is fantastic. It's not just an aviator's thing, it's going to teach you about Cloud networking, MultiCloud networking, with a little bit of aviatrix, exactly like the Cisco CCIE program was for IP network, that type of the thing, that's number one. Second thing is learning, right? So there's a link up there to join the community. Again like I started this, this is a community, this is the kickoff to this community, and it's a movement. So go to community.avh.com, starting a community of multiCloud. So get get trained, learn. I'd say the next thing is we're doing over 100 seminars across the United States and also starting into Europe soon, we will come out and we'll actually spend a couple hours and talk about architecture, and talk about those beginning things. For those of you on the livestream in here as well, we're coming to a city near you, go to one of those events, it's a great way to network with other people that are in the industry, as well as to start alone and get on that MultiCloud journey. Then I'd say the last thing is, we haven't talked a lot about what Aviatrix does here, and that's intentional. We want you leaving with wanting to know more, and schedule, get with us and schedule a multi hour architecture workshop session. So we sit down with customers, and we talk about where they're at in that journey, and more importantly, where they're going, and define that end state architecture from networking, computer, storage, everything. Everything you've heard today, everybody panel kept talking about architecture, talking about operations. Those are the types of things that we solve, we help you define that canonical architecture, that system architecture, that's yours. So many of our customers, they have three by five, plotted lucid charts, architecture drawings, and it's the customer name slash Aviatrix, network architecture, and they put it on their whiteboard. That's the most valuable thing they get from us. So this becomes their 20 year network architecture drawing that they don't do anything without talking to us and look at that architecture. That's what we do in these multi hour workshop sessions with customers, and that's super, super powerful. So if you're interested, definitely call us, and let's schedule that with our team. So anyway, I just want to thank everybody on the livestream. Thank everybody here. Hopefully it was it was very useful. I think it was, and Join the movement, and for those of you here, join us for lunch, and thank you very much. (audience applauding) (upbeat music)

ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we will soon be taking off on our way to altitude please keep your seatbelts fastened and remain in your seats we will be experiencing turbulence until we are above the clouds ladies and gentlemen we are now cruising at altitude sit back and enjoy the ride [Music] altitude is a community of thought leaders and pioneers cloud architects and enlightened network engineers who have individually and are now collectively leading their own IT teams and the industry on a path to lift cloud networking above the clouds empowering Enterprise IT to architect design and control their own cloud network regardless of the turbulent clouds beneath them it's time to gain altitude ladies and gentlemen Steve Mulaney president and CEO of aviatrix the leader of multi cloud networking [Music] [Applause] all right good morning everybody here in Santa Clara as well as to the what millions of people watching the livestream worldwide welcome to altitude 2020 all right so we've got a fantastic event today really excited about the speakers that we have today and the experts that we have and really excited to get started so one of the things I wanted to just share was this is not a one-time event it's not a one-time thing that we're gonna do sorry for the aviation analogy but you know sherry way aviatrix means female pilot so everything we do as an aviation theme this is a take-off for a movement this isn't an event this is a take-off of a movement a multi-cloud networking movement and community that we're inviting all of you to become part of and-and-and why we're doing that is we want to enable enterprises to rise above the clouds so to speak and build their network architecture regardless of which public cloud they're using whether it's one or more of these public clouds so the good news for today there's lots of good news but this is one good news is we don't have any powerpoint presentations no marketing speak we know that marketing people have their own language we're not using any of that in those sales pitches right so instead what are we doing we're going to have expert panels we've got Simone Rashard Gartner here we've got 10 different network architects cloud architects real practitioners they're going to share their best practices and there are real-world experiences on their journey to the multi cloud so before we start and everybody know what today is in the u.s. it's Super Tuesday I'm not gonna get political but Super Tuesday there was a bigger Super Tuesday that happened 18 months ago and maybe eight six employees know what I'm talking about 18 months ago on a Tuesday every enterprise said I'm gonna go to the cloud and so what that was was the Cambrian explosion for cloud for the price so Frank kibrit you know what a Cambrian explosion is he had to look it up on Google 500 million years ago what happened there was an explosion of life where it went from very simple single-cell organisms to very complex multi-celled organisms guess what happened 18 months ago on a Tuesday I don't really know why but every enterprise like I said all woke up that day and said now I'm really gonna go to cloud and that Cambrian explosion of cloud went meant that I'm moving from very simple single cloud single use case simple environment to a very complex multi cloud complex use case environment and what we're here today is we're gonna go and dress that and how do you handle those those those complexities and when you look at what's happening with customers right now this is a business transformation right people like to talk about transitions this is a transformation and it's actually not just the technology transformation it's a business transformation it started from the CEO and the boards of enterprise customers where they said I have an existential threat to the survival of my company if you look at every industry who they're worried about is not the other 30 year old enterprise what they're worried about is the three year old enterprise that's leveraging cloud that's leveraging AI and that's where they fear that they're going to actually get wiped out right and so because of this existential threat this is CEO lead this is board led this is not technology led it is mandated in the organization's we are going to digitally transform our enterprise because of this existential threat and the movement to cloud is going to enable us to go do that and so IT is now put back in charge if you think back just a few years ago in cloud it was led by DevOps it was led by the applications and it was like I said before their Cambrian explosion is very simple now with this Cambrian explosion and enterprises getting very serious and mission critical they care about visibility they care about control they care about compliance conformance everything governance IT is in charge and and and that's why we're here today to discuss that so what we're going to do today is much of things but we're gonna validate this journey with customers do they see the same thing we're gonna validate the requirements for multi-cloud because honestly I've never met an enterprise that is not going to be multi-cloud many are one cloud today but they all say I need to architect my network for multiple clouds because that's just what the network is there to support the applications and the applications will run and whatever cloud it runs best in and you have to be prepared for that the second thing is is is architecture again with the IT in charge you architecture matters whether it's your career whether it's how you build your house it doesn't matter horrible architecture your life is horrible forever good architecture your life is pretty good so we're gonna talk about architecture and how the most fundamental and critical part of that architecture and that basic infrastructure is the network if you don't get that right nothing works right way more important and compute way more important than storm dense storage network is the foundational element of your infrastructure then we're going to talk about day 2 operations what does that mean well day 1 is one day of your life that's who you wire things up they do and beyond I tell everyone in networking and IT it's every day of your life and if you don't get that right your life is bad forever and so things like operations visibility security things like that how do I get my operations team to be able to handle this in an automated way because it's not just about configuring it in the cloud it's actually about how do I operationalize it and that's a huge benefit that we bring as aviatrix and then the last thing we're going to talk and it's the last panel we have I always say you can't forget about the humans right so all this technology all these things that we're doing it's always enabled by the humans at the end of the day if the humans fight it it won't get deployed and we have a massive skills gap in cloud and we also have a massive skill shortage you have everyone in the world trying to hire cloud network architects right there's just not enough of them going around so at aviatrix as leaders knew we're gonna help address that issue and try to create more people we created a program and we call the ACE program again an aviation theme it stands for aviatrix certified engineer very similar to what Cisco did with CC IES where Cisco taught you about IP networking a little bit of Cisco we're doing the same thing we're gonna teach network architects about multi-cloud networking and architecture and yeah you'll get a little bit of aviatrix training in there but this is the missing element for people's careers and also within their organization so we're gonna we're gonna go talk about that so great great event great show when try to keep it moving I'd next want to introduce my my host he's the best in the business you guys have probably seen him multiple million times he's the co CEO and co-founder of Tube John Fourier okay awesome great great speech they're awesome I totally agree with everything you said about the explosion happening and I'm excited here at the heart of Silicon Valley to have this event it's a special digital event with the cube and aviatrix where we live streaming to millions of people as you said maybe not a million maybe not really take this program to the world this is a little special for me because multi-cloud is the hottest wave and cloud and cloud native networking is fast becoming the key engine of the innovation so we got an hour and a half of action-packed programming we have a customer panel two customer panels before that Gartner is going to come on talk about the industry we have a global system integrators we talk about how they're advising and building these networks and cloud native networking and then finally the Aces the aviatrix certified engineer is gonna talk more about their certifications and the expertise needed so let's jump right in and let's ask someone rashard to come on stage from Gartner we'll check it all up [Applause] [Music] okay so kicking things off certain started gartner the industry experts on cloud really kind of more to your background talk about your background before you got the gardener yeah before because gardener was a chief network architect of a fortune five companies with thousands of sites over the world and I've been doing everything and IT from a C programmer in the 90 to a security architect to a network engineer to finally becoming a network analyst so you rode the wave now you're covering at the marketplace with hybrid cloud and now moving quickly to multi cloud is really I was talking about cloud natives been discussed but the networking piece is super important how do you see that evolving well the way we see Enterprise adapt in cloud first thing you do about networking the initial phases they either go in a very ad hoc way is usually led by non non IT like a shadow whitey or application people or some kind of DevOps team and it's it just goes as it's completely unplanned decreed VP sees left and right with a different account and they create mesh to manage them and their direct connect or Express route to any of them so that's what that's a first approach and on the other side again it within our first approach you see what I call the lift and shift way we see like Enterprise IT trying to basically replicate what they have in a data center in the cloud so they spend a lot of time planning doing Direct Connect putting Cisco routers and f5 and Citrix and any checkpoint Palo Alto divides the data that are sent removing that to that cloud and I ask you the aha moments gonna come up a lot of our panels is where people realize that it's a multi cloud world I mean they either inherit clouds certainly they're using public cloud and on-premises is now more relevant than ever when's that aha moment that you're seeing where people go well I got to get my act together and get on this well the first but even before multi-cloud so these two approach the first one like the adduct way doesn't scale at some point idea has to save them because they don't think about the two they don't think about operations they have a bunch of VPC and multiple clouds the other way that if you do the left and shift wake they cannot take any advantages of the cloud they lose elasticity auto-scaling pay by the drink these feature of agility features so they both realize okay neither of these ways are good so I have to optimize that so I have to have a mix of what I call the cloud native services within each cloud so they start adapting like other AWS constructor is your construct or Google construct then that's I would