 From the SiliconANGLE Media Office in Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Now, here's your host, Dave Vellante. Hi everybody, welcome to this CUBE conversation on data protection. You know, I've been reporting for the last several months that spending on storage is reverting back to pre-2018 levels. But at the same time, it's not falling off a cliff. Now, one area of storage that is still very, very strong is the data protection segment. In the past 18 months, we've seen about a half a billion dollars in venture funding come into the market. We've just seen a big multi-billion dollar exit. And backup specifically in data protection, data management generally is where all the action is right now. And one of the leaders in data protection is Dell EMC. The company has the largest share of the market and the new entrants, believe me, want a piece of their pie. But anyone who follows this company knows that the firm is not likely to give up its turf very easily. So much is changing in the market today. And I want to understand how Dell EMC's data protection division is responding to both the competitive threats and the changing market dynamics. With me are two experts from Dell EMC to address these issues. Nelson Shu is director of solutions product marketing for the data protection division at Dell EMC. And Colm Keegan is senior consultant product marketing at Dell EMC. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. Great to see you again. Thank you for having us. Thanks, Dave. So you heard my intro. You guys are the leader. You got the biggest market share. You got all these upstarts coming at you. What's your response? Nobody to take that? Sure. Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting as we were talking about this before we came on set, you know, and oftentimes they want to poke holes at us because, you know, we're perceived as being the old timers or the stodgy ones of the group out there. And play a little jujitsu move and say, you know, well, you know, time and market counts for something. You know, we've been solving data protection challenges for customers for literally decades now. You know, and so water under the boat and knowing, you know, the experience that we've derived from that allows us to bring solutions that are mature, that are proven, right, and what we're doing is we're taking those proven solutions and pairing them with modern capabilities so that, you know, we look at it and say, hey, look, Mr. Customer, you have significant data protection challenges today because, as you said, the world's changing, it's changing rapidly. We can help you address those while also sowing the seeds for the foundation for the future, right? So we think that's a compelling message and we think that, you know, while, you know, some of our competitors and particularly the upstarts have had some interesting things to say, you know, big picture-wise, they don't know what they don't know, right, because they just don't have the time at the time in the market. Their solutions are also largely absent upmarket, you know, when you look at the enterprise. So we're comfortable, we think we're in a very good spot right now. So cloud, obviously, was the huge mega trend of the past decade. You guys said from the beginning, it's going to be a hybrid world. I think some of that was, we hope it's going to be a hybrid world. Well, you were right, it's a hybrid world. So how is cloud, hybrid cloud affecting your customer decisions around data protection and how are you responding? Well, you know, there's no doubt that the growth in cloud and the growth in hybrid cloud is real and it's there today. You know, as we look and as Colin mentioned, you know, we've been protecting data across the enterprise, across the edge and in the cloud and that growth continues. So today we have over a thousand customers that were protecting their data in the cloud, right? To the tone of over 2.7 exabytes of data protected in the cloud by Dell EMC data protection. So there's absolutely no doubt that that growth is there. We have a lot of innovation that we're driving on both in various areas of cloud neighbor, the cloud native cybersecurity and deep integration of VMware. Okay, so that's good, thousand customers. That's a pretty good observation space. But when you think about hybrid, what I think when I talk to customers is they want that same exact cloud experience. They don't want to have the context switch. They don't want to have to buy different platforms. So how are you specifically addressing that customer requirement? So there's a couple of ways we look at that, right? For our customers, simplicity is very key in ease of use. So that's one of our core tenants as we go across both the edge of the core and the cloud, right? And the other aspect of that is consistency. So giving them and allowing them to use the tools that they know today to be able to protect their data wherever that data resides, right? So with the cloud, with cloud native, your data becomes very, very distributed, right? And you have to be able to be able to see all that data and control and manage that data. So the whole aspect around cloud data management is now risen to the top as a major concern. We do that in a great way in the sense that we both have a hybrid strategy and a lot of that is working with