 Hello everybody, John Walls here as we continue our coverage of AWS re-invent here on theCUBE and Tate. We're going to talk about the edge. What's out there on the edge? And how do we make sense of it? How do we use that data and put it to work? And how do we keep it secure? Big questions, a lot of questions that at the end of the day. What's the value prop for you, the customer to make it all work? With me to talk about that is the executive vice president and GM of HPE GreenLake, Keith White. Keith, thanks for joining us here on theCUBE. John, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity and excited to have a conversation today. Yeah, good. Well, let's just jump right in and first off about the edge. There was a time not so long ago that it was kind of the wild, wild West out there, right? And we're trying to corral this fantastic reservoir of data that was streaming in from every which point to the point now we've realized how to refine that, how to develop that, how to reduce that complexity to make that actionable. Let's talk about that journey a little bit about where we were with edge technology, maybe five, six years ago and how we've migrated to the point we are now where GreenLake is doing the great work that it is. No, it's really a great question, John. Cause I think there's a lot of different definitions of the edge and what does the edge actually mean? And you're right. You know, there's been a pretty big transformation over the last few years, especially as we think about things like IoT and just being able to engage with edge scenarios. But today what you're seeing is a lot of digital transformations happening with companies around three big mega trends. Cloud, meaning hybrid cloud, multi-cloud data and how you analyze that data to make decisions. And of course the edge like we're talking through. And, you know, frankly with the edge, this is where we see the connectivity and security requirements really connect because that edge information is so important, so critical to stay secure, but also it's creating that tremendous amount of data as you mentioned and so folks wanna pull that into their cloud environment and then make decisions and analyze that data and plug it into the systems that they have overall. And, you know, you're seeing companies like Auckland Transport, right? They basically do an AI enhanced video feed to optimize their transport routes. And as you think about supply chain and the big challenges that we're seeing today or you think about public transportation and, you know, really providing information with respect to customers, but how do you take and get all that information pulled together to then make decisions from these various edge points throughout? Or a company like ABB who's been building the factory of the future and doing basically, you know, robotics as a service if you will, in order to really get that precision required at the edge in order to manufacture what they need to. So, massive uses around the edge, massive data getting created and HB GreenLake's a great spot for folks to help, you know, really take in and leverage that data to make those decisions that are required. You know, one example in terms of case studies or in terms of your client base that you can talk about, you know, the automotive sector and I think about what's going on in terms of with that technology and the, I can't even imagine the kind of mechanics that are happening, right? In real time at 60, 70 miles an hour do all kinds of environmental conditions. So maybe just touch base too about what you're doing in terms of automotive. No, it's great, John. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's an awesome question because, you know, we're working closely with a lot of the car manufacturers as well as their sort of subsidiaries, if you will. So you look at autonomous driving, which is a great example. All that data has to come in and get analyzed. And if you look at a company like Volvo they use a third party called Zenziac who basically uses our high performance compute to deliver it as a service through HPE GreenLake. They get all this massive parallel computing modeling and simulations happening with all this data coming in. And so what we've done with GreenLake is we give them that ability to easily scale up to grow capacity, to get access to that hundreds of petabytes of data that you just mentioned. And then, you know, really basically take and make analytics and AI models and machine learning capabilities out of that in order to really direct and fuel their mission to develop that next generation software to support that autonomous driving capability. And so you're seeing that with a ton of different car manufacturers as well as a lot of different other scenarios as well. So your spot on automotive is a key place for that. You know, and to the similarities here, the common thread, I think threads actually plural are very common. We think about access, right? We think about security, we think about control, we think about data, we think about analytics. I mean, all these things are factoring in in this extraordinarily dynamic environment. So is there a batting order or a pecking order in terms of addressing those areas of concern or what kind of, I guess, learning curve have we had on that front? Well, I think the key is, as I mentioned earlier, so you have this connectivity piece and you've got to be able to connect and be available as required. That might be through SD-WAN, that might be Wi-Fi, that might be through a network access point, et cetera. But the key is that security piece of it as well. Customers need to know that that data and that edge device is very, very secure. And then you've got to have that connectivity back into your environment. And so what we've learned with HPE GreenLake, which really what that does is that brings that cloud experience, that public cloud experience to customers in their data center, on-premise, in their colo or at the edge like we're talking about now. Because there's a lot of need to keep that data secure, private, to make sure that it's not out in the public cloud and accessible or those types of scenarios. So as I think about that piece of it, then it turns into, okay, how do we take all that data and do the analytics and the AI modeling that we talked about before? So it's a really interesting flow that has to happen. But what's happening is people are really transforming their business, transforming their business models as we just talked about. Factory of the future, transportation needs, we're seeing it in different environments as well. Automotive as you mentioned, but it's exciting. It's an exciting time with all of this opportunity to really change not only how a business can run, but how we as consumers interact and engage with that. And ultimately for the company, the value prop's got to be there. And you've