hello everyone welcome to the cube conversations here in our studio in Palo Alto California I'm John Faria co-host of the cube co-founder Sylvania media special guest today inside the cube in Palo Alto Steve Lucas the new CEO of Marketo formerly of sa P industry veteran a lot of experience in the enterprise space now the chief executive officer at Marquette Oh welcome to this cube conversation great to see you yeah great to see you again so Marketo has been on our radar spent on everyone's radar it's been one of the hottest marketing companies that have come out of this generation of SAS what I call SATs cloud offerings and certainly as burn burn in the field in terms of reputation in terms of quality high customer scale a lot of other companies have been bought out you see Oracle doing a lot of stuff you got Salesforce the SAS business is booming oh yeah and you have a rocket ship that you're now the CEO now for two months first question what's it like here now compare a CPA yeah Marketo what's it what's happening well it's I mean s if he's a fantastic company and loved it it's the the the kind of metaphor I've used is it you know with sa P it's it's a bigger it's a bigger vehicle you're driving a bus and you can carry a lot of people with you takes a little bit longer to make a u-turn Marketo is a Formula One car I mean this thing is just in and out of traffic and it's it's unbelievably nimble so it's it's been a big kind of shift culturally but absolutely love it for the folks that are watching you might not know but Steve was in the HANA analytics president of that division with ASAP which was a real interesting transformation because Hana and and and s ap was a traditional big enterprise software company yeah but had to move very quickly Hana was basically built before Hadoop was even conceived and it was built before the big cloud explosion but kind of well built for the cloud so you have to kind of move quickly oh yeah from scratch into the cloud oh yeah with sa Pease resources yeah so compare construct contrast butBut your expense from sa p what is Marquette O's prospects I mean what's going on there I mean I'll see you got a formula speedboat but the big aircraft carriers are thrown pretty big wake they are how are you gonna maneuver yeah yeah well it's it's a fascinating environment right now because you know going from us if he I'd say that my experience they're kind of highly tuned me or prepared me for what I'm doing in Marketo si P had to move nimbly at the time really nimbly you're entering a market where you've got oracle microsoft at a database level they're the incumbents they own massive share how does si penetrate that but we were successful at the time at sa p and i loved that experience coming into Marketo really i mean it's a couple things one is you got to out-innovate the competition this is not rest on your laurels and wait for the release a year and a half from now that doesn't happen so this is about moving quickly but the second thing it's about I believe is it's all about putting the customer at the center of your strategy they have to drive everything I've talked to more marketers more CMOS in the last two months than I have in my last 20 years putting them the center is all about that Marketo their heritage was marketing solutions built by marketers for market what are the people saying you made with a lot of those CMOS more in the past since the past two months what are they saying what's on their agenda what do they care about what's important to them brand revenue and impact they want to know how do I Drive my brand how do I drive revenue and how do I show that impact to my CEO the board whomever it may be but the thing that scares marketers right now the most is what is digital transformation changing relative you know the big trend in macro trend globally how is it changing buyer expectation how is it changing the customer brand relationship that's top of mind Peter Paris who heads up by research for wiki bond and he used to do the b2b practice at Forrester around digital and stay Volante now we're talking yesterday that digital now is everything right so if you look at digital it's not just oh marketing need some tools to send emails out or oh I need to get a website up call IT up and provision or landing page this is now a fabric of pure infrastructure yet the infrastructure was built in the web days and you can go back to your business object days and go back again even back in the 90s that infrastructure now is so hard and as instrumentation there's no agility so that I feel that and we here in our in our teams and our customers that I want agility but I also want to control what the infrastructure might look like but then I don't want to touch it again I wanted to work for me do you see that same dynamic and how does that play out because I mean it's kind of the nuance point but the end of the day shadow marketing is going on shadow IT oh it's happening and it's on this unequivocally I mean so the the it literally the what's crushing the marketer right now is every time we get a new touch point a a watch so we go from just a watch that tells me the time to an Apple watch right every time there's a new touch point there's a new point solution for it and it's crushing the marketer so if it's social there's point solutions if it's mobile there's point solutions if it's a watch there's point solutions I blew my mind I literally saw it start up this is we can do you know monitoring and engagement of people on a watch it's just it's overwhelming the marketer and so their landscape of applications is looking like 30 40 different apps and their big win single sign-on that's the big win for the marketer internally it's just crushing them so what they're looking for your point is the Mahr tech or marketing technology graph and map is so big each one of their own underlying stack database software is that kind of what you're getting at absolutely absolutely you pick a marketing cloud it really doesn't matter you could say Oracle's marketing cloud sales force marketing cloud Adobe's marketing cloud it's just convoluted the the graph or chart of what's out there so point solutions just put together cobble together that's exactly right and so we're the benefit are that this is the the problem with that is what well the problem with that is that you first of all you lose any context relative to who you are there's no way that I can across 30 or 40 systems keep a consistent definition of job for you it's just impossible to do and our notion is we're looking at and what we're driving is a single engagement platform where the definition of you who you are no matter what touch point how we listen to you how we learn from you and how we engage with you it's all the same it's all integrated so let's get back to this point because I think an engagement platform and then the applications are interesting so I mentioned the CMOS earlier there's more development going on in marketing with like programmers developing apps because creig's of course okay so they're using the cloud and the marketing cloud is not like a one-off it has to be part of the core infrastructure so one of the things that wiki bonds gonna be releasing a new research coming up but I saw David floor yesterday who's a head of the research project that they're gonna show market share numbers of Amazon Google all the top cloud guys yeah interesting dynamic past is squeezing now platform-as-a-service is being squeezed down and SAS is increasing and then I as infrastructure stores is kind of shortening which means this automation in there so that the middle layer is gone but yet there's more sass how does that relate to the marketing cloud because the marketing cloud would be considered middleware or is it just the SAS app and does that speak to an explosion of SAS applications well I mean you're gonna see an explosion of SAS applications regardless I mean we reached that point of critical mass a while ago that's there's no going back at this point but if you look at kind of I think you're absolutely right there's compression at the IaaS layer in the past layer etc because these these these larger kind of SAS applications they are really ruling today and if you look at how that applies to marketing we actually think about three technology tiers within marketing there's the listen learn and engage tier the listen it's here is how do I listen on these digital channels the myriad that are out there and then the learned here is core to our platform the engagement platform it's all about an automation engine an AI engine and an analytics engine it's learning and then engaged here is how do I go back to those self same channels I was listening to and engage you the way that you want to be touched and so that's really the stack that comprises the Marketo engagement platform what's interesting the dynamic for us is we're actually seeing our own native applications that we're building on our engagement platform and then we have over 600 partners that are building applications are not building applications on our engagements they're writing software on top of the market absolutely so they're extending it so if social listening which I know is a big thing for Silicon anger that's like the I mean you guys are masters at it that if that's your thing then we have a not only do we have social listening capability but there's an app for that there's dozens so we could potentially plug into that oh absolutely so that's your vision so the vision let's go back to the so more apps a platform that enables more satisfaction yeah and and you mentioned people building on it that's an integration challenge and that's something that people they want to do more of they want to integrate other things with platforms which could be a challenge but it brings up the point data where does the data sit because now the data is the crown jewel yes and also a very important aspect to get real-time information so if you have information on me you won't have access to that data fast that's right and so there's an architectural challenge there there is your thoughts and reaction to the role of data well I first of all marketers still want to own their data and I think we need to be you know the reality is is that if you look a lot at a lot of these marketing clouds that are out there they're the vendor perspective is going to be will if I own your data I own you and our perspective is well you know that your data can sit within our platform but we can actually drive that data into you know on-premise warehouse etc etc so we're our goal is not to own your data ergo we own you that's not our goal I think the big thing like in the content you're saying is you want to use their data to give them value absolutely and so for us it's a matter of you know we can we can do to protect their data - exactly and so for me it's all about you know it's securing the data its but it's also the data is so complex now for the marketer so you've got social data highly unstructured you know you're listening for key words they still have to interpret that information you've got highly structured data demographic for example so it's how do you bring all that together you can bring that together in the Marketo engagement platform and then you can turn that into something meaningful it's always funny always to love to interview the new CEOs because we got the fresh perspective but I can't ask the tough questions cuz you lived in there for two months you get it say I won't even that two months I really can't answer that so I'll get the more generic on that what to try to get this at some of the hidden questions that I like to expose for the audience and really the main one is what attracted Univ Marketo I mean you left a pretty senior very senior position NSA p-president and Marketo is like the ship that's out there it's a motorboat but some are saying that the ways might be big enough and so you know be like okay but their public company so everything's out in the open what attracted you to market what God did say you know what I want to ride this speedboat well the trigger point for me was you know especially it s if he get exposed to kind of the big macro trends big macro trend everybody knows it is digital transformation as if he's talking that Microsoft Accenture picked the big company they're talking digital transfers and it is real the reality is you either are a digital native company were born digital uber or you're going digital ie you know you're a hospitality company trying to compete with air B&B and you gotta go digital so it's yeah I wrote an article I want on go digital or die right that's that's the that's the notion and when I looked at that I said so how does that lens apply to marketing well the reality is is that the marketer in the digital economy is only going to win if they can engage with not two or three people but Millions in an authentic and personalized manner at scale so that it's kind of juxtaposed how do you do that how do you engage with millions of people but at scale but deliver personalized an authentic experience and I looked at Marketo and I saw this platform and I just said oh my gosh there they are there's like this this convergence of those two things that are going to happen and I just think that the whole kind of marketing automation space which is known as really I I want to transform that into the engagement space we're talking about things like this engagement economy trend I absolutely believe we are fully in this notion of the engagement economy I think Marketo is right there so I gotta ask you a question is this is interesting you mentioned getting personalized information one of the things that's apparent we talked about on my Silicon Valley Friday show if you go to soundcloud.com /john for every year that people watching can get the copies of those but the thing was the recent election highlighted an issue around trust right v news younger natives digital natives younger kids they actually don't know what fake news is and what real news is a lot of people are moving off cable TV into digital which opens up the snapchats of the world different channels omni-channel like things and so this brings up this notion of communities because what people are turning to in this time of no trusting the mainstream media right news or Trump or what they were saying it's causing a lot of theater but it highlights an issue which is what's real what's not its content content is also has a relationship with users content is marketing content is trust is now a huge deal how do marketers now deal with the fact that content marketing coming from a company it could be fake news but there's a real or not and how do they get the context jewel connections is it the communities and we see that election people kind of going back to their tribe and saying oh anti Trump or Trump or whatever so tribal communities are a big part of data it is what's your thoughts on this trust factor and data and the content yeah yeah well so I think I mean a couple things first of all you know the I I think you or I as a consumer you know where anybody really we don't respond well to stare I'll moderately creepy advertisements that show up that you you know you know okay you're tracking my cookie you know in my browser and that that is just that's a non-starter I think that that in and of itself is is not interesting now we respond well to there's I said that that kind of personalized and I use that word authentic content so if there's content it's not just hey I know that you visited you know three websites about cars so I'm just going to pump you with ads full of cars but if we deliver thoughtful content it could be a comparison of vehicles that you've been looking at and take a look so there's more thoughtful content that you can deliver that that I think can come through a Mar tech platform like what we have our engagement platform no I will tell you that that trust to me it's it's not just the the authentic nature it's also a consistent engagement you can't show up show me an ad one time and I'm just gonna buy from you it doesn't work that way anymore so it's about having a relationship digital at scale but you know it's it's delivering that human touch I wrote a blog on this one where I said how do you deliver the human touch its Kate for blog addresses it it's on Marquitos website actually yeah right on our website so we talked about that as well and as companies are moving away from you or I managing the social engagement to the AI engines the machines engaging with us I think that we run the risk the marketer runs the risk of reinforcing the stare aisle you know kind of engagement and that's not what we want we want warm human touch that breeds trust sowhat's marcado's technology I mean people look at Marketo and people in marketing general yeah they're just hiring agencies to do all this work this isn't real maar tech marketing technology going on I like some of the technology for the folks watching because yeah I think it's pretty interesting most people don't understand that's a lot of machine learning a lot of technology involved in databases from security to trust also enabling real-time yeah share some insight into what's going on there so so this so there's a notion of engagement platform which we believe is is just fundamentally different than your run-of-the-mill marketing cloud so the engagement platform for Marketo is all about that listen learn and engage kind of methodology that we think about and the listening notion as I said literally as we can listen to anything your custom data social channels smoke signals if we had to we can read and consume almost anything and if we can't do it one of our partners can with like a DMP for example they learn the core of our engagement engine and this is pretty neat so we have three engines in our engagement engine we have the automation engine which is all about I hear you say something on Facebook I can engage with you then there's the analytics engine so I can help you understand what are people talking about on Facebook what are you talking on a LinkedIn and then there's the AI engine now this is where I think the the merger of the marketer and the machine is going to start coming together in a big big way so our AI engine allows you to not just say well if people say Silicon angle on Twitter then send them this but you can actually have it adapt and customize learn and reason learn and reason so X writes out and do some it's right it's predictive Oh not only just predictive actually have it I think it's borderline kind of clairvoyant but understand well I'm not just gonna immediately react to something that you put on Twitter I'm gonna go and I'm gonna check the rest of your digital persona there's a digital assistant basically not a sales rep it's more of an assistant it is it is and and so the future of marketing is simple I can build a marketing or an engagement campaign and I can click a button that says make it adaptive and then that's when the machine in the marketer come together and so on top of that engine we have our marketing applications our native apps like marketing automation we have an account based marketing which is a pretty big deal especially in the enterprise account based marketing is all about going from the single buyer to the consensus buying that you know behavior that's see in the enterprise and then we have other technologies like mobile marketing so we can track when you open an app if you close it if you click on it so it's not just one thing we have a range of marketing apps that sit on the platform right so I want to get the final question I get your thoughts on just the future of the business obviously a year you're there two months you got to get to know the team you've got to get to know the players any changes on the horizon that he let's shop so you got a big launch coming up with it well Ryan codename Orion which is there a new engagement platform that you guys pre-announce and get the announcement coming up there got a book you going on but if for Marketo what's the guiding Northstar for you what do you what do you say to customers and kind of the vision and and what changes you look that might be coming down the pike yeah so I think so the vision really there's two elements to that one is that our core focus like at its core is we're going to help the CMO build the lasting relationship derive revenue for the company and the way that we're going to do that is deliver the engagement platform which we are now rolling out I mean we've been working on a ryan for a long time way before I showed up and Orion takes the ability for a marketer to go from millions of interesting touch points per year social mobile did you know digital touch points to quadrillions of touch points we are ready for that digital transformation what we call the engagement economy era I'm writing a book on there the whole notion of engagement economy we're entering this new era where if you're not able to engage with people and and also things because things will be out there too at scale you won't win you just won't we want to get your thoughts on one final point I know we're kind of running up on time in this segment but if you look at the cloud go back to 2008 2007 timeframe when it really emerged and Amazon is already you know had a couple years under their belts with what they were doing you saw the DevOps movement developed merging development and operators be the real catalyst those early adopters you know those you know Navy SEALs the Green Berets you know eating nails and spit and glass out so so that was Facebook that was the big web scalars Yahoo essentially invented Hadoop which became big data you saw all these companies that were new natives build their own stuff not buy off-the-shelf equipment and they became the the canary in the coal mines for everybody else now everyone wants to be like AWS and even Microsoft's changes to be more like AWS and competing directly with them Google is changing so there was early guys on Facebook what they're doing drones and virtual reality you know what these stuff they're doing with open open compute those are now leaders so they're the predictors of the future in my opinion so I look at it so the question I want to ask you is how does Marketo rank up because companies that don't have huge early adopters of the scale side of it platforms that can't scale probably won't have any Headroom so do you have an example where your business has guys pushing the tech scaling it up that are gonna be that canary in the coal mine you guys have that mix of business can you give some examples yeah first of all we have fantastic customers that are using us today kind of scale Oh at scale absolutely whether it's a GE for example GE is literally attributing billions in revenue to the the Marketo engine and the campaigns and efforts that they're driving through that but ge is a perfect example Microsoft another great when there's lots of great examples of customers of ours that are doing what I would I would call hyper scale in engagement within marketing data and they're with marketing data etc so they're using your tools at large large scale yeah and I'd say it's the scale that that today you get these hyper scale example points but tomorrow everybody's gonna have to do it it's just what's neat for us you see the same thing I was mentioned that those hyper scales are gonna be the you know the pioneers that are gonna let the settlers come in and and behind them do you see that more typically and the neat part for us is is because as a marketing automation technology or an engagement platform we're fully integrated with Facebook Linkedin etc so they actually pull us forward we get that I think we get that we've got the telescope to see the canary in the coalmine a little bit further down the road assuming it's a well-lit coal mine but we get to see that a little bit further down the road so I it's an advantage for us strategically I got to ask you the question because in the database world the systems of record the services of engagement and then systems of AI IBM calls it cognitive yes how do you guys play in that new era is that just all marketing for them well I mean everybody has their cognitive exist yeah and you have something it's so they're every two degrees so everyone has tech and we certainly have what what I characterize as adaptive and intuitive that's my version of AI you know I think saying artificially intelligent it's kind of like I've met a bunch of teenagers that I consider to be artificially intelligent but the reality is is that everybody to a degree has this brochure layer tech that they run around waving it really comes down to what's practical what's usable and for us that's we're focused on is what is adaptive and intuitive technology that's going to merge the marketer in the machine final question final final question is what's the top three priorities for you if we look back on your performance next year this time what are the top three things you want to accomplish as the new CEO of Marketo well number one champion engagement economy that whole we're there and I think people just need to understand what it is to is help the market or win I mean the reality is if you boil it down you ask the question what does the marketer what they want to win they just want to win help their company win and so we want to help the marketer win and then three is really engage our marketing nation we've got a community of an online community talking about communities over a hundred thousand marketers that are working inside of that community it's just absolutely huge and so I want to engage the community if we can do that and be just customer centric and oriented our technology the AI all of those things part of our engagement platform it's gonna help us win to stick congratulations on being the co-chief executive Marketo great to see you Steve Lucas here inside the cube and Paul all those new Studios here in Pella 4,500 square feet you see a lot more content live programming as well as featured interviews with top CEOs of Silicon Valley and top technology companies I'm John Fourier thanks for watching

hi Jeff I here with the cube we are in the studio and Palo Alto the cube studio offices for a cute conversation talking about storage enterprise storage cloud and all the things that are keeping us up at night in the excitement that we see every day out in the field so we're really excited to be joined by gnomes and are who comes in all the time for sadara storage and you brought in a special gates dave elliott global product lead storage google cloud platform welcome Dave thanks for having me so we'll get right into it big announcement don't tell us all about it sure we're super excited to announce that we're now connected up to the Google cloud platform our customers know already that we've connected to the other two major providers amazon web services in microsoft azure and we've been working diligently on what we think is the most exciting addition to that and that's google cloud platform it's available right now it's immediately available it means that any customer of google cloud platform can take advantage of our award-winning enterprise storage as a service connected directly to virtual machines at google cloud so it clearly you know completes the the try fact at which wich we know you know that is the power right now in the public cloud but what's special about google cloud platform that you can get that the other providers don't offer to your customers google cloud is special because we all know google the search engine company and because google has been doing this for so long they have the existing infrastructure so google has global data centers with the networks connecting those global data centers such that customers wherever they are I can connect through hundreds of edge locations for low-latency access to the clap so whereas with the other major clouds the customer has to be physically close to the actual cloud location for optimal latency google cloud customers have far more flexibility in terms of location and we think this will do even more to get more people on board cloud with our enterprise applications okay so Dave what I want to know is are you going to paint as the Darra rack colors I think you got a google bike out front the yellow the green or red right so what does this mean free for for google obviously you guys have storage you have massive amounts towards we all have lots of stuff on on our Google on our personal Google storage as well as are you know little the cube storage so what does this mean for your customers so so really it to put it in context as enterprises move to the cloud there there are different requirements from maybe pure-play startups so we've had fantastic success we've been in the cloud business now for I think nine years but as we mature as a business and as customers mature and and make it clear that they want to move more and more workloads to the cloud their requirements though still look significantly in many cases like the requirements from the old days right from the legacy vendors I'm a storage guy and I know there are certain there are certain requirements around s la's performance ability to to move between clouds from on-prem to the cloud and so as Google matures as our customers ask for these type this type of functionality we are able to meet those requirements by working with sadara so this really gives you that yes we have that check box when you're getting into a hardcore enterprise guys may be new to the cloud or you know you wants that comfort level right he's going to have all the stuff you had before but now exact it's gonna be sitting in your guys so it's structure it's it's two use cases right it's the traditional customer consumer customer enterprise customer who has today their workloads running on primer and private their own private data centers or kolos and it's the customers today that are running on our compute instances who love our compute instances but perhaps are holding back from moving some of those more delicate workloads to the clouds lizard to general use case right because that's that's really the point it's not just about storage for the customer the storage is an enabler for his applications all right so this really opens up a whole another set of applications for the other Google services that doesn't really compete directly with the storage exactly exactly that's it so as customers move you know the really interesting things happen is customers move those we're close to the cloud they could then take advantage of you know layered on other services like like data analytics and learning and things like that and so it's really about really everything I think about this relationship is about helping enterprises move migrate more and more workloads to the cloud in a more seamless way right so it's kind of a good news bad news for you know you know the good news is now you're partnering with Google the bad news is they got a lot of they have a lot of reach and distribution are you guys ready you know what's the impact on your business now having this humongous partner distribution network potential new client network you guys ready support that what kind of new challenges does that present to you guys it'll present growth challenges but we're we're ready so what we've done is made sure that we have the support infrastructure in place and also the sales infrastructure in place so if customers need help prior to the sale during the Sailor after the sale we have different teams that handle this and we have partners as well that's a big change for us in the last couple of years switching from a fully direct model to a model that's now sixty percent partner driven in that number is growing those partners are helping us with especially with integration the customer may need storage but also they may need to deploy other applications in google cloud those partners put it all together and provide a single let's use the positive expression is a single back to pass a single bat de facto sort the choker yes your own champagne as they like to say exact and one of the things we've talked about not fair for we turn on the cameras is is that you were excited about is really the distribution of Google and specifically google access points because latency is real as Grace Hopper said you know the speed of light is just too damn slow so you really need those access points to get to the compute and the store to make cloud work the way you want it to work exactly for example a common request is to connect remote clients to central storage repository so with the with with most clouds that's limited by a public network and the Layton sees and the hops that come along with that with Google's peering capabilities pretty much everybody is closer to the compute that Google than other than other clots and we know this because when we do the search and we get the answer back in point 0 0 1 2 seconds right a big a big piece of that is is the latency between us and whatever Google location is doing that search for us the compute benefits from that the clout the Google cloud benefits from that and therefore our customers due to right and David and I presume this is just one of a number of steps within Google clouds you know kind of pursuit of the enterprise and moving the more you know can enterprise customers enterprise workloads into the Google cloud platform yeah that's that's a one hundred percent accurate I mean we continue to build out the organization we build out part we're building our partnership and of course the products to better meet the needs of larger enterprises that that have just unique needs I will I will thank you for pointing out that the differentiator on the network it's something that I think people intuitively understand but you know the the the depth and breadth of our network networking expertise has been unbelievable as opposed to most cloud vendors we want to get the data we want to get the bits on to our network as quickly as possible because we keep it on our network because we're so efficient and be able to move the bits from point A to point B and and I think that's really the big the big differentiator why you see you know such better response such such lower latency and it's not just about the latency it's also about the predictability of Joseph and so just to clarify so once it gets into the Google Network wherever that point of access is then it's contained within the Google that right right so we write we've innovated around networking for four since our early days things like open flow and software-defined networking are things that have you know great genesis inside of inside of Google and so for us to move that data onto our network is just more again faster and more reliable for our customers and for our own data right we able to leverage our own infrastructure for own services I think we have seven services now with over a billion customers and just out of sheer necessity we've had to innovate in and around networking right we've done a couple piers shows where you know just reinforces the fact you want to get off the public backbone as quickly as you can depending on how ever you need to communicate with either your own internal stuff or with somebody else and then it's just kind of a signal that you guys will be bringing in other products obviously not necessarily a competing software software defined product but just other kind of enterprise e-type solutions to offer your customers in pursuit of this kind of ongoing Enterprise path yeah I think I think that there are a lot of simulator similarities if I would drive the draw the Venn diagram between what a high-performance successful customer like snapchat one of one of our larger customers or Spotify what they require and what what some of the larger enterprises or even smaller enterprises with just very very large you know compute-intensive storage intensive requirements are so there is a Venn diagram there's a lot of overlap and we continue to to leverage our own internal investments and things like live migration of compute instances things around innovative pricing to really drive home the the low cost of cloud and the agility of cloud things like customizable VMs so you only get the the actual machine that you need so we're going to continue to innovate around that and be able to make sure that both enterprise customers and our you know sort of the the high-flying startups still have the ability to to take advantage of right right and is that new information for you guys that you can leverage because clearly like a snapchat which uses massive amount of data you have massive growth rates I mean you have these we talk a lot about the consumerization of IT in terms of the experience of interacting with an application on your phone that you want to be like when you interact with snapchat although I can never figure snapchat outer left swipe right but where you can start to use some of those lessons that you guys have learned in your broader application experience to bring to bear with your solution as well as for your customers exactly so we have two goals in this relationship one is one is to help the existing customers of the Google cloud platform do more so that means I take the existing applications and maybe they can benefit in terms of better performance reliability so do more also need to bring new applications into the Google cloud platform maybe the customer moved some early applications over into the cloud but left others on Prem we'd like to see those move into the cloud as well and then the remaining goal is to move customers who are not at all in the cloud into Google Cloud in the end by providing these capabilities we think that's that's the last impediment the customer may sit there and say yes the compute capabilities are fantastic I trust them and network capabilities we just talked about them they're there world-leading storage I'm not sure I have what I need I know if I have the I apps that I need I don't have the uptime that I need or even protocol support or features disaster recovery snapchat snap shots etc but now they're there so there's no reason not to go yeah it's exciting time so congratulations um really a big announcement obviously tremendous infrastructure by partnering with google it mean i don't know that there's anything quite like it developed over all these years I talked to school the other day my own you right good logic 65,000 like wow it's not the little startup that we that we think of over in in Mountain View anymore it and congratulations day to to really make an aggressive move on the enterprise with really putting a flag in the in the ground if you will well we're just I think we're just at the beginning I think in X the next several years in fact next decade or so it's gonna be pretty exciting time all right well thanks for stopping by the palatal offices I think you could see it thank you to thank you right dave elliott gnome send our Jeff Rick you're watching the cube will catch you next time thanks for watching

