 Let's go, California, for Oracle Open World. It's our day two of coverage, wall-to-wall coverage. This is John Furrier, Silicon Angle with Stu Miniman, and Darian Neve, director of Technology Alliance EMC. Welcome back to theCUBE. Thank you very much. Good to be back, John. So the Alliance conversation is pretty hot here with Oracle. I mean, you guys had a slew of announcements. Give us a quick update of what's happening here at Oracle Open World and we'll jump right in. Yeah, no, it's an exciting time, right? I mean, to me, it's a culmination of, it's not only 15 years of just a really strong partnership. And I think, I don't know anyone that watched the keynote, heard Safra, cats really introduce EMC, his friend, her good friend, long-time partner. And, but you know, there's, we joke, but the truth is it's a long-standing, very collaborative, complex partnership. I mean, if anything, it's maturing. And so one of those kind of long-standing, tried-and-tested partnerships that you see with anyone like Microsoft or Cisco or Oracle, any of these guys. Four years ago, we first started EMC World. theCUBE was born at EMC World 2010 in Boston, the big event, Joe Tucci had the whole company come down. And then following up Sapphire here at Oracle Open World was our first year here. That was kind of a pivot point, really, where the relationship really kind of tipped into a direction, kind of scaled up quickly. EMC was in the middle of a transformation of the private club messaging. And you saw that kind of balance of the Oracle relationship, it was one of those times in the 15-year history where, you know, it was really that inflection point that platform three was just coming on that Tuesday now is talking about for the fourth year, but it's matured. But that was an Oracle Open World where you can see the sea change. Talk about what's changed in those four years. Yeah, I mean, for us, Oracle Open World is really, it's a celebration of work that's, you know, it's a culmination of a lot of effort that we do together. I think you're right, though. I think, you know, we've evolved into this strong partnership with Oracle. That's founded upon innovation, right? A lot of deep integration into the database, into the applications layer, where we really wrap our portfolio around the database to optimize it, you know, to virtualize it, to back it up, to protect it, you know. So it's all of that work as a foundation. But then we take it to the next level and we really service this tremendously large install base. I think you heard Joe and Safford talk about 80,000 joint customers. I mean, this is 15 years' culmination of customers really betting their business, their mission critical business on our joint technologies. So really at the heart of what we do is servicing that customer base, right? Remaining as relevant as possible, building solutions that these customers can run their business on. And so what you heard today in the keynote, which was your first question, is some of the most, the latest technology, which to me, you know, you talk about inflection points four years ago, deep integration. We've gone to that next level when we've made our technology important and relevant to the DBA, right? That's new for EMC. So the solution you see, like the OEM plugin, right, the Oracle Enterprise Manager plugin that allows the DBA to actually access and manage storage. You know, the Vplex where you're able to look across sites in conjunctions with RAC, the backup technologies that we have that's integrated to our man. These are things that the DBA can provide instant value to his company. So I'm just thrilled with what we've done so far. Sorry, it's great to see EMC and Oracle kind of embracing, but when we see the keynote, it's kind of interesting. You see kind of the red stack on everything that Oracle's built, and EMC comes out into the blue stack, and Joe talked about the horizontal platform, so Oracle has been expanding their portfolio. Of course, the Sun acquisition got Oracle deep into the infrastructure piece, and Oracle made big announcements on cloud as to how they're putting their services in the cloud, some places where obviously there'll be some tension as to do I do it by the red stack, or do I put some of the red stack on the blue stack? So can you talk about how you balance from your standpoint that, you know, co-opetition? Yeah, no, it's a great question, and by the way, we love turning that stage blue. It's great to see it go from red to blue, but in all seriousness, yeah, I mean, look at the end of the day, there's obviously a clear trend towards conversion infrastructure, right? And look, it's not whether the customer's thinking about blue or red or whatever, it's what's the best conversion infrastructure for that customer to run, right? Our whole purpose in life is to run that database in the Oracle stack as good as possible, right? To be as relevant, be as performant as possible on the Oracle stack. So yeah, so you saw that we announced our own conversion infrastructure stack through the VCE or VBlock with tremendous performance numbers, right? And it's just highly tuned conversion infrastructure for the database. Now, it can be the Oracle database, guess what, it runs other databases as well, right? As well as other applications, Oracle, SAP, some