 Hey, welcome everybody. Jeff Frick here with the Cube. We're in the studio in our Palo Alto studio for a little conversation Bringing up to date with a special guest. We're excited to have Marie Hattar the CMO of Ixia in the studio. Welcome Thanks. It's great to be here. Absolutely. So for the folks that aren't familiar with Ixia, give us kind of the the overview Sure. Ixia is a mid-sized company that focuses on three areas One is test and probably most of our audience would be familiar with us. We develop test equipment that pretty much most of the major network equipment manufacturers use to ensure their products run exactly as They want them to. The other side of our business is more focused on the IT side and that's we have an extensive network visibility as well as security portfolio. So You know in a nutshell we help support Organizations through their full life cycle of IT all the way from tests till they move it to production So are your customers like the manufacturers of this type of equipment or really the the implementers of this type of both? Actually, we have we are used by the top 15 of The top 15 network equipment manufacturers you name it They use us whether your security vendor a networking vendor. You use our stuff To test their their gear to make sure their routers switches firewalls work exactly as you would expect them to But that's the I'll call it the pre-production side of it when you're trying to get things out of the lab into selling it to service providers and enterprises Service providers and enterprises actually use our stuff before they deploy it in live production and then they use our Equipment in live production more from an IT side to make sure the operations are as you expect making sure Application performance is working properly network performance their firewalls are getting the right data distributed to them So a lot of our visibility portfolio what it does is it's a very intelligent data distribution mechanism It makes sure it redirects a Lot of the information that you get from your network So if you think about it, you got your traffic going through your network And you want to make sure it's operating and there is no bottlenecks. There's no blind spots now Typically what people do is They sometimes some of them will use their switching gear like a typical say Cisco switch and they'll use this concept called span ports Which really mirrors the traffic and sends it off to some sort of tool, you know You name it like a splunk analytics tool or a riverbed performance manager Dynatrace, you name it In addition to that they typically that same traffic if it's coming in line goes to your firewall your IPS Before it actually enters your network Other vendors because they want to get data from multiple points not just from where the switch is They use technology called taps where they pretty much tap into the data and it mirrors it and Will allow you to scale it to send it to more tools so we sell a portfolio of taps, but then we also sell a portfolio of bypass switches and And the third piece of it which is really the intelligence piece of it What is called in the industry network packet brokers? And what that does is it amalgamates all that data that you're getting from the taps think about it you know you could be tapping into so many segments of your network and When that happens you've got a lot of replicated data because you know the same traffic may be crossing multiple points So before you send it to a performance management tool you kind of want to clean it up And that's really what our product does is it's intelligent It knows which tool needs what set of data cleans it up de-duplicates it If if for example the stay in age a lot of traffic is SSL encrypted for security Well, that's good and bad because You know if it's your stuff, and you know it's really clean That's okay, but malware could be hiding there So you want your tools to actually be able to inspect that and make sure It's not bringing in malware into your environment. So that's really our visibility portfolio and beyond that we also have We've introduced in the last year a new product that we call a threat intelligence gateway And what it is is it's really a security tool booster for lack of a better word. I like to use the analogy I don't know like at home. How much junk mail not not your email Just junk mail how much junk mail to you guys than it used to be that's a good thing Well, I don't know about you but like for me I I go home and I literally open my like my mailbox and there's usually about this much of mail of which probably about this much Is junk mail so I pull it out and I sit there and I go on my counter and it's like junk junk junk I don't know if this is junk or not because it looks legitimate, but it could be hokey Oh, this is from my mother, you know, I recognize for writing. This is legitimate Well in many ways our threat intelligence gateway does that same functionality what it does is it pulls out all the junk Traffic off your network. So if there's geos, you don't want to, you know, you let's say here in the cube You have no business with Afghanistan. You can completely block off anybody trying to send you traffic from Afghanistan So there's by location. You can block things out by by, you know, specific Segments, etc. So what it does is it really makes sure whatever is used like your firewall your IPS It's really getting the traffic that you're not sure about as opposed to having to waste cycles on things that you know is junk So that's our portfolio. So you're right in the middle of all kinds of big transformations that are going on We are we we we get in the front like for a lot of the Innovations of technology because they're trying to we actually have to outpace in some ways the innovations because our test gear is Testing these new innovations. So, you know, it's not like we wait for it to happen We actually have to we're almost always on the leading edge of any new standard that comes out Any any shift that happens so that we are designing the equipment to make sure as you bring that to market it works So let's talk about a few specific ones. So software defined a big knock was always a Virtualization getting into networking was the last, you know storage virtualization server virtualization Happened first and then you had this big lag with kind of network virtualization But now everyone's talking about software to find networking. How is that impacting your business? And how are you seeing that kind of play out within your customer base? So it is having an impact in that more and more people want To test the functionality. So the big thing depending on who you are if you're a service provider And you're shifting more towards using SDN and NFV functionality You want to make sure that as you migrate to that functionality that it works like it did in the physical world So you actually