(upbeat music) >> Hello, and welcome to this Cube Conversation kicking off 2022, I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We're with Loris Degioanni, Chief Technology Officer and founder of Sysdig. A company that's in the pioneering cloud native and cloud native security, open source, big part of the CNCF, CUBECon coverage. Of course, we know them as of that environment as well as DockerCon which we've covered many times. Sysdig is a very successful company. Loris, welcome to theCUBE Conversation. >> Thank you and thanks for having me. >> Well, we know a lot about you, but a lot of folks are learning about you guys with your success. Congratulations on the funding and the validation of your product, which is not a surprise. We've been saying on theCUBE open source has been powering innovation for some time and getting stronger, faster. The predictions in the Linux Foundation about this open source contributions continue to be blown away by their projections and more and more is coming. A new generation is upon us. Cloud Native, Edge, Kubernetes. All of these things are powering a modern application environment which is changing business. And under the covers, you guys are a big part of it. So take us through who Sysdig is, what you guys do for the folks out there and let's get into it. Obviously open source is a big part of it. Take us through who is Sysdig and what do you guys do. >> Yeah, Sysdig helps you run your software in the cloud in a way that is secure and confidently. We have a security solution that covers containers, cloud and Kubernetes. And we cover you in the life cycle of modern application. So the Sysdig security platform helps you secure application in a way that ranges from like shift left in CSD and finding vulnerabilities in your CSD pipeline to run time security that is very important in the cloud in particular with orchestrated infrastructures like the ones that are run by Kubernetes. And then of course, everything that has to do with the forensics, threat-hunting and so on. And the world is changing, security is changing, and Sysdig is one of the startups, one of the companies that is at the forefront of true modern cloud native security. >> So I got to ask you. Were you sitting in your backyard one day thinking, hey, I'm going to start a company? How did this all come together? I mean, the originator story, because we saw open source, we saw even more before CNCF was formed, you saw what cloud was doing. Again, we saw OpenStack and all these other things happening around technology. What was the driver behind the founding of Sysdig, and then how did that progress? Because again, there's an open source component here I want to get into. >> Yeah, and it's interesting that you say backyard because actually Sysdig was actually started in my backyard. Just outside of here. So the backyard metaphor is very, very fitting here. And in a general way, let's say I come from a background in open source for a very long time. Sysdig is my second company. My first company was called Case Technologies. It was the company behind an open source network analyzer called Wireshark, which is widely used by millions and millions of people around the world to do network troubleshooting and network analysis. And when we were doing network packets, we were using like the network devices to collect information. The data that is being transferred on the network has some very nice properties, it's rich. It's very deep. When you can see and decode what's happening on the network, you can understand what applications are doing, what the users are doing. I used to say, packets never lie, right? Because you could connect to the router and collect this data and they have a very good picture without any two instrument libraries to link, to install stuff and so on. And all of a sudden, we're moving to the cloud and the router that was like the vintage point for this beautiful way of doing security and visibility disappears. And you're renting instances that are floating in the Amazon cloud. And when the world changed that way from one point of view, I was sure that what we're doing before was useful and was powerful for the users. But I was also sure, okay, the world is going to change. The retrofitted solutions are not going to work. We can take our product, but then we have the innovator dilemma. We have a product that we cannot completely radically change. So I decided let's start from scratch. Let's start Sysdig. Let's try to understand actually what this cloud is going, where containers are going. There's this new Kubernetes thing that everybody's talking about. What does it mean to offer deep, rich, but at the same time lightweight and easy to deploy security and visibility for this kind of new way of writing software and that's how Sysdig was born. >> So if I remember correctly back in that timeframe, that couple you said you found a millions people using that application. If I remember correctly, that was software network monitoring. Is that true? Is that open source at that time? Was that an open project or was that? >> Yeah, like Wireshark is a network analyzer and the software that we're doing was heavily open source oriented and was mostly software and there were also potentially appliances because this was data center more kind of stuff. >> That was before cloud even came here. So again, defined data center software and defined clouds happening. So again, good segue into kind of where security, you mentioned footprints, you can track people with packets. So to your point, is this the tie into security, tell us how this fits in with open source and security with the software piece? >> Yeah, what Sysdig did essentially, the idea was let's learn from our prior life. I always say that every new wave of technology is built on the shoulders of the previous one. And you'd never reinvent anything. You just apply it and evolve it. And the same thing we did with Sysdig. So we learned what was working with our previous approaches that were based on observing the applications behavior by looking essentially at network traffic, but we adapted it to modern infrastructures. And open source was our mantra before with Wireshark and became our mantra with Sysdig. Sysdig, the company name comes from the open source tool that we released was the first thing that we released in our company. And then few years later with Falco, which now is the premier open source project that was created by Sysdig and is now part of the CNCF, it's an incubating project. And it's essentially the runtime security tool for containers, Kubernetes, and cloud. >> Take us through that Falco, because I think this is an important distinction on your success trajectory because CNCF has a nice playbook where companies can contribute to the CNCF at the same time, that creates an open environment for all, and then have a business model tied to it. This is kind of a new, not new, but this is a successful way to be open source and have a commercial opportunity. >> Yeah, and very much a substantial portion of our commercial product is let's say an extension of Falco. But let's say our approach was like, let's first produce something that is truly useful for the community and fits in the proper way with the ecosystem, with the rest of the ecosystem. Nowadays in every field security as well, you don't build any more a single solution. You build something that needs to fit very well in the stack. Kubernetes, Prometers, network meshes and DCO and this kind of stuff, these all fit together. So Falco, which is the runtime security component needs to fit as well. So initially our focus was like, okay, we need to fill the gap of runtime security for containers, for Kubernetes, and also for cloud. But we need to do that in a way that is community first and data really helps, but also engages and takes advantage of the users, of the broader community. At that point, going to the CNCF and telling the CNCF, hey, look, we developed these, are you interested in partnering with us and being essentially the organization behind this project, was very natural. And that's what we did in 2016, sorry, 2018. 2016 is when Falco started, 2018. And at that point, you know, it's a great partnership because the CNCF is really a great home for all of these projects and really makes it possible for the users to trust a project in a way that they know that even if the commercial banker, even if the original creators, even if the team rotates and changes and evolves, the end users can still use this project, trust this project and know that it's community driven. And it's been a great journey for us. >> How would you describe what Falco is and what are the key use cases? >> Yeah, Falco is, I compare it to the security camera for your containers, your house and your cloud infrastructure. So the same way that the security camera allows you to observe maybe what's happening in your home, even if you have a lock, is still useful to have a security camera, right? To understand when something breaks in what they're doing, when they do it, get an alarm when something better happens. Similarly, in software infrastructures, you can still have your lock, your firewall and so on, but then you use a security camera like Falco that is able to observe every single container, every single process, every single machine, every single network connection and so on. Keep an eye on it and then it has sort of a points-based system that includes a bunch of policies that come essentially pre-packaged that allow the users to detect when something dangerous or suspicious happens in the infrastructure. For example, I don't know somebody is spawning or sharing their radius container. Or somebody is logging in AWS without multi-factor authentication. Falco keeps a constant eye and lets you know, it gives you an alert when something like that happens. >> You know what I love about what you guys do and kind of highlights what we've been saying on theCUBE for many, many years is that the networking concepts of the older generations have been moving up the stack with cloud because you got rule engines, policy automation, all these things are now part of connected systems. So if you have the cloud, which is essentially a distributed computing, you have more networks, more connections. And so the networking paradigms of packets can be moved over to software, well, software maintenance, if you will, or anything, any middleware, whatever you want to call it. I mean, this is kind of a new paradigm. So, what's your reaction to that? I want to get your take on this because this is kind of really happening. >> Yeah, and you are absolutely right. And what us as a Falco community or as Sysdig as a company is exactly that. We're taking the concepts that were maybe at the base of the previous generation of the data center in terms of policies, in terms of one clause and we're sort of elevating them to what modern cloud is. To give you an example, I don't know if you remember, but a Falco was inspired by a tool called Snort and the company also was Sourcefire. Snort used to listen on the network, constantly observe the network traffic and the deploy policies to tell you, okay, somebody uploaded a file from China and this file contains a malware. Now we do this, but we're able to see inside containers. We have cloud context. We understand the regions. We understand Kubernetes namespace and all these kinds of stuff. So we're able to put so much more context and be so much closer to the user, but the concepts are the same. We're just, as I was saying, sitting on the shoulders of people before us that invented this and we're modernizing them. >> Well, this is what refactoring is all about. This is the benefit of the cloud. I think, this is why a lot of the cloud native success is happening because companies are realizing that they can actually not just re platform in the cloud, but actually refactor their business, completely different. Using other paradigms and not necessarily rip and replace or just cut and paste. They can take concepts and codify them in their workloads, not necessarily general purpose. So again, key cloud concept and only going to get stronger with the edge developing. So again, more and more complexity, connected complexity. >> Yeah, complexity that more and more you manage through automation, right? Which is another key concept in the cloud. So we are able as a market, as a community to have and manage more and more complex infrastructures because we have tools that are able to automate, to take care of stuff for us, to potentially remediate, which is another big theme in modern security for us and so on. And of course, again, companies like Sysdig, try to really read these in the plight, in a proper way that can be the most possible useful. >> And hackers love complexity, right? And love chaos. And so unless you tame that with really good software, this is the key challenge. >> You need to manage chaos and you need good software to help you manage chaos. >> All right, final question for you. How is Sysdig and the Falco community working with AWS? >> Yeah, in a number of ways. One of the beauties, as I was telling before of essentially being built on an open source project like Falco is that you can really work together with cloud providers like AWS with mutual advantage. For example, AWS and team members at Amazon have done many contributions to Falco and the Sysdig system and integrations and so on. We partnered as Falco community and Sysdig with AWS to offer proper support for Falco versus the products on Fargate, which is, managed containers are the future, are very powerful. Everybody wants to go there, but then you need to make sure that you are covered, you have security from the point of view of severability and so on. Sysdig and AWS work together on doing a P trace based implementation, this is a technical thing, but essentially it means that a tool like Falco can give you invitations, can be the security camera for Fargate as well. And in general way, Amazon is a great partner for us on a daily basis as a community and as a company. >> Loris, you've got a great company there. And again, it was great to see you guys grow from the beginning and the wave is here. As they say, in California, you guys are riding the right wave. And I think it's just the beginning. I think you're going to see more and more security be programmable, built in, automated, under the covers, invisible, but working. And I think the same is going to be true for data and other things. So a lot more to do. And again, it's distributed computing. We've seen this movie before, but not in this environment. So new tools are coming and you guys are a big part of it. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE and sharing what you guys are doing and the technology behind Sysdig. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you very much and thank you for the great conversation. >> Okay, this is theCUBE I'm John Furrier your host for Cube conversations with Sysdig's Loris Degioanni, CTO of Sysdig. Thanks for watching. (gentle music)

>> Voiceover: From theCUBE's Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the AWS Startup Showcase. Next Big Thing in AI, Security and Life Sciences featuring Ahana for the AI Trek. I'm your host, John Furrier. Today, we're joined by two great guests, Steven Mih, Ahana CEO, and Sachin Nayyar, Securonix CEO. Gentlemen, thanks for coming on theCUBE. We're talking about the Next-Gen technologies on AI, Open Data Lakes, et cetera. Thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having us, John. >> Thanks, John. >> What a great line up here. >> Sachin: Thanks, Steven. >> Great, great stuff. Sachin, let's get in and talk about your company, Securonix. What do you guys do? Take us through, I know you've got a slide to help us through this, I want to introduce your stuff first then jump in with Steven. >> Absolutely. Thanks again, Steven. Ahana team for having us on the show. So Securonix, we started the company in 2010. We are the leader in security analytics and response capability for the cybermarket. So basically, this is a category of solutions called SIEM, Security Incident and Event Management. We are the quadrant leaders in Gartner, we now have about 500 customers today and have been plugging away since 2010. Started the company just really focused on analytics using machine learning and an advanced analytics to really find the needle in the haystack, then moved from there to needle in the needle stack using more algorithms, analysis of analysis. And then kind of, I evolved the company to run on cloud and become sort of the biggest security data lake on cloud and provide all the analytics to help companies with their insider threat, cyber threat, cloud solutions, application threats, emerging internally and externally, and then response and have a great partnership with Ahana as well as with AWS. So looking forward to this session, thank you. >> Awesome. I can't wait to hear the news on that Next-Gen SIEM leadership. Steven, Ahana, talk about what's going on with you guys, give us the update, a lot of stuff happening. >> Yeah. Great to be here and thanks for that such, and we appreciate the partnership as well with both Securonix and AWS. Ahana is the open source company based on PrestoDB, which is a project that came out of Facebook and is widely used, one of the fastest growing projects in data analytics today. And we make a managed service for Presto easily on AWS, all cloud native. And we'll be talking about that more during the show. Really excited to be here. We believe in open source. We believe in all the challenges of having data in the cloud and making it easy to use. So thanks for having us again. >> And looking forward to digging into that managed service and why that's been so successful. Looking forward to that. Let's get into the Securonix Next-Gen SIEM leadership first. Let's share the journey towards what you guys are doing here. As the Open Data Lakes on AWS has been a hot topic, the success of data in the cloud, no doubt is on everyone's mind especially with the edge coming. It's just, I mean, just incredible growth. Take us through Sachin, what do you guys got going on? >> Absolutely. Thanks, John. We are hearing about cyber threats every day. No question about it. So in the past, what was happening is companies, what we have done as enterprise is put all of our eggs in the basket of solutions that were evaluating the network data. With cloud, obviously there is no more network data. Now we have moved into focusing on EDR, right thing to do on endpoint detection. But with that, we also need security analytics across on-premise and cloud. And your other solutions like your OT, IOT, your mobile, bringing it all together into a security data lake and then running purpose built analytics on top of that, and then having a response so we can prevent some of these things from happening or detect them in real time versus innovating for hours or weeks and months, which is is obviously too late. So with some of the recent events happening around colonial and others, we all know cybersecurity is on top of everybody's mind. First and foremost, I also want to. >> Steven: (indistinct) slide one and that's all based off on top of the data lake, right? >> Sachin: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So before we go into on Securonix, I also want to congratulate everything going on with the new cyber initiatives with our government and just really excited to see some of the things that the government is also doing in this space to bring, to have stronger regulation and bring together the government and the private sector. From a Securonix perspective, today, we have one third of the fortune 500 companies using our technology. In addition, there are hundreds of small and medium sized companies that rely on Securonix for their cyber protection. So what we do is, again, we are running the solution on cloud, and that is very important. It is not just important for hosting, but in the space of cybersecurity, you need to have a solution, which is not, so where we can update the threat models and we can use the intelligence or the Intel that we gather from our customers, partners, and industry experts and roll it out to our customers within seconds and minutes, because the game is real time in cybersecurity. And that you can only do in cloud where you have the complete telemetry and access to these environments. When we go on-premise traditionally, what you will see is customers are even thinking about pushing the threat models through their standard Dev test life cycle management, and which is just completely defeating the purpose. So in any event, Securonix on the cloud brings together all the data, then runs purpose-built analytics on it. Helps you find very few, we are today pulling in several million events per second from our customers, and we provide just a very small handful of events and reduce the false positives so that people can focus on them. Their security command center can focus on that and then configure response actions on top of that. So we can take action for known issues and have intelligence in all the layers. So that's kind of what the Securonix is focused on. >> Steven, he just brought up, probably the most important story in technology right now. That's ransomware more than, first of all, cybersecurity in general, but ransomware, he mentioned some of the government efforts. Some are saying that the ransomware marketplace is bigger than some governments, nation state governments. There's a business model behind it. It's highly active. It's dominating the scene and it's a real threat. This is the new world we're living in, cloud creates the refactoring capabilities. We're hearing that story here with Securonix. How does Presto and Securonix work together? Because I'm connecting the dots here in real time. I think you're going to go there. So take us through because this is like the most important topic happening. >> Yeah. So as Sachin said, there's all this data that needs to go into the cloud and it's all moving to the cloud. And there's a massive amounts of data and hundreds of terabytes, petabytes of data that's moving into the data lakes and that's the S3-based data lakes, which are the easiest, cheapest, commodified place to put all this data. But in order to deliver the results that Sachin's company is driving, which is intelligence on when there's a ransomware or possibility, you need to have analytics on them. And so Presto is the open source project that is a open source SQL query engine for data lakes and other data sources. It was created by Facebook as part of the Linux foundation, something called Presto foundation. And it was built to replace the complicated Hadoop stack in order to then drive analytics at very lightning fast queries on large, large sets of data. And so Presto fits in with this Open Data Lake analytics movement, which has made Presto one of the fastest growing projects out there. >> What is an Open Data Lake? Real quick for the audience who wants to learn on what it means. Does is it means it's open source in the Linux foundation or open meaning it's open to multiple applications? What does that even mean? >> Yeah. Open Data Lake analytics means that you're, first of all, your data lake has open formats. So it is made up of say something called the ORC or Parquet. And these are formats that any engine can be used against. That's really great, instead of having locked in data types. Data lakes can have all different types of data. It can have unstructured, semi-structured data. It's not just the structured data, which is typically in your data warehouses. There's a lot more data going into the Open Data Lake. And then you can, based on what workload you're looking to get benefit from, the insights come from that, and actually slide two covers this pictorially. If you look on the left here on slide two, the Open Data Lake is where all the data is pulling. And Presto is the layer in between that and the insights which are driven by the visualization, reporting, dashboarding, BI tools or applications like in Securonix case. And so analytics are now being driven by every company for not just industries of security, but it's also for every industry out there, retail, e-commerce, you name it. There's a healthcare, financials, all are looking at driving more analytics for their SaaSified applications as well as for their own internal analysts, data scientists, and folks that are trying to be more data-driven. >> All right. Let's talk about the relationship now with where Presto fits in with Securonix because I get the open data layer. I see value in that. I get also what we're talking about the cloud and being faster with the datasets. So how does, Sachin' Securonix and Ahana fit in together? >> Yeah. Great question. So I'll tell you, we have two customers. I'll give you an example. We have two fortune 10 customers. One has moved most of their operations to the cloud and another customer which is in the process, early stage. The data, the amount of data that we are getting from the customer who's moved fully to the cloud is 20 times, 20 times more than the customer who's in the early stages of moving to the cloud. That is because the ability to add this level of telemetry in the cloud, in this case, it happens to be AWS, Office 365, Salesforce and several other rescalers across several other cloud technologies. But the level of logging that we are able to get the telemetry is unbelievable. So what it does is it allows us to analyze more, protect the customers better, protect them in real time, but there is a cost and scale factor to that. So like I said, when you are trying to pull in billions of events per day from a customer billions of events per day, what the customers are looking for is all of that data goes in, all of data gets enriched so that it makes sense to a normal analyst and all of that data is available for search, sometimes 90 days, sometimes 12 months. And then all of that data is available to be brought back into a searchable format for up to seven years. So think about the amount of data we are dealing with here and we have to provide a solution for this problem at a price that is affordable to the customer and that a medium-sized company as well as a large organization can afford. So after a lot of our analysis on this and again, Securonix is focused on cyber, bringing in the data, analyzing it, so after a lot of our analysis, we zeroed in on S3 as the core bucket where this data needs to be stored because the price point, the reliability, and all the other functions available on top of that. And with that, with S3, we've created a great partnership with AWS as well as with Snowflake that is providing this, from a data lake perspective, a bigger data lake, enterprise data lake perspective. So now for us to be able to provide customers the ability to search that data. So data comes in, we are enriching it. We are putting it in S3 in real time. Now, this is where Presto comes in. In our research, Presto came out as the best search engine to sit on top of S3. The engine is supported by companies like Facebook and Uber, and it is open source. So open source, like you asked the question. So for companies like us, we cannot depend on a very small technology company to offer mission critical capabilities because what if that company gets acquired, et cetera. In the case of open source, we are able to adopt it. We know there is a community behind it and it will be kind of available for us to use and we will be able to contribute in it for the longterm. Number two, from an open source perspective, we have a strong belief that customers own their own data. Traditionally, like Steven used the word locked in, it's a key term, customers have been locked in into proprietary formats in the past and those days are over. You should be, you own the data and you should be able to use it with us and with other systems of choice. So now you get into a data search engine like Presto, which scales independently of the storage. And then when we start looking at Presto, we came across Ahana. So for every open source system, you definitely need a sort of a for-profit company that invests in the community and then that takes the community forward. Because without a company like this, the community will die. So we are very excited about the partnership with Presto and Ahana. And Ahana provides us the ability to take Presto and cloudify it, or make the cloud operations work plus be our conduit to the Ahana community. Help us speed up certain items on the roadmap, help our team contribute to the community as well. And then you have to take a solution like Presto, you have to put it in the cloud, you have to make it scale, you have to put it on Kubernetes. Standard thing that you need to do in today's world to offer it as sort of a micro service into our architecture. So in all of those areas, that's where our partnership is with Ahana and Presto and S3 and we think, this is the search solution for the future. And with something like this, very soon, we will be able to offer our customers 12 months of data, searchable at extremely fast speeds at very reasonable price points and you will own your own data. So it has very significant business benefits for our customers with the technology partnership that we have set up here. So very excited about this. >> Sachin, it's very inspiring, a couple things there. One, decentralize on your own data, having a democratized, that piece is killer. Open source, great point. >> Absolutely. >> Company goes out of business, you don't want to lose the source code or get acquired or whatever. That's a key enabler. And then three, a fast managed service that has a commercial backing behind it. So, a great, and by the way, Snowflake wasn't around a couple of years ago. So like, so this is what we're talking about. This is the cloud scale. Steven, take us home with this point because this is what innovation looks like. Could you share why it's working? What's some of the things that people could walk away with and learn from as the new architecture for the new NextGen cloud is here, so this is a big part of and share how this works? >> That's right. As you heard from Sachin, every company is becoming data-driven and analytics are central to their business. There's more data and it needs to be analyzed at lower cost without the locked in and people want that flexibility. And so a slide three talks about what Ahana cloud for Presto does. It's the best Presto out of the box. It gives you very easy to use for your operations team. So it can be one or two people just managing this and they can get up to speed very quickly in 30 minutes, be up and running. And that jump starts their movement into an Open Data Lake analytics architecture. That architecture is going to be, it is the one that is at Facebook, Uber, Twitter, other large web scale, internet scale companies. And with the amount of data that's occurring, that's now becoming the standard architecture for everyone else in the future. And so just to wrap, we're really excited about making that easy, giving an open source solution because the open source data stack based off of data lake analytics is really happening. >> I got to ask you, you've seen many waves on the industry. Certainly, you've been through the big data waves, Steven. Sachin, you're on the cutting edge and just the cutting edge billions of signals from one client alone is pretty amazing scale and refactoring that value proposition is super important. What's different from 10 years ago when the Hadoop, you mentioned Hadoop earlier, which is RIP, obviously the cloud killed it. We all know that. Everyone kind of knows that. But like, what's different now? I mean, skeptics might say, I don't believe you, but it's just crazy. There's no way it works. S3 costs way too much. Why is this now so much more of an attractive proposition? What do you say the naysayers out there? With Steve, we'll start with you and then Sachin, I want you to like weigh in too. >> Yeah. Well, if you think about the Hadoop era and if you look at slide three, it was a very complicated system that was done mainly on-prem. And you'd have to go and set up a big data team and a rack and stack a bunch of servers and then try to put all this stuff together and candidly, the results and the outcomes of that were very hard to get unless you had the best possible teams and invested a lot of money in this. What you saw in this slide was that, that right hand side which shows the stack. Now you have a separate compute, which is based off of Intel based instances in the cloud. We run the best in that and they're part of the Presto foundation. And that's now data lakes. Now the distributed compute engines are the ones that have become very much easier. So the big difference in what I see is no longer called big data. It's just called data analytics because it's now become commodified as being easy and the bar is much, much lower, so everyone can get the benefit of this across industries, across organizations. I mean, that's good for the world, reduces the security threats, the ransomware, in the case of Securonix and Sachin here. But every company can benefit from this. >> Sachin, this is really as an example in my mind and you can comment too on if you'd believe or not, but replatform with the cloud, that's a no brainer. People do that. They did it. But the value is refactoring in the cloud. It's thinking differently with the assets you have and making sure you're using the right pieces. I mean, there's no brainer, you know it's good. If it costs more money to stand up something than to like get value out of something that's operating at scale, much easier equation. What's your thoughts on this? Go back 10 years and where we are now, what's different? I mean, replatforming, refactoring, all kinds of happening. What's your take on all this? >> Agreed, John. So we have been in business now for about 10 to 11 years. And when we started my hair was all black. Okay. >> John: You're so silly. >> Okay. So this, everything has happened here is the transition from Hadoop to cloud. Okay. This is what the result has been. So people can see it for themselves. So when we started off with deep partnerships with the Hadoop providers and again, Hadoop is the foundation, which has now become EMR and everything else that AWS and other companies have picked up. But when you start with some basic premise, first, the racking and stacking of hardware, companies having to project their entire data volume upfront, bringing the servers and have 50, 100, 500 servers sitting in their data centers. And then when there are spikes in data, or like I said, as you move to the cloud, your data volume will increase between five to 20x and projecting for that. And then think about the agility that it will take you three to six months to bring in new servers and then bring them into the architecture. So big issue. Number two big issue is that the backend of that was built for HDFS. So Hadoop in my mind was built to ingest large amounts of data in batches and then perform some spark jobs on it, some analytics. But we are talking in security about real time, high velocity, high variety data, which has to be available in real time. It wasn't built for that, to be honest. So what was happening is, again, even if you look at the Hadoop companies today as they have kind of figured, kind of define their next generation, they have moved from HDFS to now kind of a cloud based platform capability and have discarded the traditional HDFS architecture because it just wasn't scaling, wasn't searching fast enough, wasn't searching fast enough for hundreds of analysts at the same time. And then obviously, the servers, et cetera wasn't working. Then when we worked with the Hadoop companies, they were always two to three versions behind for the individual services that they had brought together. And again, when you're talking about this kind of a volume, you need to be on the cutting edge always of the technologies underneath that. So even while we were working with them, we had to support our own versions of Kafka, Solr, Zookeeper, et cetera to really bring it together and provide our customers this capability. So now when we have moved to the cloud with solutions like EMR behind us, AWS has invested in in solutions like EMR to make them scalable, to have scale and then scale out, which traditional Hadoop did not provide because they missed the cloud wave. And then on top of that, again, rather than throwing data in that traditional older HDFS format, we are now taking the same format, the parquet format that it supports, putting it in S3 and now making it available and using all the capabilities like you said, the refactoring of that is critical. That rather than on-prem having servers and redundancies with S3, we get built in redundancy. We get built in life cycle management, high degree of confidence data reliability. And then we get all this innovation from companies like, from groups like Presto, companies like Ahana sitting on double that S3. And the last item I would say is in the cloud we are now able to offer multiple, have multiple resilient options on our side. So for example, with us, we still have some premium searching going on with solutions like Solr and Elasticsearch, then you have Presto and Ahana providing majority of our searching, but we still have Athena as a backup in case something goes down in the architecture. Our queries will spin back up to Athena, AWS service on Presto and customers will still get served. So all of these options, but what it doesn't cost us anything, Athena, if we don't use it, but all of these options are not available on-prem. So in my mind, I mean, it's a whole new world we are living in. It is a world where now we have made it possible for companies to even enterprises to even think about having true security data lakes, which are useful and having real-time analytics. From my perspective, I don't even sign up today for a large enterprise that wants to build a data lake on-prem because I know that is not, that is going to be a very difficult project to make it successful. So we've come a long way and there are several details around this that we've kind of endured through the process, but very excited where we are today. >> Well, we certainly follow up with theCUBE on all your your endeavors. Quickly on Ahana, why them, why their solution? In your words, what would be the advice you'd give me if I'm like, okay, I'm looking at this, why do I want to use it, and what's your experience? >> Right. So the standard SQL query engine for data lake analytics, more and more people have more data, want to have something that's based on open source, based on open formats, gives you that flexibility, pay as you go. You only pay for what you use. And so it proved to be the best option for Securonix to create a self-service system that has all the speed and performance and scalability that they need, which is based off of the innovation from the large companies like Facebook, Uber, Twitter. They've all invested heavily. We contribute to the open source project. It's a vibrant community. We encourage people to join the community and even Securonix, we'll be having engineers that are contributing to the project as well. I think, is that right Sachin? Maybe you could share a little bit about your thoughts on being part of the community. >> Yeah. So also why we chose Ahana, like John said. The first reason is you see Steven is always smiling. Okay. >> That's for sure. >> That is very important. I mean, jokes apart, you need a great partner. You need a great partner. You need a partner with a great attitude because this is not a sprint, this is a marathon. So the Ahana founders, Steven, the whole team, they're world-class, they're world-class. The depth that the CTO has, his experience, the depth that Dipti has, who's running the cloud solution. These guys are world-class. They are very involved in the community. We evaluated them from a community perspective. They are very involved. They have the depth of really commercializing an open source solution without making it too commercial. The right balance, where the founding companies like Facebook and Uber, and hopefully Securonix in the future as we contribute more and more will have our say and they act like the right stewards in this journey and then contribute as well. So and then they have chosen the right niche rather than taking portions of the product and making it proprietary. They have put in the effort towards the cloud infrastructure of making that product available easily on the cloud. So I think it's sort of a no-brainer from our side. Once we chose Presto, Ahana was the no-brainer and just the partnership so far has been very exciting and I'm looking forward to great things together. >> Likewise Sachin, thanks so much for that. And we've only found your team, you're world-class as well, and working together and we look forward to working in the community also in the Presto foundation. So thanks for that. >> Guys, great partnership. Great insight and really, this is a great example of cloud scale, cloud value proposition as it unlocks new benefits. Open source, managed services, refactoring the opportunities to create more value. Stephen, Sachin, thank you so much for sharing your story here on open data lakes. Can open always wins in my mind. This is theCUBE we're always open and we're showcasing all the hot startups coming out of the AWS ecosystem for the AWS Startup Showcase. