>> Announcer: Live, from Las Vegas, it's the Cube. Covering InterConnect 2017. Brought to you by, IBM. >> Okay welcome back everyone, we're here live in Las Vegas for IBM InterConnect 2017, this is the Cube coverage here, in Las Vegas for IBM's cloud and data shows. It turns out, I'm John Furrier, with my cohost Dave Vellante, next guess is Jamie Thomas, general manager of systems development and strategy at IBM, Cube Alum. Great to see you, welcome back. >> Thank you, great to see you guys as usual. >> So, huge crowds here. This is I think, the biggest show I've been to for IBM. It's got lines around the corner, just a ton of traffic online, great event. But it's the cloud show, but it's a little bit different. What's the twist here today at InterConnect? >> Well, if you saw the Keynote, I think we've definitely demonstrated that while we're focused on differentiating experience on the cloud through cloud native services, we're also interesting in bridging existing clients IT investments into that environment. So, supporting hybrid cloud scenarios, understanding how we can provide connective fabric solutions, if you will, to enable clients to run mobile applications on the cloud and take advantage of the investments they've made and their existing transactional infrastructure over a period of time. And so the Keynote really featured that combination of capabilities and what we're doing to bring those solution areas to clients and allow them to be productive. >> And the hybrid cloud is front and center, obviously. IOT on the data side, you've seen a lot of traction there. AI and machine learning, kind of powering and lifting this up, it's a systems world now, I mean this is the area that you're in. Cause you have the component pieces, the composibility of that. How are you guys facilitating the hybrid cloud journey for customers? Because now, it's not just all here it is, I might have a little bit of this and a little bit of that, so you have this component-isationer composobility that app developers are consistent with, yet the enterprises want that work load flexibility. What do you guys do to facilitate that? >> Well we absolutely believe that infrastructure innovation is critical on this hybrid cloud journey. And we're really focused on three main areas when we think about that innovation. So, integration, security, and supportive cognitive workloads. When we look at things like integration, we're focused on developers as key stake holders. We have to support the open communities and frameworks that they're leveraging, we have to support API's and allow them to tap into our infrastructure and those investments once again, and we also have to ensure that data and workload can be flexibly moved around in the future because these will allow better characteristics for developers in terms of how they're designing their applications as they move forward with this journey. >> And the insider threat, though, is a big thing too. >> Yes. >> I mean security is not only table stakes, it's a highly sensitive area. >> It's a given. And as you said, it's not just about protecting from the outside threats, it's about protecting from internal threats, even from those who may have privileged access to the systems, so that's why, with our systems infrastructure, we have protected from the chip, all the way through the levels of hardware into the software layer. You heard us talk about some of that today with the shipment of secure service containers that allow us to support the system both at install time and run time, and support the applications and the data appropriately. These systems that run Blockchain, our high security Blockchain services, LinuxONE, we have the highest certification in the industry, EAL five plus, and we're supporting FIPS 120-two, level four cryptology. So it's about protecting at all layers of the system, because our perspective is, there's not a traditional barrier, data is the new perimeter of security. So you've got to protect the data, at rest, in motion, and across the life cycle of the data. >> Let's go back to integration for a second. Give us an example of some of the integrations that you're doing that are high profile. >> Well one of the key integrations is that a lot of clients are creating new mobile applications. They're tapping back into the transactions that reside in the mainframe environment, so we've invested in ZOS Connect and this API set of capabilities to allow clients to do that. It's very prevalent in many different industries, whether it's retail banking, the retail sector, we have a lot of examples of that. It's allowing them to create new services as well. So it's not just about extending the system, but being able to create entirely new solutions. And the areas of credit card services is a good example. Some of the organizations are doing that. And it allows for developer productivity. >> And then, on the security side, where does encryption fit? You mentioned you're doing some stuff at the chip level, end to end encryption. >> Yeah it really, it's at all levels, right? From the chip level, through the firmware levels. Also, we've added encryption capability to ensure that data is encrypted at rest, as well as in motion, and we've done that in a way that encrypts these data sets that are heavily used in the main frame environment as an example, without impending on developer productivity. So that's another key aspect of how we look at this. How can we provide this data protection? But once again, not slow down the velocity of the developers. Cause if we slow down the velocity of the developers, they will be an inhibitor to achieving the end goal. >> How important is the ecosystem on that point? Because you have security, again, end to end, you guys have that fully, you're protecting the data as it moves around, so it's not just in storage, it's everywhere, moving around, in flight, as they say. But now you got ecosystem parties, cause you got API economy, you're dealing with no perimeter, but now also you have relationships as technology partners. >> Yes, well the ecosystem is really important. So if we think about it from a developer perspective, obviously supporting these open frameworks is critical. So supporting Linux and Docker and Spark and all of those things. But also, to be able to innovate at the rate and pace we need, particularly for things like cognitive workloads, that's why we created the Open Power Foundation. So we have more than 300 partners that we're able to innovate with, that allow us to create the solutions that we think we'll need for these cognitive workloads. >> What is a cognitive workload? >> So a cognitive workload is what I would call an extremely data hungry workload, the example that we can all think of is we're expecting, when we experience the world around us, we're expecting services to be brought to us, right, the digital economy understands our desires and wants and reacts immediately. So all of that is driving, that expectation is driving this growth and artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning type algorithms. Depending on what industry you're in, they take on a different persona, but there's so many different problems that can be solved by this, whether it's I need to have more insight into the retail offers I provide to an in consumer, to I need to be able to do fraud analytics because I'm in the financial services industry, there's so many examples