Dell Technologies Cloud and it's based upon VMware. And so we have a very good relationship, deep relationship with VMware to utilize their tools that our customers use today, whether it be vSphere or vControl, that they can manage their data protection from one console, from one environment itself. Dave, I think when you look at the split today, the latest cut of research is that roughly 52% of VMs are in the cloud and 48% are on-prem. So it's already hybrid, right? And as Nelson said, it's largely predicated on VMware. So as organizations start consuming cloud, they're going to go with the platform that they've been operating under for years now, right? And so it'll be VMware. We've always had very tight integration with VMware. We have a very strong partnership with them. And that's both on the existing portfolio as well as the one that were the agile portfolio that we're building out today under PowerProtect, right? So as that hybrid world evolves for the customers, obviously we want to make sure they're protected from a virtual machine standpoint and make that, as Nelson said, very simple for them because the last thing customers need is complexity, particularly as their environments are becoming inherently more complex, right? Because now you've got, you look at most enterprises today, they're going to have a mix of workloads, right? It's physical, it's virtual. Containers are going to come to the fore. It's cloud native apps, it says, right? And we were talking earlier about multiclouds. Oftentimes it just kind of came up organically and now you've got this huge distribution of workloads and oftentimes customers have been just sort of reactive to that, right? In other words, let me find a way to protect that and I'll worry about the details later. We're looking at that and saying, we have the portfolio to help you protect all your workloads and as importantly, we'll help consolidate the management of that environment. It's going to start with VMware, but then longer term we're planning for things like a SaaS control plane, right? So that we can give you a complete view of that environment and allow you to assign the policies you need in terms of SLAs, in terms of compliance, you're basically hitting all the security, hitting all the key things that you need. And so directionally, we think, starting with VMware and building from there is probably the most realistic way we can get customers protected from a hyper cloud. So the vision is a single point of control that is SaaS based, right? That what lives in the cloud or lives wherever you want it to live. Right, it can be either. So I mean, one of our core tendencies here, right? Is that we want and deliver the ability to protect our customer's data wherever resides, whether it's an edge core or a cloud. So sticking on cloud for a second and sort of segue into the VMware conversation that I want to have is VMware is sort of the lynchpin of your multi-cloud strategy. That makes a lot of sense. VMware is going to be a leader if not the leader in multi-cloud. We'll see how that all shakes out. It's kind of jumped ball right now, but VMware is a pretty good position with the half of, you know, 500,000 customers. But your perspective on cloud is different than say, take an AWS, you know, cloud provider, okay, it's a place, put your data in my cloud. You guys are talking about the experience and that's really what you're trying to drive with VMware whether it's on-prem, whether it's in Google, Azure, AWS, wherever, you know, cloud name it. Is that the right way to think about your strategy and maybe specifically as it relates to multi-cloud? Yeah, so I think on the area of multi-cloud, right? I mean, it is a multi-cloud world, right? So years ago, I was in a SaaS startup and we had customers that were looking to deploy to the cloud, right? And then that was the question, okay, do we hedge on multi-cloud or not? As a SaaS provider, we actually implemented both AWS and Azure at the time, which became relevant because now our customers are asking us, yes, my primary is with this particular hyperscaler, but do you also support the second hyperscaler? So the reality started to evolve. And so for us, yes, VMware is a very strategic aspect in partner with us, especially with Dell Technologies Cloud, but we also have a multi-cloud relationship with AWS, with Azure and with Google. Yeah, so the compatibility matrix, if you will, applies now to the cloud. Absolutely, absolutely. So now it's at having that feature functionality across multiple clouds. So one of the things we've obviously paid attention to is Project Tanzu, with inside of VMware, all around bringing Kubernetes, VMware together. How does that affect data protection? Well, I think it affects data protection in the sense that addressing the entire aspect of still your data is distributed now, right? And it's going to grow that way. I think that we've seen numbers upwards of 70% of applications will be container-based, right? Some of that will be growing forward to 2022, where there'll be multiple production applications that will be container-based. I think what Tanzu will bring to the table is a cohesive way to manage and control that environment itself. Okay, and so maybe we could sort of drill into that a little bit. Containers, it's becoming more obvious that people want to