 Back to Boston Messages, we're here live. This is SiliconANGLE and Wikibon's exclusive coverage of HP Vertica's user conference. The hashtag is HP Big Data 2013. We're watching the Twitter stream. This is theCUBE, our flagship program. We go out to the events, extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE. I'm joined by my co-host. Hi everybody, I'm Dave Vellante at wikibon.org. Deborah Ann Braun is here. She is the director of Global Information Solutions at HP. She's an IT practitioner. She's the director of Global Information Solutions at HP. She's an IT practitioner within HP's Information Technology Organization. Deborah Ann, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for coming out. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me today. So you were telling us off camera you've been pretty busy. Yes. All the partners and sales guys dragging you around actually asking you to talk about how you're implementing. So tell us what you've been doing here the last few hours. Well we started off with a presentation this morning talking about the Vertica partnership with ClickView and how HP is using it internally to deliver our executive dashboards for software. And we had a lot of really good conversations about not only the partnership between Vertica and ClickView but also some of the impacts on the industry on big data. And can I tell a story? I have a story. I have a story. This is great. So I told the story this morning in my presentation as well. I was coming down the elevator this morning and a lady was in the elevator with me and she noticed my badge and she goes so what is this big data thing? I'm like she kind of caught me off guard. I'm like what? There's this big data thing. I was like oh the Vertica conference and she's like yeah can you tell me a little bit about it? And so I kind of give her like a 10 second overview. And just as the elevator door is open she looks at me and she goes so how big is big data? And I just like completely laughed to myself because that's the question of the hour. Exactly. How big is big data? And I asked her I said well are you in IT? Do you know anything? She's like no but I mean is it that important? Is big data that important? And I was so compelled to tell that this morning in the group that we were in because the concept of what big data was three, five years ago people were afraid of petabytes. And today we look at Xenobite and we're just like we'd laugh in the face of big data. The data that we're collecting and managing and using to help us understand our business is better. We don't look about it in terms of how big is the data. We really focus on how do we answer the right questions and we need tools like Vertica to help us manage the process of getting to that data. And that's what is I think a really good sweet spot for Vertica. In my career in working in business intelligence and data warehousing it's one of the strongest vendors I've seen come in a really long time that adds a new concept to data and managing data and analyzing data. So it was exciting. Big data, big deal. You've seen that before. And you know the other thing too is that woman in the elevator you're probably going to give her a hundred examples where she's touching the big data. Absolutely. So when you made that comment about Vertica from a practitioner's perspective, what is compelling and alluring about the technology, the architecture, what is it about the software? That's a great question. And as a matter of fact I just got out of a session. I was in a session where they were talking about expanded analytic capabilities within Vertica today. And I think to me that's as an actual user of the product and I look to Vertica to really continue to expand its suite. It's the ability that they have to integrate analytics within the Vertica platform. I think that that's very important versus having to go outside looking at an analytic engine provider within Vertica itself. We have the ability to use that capability to drive analytic solutions. And I was very excited to hear about the extensions that they talked about today in some of our sessions because it's going to further take that capability a lot faster down the road. And the competitors with all their respect are great competitors of Vertica. But I don't see them focusing on that analytic space which is what makes Vertica I think very unique. So add some color to that if you would Debra. You're talking about the analytics. You're talking about statistical capabilities. Obviously you're partnering with a lot of the visualization. Can you just add some detail there? Absolutely. So we're talking about definitely doing a lot of predictive analytics where we're looking to identify based on historic information where are we going. We are also looking at some functions that help us parse through data faster and make smarter decisions based on the results of information that we see. So it's really a combination of prediction and aligning the data. And then the statistical analysis is just amazing. The things that you can do, the formulas that you can derive information from. Out of the box. Out of the box. Debra, and talk about the customers here. Because one of the things we're really impressed by is the heavyweight type players here. There are no lightweights here, as we said earlier on theCUBE. And sometimes when you see these conferences, they cobble together some customers, buying some free airline tickets, getting them to the game. Some of those. They kind of parade around. And we see, there's some hotshots here. They're all pioneering and emerging areas where big data is competitive advantage. What do you see in that regard and how is that infiltrating into the folks that are now crossing the CASA? Because those pioneers are set in the stage, set in the agenda. And they're working with Vertica and all kinds of new BI use cases are emerging as well as on the data warehouse side. So talk about that dynamic. The pioneers, from web scale to large, pushing the envelope companies and the enterprise to the followers now that can come on board and cross the CASA. Sure. And I think I can touch on a lot of that. I sat in a panel today with some folks from GE. So talk about foundation. We have a company like GE who has been around forever. And they are using analytics to help them understand better consumers' usage of power and energy and how they can improve on that. And what was so intriguing is the gentleman who was sitting on the panel with me from GE. He was just, he knew from start to finish. He talked about the leverage that GE is taking using Hadoop as a data lake for collecting and managing data through how they're taking device data and actually analyzing the device data to truly understand how they can improve their products proactively for consumers. So it's real world what we see a large company a partner of HP doing to, I spoke to some smaller companies that are really partners with HP as well and had some really good conversations