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Well, welcome to theCUBE Conversation here in theCUBE studios in Palo Alto, California. I'm John Furrier, your host. Got a great conversation with two great guests, going to explore the edge, what it means in terms of commercial, but also national security. And as the world goes digital, we're going to have that deep dive conversation around how it's all transforming. We've got Ki Lee, Vice President of Booz Allen's Digital Business. Ki, great to have you. John Pisano, Principal at Booz Allen's Digital Cloud Solutions. Gentlemen, thanks for coming on. >> And thanks for having us, John. >> So one of the most hottest topics, obviously besides cloud computing having the most refactoring impact on business and government and public sector has been the next phase of cloud growth and cloud scale, and that's really modern applications and consumer, and then here for national security and for governments here in the U.S. is military impact. And as digital transformation starts to go to the next level, you're starting to see the architectures emerge where the edge, the IoT edge, the industrial IoT edge, or any kind of edge concept, 5G is exploding, making that much more of a dense, more throughput for connectivity with wireless. You got Amazon with Snowball, Snowmobile, all kinds of ways to deploy technology, that's IT like and operational technologies. It's causing quite a cloud operational opportunity and disruption, so I want to get into it. Ki, let's start with you. I mean, we're looking at an architecture that's changing both commercial and public sector with the edge. What are the key considerations that you guys see as people have to really move fast in this new architecture of digital? >> Yeah, John, I think it's a great question. And if I could just share our observation on why we even started investing in edge. You mentioned the cloud, but as we've reflected upon kind of the history of IT, then you take a look from mainframes to desktops to servers to cloud to mobile and now IoT, what we observed was that industry investing in infrastructure led to kind of an evolution of IT, right? So as you mentioned, with industry spending billions on IoT and edge, we just feel that that's going to be the next evolution. If you take a look at, you mentioned 5G, I think 5G will be certainly an accelerator to edge because of the resilience, the lower latency and so forth. But taking a look at what's happening in space, you mentioned space earlier as well, right, and what Starlink is doing by putting satellites to actually provide transport into the space, we're thinking that that actually is going to be the next ubiquitous thing. Once transport becomes ubiquitous, just like cloud allows storage to be ubiquitous. We think that the next generation internet will be space-based. So when you think about it, connected, it won't be connected servers per se, it will be connected devices. >> John: Yeah, yeah. >> That's kind of some of the observations and why we've been really focusing on investing in edge. >> I want to come back to that piece around space and edge and bring it from a commercial and then also tactical architecture in a minute 'cause there's a lot to unpack there, role of open source, modern application development, software and hardware supply chains, all are core issues that are going to emerge. But I want to get with John real quick on cloud impact, because you think about 5G and the future of work or future of play, you've got people, right? So whether you're at a large concert like Coachella or a 49ers or Patriots game or Redskins game if you're in the D.C. area, you got people there, of congestion, and now you got devices now serving those people. And that's their play, people at work, whether it's a military operation, and you've got work, play, tactical edge things. How is cloud connecting? 'Cause this is like the edge has never been kind of an IT thing. It's been more of a bandwidth or either telco or something else operationally. What's the cloud at scale, cloud operations impact? >> Yeah, so if you think about how these systems are architected and you think about those considerations that Ki kind of touched on, a lot of what you have to think about now is what aspects of the application reside in the cloud, where you tend to be less constrained. And then how do you architect that application to move out towards the edge, right? So how do I tier my application? Ultimately, how do I move data and applications around the ecosystem? How do I need to evolve where my application stages things and how that data and those apps are moved to each of those different tiers? So when we build a lot of applications, especially if they're in the cloud, they're built with some of those common considerations of elasticity, scalability, all those things; whereas when you talk about congestion and disconnected operations, you lose a lot of those characteristics, and you have to kind of rethink that. >> Ki, let's get into the aspect you brought up, which is space. And then I was mentioning the tactical edge from a military standpoint. These are use cases of deployments, and in fact, this is how people have to work now. So you've got the future of work or play, and now you've got the situational deployments, whether it's a new tower of next to a stadium. We've all been at a game or somewhere or a concert where we only got five bars and no connectivity. So we know what that means. So now you have people congregating in work or play, and now you have a tactical deployment. What's the key things that you're seeing that it's going to help make that better? Are there any breakthroughs that you see that are possible? What's going on in your view? >> Yeah, I mean, I think what's enabling all of this, again, one is transport, right? So whether it's 5G to increase the speed and decrease the latency, whether it's things like Starlink with making transport and comms ubiquitous, that tied with the fact that ships continue to get smaller and faster, right? And when you're thinking about tactical edge, those devices have limited size, weight, power conditions and constraints. And so the software that goes on them has to be just as lightweight. And that's why we've actually partnered with SUSE and what they've done with K3s to do that. So I think those are some of the enabling technologies out there. John, as you've kind of alluded to it, there are additional challenges as we think about it. We're not, it's not a simple transition and monetization here, but again, we think that this will be the next major disruption. >> What do you guys think, John, if you don't mind weighing in too on this as modern application development happens, we just were covering CloudNativeCon and KubeCon, DockerCon, containers are very popular. Kubernetes is becoming super great. As you look at the telco landscape where we're kind of converging this edge, it has to be commercially enterprise grade. It has to have that transit and transport that's intelligent and all these new things. How does open source fit into all this? Because we're seeing open source becoming very reliable, more people are contributing to open source. How does that impact the edge in your opinion? >> So from my perspective, I think it's helping accelerate things that traditionally maybe may have been stuck in the traditional proprietary software confines. So within our mindset at Booz Allen, we were very focused on open architecture, open based systems, which open source obviously is an aspect of that. So how do you create systems that can easily interface with each other to exchange data, and how do you leverage tools that are available in the open source community to do that? So containerization is a big drive that is really going throughout the open source community. And there's just a number of other tools, whether it's tools that are used to provide basic services like how do I move code through a pipeline all the way through? How do I do just basic hardening and security checking of my capabilities? Historically, those have tend to be closed source type apps, whereas today you've got a very broad community that's able to very quickly provide and develop capabilities and push it out to a community that then continues to adapt and add to it or grow that library of stuff. >> Yeah, and then we've got trends like Open RAN. I saw some Ground Station for the AWS. You're starting to see Starlink, you mentioned. You're bringing connectivity to the masses. What is that going to do for operators? Because remember, security is a huge issue. We talk about security all the time. Where does that kind of come in? Because now you're really OT, which has been very purpose-built kind devices in the old IoT world. As the new IoT and the edge develop, you're going to need to have intelligence. You're going to be data-driven. There is an open source impact key. So, how, if I'm a senior executive, how do I get my arms around this? I really need to think this through because the security risks alone could be more penetration areas, more surface area. >> Right. That's a great question. And let me just address kind of the value to the clients and the end users in the digital battlefield as our warriors to increase survivability and lethality. At the end of the day from a mission perspective, we know we believe that time's a weapon. So reducing any latency in that kind of observe, orient, decide, act OODA loop is value to the war fighter. In terms of your question on how to think about this, John, you're spot on. I mean, as I've mentioned before, there are various different challenges, one, being the cyber aspect of it. We are absolutely going to be increasing our attack surface when you think about putting processing on edge devices. There are other factors too, non-technical that we've been thinking about s we've tried to kind of engender and kind of move to this kind of edge open ecosystem where we can kind of plug and play, reuse, all kind of taking the same concepts of the open-source community and open architectures. But other things that we've considered, one, workforce. As you mentioned before, when you think about these embedded systems and so forth, there aren't that many embedded engineers out there. But there is a workforce that are digital and software engineers that are trained. So how do we actually create an abstraction layer that we can leverage that workforce and not be limited by some of the constraints of the embedded engineers out there? The other thing is what we've, in talking with several colleagues, clients, partners, what people aren't thinking about is actually when you start putting software on these edge devices in the billions, the total cost of ownership. How do you maintain an enterprise that potentially consists of billions of devices? So extending the standard kind of DevSecOps that we move to automate CI/CD to a cloud, how do we move it from cloud to jet? That's kind of what we say. How do we move DevSecOps to automate secure containers all the way to the edge devices to mitigate some of those total cost of ownership challenges. >> It's interesting, as you have software defined, this embedded system discussion is hugely relevant and important because when you have software defined, you've got to be faster in the deployment of these devices. You need security, 'cause remember, supply chain on the hardware side and software in that too. >> Absolutely. >> So if you're going to have a serviceability model where you have to shift left, as they say, you got to be at the point of CI/CD flows, you need to be having security at the time of coding. So all these paradigms are new in Day-2 operations. I call it Day-0 operations 'cause it should be in everyday too. >> Yep. Absolutely. >> But you've got to service these things. So software supply chain becomes a very interesting conversation. It's a new one that we're having on theCUBE and in the industry Software supply chain is a superly relevant important topic because now you've got to interface it, not just with other software, but hardware. How do you service devices in space? You can't send a break/fix person in space. (chuckles) Maybe you will soon, but again, this brings up a whole set of issues. >> No, so I think it's certainly, I don't think anyone has the answers. We sure don't have all the answers but we're very optimistic. If you take a look at what's going on within the U.S. Air Force and what the Chief Software Officer Nic Chaillan and his team, and we're a supporter of this and a plankowner of Platform One. They were ahead of the curve in kind of commoditizing some of these DevSecOps principles in partnership with the DoD CIO and that shift left concept. They've got a certified and accredited platform that provides that DevSecOps. They have an entire repository in the Iron Bank that allows for hardened containers and reciprocity. All those things are value to the mission and around the edge because those are all accelerators. I think there's an opportunity to leverage industry kind of best practices as well and patterns there. You kind of touched upon this, John, but these devices honestly just become firmware. The software is just, if the devices themselves just become firmware , you can just put over the wire updates onto them. So I'm optimistic. I think all the piece parts are taking place across industry and in the government. And I think we're primed to kind of move into this next evolution. >> Yeah. And it's also some collaboration. What I like about, why I'm bringing up the open source angle and I think this is where I think the major focus will shift to, and I want to get your reaction to it is because open source is seeing a lot more collaboration. You mentioned some of the embedded devices. Some people are saying, this is the weakest link in the supply chain, and it can be shored up pretty quickly. But there's other data, other collective intelligence that you can get from sharing data, for instance, which hasn't really been a best practice in the cybersecurity industry. So now open source, it's all been about sharing, right? So you got the confluence of these worlds colliding, all aspects of culture and Dev and Sec and Ops and engineering all coming together. John, what's your reaction to that? Because this is a big topic. >> Yeah, so it's providing a level of transparency that historically we've not seen, right? So in that community, having those pipelines, the results of what's coming out of it, it's allowing anyone in that life cycle or that supply chain to look at it, see the state of it, and make a decision on, is this a risk I'm willing to take or not? Or am I willing to invest and personally contribute back to the community to address that because it's important to me and it's likely going to be important to some of the others that are using it? So I think it's critical, and it's enabling that acceleration and shift that I talked about, that now that everybody can see it, look inside of it, understand the state of it, contribute to it, it's allowing us to break down some of the barriers that Ki talked about. And it reinforces that excitement that we're seeing now. That community is enabling us to move faster and do things that maybe historically we've not been able to do. >> Ki, I'd love to get your thoughts. You mentioned battlefield, and I've been covering a lot of the tactical edge around the DOD's work. You mentioned about the military on the Air Force side, Platform One, I believe, was from the Air Force work that they've done, all cloud native kind of directions. But when you talk about a war field, you talk about connectivity. I mean, who controls the DNS in Taiwan, or who controls the DNS in Korea? I mean, we have to deploy, you've got to stand up infrastructure. How about agility? I mean, tactical command and control operations, this has got to be really well done. So this is not a trivial thing. >> No. >> How are you seeing this translate into the edge innovation area? (laughs) >> It's certainly not a trivial thing, but I think, again, I'm encouraged by how government and industry are partnering up. There's a vision set around this joint all domain command control, JADC2. And then all the services are getting behind that, are looking into that, and this vision of this military, internet of military things. And I think the key thing there, John, as you mentioned, it's not just the connected of the sensors, which requires the transport again, but also they have to be interoperable. So you can have a bunch of sensors and platforms out there, they may be connected, but if they can't speak to one another in a common language, that kind of defeats the purpose and the mission value of that sensor or shooter kind of paradigm that we've been striving for for ages. So you're right on. I mean, this is not a trivial thing, but I think over history we've learned quite a bit. Technology and innovation is happening at just an amazing rate where things are coming out in months as opposed to decades as before. I agree, not trivial, but again, I think there are all the piece parts in place and being put into place. >> I think you mentioned earlier that the personnel, the people, the engineers that are out there, not enough, more of them coming in. I think now the appetite and the provocative nature of this shift in tech is going to attract a lot of people because the old adage is these are hard problems attracts great people. You got in new engineering, SRE like scale engineering. You have software development, that's changing, becoming much more robust and more science-driven. You don't have to be just a coder as a software engineer. You could be coming at it from any angle. So there's a lot more opportunities from a personnel standpoint now to attract great people, and there's real hard problems to solve, not just security. >> Absolutely. Definitely. I agree with that 100%. I would also contest that it's an opportunity for innovators. We've been thinking about this for some time, and we think there's absolute value from various different use cases that we've identified, digital battlefield, force protection, disaster recovery, and so forth. But there are use cases that we probably haven't even thought about, even from a commercial perspective. So I think there's going to be an opportunity just like the internet back in the mid '90s for us to kind of innovate based on this new kind of edge environment. >> It's a revolution. New leadership, new brands are going to emerge, new paradigms, new workflows, new operations, clearly great stuff. I want to thank you guys for coming on. I also want to thank Rancher Labs for sponsoring this conversation. Without their support, we wouldn't be here. And now they were acquired by SUSE. We've covered their event with theCUBE virtual last year. What's the connection with those guys? Can you guys take a minute to explain the relationship with SUSE and Rancher? >> Yeah. So it's actually it's fortuitous. And I think we just, we got lucky. There's two overall aspects of it. First of all, we are both, we partner on the Platform One basic ordering agreement. So just there we had a common mentality of DevSecOps. And so there was a good partnership there, but then when we thought about we're engaging it from an edge perspective, the K3s, right? I mean, they're a leader from a container perspective obviously, but the fact that they are innovators around K3s to reduce that software footprint, which is required on these edge devices, we kind of got a twofer there in that partnership. >> John, any comment on your end? >> Yeah, I would just amplify, the K3s aspects in leveraging the containers, a lot of what we've seen success in when you look at what's going on, especially on that tactical edge around enabling capabilities, containers, and the portability it provides makes it very easy for us to interface and integrate a lot of different sensors to close the OODA loop to whoever is wearing or operating that a piece of equipment that the software is running on. >> Awesome, I'd love to continue the conversation on space and the edge and super great conversation to have you guys on. Really appreciate it. I do want to ask you guys about the innovation and the opportunities of this new shift that's happening as the next big thing is coming quickly. And it's here on us and that's cloud, I call it cloud 2.0, the cloud scale, modern software development environment, edge with 5G changing the game. Ki, I completely agree with you. And I think this is where people are focusing their attention from startups to companies that are transforming and re-pivoting or refactoring their existing assets to be positioned. And you're starting to see clear winners and losers. There's a pattern emerging. You got to be in the cloud, you got to be leveraging data, you got to be horizontally scalable, but you got to have AI machine learning in there with modern software practices that are secure. That's the playbook. Some people are making it. Some people are not getting there. So I'd ask you guys, as telcos become super important and the ability to be a telco now, we just mentioned standing up a tactical edge, for instance. Launching a satellite, a couple of hundred K, you can launch a CubeSat. That could be good and bad. So the telco business is changing radically. Cloud, telco cloud is emerging as an edge phenomenon with 5G, certainly business commercial benefits more than consumer. How do you guys see the innovation and disruption happening with telco? >> As we think through cloud to edge, one thing that we realize, because our definition of edge, John, was actually at the point of data collection on the sensor themselves. Others' definition of edge is we're a little bit further back, what we call it the edge of the IT enterprise. But as we look at this, we realize that you needed this kind of multi echelon environment from your cloud to your tactical clouds where you can do some processing and then at the edge of themselves. Really at the end of the day, it's all about, I think, data, right? I mean, everything we're talking about, it's still all about the data, right? The AI needs the data, the telco is transporting the data. And so I think if you think about it from a data perspective in relationship to the telcos, one, edge will actually enable a very different paradigm and a distributed paradigm for data processing. So, hey, instead of bringing the data to some central cloud which takes bandwidth off your telcos, push the products to the data. So mitigate what's actually being sent over those telco lines to increase the efficiencies of them. So I think at the end of the day, the telcos are going to have a pretty big component to this, even from space down to ground station, how that works. So the network of these telcos, I think, are just going to expand. >> John, what's your perspective? I mean, startups are coming out. The scalability, speed of innovation is a big factor. The old telco days had, I mean, months and years, new towers go up and now you got a backbone. It's kind of a slow glacier pace. Now it's under siege with rapid innovation. >> Yeah, so I definitely echo the sentiments that Ki would have, but I would also, if we go back and think about the digital battle space and what we've talked about, faster speeds being available in places it's not been before is great. However, when you think about facing an adversary that's a near-peer threat, the first thing they're going to do is make it contested, congested, and you have to be able to survive. While yes, the pace of innovation is absolutely pushing comms to places we've not had it before, we have to be mindful to not get complacent and over-rely on it, assuming it'll always be there. 'Cause I know in my experience wearing the uniform, and even if I'm up against an adversary, that's the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do whatever I can to disrupt your ability to communicate. So how do you take it down to that lowest level and still make that squad, the platoon, whatever that structure is, continue survivable and lethal. So that's something I think, as we look at the innovations, we need to be mindful of that. So when I talk about how do you architect it? What services do you use? Those are all those things that you have to think about. What if I lose it at this echelon? How do I continue the mission? >> Yeah, it's interesting. And if you look at how companies have been procuring and consuming technology, Ki, it's been like siloed. "Okay, we've got a workplace workforce project, and we have the tactical edge, and we have the siloed IT solution," when really work and play, whether it's work here in John's example, is the war fighter. And so his concern is safety, his life and protection. >> Yeah. >> The other department has to manage the comms, (laughs) and so they have to have countermeasures and contingencies ready to go. So all this is, they all integrate it now. It's not like one department. It's like it's together. >> Yeah. John, I love what you just said. I mean, we have to get away from this siloed thinking not only within a single organization, but across the enterprise. From a digital battlefield perspective, it's a joint fight, so even across these enterprise of enterprises, So I think you're spot on. We have to look horizontally. We have to integrate, we have to inter-operate, and by doing that, that's where the innovation is also going to be accelerated too, not reinventing the wheel. >> Yeah, and I think the infrastructure edge is so key. It's going to be very interesting to see how the existing incumbents can handle themselves. Obviously the towers are important. 5G obviously, that's more deployments, not as centralized in terms of the spectrum. It's more dense. It's going to create more connectivity options. How do you guys see that impacting? Because certainly more gear, like obviously not the centralized tower, from a backhaul standpoint but now the edge, the radios themselves, the wireless transit is key. That's the real edge here. How do you guys see that evolving? >> We're seeing a lot of innovations actually through small companies who are really focused on very specific niche problems. I think it's a great starting point because what they're doing is showing the art of the possible. Because again, we're in a different environment now. There's different rules. There's different capabilities. But then we're also seeing, you mentioned earlier on, some of the larger companies, the Amazons, the Microsofts, also investing as well. So I think the merge of the, you know, or the unconstrained or the possible by these small companies that are just kind of driving innovations supported by the maturity and the heft of these large companies who are building out these hardened kind of capabilities, they're going to converge at some point. And that's where I think we're going to get further innovation. >> Well, I really appreciate you guys taking the time. Final question for you guys, as people are watching this, a lot of smart executives and teams are coming together to kind of put the battle plans together for their companies as they transition from old to this new way, which is clearly cloud-scale, role of data. We hit out all the key points I think here. As they start to think about architecture and how they deploy their resources, this becomes now the new boardroom conversation that trickles down and includes everyone, including the developers. The developers are now going to be on the front lines. Mid-level managers are going to be integrated in as well. It's a group conversation. What are some of the advice that you would give to folks who are in this mode of planning architecture, trying to be positioned to come out of this pandemic with a massive growth opportunity and to be on the right side of history? What's your advice? >> It's such a great question. So I think you touched upon it. One is take the holistic approach. You mentioned architectures a couple of times, and I think that's critical. Understanding how your edge architectures will let you connect with your cloud architecture so that they're not disjointed, they're not siloed. They're interoperable, they integrate. So you're taking that enterprise approach. I think the second thing is be patient. It took us some time to really kind of, and we've been looking at this for about three years now. And we were very intentional in assessing the landscape, how people were discussing around edge and kind of pulling that all together. But it took us some time to even figure it out, hey, what are the use cases? How can we actually apply this and get some ROI and value out for our clients? So being a little bit patient in thinking through kind of how we can leverage this and potentially be a disruptor. >> John, your thoughts on advice to people watching as they try to put the right plans together to be positioned and not foreclose any future value. >> Yeah, absolutely. So in addition to the points that Ki raised, I would, number one, amplify the fact of recognize that you're going to have a hybrid environment of legacy and modern capabilities. And in addition to thinking open architectures and whatnot, think about your culture, the people, your processes, your techniques and whatnot, and your governance. How do you make decisions when it needs to be closed versus open? Where do you invest in the workforce? What decisions are you going to make in your architecture that drive that hybrid world that you're going to live in? All those recipes, patience, open, all that, that I think we often overlook the cultural people aspect of upskilling. This is a very different way of thinking on modern software delivery. How do you go through this lifecycle? How's security embedded? So making sure that's part of that boardroom conversation I think is key. >> John Pisano, Principal at Booz Allen Digital Cloud Solutions, thanks for sharing that great insight. Ki Lee, Vice President at Booz Allen Digital Business. Gentlemen, great conversation. Thanks for that insight. And I think people watching are going to probably learn a lot on how to evaluate startups to how they put their architecture together. So I really appreciate the insight and commentary. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, John. >> Okay. I'm John Furrier. This is theCUBE Conversation. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Well, thank you for joining us here as we continue our Cube Conversation on the AWS startup showcase with Marco Palladino who is the CTO of Kong. And Marco, also a co-founder by the way, Marco, thank you for joining us here on theCUBE. It's good to have you with us. >> Thank you, John, for having me. >> You bet, absolutely. First off, for our visitors and our viewers who might not be too familiar with Kong, tell us a little bit about what you're up to and your core competencies, of which I know are many. >> Yeah, Kong is a cloud connectivity company. We provide the technology software that developers and enterprise organizations all over the world can use to connect securely their software, and their microservices, and their APIs together. So we're really executing here on being the Cisco of L4 and L7. >> Yeah, great analogy. A really good analogy. So when you are talking about microservices, obviously this is a pretty new space, or certainly a growing space, in terms of deployments and different technologies. How come, like where's this come from, basically the whole microservice notion and concept? >> Yeah, it's a very interesting concept. In 2013 and 2014 there was a market transition in the landscape. Docker was released in 2013. Kubernetes was released in 2014. And Docker and Kubernetes together really have unleashed a new era of microservices across pretty much every organization in the world. We know that if we are trying to grow a business we must iterate fast ship, new products faster. We must be reliable. We must be distributed decoupled. And to do that, monolithic applications, which is the previous way of building modern software, monolithic applications, doesn't really scale that well in a distributed world. And so with microservices, running on top of Kubernetes containerized with Docker, we can now decouple our software and run it in a faster, better, more reliable way across pretty much any cloud vendor in the world. And as a result of that, we can enter new markets faster. We can make our users happier by shipping fixes and features faster. And therefore we can grow the business. That's why microservices really have been adopted across the board. >> So let's dive into that a little deeper here in terms of the value proposition, because, just because you could do something obviously isn't what the reason why you should do it. There is value at the end of the day that you're delivering, a new value. So summarize that a little bit for, again, a perspective customer who might be watching right now, somebody that you want to talk to about these new services these new values that they can enjoy. Why they be thinking about Kong? Why should they be thinking about microservices? >> Yeah, you see, every organization in the world is becoming digital. And we've discovered that, a few years ago, with digital transformation 1.0, as I call it. And in that digital transformation, we have realized that in order for us to build a successful software, in order for us to grow our business, we really must be able to innovate quicker. We must be able to create and ship new products faster. We must be able to duplicate our workloads across multiple regions and cloud vendors so that we can target our users with low latency and with the quickest performance we can possibly get. Now, in order to do that the monolithic applications we used to build they don't do that that well. monolithic applications, as they grow, they become huge, hard to move, hard to scale, hard, to deploy, hard to innovate. And we, as an industry, have learned that if we can decouple those large monolithic applications into smaller components, like microservices, we can then ship and innovate faster. Now, of course, on one end, we ship and deploy faster. On the other end, we are introducing something that our monolithic applications never really had at this scale. And that is this massive connectivity across all the services that make up the final application. Being decoupled and being distributed really means that we are connecting them over the network with service connectivity. And if that service connectivity is not working well then the application is not working. So digital transformation 2.0 really is all about taking our digital business and transforming it, by decoupling it and distributing it, in order for us to build a stronger business. >> So you talked about the monolithic application and there's some simplicity to that though, isn't there? Because now we're introducing multiple layers and a lot of complexity in some respects. Which allows us to do a lot of things really well, but it also introduces challenges. So if you were talking to, again, a prospective customer and they said, "Hey, this all sounds well and good, but what if..?" There are a lot of what ifs out there. How do you address the different challenges or the questions that might be raised in terms of trouble that you're inviting by introducing this new complexity into the marketplace? >> Yeah, the key here is to abstract away all the things that we don't need to build for our business. The key is to focus on what drives our business and that's our users, our customers, the applications that we're building. Everything else that's not part of the core business should be delegated as part of the underlying infrastructure. Likewise, today, when we want to enter a new market we just leverage a cloud vendor. We don't go and build a physical data center from scratch. Likewise, when we build new modern applications, we don't want to build the orchestration platforms by ourselves. We don't want to build the connectivity stack by ourselves. But we want to abstract that away so that our teams can focus on what matters for the business. And that's the users, the customers, the application. It's not building the underlying infrastructure which can be given as a service to the application teams as opposed to asking the teams to build it from scratch. And there's going to be challenges, of course, but there's going to be benefits. And as long as the benefits are bigger than the challenges then it's worth while transitioning to microservices if that can help us scale faster and grow faster. And if anything, with COVID last year, we have learned how important it is for every organization to think about digitalizing in a faster way, in order to keep being in business, as a matter of fact, to keep winning against their competitors. And the organizations that can acquire good knowledge of the underlying tooling to allow them to transform this way, those are the organizations that are going to be succeeding moving forward. >> What do you think is the biggest shift in this paradigm then in terms of this legacy system that we had in place, that worked pretty well, to now We have a much more specialized, instead a much more distributed approach, that is providing these new values and certainly great benefits. But in your mind, what's the biggest shift there, you think, in terms of mindset and in terms of actual deployment? >> Well transitioning to microservices really involves three different transformations and that's why sometimes it can be challenging. It requires transforming our software to microservices. By doing so, it requires us to rethink the operations of how we deploy, run, and test our software. And the third aspect, the third component that it transforms it's the cultural component. And now we can build smaller teams that can work in a decoupled asynchronous way. And as long as they expose an API those teams are going to be very well integrated with the rest of the organization. Look at what companies like Amazon, Netflix, or Google have done. And that's a big cultural shift. Like any large transformation, it is not, there is not one secret ingredient. It's an entire mindset that has to change. Now, thankfully for us, this transition is also being driven by bottom up adoption and transformation that's being driven by open source software. So unlike the previous transformations, these ones, if you wish, it's a self service transformation. Open source ecosystem provides us with a self-service ecosystem of a landscape of tools and platform and technologies that the application teams and the infrastructure teams can go ahead and use in order to figure out what's the best formula for them to achieve their success. >> When you have the, so let's just say, you've got your operation in place and you have multiple communications going on amongst microservices, whatever. It's all well and good. Now you want to introducing yet another. And so are there, not concerns, are there challenges there in bringing a newcomer into that environment in terms of testing, in terms of deployment, because of the factors, the variables that come into play here? How one piece works with another piece won't be the same how it works with another piece, right? So how do you handle testing? How do you handle new deployments in this kind of an environment? >> This is perhaps the most critical cultural change and transformation that microservices bring. With a monolithic application, if the monolith was up and running the business was up and running. If the monolith was down the business was done. Simple, easy. It was clear. It's one-to-one clear to understand. With microservices we're effectively making ourselves comfortable of always running in a partially degraded system. Because there is so much more, so many more moving parts running at the same time they cannot possibly be all up and running at any given point in time. Some of them will be running. Some of them will be slow. Some of them will be not executing. And guess what? Our infrastructure is built in such a way that, even when that happens, the customer and the users will never experience any downtime. This is a chance for us to transition to microservices. It's a chance for us to accelerate the innovation in your organization. But also to accelerate the reliability of our applications and also accelerate the security of our applications. And these may sound counterintuitive. Many technology leaders they're like, "Wait, what do you mean by that? How can you transition to microservices and improve the security if you have so many moving parts in your systems running as opposed to a monolith?" But that's an opportunity for us to improve the security. Because now, unlike the monolith, where everything can consume and access everything else, with microservices we can set up a tighter security rules in place to determine what services can consume what other services and in what capacity? In a monolithic world, as long as the code base is accessible, anybody can do anything that the monolith can do. With microservices it's an opportunity for us to lock that down. And even the past year, we've seen how important that is. The reputational of an entire organization can be destroyed by a high profile breach or attack. And so it's very important for us to catch this opportunity so that we can implement zero trust security. We can implement a consistent, non-fragmented layer of security across all of our applications, not just the Kubernetes ones or the containerized ones, but even the virtual machine based ones. And all the connections that we're generating, that's the backbone of every modern architecture, that's the bread and butter of every microservice oriented application. And that connectivity has to be managed, and secure, and observed, and exposed to our partners, developers, and customers. If that connectivity fails, then our business fails. And so today we can not ask the application teams to build that connectivity for us. That's like asking them to go build an application, and as they're doing that, walking to the data center and physically connecting the switches and the routers to the server racks to build the underlying physical connectivity. We don't, we cannot ask them to do that. The connectivity as well has to be abstracted the same way we are abstracting the data center with platforms like Kubernetes. >> So just back again to security. Obviously, you pointed out, we've had some pretty high profile cases here of late. Well, actually it's probably the past four or five years, but certainly of late, state actors taking actions. So that security mindset that you're in right now it does seem counterintuitive to me. That you have multiple doors, right? In the monolithic environment you've got one big one, right? And you just have to crack the code, and you're in. But in this case, you've got a lot of different entry points but you're saying that you're actually, you can batten down that hatch, if you will. You can provide the protective barrier around all of these microservices in an effective way. >> It's an opportunity for us. I'm a big fan of when John Chambers, the ex CEO of Cisco said, "Whenever there is a threat, how can we think of that as an opportunity?" And really microservices gave us the opportunity to implement a new generation security model for all of our applications. That's tight, that cannot be breaked into. And so that zero trust security, OPA, across the entire organization for both North/South and East/West traffic, for both the gateways and the service meshes. That is, for us, the opportunity to secure our applications in a way that could not be secured before in a monolithic world. Microservices not only create a business advantage but they gave us also many, many different chances for us to improve all the other aspects of security and productivity within your organization. And securing it, that's one of the opportunities that we can not miss. >> Well, Marco thank you for the time. Fascinating work, it really is, revolutionary in many respects. And I wish you continued success at Kong. And thank you for joining us here on the startup showcase. >> Thank you so much. >> Great. John was here talking to the Marco Palladino Who is the CTO and co-founder of Kong. We're talking about the service mesh, that landscape. It is new. It is evolving. And it is certainly a fascinating wrinkle to our world. Thanks for joining us here on theCUBE Conversation. I'm John Walls. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Well, thank you for joining us here as we continue our Cube Conversation on the AWS startup showcase with Marco Palladino who is the CTO of Kong. And Marco, also a co-founder by the way, Marco, thank you for joining us here on theCUBE. It's good to have you with us. >> Thank you, John, for having me. >> You bet, absolutely. First off, for our visitors and our viewers who might not be too familiar with Kong, tell us a little bit about what you're up to and your core competencies, of which I know are many. >> Yeah, Kong is a cloud connectivity company. We provide the technology software that developers and enterprise organizations all over the world can use to connect securely their software, and their microservices, and their APIs together. So we're really executing here on being the Cisco of L4 and L7. >> Yeah, great analogy. A really good analogy. So when you are talking about microservices, obviously this is a pretty new space, or certainly a growing space, in terms of deployments and different technologies. How come, like where's this come from, basically the whole microservice notion and concept? >> Yeah, it's a very interesting concept. In 2013 and 2014 there was a market transition in the landscape. Docker was released in 2013. Kubernetes was released in 2014. And Docker and Kubernetes together really have unleashed a new era of microservices across pretty much every organization in the world. We know that if we are trying to grow a business we must iterate fast ship, new products faster. We must be reliable. We must be distributed decoupled. And to do that, monolithic applications, which is the previous way of building modern software, monolithic applications, doesn't really scale that well in a distributed world. And so with microservices, running on top of Kubernetes containerized with Docker, we can now decouple our software and run it in a faster, better, more reliable way across pretty much any cloud vendor in the world. And as a result of that, we can enter new markets faster. We can make our users happier by shipping fixes and features faster. And therefore we can grow the business. That's why microservices really have been adopted across the board. >> So let's dive into that a little deeper here in terms of the value proposition, because, just because you could do something obviously isn't what the reason why you should do it. There is value at the end of the day that you're delivering, a new value. So summarize that a little bit for, again, a perspective customer who might be watching right now, somebody that you want to talk to about these new services these new values that they can enjoy. Why they be thinking about Kong? Why should they be thinking about microservices? >> Yeah, you see, every organization in the world is becoming digital. And we've discovered that, a few years ago, with digital transformation 1.0, as I call it. And in that digital transformation, we have realized that in order for us to build a successful software, in order for us to grow our business, we really must be able to innovate quicker. We must be able to create and ship new products faster. We must be able to duplicate our workloads across multiple regions and cloud vendors so that we can target our users with low latency and with the quickest performance we can possibly get. Now, in order to do that the monolithic applications we used to build they don't do that that well. monolithic applications, as they grow, they become huge, hard to move, hard to scale, hard, to deploy, hard to innovate. And we, as an industry, have learned that if we can decouple those large monolithic applications into smaller components, like microservices, we can then ship and innovate faster. Now, of course, on one end, we ship and deploy faster. On the other end, we are introducing something that our monolithic applications never really had at this scale. And that is this massive connectivity across all the services that make up the final application. Being decoupled and being distributed really means that we are connecting them over the network with service connectivity. And if that service connectivity is not working well then the application is not working. So digital transformation 2.0 really is all about taking our digital business and transforming it, by decoupling it and distributing it, in order for us to build a stronger business. >> So you talked about the monolithic application and there's some simplicity to that though, isn't there? Because now we're introducing multiple layers and a lot of complexity in some respects. Which allows us to do a lot of things really well, but it also introduces challenges. So if you were talking to, again, a prospective customer and they said, "Hey, this all sounds well and good, but what if..?" There are a lot of what ifs out there. How do you address the different challenges or the questions that might be raised in terms of trouble that you're inviting by introducing this new complexity into the marketplace? >> Yeah, the key here is to abstract away all the things that we don't need to build for our business. The key is to focus on what drives our business and that's our users, our customers, the applications that we're building. Everything else that's not part of the core business should be delegated as part of the underlying infrastructure. Likewise, today, when we want to enter a new market we just leverage a cloud vendor. We don't go and build a physical data center from scratch. Likewise, when we build new modern applications, we don't want to build the orchestration platforms by ourselves. We don't want to build the connectivity stack by ourselves. But we want to abstract that away so that our teams can focus on what matters for the business. And that's the users, the customers, the application. It's not building the underlying infrastructure which can be given as a service to the application teams as opposed to asking the teams to build it from scratch. And there's going to be challenges, of course, but there's going to be benefits. And as long as the benefits are bigger than the challenges then it's worth while transitioning to microservices if that can help us scale faster and grow faster. And if anything, with COVID last year, we have learned how important it is for every organization to think about digitalizing in a faster way, in order to keep being in business, as a matter of fact, to keep winning against their competitors. And the organizations that can acquire good knowledge of the underlying tooling to allow them to transform this way, those are the organizations that are going to be succeeding moving forward. >> What do you think is the biggest shift in this paradigm then in terms of this legacy system that we had in place, that worked pretty well, to now We have a much more specialized, instead a much more distributed approach, that is providing these new values and certainly great benefits. But in your mind, what's the biggest shift there, you think, in terms of mindset and in terms of actual deployment? >> Well transitioning to microservices really involves three different transformations and that's why sometimes it can be challenging. It requires transforming our software to microservices. By doing so, it requires us to rethink the operations of how we deploy, run, and test our software. And the third aspect, the third component that it transforms it's the cultural component. And now we can build smaller teams that can work in a decoupled asynchronous way. And as long as they expose an API those teams are going to be very well integrated with the rest of the organization. Look at what companies like Amazon, Netflix, or Google have done. And that's a big cultural shift. Like any large transformation, it is not, there is not one secret ingredient. It's an entire mindset that has to change. Now, thankfully for us, this transition is also being driven by bottom up adoption and transformation that's being driven by open source software. So unlike the previous transformations, these ones, if you wish, it's a self service transformation. Open source ecosystem provider us with a self-service ecosystem of a landscape of tools and platform and technologies that the application teams and the infrastructure teams can go ahead and use in order to figure out what's the best formula for them to achieve their success. >> When you have the, so let's just say, you've got your operation in place and you have multiple communications going on amongst microservices, whatever. It's all well and good. Now you want to introducing yet another. And so are there, not concerns, are there challenges there in bringing a newcomer into that environment in terms of testing, in terms of deployment, because of the factors, the variables that come into play here? How one piece works with another piece won't be the same how it works with another piece, right? So how do you handle testing? How do you handle new deployments in this kind of an environment? >> This is perhaps the most critical cultural change and transformation that microservices bring. With a monolithic application, if the monolith was up and running the business was up and running. If the monolith was down the business was done. Simple, easy. It was clear. It's one-to-one clear to understand. With microservices we're effectively making ourselves comfortable of always running in a partially degraded system. Because there is so much more, so many more moving parts running at the same time they cannot possibly be all up and running at any given point in time. Some of them will be running. Some of them will be slow. Some of them will be not executing. And guess what? Our infrastructure is built in such a way that, even when that happens, the customer and the users will never experience any downtime. This is a chance for us to transition to microservices. It's a chance for us to accelerate the innovation in your organization. But also to accelerate the reliability of our applications and also accelerate the security of our applications. And these may sound counterintuitive. Many technology leaders they're like, "Wait, what do you mean by that? How can you transition to microservices and improve the security if you have so many moving parts in your systems running as opposed to a monolith?" But that's an opportunity for us to improve the security. Because now, unlike the monolith, where everything can consume and access everything else, with microservices we can set up a tighter security rules in place to determine what services can consume what other services and in what capacity? In a monolithic world, as long as the code base is accessible, anybody can do anything that the monolith can do. With microservices it's an opportunity for us to lock that down. And even the past year, we've seen how important that is. The reputational of an entire organization can be destroyed by a high profile breach or attack. And so it's very important for us to catch this opportunity so that we can implement zero trust security. We can implement a consistent, non-fragmented layer of security across all of our applications, not just the Kubernetes ones or the containerized ones, but even the virtual machine based ones. And all the connections that we're generating, that's the backbone of every modern architecture, that's the bread and butter of every microservice oriented application. And that connectivity has to be managed, and secure, and observed, and exposed to our partners, developers, and customers. If that connectivity fails, then our business fails. And so today we can not ask the application teams to build that connectivity for us. That's like asking them to go build an application, and as they're doing that, walking to the data center and physically connecting the switches and the routers to the server racks to build the underlying physical connectivity. We don't, we cannot ask them to do that. The connectivity as well has to be abstracted the same way we are abstracting the data center with platforms like Kubernetes. >> So just back again to security. Obviously, you pointed out, we've had some pretty high profile cases here of late. Well, actually it's probably the past four or five years, but certainly of late, state actors taking actions. So that security mindset that you're in right now it does seem counterintuitive to me. That you have multiple doors, right? In the monolithic environment you've got one big one, right? And you just have to crack the code, and you're in. But in this case, you've got a lot of different entry points but you're saying that you're actually, you can batten down that hatch, if you will. You can provide the protective barrier around all of these microservices in an effective way. >> It's an opportunity for us. I'm a big fan of when John Chambers, the ex CEO of Cisco said, "Whenever there is a threat, how can we think of that as an opportunity?" And really microservices gave us the opportunity to implement a new generation security model for all of our applications. That's tight, that cannot be breaked into. And so that zero trust security, OPA, across the entire organization for both North/South and East/West traffic, for both the gateways and the service meshes. That is, for us, the opportunity to secure our applications in a way that could not be secured before in a monolithic world. Microservices not only create a business advantage but they gave us also many, many different chances for us to improve all the other aspects of security and productivity within your organization. And securing it, that's one of the opportunities that we can not miss. >> Well, Marco thank you for the time. Fascinating work, it really is, revolutionary in many respects. And I wish you continued success at Kong. And thank you for joining us here on the startup showcase. >> Thank you so much. >> Great. John was here talking to the Marco Palladino Who is the CTO and co-founder of Kong. We're talking about the service mesh, that landscape. It is new. It is evolving. And it is certainly a fascinating wrinkle to our world. Thanks for joining us here on theCUBE Conversation. I'm John Walls. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

(bright upbeat music) >> Announcer: From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Well happy New Year, one and all welcome to 2021 in Cube Conversation continuing our ongoing series. I hope your New Year is off to a great start. I know that the end of 2020 was a very good one for Ivanti. And Jim Schaper, the CEO is going to join us to talk about that as is Nayaki Nayyar, or rather the EVP and the Chief Product Officer. So Nayaki and Jim, good to have you here with you on theCUBE and Happy New Year to you. >> Thank you, John. Happy New Year to you. 2020, I think for a lot of us couldn't get out of here quick enough. Although we had some great things happen to our company at the very end of the year. So anxious to talk to you about it and we appreciate the opportunity. >> You bet. So we're talking about two major acquisitions that you made that both closed near the end of the year back in December, not too long ago. One with Pulse Secure, the other with MobileIron. Two companies that provide you with additional expertise in terms of mobile security and the enterprise security space. And so Jim, if you would, let's first talk about just for the big picture, the acquisitions that were made and what those moves will do for you going forward. >> Okay, great, John. We closed both acquisitions interestingly enough, on December 2nd. We've been fortunate to have them part of our company now for about the last 30 days. One of the things that we made a decision on a number of months ago was that we had a real opportunity in the markets that we serve to really build our business more quickly through a series of acquisitions that strategically made sense for us, our investors and more importantly our customers. And that really is why we chose MobileIron and Pulse, for different reasons but nonetheless all very consistent with our longterm strategy of securing the end points on every network, in every location around the world. And so consequently, when you think about it and we've all witnessed here over the last 30 days or so, all of the security breaches, all of the things that go along with that, and our real focus is ensuring that every company and every individual on their network, outside their firewall, inside their firewall, on any device is secure. And so with these two particular acquisitions, in addition to the assets that we already had as a part of Ivanti, really puts us in a competitively advantaged position to deliver to the edge, and Nayaki will talk about this. The ability to secure those devices and ensure that they're secure from phishing expeditions or breaches or all of those kinds of things. So these two particular acquisitions really puts us on the map and puts us in a leadership position in the security market. So we're thrilled to have both of them. >> Before I go off to Nayaki, I want to follow with the point that you've made Jim talking about security breaches. We're all well aware. You know, the news from what we've been hearing out from the federal level about the state actors and the kind of these infiltrations of major US systems if not international systems. Some Interpol data, I read 207 some odd percent increase in breaches just in the post COVID time or in the COVID time, the past year. That gets your attention, does it not? And what does that say to you about the aggressive nature of these kinds of activities? >> Well, that they're getting more sophisticated every day and they're getting more aggressive. I think one of the most frightening conversations I had was a briefing with our chief security officer about how many attempted breaches of our network and our systems that he sees every single day. And we're able to identify what foreign actors are really trying to penetrate our systems or what are they trying to do. But the one thing I will leave you with is they're becoming much more sophisticated, whether you're inside the firewall or whether you're on your iPhone as an extension of the network, there the level of sophistication is startling. And unfortunately in many cases, as evidenced by the recent breaches, you don't even know you've had a breach for could be months, weeks, days. And so what damage is done. And so as we look forward, and as Nayaki kind of walks you through our product strategy, what you're going to hear a lot of is how do we self protect? How do we self-learn the devices at the edge, on the end of the networks, such that they can recognize foreign actors or any breach capability that somebody is trying to employ? And so, yeah, it's frightening how sophisticated and how frequent they have become. >> I think the one thing that really struck me as I read about the breaches was not so much the damage that has been done, but the damage that could be done prospectively and about which we have no idea. You don't know, it's like somebody lurking in your closet and they're going to stay there for a couple of months and wait for the time that maybe your guard is even more down. So I was, that's what shocks me. And they Nayaki, let's talk about your strategy then. You picked up obviously a couple of companies, one in the, kind of the enterprise IT space. Now the one in the VPN space, add into your already extensive portfolio. So I imagine from your office, wearing the hat of the chief product officer, you're just to look in your chops right now. You've got a lot more resources at your disposal. >> Yeah, we are very very busy John, but to Jim's point, one of the trends we are seeing in the market as we enter into the post COVID era, where everyone is working from anywhere, be it from home, be it from office, while on the move, every organization, every enterprise is struggling with this. What we call this explosive growth of devices. Devices being mobile devices, client-based devices, IoT devices, the data that is being generated from these devices, and to your point, the cybersecurity threats. It is predicted that there has been 30000% increase in the cybersecurity threats that are being targeted primarily at the remote workers. So you can imagine whether it's phishing attacks, malware attacks, I mean just an explosive growth of devices, data, cybersecurity attacks at the remote workers. So organizations need automation to be able to address this growth and this complexity which is where Ivanti's focus in discovering all the devices and managing those devices. So as we bring the MobileIron portfolio and Ivanti's portfolio together, now we can help our customers manage every type of devices be it Windows devices, Mac devices, Linux, iOS, Android devices, and secure those devices. The zero trust access that users need, the remote users need, all the way from cloud access to the endpoint is what the strength of both MobileIron and Pulse brings to our entire portfolio holistically. So we are truly excited for our customers. Now they can leverage our entire end to end stack to discover, manage secure and service all those devices that they now have to service for their employees. >> Explain to me, or just walk me through zero trust in terms of how you define that. I've read about trust nothing, verify everything, those kinds of explanations. But if you would, from your perspective, what does zero trust encompass, not only on your side, but on your client's side? Because you want to give them tools to do things for themselves to self heal and self serve and those kinds of things. >> So, zero trust is you don't trust anything. You validate and certify everything. So the access users have on your network, the access they have on the mobile devices, the applications they are accessing, the data that they are accessing. So being able to validate every access that they have when they come into your network is what the whole zero trust access really means. So, the combination of Ivanti's portfolio and also Pulse that zero trust access all the way from as users are accessing that network data, cloud data, endpoint data, is where our entire zero trust access truly differentiates. And as we bring that with our UEM portfolio with the MobileIron, there is no other vendor in the market that has that holistic offering, internal offering. >> I'm sorry, go ahead, please. >> It's interesting, John, you talk about timing is everything, right? And when we began discussions with MobileIron, it was right before COVID hit. And we had a great level of expertise inside the pre-acquisition of Ivanti to be able to secure the end points at the desktop level. But we struggled a bit with having all of the capabilities that we needed to manage mobile devices and tablets and basically anything that is attached to the network. That's what they really brought to us. And having done a number of acquisitions historically in my career, this was probably the easiest integration that we had simply because we did what they didn't do and they did what we didn't do. And then they brought some additional technologies. But what's really changed in the environment because of this work from home or work from anywhere as as we like to articulate it, is you've got multiple environments that you've got to manage. It isn't just, what's on the end of the VPN, the network, it's what's on the end points of the cloud. What kind of cloud are you running? You're running a public cloud, you're running a private cloud. Is it a hybrid environment? And so the ability to and the need to be able to do that is pretty significant. And so that's one of the real advantages that both the Pulse as well as the MobileIron acquisitions really brought to the combined offering from a product standpoint. >> Yeah, I'd like to follow up on that then, just because the cloud environment provides so many benefits, obviously, but it also provides this huge layer of complexity that comes on top of all this because you just talked about it. You can have public, you can have hybrid cloud, you can have on-prem, whatever, right? You have all these options. And yet you, Ivanti, are having to provide security on multiple levels and multiple platforms or multiple environments. And how much more complex or challenging is your mission now because of consumer demand and the capabilities the technology is providing your clients. >> Well, it's certainly more complex and Nayaki is better equipped to probably talk in detail about this. But if you just take a step back and think about it, you think about internet of things, right? I used to have a thermostat. And that thermostat control was controlled by the thermostat on the wall. Now everything is on WiFi. If I've got a problem, I had a a problem with a streaming music capability which infected other parts of my home network. And so everything is, that's just one example of how complicated and how wired everything is really become. Except when it comes to the mobile devices, which are still always remote. You've always got it with you. I don't what it was like for you, John, but you know, historically I've used my phone on email, texts and phone calls. Now it's actually a business tool. But it's a remote business tool that you still have to secure, you still have to manage and you still have to find an identify on the end of the network. That's where we really come into play. Nayaki, anything you want to add to that? >> Yeah, so, to Jim's point, John, and to your question also, as customers have what we call the multi-cloud offering. There are public clouds, private clouds, on-prem data centers, devices on the edge, and as you extend into the IOT world, being able to provide that seamless access, this is a zero trust access all the way from the cloud applications to the applications that are running on-prem, in your data centers and also the applications that are running on your devices and the IoT applications, is what that entire end to end zero trust access, is where our competitive strength resides with Pulse coming into our portfolio. Before Ivanti didn't have this. We were primarily a patch management vendor in the security space, but now we truly extend beyond that patch to this end to end access all the way from cloud to edge is what we call. And then when we combine that with our UEM portfolio in our endpoint management with MobileIron and also service management, that convergence of positive three pillars is where we truly differentiate and compete and win in the market. >> Nayaki, how does internet of things factor into this? Cause I look at sensor technology, I'm just thinking about all the billions of what you have now, right? With whether it's farming or agricultural inputs, business inputs, meteorological, or whatever. I'm sure, you're considering this as well as part of a major play of yours in terms of providing IoT security. How more proliferated is that now and how much of that is kind of in your concern zone you might say? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, just taking these trends we have in managing the end points, we will extend that into the IoT world also. John, when we say IoT world, in an industry where the devices are like healthcare devices. So, stay tuned, in January release we'll be releasing how we will be discovering managing and securing for the healthcare devices like Siemens devices, Bayer devices, Canon devices. So, you're spot on how we can leverage the strength we have in managing end points. Also IoT devices, that same capabilities that we can bring to each of the industry verticals. Now we're not trying to solve the entire vertical market but certain industry verticals where we have a strong footprint. Healthcare is a strong footprint for us. Telcos is a strong footprint for us. So that's where you will see us extending into those IoT devices too. >> Okay, so, in going forward, Jim, if you would just, let's talk about your 2021 in terms of how you further integrate these offerings that you've acquired right now. All of a sudden you've got 30 days of, you know, which is snap of a finger. But what do you see how 2021 is going to lay out, especially with distributed workforces, right? We know that's here. That's a new normal. And with a whole new set of demands on networks and certainly the need for security. >> That's exactly correct, John. I mean, everything is changed and it's never going back to the way it was. You know, everybody has their own definition of the new normal. I guess my definition is at some point in time when things do return to some form of normality, a portion of our workforce will always work from home. To what degree remains to be seen. I don't think we're different from virtually any other industry or any other company. It does put increased demands ,complexity and requirements around how you run your internal IT business. But as Nayaki talked about kind of our virtual service desk offering where you're not going to have a service desk anymore. It's got to be virtual. Well, you have to be able to still provide those services outside of your normal network. And so that's going to be a continued big push for us. I'm incredibly pleased with the way in which the employee bases of the acquired companies have really folded in and become one with our company. And I think as we all recognize cultural differences between organizations can be quite significant and an impediment to really moving forward. Fortunately for us, we have found that both of these organizations fit really nicely from an employee, from a values perspective, from a goals and objectives perspective. And so we did most of the heavy lifting on all the integration shortly after we closed the transactions on the 2nd of December. And so we've moved beyond what I would call the normal kind of concerns and asked around what's going to happen in this and that. We're now kind of heads down in what's the long-term integration going to look like from a product standpoint. We're already looking at additional acquisitions that will continue to take us deeper and wider into our three product pillars, as Nayaki described. And that'll be an ongoing kind of steady dose of acquisitions as we continue to supplement our organic growth within organic growth. >> But you've got to answer my question. I was going to ask you, you founded the company four years ago. There were two big acquisitions back in 2017. We waited four years Jim, until you dip back into that pole again. So the plan, maybe not to wait four years before moving on. >> No trust me, you won't be waiting another four years. Now you've got to bear in mind, John. I wasn't here four years ago. >> That's right, okay. Fair enough. That's okay. I want to thank you both for the time today. Congratulations on sealing those deals back in December and we certainly wish you all the best going forward. And of course, a very happy and a very safe new year for you and yours. >> Same to you, John. Thanks so much for the time. And so it was a pleasure to spend time with you today. >> Thank you, John. Happy New Year again. Thank you. Thank you. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hi everyone, this is Dave Vellante at theCUBE, and we're getting ready for the Snowflake Data Cloud Summit. four geographies, eight tracks, more than 40 sessions for this global event. starts on November 17th, where we're tracking the rise of the data cloud. You're going to hear a lot about that. Now, by now, you know the story of Snowflake or, you know what? Maybe you don't. But a new type of cloud-native database was introduced in the middle part of the last decade. And a new set of analytics workloads has emerged, that is powering a transformation within the organizations. And it's doing this by putting data at the core of businesses and organizations. For years, we marched to the cadence of Moore's law. That was the innovation engine of our industry, but now that's changed. It's data, plus machine intelligence, plus cloud. That's the new innovation cocktail for the technology industry and industries overall. And in the Data Cloud Summit, we'll hear from Snowflake executives, founders, technologists, customers, and ecosystems partners. And of course, you're going to hear from interviews on theCUBE. So let's dig in a little bit more. And to help me are two Snowflake experts. Felipe Hoffa is a data cloud advocate and Kent Graziano is a chief technical evangelist, both at Snowflake. Gents, great to see you, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having us on, this is great. >> Thank you. >> So guys, first, I got to congratulate you on getting to this point. You've achieved beyond escape velocity and obviously one of the most important IPOs of the year, but you got a lot of work to do and I know that. Felipe, let me start with you. Data cloud, what's a data cloud and what are we going to learn about it at the Data Cloud Summit? >> Oh, that's an excellent question. And, let me tell you a little bit about our story here. And I really, really, really admire what Kent has done. I joined Snowflake like less than two months ago and for me, it's been a huge learning experience. And I look up to Kent a lot on how we deliver the method here, how do we deliver all of that? So, I would love to hear his answer first. >> Dave: Okay, that's cool. Okay Kent, leader on. (Kent laughing) So we took it. Data cloud, that's a catchy phrase, right? But it vectors into at least two of the components of my innovation cocktail. What are the substantive aspects behind the data cloud? >> I mean, it's a new concept, right? We've been talking about infrastructure clouds and SaaS applications living in the application cloud, so data cloud is the ability to really share all that data that we've been collecting. We've spent what? How many da-- A decade or more with big data now, but have we been able to use it effectively? And that's really where the data cloud is coming in and Snowflake, in making that a more seamless, friendly, easy experience to get access to the data. I've been in data warehousing for nearly 30 years now. And our dream has always been to be able to augment an organization's analytics with data from outside their organization. And that's just been a massive pain in the neck with having to move files around and replicate the data and maybe losing track of where it came from or where it went. And the data cloud is really giving our customers the ability to do that in a much more governed way, a much more seamless way, and really make it push button to give anyone access to the data they need and have the performance to do the analytics in near real-time. It's a total game changer as you already know. And just, it's crazy what we're able to do today compared to what we could do when I started out in my career. >> Well, I'm going to come back to that 'cause I want to tap your historical perspective. But Felipe, let me ask you, so why did you join Snowflake? You're the newbie here, what attracted you? >> And finally, I'm the newbie. I used to work at Google until August. I was there for 10 years, I was a developer advocate there also for data, you might have heard about the BigQuery, I was doing a lot of that. And though as time went by, Snowflake started showing up more and more in my feeds, within my customers, in my community. And it came the time when I felt like-- Wherever you're working, once in a while you think, "I should leave this place, "I should try something new, "I should move my career forward." While at Google, I thought that so many times as anyone will do. And it was only when Snowflake showed up, like where Snowflake is going now, how Snowflake is being received by all the customers, that I saw this opportunity. And I decided that moving to Snowflake would be a step forward for me. And so far I'm pretty happy, like the timing has been incredible, but more than the timing and everything, it's really, really a great place for data. What I love first is data, sharing data, analyzing data and how Snowflake is doing it, its promising phenomena. >> So, Kent, I want to come back to you and I said, tap maybe your historical perspective here. And you said, it's always been a dream that you could do these other things, bring in external data. I would say this, that I would want to push a little bit on this because I have often said that the EDW marketplace really never lived up to its promises of 360 degree views of the customer, in real-time or near real-time analytics. And it really has been, as you kind of described it, a real challenge for a lot of organizations. When Hadoop came in, we had-- We got excited that it was going to actually finally live up to that vision and Hadoop did a lot. And don't get me wrong, I mean, the whole concept of, bring the computer data and lowering the cost and so forth. But it certainly didn't minimize complexity. And it seems like, feels like Snowflake is on the cusp of actually delivering on that promise that we've been talking about for 30 years. I wonder if you could share your perspective as an o-- Are we going to get there this time? >> Yeah. And as far as I can tell working with all of our customers, some of them are there. I mean, they thought through those struggles that you were talking about, that I saw throughout my career. And now with getting on Snowflake they're delivering customer 360, they're integrating weblogs and IOT data with structured data from their ERP systems or CRM systems, their supply chain systems and it really is coming to fruition. I mean, the industry leaders, Bill Inmon and Claudia Imhoff, they've had this vision the whole time, but the technology just wasn't able to support it and the cloud, as we said about the internet, changed everything. And then Benoit and Thierry in their vision in building the system, taking the best concepts from the Hadoop world and the data lake world and the enterprise data warehouse world, and putting it all together into this architecture, that's now Snowflake and the data cloud, solved it. I mean, it's-- The classic benefit of hindsight is 20/20, after years in the industry, they had seen these problems and said like, "How can we solve them? "Does the cloud let us solve these problems?" And the answer was, yes, but it did require writing everything from scratch and starting over with, because the architecture of the cloud just allows you to do things that you just couldn't do before. >> Yeah, I'm glad you brought up some of the originators of the data warehouse, because it really wasn't their fault, they were trying to solve a problem. It was the marketers that took it and really kind of made promises that they couldn't keep. But, the reality is when you talk to customers in the sort of the old EDW days, and this is the other thing I want to tap you guys' brains on, it was very challenging. I mean, and one customer one time referred to it as a snake swallowing a basketball. And what he meant by that is, every time there's a change, or Sarbanes-Oxley comes and we have to ingest all this new data. It's like aargh! It's just everything slows down to a grinding halt. Every time Intel came out with a new microprocessor they would go out and grab a new server as fast as they possibly could, he called it chasing the chips. And it was this endless cycle of pain. And so, the originators of the data warehouse, they didn't have the compute power, they didn't have the cloud. And so-- And of course they didn't have like 30, 40 years of pain to draw upon. But I wonder if you could maybe talk a little bit about the kinds of things that can be done now that we haven't been able to do here tofore. >> Well, yeah. I remember early on having a conversation with Bill about this idea of near real-time data warehousing and saying, "Is this real? "Is this something really people need?" And at the time, it was a couple of decades ago, he said, "No, to them, they just want to load their data "sooner than once a month." That was the goal. And they-- That was going to be near real-time for them. And, but now I'm seeing it with our customers. It's like, now we can do it. With things like the Kafka technology and Snowpipe in Snowflake, that people are able to get that refresh way faster and have near real-time analytics access to that data in a much more timely manner. And so it really is coming true. And the compute power that's there, as you said, we've now got this compute power in the cloud that we never dreamed of. I mean, you would think of only certain, very large, massive global companies or governments could afford supercomputers. And that's what it would have taken. And now we've got nearly the power of a super computer in our mobile device that we all carry around with us. So being able to harness all of that now in the cloud, is really opening up opportunities to do things with data and access data in a way that, again, really, we just kind of dreamed of before. Its like, we can democratize data when we get to this point. And I think that's where we are, we're at that inflection point, where now it's possible to do it. So the challenge on organizations is going to be how do we do it effectively? How do we do it with agility? And how do we do it in a governed manner? You mentioned Sarbanes-Oxley, GDPR, CCPA, all of those are out there. And so we have all of that as well. And so that's where we're going to get into it, ride us into the governance and being able to do that in a very quick, flexible, extensible manner. And Snowflakes really letting people do it now. >> Well, yeah. And again, we've been talking about Hadoop, and again, for all my fond thoughts of that era, and it's not like Hadoop is gone, but there was a lot of excitement around it, but governance was a huge problem. And it was kind of a bolt on. And now, Felipe I got to ask you, when you think about a company like Google, your former employer, data is at the core of their business. And so many companies, the data is not at the core of their business, something else is, it's a process or a manufacturing facility or whatever it is. And the data is sort of on the outskirts. We often talk about in stovepipes. And so we're now seeing organizations really, put data at the core of their... And it becomes central to their DNA. I'm curious as to your thoughts on that. And also, if you've got a lot of experience with developers, is there a developer angle here in this new data world? >> Oh, for sure. I mean, I love seeing every-- Like throughout my career at Google and my two months here, I'm talking to so many companies, that you never thought before, like these are database companies. But the ones that keep growing, the ones that keep moving to the next stage of their development is because they are focusing on data, they are adopting the processes, They are learning from it. And, me per-- I focus a lot on developers, so I mean, when I started this career as an advocate, first, I was a software engineer. And my work so far, has been... (mumbles) I really love talking to the engineers on the other companies, like... Maybe I'm not the one solving the business problem, but at the end of the day, when these companies have a business problem through out the world, they want to have data. There are other engineers that are scientists like me that are... That want to work for the company and bring the best technology to solve the problems. Yeah, for example, there's so much where data can help. If, as we evolve the systems for the company and also for us for understanding these systems, things like observability. And recently, there was a big company, a big launch on observability, on the company names of Cyberroam, where they are running all of their data warehousing needs and all of their data needs on Snowflake. Just because running these massive systems and being able to see how they're working, generates a lot of data. And then how do you manage it? How do you analyze it? Snowflake is ready there to help and support the two areas. >> It's interesting, my business partner, John Furrier, co-host of theCUBE, he said, gosh, I would say the middle of the last decade, maybe even around the time, 2013, when Snowflake was just coming out. He said... He predicted that data would be the new development kit. And, it's really at the center of a lot of the data life cycle, the-- What I call the data pipelines, I know people use that term differently. But, I'm very excited about the Data Cloud Summit and what we're going to learn there. And I get to interview a lot of really cool people. And so I appreciate you guys coming on. But Kent, who should attend the Data Cloud Summit? I mean, what are the-- What should they expect to learn? >> Well, as you said earlier Dave, there's so many tracks and there's really kind of something for everyone. So we've got a track on unlocking the value of the data cloud, which is really going to speak to the business leaders, as to what that vision is, what can we do from an organizational perspective with the data cloud to get them value from the data to move our businesses forward? But we've also got for the technicians, migrating to Snowflake. Training sessions on how to do the migration and modernizing your data lake, data science. How to do analytics with, and data science in Snowflake and in the data cloud. And even down to building apps, for the developers and building data products. So, we've got stuff for developers, we've got stuff for data scientists, we've got stuff for the data architects like myself and the data engineers, on how to build all of this out. And then there's going to be some industry solutions spotlights as well. So we can talk about different verticals, folks in FinTech and in healthcare, there's going to be stuff for them. And then for our data superheroes, we have a hallway track where we're going to get talks from the folks that are in our data superheroes, which is really our community advocacy program. So these are folks that are out there in the trenches using Snowflake, delivering value at their organizations. And they're going to talk down and dirty of how did they make this stuff happen? So there's going to be just really, something for everyone. Fireside chats with our executives, of course, something I'm really looking forward to myself. It's always fun to hear from Frank and Christian and Benoit, about what's the next big thing, what are we doing now? Where are we going with all of this? And then there is going to be some awards. We'll be giving out our Data Driver Awards for our most innovative customers. So there's going to be a lot for everybody to consume and enjoy and learn about this new space of the data cloud. >> Well, thank you for that Kent and I'll second that, and there's going to be a lot for everybody. If you're an existing Snowflake customer, there's going to be plenty of two of one content, where we can get in to the how tos and the best practice. If you're really not that familiar with Snowflake or you're not a customer, there's a lot of one-on-one content going on. If you're an investor and you want to figure out, "Okay, what is this vision? "And can, will this company grow into its massive valuation? "And how are they going to do that?" I think you're going to hear about the data cloud and really try to get a perspective and you can make your own judgment as to whether or not you think that it's going to be as large a market as many people think. So Felipe, I'd love to hear from you what people can expect at the Data Cloud Summit. >> Totally. So I would love to plus one to every one that Kent said, we have a phenomenal schedule that day, the executives will be there. But I really wanted to especially highlight the session I'm preparing with Trevor Noah. I'm sure you must have heard of him. And we are having him at the Data Cloud Summit, and we are going to have a session. We are going to talk about data. We are preparing a session that's all about how people that love data, that people that want to make that actionable, how can they bring storytelling and make it have more impact as he has well learned to do through his life. >> That's awesome. So, yeah, Trevor Noah, we're not just going to totally geek out here. We're going to have some great entertainment as well. So I want you to go to snowflake.com and click on Data Cloud Summit 2020. There's four geos. It starts on November 17th and then runs through the week and then the following week in Japan. So, check that out, we'll see you there. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hey, everybody, this is Dave Vellante, and welcome to this CXO Series. As you know, I've been running this series discussing major trends and CXOs, how they've navigated through the pandemic. And we've got some good news and some bad news today. And Ed Walsh is here to talk about that. Ed, how you doing? Great to see you. >> Great seeing you, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. So the bad news is Ed Walsh is leaving IBM as the head of the storage division (indistinct). But the good news is, he's joining a new startup as CEO, and we're going to talk about that, but Ed, always a pleasure to have you. You're quite a run at at IBM. You really have done a great job there. So, let's start there if we can before we get into the other part of the news. So, you give us the update. You're coming off another strong quarter for the storage business. >> I would say listen, they're sweet, heartily, but to be honest, we're leaving them in a really good position where they have sustainable growth. So they're actually IBM storage in a very good position. I think you're seeing it in the numbers as well. So, yeah, listen, I think the team... I'm very proud of what they were able to pull off. Four years ago, they kind of brought me in, hey, can we get IBM storage back to leadership? They were kind of on their heels, not quite growing, or not growing but falling back in market share. You know, kind of a distant third place finisher, and basically through real innovation that mattered to clients which that's a big deal. It's the right innovation that matters to the clients. We really were able to dramatically grow, grow all different four segments of the portfolio. But also get things like profitability growing, but also NPS growing. It really allowed us to go into a sustainable model. And it's really about the team. You heard I've talked about team all the time, which is you get a good team and they really nailed great client experiences. And they take the right offerings and go to market and merge it. And I'll tell you, I'm very proud of what the IBM team put together. And I'm still the number one fan and inside or outside IBM. So it might be bittersweet, but I actually think they're ready for quite some growth. >> You know Ed, when you came in theCUBE, right after you had joined IBM, a lot of people are saying, Ed Walsh joined an IBM storage division to sell the division. And I asked you on theCUBE, are you there to sell division? And you said, no, absolutely not. So it's always it seemed to me, well, hey, it's good. It's a good business, good cash flow business, got a big customer base, so why would IBM sell it? Never really made sense to me. >> I think it's integral to what IBM does, I think it places their client base in a big way. And under my leadership, really, we got more aligned with what IBM is doing from the big IBM right. What we're doing around Red Hat hybrid multi cloud and what we're doing with AI. And those are big focuses of the storage portfolio. So listen, I think IBM as a company is in a position where they're really innovating and thriving, and really customer centric. And I think IBM storage is benefiting from that. And vice versa. I think it's a good match. >> So one of the thing I want to bring up before we move on. So you had said you were seeing a number. So I want to bring up a chart here. As you know, we've been using a lot of data and sharing data reporting from our partner. ETR, Enterprise Technology Research, they do quarterly surveys. They have a very tight methodology, it's similar to NPS. But it's a net score, we call it methodology. And every quarter they go out and what we're showing here is the results from the last three quarter, specific to IBM storage and IBM net score in storage. And net scores is essentially, we ask people are you spending more, are you spending less, we subtract the less from the more and that's the net score. And you can see when you go back to the October 19, survey, you know, low single digits and then it dipped in the April survey, which was the height of the pandemic. So this was this is forward looking. So in the height of the pa, the lockdown people were saying, maybe I'm going to hold off on budgets. But then now look at the July survey. Huge, huge up check. And I think this is testament to a couple of things. One is, as you mentioned, the team. But the other is, you guys have done a good job of taking R&D, building a product pipeline and getting it into the field. And I think that shows up in the numbers. That was really a one of the hallmarks of your leadership. >> Yeah, I mean, they're the innovation. IBM is there's almost an embarrassment of riches inside. It's how do you get in the pipeline? We went from a typically about for four years, four and a half year cycles, not a two year cycle product cycle. So we're able to innovate and bring it to market much quicker. And I think that's what clients are looking for. >> Yeah, so I mean, you brought a startup mentality to the division and of course now, cause your startup guy, let's face it. Now you're going back to the startup world. So the other part of the news is Ed Walsh is joining ChaosSearch as the CEO. ChaosSearches is a local Boston company, they're focused on log analytics but more on we're going to talk about that. So first of all, congratulations. And tell us about your decision. Why ChaosSearch? And you know where you're out there? >> Yeah, listen, if you can tell from the way I describe IBM, I mean, it was a hard decision to leave IBM, but it was a very, very easy decision to go to Chaos, right. So I knew the founder, I knew what he was working on for the last seven years, right. Last five years as a company, and I was just blown away at their fundamental innovation, and how they're really driving like how to get insights at scale from your data lake in the cloud. But also and also instead, and statements slash cost dramatically. And they make it so simple. Simply put your data in your S3 or really Cloud object storage. But right now, it's, Amazon, they'll go the rest of clouds, but just put your data in S3. And what we'll do is we'll index it, give you API so you can search it and query it. And it literally brings a way to do at scale data analysts. And also login analytics on everything you just put into S3 basically bucket. It makes it very simple. And because they're really fundamental, we can go through it. Fundamental on hard technology that data layer, but they kept all the API. So you're using your normal tools that we did for Elastic Search API's. You want to do Glyfada, you want to do Cabana, or you want to do SQL or you want to do use Looker, Tableau, all those work. Which is that's a part of it. It's really revolutionary what they're doing as far as the value prop and we can explain it. But also they made it evolution, it's very easy for clients to go. Just run in parallel, and then they basically turn off what they currently have running. >> So data lakes, really the term became popular during the sort of early big data, Hadoop era. And, Hadoop obviously brought a lot of innovation, you know, leave the data where it is. Bring the compute to the data, really launched the Big Data initiative, but it was very complicated. You had, MapReduce and and elastic MapReduce in the cloud. And, it really was a big batch job, where storage was really kind of a second class citizen, if you will. There wasn't a lot of real time stuff going on. And then, Spark comes in. And still there's this very complicated situation. So it's sounds like, ChaosSearch is really attacking that problem. And the first use case, it's really going after is log analytics. Explain that a little bit more, please. >> Yeah, so listen, they finally went after it with this, it's called a data lake engine for scalable and we'll say log analytics firstly. It was the first use case to go after it. But basically, they allows for log analytics people, everyone does it, and everyone's kind of getting to scale with it, right. But if you asked your IT department, are you even challenged with scale, or cost, or retention levels, but also management overlay of what they're doing on log analytics or security log analytics, or all this machine data they're collecting? The answer be absolutely no, it's a nightmare. It starts easy and becomes a big, very costly application for our environments. And what Chaos does is because they deal with a real issue, which is the data layer, but keep the API's on top. And so people easily use the data insights at scale, what they're able to do is very simply run in parallel and we'll save 80% of your cost, but also get better data retention. Cause there's typically a trade off. Clients basically have this trade off, or it gets really expensive. It gets to scale. So I should just retain less. We have clients that went from nine day retention and security logs to literally four and five days. If they didn't catch it in that time, it was too late. Now what they're able to do is, they're able to go to our solution. Not change what they're doing applications, because you're using the same API's, but literally save 80% and this is millions and 10s of millions of dollars of savings, but also basically get 90 day retention. There's really limitless, whatever you put into your S3 bucket, we're going to give you access to. So that alone shows you that it's literally revolutions that CFO wins because they save money. The IT department wins because they don't that wrestle with this data technology that wasn't really built. It is really built 30 years ago, wasn't built for this volume and velocity of data coming in. And then the data analytics guys, hey, I keep my tool set but I get all the retention I want. No one's limiting me anymore. So it's kind of an easy win win. And it makes it really easy for clients to have this really big benefit for them. And dramatic cost savings. But also you get the scale, which really means a lot in security login or anything else. >> So let's dig into that a little bit. So Cloud Object Storage has kind of become the de facto bucket, if you will. Everybody wants it, because it's simple. It's a get put kind of paradigm. And it's cheap, but it's also got performance issues. So people will throw cash at the problem, they'll have to move data around. So is that the problem that you're solving? Is it a performance? You know, problem is it a cause problem or both? And explain that a little bit. >> Yeah, so it's all over. So basically, if you were building a data lake, they would like to just put all their data in one very cost effective, scalable, resilient environment. And that is Cloud Object Storage, or S3, or every cloud has around, right? You can do also on prem, everyone would love to do that. And then literally get their insights out of it. But they want to go after it with our tools. Is it Search or is it SQL, they want to go after their own tools. That's the vision everyone wants. But what everyone does now is because this is where the core special sauce what ChaosSearch provides, is we built from the ground up. The database, the indexing technology, the database technology, how to actually make your Cloud object storage a database. We don't move it somewhere, we don't cash it. You put it in the inside the bucket, we literally make the Cloud object storage, the database. And then around it, we basically built a Chaos fabric that allows you to spin up compute nodes to go at the data in different ways. We truly have separated that the data from the compute, but also if a worker nodes, beautiful, beauty of like containerization technology, a worker nodes goes away, nothing happens. It's not like what you do on Prem. And all sudden you have to rebuild clusters. So by fundamentally solving that data layer, but really what was interesting is they just published API's, you mentioned put and get. So the API's you're using cloud obvious sources of put and get. Imagine we just added to that API, your Search API from elastic, or your SQL interface. It's just all we're doing is extending. You put it in the bucket will extend your ability to get after it. Really is an API company, but it's a hard tech, putting that data layer together. So you have cost effectiveness, and scale simultaneously. But we can ask for instance, log analytics. We don't cash, nothing's on the SSD, nothing's on local storage. And we're as fast as you're running Elastic Search on SSDs. So we've solved the performance and scale issues simultaneously. And that's really the core fundamental technology. >> And you do that with math, with algorithms, with machine learning, what's the secret sauce? Yeah, we should really have I'll tell you, my founder, just has the right interesting way of looking at problems. And he really looked at this differently and went after how do you make a both, going after data. He really did it in a different way, and really a modern way. And the reason it differentiates itself is he built from the ground up to do this on object storage. Where basically everyone else is using 30 year old technology, right? So even really new up and coming companies, they're using Tableau, Looker, or Snowflake could be another example. They're not changing how the data stored, they always have to move it ETL at somewhere to go after it. We avoid all that. In fact, we're probably a pretty good ecosystem players for all those partners as we go forward. >> So your talking about Tom Hazel, you're founder and CTO and he's brought in the team and they've been working on this for a while. What's his background? >> Launched Telkom, building out God boxes. So he's always been in the database space. I can't do his in my first day of the job, I can't do justice to his deep technology. There's a really good white paper on our website that does that pretty well. But literally the patent technology is a Chaos index, which is a database that it makes your object storage, the database. And then it's really the chaos fabric that puts around in the chaos refinery that gives you virtual views. But that's one solution. And if you look for log analytics, you come in log in and you get all the tools you're used to. But underneath the covers, were just saving about 80% of overall cost, but also almost limitless retention. We see people going from literally have been reduced the number of logs are keeping because of cost, and complexity, and scale, down to literally a very small amount and going right back at nine days. You could do longer, but that's what we see most people go into when they go to our service. >> Let's talk about the market. I mean, as a startup person, you always look for large markets. Obviously, you got to have