welcome to Dell Technologies work it's the Premier Technology event of the Year join John Furrier Dave vellante and Lisa Martin as they talk to the Trailblazers and trendsetters of future technology Dell Technologies World 2023 and the cube the leader in line an emerging high-tech coverage everyone welcome live at Dell Technologies World 2023 from beautiful sunny pretty toasty Las Vegas we're at Mandalay Bay Lisa Martin with Dave vellante Dave kicking things off as you called it this morning tonight Cube after dark you got the sleeves you hold up ready to dig it again a lot of news today we have some great conversations tonight you know what the Highlight was for me today is Michael Michael Dell's a walk-on song Starman did you catch that it was David Bowie Starman it was unbelievable that's right right I don't know well you know you have to do you know what you'd pick for your walk-on song I think it would be something like really upbeat maybe celebration all right little throwback speaking of Throwbacks we have a couple of alumni back with us Caitlin Jordan go Jordan joins us VP of product management cross-platform software and solutions at Dell great to see you again in person it is so nice to see you again I know yeah so nice in two years 20 basanas here as well SVP product development engineering at Dell Technologies guys it's great to have you here this place is packed the keynote this morning we were commenting on that day but looked like north of seventy five hundred eight thousand nine thousand we're hearing lots of good numbers people were ready to be well we were back last year but it looks like it's even bigger this year Caitlin a lot of news I think one of the words of the day is Apex talk to us about what's going on there and some of the great things that the Apex Cloud platform that Dell announced today we did make a few Apex announcements today one of those is a whole new portfolio of the Apex Cloud platforms and it's a really exciting I mean usually we introduce a new product maybe a couple new products but we introduced new portfolios this this year we were very excited to come back this year and really the Apex Cloud platforms it's really built for what we call our cloud to ground strategy how do we help our customers bring these Cloud operating models these Cloud operating environments to their Data Center and really transform the way that they can run their on-premises infrastructure it's built on a common set of building blocks of Dell Technologies infrastructure common compute common software-defined storage and automated management and orchestration stack that really simplifies infrastructure and yet it's also vertically optimized and vertically integrated with our partners we have announced three new platforms the Apex Cloud platform for Microsoft Azure the Apex platform Cloud platform for red hat openshift and of course the Apex Cloud platform for VMware exciting new extensions to our Partnerships with these three three Partners when you talk about the portfolio emphasis Caitlyn explain the Nuance there portfolio versus what just product yeah explain that being here for almost 18 years I've been launching product product and this time it wasn't about building a single product for a single problem them it was how do we build a portfolio of products that have common elements and then unique elements with each partner so it's both supporting this open ecosystem of Partnerships and really important strategic Partnerships but also how do we do that in a way that's common across those environments ultimately our customers have a variety of different challenges including skills gaps how do we help them have a similar infrastructure but yet support that choice across the different ecosystem Partners studio thinking about where you allocate your resources how are you placing your bets you got a hundred dollars to spend where are you where are you spending it so you don't get to stretched too thin but you're solving the problems the right place at the right time thanks to Dave I think uh as you heard today the hot topic for us is is multi-cloud and that's what we're we're out of the hundred dollars probably 80 to 80 are going into multi-cloud that's uh the Apex Cloud platforms the uh project Alpine that's now become a reality with Apex storage for public clouds those are those are the big things that we're focused on uh last year we stood up here we were here we were telling we were talking about multi-cloud uh by default and you know as we talk to our customers over the last year it's just coming more and more clear that the pain is real the pain of the cloud complexity of multi-cloud by default and and I think over the last year it's also become clear the cost the cost of having to do that if you think about the the cost of if we all know that cost is I mean cloud is more expensive than on owning your own equipment and doing that across multiple clouds is much more expensive so we set out really to solve the problem of how do you do multi-cloud by Design can I have a follow up on that um on the cost on the on the Cloud's more expensive generally because you're renting yes or maybe it's because there's margins there that AWS charges but but you're you're now renting yeah but you're renting it at better economics or sort of like thick because we think on-prem economics or is is it is it something else well so the easiest way to think about it is the how do you control the blend of on-prem versus rented infrastructure