I call the up optimal phase but even that they they realize after that they are very different all these approaches different the cloud are different identities is completely difficult to manage across clouds I mean for example AWS has accounts there's subscription and in adarand GCP their projects it's a real mess so they realize well I can't really like concentrate used the cloud the cloud product and every cloud that doesn't work so I have I'm doing multi cloud I like to abstract all of that I still wanna manage the cloud from an API to interview I don't necessarily want to bring my incumbent data center products but I have to do that in a more API driven cloud they're not they're not scaling piece and you were mentioning that's because there's too many different clouds yes that's the piece there so what are they doing whether they really building different development teams as its software what's the solution well this the solution is to start architecting the cloud that's the third phase I call that the multi cloud architect phase where they have to think about abstraction that works across cloud fact even across one cloud it might not scale as well if you start having like 10,000 security group in AWS that doesn't scale you have to manage that if you have multiple VPC it doesn't scale you need a third party identity provider so it barely scales within one cloud if you go multiple cloud it gets worse and worse see way in here what's your thoughts I thought we said this wasn't gonna be a sales pitch for aviatrix you just said exactly what we do so anyway I'm just a joke what do you see in terms of where people are in that multi cloud a lot of people you know everyone I talked to started in one cloud right but then they look and they say okay but I'm now gonna move to adjourn I'm gonna move do you see a similar thing well yes they are moving but they're not there's not a lot of application that use a tree cloud at once they move one app in deserve one app in individuals one get happened Google that's what we see so far okay yeah I mean one of the mistakes that people think is they think multi-cloud no one is ever gonna go multi-cloud for arbitrage they're not gonna go and say well today I might go into Azure because I got a better rate of my instance that's never do you agree with that's never going to happen what I've seen with enterprise is I'm gonna put the workload in the app the app decides where it runs best that may be a sure maybe Google and for different reasons and they're gonna stick there and they're not gonna move let me ask you infrastructure has to be able to support from a networking team be able to do that do you agree with that yes I agree and one thing is also very important is connecting to that cloud is kind of the easiest thing so though while I run Network part of the cloud connectivity to the cloud is kind of simple I agree IPSec VP and I reckon Express that's a simple part what's difficult and even a provisioning part is easy you can use terraform and create v pieces and v nets across which we cloud provider right what's difficult is the day-to-day operations so it's what to find a to operations what is that what does that actually mean this is the day-to-day operations after it you know the natural let's add an app let's add a server let's troubleshoot a problem so what so your life something changes how would he do so what's the big concerns I want to just get back to this cloud native networking because everyone kind of knows with cloud native apps are that's been a hot trend what is cloud native networking how do you how do you guys define that because that seems to be the oddest part of the multi-cloud wave that's coming as cloud native networking well there's no you know official garner definition but I can create one on another spot it's do it I just want to leverage the cloud construct and a cloud epi I don't want to have to install like like for example the first version was let's put a virtual router that doesn't even understand and then the cloud environment right if I have if I have to install a virtual machine it has to be cloud aware it has to understand the security group if it's a router it has to be programmable to the cloud API and and understand the cloud environment you know one things I hear a lot from either see Saussure CIOs or CXOs in general is this idea of I'm definitely on going API so it's been an API economy so API is key on that point but then they say okay I need to essentially have the right relationship with my suppliers aka clouds you call it above the clouds so the question is what do i do from an architecture standpoint do I just hire more developers and have different teams because you mentioned that's a scale point how do you solve this this problem of okay I got AWS I got GCP or Azure or whatever do I just have different teams or just expose api's where is that optimization where's the focus well I take what you need from an android point of view is a way a control plane across the three clouds and be able to use the api of the cloud to build networks but also to troubleshoot them and do they to operation so you need a view across a three cloud that takes care of routing connectivity that's you know that's the aviatrix plug of you right there so so how do you see so again your Gartner you you you you see the industry you've been a network architect how do you see this this plane out what are the what are the legacy incumbent client-server on-prem networking people gonna do well these versus people like aviatrix well how do you see that plane out well obviously all the incumbent like Arista cisco juniper NSX right they want to basically do the lift and ship or they want to bring and you know VM I want to bring in a section that cloud they call that NSX everywhere and cisco monks bring you star in the cloud recall that each guy anywhere right so everyone what and and then there's cloud vision for my red star and contrail is in the cloud so they just want to bring the management plain in the cloud but it's still based most of them it's still based on putting a VM them in controlling them right you you extend your management console to the cloud that's not truly cloud native right cloud native you almost have to build it from scratch we like to call that cloud naive clown that close one letter yeah so that was a big con surgeon i reinvent take the tea out of cloud native its cloud naive i went super viral you guys got t-shirts now i know you love it but yeah but that really ultimately is kind of a double-edged sword you got to be you can be naive on the on the architecture side and rolling out but also suppliers are can be naive so how would you define who's naive and who's not well in fact they're evolving as well so for example in cisco you it's a little bit more native than other ones because they're really ACI in the cloud you call you you really like configure api so the cloud and nsx is going that way and so is Arista but they're incumbent they have their own tools it's difficult for them they're moving slowly so it's much easier to start from scratch Avenue like and you know and network happiness started a few years ago there's only really two aviatrix was the first one they've been there for at least three or four years and there's other ones like Al Kyra for example that just started now that doing more connectivity but they want to create an overlay network across the cloud and start doing policies and trying abstracting all the clouds within one platform so I gotta ask you I interviewed an executive at VMware Sanjay Pune and he said to me at RSA last week oh the only b2 networking vendors left Cisco and VMware what's your respect what's your response to that obviously I mean when you have these waves as new brands that emerge like AV X and others though I think there'll be a lot of startups coming out of the woodwork how do you respond to that comment well there's still a data center there's still like a lot of action on campus and there's the one but from the cloud provisioning and clown networking in general I mean they're behind I think you know in fact you don't even need them to start to it you can if you're small enough you can just keep if you're in AWS you can user it with us construct they have to insert themselves I mean they're running behind they're all certainly incumbents I love the term Andy Jesse's that Amazon Web Services uses old guard new guard to talk about the industry what does the new guard have to do the new and new brands that emerge in is it be more DevOps oriented neck Nets a cops is that net ops is the programmability these are some of the key discussions we've been having what's your view on how you see this program their most important part is they have to make the network's simple for the dev teams and from you cannot have that you cannot make a phone call and get it via line in two weeks anymore so if you move to that cloud you have to make the cloud construct as simple enough so that for example a dev team could say okay I'm going to create this VP see but this VP see automatically being your associate to your account you cannot go out on the internet you have to go to the transit VP C so there's a lot of action in terms of the I am part and you have to put the control around them too so to make it as simple as possible you guys both I mean you're the COC aviatrix but also you guys a lot of experience going back to networking going back to I call the OSI mace which for us old folks know that means but you guys know this means I want to ask you the question as you look at the future of networking here a couple of objectives oh the cloud guys they got networking we're all set with them how do you respond to the fact that networking is changing and the cloud guys have their own networking what some of the pain points that's going on premises and these enterprises so are they good with the clouds what needs what are the key things that's going on in networking that makes it more than just the cloud networking what's your take on well I as I said earlier that once you you could easily provision in the cloud you can easily connect to that cloud is when you start troubleshooting application in the cloud and try to scale so this that's where the problem occurs see what you're taking on it and you'll hear from the from the customers that that we have on stage and I think what happens is all the cloud the clouds by definition designed to the 80/20 rule which means they'll design 80% of the basic functionality and they'll lead the 20% extra functionality that of course every enterprise needs they'll leave that to ISVs like aviatrix because why because they have to make money they have a service and they can't have huge instances for functionality that not everybody needs so they have to design to the common and that's they all do it right they have to and then the extra the problem is that can be an explosion that I talked about with enterprises that's holy that's what they need that they're the ones who need that extra 20% so that's that's what I see is is there's always gonna be that extra functionality the in in an automated and simple way that you talked about but yet powerful with up with the visibility and control that they expect of on prep that that's that kind of combination that yin and the yang that people like us are providing some I want to ask you were gonna ask some of the cloud architect customer panels it's the same question this pioneers doing some work here and there's also the laggards who come in behind the early adopters what's gonna be the tipping point what are some of those conversations that the cloud architects are having out there or what's the signs that they need to be on this multi cloud or cloud native networking trend what are some the signals that are going on in their environment what are some of the threshold or things that are going on that there can pay attention to well well once they have application and multiple cloud and they have they get wake up at 2:00 in the morning to troubleshoot them they don't know it's important so I think that's the that's where the robber will hit the road but as I said it's easier to prove it it's okay it's 80s it's easy user transit gateway put a few V pcs and you're done and use create some presents like equinox and do Direct Connect and Express route with Azure that looks simple is the operations that's when they'll realize okay now I need to understand our car networking works I also need a tool that give me visibility and control not button tell me that I need to understand the basic underneath it as well what are some of the day in the life scenarios that you envision happening with multi cloud because you think about what's happening it kind of has that same vibe of interoperability choice multi-vendor because you have multi clouds essentially multi vendor these are kind of old paradigms that we've lived through the client-server and internet working wave what are some of those scenarios of success and that might be possible it would be possible with multi cloud and cloud native networking well I think once you have good enough visibility to satisfy your customers you know not only like to keep the service running an application running but to be able to provision fast enough I think that's what you want to achieve small final question advice for folks watching on the live stream if they're sitting there as a cloud architect or a CXO what's your advice to them right now in this market because honestly public check hybrid cloud they're working on that that gets on-premise is done now multi-class right behind it what's your advice the first thing they should do is really try to understand cloud networking for each of their cloud providers and then understand the limitation and is what their cloud service provider offers enough or you need to look to a third party but you don't look at a third party to start to it especially an incumbent one so it's tempting to say on and I have a bunch of f5 experts nothing against f5 I'm going to bring my five in the cloud when you can use a needle be that automatically understand