good tech, a great team. And you want large markets. So the, space that you're in, I mean, I would think it started, early days and kind of the decision support. Sort of morphed into the data warehouse, you mentioned ETL, that's kind of part of it. Business Intelligence, it's sort of all in there. If you look at the EDW market, it's probably around 18 to 20 billion. Small slice of that is data lakes, maybe a billion or a billion plus. And then you got this sort of BI layer on top, you mentioned a lot of those. You got ETL, you probably get up into the 30,35 billion just sort of off the top of my head and from my historical experience and looking at these markets. But I have to say these markets have traditionally failed to live up to the expectations. Things like 360 degree views of the customer, real time analytics, delivering insights and self service to the business. Those are promises that these industries made. And they ended up being cumbersome, slow, maybe requiring real experts, requiring a lot of infrastructure, the cloud is changing that. Is that right? Is that the way to look at the market that you're going after? You're a player inside of that very large team. >> Yeah, I think we're a key fundamental component underneath that whole ecosystem. And yes, you're seeing us build a full stack solution for log analytics, because there's really good way to prove just how game changing the technology is. But also how we publishing API's, and it's seamless for how you're using log analytics. Same thing can be applied as we go across the SQL and different BI and analytic type of platforms. So it's exactly how we're looking at the market. And it's those players that are all struggling with the same thing. How they add more value to clients? It's a big cost game, right? So if I can literally make your underlying how you store your data and mix it literally 80% more cost effective. that's a big deal or simultaneously saving 80% and give you much longer retention. Those two things are typically, Lily a trade off, you have to go through, and we don't have to do that. That's what really makes this kind of the underlying core technology. And really I look at log analytics is really the first application set. But or if you have any log analytics issues, if you talk to your teams and find out, scale, cost, management issues, it's a pretty we make it very easy. Just run in parallel, we'll do a PLC, and you'll see how easy it is you can just save 80% which is, 80% and better retention is really the value proposition you see at scale, right. >> So this is day zero for you. Give us the hundred day plan, what do you want to accomplish? Where are you going to focus your priorities? I mean, obviously, the company's been started, it's well funded, but where are you going to focus in the next 100 days? >> No, I think it's building out where are we taking the next? There's a lot of things we could do, there's degrees of freedom as far as where we'd go with this technology is pretty wide. You're going to see us be the best log analytic company there. We're getting, really a (mumbling) we, you saw the announcement, best quarter ever last quarter. And you're seeing this nice as a service ramp, you're going to see us go to VPC. So you can do as a service with us, but now we can put this same thing in your own virtual private data center. You're going to see us go to Google, Azure, and also IBM cloud. And the really, clients are driving this. It's not us driving it, but you're going to see actually the client. So we'll go into Google because we had a couple financial institutions that are saying they're driving us to go do exactly that. So it's more really working with our client sets and making sure we got the right roadmap to support what they're trying to do. And then the ecosystem is another play. How to, you know, my core technology is not necessarily competitive with anyone else. No one else is doing this. They're just kind of, hey, move it here, I'll put it on this, you know, a foundational DV or they'll put it on on a presto environment. They're not really worried about the bottom line economics, which is really that's the value prop and that's the hard tech and patented technology that we bring to this ecosystem. >> Well, people are definitely worried about their cloud bills. The the CFO saying, whoa, cause it's so easy to spin up, instances in the cloud. And so, Ed it really looks like you're going after a real problem. You got some great tech behind you. And of course, we love the fact that it's another Boston based company that you're joining, cause it's more Boston based startups. Better for us here at the East Coast Cube, so give us a give us your final thoughts. What should we look for? I'm sure we're going to be being touched and congratulations. >> No, hey, thank you for the time. I'm really excited about this. I really just think it's fundamental technology that allows us to get the most out of everything you're doing around analytics in the cloud. And if you look at a data lake model, I think that's our philosophy. And we're going to drive it pretty aggressively. And I think it's a good fundamental innovation for the space and that's the type of tech that I like. And I think we can also, do a lot of partnering across ecosystems to make it work for a lot of different people. So anyway, so I guess thank you very much for the time appreciate. >> Yeah, well, thanks for coming on theCUBE and best of luck. I'm sure we're going to be learning a lot more and hearing a lot more about ChaosSearch, Ed Walsh. This is Dave Vellante. Thank you for watching everybody, and we'll see you next time on theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hello, and welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE in our Palo Alto studios. We're here with our quarantine crew, doing all the remote interviews, getting all the stories that matter. The great guest, Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product Marketing at Dell Technologies. Caitlin, CUBE alumni, welcome back remotely. We didn't make it to the Dell Technologies World got moved to the fall. We'll see you certainly virtually, but thank you for coming on remotely, appreciate it. >> Thank you so much for having me again, it's great to be here. >> So storage is on the upswing. We're seeing a lot of activity. We're going to talk about data protection specifically. But first, we want to find out what's going on with you guys. There's been some changes in your organization within Dell, can you take a minute to explain what they are? >> Yeah, absolutely. What we found is certainly a lot of our conversations in the storage space end up talking about data protection and data protection, talking about storage. And what we've decided to do is actually really bring those parts to the business together. So specifically now I've been in the storage business for a few years, I spent a long time in data protection before that. So now we've brought the gang back together, and we've got storage and data protection really brought together as an organization all the way through engineering, and product marketing. Product Management really help us collaborate and really attack problems for customers cohesively. So we're really early days here, but it's exciting. We've been really busy on the storage side, and we've got some exciting things coming here on the data protection side as well. >> I want to get your thoughts 'cause almost every interview I do in the past four months is just doesn't stop. It's COVID impact. It's one of those things that we've talked about data protection. I've had so many great conversations, continuous operations, non-disruptive operations, it couldn't ask for more disruption than people being asked to work at home. So it's caused some IT divides, this is something that we didn't see coming. Business still needs to go on. So I want to get your thoughts, we're seeing cloud obviously become highlighted in this pandemic, that's obviously impacting the data protection. What's going on in the data protection front on your side, because obviously, cloud is showing everyone, "Hey, I can use modern technologies in the cloud, but I still got to do my business, I still got to protect my data." What's going on? >> Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think we've seen a lot accelerate with this whole situation we're all in with a global pandemic, with the challenges that all businesses and people are having. But the digital transformation has been compressed, right? It would have taken people years, but now they've been forced to do that in months. Things like containers are really exploding and the requirement to protect Kubernetes is really something that we now more and more are having conversations about. Cyber ransomware has really unfortunately, only accelerated in this increasingly digital world that we're now all exclusively living in. So cyber resiliency has become a lot more important conversation. And then being able to protect data, certainly on-prem, but also across multiple public clouds and having that consistent experience is probably more important than it's ever been before as well. So it's really just put the accelerant on a lot of conversations that we were having before, and now they've become even more important. >> Talk about the innovations around the protect product, you've got the PowerProtect, it's agile, there's been some developments, what's the new additions? What's being highlighted? What are the key features? >> Yeah, so it's actually pretty exciting month for us here. PowerProtect Data Manager has been in the market for a full year. So believe it or not full year and again, as you mentioned, agile development. So it was introduced a year ago, we've had a number of enhancements over that year in the space of adding workloads, our cloud integration, we've added cloud Dr to both Azure and AWS. You have three click failover, two click failback. Really simple cloud disaster recovery, the availability and AWS marketplace for in-cloud data protection. As well, we have integration with our cyber recovery solutions, so again that ransomware protection and recovery is an important part. As well as a number of enhancements for supporting additional workloads, SAP Hana, CR Microsoft Exchange, we have broad workload support, we've really really enhanced that a lot. And then most recently, just this month, we now have a brand new data protection of PowerProtect Data Manager offer which includes all of our cloud capabilities, all inclusive, available in a subscription. So again, as we talked about the way not only people are using their data protection solutions, but how they're consuming and purchasing that, we've really transformed also now the way that people will be purchasing that. >> That's awesome, congratulations. Subscription is the format people want. And Amazon marketplace that shows they can consume if you're amazon customer, you just go in the marketplace, you get it, that's awesome. Congratulations, that's the way the world wants to consume. So that's awesome news. The thing I want to get your thoughts on and you guys have been busy. The cyber recovery and resilience piece you mentioned, can you talk about that because, we're hearing a lot more that work at home is not going to be more permanent. More permanent in the sense of, as we come out of the pandemic, people will say, "Hey, I can be productive at home." So you get to see the at home, not just a, "Here's some extra expense for your bandwidth." Is going to be more thought through. There's going to be more cyber attacks, just the attacks just on the COVID scams alone has been a problem at a personal level. But from a business standpoint, I got to have a VPN, I got to have my connections, I got to be secure. How do you guys look at that because organizations are putting a focus on it? >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, cyber resiliency is something we've focused on actually for a number of years and it started in the obvious places, right. The banks of the world, the financial institutions and the healthcare organizations. Where they always had to have data really protected, and they were kind of some of the more early targets. But now we've seen ransomware. And these digital attacks really get worse and worse. I think all businesses, including our own, are really ramping up to make sure that we are protecting in every way we can. And from our data protection portfolio, we have a fully air-gapped solution. So you have that protection. And it does two things, it first helps mitigate against the attack in the first place by actually being able to do full content scanning to detect if an attack has happened. And just as importantly, if an attack happens, being able to quickly in an automated way, recover from that attack. I think it's something that we are really finding that our entire sales team, is having conversations about. It's no longer focused on the financial institutions of the world. It's every organization, and a lot of people really appreciate that we've come with that expertise and that knowledge to be able to help them prevent, and then, unfortunately, in many cases recover from these attacks. >> That's to me, it's table stakes, I'd have to agree with you. The question I have for you on that, you've doubled speed piece because one of the speed to recovery has always been a big feature. Now with the at home situation, how does that play into, how you guys have been on that speed to recovery aspect of that? Can you share some thoughts on that? >> Yeah, and it's specifically with cyber because we have a fully air-gapped solution, and it's in a secure enclave. That recovery is automated, and it's all within that secure enclave. So you have that security, you have the confidence, and you have the speed of that recovery. So it's really important the way we've implemented that, it's not attack on to an existing, it's truly a fully secure enclave, a full air-gapped solution so that you can recover quickly, but just as importantly, you can recover securely as well. >> One of the quotes that's been kicked around in the industry is, in the past two months, we've seen more digital transformation than the past two years. And I think that's rightfully articulate 'cause of COVID. And we're seeing all the warts and scabs out there, and the infrastructure whether it was investments lacking, the ones that made the right investments were doing well. And it becomes around cloud native, some of the things you guys saw with your success with agility. What is going on with a container based architecture, because that to me is becoming one of those things where it's accelerating development teams, at the same time providing some of those business values that people have to keep the lights on for. So, what do you guys look at that? How do you look at this container architecture? What specifically in the portfolio you guys have to address that? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think containers we found accelerating in the past couple years and then in the past few months, is a huge, huge requirement. And although we didn't think so pretty recently, containers are part of production applications. They need to be stored persistent storage on the storage side, but they probably even more critically and urgently they need to be protected. We've done a number of integrations and work specifically, with VMware to be able to support Kubernetes, and being able to support those workloads and protect Kubernetes workload. A lot of advanced integration, being able to protect and recover those clusters natively, and having that deep integration with VMware, as well as other other distributions as well. 'Cause we have really found that containers are exploding, the ecosystem is obviously very much evolving, but we are really keeping up with the bleeding edge of that to ensure that as these cloud native applications are developed, that the containers are truly being protected, just as physical applications of past had been. We need to make sure that certainly VMs but even more importantly, those containers alongside, are being protected. >> I've always been a big fan of containers and certainly Kubernetes that keeps the legacy alive and until you can transition, the new end and the old, and sometimes they can work together. With that, I want to get your thoughts specifically around this idea of technical debt. A lot of customers we talked to said, "Hey, I want more end-to-end, I want some cloud native, I got to have the versatility, I got to have the agility and the speed, I got to be multi cloud. So multi cloud's on the horizon, it's certainly hybrids today. I don't want my infrastructure to be the technical debt for tomorrow." That's the question that comes up. How do you answer that, and how do you talk to that specifically? >> Yeah, it's interesting, you bring that up, especially in the storage side, too. We've been talking about that a lot. That was a pretty centralized message about how we architected power store, and it's pretty central to everything that we're designing. Is that, investment with our Dell EMC Infrastructure with Dell Technologies, is investing for what you need today, but more importantly, is going to bring you into the future. And what we have with PowerProtect Data Manager is something that is rooted in the innovation and the proven architecture to provide support for all these broad workloads and all of these broad clouds, but also also be able to protect these new modern cloud native applications, and help you bridge that gap in your own environment, so you have that. And even just as important as supporting modern applications is that support for multiple clouds, AWS and Azure. We all know that, that technical debt can also come in the form of being locked into a single public cloud, you need that flexibility to be able to leverage that public cloud of choice, whether it's for disaster recovery, backup to cloud, long term retention to cloud, having that flexibility is also just as an important part of that equation as it is for your on-prem investments as well. >> Well, congratulations on that data protection on the product front. Having the bright mix. Having that certainly is going to be key as the buying cycle start to ramp up again. I want to get back to the business 'cause I'll check on the technology. Congratulations, I love cloud native, you know that. But check on the technology business model. You mentioned subscriptions. So can you talk about the trend on your customer side, the move from CapEx and OpEx. Because if you go cloud, the consumption will be subscription, there'll be more operating expenses. How does that impact the IT budgets? How do you guys align there? What's your answer to that, can you explain? >> Yeah, absolutely. We announced, late last year, so in the fall of last year, Dell technology is on demand family, and that's really our effort to focus more on our cloud like experience and consumption and product offerings. And part of that is our subscription, pay as you go model. And what we've found, and I'd love your perspective on this as well, is that, the moving from CapEx and OpEx has been a conversation and certainly when it comes to infrastructure, there's been some set of customers over the past 12 months that have been moving in that direction. We're seeing that accelerate, certainly in the infrastructure space, but as we all know, software is where that's already pretty well established. As I think you've said, that's table stakes. So we've seen that that's really the methodology, both from our standpoint and our customers' and our partners' is, when we're selling software, that's got to be really honest subscription basis. So that's why obviously, with PowerProtect Data Manager, it makes all the sense in the world to really focus there. And that's really part of our bigger initiative overall, to move towards more of these consumption based as a service OpEx models for our customers. >> Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up I'd love to share my opinion, because I do have opinion on this. And one of the things that's coming out of some of the COVID interviews with the practitioners and the customers and the insiders is, it's a developer lead market. So cloud native, we've been talking about for years and it certainly happened. But as the pandemic has shown, people are going to be coming out of this. They have to have a growth strategy, they got to have the foundational product sets and technologies in place. But the customers, your customers, have to have a growth strategy. They got to refactor. They got to look at what they want to double down in, and kind on what they want to cut back. Some things are pretty obvious now, what not to do. So it's clear there's lines of sight around certain things, but it's developer led. The applications are going to drive value of the business, and so I'm seeing the alignment between that trend of developer led with a flex of consumption based resource. So yeah, you get the foundational services. And then hey, if the app successful, you're just still in business. I mean, people are really worried about, even, making sure they come out of this not on a downward trajectory. They want to be on an upward trajectory. That's a really key thing for 'em, your reaction. >> Yeah, I mean, that really resonates. I think it's and when we look at just to go back to the technology a little, 'cause, I never can resist, is if you look even just PowerProtect Data Manager, one of the things that's so important is that, we've have built that to be both controllable by the application and users so they can do their own protection, but then have that centralized view. And that being able to have that consolidated and centralized management of data from a single console for IT. And I think that gets to the now the next level with developers is, we need to enable developers as seamlessly as possible in their own language to be able to protect, to be able to store data, so IT can feel good about it. But we have to be able to enable them in the way that they are needing to develop these applications as quickly as possible, and from an IT perspective, that means being able to do that on-prem, or even do that in the cloud, so that we can keep all of those policies in place and keep that centralized governance, but really support the acceleration and the digital transformation that those folks are driving. So I think it makes a lot of sense and it really resonates with our product strategy. >> I think there's going to be a slew of new applications that are going to need to have all kinds of strategies built in countermeasures, recovery, all new things are going to emerge. So you guys certainly will be certainly more busy than ever. I want to get your product kind of view on something why I got you here, because I think this is kind of key. As you look at your portfolio, you mentioned the tech and the tech, all the features that you have, what are the few that resonate the most, it means classic product marketing, I mean, everyone wants to know, we've got all these features, which is great. Which ones do you say, Caitlin, are jumping out right now that are resonating the most? 'Cause sometimes it's a feature that might not be that heavy tech, or it's something that's really differentiated, but the customers will glob onto key features, what are some of the things that you're seeing that are rising to the top in terms of the feature set? >> Yeah, and it's not the speeds and feeds of yesterday. And I think this, more broadly across storage and data protection is what we're finding. The speeds and feeds are good, and some people do want to have that conversation. But we've gotten to a point from a technology from an industry standpoint, that we're able to meet latency, the bandwidth, the throughput that people need. But what's more interesting and is more compelling and important to the business is, how can you help me change the way I'm running my data center, and inter-operate with the cloud, and therefore change the way I'm running my business. And some of the pieces that come in there, is automation. I think automation within systems to systems across the enterprise, across edge and cloud, that is so incredibly critical. The AI that we're building into platforms, the integration with whether it's VMware based with VRO, whether it's Ansible modules, intelligence, and this idea of having an autonomous data center that then has that connectivity to cloud and inter-operate then also with the edge, is so incredibly compelling. And again, not just for the large enterprises, but more and more for smaller ones. Because in this world, we need to help our customers have their data center run itself as much as possible, and whatever does require administration is as simple as possible, right? We've all gotten used to technology being as simple as our smartphones, this consumerization of IT has really changed the requirement of what people think simple means. So the things that you don't necessarily think about, and we don't necessarily market even that actively about, how important the number of clicks and the user interface and the seamless transition to products, as well as automation, is so critical. And I think the other ones we've already hit on, integration with multiple public clouds, that flexibility, support for containers, and Kubernetes and deep VMware integration are increasingly critical. And I think, for someone who's been in product marketing for 15 years, I couldn't be happier that our conversations have kind of moved off of speeds and feeds and into these much more compelling and business centric conversation, because, I think we can add a lot more value to the business that way. >> It also shows the strategic nature, you mentioned edge, these new environments. It's a multi environment that you have to have build products for. So it's not so much, how fast packets are moving back and forth, or this or that. It's really about the business value. >> Yeah, it's about the business value, the locality, the value of the data, it's really all about the data and how we can help our customers better manage that across all locations. But do that in a very, very simple way. But the requirement for what simple really means, has really, really raised the bar on that, and we're going to continue to push ourselves and challenge ourselves on that as well. >> Caitlin, I'll give you the final word, talk about choice. Choice has always been a big part of what you guys have offered customers, Dell Technologies has great storage. In this day and age, what does that mean for a customer? What have the choice mean? >> Yeah, and I think it's a delicate balance. And we've gone through quite a transformation over the past couple years here. And this summer was an exciting one for many reasons, but, we just recently completed that full simplification of our portfolio and we have our full portfolio of power solutions, all the way from PowerMax to PowerVolt, PowerStore, PowerScale, PowerFlex, and of course, the one we talked about today, PowerProtect. We now have that all in market. And I bring that up because, that is our simple portfolio to give customers best in class products across all of these different categories. And the fact that we have that choice, but, we've simplified that choice down to as few choices as possible, coming back to what we were just talking about. It's critical that we have solutions that meet the requirements of all of our different customers, but also that we don't give them more than that. That we need to give them choices that will meet their needs, but also not give them so many choices, that it's overwhelming. You don't want to be the cheesecake factory and not be able to choose what you want, you need to just be able to choose from what the options that really makes sense. And that's why I think it's really exciting now as we move into the second half of this year and look into next, we have that portfolio now, and we can focus on, which is the right combination of solutions for you. >> During the pandemic, people are reading a book, doing a hobby, you guys are updating your product portfolio. Congratulations on all the hard work, Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product. Great to see you. Thank you for spending the time, giving us an update on the data protection stuff. And again, congratulations for being so productive during a tough time and stay safe, thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me, good to see you. >> Okay, this is theCUBE coverage with Dell Technologies. Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product Marketing giving us the breakdown. Very productive for them during this time, and again, companies want a growth strategy when they come out of the pandemic. More than ever, infrastructure has to enable the software for the new solutions. Just to keep coverage, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From theCUBE's Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with our leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome to this Cube Conversation, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Here in our Palo Alto studios, we got our quarantine crew, getting the remote interviews, getting the conversations that matter, a great guest Chris Eldredge, Senior Director of Business Intelligence at Paycor. Chris, thanks for joining today remotely from Ohio. Thank you very much. >> Thanks for having me. It's great to be here, John. >> I was just joking with a friend football seasons up in the air and I know Ohio you're stuck in between all the different cities there. The east coast, certainly there's a lot of football madness might be canceled. So, this COVID-19 has hit us hard and I hope everyone's safe out there with you guys. >> Yeah, yeah, we're staying hunkered down. >> So tell us more about Paycor. What are you guys doing to make a difference? >> Good question. Paycor is a software as a service company that focuses on payroll, human capital management, time, for small and medium businesses, and we are a growing company. We've got nearly 2000 employees, and we've been in business for about 30 years. But it really does feel like a start up every day. Because we have, such a focus for our customer and the technology is improving all the time. >> Business intelligence has been around, you have the old school guard companies and you've been around for 30 years, you've seen them, the technology has changed, and with that, there's been more data. Okay, now you add on the pandemic, and more surge of demand in computer science, data science, data engineering, one of the hottest categories on the job market front, all pointing to the same thing. There's a lot of challenges and a lot of opportunities around data, and the implications for businesses. And you guys are on the front lines, give us your take on how you see that evolving because more than ever data is at the center of the value proposition. And even more now and it's changing very rapidly, what's your perspective? >> Absolutely right, you would think when you have a pandemic, you would really slow things down. But in fact, we did not, in fact, we actually went from an environment where we were doing monthly and occasionally weekly reporting, and then all of a sudden, we needed daily updates. If you remember, when COVID first started out, and everything started closing, people wanted information fast and furious, and nobody really knew what to do. Luckily, because about a year before that, we had put in place a very dynamic and incremental approach to how we're going to enable data strategy at Paycor, we were able to just in a matter of days, give them a daily dashboard of over 50 metrics. >> What are some of the challenges you guys have faced? Because now you guys also have to move in real time, you got to put out the insights, they got to be actionable, but data is not that easy to work with, depending upon how it's built. So how are you guys facing the challenges, and what's the implication for your business? >> A great question again, so when I first came to Paycor in early 2019. We really had an environment where it was the wild west of data. There were lots of folks that were cobbling together their own data sets, people were rolling up products and customers any way they wanted to, and you had just incompatible data. Well, we really had to focus on there, and what made a difference to kind of unwind this, tangle of data was really to just talk to folks, get them aligned, get people to understand the true impact of data and if you can govern it, master it, then you can set it up in such a way that people understand how it mixes and matches with other data sets, you have power, and that was the real key is helping people understand the power of what they could unlock with their data, and then being ready to unleash that when it's needed. >> I talked a lot of data pros, I've seen Informatica, all these other companies, certainly cloud scale helps when you start to get into data that has to be integrated across different platforms or applications or new insights that are emerging out a new data sets, whether it's unstructured data or whatnot, you get more stakeholders more people in the equation, more fingers in the pie so to speak, as that happens, which is natural, by the way, you've seen that with virtual events and how people, what was once a department now as the whole company, a lot of stakeholders to please, how did you guys approach that? Because you got to align the business, you got to try to please everyone, and that's really hard to do. How do you get that done? >> Well, John, you have to be careful with what you do, because success is contagious, and once you start setting up one department or one function in a company, that they're happy with their data, most places that I've been and I've worked with this a long time, no one's ever happy with their data or their reporting, right, and so once you get people that are happy with it, all of a sudden, now that kind of explodes, and everybody wants your time, everybody wants your attention, and everybody wants their data to be accessible as well. And so you have to think about what does that scale look like? How do I go from five metrics to 500 metrics? And how quickly do I need to do that? Those are the kind of things you have in mind. >> It's interesting, you mentioned the scale, I'll throw another word at that, and I want to get your reaction to it because scale matters, speed also matters. You got scale and speed, these are becoming requirements. What's your reaction to that? >> Yes. Not just scale and speed, but the technology itself is changing. If you think about predictive modeling, if you think about data science that people talk about and how to operationalize artificial intelligence, if you don't have a good data foundation, none of that's going to help you. So, you really have to enable speed by having processes in place where as the business changes, you can make sure that you have the right data, you have to enable scale, and that you could go easily from a couple thousand records to your millions and millions of records depending on how the data needs to be structured, how you want to think about the data and what kind of features you would want, and let's just say a predictive model, that really proliferate your data, so you need all three of those things. >> Take me through play by play on how you guys modernize with Informatica, because you had to kind of take a step back, you got to look holistically at things. How did they play that role in your modernization of the business intelligence environment? >> Well, essentially, we took a look at the landscape and we saw that most people were self sourcing their data and they didn't really know how, and when something went wrong, they really struggled with, how do I fix this? How do I re-run it? If I'm on vacation who's going to make sure that these data sets get populated? And so we changed the game with Informatica by basically saying, let's pre-think all the things that we need to do around data movement into the data warehouse. And let's really think about not from A, how do I get it from A to B, but how do I get a production grade pipeline of data into my environment, so that I can really have what I need, and anybody in the business that is either part of the data team, or part of the IT team can understand what we're doing, can troubleshoot what we're doing, and we can have a common language, about how we talk about that data. So we put in place standards, we put in place, common metadata, we put in place a process that was aligned across, and we made sure that we put protections in there using things like DevOps, to make sure that whatever we gave the business in terms of data was bulletproof, and was structured in such a way that it had been tested, it was backed up, and it was something that we could actually, re-create if we needed to. That's an elegant it. >> When did this all go down? Last year, this year? Can you take us through the timeline? >> Well, we first started thinking about Informatica, the first half of 2019, and we first signed a contract with them in June of 2019. But before we did anything before we installed it, before we started writing the code, we talked to people we talked to people depending on which area you're talking about between three and six months before we actually implemented. And because we had set up the process, the procedure, we understood how the data model needed to be put together, and we understood the expectations