so that you achieve your best cost if if you don't have the ability to move data back and forth or applications back and forth then you're stuck so it's like a lot of our customers they find themselves they've sort of dug themselves into big holes in these clouds because they've just landed there and they have no way to get things out flexibly and that's what project Alpine or Public Storage Apex cloud storage for storage for public clouds gives them easy for you to say exactly so do you expand a little bit on we talked a lot as you mentioned last year and it was a number of times this morning in the keynote last year multi-cloud by default doubling down on multi-cloud by strategy by Design talk to us about some of the feedback you're hearing from customers how are you helping them go from multi-cloud by default and by default there's probably some chaos in there to really shifting and transforming that to a strategic direction that enables the business to not only perform well but be competitive new products and services what's that pathway like so I think that's uh what customers want multi-cloud by Design really is is about three things customers want first of all choice they don't want to be locked into any one specific solution to do that they need consistency yeah so you could try to do a multi-cloud by sort of balancing and and working with each Cloud separately but it but at that you you're going your cost of operations is going to be much higher versus if you had a consistent way of operating across all the clouds and the third is control right they want to be able to control the rate at which they're consuming any any of these services so that's what the Apex Cloud platforms brings to the table is that right on the cloud stack side the cloud platforms bring your choice of cloud whether it's Microsoft Azure red hat or uh or or VMware and then on the data side we bring that choice by having the Dell software-defined storage which is this available both on the platforms but as well as in the cloud and that gives them the control all done with the zero test security framework so you get the security part as well so okay the double click on that because it sounds good it's good marketing choice you have it your way Burger King so what does that mean for for Dell's customers you know specifically what are you hearing in the field everybody seems to have one of everything although customers like you guys they'll make bets we're going to bet on VMware we're going to bed on you know red hat or we're going you know mostly Azure not all in necessarily but so maybe you could you know take us through what this means to you and your customers I mean choice for us is it's an open ecosystem right our customers ultimately they have on-prem providers that they're making bets on and they have public Cloud providers they're making bets on and to date we haven't all necessarily worked together a lot to simplify what that feels like for a customer that's what we're changing is to be able to still have that choice be able to choose who are your hyperscaler most chances hyperscalers that you're working with who are your on-prem software vendors infrastructure vendors but the the flip on the script is we're actually all now working together obviously we've always worked well with VMware but now working with Microsoft working with red hat working with VMware says Mr customer you don't have to choose your vendor to get that simplification you choose your vendor for your workloads for your your transformation and we'll give you that simplification no matter what and that really comes down to Microsoft right if you are of standardized on Azure as your public Cloud you want to enable and provide some of those Arc enabled services in a data center of your choice we call it a data center Microsoft calls it an edge ultimately means it's not the public Cloud but you still want to have a consistent control plane for that you still want to have a consistent environment for that being able to support that transforming your operations but do that in a simple way and from our perspective do that with the same infrastructure in the same operating model that you could also do if you have some red hat some VMware in the environment maybe some combination maybe one or two of the others Red Hat obviously the leader in on-prem kubernetes being able to really accelerate the developer productivity something that openshift has always brought now you combine that with these new Apex Cloud platform for Red Hat you can accelerate the time to that value for the overall business one other follow-up if I may so we're talking earlier about the portfolio my takeaway was it sort of you went from the box mentality to you know more of a cloud service mentality how has your relationship changed with these Partners as a result of that because in the past you your goal was to we can run your software faster now I'm sure that's still important but is that it is it that simple just as a service or is there more to it than that there's a lot more to it a lot of what we're hearing from customers is just because they could can do something or maybe they even did it in the past they don't want to anymore they need to get out of the business of more things so ultimately that comes down to simplification and really what we're seeing and even even over the last six months as we've been working with each one of these Partners our partnership has really evolved in what we can bring