ease ease and auto-scaling and so on and you understand that's much simpler but sometimes you need you have five because you have requirements you have like AI rules and that kind of stuff that you use for years you cannot do it's okay I have requirement and that net I'm going to use legacy stuff and then you have to start thinking okay what about visibility control about the tree cloud but before you do that you have to understand the limitation of the existing cloud providers so first try to be as native as possible until things don't work after that you can start taking multi-cloud great insight somewhat thank you for coming someone in charge with Gardner thanks for sharing thank you appreciate it [Applause] informatica is known as the leading enterprise cloud data management company we are known for being the top in our industry in at least five different products over the last few years especially we've been transforming into a cloud model which allows us to work better with the trends of our customers in order to see agile and effective in a business you need to make sure that your products and your offerings are just as relevant in all these different clouds than what you're used to and what you're comfortable with one of the most difficult challenges we've always had is that because we're a data company we're talking about data that a customer owns some of that data may be in the cloud some of that data may be on Prem some of them data may be actually in their data center in another region or even another country and having that data connect back to our systems that are located in the cloud has always been a challenge when we first started our engagement with aviatrix we only had one plan that was Amazon it wasn't till later that a jerk came up and all of a sudden we found hey the solution we already had in place for aviatrix already working in Amazon and now works in Missouri as well before we knew it GCP came up but it really wasn't a big deal for us because we already had the same solution in Amazon and integer now just working in GCP by having a multi cloud approach we have access to all three of them but more commonly it's not just one it's actually integrations between multiple we have some data and ensure that we want to integrate with Amazon we have some data in GCP that we want to bring over to a data Lake assure one of the nice things about aviatrix is that it gives a very simple interface that my staff can understand and use and manage literally hundreds of VPNs around the world and while talking to and working with our customers who are literally around the world now that we've been using aviatrix for a couple years we're actually finding that even problems that we didn't realize we had were actually solved even before we came across the problem and it just worked cloud companies as a whole are based on reputation we need to be able to protect our reputation and part of that reputation is being able to protect our customers and being able to protect more importantly our customers data aviatrix has been helpful for us in that we only have one system that can manage this whole huge system in a simple easy direct model aviatrix is directly responsible for helping us secure and manage our customers not only across the world but across multiple clouds users don't have to be VPN or networking experts in order to be able to use the system all the members on my team can manage it all the members regardless of their experience can do different levels of it one of the unexpected two advantages of aviatrix is that I don't have to sell it to my management the fact that we're not in the news at three o'clock in the morning or that we don't have to get calls in the middle of the night no news is good news especially in networking things that used to take weeks to build are done in hours I think the most important thing about a matrix is it provides me consistency aviatrix gives me a consistent model that I can use across multiple regions multiple clouds multiple customers okay welcome back to altitude 2020 for the folks on the livestream I'm John for Steve Mulaney with CEO of aviatrix for our first of two customer panels on cloud with cloud network architects we got Bobby Willoughby they gone Luis Castillo of National Instruments and David should Nick with fact set guys welcome to the stage for this digital event come on up [Music] hey good to see you thank you okay okay customer panelist is my favorite part we get to hear the real scoop we got the gardener giving us the industry overview certainly multi clouds very relevant and cloud native networking is the hot trend with the live stream out there and the digital event so guys let's get into it the journey is you guys are pioneering this journey of multi cloud and cloud native networking and it's soon gonna be a lot more coming so I want to get into the journey what's it been like is it real you got a lot of scar tissue and what are some of the learnings yeah absolutely so multi cloud is whether or not we we accepted as a network engineers is a is a reality like Steve said about two years ago companies really decided to to just to just bite the bullet and and and move there whether or not whether or not we we accept that fact we need to now create a consistent architecture across across multiple clouds and that that is challenging without orchestration layers as you start managing different different tool sets in different languages across different clouds so that's it's really important that to start thinking about that guys on the other panelists here there's different phases of this journey some come at it from a networking perspective some come in from a problem troubleshooting what's what's your experiences yeah so from a networking perspective it's been incredibly exciting it's kind of a once-in-a-generation 'el opportunity to look at how you're building out your network you can start to embrace things like infrastructure as code that maybe your peers on the systems teams have been doing for years but it just never really worked on pram so it's really it's really exciting to look at all the opportunities that we have and then all the interesting challenges that come up that you that you get to tackle an effect said you guys are mostly AWS right yep right now though we are looking at multiple clouds we have production workloads running in multiple clouds today but a lot of the initial work has been with Amazon and you've seen it from a networking perspective that's where you guys are coming at it from yep yeah we evolved more from a customer requirement perspective started out primarily as AWS but as the customer needed more resources to measure like HPC you know as your ad things like that even recently Google at Google Analytics our journey has evolved into mortal multi-cloud environment Steve weigh in on the architecture because this has been the big conversation I want you to lead this second yeah so I mean I think you guys agree the journey you know it seems like the journey started a couple years ago got real serious the need for multi-cloud whether you're there today of course it's gonna be there in the future so that's really important I think the next thing is just architecture I'd love to hear what you you know had some comments about architecture matters it all starts I mean every Enterprise that I talk to maybe talk about architecture and the importance of architecture maybe Bobby it's a particular perspective we sorted a journey five years ago Wow okay and we're just now starting our fourth evolution of our network architect and we'll call it networking security net sec yep adverse adjusters network and that fourth generation or architectures be based primarily upon Palo Alto Networks an aviatrix a matrix doing the orchestration piece of it but that journey came because of the need for simplicity okay I need for multi-cloud orchestration without us having to go and do reprogramming efforts across every cloud as it comes along right I guess the other question I also had around architectures also Louis maybe just talk about I know we've talked a little bit about you know scripting right and some of your thoughts on that yeah absolutely so so for us we started we started creating the network constructs with cloud formation and we've we've stuck with that for the most part what's interesting about that is today on premise we have a lot of a lot of automation around around how we provision networks but cloud formation has become a little bit like the new manual for us so we're now having issues with having to to automate that component and making it consistent with our on-premise architecture making it consistent with Azure architecture and Google cloud so it's really interesting to see to see companies now bring that layer of abstraction that SD when brought to the to the wine side now it's going up into into the into the cloud networking architecture so on the fourth generation of you mentioned you're in the fourth gen architecture what do you guys what have you learned is there any lessons scar tissue what to avoid what worked what was some of the there was a path that's probably the biggest list and there is when you think you finally figured it out you have it right Amazon will change something as you change something you know transit gateways a game changer so in listening to the business requirements is probably the biggest thing we need to do up front but I think from a simplicity perspective like I said we don't want to do things four times we want to do things one time we won't be able to write to an API which aviatrix has and have them do the orchestration for us so that we don't have to do it four times how important is architecture in the progression is it you guys get thrown in the deep end to solve these problems or you guys zooming out and looking at it it's a I mean how are you guys looking at the architecture I mean you can't get off the ground if you don't have the network there so all of those there we've gone through similar evolutions we're on our fourth or fifth evolution I think about what we started off with Amazon without a direct connect gate without a transit Gateway without a lot of the things that are available today kind of the 80/20 that Steve was talking about just because it wasn't there doesn't mean we didn't need it so we needed to figure out a way to do it we couldn't say oh you need to come back to the network team in a year and maybe Amazon will have a solution for it right you need to do it now and in evolve later and maybe optimize or change the way you're doing things in the future but don't sit around and wait you can I'd love to have you guys each individually answer this question for the live stream because it comes up a lot a lot of cloud architects out in the community what should they be thinking about the folks that are coming into this proactively and/or realizing the business benefits are there what advice would you guys give them an architecture what should be they be thinking about and what are some guiding principles you could share so I would start with looking at an architecture model that that can that can spread and and give consistency they're different to different cloud vendors that you will absolutely have to support cloud vendors tend to want to pull you into using their native toolset and that's good if only it was realistic to talk about only one cloud but because it doesn't it's it's it's super important to talk about and have a conversation with the business and with your technology teams about a consistent model so that's the David yeah talking as earlier about day two operations so how do I design how do I do my day one work so that I'm not you know spending eighty percent of my time troubleshooting or managing my network because I'm doing that then I'm missing out on ways that I can make improvements or embrace new technologies so it's really important early on to figure out how do I make this as low maintenance as possible so that I can focus on the things that the team really should be focusing on Bobby your advice the architect I don't know what else I can do that simplicity of operations is key alright so the holistic view of day to operation you mentioned let's can jump in day one is your your your getting stuff set up day two is your life after all right this is kinda what you're getting at David so what does that look like what are you envisioning as you look at that 20 mile stair out post multi-cloud world what are some of the things that you want in a day to operations yeah infrastructure is code is really important to us so how do we how do we design it so that we can fit start making network changes and fitting them into like a release pipeline and start looking at it like that rather than somebody logging into a router CLI and troubleshooting things on in an ad hoc nature so moving more towards the DevOps model is anything on that day - yeah I would love to add something so in terms of day 2 operations you can you can either sort of ignore the day 2 operations for a little while where you get well you get your feet wet or you can start approaching it from the beginning the fact is that the the cloud native tools don't have a lot of maturity in that space and when you run into an issue you're gonna end up having a bad day going through millions and millions of logs just to try to understand what's going on so that's something that that the industry just now is beginning to realize it's it's such a such a big gap I think that's key because for us we're moving to more of an event-driven or operations in the past monitoring got the job done it's impossible to modern monitor something there's nothing there when the event happens all right so the event-driven application and then detect is important yeah I think garden was all about the cloud native wave coming into networking that's gonna be a serious thing I want to get you guys perspectives I know you have different views of how you come into the journey and how you're executing and I always say the beauties in the eye of the beholder and that kind of applies how the networks laid