 Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of KubeCon here in Motor City, Michigan. My name is Savannah Peterson and I'm delighted to be joined for this segment by my co-host, Lisa Martin. Lisa, how you doing? Good, we are. We've had such great energy for three days, especially on a Friday. Yeah. That's challenging to do for our technical friends. Go all week, push through the end of day, Friday. But we're here, we're excited. We have great conversation coming up. Absolutely. We'll be back with us. Love it. We're going to have a great conversation about learning. There's been a lot of learning this week and I cannot wait to hear what these folks have to say. Please welcome Tom and Victoria from Cast and Bybeam. You guys are swagged up very well. You've got the fanny pack, you've got the vest. You even were nice enough to give me a car heart, being a car heart, being a Michigan company. We've had so much love for Detroit and locally sourced swag here. Never seen that before. How has the week been for you? The week has been amazing. As you can say by my voice probably. The mic help story, you're good. Yeah. So we've been talking to tons and tons of people, obviously some vendors, partners of ours that was great. Seeing all those people face to face again, because in the past years we haven't really been able to meet up with those people. But then of course also a lot of end users. And most importantly, we've met a lot of people that wanted to learn Kubernetes, that came here to learn Kubernetes. And we've been able to help them. So feel very satisfied about that. When we were at VMware Explorer, Tom, you were on the program with us. Just I guess I was a couple of months ago I'm listening track so many events are coming up. Time is a loop. It's okay. It really is. You teased some new things coming from a learning perspective. What is going on there? All right, so I'm happy that you linked back to VMware Explorer there. Because yeah, I was so excited to talk about it, but I couldn't and I was frustrating. I knew it was coming up. I knew it was going to be awesome. So just before KubeCon, we launched KubeCampus, which is the rebrand of learning.cast.io. And Victoria is the great mind behind all of this. But what the gist of it, and then I'll let Victoria talk a little bit, the gist of KubeCampus is this all started as a small webpage in our own domain to bring some hands on lab online and let people use them. But we saw so many people who were interested in those labs that we thought, okay, we have to make this its own community. And this should not be a branded community or a company branded community. This needs to be its own thing because people, they like to be in just a community environment without the brand from the company being there. So we made it completely independent. It's a KubeCampus. It's still 100% free. And it's still the only platform where you actually learn Kubernetes with hands on labs. We have 14 labs today. We've been creating one per month and we have a lot of people on there. The most exciting part this week is that we had our first learning day. But before we go there, I suggest we let Victoria talk a little bit about that user experience of KubeCampus. Oh, absolutely. So KubeCampus is a, and Tom mentioned, it's a one year old platform and we re-branded it specifically to welcome more and embrace this Kubernetes space. Total as one year anniversary, we have over 11,000 students and they've been taking labs over 7,000, yes labs taken. And per each user, if you actually count approximation, it's over three labs, 3.29. And I believe we're growing as per user. If you look at the numbers, so it's a huge success and it's very easy to use. Overall, if you look at this, it's a number one free Kubernetes learning platform. So for your user journey, for your Kubernetes journey, if you start from scratch, don't be afraid. That's what we got at all, we got you back. It's so important and I'm sure most of our audience knows this, but the number one challenge according to Gartner, according to everyone with Kubernetes is the complexity, especially when you're getting harder. I think it's incredibly awesome that you've decided to do this, 11,000 students just want to settle on that. I mean, in your first year is really impressive. How did this become, and I'm sure this was a conversation you two probably had, how did this become a priority for Cast and Bybeam? I have to go back for that to the last virtual only KubeCon where we were lucky enough to have set up a campaign. It was actually, we had an artist that was doing caricatures in a Zoom room and it gave us an opportunity to actually talk to people because the challenge back in the days was that everything virtual, it's very hard to talk to people. Every single conversation we have with people, asking them, why are you at KubeCon virtual was to learn Kubernetes, every single conversation. And so that was, that is one data point. The other data point is we had one lab to use our software and that was extremely popular. So as a team we decided we should make more labs and not just about our product, but also about Kubernetes. So that initial page that I talked about that we built, we had three labs at launch. One was to learn, install Kubernetes. One was to build a first application on Kubernetes. And then a third one was to learn how to back up and restore your application. So there was still a little bit of promoting our technology in there, but pretty soon we decided, okay, this has to become even more. So we added storage, we added security and a lot more labs. So today 14 labs and we're still adding one every month. The next step for the labs is going to be to involve other partners and have them bring their technologies in the lab so that our user base can actually learn more about Kubernetes related technologies. And then hopefully with links to open source tools or free software tools, and it's going to continue to be a learning experience for