persist some of that data. It's largely stateless, but you've got to figure out how to recover. So do you have solutions in that space? Is that sort of more roadmap? Maybe you could talk about that a little bit. No, absolutely. So definitely we have our concrete solutions with our Dell EMC PowerProtect data manager for Kubernetes. It's actually one of the first that was in the market to support cloud-native environments. It is the first. Yeah, the first offering out there to support Kubernetes. And so the aspect there is that as cloud-native has moved from DevOps and now into production and mission-critical applications, now becomes the aspect of originally the DNA of DevOps was my data doesn't have to be persistent. Now when you move into a mission-critical environment, your entire environment needs to be protected. And to be able to bring those workloads back up so that anything happened. And to be able to protect that data that is critical to those workloads. Okay, and so you're saying this is your first. Do you see this as a differentiator in the marketplace or is it everybody going to have this and it's going to set on one of these confusing ice cream cone of solutions? So why you guys, what's your big differentiation? Let's stick to containers. I have the same question sort of overall. I'll come back to that. Right, so great question. And the matter of fact is that with our experience across Edgecore and cloud, Kubernetes and containers will be prevalent throughout and it'll be the way that applications will be developed. It's meeting the demands of the business and being agile. And I think that with our ability internally that we've moved to that agile motion, right? We have that ability to address the customer's needs, especially in the cloud native Kubernetes space. I think going back to what you said too about VMware, right? Certainly our partnership there is differentiated and we even heard some echoes of that during VMware. Pac-El singer usually doesn't give call outs on the main stage very frequently, right? And he said that they were working with us as a best in class partner for data protection with Tanzu and so there's a very tight partnership there so if I'm a customer and I'm looking at containers, I'm probably going to want to do it within the framework of VMware to start with, right? But it's important to point out that we're also not dependent on VMware, right? So we can still deliver protection for Kubernetes containers outside of say the VMware management domain, right? But I would say from a differentiation standpoint there's some real tight partnership partnering going on to make these capabilities mature. It helps that your CEO owns 80% of the company. But it's an interesting point you're making because again, you dialed back 10 years ago, VMware had much more of a Switzerland strategy under Maritz, almost at the time EMC's detriment, I think Michael Dell is very clearly as is Jeff Clark said, look, we're going to do more integration and Pac-El singer has been, look, I love all my partners and it's true, but we're entering sort of a new era. I mean, and that integration is key. And, you know, again, because of the ownership structure and your long history there, it's got to confer some advantages in the marketplace. Yeah, and he's also got to remove some of the headwinds to adoption of VMware cloud, right? You know, and data protection, as we discussed, oftentimes can be a headwind. If customers are concerned then they're not going to be able to protect their data. Chances are they're going to stand pat for a while, right? So I mean, you need to find ways to take some of those objections off the table. Yeah, and not to take anything away from your competitors. Look, it's an open API world and again, people are going to compete, but at the end of the day, this stuff's still really complex. And if you can do some core engineering together, it's definitely an advantage. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about cyber. I often say it's become a board level topic. You know, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, SecOps teams are overtaxed. I think I put out a stat lately and I got it from Robert Herjavec, actually. He said, think about this. The worldwide economy is 86 trillion and we spend 0.014% on cyber. That's it. Wow. We're barely scratching the surface. And that's part of the problem. Okay, but with that limited resource, we have to be as smart as possible. You got this ransomware coming in. So what are your customers asking you for and how are you responding? So it's interesting, right? Because it is top of mind cyber and cyber attacks and it takes many forms, right? The attacks can be malware, they can be encryption. They could be deletion, which is ultimately the worst case scenario. And I think as you go forward and you look at it, cyber is the number one concern for any CIO, CISO, or anyone that's worried about their security infrastructure. Which is everybody. Which is everybody, right, exactly. I think that we have delivered for the cloud data protection area a first and best offering with an air gap data protection solution. So inherently, we can insulate and protect our customers' data from cyber threats. So when a ransomware event occurs, you can recover your data without having to pay that ransom, right? Or not be