of the business, whether they wanted drill through reporting or they wanted top of the house KPIs or things like that. We talked to them and once we knew what that blueprint needed to look like, Informatica really helped by making it very easy for us to pull that data in, from variety of sources all in the same way or manage the same way, and build our data warehouse. We essentially built a data lake where we tried to get data as close to what it looks like in the source system as possible but accessible by the data engineers. And then we built certified data marts that were structured in a way that was more useful for the business. And all that really took less than a year, the actual hands to keyboard code took less than six months just because we had spent all the time preparing. >> And now we're in COVID, so take me through cause it's really kind of a change of landscape, BC before COVID, DC during COVID, and then AC which is coming after COVID, hopefully sooner than later, but this is the new reality. How has the impact changed your environment if any good, bad, did it change the trajectory? Was the solution in place before? Any benefits coming out of it? Because you're an interesting timetable here, you went in full planning, went into production, and then COVID hits March. How did you get to respond to that? What happened? >> Be careful what you wish for, and also, no good deed goes unpunished, right? So, because we had to quickly adapt our plan, and go from, weekly, monthly, typically monthly reporting into a daily environment, people wanted daily metrics every day. As you can imagine, during the chaos of COVID, some of those 50 metrics changed, or maybe weren't understood completely and needed to be adjusted so that they were more in line with the expectations of the stakeholders as well as match the spirit of the other metrics. And so, now going forward we have to be prepared that as requests come in, as needs come in, we might have new daily reporting, and that means we have to figure out where that's coming from, figure out who owns that information, figure out what transforms needs to be done, to make sure that it's represented correctly, and then figure out how to make sure that we get that same data pipeline flowing every single day. And that's a challenge, but luckily, we were able to do that, because we were able to, set that platform, right, we didn't have to guess about what we're going to use to pull the data. We don't have to guess about what kind of things were happening to name it, we don't guess about where we're going to put that data, and so we know how to record it. >> What's interesting, you mentioned DevOps earlier in the interview, you have that DevOps mindset, and now, the business has to react to the environment, which is the pandemic, and a lot of companies are actually re-factoring or re-setting and then have to put a re-invention plan to get on the business side and then have a growth strategy which might mean completely change a metrics, so being agile with the data, super valuable sounds like that's what happened. There are folks out there that may or may not be in that same situation, so how do you share your best practice for someone out there who's saying, I had an environment, I was in the middle of this or I need to rethink it, but because my stakeholders are saying we need to change or refactor our business, I got to make the data agile. What do you say to that? What do you say to your peers and your colleagues in the industry? >> DevOps is a good place to start, and I bring that up because DevOps is a critical function, a lot of companies like Paycor have dedicated people working on DevOps, but there are also other groups within the technical community that can have a hand in your success, right? There's database administrators, there's application development teams, there's enterprise level architects that are looking across, there's information security, we live in a world where privacy is becoming more and more important. And any one of those groups, if you're not aligned correctly, or if you haven't thought about it, really can cause your progress to slow down, and if you do work together with them, and you build the right operating model, then you can actually figure out a way to make your progress speed up, if you have alignment with those guys, and let's just say a privacy or personal identifying information, question comes up, if you've already thought about who needs to answer that, how you need to evaluate that, and ultimately, how can you move something like that in your production environment, you're way better off and it takes sometimes a matter of minutes, whereas in some cases, in some companies I've been at, it can actually take weeks or months to work through those kind of issues. >> I want to give you a personal take because one of the things that's historic time for the tech industry as it continues to try to do good at the same time, cause there's health issues involved, every company has a thing about the health of their employees and their customers being, in a sheltered in place. We're living in a kind of historic time where, this real agility in engineering around the architecture and thinking things through, because there is a new reality and that is going to be more work at home, which is edge of the network, more data coming out, maybe there's more sources. So, a new wave of challenges is coming in. How do you see that? If based on your experience over the years, you've seen many waves, what's going on? What's some of the learnings that you've seen? What observations can you share any insight from the perspective of where you're sitting? >> So from that perspective, data governance becomes a lot more important. Yeah, whereas in the past, when you were in an office, when we all used to work in an office, you could actually just walk to your neighbor or walk across to another department, you could have that conversation. Today that's, a little bit more challenging in terms of, you would have to figure out are they online? You'd chat them up? Do you use the collaboration tools? And because of that environment, because everybody is digital or online, now you have to think about, how do we make sure that the data governance manifests correctly? And so that means we have to think about data catalogs, how can I go to a definition quickly of what is this data set or metric mean, metadata itself? How do I understand what I'm even looking at? We think about things like, data lineage, how can I go into that and figure out, where do this data come from? How has it changed, if at all possible, who is using it? That needs to be something that's accessible to a broader community, and especially now, where you have collaboration tools, you have things like Slack and Microsoft Teams, you have things like Zoom and Skype, and you need to connect together but you're also online and you're on the network. So, if you can point to documents or better yet, companies like Informatica have tools, like glossaries and data catalogs and things like that where you can actually provide stakeholders, that makes it much easier. And that's much more important now, because you're getting thrown so much stuff on the computer, so much data, so much information, you really need to understand how to parse through that. >> I think it's a great opportunity for someone to come up with some really new collaboration tools around the use case, right? That's what we're talking about here, because you don't have the neighbor, you don't have someone you can just walk down the hall, or jump into a conference room and whiteboard something, you got to do it online. It's like what the heck. >> It really makes you think and when you come into data, right, so I like to think about data as the data pipeline or how it gets sourced, right, I think about the data model and how you need to make sure that it's something that can be consumed by people. But then there's really the business intelligence side or the data consumption side, and those tools are changing they changing quickly, and we need to think about how we use those to communicate the way people are communicating now. >> Chris, thanks for coming on sharing the insight. One final question, obviously as cloud and we've seen the past decade of big data, unstructured data, as the world starts to become more horizontally scalable where data needs to be accessed by a lot of different things, but yet be needed with specialism around machine learning and automation, you've got this new kind of thinking going on, that's kind of becoming more mainstream, which is, hey, I want the data to be everywhere, and I want it to be specialized for machine learning. I mean, sounds really easy, but it's not right? So, this is kind of the future architecture. Would you shade your perspective on that? And that's a segment cause I think this is teasing out some of the things like the tooling, the workforce involved, how is your architecture going to be laid out? This seems to be something that seems to be more of a conversation now than ever before. What's your thoughts? >> Well, you've triggered upon a real time discussion we're having at Paycor of how does the cloud how does the introduction of machine learning across the different parts of any kind of data chain or value chain or process, how does that change where our focus needs to be? And in this case, if we're talking specifically around data, and how do I analyze data, you really need to think about the foundational side, machine learning, artificial intelligence is meant to make our lives easier. It doesn't mean it's easy to implement. But it also means that, if you're giving up that control from a person to a machine, whether it's an algorithm, predictive model, whatever it might be, you really need to make sure that the underlying foundation of data is correct, right. And so, you change the focus, whereas we used to have, over the last couple decades, we had a lot of people thrown at reporting, somebody working on a report or with a business intelligence tool can interact with that and turn things around. If you give that to an artificial intelligence, your application, now whatever they're looking at, you're not going to have those natural connections like, oh, that doesn't look right. >> Yeah. >> And you need to make sure that you put your resources are there people on making sure that that data is as good as it possibly can be. >> That's a great point. You have this amazing fast reports that actually are wrong, right, you got to think foundational first, and it makes the humans more important. I mean, you don't lean on the machines, if they're augmenting the humans, this is a big point. Close us out with that thought. >> Well, you absolutely still need people it's just a matter of where does their focus change to, what can you now free them up from doing that was maybe tedious or maybe just busy work that was needed, but not super value added into much more higher value added type activities. >> Chris, great insight, thanks for sharing. I see you're on the cutting edge, Business Intelligence is changing, you guys been working hard, congratulations, stay safe, and looking forward to catching up another time. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much I enjoyed it. >> Chris Eldredge, Senior Director of Business Intelligence at Paycor, implementing some great data engineering, having the data warehousing, now it's scaling in the right place the right time, as businesses reacting to it, and this is what everyone's facing right now. How do you make data agile as the business evolves quickly, and excel on a highly accelerated basis? How do you become more agile to serve the business needs? This is theCUBE bringing you remote coverage from Palo Alto, I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Welcome to this cube conversation. I'm Lisa Martin, and I'm joined by two guests from Ivanti, today. Please welcome its President, Jeff Abbot and its Chief Product Officer, Nayaki Nayyar. Jeff and Nayaki, it's so great to talk to you today. >> Pleasure to speak to you, Lisa. >> Pleasure to be here, Lisa, look forward to this. >> Me too. So Jeff, let's start with you, transformation, you got some big news that you're going to be sharing and breaking through theCUBE Conversation today which we're going to dig into but there's been a lot of transformation at the top at Ivanti, you're new, tell me about that and what's the shake up that's been going on there to really drive this company forward? >> Yeah. We have got a lot of transformation going on, Lisa. And it's been an exciting ride for the first six months of my tenure at Ivanti. I came in January as president along with our new CEO, who has been Chairman, Jim Schaper. And when Jim and I started talking about Ivanti last fall, the challenges were pretty clear. It's a company that's had outstanding employees, fantastic customers, and a real heritage of innovation. But they had leveled off a little bit. And the idea behind the new executive team was to bring in a team of veterans to take it to the next level, really to grow to a billion dollars and beyond, both organically and through acquisitions. So you're right, we brought in a fantastic team of veterans people that Jim and I have both worked with: Angie Gunter, new Chief Marketing Officer, Mary Trick, new Chief Customer Officer, we recently hired Nayaki Nayyar, who's with us today, our Chief Product Officer, John Flavin, the Head of our Industry Business Unit, and a host of others that have all come in with a single mission to take Ivanti to the next level. >> So Nayaki, let's dig into Ivanti's vision, lot of change, lot of momentum, I imagine with that change, but what's your vision? >> So let's take a step back, Lisa and you look at, what I call Ivanti's position of strength. And when you look at the entire portfolio Ivanti has, one of the key strengths Ivanti has is its ability to discover, secure, manage and service the endpoints. And if you look at the entire marketplace, there is no vendor in the market today, most of them UEM vendors don't have service management, service management don't have UEM, our ability, Ivanti's ability to do this end to end management of endpoints all the way from discovery to security to service management is what our key strength is. That's our competitive advantage, bringing these three pillars together under one umbrella and having a holistic story. Especially in this day and age of COVID and post COVID, where everyone is trying to manage those endpoints, secure those endpoints, and have almost a seamless experience as remote becomes the next normal going forward for every enterprise, Lisa. >> Yeah, the next normal. Well, there's data scatter, there's device scatter and it's now almost like so many people working from home overnight a few months ago that now will have almost a relationship with our devices because they're our lifeline. So for an organization to be able to understand where all those devices are, people are now working from home, but as you shared, Nayaki, with me the other day, there's some gartner data that demonstrates that 3.6% of the workforce before COVID was working from home. It might be 10X that post COVID So the amount of device scatter and data scatter and need to secure, that challenge is even going up. So how does Ivanti help? How do you solve that challenge? >> So Lisa, if you put yourself in any large enterprise and organization that is dealing with this post COVID or addressing the needs of a remote worker, the remote workers are going through, I would say, explosive growth where they used to be single digits 3% 4% before COVID, and now, during COVID, and after COVID, it's probably going to be I would say, 30, 40% of remote workers that every enterprise has to now provide that service, that seamless service experience as they're working from home, they could be on the move. So providing that seamless experience is, I would say, number one priority and a key challenge for every enterprise. So what we are going to be releasing and launching and announcing to the market given our position of strength in managing endpoints is how we help that seamless experience and what I call the ambient experience for an end user independent of where they are working from, they could be working from home, they could be on the move, or office. >> Which is critical these days. But before we dig into the announcement, Jeff, I wanted to ask you, some of the stats that I've been seeing in terms of the C suite and the amount of decisions that the C suite has had to make in the last four months has been more than over the last five or so years. Talk to us a little bit about how Ivanti got together this new C suite to make the decision to announce what you're going to talk about today so quickly. >> Now, that's a great point. And it's one that we had to, quite frankly, Lisa. The market is demanding a hyper-automation, it's demanding more agnostic deployment, it needs more flexibility in terms of the ability to be self driven and sense and service without a whole lot of intervention. So we knew that when we came in as a new leadership team, the first thing we had to do was get the go-to-market strategy in order, which we did. We balanced our direct sales strategy with our partner strategy. We made some changes in the marketing organization to a more contemporary content-focused demand generation style, and we reset the company's focus on customer outcomes. And in so doing, we changed the mentality to success as measured by are we meeting our customers intended business goals? And that led us very quickly to say, "Listen, the unified IT message we've been using for the last few years has been great, and our customers have responded well to it, and we've acquired a lot of new customers with that message, but the game has changed." And as Nayaki was leading up to, the expectation has changed. And the entire IT space is relatively mature but the expectations and the pressure on that space has grown tremendously, as you pointed out, in the last few years. Just think of the number of devices we all now have to manage as a company, and it's growing. And as Nayaki pointed out as she discusses our launch, it's growing almost exponentially. So we knew that we had to have a new product strategy, we had to take the unified IT message and start to think differently about how the IT leaders in the field and our various customers around the world, how their game has changed and lean in to what they need in terms of automation, AI, bot technology, and so on. And that's what we're announcing with this latest release. >> All right, Nayaki, take it away. What are you announcing? >> Yeah, so what we're super-excited about, Lisa, is to Jeff's point, to handle this explosive growth, growth of devices, growth of data that is being generated from those devices, and also this explosive growth of remote workers. Meaning the only way to handle this growth is through what we call automation and we are taking that next, advanced automation, that leap frog strategy of what we call hyper-automation, embedding that into our entire stack, into our UEM endpoint management stack, into our security stack and also service management to help customers, what we call, self-heal, discover all the devices continuously, optimize the performance, optimize any configuration drifts, and proactively predictively remediate any issues, any issues that you see on those devices, and get into a world of what we call self-healing autonomous edge. Where it's continuously detecting every issue and being able to predictively and cognitively self-heal that edge. And this is what we are launching, is what we branded as Ivanti Neurons, is the brand that we are launching for these automation, this hyper-automation bots, that every company can deploy these hyper-automation bots into their network that will constantly discover every device you have across your entire network, discover any performance issues, configuration drift issues, security issues, vulnerabilities, anomalies, and really get into what we call self-healing, self-securing and providing a service experience that we are used to in our day to day life or in our consumer world. So that's what we are announcing, super-excited about the overall launch. The fact that every enterprise, every company, and it's not tied to any single vertical, Lisa, any vertical organization can leverage these neurons and get that closer to self-healing of those devices that they have to now manage every organization that has to now manage. >> I know Ivanti has a lot of strengths and several verticals, one of them being healthcare. And I can imagine right now, the last five months, the hyper status that every hospital and clinic is in, I'm curious, though, about the name. Jeff, talk to me about in this new, the next normal that we're living in, Neurons, what does that mean and what does it mean to your customers? >> Yeah, great question. And I know this will resonate with you, Lisa, as an accomplished biologist. With the idea is with what we're providing and what we're launching with Neurons, there's a sense of hyper-scale, hyper-automation, like the synapses in your brain, handles so much information at once. So we wanted to personalize the launch of these solutions. When you see the announcement next week, you'll see a series of products across the spectrum Ivanti solutions; the ITSM, endpoint management, security and so on. And we address in each of those areas, the self-sensing, self-healing, self-servicing, each of those business processes. But like your synapses or your neurons in your brain, there'll be a lot of super-fast automation, super-fast sensing of challenges and addressing those challenges. And that's why we went with Neurons. It was actually a pretty fun contest in the company and we really believe Neurons will connect with our target market. >> I love it. And the biologist part of me is gone, "That makes sense." So Nayaki, over to you. And in terms of that connectivity perspective, there's so many disparate data sources out there, it's only growing. And Jeff, you mentioned this, how can one of your existing 25,000 customers, use, deploy, this on top of their existing infrastructure to start connecting data sources that they may not even know they can connect or that they may not know does it make even sense to connect them? >> Yeah, so the beauty of the entire Neuron network is it uses MQTT protocol, Lisa, which is the protocol that immediately detects every device, be it endpoint desktops, laptops, mobile devices, or even, I was suggesting IoT devices, that it automatically detects. And senses if there is anything happening on those devices, predicts if there is any issue that may happen, like I said, performance issues, configuration drift issues, security issues and pulls that data in real time. The beauty of this is the speed at which it pulls its data, I've seen customers who can deploy this across their entire network around the world and within seconds, it's able to pull the data into a centri console, and give ourselves a full 360 view of every device you have, every user that's using those devices all the applications that are running on those devices and the services that are being delivered to those devices. So just the power of being able to pull that much data in seconds and provide that 360 view of what we call, a Neuron Workspace, for any IT organization to have that full 360 view, and detect and predict that there's any issue and almost like get into a self-healing remediated before it interrupts your productivity or interrupts your... Any service disruption. I think you were trying to say something, go ahead. >> I was just going to add to that, Nayaki. And you asked this or made this point, Lisa, Nayaki and I are speaking to the healthcare industry almost every day. We are very in tune with the challenges they're experiencing, obviously, with what's happening right now around the world. And as Nayaki is describing, the Neurons we intend to be a very seamless improvement to their existing IT processes and so on. In fact, when I described this to some of the hospitals I've been speaking to, and certainly the IT staff and leaders within, they are fascinated and very excited about what we're describing. Because if you think about it, IT challenges down at the device level in the healthcare industry can be life critical. And they need to solve those IT challenges very fast. They need to know when their new endpoints are online, they need to know when they need servicing, and then they know when their software needs patching. We're not talking about just being at home and being frustrated if you're having an IT challenge, we're talking about life and death. So Neurons is absolutely what the healthcare industry is asking for in terms of self-healing, self-sensing, self-securing and so on, they need those attributes in their business model, now definitely more than ever. >> Absolutely, they do. So Nayaki, talking to customers in healthcare, whatnot, I can see this being a great tool for the IT analyst but also maybe even helping the IT analysts and business users have better relationships that overall help drive a business forward. >> Yeah, so you put yourself in an end user or line of business, they expect, and especially in this day and age of post COVID, Lisa, they expect a consumer grade experience to be delivered to them. They expect their service provider to know exactly where they're working from, what devices they have, how all those devices are not just secure, but understands the preferences I need as an individual and provides that service experience to me. So I mean that, I would say, a close tie in between what the business wants, the end users in those lines of business want and how IT or any service organization can provide that service to employees, customers, and consumers is what really Neurons, I would really... Helps us get closer and closer to consumer grade experience that we all are used to in our day to day life. And to Jeff's point, in addition to healthcare, which is a strong industry vertical for us, some other industries, retail is another big industry that we are very strong in, Lisa, and also supply chain rugged devices in a warehouse. So it really gives us a huge expansion opportunity beyond just managing the IT devices or endpoints to also managing the IoT devices by industry vertical, in those segments, where we already have a very, very strong foothold, because of the technology that we have that powers this whole thing in the backend. >> And we're seeing some of the numbers of 40+ Billion, connected devices in the next few years. So Jeff, let's end this with you. I know there's more coming, but you probably have a great partnership suite that you're working with to enable this, talk to us a little bit about the partners, and then what's next? >> Yeah, no, great point, Lisa. I come from a heritage of companies that have leveraged our partners. And we continue to grow our partner network. We believe strongly in the strength of the extended ecosystem, solution partners, delivery partners, global systems integrators, they all have a role in Neurons. And we're excited to continue to provide the platform for mutual growth between us and those partners. And what's really important is, these are companies that our customers really love as well. So we're going to continue to, in some cases, tie our solutions together, in some cases, extend our services organization through partners, and in some cases, we'll actually service our customers through our channel partner network. We actually went through a little bit of a rationalization to really zero in on our most strategic partners, we've done that, we've finished that in the first six months of coming on board. And now we are hitting the gas pedal and going full speed to market with a great group of partners and again, you'll see that ecosystem more and more as part of our strategy. >> Excellent. So Neurons announced, what's next? >> Well, there's quite a bit behind Neurons. So it will take us probably into at least 2021 getting all the solutions launched, and getting them ingrained with our customers out there. Well, we fully intend to continue to innovate. And if there's one thing I leave you with, Lisa, it's that that's our big announcement more than anything. I mean, Ivanti's had a history of innovation, it's a company that practically invented patching, and keeping all of the devices up to speed on the latest virus protection software and so on, there's a lot of legacy companies within our footprint that are now completely tied together and under the Neuron strategy under Nayaki's leadership we intended to put innovation out in the marketplace, quarter after quarter after quarter, but Neurons for now will keep us quite busy. So we're very excited. >> Well, congratulations on that. Ivanti, innovation, hyper-automation. Jeff, Nayaki, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for joining me on theCUBE today. Thank you, Lisa. >> Thank you for having us. >> For my guests, I am Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE Conversation. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hello, and welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE in our Palo Alto studios. We're here with our quarantine crew, doing all the remote interviews, getting all the stories that matter. The great guest, Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product Marketing at Dell Technologies. Caitlin, CUBE alumni, welcome back remotely. We didn't make it to the Dell Technologies World got moved to the fall. We'll see you certainly virtually, but thank you for coming on remotely, appreciate it. >> Thank you so much for having me again, it's great to be here. >> So storage is on the upswing. We're seeing a lot of activity. We're going to talk about data protection specifically. But first, we want to find out what's going on with you guys. There's been some changes in your organization within Dell, can you take a minute to explain what they are? >> Yeah, absolutely. What we found is certainly a lot of our conversations in the storage space end up talking about data protection and data protection, talking about storage. And what we've decided to do is actually really bring those parts to the business together. So specifically now I've been in the storage business for a few years, I spent a long time in data protection before that. So now we've brought the gang back together, and we've got storage and data protection really brought together as an organization all the way through engineering, and product marketing. Product Management really help us collaborate and really attack problems for customers cohesively. So we're really early days here, but it's exciting. We've been really busy on the storage side, and we've got some exciting things coming here on the data protection side as well. >> I want to get your thoughts 'cause almost every interview I do in the past four months is just doesn't stop. It's COVID impact. It's one of those things that we've talked about data protection. I've had so many great conversations, continuous operations, non-disruptive operations, it couldn't ask for more disruption than people being asked to work at home. So it's caused some IT divides, this is something that we didn't see coming. Business still needs to go on. So I want to get your thoughts, we're seeing cloud obviously become highlighted in this pandemic, that's obviously impacting the data protection. What's going on in the data protection front on your side, because obviously, cloud is showing everyone, "Hey, I can use modern technologies in the cloud, but I still got to do my business, I still got to protect my data." What's going on? >> Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think we've seen a lot accelerate with this whole situation we're all in with a global pandemic, with the challenges that all businesses and people are having. But the digital transformation has been compressed, right? It would have taken people years, but now they've been forced to do that in months. Things like containers are really exploding and the requirement to protect Kubernetes is really something that we now more and more are having conversations about. Cyber ransomware has really unfortunately, only accelerated in this increasingly digital world that we're now all exclusively living in. So cyber resiliency has become a lot more important conversation. And then being able to protect data, certainly on-prem, but also across multiple public clouds and having that consistent experience is probably more important than it's ever been before as well. So it's really just put the accelerant on a lot of conversations that we were having before, and now they've become even more important. >> Talk about the innovations around the protect product, you've got the PowerProtect, it's agile, there's been some developments, what's the new additions? What's being highlighted? What are the key features? >> Yeah, so it's actually pretty exciting month for us here. PowerProtect Data Manager has been in the market for a full year. So believe it or not full year and again, as you mentioned, agile development. So it was introduced a year ago, we've had a number of enhancements over that year in the space of adding workloads, our cloud integration, we've added cloud Dr to both Azure and AWS. You have three click failover, two click failback. Really simple cloud disaster recovery, the availability and AWS marketplace for in-cloud data protection. As well, we have integration with our cyber recovery solutions, so again that ransomware protection and recovery is an important part. As well as a number of enhancements for supporting additional workloads, SAP Hana, CR Microsoft Exchange, we have broad workload support, we've really really enhanced that a lot. And then most recently, just this month, we now have a brand new data protection of PowerProtect Data Manager offer which includes all of our cloud capabilities, all inclusive, available in a subscription. So again, as we talked about the way not only people are using their data protection solutions, but how they're consuming and purchasing that, we've really transformed also now the way that people will be purchasing that. >> That's awesome, congratulations. Subscription is the format people want. And Amazon marketplace that shows they can consume if you're amazon customer, you just go in the marketplace, you get it, that's awesome. Congratulations, that's the way the world wants to consume. So that's awesome news. The thing I want to get your thoughts on and you guys have been busy. The cyber recovery and resilience piece you mentioned, can you talk about that because, we're hearing a lot more that work at home is not going to be more permanent. More permanent in the sense of, as we come out of the pandemic, people will say, "Hey, I can be productive at home." So you get to see the at home, not just a, "Here's some extra expense for your bandwidth." Is going to be more thought through. There's going to be more cyber attacks, just the attacks just on the COVID scams alone has been a problem at a personal level. But from a business standpoint, I got to have a VPN, I got to have my connections, I got to be secure. How do you guys look at that because organizations are putting a focus on it? >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, cyber resiliency is something we've focused on actually for a number of years and it started in the obvious places, right. The banks of the world, the financial institutions and the healthcare organizations. Where they always had to have data really protected, and they were kind of some of the more early targets. But now we've seen ransomware. And these digital attacks really get worse and worse. I think all businesses, including our own, are really ramping up to make sure that we are protecting in every way we can. And from our data protection portfolio, we have a fully air-gapped solution. So you have that protection. And it does two things, it first helps mitigate against the attack in the first place by actually being able to do full content scanning to detect if an attack has happened. And just as importantly, if an attack happens, being able to quickly in an automated way, recover from that attack. I think it's something that we are really finding that our entire sales team, is having conversations about. It's no longer focused on the financial institutions of the world. It's every organization, and a lot of people really appreciate that we've come with that expertise and that knowledge to be able to help them prevent, and then, unfortunately, in many cases recover from these attacks. >> That's to me, it's table stakes, I'd have to agree with you. The question I have for you on that, you've doubled speed piece because one of the speed to recovery has always been a big feature. Now with the at home situation, how does that play into, how you guys have been on that speed to recovery aspect of that? Can you share some thoughts on that? >> Yeah, and it's specifically with cyber because we have a fully air-gapped solution, and it's in a secure enclave. That recovery is automated, and it's all within that secure enclave. So you have that security, you have the confidence, and you have the speed of that recovery. So it's really important the way we've implemented that, it's not attack on to an existing, it's truly a fully secure enclave, a full air-gapped solution so that you can recover quickly, but just as importantly, you can recover securely as well. >> One of the quotes that's been kicked around in the industry is, in the past two months, we've seen more digital transformation than the past two years. And I think that's rightfully articulate 'cause of COVID. And we're seeing all the warts and scabs out there, and the infrastructure whether it was investments lacking, the ones that made the right investments were doing well. And it becomes around cloud native, some of the things you guys saw with your success with agility. What is going on with a container based architecture, because that to me is becoming one of those things where it's accelerating development teams, at the same time providing some of those business values that people have to keep the lights on for. So, what do you guys look at that? How do you look at this container architecture? What specifically in the portfolio you guys have to address that? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think containers we found accelerating in the past couple years and then in the past few months, is a huge, huge requirement. And although we didn't think so pretty recently, containers are part of production applications. They need to be stored persistent storage on the storage side, but they probably even more critically and urgently they need to be protected. We've done a number of integrations and work specifically, with VMware to be able to support Kubernetes, and being able to support those workloads and protect Kubernetes workload. A lot of advanced integration, being able to protect and recover those clusters natively, and having that deep integration with VMware, as well as other other distributions as well. 'Cause we have really found that containers are exploding, the ecosystem is obviously very much evolving, but we are really keeping up with the bleeding edge of that to ensure that as these cloud native applications are developed, that the containers are truly being protected, just as physical applications of past had been. We need to make sure that certainly VMs but even more importantly, those containers alongside, are being protected. >> I've always been a big fan of containers and certainly Kubernetes that keeps the legacy alive and until you can transition, the new end and the old, and sometimes they can work together. With that, I want to get your thoughts specifically around this idea of technical debt. A lot of customers we talked to said, "Hey, I want more end-to-end, I want some cloud native, I got to have the versatility, I got to have the agility and the speed, I got to be multi cloud. So multi cloud's on the horizon, it's certainly hybrids today. I don't want my infrastructure to be the technical debt for tomorrow." That's the question that comes up. How do you answer that, and how do you talk to that specifically? >> Yeah, it's interesting, you bring that up, especially in the storage side, too. We've been talking about that a lot. That was a pretty centralized message about how we architected power store, and it's pretty central to everything that we're designing. Is that, investment with our Dell EMC Infrastructure with Dell Technologies, is investing for what you need today, but more importantly, is going to bring you into the future. And what we have with PowerProtect Data Manager is something that is rooted in the innovation and the proven architecture to provide support for all these broad workloads and all of these broad clouds, but also also be able to protect these new modern cloud native applications, and help you bridge that gap in your own environment, so you have that. And even just as important as supporting modern applications is that support for multiple clouds, AWS and Azure. We all know that, that technical debt can also come in the form of being locked into a single public cloud, you need that flexibility to be able to leverage that public cloud of choice, whether it's for disaster recovery, backup to cloud, long term retention to cloud, having that flexibility is also just as an important part of that equation as it is for your on-prem investments as well. >> Well, congratulations on that data protection on the product front. Having the bright mix. Having that certainly is going to be key as the buying cycle start to ramp up again. I want to get back to the business 'cause I'll check on the technology. Congratulations, I love cloud native, you know that. But check on the technology business model. You mentioned subscriptions. So can you talk about the trend on your customer side, the move from CapEx and OpEx. Because if you go cloud, the consumption will be subscription, there'll be more operating expenses. How does that impact the IT budgets? How do you guys align there? What's your answer to that, can you explain? >> Yeah, absolutely. We announced, late last year, so in the fall of last year, Dell technology is on demand family, and that's really our effort to focus more on our cloud like experience and consumption and product offerings. And part of that is our subscription, pay as you go model. And what we've found, and I'd love your perspective on this as well, is that, the moving from CapEx and OpEx has been a conversation and certainly when it comes to infrastructure, there's been some set of customers over the past 12 months that have been moving in that direction. We're seeing that accelerate, certainly in the infrastructure space, but as we all know, software is where that's already pretty well established. As I think you've said, that's table stakes. So we've seen that that's really the methodology, both from our standpoint and our customers' and our partners' is, when we're selling software, that's got to be really honest subscription basis. So that's why obviously, with PowerProtect Data Manager, it makes all the sense in the world to really focus there. And that's really part of our bigger initiative overall, to move towards more of these consumption based as a service OpEx models for our customers. >> Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up I'd love to share my opinion, because I do have opinion on this. And one of the things that's coming out of some of the COVID interviews with the practitioners and the customers and the insiders is, it's a developer lead market. So cloud native, we've been talking about for years and it certainly happened. But as the pandemic has shown, people are going to be coming out of this. They have to have a growth strategy, they got to have the foundational product sets and technologies in place. But the customers, your customers, have to have a growth strategy. They got to refactor. They got to look at what they want to double down in, and kind on what they want to cut back. Some things are pretty obvious now, what not to do. So it's clear there's lines of sight around certain things, but it's developer led. The applications are going to drive value of the business, and so I'm seeing the alignment between that trend of developer led with a flex of consumption based resource. So yeah, you get the foundational services. And then hey, if the app successful, you're just still in business. I mean, people are really worried about, even, making sure they come out of this not on a downward trajectory. They want to be on an upward trajectory. That's a really key thing for 'em, your reaction. >> Yeah, I mean, that really resonates. I think it's and when we look at just to go back to the technology a little, 'cause, I never can resist, is if you look even just PowerProtect Data Manager, one of the things that's so important is that, we've have built that to be both controllable by the application and users so they can do their own protection, but then have that centralized view. And that being able to have that consolidated and centralized management of data from a single console for IT. And I think that gets to the now the next level with developers is, we need to enable developers as seamlessly as possible in their own language to be able to protect, to be able to store data, so IT can feel good about it. But we have to be able to enable them in the way that they are needing to develop these applications as quickly as possible, and from an IT perspective, that means being able to do that on-prem, or even do that in the cloud, so that we can keep all of those policies in place and keep that centralized governance, but really support the acceleration and the digital transformation that those folks are driving. So I think it makes a lot of sense and it really resonates with our product strategy. >> I think there's going to be a slew of new applications that are going to need to have all kinds of strategies built in countermeasures, recovery, all new things are going to emerge. So you guys certainly will be certainly more busy than ever. I want to get your product kind of view on something why I got you here, because I think this is kind of key. As you look at your portfolio, you mentioned the tech and the tech, all the features that you have, what are the few that resonate the most, it means classic product marketing, I mean, everyone wants to know, we've got all these features, which is great. Which ones do you say, Caitlin, are jumping out right now that are resonating the most? 'Cause sometimes it's a feature that might not be that heavy tech, or it's something that's really differentiated, but the customers will glob onto key features, what are some of the things that you're seeing that are rising to the top in terms of the feature set? >> Yeah, and it's not the speeds and feeds of yesterday. And I think this, more broadly across storage and data protection is what we're finding. The speeds and feeds are good, and some people do want to have that conversation. But we've gotten to a point from a technology from an industry standpoint, that we're able to meet latency, the bandwidth, the throughput that people need. But what's more interesting and is more compelling and important to the business is, how can you help me change the way I'm running my data center, and inter-operate with the cloud, and therefore change the way I'm running my business. And some of the pieces that come in there, is automation. I think automation within systems to systems across the enterprise, across edge and cloud, that is so incredibly critical. The AI that we're building into platforms, the integration with whether it's VMware based with VRO, whether it's Ansible modules, intelligence, and this idea of having an autonomous data center that then has that connectivity to cloud and inter-operate then also with the edge, is so incredibly compelling. And again, not just for the large enterprises, but more and more for smaller ones. Because in this world, we need to help our customers have their data center run itself as much as possible, and whatever does require administration is as simple as possible, right? We've all gotten used to technology being as simple as our smartphones, this consumerization of IT has really changed the requirement of what people think simple means. So the things that you don't necessarily think about, and we don't necessarily market even that actively about, how important the number of clicks and the user interface and the seamless transition to products, as well as automation, is so critical. And I think the other ones we've already hit on, integration with multiple public clouds, that flexibility, support for containers, and Kubernetes and deep VMware integration are increasingly critical. And I think, for someone who's been in product marketing for 15 years, I couldn't be happier that our conversations have kind of moved off of speeds and feeds and into these much more compelling and business centric conversation, because, I think we can add a lot more value to the business that way. >> It also shows the strategic nature, you mentioned edge, these new environments. It's a multi environment that you have to have build products for. So it's not so much, how fast packets are moving back and forth, or this or that. It's really about the business value. >> Yeah, it's about the business value, the locality, the value of the data, it's really all about the data and how we can help our customers better manage that across all locations. But do that in a very, very simple way. But the requirement for what simple really means, has really, really raised the bar on that, and we're going to continue to push ourselves and challenge ourselves on that as well. >> Caitlin, I'll give you the final word, talk about choice. Choice has always been a big part of what you guys have offered customers, Dell Technologies has great storage. In this day and age, what does that mean for a customer? What have the choice mean? >> Yeah, and I think it's a delicate balance. And we've gone through quite a transformation over the past couple years here. And this summer was an exciting one for many reasons, but, we just recently completed that full simplification of our portfolio and we have our full portfolio of power solutions, all the way from PowerMax to PowerVolt, PowerStore, PowerScale, PowerFlex, and of course, the one we talked about today, PowerProtect. We now have that all in market. And I bring that up because, that is our simple portfolio to give customers best in class products across all of these different categories. And the fact that we have that choice, but, we've simplified that choice down to as few choices as possible, coming back to what we were just talking about. It's critical that we have solutions that meet the requirements of all of our different customers, but also that we don't give them more than that. That we need to give them choices that will meet their needs, but also not give them so many choices, that it's overwhelming. You don't want to be the cheesecake factory and not be able to choose what you want, you need to just be able to choose from what the options that really makes sense. And that's why I think it's really exciting now as we move into the second half of this year and look into next, we have that portfolio now, and we can focus on, which is the right combination of solutions for you. >> During the pandemic, people are reading a book, doing a hobby, you guys are updating your product portfolio. Congratulations on all the hard work, Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product. Great to see you. Thank you for spending the time, giving us an update on the data protection stuff. And again, congratulations for being so productive during a tough time and stay safe, thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me, good to see you. >> Okay, this is theCUBE coverage with Dell Technologies. Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product Marketing giving us the breakdown. Very productive for them during this time, and again, companies want a growth strategy when they come out of the pandemic. More than ever, infrastructure has to enable the software for the new solutions. Just to keep coverage, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world this is theCUBE Conversation. >> Hi everybody, This is Dave Vellante and welcome to this CUBE Conversation. We've been following a company called Actifio for quite some time. Now they've really popularized the concept of copy data management. Really innovative Boston based Waltham based company. And with me Brian Regan who's the chief marketing officer and Paul Forte who's the newly minted chief revenue officer of Actifio. Guys great to see you. I wish we were face to face at your June event but this will have to do. >> You're welcome. >> Thanks Dave. >> You bet Dave. >> Yeah, so Brian you've been on theCUBE a bunch. I'm going to start with Paul if that's okay. Paul, let's talk a little bit about your background. You've done a number of stints at a variety of companies. Big companies like IBM and others as well. What attracted you to Actifio? >> Yes Dave I would say in all honesty, I've been a software guy and candidly a data specific leader for many many years. And so IT infrastructure particularly associated around data has always been sort of my forte for on and onwards there. And so Actifio was just smack dab in the middle of that. And so when I was looking for my next adventure I had an opportunity to meet with Ash our CEO and founder and describe and discuss kind of what Actifio was all about. And candidly, the number of connections that we had that were the same. There are a lot of OEM relationships with people that I actually worked with and for some that work for me historically. So it was almost this perfect world. And I'm a Boston guy so it is in my old backyard. And yeah it was a perfect match for what I was looking for. Which was really a small growth company that was trying to get to the next level that had compelling technology in a space that I was super familiar with and could understand and articulate the value proposition. >> Well as we say in Boston, Paulie we got to get you back here. (laughs) >> I know (mumbles) so I'll pack my car. >> (laughs) Yeah. So Brian... >> For 25 years, I still got it. >> let's talk about the climate right now. I mean nobody expected this of course. And it's funny I saw Ash at an event in Boston last fall. We were talking like "Hey, what are you expecting for next year?" "Yeah a little bit of softening" but nobody expected this sort of black swan. But you guys I just got your press release. You put it out. You had a good quarter. You had a record first quarter. What's going on in the marketplace. How are you guys doing? >> Yeah, well I think that today more than ever businesses are realizing that data is what is actually going to carry them through this crisis. And that data whether it's changing the nature of how companies interact with their customers, how they manage through their supply chain and frankly how they take care of their employees, is all very data centric. And so businesses that are protecting that data that are helping businesses get faster access to that data and ultimately give them choice as to where they manage that data. On premises, in the cloud and hybrid configuration. Those are the businesses that are really going to be top of a CIO's mind. I think RQ1 is a demonstration that customers voted with their wallets and they are confident in Actifio as an important part of their data supply chain. >> Paul I want to come back to you. First of all I want to let people know you're an Ex-Army Ranger. So thank you for your service, that's awesome. >> You're welcome (mumbles). >> I was talking to Frank Slootman, I interviewed in the other day and he was sharing with me sort of how he manages and he says "Yeah I manage by a playbook". He's a situational manager and that's something that he learned in the military. Well it's weird. This is a situation. (Paul laughs) And that really is kind of how you're trained. And of course we've never seen anything like this but you're trained to deal with things that you've never seen before. So how you seeing organizations generally, Actifio specifically kind of manage through this crisis. What are some of the moves that you'are advising, recommending? Give us some insight there. >> Yeah, so it's really interesting. It's funny that you mentioned my military background. So I was just having this discussion with one of my leaders the other day. That one of the things that they trained for in the military, is the eventuality of chaos. So when you do an exercise we will literally tap the leader on the shoulder and say okay you are now dead. And without that person being allowed to speak they take a knee and the (mumbles) unit has to go on. And so what happens is you learn by muscle memory like how to react in times of crisis and you know this is a classic example of leadership in crisis. And so it's just interesting. So to me you have a playbook. I think everybody needs to start with a playbook and then start with the plan. I can't remember if it was Mike Tyson but one of my famous quotes was "Plan is good until somebody punches you in the face". (Dave laughs) >> That's the reality of what just happened to business across the globe. This is just a punch in the face. And so you've got a playbook that you rely on and then you have to remain nimble and creative and candidly opportunistic. And from a leadership perspective, I think you can't lose your confidence. Right, so I've watched some of my friends and I've watched some other businesses cripple in the midst of this pandemic because they're afraid instead of looking at this. In my first commentary in our first staff meeting Brian, if I remember it was this, okay so what makes Actifio great in this environment? Not why is it not great? And so we didn't get scared. We jumped right into it. We adjusted our playbook a little bit and candidly we just had a record quarter. And we took down deals. Honestly Dave we took down deals in every single geography around the globe to include Italy. It was insane, it was really fun. >> Okay, so this wasn't just one monster deal that gave you that record quarter. It was really a broad based demand. >> Yeah, so if you dug underneath the covers you would see that we had the largest number of transactions ever in the first quarter. We had the largest average selling price in the first quarter ever. We had the largest contribution from our nano partners and our OEM partners ever. And we had the highest number ever. And so it was really a nice truly balanced performance across the globe and across the size of deal sets and candidly across industries. >> Interesting, you used the term opportunistic and I get right on. You obviously don't want to be chasing ambulances. At the same time, we've talked to a lot of CEOs and essentially what they're doing and I'd like to get your feedback on this Brian. You're kind of reassessing the ideal profile of a customer. You're reassessing your value proposition in the context of the current pandemic. And I noticed that you guys in your press release talked about cyber resiliency. You talked about digital initiatives, data center, transformations etc. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that, Brian. Did you do those things, how did you do those things? What kind of pace were you guys at? How did you do it remotely with everybody working from home? Give us some color on that. >> Sure, and if Ash, if he were here he would probably remind us that Actifio was born in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. So we have essentially been book ended by two black swans over the last decade. The lessons we learned in 2008 are every bit is as relevant today. Everything starts with cost containment and cost reduction. Hence in protection of the business and so CIOs in the midst of this shock to the system. I think we're very much looking at what are the absolutely vital and critical initiatives and what is a "nice to have" and I'm going to hit pause on nice to have and invest entirely in the critical initiative. And the critical initiatives tended to be around getting people safely working remotely. Getting people safe access to their systems and their applications and their data. And then ultimately it also became about protecting the systems from malicious individuals in the state actors. Unfortunately as we've seen in other times of crisis this is when crime and cyber crime particularly tends to spike, particularly against industries that don't have the strong safeguards in place to really ensure the resiliency in their applications. So we very much went a little bit back to the 2008 playbook around helping people get control of their costs, helping people continue to do the things they need to do at a much more infrastructural light manner. But also really emphasized the fact that if you are under attack or if you are concerned that you're infected but you don't know when, instant access to data and a time machine that can take you back and forth to those points in time is something that is something that is incredibly valuable. >> So let's dig into cyber resiliency. So specifically what is Actifio doing for its customers from a product standpoint, capabilities, maybe it's part of the 10C announcement as well but can you give us some specifics on where you fit in. Let's take that use case, cyber resiliency? >> Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a stack of capabilities when it comes to cyber resiliency. At the lowest level, you need a time machine because most people don't know when they're infected. And so the ability to go back in time, test the recoverability of data, test the validity of the data is step one. Step two is once you found the clean point, being able to resume operations, being able to resume the applications operation instantly or very rapidly is the next phase. And that's something that Actifio was founded on this notion of instant access to data. And then the third phase and this is really where our partnerships really shine is you probably want to go back and mitigate that risk. You want to go back and clean that system. You want to go back and find the infection and eliminate it. And that's where our partnership with IBM for example, resiliency services and their cyber incident recovery solutions which takes the Actifio platform and then wrappers in a complete manage services around it. So they can help the customer not only get their systems and applications back on their feet but clean the systems and allow them to resume operations normally on a much safer and more stable ground. >> Okay, so that's interesting. So Paul was it kind of new adoptions? Was it increases from existing customers combination? Can you talk to that? >> Yeah, totally. So ironically to really come clean the metrics that we had in the first quarter were very similar to do with the metrics that we see historically. So the mix with mean our existing customer base and then our new customer acquisition were very similar to our historical metrics which candidly we were a little surprised by. We anticipated that the majority of our business would come from that safe harbor of your existing customer base. But candidly we had a really nice split which was great which meant that our value proposition was resonating not only with our existing customer base where you would expect it but also in any of our new customers as well who had been evaluating us that either accelerate it or just continue down the path of adoption during the timeframe of COVID-19. Across industries I would say that again there were some industries I would say that pushed pause. And so the ones that you can imagine that accelerated during this past period were the ones you would think of, right? So financial institutions primarily as well as some of the medical. So some of those transactions, healthcare and medical they accelerated along with financial institutions. And then I would say that we did have some industries that pushed pause. You can probably guess what some of those are. Among the majority of those were the ones that were dealing with the small and midsize businesses or consumer-facing businesses, things like retail and stuff like that. Well we typically do have a pretty nice resonance and a really nice value proposition but there were definitely some transactions that we saw basically just pause. Like we're going to come back. But overall yeah the feedback was just in general. It felt like any other quarter and it felt like just pretty normal. As strange as that sounds. 'Cause I know speaking to a lot of my friends in peer companies, peer software companies, they didn't have that experience but we did pretty well. >> That's interesting, you're right. Certain industries, airlines, I'm interviewing a CIO of a major resort next week. Really interested to hear how they're dealing with this but those are obviously depressed and they've dialed everything down. But we were one of the first to report that work from home pivot, it didn't, it didn't buffer the decline in IT spending that were expected to be down maybe as much as 5% this year but it definitely offset it. What about Cloud? We're seeing elevated levels in Cloud demand. Guys have offerings there. What are you seeing in Cloud guys? >> Do you want to take it Brian? >> Yeah, I'll start and then Paul please weigh in. I think that the move to the cloud that we've been witnessing and the acceleration of the move to cloud that we've been we've been witnessing over the past several years probably ramped up in intensity over the last two months. The projects that might have been on the 18 to 24 month roadmap have of all of a sudden been accelerated into maybe this year of our roadmap. But in terms of the wholesale everything moves to Cloud and I abandoned my on-premises estate. I don't think we've seen that quite yet. I think that the world is still hybrid when it comes to Cloud. Although I do think that the beneficiaries of this are probably the non-number one and number two Cloud providers but the rest of the hyper-scalers who are fighting for market shares because now they have an opportunity to perhaps, Google for example, a strategic partner of ours has a huge offering when it comes to enabling work from home and the remote work. So leveraging that as a platform and then extending into their enterprise offerings, I think it gives them a wedge that the Amazon might not have for example. So it's an acceleration of interest but I think it's just a continuation of the trend that we've been seeing for years. >> Yeah, and I would add a little bit Dave. The IBM held their Think Conferences past week. I don't know if you had an opportunity to participate. They're one of our OEM partners and... >> Dave: Oh Yeah, we covered it. >> When our CEO presented his opening his opening remarks it was really about digital transformation and he really put it down to two things and said any business that's trying to transform is either talking about hybrid Clouds or they're talking about AI and machine learning. And that's kind of it, right? And so every digital business is talking in one of those categories. And when I look to Q1 it's interesting that we really didn't see anything other than as Brian talked about all of the cloud business which is some version of an acceleration. But outside of that the customers that are in those industries that are in position to accelerate and double down during this opportunity did so and those that did not just peeled back a little bit. But overall I would agree with IBM's assessment of the market that those are kind of the two hotspots and hybrid Cloud is hot and the good news is, we've got a nice value prop right in the middle of it. >> Yeah, Alvin Chris has talked about, and he has it, maybe not a thing but he talked earlier in his remarks on the earnings call just in public statements that IBM must win the battle the architectural battle, the hybrid Cloud. And also that he wants to lead with a more technical sell essentially, which is to mean those two things are great news for you guys, obviously Red Hat is the linchpin of that. I want to ask you guys about your conference, Data-Driven. So we were there last year it was a really great intimate event. Of course you can't have the physical events anymore. So you've pushed to September or you're going all digital? Give us the update on that Brian. >> We're eager to have theCube participate in our September event. So I'm sure we'll be talking more about that in the coming weeks, but also >> Dave: Awesome, love it. (Brian laughs) >> Exactly, so you can tell Frank to put that in there. So we've been participating in some of the other conferences most notably last week learning a lot and really trying to cherry pick the best ideas and the best tactics we're putting on the digital event. I think that as we look to September and as we look to put on a really rich digital event one of the things that is first and foremost in our minds is we want to actually produce more on demand digital content particularly from a technology standpoint. Our technology sessions last year were oversubscribed. The digital format allows people to stream whenever they can and frankly as many sessions as they might want. So I think we can be far more efficient in terms of delivering technical content for the users of our technology. And then we're also eager to have as we've done with data driven in years past, our customers tell the story of how they're using data. And this year certainly I think we're going to hear a lot of stories about in particular how they use data during this incredible crisis and hopefully renewal from the crisis. >> Well one of my favorite interviews last year at your show was the guy from DraftKings. So hopefully they'll be back on and we'll have some football to talk about, well let's hope. >> Amen. >> I Want to end with just sort of this notion of we've been so tactical the last eight weeks. Right? You guys too I'm sure. Just making sure you're there for customers, making sure your employees are okay. But as we start to think about coming out of this into a Post-COVID Era and it looks like it's going to be with us for a while but we getting back to Quaseye opening. So I'm hearing hybrid is here to stay. We agree for sure. Cyber resiliency is very interesting. I think one of the things we've said is that companies may sub-optimize near term profitability to make sure that they've got the flexibility and business resiliency in place. That's obviously something that is I think good news for you guys but I'll start with Paul and then maybe Brian you can bring us home. How do you see this sort of emergence from this lockdown and into the Post-COVID Era? >> Yeah, this is a really interesting topic for me. In fact I've had many discussions over the last couple of weeks with some of our investors as well as with our executive staff. And so my personal belief is that the way buying and selling has occured, for IT specifically at the enterprise level, it's about to go through a transformation, no different than we watched the transformation of SAS businesses when you basically replaced a cold calling sales person with an inside and inbound marketing kind of effort followed up with SDR and BDR. Because what we're finding is that our clients now are able to meet more frequently because we don't have the friction of airplane ride or physical building to go through. And so that whole thing has been removed from the sales process. So it's interesting to me that one of the things that I'm starting to see is that the amount of activity that our sales organization is doing and the amount of physical calls that were going on, they happen to be online. However, way higher than what we can (mumbles), you coupled that with the cost savings of not traveling around the globe and not being in offices. And I really think that those companies that embrace this new model, are going to find ways to penetrate more customers in a less expensive way. And I do believe that the professional sales enterprise sales person of tomorrow is going to look different than it looks today. And so I'm super excited to be in a company that is smack dab in the middle of selling to enterprise clients and watching us learn together how we're going to buy, sell and market to each other in this post-COVID way. 'Cause the only thing I really do know it's just not going to be the way it used to be. What is it going to look like? I think all of us are placing bets and I don't think anybody has the answer yet. But it's going to look different for sure. >> They're very, very thoughtful comments. And so Brian, you know our thinking is the differentiation in the war. Gets one in digital. How is that affecting your marketing and your things around that? >> We fortunately decided coming into 2020, our fiscal 21, that we were actually going to overweigh digital anyway. We felt that, it was far more effective, we were seeing far better conversion rates. We saw way better ROI in terms of very targeted additive digital campaigns or general purpose ABM type of efforts. So our strategy had essentially been set and what this provided us is the opportunity to essentially redirect all of the other funds into digital. So we have essentially a two pronged marketing attack, right now, which is digital creating inbounds and BDRs that are calling on those inbounds that are created digitally. And so it's going to be a really interesting transition back when physical events if and when they do actually back and spawn, how much we decide to actually go back into that. To some extent we've talked about this in the past Dave. The physical events and the sheer spectacle and the sheer audacity of having to spend a million dollars just to break through that was an unsustainable model. (laughs) And so I think this is hastening perhaps the decline or demise of really silly marketing expense and getting back to telling customers what they need to know to help and assist their buying journey and their investigation journey into new technology. >> There in the IT world is hybrid. And I think the events world is also going to be hybrid. Intimate, they're going to live on but they're also going to have a major digital component to them. I'm very excited that there's a lot of learnings now in digital especially around events and by September, a lot of the bugs are going to be worked out. You know we've been going, feels like 24/7, but really excited to have you guys on. Thanks so much, really looking forward to working with you in September at Data-Driven. So guys thanks a lot for coming on theCUBE. >> Oh my gosh, thank you Dave. So nice to be here, Thank you. >> All right, stay safe. >> Thanks Dave, always a pleasure. You too. >> Thank you everybody, thank you. And thanks for watching. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE and we'll see you next time. (gentle music)