use our gear to make sure that the different services the performance is not degrading as you shift to an SDN NFV type of functionality, but beyond that what's happening is you also The the nature of the product is also shifting to be virtual So it used to be that our test products were just pure hardware oriented and we generate loads And that's how you test things and you still need to do that when you're Trying to generate like sort of a performance load, but if you're trying to do functionality testing, you know making sure, you know a goes to be and everything works properly We've developed a whole slew of what we call virtual additions, which pretty much you can roll back and deploy Software-wise anywhere in your network. So we're seeing a big shift happening where especially on I'd say on the testing side and and Also on I would say in the production side when you move to a virtual world that you need the tools the agents the capabilities To do everything virtually right right the other big trend obviously is cloud and there's cloud whether using You know third-party provider like AWS or Azure and then but also people want cloud like functionality within their own data center or other service providers basically kind of the on-demand capacity very different kind of of Infrastructure problem Versus when you just start kind of over provisioning putting in what you need and then as you get close to the to the peak of what you've Got in you got to order more stuff So as you see cloud growing and within your customer base and growth in the service provider business How how's that playing out for your customers? So it's interesting So again, I'll talk more about our visibility side because you know, that's an usage standpoint and what happens with With cloud let's break it into I'll call it private cloud and public cloud because hybrid is just the mix of two Which is basically what everybody uses so private cloud you pretty much own the infrastructure So you can put in whatever equipment or gear you want into that It's just what happens is it's virtualized and you know a lot of the challenge has been It was seeing east-west traffic as it goes, you know sort of intervirtual machine, but but companies like Ixia and We've developed that virtual tapping capability that we can actually Put in our agent in those virtual machines, whether it's you know a Microsoft hyper V or you know sort of VMware or you know you name it where essentially can go in there and can Replicate and move that data so you can actually see and monitor what's going on now when it comes to the AWS sort of the There's your type environments. Well, that's not your infrastructure anymore if you think about it so so the way to address that is a very different type of solution because You can't force them to install your your software on there You almost have to kind of create a capability sort of that's in some ways an agent oriented capability that You know an end vendor getting that that that piece of AWS can Implement to be able to monitor their data and I'd say that's a huge problem today Most people don't quite know what's going on in terms of that cloud infrastructure as it relates to their data Everybody's wants to use it. They love the economies of scale the agility But by the same token the tools are not all quite there for them to have that same level of inspection As when they have it locally and so so that's an area that you know, we're working with we're working with AWS Is it's Sarah to make sure that we are building that type of capability? So our customers can still have access to their data, right? It's their data It's their data and the other huge trend will two of them in one, but I'm going to combine them as is mobile And and video and video on mobile. I mean who would have thought right exactly Go that that everyone to be watching, you know an NFL game on there on their mobile device Or I don't even want to imagine what the network traffic percentage is when you know game of Thrones season finale Comes up on terms of the network beds a very different demand on the network than you know kind of traditional data packets That are in a database. So from you know, you're kind of historical perspective How is that really impacted? You know what the the network providers are trying to do and the technology of networking itself So as you know, I've been in the networking business I would say now for gosh, I'm gonna age myself over 20 years and and you know in The beginning it was just like it was really email transfers nothing more, you know So like it gets there who cares, you know, if not will retransmit no big deal time delayed no issue We we moved to along to voice and to to to video and Video was not that terribly reliable initially, but now I mean, you know, and any Friday night everybody's on Netflix You name it. I'll tell you my kids. I have two daughters. They are watching everything. We're in the car They're constantly watching everything on their phone full-fledged video So what it's meant is that a lot of the infrastructure that was traditionally just if you want non-mobile service provider infrastructure has had to move to new innovations whether it's LTE, you know There's a big shift now to 5g networks To support that bigger bandwidth and also to make sure that all the right compressions are happening on the video to Provide it as much of a real-time experience as possible. So it has changed, you know The one thing when you talk to service providers, there's always going to be more like demand for more bandwidth You know, it's never in the case of it's gonna be less bandwidth So at one point it was like, you know, who would have thought you would have filled up an ethernet cable And now it's like, okay, you know, that's shifted off to 10 gig 100 you name it the same thing is happening on mobile because none of us want to be tethered and And you just have to look at how, you know, whether it's like the snapchats You mentioned video specifically but for me I always look at that next generation and what they're doing and you know Their whole life is now on that phone and and how they're interacting whether it's video or, you know Like my daughter sits there in ooves for with five or six seven people at the It's like it's a multi a multi-video conferencing And and so it's you know, I'm used to the one-on-one face time I thought that's kind of my evolution and she's like, yeah, mom You're so passé like that's not what we all use, you know This is how we bring everybody on so we see everybody at the same time I was like, wow, this is really cool and it's all mobile. It's all on their phones, right, right? What's the other funny thing about mobile is is what really flipped the switch is, you know The expectation of it's an application centric world. It's DevOps. It's app developers. We got to get stuff out fast We got to get things