what they can bring how do we collaborate together these are truly jointly engineered offers this is not just Dell or just Microsoft these are shared roadmaps how do we come together to bring our customers what they're asking for whether it's red hat Microsoft VMware and they all have kind of different flavors of what they're focused on but ultimately each we each see what each can bring to that partnership and it's not all necessarily even known today we're exploring that and figuring that out together listening to our customers together and it's a very new and exciting space to be because we see our customers struggling with where they are today and we think together we can solve that a lot better than we could apart severe talk a little bit about some of the challenges that customers have and how the Apex portfolio is really going to help them like dial down some of the challenges with skills Gap or compliance or security but I'm particularly interested in it resources having to do a lot more with a lot less so that skills Gap how will this help dial that down for businesses I think the the best example if I made was uh you actually heard it at the at the keynote this morning with uh with the customer CVS right so he talked about Roshan talked about how they went in they had a cloud strategy 1.0 and then they quickly realized that they have to train everybody on all these different Stacks where including the stuff that they had on-prem from from Dell and then they realized that having the same stacks on both sides allows them to have that same operational consistency and that saves tremendous amount of cost in the over time in the operation so there's the cost of the infrastructure itself we talked about earlier about being able to adjust the mix of uh rented versus own but then the bigger element is that operational consistency in the savings that that that brings on the and that's true both for the data side or the storage side that we talked about through the Apex storage for public clouds that we offer but also at the application stack side and that's where the Apex Cloud platforms come in because now whether you're a red hat user or a Microsoft user or a VMware user you can get the same operational experience so we're covering it through the entire stack I would say that's the biggest element so Caitlin I want to get your perspective on something that you and I have talked about this notion of equilibrium and as you know I've I've written a lot about repatriation kind of been a skeptic but as we were talking earlier the cloud repatriation index which is kind of a tongue-in-cheek index from this guy Charles Fitzgerald but it's true it's what it is is it's digital Realty and equinix revenue divided by AWS so what you're seeing is those two colos their growth rates are now in the mid teens as AWS so they're converging I don't know if it's something that's permanent or not which is something that we're watching it's like hot water reaches gets together with cold water the world reaches an equilibrium do you think that's what's happening do you not know yet what are customers telling you I don't think we know yet I think you and I agree that it's not necessarily a broad repatriation but it's certainly a broad optimization I think customers have moved out of cloud first I haven't heard that phrase from a customer in a long time and I've really moved into more of what I consider Cloud smart how do I really think about what belongs where in some cases yes things are moving back on but in more cases it's the public cloud has informed what it needs even just for their own efficiency but what they need to be able to deliver developer productivity to be able to meet their security requirements there's a different expectation ultimately the public cloud has shifted what we need to be able to provide our customers what they need to be able to provide theirs equinix is a great partner of ours part of the reason is that customers got out of the data Center business and a lot of times that literally just means the building right and then then equinex has an important role to play but everything else is the same they're still managing it they're still buying it but they needed to get that one step further you can go all the way the other way which is you want don't want to manage it you want it to be Opex you want it out of your data center and that's ultimately what we're trying to support is there's a little bit of a a shift in how customers are looking at anything they buy and really really reconsidering where do my workloads belong and how do I make sure that the infrastructure Investments I'm making all of the Investments I'm making move me towards getting towards my own equilibrium whatever that may be and I think customers have taken a step back to think about what that right balance really is going to be I'm glad you brought up Cloud first versus Cloud smart I've been hearing that a lot in customer conversations it's definitely a trend it's a it's a transition that we're seeing but how is Dell going to help customers in the multi-cloud by default go into multi-cloud by Design reducing the complexity and the chaos and actually become Cloud smart which I imagine is going to be fine-tuned differently for each individual business yeah it's gonna really evolve over time a lot of it comes into these these sides we've been talking about it's really the the trifecta we talked about in the keynote this morning which is helping our customers