concerned that in most severe cases, your data gets deleted. I think most recently there was a healthcare provider who was threatened about their data being deleted and that was the worst case. We were able to protect their data in the sense that with our cyber recovery offering, right, they protected their data in an air gap vaulted solution and they didn't have to pay for that ransom. So what I'm hearing from you guys is, okay, cloud, very important hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, fundamental to our strategy. VMware, you know, they say bed on sure things. VM was pretty much a sure thing. Large customer base, leader in the space and then cyber as a key concern of customers, you want to expand the notion of backup and data protection to really point it at cyber as well. Absolutely. In fact, there was this recent research called the Global Data Protection Index Survey and we just refreshed it. And what customers identified as the most compelling reasons to adopt cloud is for better performance, better data protection and better security, not necessarily in that order, but those were like the top three. So we look at that and say, we've got plays there, right? Certainly we have capabilities protecting workloads in the cloud, you know, whether they be virtual machines, cloud-native containers, but the security aspect of it is huge, right? Because oftentimes customers, and Dave, you and I were talking about this, they make some broader assumptions about once data is in the cloud, they can kind of like wash their hands and walk away, not so fast, right? Because certainly there's a shared responsibility model that extends not only to data protection, but also to security, right? And then, don't get me wrong, the cloud service providers have fantastic security capabilities, have a great perimeter, but as you said, it's not a question of when and when something happens, are you ready for it, right? So these solutions extend not only to on-prem, but into the cloud, right? So it's that ability, wherever the workload lives, that you can get the right protection and what we're really now referring to is safeguarding the data, right? Because it's a combination of data protection and security that's embedded and doing it wherever the workload resides. I'm glad you brought that up, Colm. I have a follow-up on that, but Nelson, did you want to add something? Well, I just wanted to mention that, and one of the biggest concerns is making sure that that data you've vaulted is actually clean, right, and safe. So we have a cyber-sense capability within our cyber-recovery product, that when you vault that data, it does about 100 analytics on that data to make sure that there's no malware, that it's not infected. And it does it automatically, and even on incremental, it's using machine learning. That's really important because mistakes happen really fast. So if you're vaulting, you know, corrupted data. What do you do? Oops. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I wanted to come back. I think the shared responsibility model is not well understood, and there's a lot of confusion in the industry. At a conference this year, AWS's CISO, Steven Schmidt, was saying, look, all this talk about, you know, security is broken, it's not really productive, the state of security in the cloud is actually really good, and to your point, Colm, yeah, he's right about that. And then you hear Pat Gelsinger saying, he's told me many times in theCUBE, security's a do-over. You know, to my point, about, you know, 86 trillion. And so I kind of lean, when I talk to IT people, what Pat is saying. So you say, okay, where's the dissonance there? Well, the reality is, is the cloud service providers, in the shared security model, they'll secure their physical infrastructure, but it's up to the customer to be responsible for everything else. You know, the edicts of the organization are applied. We were talking to the CISO of a large insurance company, and she said to us, oh no, shared responsibility means it's our responsibility. And so you're not going to go after the cloud service provider, you're going to go after the insurance company or the financial services institution. Their brand is the one that's going to get hurt. And so that's misunderstood. My question, sorry, long-winded rant, Dave. But what role do you guys play in that shared responsibility model? Well, ultimately it comes down to the customer, right? And the shared responsibility model really, is that misnomer, as you mentioned, right? And so at the end of the day, you as the customer own and are responsible for protecting that data. So your data protection strategy, your cyber resilience strategy, right, has to be sound and it has to be secured by those that can actually do it across multiple distribution models in platforms, whether it's Edgecore Cloud, whether it's VMs, containers, it doesn't change. You're still ultimately responsible for it. I think it's also, I think maybe what you might be driving at the question, Dave, is empowering the customers to maintain control of their data, right? And having the tools in place so that, you know, they feel comfortable, but also, and part of it too, is moving more towards automation, because as their applications grow and become, as Nelson said, become more distributed, as the data grows