Kubernetes. I love how this seems to have been born out of the pandemic in terms of the inability to connect with customers and users to really understand what their challenges are. How do we help you best? But you saw the demand organically and built this. And then in the first year, not only 11,000 as Victoria mentioned, 11,000 users, but you've almost quadrupled the number of labs that you have on the platform in such a short time period. But you did hands-on lab here, which I know was a major success. Talk to us about that and what surprised you about the appetite to learn that's here. So actually I'm glad that you relate this back to the pandemic because yes, it was all online because it was still the tail end of the pandemic. But then for this event, we're like, okay, it's time to do this in person. This is the next step, right? So we organized our first learning day as a collocated event. We were hoping to get 60 people together in a room. We did two labs, a rookie and a pro. So we said two times 30 people, that's our goal because it's really, it's competitive here with the collocated events. It's difficult to bring in people. Lots going on. And why don't I let Victoria talk about the success of that learning day because it was big part also her help for that. You know, our main goal is to meet expectations and actually see the challenges of our end user. So we actually, it also goes back to what we started doing research. We saw the pain points and yes, it's absolutely reflecting on how we deal with this and what we see and people very appreciative and they really love platform because it's not only prerequisites but also hands on love practice. So and it's free again. It's applied, which is great. Yes, so we thought about the user experience, user flow, also based, you know, the product when it's successful and you see the result and that's where we, can you say the numbers? So our expectation was 60 people. You're kind of, I feel like a suspense is starting. You tell me, how many people game? We had over 350 people in our room. Woo! Wow, wow. And small disclaimer, we had a little bit of a technical issue in the beginning because of the success. There was a wireless problem in the hotel amongst others. Oh geez. So we were getting a little bit nervous because we were delayed 20 minutes. Nobody left. Yes. I was standing at the door while people were solving the issues and I was like, okay, now people are going to walk out. Nobody left. Kind of gives me goosebumps. We had a little reception afterwards and I talked to people, sorry about the disruption that we had and they're like, no, we're so happy that you're doing this. This was such a great experience. Castan also threw a party later this week. At the party we had people come up to us like, I was at your learning day and this was so good. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm going to take the rest of the classes online now and they love it really. Yeah, we had our instructors leading the program as well. So if they had any questions, it was also addressed immediately. So it was an amazing event actually. I'm really grateful for people to come actually and appreciate it. But now your boss knows how you can blow out metrics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The boss is going to raise Victoria. Very good point, Lisa. Very good point. I can tell. It's actually, it's very tough for me personally to analyze where the success came from because first of all, the team did an amazing job at setting the whole thing up. There was food and drinks for everybody and it was really a very nice location in a hotel nearby. We made it a co-located event and we saw a lot of people register through the KubeCon registration website. But we've done co-located events before and you typically see a very high no-show rate. And this was not the case right now. A lot of, I mean, the no-show was actually very low. Obviously we did our own campaign to our own database, but it's hard to say, like, we have a lot of people all over the world and how many people were actually going to be in Detroit. One element that also helped. I'm actually very proud of that. One of the people on our team, Thomas Keenan, he reached out to the local universities. And he invited students to come to Learning Day as well. I don't think it was very full with students. It was a good chunk of them. So there was a lot of people from here, but it was a good mix. And that way, I mean, we're giving back a little bit to the universities for students who need to learn from the team. This is a lot of love for Detroit this week. I'm all about it. It's amazing, but from a STEM perspective, that's huge. Reaching down into that community and really giving them the opportunity to learn. Well, and what a gateway for Kasten. I mean, I can easily say, I mean, you are the number where we haven't really talked about Kasten at all. But before we do, what are those pins in front of you? So this is a physical pin. These are physical pins that we gave away for different programs. So people who took labs, for example, rookie level, they would get this pin, it's a rookie pin. Yes, I'm going to hold this up just to make it do a little close shot on if you want. And this is pro, it's a next level program. So we have a program actually for rookies to beginners, intermediate, and then pro. So three different levels. And this one is for helmsmen. It's actually from previous. No, helmsmen is someone who has taken the first three labs, right? Yes, it is, but we actually had it already before. So this one is, yeah. So we built two new labs for this event. And it was very, very great to have it ready, absolutely new before this event. So we launched the whole website, the whole platform with new labs, additional labs. And we're also- Brave before an event, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, we also had to- Your expression just said it all. Exactly, you're a vacation in your future. I hope so. We've had a