unlock their workload flexibility having that ground to Cloud so you can have that standard storage infrastructure on-prem and into the public Cloud you have that flexibility you don't have to compromise the storage service capabilities in the public Cloud it's also transforming what they can do in their data center that cloud your ground side of things but also I like the air traffic control we started talking about this morning and we've been making these products for a while I hadn't heard that is a good analogy but it's really not just the products themselves but then the EXP variants that we've built to go with that that's can I add to that if you don't mind yeah I was just thinking about what we talked about just now and reminded me it's we're actually starting to see with what we're doing here at Dell something you predicted which is the super cloud concept that's really what's going on here is yeah there's a need for it yes right technically you're that's your strategy that is interesting to me but so I want to come back to this idea of the equilibrium you guys both live the VMware ascendancy and there was a lot of skepticism that it could run any workload anywhere you know we looked closely at it and felt like okay well the mainframes figured it out maybe eventually Moritz was right and he was right I mean pretty much you know yeah you still need bare metal sometimes but generally speaking broad swath of workloads can run on VMware is the cloud different because of latency and other factors it seems like the cloud is at a really hard time moving those Mission critical or quasi-mission critical workloads into the cloud is it like VMware where they'll eventually get there or technically because of latency and cost it's not likely that you have an advantage what do you think about that you want to start or do you want me to I can start I think what's been missing quite honestly in the cloud is storage is Enterprise grade storage that's what's prevented I mean look look at the slas you get in the cloud today it's it's you'd be lucky if you get more than three nines right you can't run an Enterprise workload on that so I think what we're doing here is is for the first time bringing that Enterprise grade storage into the cloud that's what will start to create that Flex you know you don't want and the other thing is I think customers today would be cautious of doing that because they're moving something into the cloud can they move it back so it's a combination of both of those that I think will be enabling normally a storage stack over time would mature that the the new kid on the block has you know the snapshots aren't as good the virtualization et cetera et cetera but after 10 years it gets pretty good it seems like the cloud says uh get put that's it right we're good even the EBS stuff it's like okay that's right that's nice and then if you want to actually do recovery there's a piece over here or some partner thing here and it just doesn't seem like the emphasis is there on the stack and that's maybe a great thing for you it is right especially so if you look at both block and file so you wanna I don't know if you would well I was gonna I was gonna go a similar place which is I think it's very different from VMware in the sense that VMware was a technology driven Innovation transformation yes the uh the benefits were operational but it was fundamentally a technology driven public cloud is business driven right it's Opex it's agility it's developer productivity but it wasn't technology driven operational model yeah operation yeah and it wasn't really deeply rooted in the tech itself which is why I think now we're seeing the point where the public cloud storage Stacks yes they don't meet what our customers are asking for but also that's not fundamentally The Core case capabilities of what these hyperscalers can provide which is why we're partnering with them right is that they see that especially when you talk about block and certainly file they've tried and they know that that building that Enterprise grade file system is a very hard thing to do and we've already done it so why don't we partner together and let us invest in those dollars and they can invest in what they do and I think that's what that's a difference I think that we see versus customers win yeah yeah ultimately we all agree on that absolutely take us out Caitlin our last 30 seconds or so here some of the feedback that you've gotten today on some of the big Apex announcements from the customers and the prospects that are here customers are very excited I think we may have overwhelmed people we made a lot of announcements so I think there's a ton of to unpack and honestly we're in uncharted waters we're in a unique position as Dell Technologies to be able to go into new spaces but largely we're defining the Playbook as we go so a lot of the conversations we're having are just about what are we doing here why are we doing this how is this different than anything else it's very exciting uh it's certainly exciting to have a whole portfolio to talk about and we have no shortage of more conversations to come and you're defining it with customers Caitlin tudier thank you so much for joining Dave and me on the program tonight our inaugural guests for the cube at Dell Technologies World 2023 we have our next guest coming up Andrea Booker joins us and Steve Graham stick around Dave and I will be right back with our next guests live from Las Vegas thank you
2023-05-27