out so Bobby you guys do a lot of high-performance encryption both on AWS and Azure that's kind of a unique thing for you how are you seeing that impact with multi cloud yeah and that's a new requirement for us to where we we have an intern crypt and they they ever get the question should I encryption and I'll encrypt the answer is always yes you should encrypt when you can encrypt for our perspective we we need to migrate a bunch of data from our data centers we have some huge data centers and then getting that data to the cloud is the timely experiencing some cases so we have been mandated that we have to encrypt everything leaving the data center so we're looking at using the aviatrix insane mode appliances to be able to encrypt you know 10 20 gigabits of data as it moves to the cloud itself David you're using terraform you got fire Ned you've got a lot of complexity in your network what do you guys look at the future for yours environment yeah so something exciting that or yeah now is fire net so for our security team they obviously have a lot of a lot of knowledge base around Palo Alto and with our commitments to our clients you know it's it's it's not very easy to shift your security model to a specific cloud vendor right so there's a lot of stuck to compliance of things like that where being able to take some of what you've you know you've worked on for years on Bram and put it in the cloud and have the same type of assurance that things are gonna work and be secure in the same way that they are on prem helps make that journey into the cloud a lot easier and Louis you guys got scripting and get a lot of things going on what's your what's your unique angle on this yeah no absolutely so full disclosure I'm not a not not an aviatrix customer yet it's ok we want to hear the truth that's good Ellis what are you thinking about what's on your mind no really when you when you talk about implementing the tool like this it's really just really important to talk about automation and focus on on value so when you talk about things like and things like so yeah encrypting tunnels and encrypting the paths and those things are it should it should should be second nature really when you when you look at building those backends and managing them with your team it becomes really painful so tools like aviatrix that that add a lot of automation it's out of out of sight out of mind you can focus on the value and you don't have to focus on so I gotta ask you guys I see AV traces here they're they're a supplier to the sector but you guys are customers everyone's pitching you stuff people are not gonna buy my stuff how do you guys have that conversation with the suppliers like the cloud vendors and other folks what's the what's it like where API all the way you got to support this what are some of the what are some of your requirements how do you talk to and evaluate people that walk in and want to knock on your door and pitch you something what's the conversation like um it's definitely it's definitely API driven we we definitely look at the at that the API structure of the vendors provide before we select anything that that is always first in mind and also what a problem are we really trying to solve usually people try to sell or try to give us something that isn't really valuable like implementing a solution on the on the on the cloud isn't really it doesn't really add a lot of value that's where we go David what's your conversation like with suppliers you have a certain new way to do things as as becomes more agile and essentially the networking become more dynamic what are some of the conversation is with the either incumbents or new new vendors that you're having what it what do you require yeah so ease of use is definitely definitely high up there we've had some vendors come in and say you know hey you know when you go to set this up we're gonna want to send somebody on site and they're gonna sit with you for your day to configure it and that's kind of a red flag what wait a minute you know do we really if one of my really talented engineers can't figure it out on his own what's going on there and why is that so you know having having some ease-of-use and the team being comfortable with it and understanding it is really important Bobby how about you I mean the old days was do a bake-off and you know the winner takes all I mean is it like that anymore what's the Volvic bake-off last year first you win so but that's different now because now when you you get the product you can install the product in AWS energy or have it up and running a matter of minutes and so the key is is they can you be operational you know within hours or days instead of weeks but but do we also have the flexibility to customize it to meet your needs could you want to be you won't be put into a box with the other customers we have needs that surpass their cut their needs yeah I almost see the challenge that you guys are living where you've got the cloud immediate value to make an roll-up any solutions but then you have might have other needs so you've got to be careful not to buy into stuff that's not shipping so you're trying to be proactive at the same time deal with what you got I mean how do you guys see that evolving because multi-cloud to me is definitely relevant but it's not yet clear how to implement across how do you guys look at this baked versus you know future solutions coming how do you balance that so again so right now we we're we're taking the the ad hoc approach and and experimenting with the different concepts of cloud and really leveraging the the native constructs of each cloud but but there's a there's a breaking point for sure you don't you don't get to scale this I like like Simone said and you have to focus on being able to deliver a developer they're their sandbox or their play area for the for the things that they're trying to build quickly and the only way to do that is with the with with some sort of consistent orchestration layer that allows you to so you've got a lot more stuff to be coming pretty quickly IDEs area I do expect things to start to start maturing quite quite quickly this year and you guys see similar trend new stuff coming fast yeah part of the biggest challenge we've got now is being able to segment within the network being able to provide segmentation between production on production workloads even businesses because we support many businesses worldwide and and isolation between those is a key criteria there so the ability to identify and quickly isolate those workloads is key so the CIOs that are watching or that are saying hey take that he'll do multi cloud and then you know the bottoms up organization think pause you're kind of like off a little bit it's not how it works I mean what is the reality in terms of implementing you know and as fast as possible because the business benefits are clear but it's not always clear in the technology how to move that fast yeah what are some of the barriers one of the blockers what are the enabler I think the reality is is that you may not think you're multi-cloud but your business is right so I think the biggest barriers there is understanding what the requirements are and how best to meet those requirements in a secure manner because you need to make sure that things are working from a latency perspective that things work the way they did and get out of the mind shift that you know it was a cheery application in the data center it doesn't have to be a Tier three application in the cloud so lift and shift is is not the way to go scale is a big part of what I see is the competitive advantage to allow these clouds and used to be proprietary network stacks in the old days and then open systems came that was a good thing but as clouds become bigger there's kind of an inherent lock in there with the scale how do you guys keep the choice open how're you guys thinking about interoperability what are some of the conversations and you guys are having around those key concepts well when we look at when we look at the moment from a networking perspective it it's really key for you to just enable enable all the all the clouds to be to be able to communicate between them developers will will find a way to use the cloud that best suits their their business team and and like like you said it's whether whether you're in denial or not of the multi cloud fact that your company is in already that's it becomes really important for you to move quickly yeah and a lot of it also hinges on how well is the provider embracing what that specific cloud is doing so are they are they swimming with Amazon or sure and just helping facilitate things they're doing the you know the heavy lifting API work for you or they swimming upstream and they're trying to hack it all together in a messy way and so that helps you you know stay out of the lock-in because they're you know if they're doing if they're using Amazon native tools to help you get where you need to be it's not like Amazon's gonna release something in the future that completely you know makes you have designed yourself into a corner so the closer they're more cloud native they are the more the easier it is to to deploy but you also need to be aligned in such a way that you can take advantage of those cloud native technologies will it make sense tgw is a game-changer in terms of cost and performance right so to completely ignore that would be wrong but you know if you needed to have encryption you know teach Adobe's not encrypted so you need to have some type of a gateway to do the VPN encryption you know so the aviatrix tool give you the beauty of both worlds you can use tgw with a gateway Wow real quick in the last minute we have I want to just get a quick feedback from you guys I hear a lot of people say to me hey the I picked the best cloud for the workload you got and then figure out multi cloud behind the scenes so that seems to be do you guys agree with that I mean is it do I go Mull one cloud across the whole company or this workload works great on AWS that work was great on this from a cloud standpoint do you agree with that premise and then wit is multi clouds did you mall together yeah from from an application perspective it it can be per workload but it can also be an economical decision certain enterprise contracts will will pull you in one direction that add value but the the network problem is still the same doesn't go away yeah yeah I mean you don't want to be trying to fit a square into a round hall right so if it works better on that cloud provider then it's our job to make sure that that service is there and people can use it agree you just need to stay ahead of the game make sure that the network infrastructure is there secure is available and is multi cloud capable yeah I'm at the end of the day you guys just validating that it's the networking game now how cloud storage compute check networking is where the action is awesome thanks for your insights guys appreciate you coming on the panel appreciate thanks thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay welcome back on the live feed I'm John fritz T Blaney my co-host with aviatrix I'm with the cube for the special digital event our next customer panel got great another set of cloud network architects Justin Smith was aura Justin broadly with Ellie Mae and Amit Oh tree job with Cooper welcome to stage [Applause] all right thank you thank you oK you've got all the cliff notes from the last session welcome rinse and repeat yeah yeah we're going to go under the hood a little bit I think they nailed the what we've been reporting and we've been having this conversation around networking is where the action is because that's the end of the day you got a move a pack from A to B and you get workloads exchanging data so it's really killer so let's get started Amit what are you seeing as the journey of multi cloud as you go under the hood and say okay I got to implement this I have to engineer the network make it enabling make it programmable make it interoperable across clouds I mean that's like I mean almost sounds impossible to me what's your take yeah I mean it's it seems impossible but if you are running an organization which is running infrastructure as a cordon all right it is easily doable like you can use tools out there that's available today you can use third-party products that can do a better job but but put your architecture first don't wait architecture may not be perfect put the best architecture that's available today and be agile to ET rate and make improvements over the time we got to Justin's over here so I have to be careful when I point a question adjusting they both have to answer okay journeys what's the journey been like I mean is there phases we heard that from Gardner people come into multi cloud and cloud native networking from different perspectives what's your take on the journey Justin yeah I mean from Mars like - we started out very much focused on one cloud and as we started doing errands we started doing new products the market the need for multi cloud comes very apparent very quickly for us and so you know having an architecture that we can plug in play into and be able to add and change things as it changes is super important for what we're doing in the space just in your journey yes for us we were very ad hoc oriented and the idea is that we were reinventing all the time trying to move into these new things and coming up with great new ideas and so rather than it being some iterative approach with our deployments that became a number of different deployments and so we shifted that tour and the network has been a real enabler of this is that it there's one network and it touches whatever cloud we want it to touch and it touches the data centers that we need it to touch and it touches the customers that we need it to touch our job is to make sure that the services that are of and one of those locations are available in all of the locations so the idea is not that we need to come up with this new solution every time it's that we're just iterating on what we've already decided to do before we get the architecture