couple of rough weeks. This is part of it. So about those labs. So in the classroom, we had two, right? We had the rookie and the pro. And like I said, we wanted an audience for both. Most people stayed for both. And there were people at the venue one hour before we started because they did not want to miss it. And what it shows to me is that even though KubeCon has been around for a long time and people have been coming back to this, there was a huge audience that considers themselves still very early on in their Kubernetes journey and wants to take and is not too proud to go to a rookie class for Kubernetes. So for us that was like, okay, we're doing the right thing because with the website as well, more rookie users will keep coming. And the big goal for us is just to accelerate their Kubernetes journey, right? There's a lot of platforms out there. One platform I like as well is called Tech World with Nana. She has a lot of instructional videos. Oh, she's a wonderful YouTuber. She's, yeah, her following is amazing. But what we add to this is the hands-on part, right? And there's a lot of other resources as well where you have like papers and books and everything, we try to add those as well. But we feel that you can only learn it by doing it. And that is what we offer. Absolutely, totally. Something like Kubernetes. And it sounds like you're de-mystifying it. You talked about one of the biggest things that everyone talks about with respect to Kubernetes adoption and some of the barriers is the complexity. But it sounds to me like, we talked about the demand being there for the hands-on labs, the KubeCampus.io, but also the fact that people were waiting an hour early, they're recognizing, it's okay to raise it. I mean, I don't really understand this. In fact, another thing that I heard speaking of the rookies is that about 60% of the attendees at this year's KubeCon are new. Yeah, we heard that. So maybe that's a lot of those rookies showed up saying, these guys are going to help us really demystify and start learning this at a pace that works for me as an individual. There's some crazy macro data to support this just to echo this. So 85% of enterprise companies are about to start making this transition and leveraging Kubernetes. That means there's only 15% of a very healthy, substantial market that has adopted the technology, ad scale, you're teaching that group of people. Let's talk about, Kastin a little bit, number one, Kubernetes backup, 900% growth recently. How are you managing that? What's next for you guys? Yeah, so growth last year was amazing. This year we're seeing very good numbers as well. I think part of the explanation is because people are going into production. You cannot sell backup to a company that is not in production with their applications, right? So what we're starting to see is people are finally going into production with their Kubernetes applications and are realizing we have to back this up. The other trend that we're seeing is I think still in LA last year, we were having a lot of stateless versus stateful conversations. Remember, containers were created for stateless applications, that's no longer the case, absolutely, but now the acceptance is there. We're not having those, oh, but we're stateless conversations because everybody runs at least a database with some user data or application data, whatever, so all Kubernetes applications need to be backed up and we're the number one product for that. And you guys just recently had a new release. Talk to us a little bit about that before we wrap up. It's new in the platform and also what gives you, what gives Kastin by being that competitive advantage in this new release? The competitive advantage is really simple. Our solution was built for Kubernetes with Kubernetes. There are other products out there. Talk about dog fooding, that's great. Exactly, and you know what? One of our successes at the show is also because we're using Kubernetes to build our application, people love to come to our booth to talk to our engineers who we always bring to the show because they have so much experience to share. That also helps us with KubeRampus, by the way, to build those labs, right? You need to have the experience. So the big competitive advantage is really that we're Kubernetes native. And then to talk about 5.5, I was going like, what was the other part of the question? So yeah, we had 5.5 launched also during the show, so it was really a busy week. The big focus for 5.5 was simplicity to make it even easier to use our product. We really want people to find it easy. We were using new home charts and things like that. The second part of the launch was to do even more partner integrations because if you look at the space, this cloud native space, it's, you can also test to that with KubeKampus. When you build an application, you need so many different tools, right? And we are trying to integrate with all of those tools in the most easy and most efficient way so that it becomes easy for our customers to use our technology in their Kubernetes stack. I love it. Tom, Victoria, one final question for you before we wrap up. You mentioned that you have a fantastic team. I can tell just from the energy you two have, that's probably the truth. You also mentioned that you bring the party everywhere you go. Where are we all going after this? Where's the party tonight? Yeah. Well, let's first go to a ball game tonight. Yeah. The party's on the court. I love it. Go Pistons. And then we'll end up somewhere downtown in a good club, I guess. Yeah. Well, we'll see how the showdown with the Hawks goes. I hope you guys make it to the game. Tom, Victoria, thank you so much for being here. We're excited about what you're doing. Lisa, always a joy sharing the stage with you, my love. And to all of you who are watching, thank you so much for tuning into the Kube. We are wrapping up here with one segment left in Detroit, Michigan. My name's Savannah Peterson. Thanks for being here.