out. We can't worry about the infrastructure a complete flip of the model where it used to be What's the infrastructure? Okay, can you build something that is supported by that now? The expectation is the infrastructure has to support whatever I build and oh by the way It has to be flexible scalable based on the cloud So it's really kind of changed the hierarchy of what is driving the bus. Yeah, it has I mean in many ways It really is changing the type of technologists people have I mean, there's definitely a big shift more towards app developers I would say then say the pure hardware guys who are you know, sort of developing a faster ASIC a Faster hardware board now. Don't get me wrong. Ultimately. Everything has to run on something physical but but at the end of the day a lot of the innovation is happening more towards the application side and And you're right I think I think the changes in technology the evolution is such that it's assumed that that Infrastructure is just there. It's just compute resources. So it's gonna work It doesn't matter what it is and the assumption is it's an app world people are driven by apps and And and the infrastructure will take care of itself You know, it's always cyclical though. Like that's the funny thing is is if you look back on history It's just it's always it's kind of like the the model of centralized versus decentralized I think hardware versus app centric has shifted But we're definitely in that very app centric world right now You know till till we actually hit a limit from a hardware standpoint and then that'll change right now We're not hitting any limits on the hardware side So we can afford to shift very much towards applications But it does create an interesting dynamic for a lot of companies that are more, you know sort of Have been very Transitioned into I would say a more hardware centric environment. I mean even my previous company at Cisco You know you listen to Chuck Robbins and he's Undergoing a whole transition where he's shifting his engineering base to be much more of a software centric model And and in many ways, you know, we have a bunch of folks at Ixia and you know Some of them are like yeah Like we were talking about one of the events that we're going to and they're like yeah Don't even think about taking you know any hardware. They're like we're the cloud era Like like some of us who grew up there don't even want to see any hardware. We're just not interested They don't know that a cloud is somebody else's computer, right? And then the next whole generation that's coming down the pike And I'm sure you're involved with it at Cisco and we do a lot of stuff with GE is the Internet of Things because you know Now if that network connection breaks down between, you know, the turbine or or a factory or whatever It's not like your daughter's not being able to get into the uvoo application There's some serious Consequences and networking is a big piece of that puzzle, especially when you have remote locations all kinds of environmental Conditions that are not beautiful and well controlled like in a data center So it's kind of this whole next generation of speed reliability and and kind of reach it it is and and actually we We develop test equipment for IOT devices. So for example You know, we have a whole RF IOT keep test chamber that lets you bring in Whatever IOT device you're using of any sort and and really test it under hardened conditions to make sure it operates This is particularly important, you know, not just in the industrial side, but in hospitals, for example You name it and then the other aspect with IOT is Is you know and this is something people don't always think about is who the heck is actually programming or building that IOT device And how good are they at understanding all the security risks or not? I mean who you know people don't think about this when they install a an IOT device of some sort of What it actually Could enable a hacker to do in terms of getting into that device and accessing all kinds of information about you or based on that Finding out additional information, you know, like a lot of times people have all these networks Whether it's the watches the Fitbits, etc. I mean you don't know what actually went into that software There's this assumption that yeah, yeah, it's all safe somebody's taking care of it but you just don't know and you know like you could so easily see an evolution where You know folks who are not so decent and nice would create networks that know, okay This person is not at his house at this point activate the thieves to go in and you know like break an enter of some sort So I think the whole IOT it's wonderful. It's innovative, but I think people need to step back and also Question has it really been fully tested. Is it truly as secure as we think it is Is it creating a new opportunity for somebody to get in and get additional information about us that we didn't expect to be exposed? And I think those are questions that a lot of people Just get so excited by the concept of it and don't do that do diligence, right? And then there's a whole bunch of social issues that that come up as well that I think are not Very well addressed my favorite being insurance just the whole model of insurance is based on aggregated risk pool That everybody pays into and then it pays out the poor unfortunate people would have bad things happen to them But when you can segment to one when when people know exactly my behavior based on where my phone goes how fast it moves Right much time. It's been on the couch. How much time it's running down to Mickey D's, you know What happens to the whole private privacy and aggregated risk exactly the guy that runs 20 miles a day He's gonna have cheap rates, but what about the person that doesn't I think there's a whole bunch of Social issues that come into, you know, all of this data-centric world of which were which were it is I I think it's really exciting I mean, that's what I love about technology is it's always shifting. It's changing the issues that we face change dramatically with that You know, you talked about the social issues of insurance I mean heck, you know There's the social issues of just even social media these days and in terms of how you you update and what you Communicate and and and how people are using that to to actually almost do corporate espionage on each other It's just you know, it's it just each technology shift brings with it a I'll call it a Social shift or cultural shift that has to be addressed Well, Maria, we could go on forever and ever unfortunately we we are out of time So we'll have to leave it there. Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day and stopping by Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I'm Jeff Rick. You're watching the Cube We are in the studio and follow out though. We'll catch you next time. Thanks for watching