section I want to ask you guys a question I'm a big fan of you know let the app developers have infrastructure as code so check but having the right cloud run that workload I'm a big fan of that if it works great but we just heard from the other panel you can't change the network so I want to get your thoughts what is cloud native networking and is that the engine really that's the enabler for this multi cloud trend but you guys taken we'll start with Amit what do you think about that yeah so you are gonna have workloads running in different clouds and the workloads would have affinity to one cloud over other but how you expose that it's matter of how you are going to build your networks how we are going to run security how we are going to do egress ingress out of it so it's the big problem how do you split says what's the solution what's the end the key pain points and problem statement I mean the key pain point for most companies is how do you take your traditional on-premise network and then blow that out to the cloud in a way that makes sense you know IP conflicts you have IP space you pub public eye peas and premise as well as in the cloud and how do you kind of make them a sense of all of that and I think that's where tools like aviatrix make a lot of sense in that space from our site it's it's really simple it's latency and bandwidth and availability these don't change whether we're talking about cloud or data center or even corporate IT networking so our job when when these all of these things are simplified into like s3 for instance and our developers want to use those we have to be able to deliver that and for a particular group or another group that wants to use just just GCP resources these aren't we have to support these requirements and these wants as opposed to saying hey that's not a good idea now our job is to enable them not to disable them do you think you guys think infrastructure as code which I love that I think it's that's the future it is we saw that with DevOps but I just start getting the networking is it getting down to the network portion where it's network as code because storage and compute working really well is seeing all kubernetes on ServiceMaster and network is code reality is it there is it still got work to do it's absolutely there I mean you mentioned net DevOps and it's it's very real I mean in Cooper we build our networks through terraform and on not only just out of fun build an API so that we can consistently build V nets and VPC all across in the same way we get to do it yeah and even security groups and then on top and aviatrix comes in we can peer the networks bridge bridge all the different regions through code same with you guys but yeah about this everything we deploy is done with automation and then we also run things like lambda on top to make changes in real time we don't make manual changes on our network in the data center funny enough it's still manual but the cloud has enabled us to move into this automation mindset and and all my guys that's what they focus on is bringing what now what they're doing in the cloud into the data center which is kind of opposite of what it should be that's full or what it used to be it's full DevOps then yes yeah I mean for us it was similar on premise still somewhat very manual although we're moving more Norton ninja and terraform concepts but everything in the production environment is colored confirmation terraform code and now coming into the datacenter same I just wanted to jump in on a Justin Smith one of the comment that you made because it's something that we always talk about a lot is that the center of gravity of architecture used to be an on-prem and now it's shifted in the cloud and once you have your strategic architecture what you--what do you do you push that everywhere so what you used to see at the beginning of cloud was pushing the architecture on prem into cloud now i want to pick up on what you said to you others agree that the center of architect of gravity is here i'm now pushing what i do in the cloud back into on Prem and wait and then so first that and then also in the journey where are you at from zero to a hundred of actually in the journey to cloud do you 50% there are you 10% yes I mean are you evacuating data centers next year I mean were you guys at yeah so there's there's two types of gravity that you typically are dealing with no migration first is data gravity and your data set and where that data lives and then the second is the network platform that interrupts all that together right in our case the data gravity sold mostly on Prem but our network is now extend out to the app tier that's going to be in cloud right eventually that data gravity will also move to cloud as we start getting more sophisticated but you know in our journey we're about halfway there about halfway through the process we're taking a handle of you know lift and shift and when did that start and we started about three years ago okay okay go by it's a very different story it started from a garage and one hundred percent on the clock it's a business spend management platform as a software-as-a-service one hundred percent on the cloud it was like ten years ago right yes yeah you guys are riding the wave love that architecture Justin I want to ask you Sora you guys mentioned DevOps I mean obviously we saw the huge observability wave which is essentially network management for the cloud in my opinion right yeah it's more dynamic but this is about visibility we heard from the last panel you don't know what's being turned on or turned off from a services standpoint at any given time how is all this playing out when you start getting into the DevOps down well this layer this is the big challenge for all of us as visibility when you talk transport within a cloud you know we very interestingly we have moved from having a backbone that we bought that we owned that would be data center connectivity we now I work for soar as a subscription billing company so we want to support the subscription mindset so rather than going and buying circuits and having to wait three months to install and then coming up with some way to get things connected and resiliency and redundancy I my backbone is in the cloud I use the cloud providers interconnections between regions to transport data across and and so if you do that with their native solutions you you do lose visibility there there are areas in that that you don't get which is why controlling you know controllers and having some type of management plane is a requirement for us to do what we're supposed to do and provide consistency while doing it a great conversation I loved when you said earlier latency bandwidth availability with your sim pop3 things guys SLA I mean you just do ping times are between clouds it's like you don't know what you're getting for round-trip times this becomes a huge kind of risk management black hole whatever you want to call blind spot how are you guys looking at the interconnects between clouds because you know I can see that working from you know ground to cloud I'm per cloud but when you start doing with multi clouds workloads I mean s LA's will be all over the map won't they just inherently but how do you guys view that yeah I think we talked about workload and we know that the workloads are going to be different in different clouds but they are going to be calling each other so it's very important to have that visibility that you can see how data is flowing at what latency and whatever ability is our is there and our authority needs to operate on that so it's so you use the software dashboard look at the times and look at the latency in the old days strong so on open so on you try to figure it out and then your days you have to figure out just what she reinsert that because you're in the middle of it yeah I mean I think the the key thing there is that we have to plan for that failure we have to plan for that latency in our applications that start thinking start tracking in your SLI something you start planning for and you loosely couple these services and a much more micro services approach so you actually can handle that kind of failure or that type of unknown latency and unfortunately the cloud has made us much better at handling exceptions a much better way you guys are all great examples of cloud native from day one and you guys had when did you have the tipping point moment or the Epiphany of saying a multi clouds real I can't ignore it I got to factor it into all my design design principles and and everything you're doing what's it was there a moment was it was it from day one no there were two reasons one was the business so in business there was some affinity to not be in one cloud or to be in one cloud and that drove from the business side so as a cloud architect our responsibility was to support that business and other is the technology some things are really running better in like if you are running dot Network load or you are going to run machine learning or AI so that you have you would have that reference of one cloud over other so it was the bill that we got from AWS I mean that's that's what drives a lot of these conversations is the financial viability of what you're building on top of it which is so we this failure domain idea which is which is fairly interesting is how do I solve or guarantee against a failure domain you have methodologies with you know back-end direct connects or interconnect with GCP all of these ideas are something that you have to take into account but that transport layer should not matter to whoever we're building this for our job is to deliver the frames in the packets what that flows across how you get there we want to make that seamless and so whether it's a public internet API call or it's a back-end connectivity through Direct Connect it doesn't matter it just has to meet a contract that you signed with your application folks yeah that's the availability piece just in your thoughts on anything any common uh so actually a multi clouds become something much more recent in the last six to eight months I'd say we always kind of had a very much an attitude of like moving to Amazon from our private cloud is hard enough why complicate it further but the realities of the business and as we start seeing you know improvements in Google and Asia and different technology spaces the need for multi cloud becomes much more important as well as our acquisition strategies I matured we're seeing that companies that used to be on premise that we typically acquire are now very much already on a cloud and if they're on a cloud I need to plug them into our ecosystem and so that's really change our multi cloud story in a big way I'd love to get your thoughts on the clouds versus the clouds because you know you compare them Amazon's got more features they're rich with features I see the bills are how could people using them but Google's got a great network Google's networks pretty damn good and then you got a sure what's the difference between the clouds who with they've evolved something whether they peak in certain areas better than others what what are the characteristics which makes one cloud better do they have a unique feature that makes as you're better than Google and vice versa what do you guys think about the different clouds yeah to my experience I think there is approaches different in many places Google has a different approach very DevOps friendly and you can run your workload like the your network and spend regions time I mean but our application ready to accept that MS one is evolving I mean I remember 10 years back Amazon's Network was a flat network we will be launching servers and 10.0.0.0 so the VP sees concept came out multi-account came out so they are evolving as you are at a late start but because they have a late start they saw the pattern and they they have some mature set up on the yeah I think they're all trying to say they're equal in their own ways I think they all have very specific design philosophies that allow them to be successful in different ways and you have to kind of keep that in mind as you architectural solution for example amazon has a very much a very regional affinity they don't like to go cross region in their architecture whereas Google is very much it's a global network we're gonna think about as a global solution I think Google also has advantages its third to market and so has seen what Asia did wrong it seemed with AWS did wrong and it's made those improvements and I think that's one of their big advantage at great scale to Justin thoughts on the cloud so yeah Amazon built from the system up and Google built from the network down so their ideas and approaches are from a global versus or regional I agree with you completely that that is the big number one thing but the if you look at it from the outset interestingly the inability or the ability for Amazon to limit layer 2 broadcasting and and what that really means from a VPC perspective changed all the routing protocols you can use all the things that we have built inside of a data center to provide resiliency and and and make things seamless to users all of that disappeared and so because we had to accept that at the VPC level now we have to accept it at the LAN level Google's done a better job of being able to overcome those things and provide those traditional Network facilities to us just great panel can go all day here's awesome so I heard we could we'll get to the cloud native naive questions so kind of think about what's not even what's cloud is that next but I got to ask you had a conversation with a friend he's like Wayne is the new land so if you think about what the land was at a datacenter when is the new link you could talking about the cloud impact so that means st when the old st way is kind of changing into the new land how do you guys look at that because if you think about it what lands were for inside a premises was all about networking high-speed but now when you take the win and make it essentially a land do you agree with that and how do you view this trend and is it good or bad or is