exponentially, this just fundamentally isn't a task that humans can manage very much longer. I'm glad you brought that up, because you ask a CISO, what's your number one problem? And he or she will tell you the skill sets to keep up with all this complexity, and that's where automation comes in. Correct, it does. Yeah, so that's where we're taking it, right? Is trying to make things more automated and take tasks away from humans that they just can't keep up with. All right guys, I'll give you the last word. I mean, you know, you go back decade or so ago and back up was a whole different situation. We saw the rise of virtualization and now cloud and then all these other things that we've been talking about, edge, you know, the cyber threats, et cetera. So bring us home, you know, where do you see the future and how does Dell EMC data protection fit in? You know, it's an exciting time. It really is, right? It's kind of like the coming of that second storm, right? As you mentioned. Businesses have that demand of needing more services, delivered more quickly in an agile fashion. And as they peer that with the growth of their data, which is distributed, they really have that challenge overall of how do I manage this environment? So, you know, you have to have the observability to understand what your data is and to be able to monitor it. You have to be able to orchestrate your workloads so that they're automated and the data protection of those workloads are automated as well. And so the imperative that aspects like Tanzu are addressing with cloud native, that Kubernetes brings to the table to deliver containerized applications. You know, that's really, if you're quite honestly, is the biggest evolution I've seen in my last 20, 30 years, right? This is definitely a different paradigm shift. Yeah, you know, six months ago I was with a competitor and I was taking a look at EMC, or sorry, I should say Dell EMC, and I was wondering, should I make a move over here? And really what convinced me was the fact that the company was willing to basically solve internally the innovators dilemma, right? You're making so much money on your existing portfolio, but now you're gonna start investing in what appears to be almost a competitive internal competition to your portfolio. It's not, it's complimentary. So that's what drove the decision for me to come here, but I would also say, it's great to be part of an organization that has long-term vision, right? So many, like, you remember, I think the phrase that was being used, you know, being held captive to the 90-day shot clock, you know, the earnings reports and stuff, right? And that drives behavior. Well, if your organization is looking at decade-long goals, that means that you can actually plan to do things that over time are gonna actually bring real value to customers, right? And so I think we're doing the right things. We're obviously innovating, we're on this agile, software development cadence that gives us the ability to solve for problems, you know, incrementally over time so customers can see that value instead of waiting for large batch releases. But it also gives us the ability to say, hey, when we've made mistakes or when we hadn't seen certain things coming around the corner, we're agile enough to change with that, right? So I think the combination of having that vision and putting in the investments, and we've kind of likened ourselves to, like, the biggest startup, you know, in the biggest, yeah, the biggest startup in the industry with the backing of Fortune 50, right? So, you know, from a customer standpoint, you got to look at that and think, you know, that's interesting, right? Because, yeah, I need to solve my current problems today. I need to have a path forward for the future. And, you know, who am I betting on to deliver that? You know, and the other thing I'll leave on is, customers are trying to work with fewer suppliers, not more suppliers, because they want to reduce the complexity. Well, who has the ability to not only bring data protection to bear, but a whole portfolio of technology is really end-to-end, you know, that can snap into those environments to, again, reduce complexity and drive more business value. Yeah, that's a really interesting point you make about consolidations. Ever since I've been in this industry, people want to deal with less suppliers and reduce the complexity. But you still see startups and VC's funding things. And what's happened is there's been consolidation, you know, of the big guys. You guys are the biggest consolidator. And I always say that the rich get richer. And there's always this tension between, sort of, do I go out and buy bespoke best-to-breed tools? Or do I get them from somebody who can help me across the portfolio? That's really where your strength is. Guys, thank you so much. This is really a very important topic. Data protection is one of the most important areas that we've been covering. I've been reporting on a lot. As I said, a lot of venture money's been flowing in. So I really appreciate you guys coming in, sharing your perspectives and best of luck in the marketplace. Appreciate it, Dave, thank you. Thanks for having us, it was great. You're welcome. All right, and thank you for watching, everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE. We'll see you next time.