where they're new to Vertica. They've worked with HP for years but they want to start serving our mid-level customers as partners by supporting Vertica. But there hasn't been a lot of information to them on, we don't use it internally so we don't know how to sell and manage it but we have customers who say, you know what, I have a need to do some of this really cool analytics stuff that everyone is talking about but not to the scale of what a large customer might be doing and I think in two or three conversations that I had today there's a relative gap that you can see where companies who can invest tens of millions of dollars to truly go down a path of an architecture and development and analytics. You've got your kind of mid-level companies out there going, you know I only maybe have a million to a million to spend. How do I get in on this? And Vertica's perfect for them because Vertica serves all. So again it was interesting how I've got some really huge top players who are, I'm just throwing money at this to guys who really want to get into the space who now can as a result of what HP supports. Well also there's some technical folks who are really intrigued by them what you guys are enabling. We talked to one practitioner obviously we're exclusive here and part of that we can't talk about some of the big scoops that we were getting and we're getting many here believe me as soon as the embargo is lifted we'll be blocking like crazy a lot of the inside data. No but seriously one guy's like look at Vertica solves a huge problem the way they cluster that is a massive enablement the speed issue goes away I can now build software on the BI side from scratch and throw away the legacy constraints involved in BI. Now that's a tech dude that's an engineer that's a developer that's not an analyst so that's interesting seeing the programmer say hey I love the vertical clusters I love how it scales and the speed that's an interesting dynamic. Absolutely and I myself maintain hands on with technology because I think it's the only way I can actually talk about it with some level of truth I do it if I don't do it I can't talk about it and today they brought it one of the slides and it was just like all of these sequel functions and they're talking through what these functions do and I had all of these well no I was like oh no this is over my head I think but all the guys around me with their arms were up and they're like can I ask a question about that so how does that function integrate properly in the sequel do I call it from a sequel command and just pass that information in and it was so great to see the level of excitement and a statistic I will give to you that you may not have heard from other people is I participated in all of the three level of tracks today and I will tell you that I would I guarantee you that I would say 40% of the people that were committed in those tracks were in the tech tracks and I would say over 60% of the total track population this afternoon has been in the tech tracks in which track in the tech tracks so the technology tracks because we got the ecosystem and everybody I mean the room was standing room only this afternoon I turned around and I couldn't believe it I was like wow this is impressive and there's about 200 seats in that one room so that leads me to another question so you mentioned the term data lake by the way I have to say John Furrier said the lake is too small it's a data ocean so I hate the data lake I hate the data nebulous universe data world so guest genes is announced that they're going to have computers on the guest genes we brought that up to now I'm only kidding so this we had the guest guy earlier the sensor network the sensor network going on there that's right so this is meme of big data you talk to the lady in the elevator everybody's going crazy about it and it seems to be largely led by technology in many cases in many organizations so my question is you've been around data your entire career you were CIO you were consulting around data data warehouse expert database expert how has this big data meme theme changed the way in which organizations are thinking about big data who owns the data strategy and is there a risk that it's largely technology driven to your point about these tracks a lot of technology buzz going on are we at risk of making some mistakes by not looking at the broader picture what do you see as organizations or what would you advise putting your consultant hat that organizations should do with regard to their data strategy should there be a data czar should that individual report into IT talk about that a little bit I'm going to have to give you my personal opinion on this one I'm going out on the limb and I think a lot of people would agree with what I'm about to say for years in the data industry we've been talking about ensuring that you have business partners and that the business is who is driving your data strategy not IT no IT projects I'm in IT so that's almost like heresy for me to say that and I know that we have the ability to influence the business in a positive way down that data road but I firmly believe that I've always believed that the business themselves must own the strategy and drive the strategy for it to be successful because then you're always working uphill to get them to want to be a part of it and to participate as wholly and completely as they have to so I think even as we move forward technology wows us sorry I just saw that picture you popped up yeah that's you why are your tweets protected I just followed you on Twitter yeah I smart I don't know if we're allowed to go into my social media choices but are you media trained no I just I'm a very private person and I'm here doing that you sure do great talking and we love you I love you you're a cute legend am I getting any good tweets on in this video? how's it going? but I mean when it comes down to it I think if we were if we do it right and as HP we like to think of ourselves as doing it right I will be selfish and say that in George Kadifa we have one of the best business executives I have come across in my years I've never seen someone as committed nor his leadership as committed to getting it right by partnering with IT we also have a very strong IT group within HP with very strong IT ideas and ideals and I do see that the work we're doing today is driving a strategy together and I don't know if that's possible for everyone I don't know if you know some some business they're like what why do I care about data and their IT group is like no because you're asking me constantly for information so I don't think there's a one size fits all but I do believe that we're on the right path of having a governance and ownership from a data stewardship standpoint from within the business and an IT organization that will help elevate the strategy as well as making sure that where the business falls short potentially in what we think needs to happen in the vision of the future we're picking that