it ugly and what's what you guys take on this yeah I think it's a it's a thing that you have to work with your application architect so if you are managing networks and if you are a sorry engineer you need to work with them to expose the unreliability that would bring in so the application has to hand a lot of this the difference in the latencies and and the reliability has to be worked through the application there Lanois same concept is that BS I think we've been talking about for a long time the erosion of the edge and so is this is just a continuation of that journey we've been on for the last several years as we get more and more cloud native and we start about API is the ability to lock my data in place and not be able to access it really goes away and so I think this is just continuation that thing I think it has challenges we start talking about weighing scale versus land scale the tooling doesn't work the same the scale of that tooling is much larger and the need to automation is much much higher in a way and than it was in a land that's where is what you're seeing so much infrastructure as code yeah yes so for me I'll go back again to this its bandwidth and its latency right that bet define those two land versus win but the other thing that's comes up more and more with cloud deployments is where is our security boundary and where can I extend this secure aware appliance or set of rules to to protect what's inside of it so for us we're able to deliver vr af-s or route forwarding tables for different segments wherever we're at in the world and so they're they're trusted to talk to each other but if they're gonna go to someplace that's outside of their their network then they have to cross a security boundary and where we enforce policy very heavily so for me there's it's not just land when it's it's how does environment get to environment more importantly that's a great point and security we haven't talked to yet but that's got to be baked in from the beginning this architecture thoughts on security are you guys are dealing with it yeah start from the base have apt to have security built in have TLS have encryption on the data I transit data at rest but as you bring the application to the cloud and they are going to go multi-cloud talking to over the Internet in some places well have apt web security I mean I mean our principles day Security's day zero every day and so we we always build it into our design build into our architecture into our applications it's encrypt everything it's TLS everywhere it's make sure that that data is secured at all times yeah one of the cool trends at RSA just as a side note was the data in use encryption piece which is a homomorphic stuff is interesting all right guys final question you know we heard on the earlier panel was also trending at reinvent we take the tea out of cloud native it spells cloud naive okay they got shirts now aviatrix kind of got this trend going what does that mean to be naive so if you're to your peers out there watching a live stream and also the suppliers that are trying to supply you guys with technology and services what's naive look like and what's native look like when is someone naive about implementing all this stuff so for me it's because we are in hundred-percent cloud for us it's main thing is ready for the change and you will you will find new building blocks coming in and the network design will evolve and change so don't be naive and think that it's static you wall with the change I think the big naivety that people have is that well I've been doing it this way for 20 years and been successful it's going to be successful in cloud the reality is that's not the case you have to think some of the stuff a little bit differently and you need to think about it early enough so that you can become cloud native and really enable your business on cloud yeah for me it's it's being open minded right the the our industry the network industry as a whole has been very much I am smarter than everybody else and we're gonna tell everybody how it's going to be done and we had we fell into a lull when it came to producing infrastructure and and and so embracing this idea that we can deploy a new solution or a new environment in minutes as opposed to hours or weeks or four months in some cases is really important and and so you know it's are you being closed-minded native being open minded exactly and and it took a for me it was that was a transformative kind of where I was looking to solve problems in a cloud way as opposed to looking to solve problems in this traditional old-school way all right I know we're out of time but I ask one more question so you guys so good it could be a quick answer what's the BS language when you the BS meter goes off when people talk to you about solutions what's the kind of jargon that you hear that's the BS meter going off what are people talking about that in your opinion you here you go that's total BS but what triggers use it so that I have two lines out of movies that are really I can if I say them without actually thinking them it's like 1.21 jigowatts are you out of your mind from Back to the Future right somebody's getting a bang and then and then Martin Mull and and Michael Keaton and mr. mom when he goes to 22 21 whatever it takes yeah those two right there if those go off in my mind somebody's talking to me I know they're full of baloney so a lot of speech would be a lot of speeds and feeds a lot of data did it instead of talking about what you're actually doing and solutioning for you're talking about well I does this this this and any time I start seeing the cloud vendor start benchmarking against each other it's your workload is your workload you need to benchmark yourself don't don't listen to the marketing on that that's that's all what triggers you and the bsp I think if somebody explains you and not simple they cannot explain you in simplicity then that's good all right guys thanks for the great insight great time how about a round of applause DX easy solutions integrating company than we service customers from all industry verticals and we're helping them to move to the digital world so as a solutions integrator we interface with many many customers that have many different types of needs and they're on their IT journey to modernize their applications into the cloud so we encounter many different scenarios many different reasons for those migrations all of them seeking to optimize their IT solutions to better enable their business we have our CPS organization it's cloud platform services we support AWS does your Google Alibaba corkle will help move those workloads to wherever it's most appropriate no one buys the house for the plumbing equally no one buys the solution for the networking but if the plumbing doesn't work no one likes the house and if this network doesn't work no one likes a solution so network is ubiquitous it is a key component of every solution we do the network connectivity is the lifeblood of any architecture without network connectivity nothing works properly planning and building a scalable robust network that's gonna be able to adapt with the application needs critical when encountering some network design and talking about speed the deployment aviatrix came up in discussion and we then further pursued an area DHT products have incorporated aviatrix is part of a new offering that we are in the process of developing that really enhances our ability to provide cloud connectivity for the Lyons cloud connectivity is a new line of networking services so we're getting into as our clients moving the hybrid cloud networking it is much different than our traditional based services and aviatrix provides a key component in that service before we found aviatrix we were using just native peering connections but there wasn't a way to visualize all those peering connections and with multiple accounts multiple contacts for security with a VA Church were able to visualize those different peering connections of security groups it helped a lot especially in areas of early deployment scenarios were quickly able to then take those deployment scenarios and turn them into scripts that we can then deploy repeatedly their solutions were designed to work with the cloud native capabilities first and where those cloud native capabilities fall short they then have solution sets that augment those capabilities I was pleasantly surprised number one with the aviatrix team as a whole and their level of engagement with us you know we weren't only buying the product we were buying a team that came on board to help us implement and solution that was really good to work together to learn both what aviatrix had to offer as well as enhancements that we had to bring that aviatrix was able to put into their product and meet our needs even better aviatrix was a joy to find because they really provided us the technology that we needed in order to provide multi cloud connectivity that really added to the functionality that you can't get from the basically providing services we're taking our customers on a journey to simplify and optimize their IT maybe Atrix certainly has made my job much easier okay welcome back to altitude 2020 for the digital event for the live feed welcome back I'm John Ford with the cube with Steve Mulaney CEO aviatrix for the next panel from global system integrators the folks who are building and working with folks on their journey to multi cloud and cloud native networking we've got a great panel George Buckman with dxc and Derek Monahan with wwt welcome to the stage [Applause] [Music] okay you guys are the ones out there advising building and getting down and dirty with multi cloud and cloud native network and we just heard from the customer panel you can see the diversity of where people come in to the journey of cloud it kind of depends upon where you are but the trends are all clear cloud native networking DevOps up and down the stack this has been the main engine what's your guys take of the disk Jerry to multi cloud what do you guys seeing yeah it's it's critical I mean we're seeing all of our enterprise customers enter into this they've been through the migrations of the easy stuff you know now they're trying to optimize and get more improvement so now the tough stuffs coming on right and you know they need their data processing near where their data is so that's driving them to a multi cloud environment okay we heard some of the edge stuff I mean you guys are exactly you've seen this movie before but now it's a whole new ballgame what's your take yeah so I'll give you a hint so our practice it's not called the cloud practice it's the multi cloud practice and so if that gives you a hint of how we approach things it's very consultative and so when we look at what the trends are let's look a little year ago about a year ago we're having conversations with customers let's build a data center in the cloud let's put some VP C's let's throw some firewalls with some DNS and other infrastructure out there and let's hope it works this isn't a science project so what we're trying to see is customers are starting to have more of a vision and we're helping with that consultative nature but it's totally based on the business and you got to start understanding how the lines of business are using the and then we evolved into the next journey which is a foundational approach to what are some of the problem statement customers are solving when they come to you what are the top things that are on their my house or the ease of use of Julie all that stuff but what specifically they digging into yeah so complexity I think when you look at a multi cloud approach in my view is network requirements are complex you know I think they are but I think the approach can be let's simplify that so one thing that we try to do this is how we talk to customers is let's just like you simplify an aviatrix simplifies the automation orchestration of cloud networking we're trying to simplify the design the planning implementation of infrastructure across multiple workloads across multiple platforms and so the way we do it is we sit down we look at not just use cases and not just the questions in common we tis anticipate we actually build out based on the business and function requirements we build out a strategy and then create a set of documents and guess what we actually build in the lab and that lab that we platform we built proves out this reference architecture actually works absolutely we implement similar concepts I mean we they're proven practices they work great so well George you mentioned that the hard part's now upon us are you referring to networking what is specifically were you getting at Terrance's the easy parts done now so for the enterprises themselves migrating their more critical apps or more difficult apps into the environments you know they've just we've just scratched the surface I believe on what enterprises are doing to move into the cloud to optimize their environments to take advantage of the scale and speed to deployment and to be able to better enable their businesses so they're just now really starting the - so do you get you guys see what I talked about them in terms of their Cambrian explosion I mean you're both monster system integrators with you know top fortune enterprise customers you know really rely on you for for guidance and consulting and so forth and boy they're networks is that something that you you've seen I mean does that resonate did you notice a year and a half ago and all of a sudden the importance of cloud for enterprise shoot up yeah I mean we're seeing it not okay in our internal environment as you know we're a huge company or as customers so we're experiencing that internal okay and every one of our other customers so I have another question oh but I don't know the answer to this and the lawyer never asks a question that you don't know the answer to but I'm gonna ask it anyway DX c + w WT massive system integrators why aviatrix yep so great question Steve so I think the way we approach things I think we have a similar vision a similar strategy how you