already cited a number of areas. Is there one key metric that you look at or one key deliverable that you look at here in terms of what the ultimate value proposition is for a customer? You bet. I think the biggest thing is our customers and their satisfaction. And so to date, we have well over 60,000 customers on the platform. We have a retention rate of 96%. So a very, very small number that haven't stayed on the platform itself. And that means that they're satisfied. And what we're seeing also is a continued growth and usage for new environments, new workloads, new solutions that a customer is trying to drive as well. And so those are some of the key metrics we look at with respect to our customer satisfaction, with their retention rate, with their usage capabilities, and then how we're growing that piece. And the interesting thing, John, is what we've learned is that HPE as a company traditionally was very hardware focused. It was a hardware vendor, transacting, responding to RFPs for compute storage and networking. With GreenLake now moving into the cloud services realm, we're now having conversations with customers as their partner. How do we solve this problem? How do we transform our business? How do we accelerate our growth? And that's been very exciting for us as a company to really make that significant transformation and shift to being part of our customer's environments in a partnership type way. Yeah, now you're talking about ecosystem, right? And what you're developing, not only in your partners, but also maybe what lessons you're learning in one respect you can apply to others. What's happening in that respect in terms of the kind of universe that you're developing and how applicable maybe one experience is to another client's needs? Yeah, no, it's a great question because in essence, what happens is we're sort of the tip of the spear and we're partnering with the customers to really go in deep and understand how to utilize that. We can take that learning and then push that out to our ecosystem so that they can scale and they can work with more customers with respect to that piece of it. The second is, is that we're really driving into these more solution oriented partners, right? The ISVs, the system integrators, the managed service providers, the colos and even the hyperscalers as we've talked about and why we're here with our friends at AWS is customers are requiring a hybrid environment. They want to leverage tools up in the public cloud but they also want the on-prem capabilities and they need those to work together. And so this ecosystem becomes very dynamic with respect to, hey, what are we learning and how do we solve our customer's problems together? I always talk about the ecosystem being one plus one equals three for our customers. It has to be that way and frankly, our customers are expecting that and that's why we're excited to be here today with our friends at AWS. Yeah, how does open play in all this too, right? Because that provides, I assume, the kind of flexibility that people are looking for, that having that open environment and making it an opportunity available to them is a pretty big attractive element. It's huge, right? Yeah, as you know, people don't want to get locked into single technology and don't want to get locked into a single cloud. They don't want to have to, they want to be able to utilize the best of the best. And so maybe there's some tools in the public cloud that can really help from an analytic standpoint but we can store and we can process it locally in our data center at the edge or in a colo. And so that best of both worlds is there but it has to be an open platform. I have to be able to choose my container, my virtual machine, my AI tools, my capabilities, my ISV application so that I have that flexibility. And so it's been fantastic for us to move into this open platform environment to be able to have customers leverage the best in what's gonna work best for them and then partnering with those folks closely to again deliver those solutions that are required. You know, this is, I mean, it appears as I'm hearing you talk about this in terms of the partnerships you're creating, the ecosystem that you're developing, how that's evolving, the lessons that you've learned, the attention you've paid to security and data analytics. I get the feeling that you've got a lot of momentum, right? A lot of things are happening here. You've got big mo on your side right now. Would you characterize it that way? Yeah, you know, there's a ton of momentum. I think what we're finding is customers are requiring that cloud experience on-prem. You know, they're getting it from AWS and some of the other hyperscalers but they want that same capability on-prem. And so what we've seen is just a dramatic increase with respect to usage customers. We're adding hundreds of customers every quarter. We're growing in the triple digits, three to the last four quarters. And so yeah, we're seeing tremendous momentum but as I said, what's been most important is that relationship with the customer. We really flipped it to becoming that partner with them. And again, bringing that ecosystem to bear so that we can have the best of all worlds. And it's been fantastic to see and frankly, the momentum's been tremendous. And we're in a quiet period right now but you'll see what our earnings are here in the next couple of weeks and we can talk more details on that. But in the past, as we talked about, we've grown triple digits, three to the last four quarters and well over $3 billion, well over $8 billion of total contract value that we've been implemented to date and the momentum is there. But again, most importantly is we're solving our customer's problems together and we're helping them accelerate their business and their transformation. Well, now you mentioned earnings or the reports a few weeks away. I saw you smile that big, oh, you're grand. So I have a feeling the news is pretty good from the HB Green Lakes side. It is, we're excited about it. And again, this really is just a testament to the transformation we've made as a company in order to move towards those cloud services. And you'll hear us talk about it as the core of what we're doing as a company holistically again because this is what customers are requiring. This is what our ecosystem is moving towards and it's been really fun. It's been a great ride. Excellent, Keith, appreciate the time and keep up the good work and I'll look for that earnings report here a few weeks. Awesome, thanks so much, John. Take good care. Appreciate it. Keith, why joining us here, talking about HPE GreenLite and the fine work they're doing in terms of bringing that the edge back into the primary systems for a lot of companies. So good work there. We're continuing our coverage here on theCUBE. You're watching theCUBE coverage of AWS re-invent and I'm John Walls.