of these cognitive applications. The key factors are just, tremendous amount of data, and a constrained amount of time to get business insight back to someone. >> When you do these integrations and you talk about the security investments that you're making, how do you balance the resource allocation between say, IBM platforms, mainframe, power, and the OS's, the power in those, and Linux, for example, which is such a mainstay of what you guys are doing. Are you doing those integrations on the open side as well in Linux and going deep into the core, or is it mostly focused on, sort of, IBM owned technology? >> So it really depends on what problem we're trying to solve. So, for instance, if we're trying to solve a problem where we're marrying data insight with a transaction, we're going to implement a lot of that capability on ZOS, cause we want to make sure that we're reducing data latency and how we execute the processing, if you will. If we're looking at things like new work loads and evolution of new work loads, and new things are being created, that's more naturally fit for purpose from a Linux perspective. So we have to use judgment, a lot of the new programming, the new applications, are naturally going to be done on a Linux platform, cause once again that's a platform of choice for the developer community. So, we have to think about whether we're trying to leverage existing transactions with speed, or whether we're allowing developers to create new assets, and that's a key factor in what we look at. >> Jamie, your role, is somewhat unique inside of IBM, the title of GM system's development and strategy. So what's your scope, specifically? >> So, I'm responsible for the systems development involved in our processor's mainframes, power systems, and storage. And of course, as a strategy person for a unit like that, I have responsibility for thinking about these hybrid scenarios and what do we need to do to make our clients successful on this journey? How do we take advantage of their tremendous investments they made with us over years. We have strong responsibility for those investments and making sure the clients get value. And also understanding where they need to go in the future and evolving our architecture and our strategic decisions, along those lines. >> So you influence development? >> Jamie: Yes. >> In a big way, obviously. It's a lot of roadmap work. >> Jamie: Yes. >> A lot of working with clients to figure out requirements? >> Well I have client support too, so I have to make sure things run. >> What about quantum computing? This has been a big topic, what's the road map look like? What's the evolution of that look like? Talk about that initiative. >> Well if I gave you the full road map they'd take me out of here with a hook out of this chair. >> You're too good for that, damn, almost got it from you. >> But we did announce the industries first commercial universal quantum computing project. A few weeks ago. It's called IBM Q, so we had some clever branding help, because Q makes me think of the personality in the James Bond movie who was always involved in the latest R&D research activity. And it really is the culmination of decades of research between IBM researchers and researchers around the world, to create this system that hopefully can solve problems to date, that are unsolvable today with classical computers. So, problems in areas like material science and chemistry. Last year we had announced quantum experience, which is an online access to a quantum capabilities in our Yorktown research laboratory. And over the last year, we've had more than 40,000 users access this capability. And they've actually executed a tremendous number of experiments. So we've learned from that, and now we're on this next leg of the journey. And we see a world where IBM Q could work together with our classical computers to solve really really tough problems. >> And that computing is driving a lot of the IOT, whether that's health care, to industrial, and everything in between. >> Well we're in the early stages of quantum, to be fair, but there's a lot of unique problems that we believe that it will solve. We do not believe that everything, of course, will move from classical to quantum. It will be a combination, an evolution, of the capabilities working together. But it's a very different system and it will have unique properties that allow us to do things differently. >> So, what are the basics? Why quantum computing? I presume it's performance, scale, cost, but it's not traditional, binary, computing, is that right? >> Yes. It's very, very different. In fact, if. >> Oh we just got the two minute sign. >> It's a very different computing model. It's a very different physical, computing model, right? It's built on this unit called a Q bit, and the interesting thing about a Q bit is it could be both a zero and a one at the same time. So it kind of twists our minds a little bit. But because of that, and those properties, it can solve very unique problems. But we're at the early part of the journey. So this year, our goal is to work with some organizations, learn from the commercialization of some of the first systems, which will be run in a cloud hosted model. And then we'll go from there. But, it's very promising. >> In the timeframe for commercial systems, have you guys released that? >> Well, this year, we'll start the commercial journey, but within the next few years we do plan to have a quantum computer that would then, basically, out strip the power of the largest super computers that we have today in the industry. But that's, you know, over the next few years we'll be evolving to that level. Because eventually, that's the goal, right? Is to solve the problems that we can't solve with today's classical computers. >> Talk about real quickly, in the last couple minutes, Blockchain, and where that's going, because you have a lot of banks and financial institutions looking at this as part of the messaging and the announcements here. >> Well, Blockchain is one of those workloads of course that we're optimizing with a lot that security work that I talked about earlier so. The target of our high security Blockchain services is LinuxONE, is driving a lot of encryption strategy. This week, in fact, we've seen a number of examples of Blockchain. One was talked about this morning, which was around diamond provenance, from the Everledger organization. Very clever implementation of Blockchain. We've had a number of financial institutions that are using Blockchain. And I also showed an interesting example today. Plastic Bank, which is an organization that's using Blockchain to allow ecosystem improvement, or improving our planet, if you will, by allowing communities to exchange plastic, recyclable plastic for currency. So it's really about enabling plastic to be turned into currency through the use of Blockchain. So a very novel example of a foundational research organization improving the environment and allowing communities to take advantage of that. >> Jamie thanks for stopping by the Cube, really appreciate giving the update and insight into the quantum, the Q project, and all the greatness around, all the hard work going to into the hybrid cloud, the security-osity is super important, thanks for sharing. >> It's good to see you. >> Okay we're live here, in Mandalay Bay, for IBM InterConnect 2017, stay with us for more live coverage, after this short break.