approach things how we approach things that world by technology number one we want to simplify the complexity and so that's your number one priorities let's take the networking let's simplify it and I think part of the other point I'm making is we have we see this automation piece as not just an afterthought anymore if you look at what customers care about visibility and automation is probably the top three maybe the third on the list and I think that's where we see the value and I think the partnership that we're building and what I would I get excited about is not just putting yours in our lab and showing customers how it works is Co developing a solution with you figuring out hey how can we make this better right visibility's a huge thing jump in security alone network everything's around visibility what automation do you see happening in terms of progression order of operations if you will it's a low-hanging fruit what are people working on now what are what are some of the aspirational goals around when you start thinking about multi cloud and automation yep so I wanted to get back to answer that question I want to answer your question you know what led us there and why aviatrix you know in working some large internal IT projects and and looking at how we were gonna integrate those solutions you know we like to build everything with recipes where network is probably playing catch-up in the DevOps world but with a DevOps mindset looking to speed to deploy support all those things so when you start building your recipes you take a little of this a little of that and you mix it all together well when you look around you say wow look there's this big bag of a VHS let me plop that in that solves a big part of my problems that I have to speed to integrate speed to deploy and the operational views that I need to run this so that was 11 years about reference architectures yeah absolutely so you know they came with a full slate of reference textures already the out there and ready to go that fit our needs so it's very very easy for us to integrate those into our recipes what do you guys think about all the multi vendor interoperability conversations that have been going on choice has been a big part of multi-cloud in terms of you know customers want choice they didn't you know they'll put a workload in the cloud that works but this notion of choice and interoperability is become a big conversation it is and I think our approach and that's why we talk to customers is let's let's speed and be risk of that decision making process and how do we do that because the interoperability is key you're not just putting it's not just a single vendor we're talking you know many many vendors I mean think about the average number of cloud application as a customer uses a business and enterprise business today you know it's it's above 30 it's it's skyrocketing and so what we do and we look at it from an interoperability approach is how do things interoperate we test it out we validate it we build a reference architecture it says these are the critical design elements now let's build one with aviatrix and show how this works with aviatrix and I think the the important part there though is the automation piece that we add to it in visibility so I think the visibility is what's what I see lacking across the industry today and the cloud needed that's been a big topic okay in terms of aviatrix as you guys see them coming in they're one of the ones that are emerging and the new brands emerging but multi-cloud you still got the old guard incumbents with huge footprints how our customers dealing with that that kind of component and dealing with both of them yeah I mean where we have customers that are ingrained with a particular vendor and you know we have partnerships with many vendors so our objective is to provide the solution that meets that client and you they all want multi vendor they all want interoperability correct all right so I got to ask you guys a question while we were defining day two operations what does that mean I mean you guys are looking at the big business and technical components of architecture what does day to Operations mean what's the definition of that yeah so I think from our perspective my experience we you know day to operations whether it's it's not just the you know the orchestration piece and setting up and let it a lot of automate and have some you know change control you're looking at this from a data perspective how do I support this ongoing and make it easy to make changes as we evolve the the the cloud is very dynamic the the nature of how the fast is expanding the number of features is astonish trying to keep up to date with a number of just networking capabilities and services that are added so I think day to operation starts with a fundable understanding of you know building out supporting a customer's environments and making it the automation piece easy from from you know a distance I think yeah and you know taking that to the next level of being able to enable customers to have catalog items that they can pick and choose hey I need this network connectivity from this cloud location back to this on pram and being able to have that automated and provisioned just simply by ordering it for the folks watching out there guys take a minute to explain as you guys are in the trenches doing a lot of good work what are some of the engagement that you guys get into how does that progress what is that what's what happens do they call you up and say hey I need some multi-cloud or you're already in there I mean take us through why how someone can engage to use a global si to come in and make this thing happen what's looks like typical engagement look like yeah so from our perspective we typically have a series of workshops in a methodology that we kind of go along the journey number one we have a foundational approach and I don't mean foundation meaning the network foundation that's a very critical element we got a factor in security we've got a factor in automation so we think about foundation we do a workshop that starts with education a lot of times we'll go in and we'll just educate the customer what is VP she's sharing you know what is a private Lincoln or how does that impact your business we have customers I want to share services out in an ecosystem with other customers and partners well there's many ways to accomplish that so our goal is to you know understand those requirements and then build that strategy with them thoughts Georgia yeah I mean I'm one of the guys that's down in the weeds making things happen so I'm not the guy on the front line interfacing with the customers every day but we have a similar approach you know we have a consulting practice that will go out and and apply their practices to see what those and when do you parachute in yeah and when I then is I'm on the back end working with our offering development leads for the networking so we understand or seeing what customers are asking for and we're on the back end developing the solutions that integrate with our own offerings as well as enable other customers to just deploy quickly to beep their connectivity needs it so the patterns are similar right final question for you guys I want to ask you to paint a picture of what success looks like and you know the name customers didn't forget in reveal kind of who they are but what does success look like in multi-cloud as you paint a picture for the folks here and watching on the live stream it's someone says hey I want to be multi-cloud I got to have my operations agile I want full DevOps I want programmability security built in from day zero what does success look like yeah I think success looks like this so when you're building out a network the network is a harder thing to change than some other aspects of cloud so what we think is even if you're thinking about that second cloud which we have most of our customers are on to public clouds today they might be dabbling in that as you build that network foundation that architecture that takes in consideration where you're going and so once we start building that reference architecture out that shows this is how to sit from a multi cloud perspective not a single cloud and let's not forget our branches let's not forget our data centers let's not forget how all this connects together because that's how we define multi-cloud it's not just in the cloud it's on Prem and it's off from and so collectively I think the key is also is that we provide them an hld you got to start with a high level design that can be tweaked as you go through the journey but you got to give a solid structural foundation and that that networking which we think most customers think as not not the network engineers but as an afterthought we want to make that the most critical element before you start the journey Jorge from your seed how do you success look for you so you know it starts out on these journeys often start out people not even thinking about what is gonna happen what what their network needs are when they start their migration journey to the cloud so I want this success to me looks like them being able to end up not worrying about what's happening in the network when they move to the cloud good point guys great insight thanks for coming on share and pen I've got a round of applause the global system integrators Hey [Applause] [Music] okay welcome back from the live feed I'm chef for with the cube Steve Eleni CEO of aviatrix my co-host our next panel is the aviatrix certified engineers also known as aces this is the folks that are certified their engineering they're building these new solutions please welcome Toby Foster min from Attica Stacy linear from Teradata and Jennifer Reid with Victor Davis to the stage I was just gonna I was just gonna rip you guys see where's your jackets and Jen's got the jacket on okay good love the aviatrix aces pile of gear they're above the clouds towards a new heights that's right so guys aviatrix aces love the name I think it's great certified this is all about getting things engineered so there's a level of certification I want to get into that but first take us through the day in the life of an ace and just to point out Stacey's a squad leader so he's like a Squadron Leader Roger and leader yeah Squadron Leader so he's got a bunch of aces underneath him but share your perspective day-in-the-life Jennifer will start with you sure so I have actually a whole team that works for me both in the in the North America both in the US and in Mexico and so I'm eagerly working to get them certified as well so I can become a squad leader myself but it's important because one of the the critical gaps that we've found is people having the networking background because they're you graduate from college and you have a lot of computer science background you can program you've got Python but now working in packets they just don't get and so just taking them through all the processes that it's really necessary to understand when you're troubleshooting is really critical mm-hmm and because you're gonna get an issue where you need to figure out where exactly is that happening on the network you know is my my issue just in the VP C's and on the instance side is a security group or is it going on print and this is something actually embedded within Amazon itself I mean I should troubleshot an issue for about six months going back and forth with Amazon and it was the vgw VPN because they were auto-scaling on two sides and we ended up having to pull out the Cisco's and put in aviatrix so I could just say okay it's fixed and I actually actually helped the application teams get to that and get it solved yeah but I'm taking a lot of junior people and getting them through that certification process so they can understand and see the network the way I see the network I mean look I've been doing this for 25 years when I got out when I went in the Marine Corps that's what I did and coming out the network is still the network but people don't get the same training they get they got in the 90s it's just so easy just write some software they work takes care of itself yes he'll be we'll come back to that I want to come back to that problem solve with Amazon but Toby I think the only thing I have to add to that is that it's always the network fault as long as I've been in network have always been the network's fault sure and I'm even to this day you know it's still the network's fault and part of being a network guy is that you need to prove when it is and when it's not your fault and that means you need to know a little bit about a hundred different things to make that and now you've got a full stack DevOps you got to know a lot more times another hundred and these times are changing they see your squadron leader I get that right what is what is a squadron leader first can you describe what it is I think it probably just leading all the network components of it but are they from my perspective when to think about what you asked them was it's about no issues and no escalation soft my day is like that's a good outcome that's a good day it's a good day Jennifer you mentioned the Amazon thing this brings up a good point you know when you have these new waves come in you have a lot of new things newly use cases a lot of the finger-pointing it's that guys problem that girls problem so what is how do you solve that and how do you get the young guns up to speed is there training is that this is where the certification comes in those where the certification is really going to come in I know when we we got together at reinvent one of the the questions that that we had with Stephen the team was what what should our certification look like you know she would just be teaching about what aviatrix troubleshooting brings to bear but what should that be like and I think Toby and I were like no no no that's going a little too high we need to get really low because the the better someone can get at actually understanding what actually happening in the network and and where to actually troubleshoot the problem how to step back each of those processes