up and saying hey but let's do this also and let's add this in there it's strongly the combination that makes us successful well and coming out of the decade of the late 90s early 2000s there was a lot of finger pointing at IT does IT matter there's a lot of cutting to the bone and a lot of people were down on IT and it feels like it wouldn't be common on this that the data is bringing a renaissance to the technology business because what you just described with George Kedifah a business head aligning with IT in a pretty proactive way those stories were few and far between but you're hearing seems anyway more and more do you see that outside your organization I would say here in the business customers that we have here I'm seeing that I also went to our HP Discover event in June and had the opportunity to meet with some customers as well met some really great customers and I think I'm seeing that maybe that has something to do with how we ourselves consume so much data every day I mean you guys are all over the web all the time I mean we all do it right and so I think people now get it a little bit more about data and why it's so important because they're actually participating in the creation of data that's being used to benefit them I don't think people really understood before I mean marketing was marketing you saw something on TV it looked good you buy it right but now the information that we're gathering from people we're actually using it to make their lives better and being proactive I don't know about you guys but I think one of my favorite things in the world is to walk in a store and first of all they recognize me but they also have done such a good job of profiling what I do that they're like actually we have some suggestions for you today why don't you come over here and look at this and because of that and people see the power and the strength that in their own lives is better they bring it into their company and say you know what that same thing that I got I want my customers to have and any time you get that sense of ownership I think your perspective changes yeah and then replicating that in a digital footprint that's one of the things that we were talking to Bruciana guess about is how do you create that metaphor online yeah absolutely and the answer is data yeah or you could just make jeans a size bigger and label them a size smaller than all the women that's a great idea we should do that that's all my guest people all mine awesome alright so what's next for you it sounds like you travel around a lot and good spokesperson for HP love HP, I'm an HP fan we have a lot of programs going on right now within the organization that we're doing to help benefit and provide more information so we can help our customers unfortunately some exciting things I can't talk about either haha but also I have an opportunity very soon to take our message out to some of our folks in India and Guadalajara and share with them some of the strategy and help them to understand because I have a personal belief that everybody has a vested interest in what we do and you can't just point to someone and say well go write this code or go do this we're all about making sure that everyone has an opportunity to truly understand the strategy of it no matter what role they play and also having them give feedback because information is so available nowadays you know you have people in other parts of the world who you don't communicate with on a day to day basis who have a really great idea that you just haven't thought of yet and so I'm also going to try to take some time to start learning from others as well who are dabbling in some of these new technologies because I mean if I were to be completely honest I think we're kind of reaching that final point again in technology where so much new technology has been recently introduced with Hadoop and the overwhelming prospects of what Hadoop provides and then all of the things around it and you've got other I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about Microsoft but we have large companies who are like starting to recognize that hey maybe we need to get in that space too we need to play a role that I think things are going to be stagnant for a while while we all get our arms around this and my vision has always been when everyone gets stagnant that's when I get creative Yeah so you're right there's a lot of disruption coming on and a lot of disruption is the economics of the new stuff is so much different than the old stuff there's that transition going on and that's a great opportunity for innovation isn't it? Yes it absolutely is So what about advice to young people looking to get into the data business how are we to find that trying to get into the data ocean what would you advise the kids in college kids coming out of college staying in school thinking about going into the spinach study data science math and that's what I was going to say is this whole new cool funky role called the data scientist first of all it shouldn't necessarily be envisioned as some guy sitting around with glasses and his little note pad and his pocket and pens this is actually a really glamorous role I think it's something that we should aspire for is to be someone who's a reputable expert on data I think is sexy and I think that it's a much needed asset instead of today we go out there and we use the term I want to hire a data scientist we all know what that means in the technology community but how many are really out there and so long term there's going to be so much data that we're gathering and storing and because we all believe you don't get rid of a single piece of data that who's going to go through it so I think I feel like there's going to be a really solid revival in what we call data analysts what a data analyst was and what they are today are two different things so I think that that's a really good space for people to go from like a college intern opportunity into a data scientist role the data scientist will become like the DBA of the past Hal Varian's comment about data sciences being the sexy job and of course we were at MIT a few weeks ago and Mike Rappo is a professor at North Carolina State they run actually probably the premier data science training and education curriculum in the country and he was saying that his students coming out of college make $150,000 to $200,000 right out of the bat so it is lucrative as well it is a very lucrative position and if anyone's looking Deborah, great to have you on the Cube really appreciate your comments and your predictions and your bold statements and also great knowledge, thanks for sharing this is SiliconANGLE with you on the Cube we'll be right back with our next guest after this short break, this is two days of exclusive wall-to-wall coverage of the HP Big Data 2013, the Vertical User Conference a lot of great stuff here, more use cases more customer stories, more technology discussions here inside the Cube, we'll be right back after this short break