hi this is David flora back at the open power foundation conference here in San Jose and with me I've got Erin Sullivan who is a distinguished engineer at Rackspace welcome our thank you so what do you think of the conference so far it's amazing it's grown so much in the last year 15 designs to almost 60 in a year and lots of system launches yeah very impressed well one of the things that has been announced today which was caught my eye in a big big way was the agreement so the announcement that you and Google have can you paint a little more put a little more light on that announcement yeah sure so Rackspace and Google started working together when Rackspace was developing barrel I of course Google had already had their system available at the time and our collaboration just on what we had with barrel I was very positive we were just kind of looking to trade notes and you know share our experience and a few months ago we got back in touch and said hey this was ministers posit enough we should think about doing the next one together from the start and so that's basically what we're doing now we're going to do a power 9 system that comes in multiple mechanical form factors but just one motherboard and we're going to like we did with barrel I we're going to contribute that to open compute when we're finished out of the Open Compute foundation part of the OpenStack yes heart of the open power founder that's right open everything open ever yeah yeah excellent so what about the barreleye that you also announced some things about today can you what is barrel i and what's what's what's different about it so so paralyzed named after a fish that's got a transparent body most of our servers are named after we thought having a server that was fully open would be great to have that name barrel I just entered its first data center shipments it's headed to our Virginia data centers right now and in a few months we expect we will begin providing services to customers on it so that's the progress on barrel I so far we contributed to open compute about 2-3 months ago now and it was accepted so the specifications are online and if you look around the show floor here you will see there are other companies that have put their brand on it or something else and are also taking at the market which is exactly what we hope for great well I've got a question which is why have you why have you put these resources into barrel I and in the future into the power 9 etc what are you looking for that's different about open power that for example you couldn't get with a standard x86 server yeah so I know it gets to be tired and people get tired of hearing the word open but really even with open compute and OpenStack the freedom that comes with developing in that particular universe is really significant before open power even started there were parts of the system we really wish we could get into in an open way where we could develop and share instead of just doing it all on our own and having open power come in the first place fit that but then we also have this problem this Moore's Law problem and the types of changes that we're going to have to implement as an industry to continue to accelerate and and and get higher performance computing and more efficient computing over the next year's they're really huge challenges they go from the chips all the way to the top of the stack and if you don't have the chip part open and you don't have the firmware part open it becomes really difficult to collaborate you can't bring to bear the sort of force of the world software developers onto it you end up in these little silos and niches so for us beryl I provides a lot of value as a business and it has a great influence on the industry at large and so wills IOUs the power 9 system Google but it also is there as a platform for developers to begin to start wrapping their minds around these new problems and opportunities that we have and if it's not done in the open these types of software aren't really scalable across the whole industry that that's a very interesting answer indeed and as you say um does laura has come to a screeching halt from the point of Mount of power per CPU is still going on in terms of the number of transistors etc that you can have what are the what are the things you as a distinguished engineer what are the things that really are most important about the power architecture that allow you to develop these new ways of doing things yeah I think it's it depends on the type of your business you're in but in our business I think in many cloud service providers and in some other environments certainly some HPC and a lot of enterprise the performance of a single core is still really important and it will continue to be for as long as we can keep getting more performance out of a single core so power provided a great platform with a very powerful core and it also has a huge number of threads per core so you get a little bit of the best of both worlds there and you need a really powerful core you have it if you want to spread your load really wide over a more cloudy webby type application you get to use all those threads and there's all that memory bandwidth and so forth so so that was the benefit of power in general and then we run out of core performance and those cycles per you know CPU aren't going up and maybe we can't even scale cores like we used to anymore which is coming in a few years I the the fact that the platform is open in areas that others aren't allows us to bend the rules about how components communicate and we cut out a lot of overhead between them so that's a sort of software in silicon type argument you want to bring the software closer to the silicon yeah closer and in many cases to do the same work that we do today like that's the hard part is people think it's all about genomics or oil and gas or something it's the same work but you know we've already demonstrated that open harcum you it is demonstrated that there are certain workloads that are very common today that you can boost tenfold or more simply by reintegrating your software tighter the hardware right you pull out overhead that we were fine with when Moore's Law is working but now we got to do something yeah great well thanks very much indeed for for being here and thanks very much for watching