because without that it's just a big black box and they don't know you know because everything is abstracted in Amazon Internet and Azure and Google is substracted and they have these virtual gateways they have VPNs that you just don't have the logs on it's you just don't know and so then what tools can you put in front of them of where they can look because there are full logs well as long as they turned on the flow logs when they built it you know and there's like each one of those little things that well if they'd had decided to do that when they built it it's there but if you can come in later to really supplement that with training to actual troubleshoot and do a packet capture here as it's going through then teaching them how to read that even yeah Toby we were talking before he came on up on stage about your career you've been networking all your time and then you know you're now mentoring a lot of younger people how is that going because the people who come in fresh they don't have all the old war stories they don't know you talk about you know that's dimmer fault I walk in Mayr feet in the snow when I was your age I mean it's so easy now right they say what's your take on how you train the young P so I've noticed two things one is that they are up to speed a lot faster in generalities of networking they can tell you what a network is in high school level now where I didn't learn that too midway through my career and they're learning it faster but they don't necessarily understand why it's that way or you know everybody thinks that it's always slash 24 for a subnet and they don't understand why you can break it down smaller why it's really necessary so the the ramp up speed is much faster for these guys that are coming in but they don't understand why and they need some of that background knowledge to see where it's coming from and why is it important and that's old guys that's where we thrive Jennifer you mentioned you you got in from the Marines health spa when you got into networking how what was it like then and compare it now most like we've heard earlier static versus dynamic don't be static cuz back then you just said the network you got a perimeter yeah no there was no such thing ya know so back in the day I mean I mean we had banyan vines for email and you know we had token ring and I had to set up token ring networks and figure out why that didn't work because how many of things were actually sharing it but then actually just cutting fiber and running fiber cables and dropping them over you know shelters to plug them in and oh crap they swung it too hard and shattered it now I gotta be great polished this thing and actually shoot like to see if it works I mean that was the network current five cat 5 cables to run an Ethernet you know and then from that just said network switches dumb switches like those were the most common ones you had then actually configuring routers and you know logging into a Cisco router and actually knowing how to configure that and it was funny because I had gone all the way up and was a software product manager for a while so I've gone all the way up the stack and then two and a half three years ago I came across to to work with entity group that became Victor Davis but we went to help one of our customers Avis and it was like okay so we need to fix the network okay I haven't done this in 20 years but all right let's get to it you know because it really fundamentally does not change it's still the network I mean I've had people tell me well you know when we go to containers we will not have to worry about the network and I'm like yeah you don't I do and then with this within the program abilities it really interesting so I think this brings up the certification what are some of the new things that people should be aware of that come in with the aviatrix ace certification what are some of the highlights can you guys share some of the some of the highlights around the certifications I think some of the importance is that it's it doesn't need to be vendor specific for network generality or basic networking knowledge and instead of learning how Cisco does something or how Palo Alto does something we need to understand how and why it works as a basic model and then understand how each vendor has gone about that problem and solved it in a general that's true in multi cloud as well you can't learn how cloud networking works without understanding how AWS integer and GCP are all slightly the same but slightly different and some things work and some things don't I think that's probably the number one take I think having a certification across clouds is really valuable because we heard the global si you help the business issues what does it mean to do that is it code is that networking is it configuration is that aviatrix what is the amine oxy aviatrix is a certification but what is it about the multi cloud that makes it multi networking and multi vendor and easy answer is yes so you got to be a general let's go to your hands and all you have to be it takes experience because it's every every cloud vendor has their own certification whether that's hops and [Music] advanced networking and advanced security or whatever it might be yeah they can take the test but they have no idea how to figure out what's wrong with that system and the same thing with any certification but it's really getting your hands in there and actually having to troubleshoot the problems you know actually work the problem you know and calm down it's going to be okay I mean because I don't know how many calls I've been on or even had aviatrix join me on it's like okay so everyone calm down let's figure out what's happening it's like we've looked at that screen three times looking at it again it's not going to solve that problem right but at the same time you know remaining calm but knowing that it really is I'm getting a packet from here to go over here it's not working so what could be the problem you know and actually stepping them through those scenarios but that's like you only get that by having to do it you know and seeing it and going through it and then I have a question so we you know I just see it we started this program maybe six months ago we're seeing a huge amount of interest I mean we're oversubscribed on all the training sessions we've got people flying from around the country even with coronavirus flying to go to Seattle to go to these events were oversubscribed a good is that watching leader would put there yeah something that you see in your organizations are you recommending that to people do you see I mean I'm just I would guess I'm surprised I'm not surprised but I'm really surprised by the demand if you would of this multi-cloud network certification because it really isn't anything like that is that something you guys can comment on or do you see the same things in your organization's I say from my side because we operate in the multi cloud environment so it really helps an official for us I think I would add that networking guys have always needed to use certifications to prove that they know what they know it's not good enough to say yeah I know IP addresses or I know how a network works and a couple little check marks or a little letters buying helps give you validity so even in our team we can say hey you know we're using these certifications to know that you know enough of the basics enough of the understandings that you have the tools necessary right so okay I guess my final question for you guys is why an eighth certification is relevant and then second part is share what the livestream folks who aren't yet a certified or might want to jump in to be AVH or certified engineers why is it important so why is it relevant and why shouldn't someone want to be an ace-certified I'm used to right engineer I think my views a little different I think certification comes from proving that you have the knowledge not proving that you get a certification to get no I mean they're backwards so when you've got the training and the understanding and the you use that to prove and you can like grow your certification list with it versus studying for a test to get a certification and have no understanding it okay so that who is the right person that look at this is saying I'm qualified is it a network engineer is it a DevOps person what's your view you know is it a certain you know I think cloud is really the answer it's the as we talked like the edge is getting eroded so is the network definition getting eroded we're getting more and more of some network some DevOps some security lots and lots of security because network is so involved in so many of them that's just the next progression I don't say I expend that to more automation engineers because we have those nails probably well I think that the training classes themselves are helpful especially the entry-level ones for people who may be quote-unquote cloud architects but I've never done anything and networking for them to understand why we need those things to really work whether or not they go through to eventually get a certification is something different but I really think fundamentally understanding how these things work it makes them a better architect makes some better application developer but even more so as you deploy more of your applications into the cloud really getting an understanding even from our people who've tradition down on prime networking they can understand how that's going to work in the cloud too well I know we got just under 30 seconds left but I want to get one more question than just one more for the folks watching that are you may be younger that don't have that networking training from your experiences each of you can answer why is it should they know about networking what's the benefit what's in it for them motivate them share some insights and why they should go a little bit deeper in networking Stacey we'll start with you we'll go down let's say it's probably fundamental right if you want to deliver solutions no we're going use the very top I would say if you fundamental of an operating system running on a machine how those machines talk together as a fundamental change is something that starts from the base and work your way up right well I think it's a challenge because you've come from top-down now you're gonna start looking from bottom up and you want those different systems to cross communicate and say you've built something and you're overlapping IP space not that that doesn't happen but how can I actually make that still operate without having to reappear e-platform it's like those challenges like those younger developers or sis engineers can really start to get their hands around and understand those complexities and bring that forward in their career they got to know the how the pipes are working you guys know what's going some plumbing that's right and they gotta know how it works I had a code it it's right awesome thank you guys for great insights ace certain ABS your certified engineers also known as aces give a round of applause thank you okay all right that concludes my portion thank you Steve thanks for have Don thank you very much that was fantastic everybody round of applause for John for you yeah so great event great event I'm not gonna take long we got we've got lunch outside for that for the people here just a couple of things just call to action right so we saw the aces you know for those of you out on the stream here become a certified right it's great for your career it's great for not knowledge is is fantastic it's not just an aviatrix thing it's gonna teach you about cloud networking multi-cloud networking with a little bit of aviatrix exactly what the Cisco CCIE program was for IP network that type of the thing that's number one second thing is is is is learn right so so there's a there's a link up there for the four to join the community again like I started this this is a community this is the kickoff to this community and it's a movement so go to what a v8 community aviatrix comm starting a community a multi cloud so you know get get trained learn I'd say the next thing is we're doing over a hundred seminars in across the United States and also starting into Europe soon will come out and will actually spend a couple hours and talk about architecture and talk about those beginning things for those of you on the you know on the livestream in here as well you know we're coming to a city near you go to one of those events it's a great way to network with other people that are in the industry as well as to start to learn and get on that multi-cloud journey and then I'd say the last thing is you know we haven't talked a lot about what aviatrix does here and that's intentional we want you you know leaving with wanting to know more and schedule get with us in schedule a multi our architecture workshop session so we we sit out with customers and we talk about where they're at in that journey and more importantly where they're going and define that end state architecture from networking compute storage everything and everything you heard today every panel kept talking about architecture talking about operations those are the types of things that we solve we help you define that canonical architecture that system architecture that's yours so for so many of our customers they have three by five plotted lucid charts architecture drawings and it's the customer name slash aviatrix arc network architecture and they put it on their whiteboard that's what what we and that's the most valuable thing they get from us so this becomes their twenty-year network architecture drawing that they don't do anything without talking to us and look at that architecture that's what we do in these multi hour workshop sessions with customers and that's super super powerful so if you're interested definitely call us and let's schedule that with our team so anyway I just want to thank everybody on the livestream thank everybody here hopefully it was it was very useful I think it was and joined the movement and for those of you here join us for lunch and thank you very much [Applause] [Music] you