of the other ones, right? But it's important that we came out with kind of our own, leveraging our investment in VCE with a stack that we think is perfectly tuned for the Oracle database. Yeah, Jordan, I wonder if we could touch on cloud for a second, because one of the matches we look at there are some of the big cloud providers. So you've got the Amazons and Microsofts and Googles of the world. You hear Oracle now having all of their services that they're providing. EMC really looks at things from an ecosystem standpoint. The EMC Velocity program working with service providers. So where do you see the Oracle application fitting into the cloud space? Database or sort of application layer? Either or both, yeah, go ahead. Look, I mean, obviously trend, I think the way we sort of define cloud, I mean, like everything's sort of moving that direction. I mean, we really focus on first step virtualization, right? Then we're also moving into as a service technologies. So yeah, I mean, I think clearly there's a strong momentum that way. We think we have a strong portfolio with our partner ecosystem and product stack. So, you know, I think there's space where we are going to go at it kind of on our own. I think there's areas where we can collaborate, right? We integrate our stack to, we virtualize it not only with VMware, we virtualize it with Hyper-V, we virtualize with OVM too. So there's place for us all to play there. I think we're leveraging our service provider community, right, you know, in conjunction with Oracle. So, you know, I'm seeing a lot of synergies there as well. So you mentioned 80,000 shared customers, joint customers with Oracle. Both you guys, products, product companies, you know, storage, database, now solutions, right? I mean, look at Oracle. They have a portfolio. They have the red stack. You guys have your own stack. As Joe said, it's highly differentiated in the sense that it's horizontal. How do you manage the alliance and what's the outlook for the alliance? Given that now it's a shared, not just products, database and storage, it's solutions. What is the, what's the plan? What's the vision? What's the portfolio look like? And how do you talk about that? Well, I mean, I think kind of harkening back to what I mentioned earlier. Look, it's a partnership that's maturing. It's, you know, it's complex, but it's critical, right? I mean, we have, again, 80,000 customers that are depending on our products to work together, right, interoperate to provide advantage to them, right? So really the strategy is deep in collaboration, right? Look, we announced, like we were, that we were right off the bat when the first partners to really embrace a 12C technology, right? We are a beta customer or a beta partner for 12C and we've done some important integration to 12C. So look, it's embracing current, future technologies, deepening and tightening our engineering relationship. It's going to market together where possible and where, look, where we have to sort of quarantine some of the discussions. We do that as well. At the end of the day, Joe and Jeremy said it, it's about providing customers choice. We want to make sure that our customer base and beyond knows that EMC is really the strongest choice out there for an Oracle platform. Yeah, Dorian, I wonder if we look at kind of the audience for who buys Oracle, kind of there's the C-suite and there's the DBA. Most people, you know, think of EMC really as an infrastructure company, so, you know, you've got the hardware and the software and the services. Can you talk a little bit about, about how EMC is really engaging with the DBAs? What database expertise EMC has in the field and how you engage? It's a tremendous, actually, it's a great question. Because again, I think one of our key charters over the last couple of years is really make that connection in the DBA. I don't know if you saw that great video, the monster video with the, you know, the moose and what- You're either in the front of the business where you've got the trophy on the wall or in the back of the business with the back end. And I think the symbolic message is there. We understand kind of the plight of the DBA and we're trying to help them understand that not only by just kind of cute messaging like a video, but the tools that we're developing actually empower them. So the DBA has got the ability to manage the system better and become really a more integral part of that environment. So I think it's that connection. Now we've extended that beyond just kind of, you know, messaging through kind of the solutions we architect, being relevant to there, but we also have experts in the field. So to your question, we have a massive overlay of sales and pre-sales organization that we call Oracle Specialists, right? They're based all over the world, right? And to the tune of three to 400 people that can go into customer and that our organization can leverage and have an Oracle conversation. Not just, hey, here's storage, but look, Mr. Customer, what are you struggling with with your Oracle environment? And that number is growing. We intend to keep kind of going that path to give you that full suite of people, products, solutions and clearly the messaging. Awesome. So the main theme here on the 12C is interesting, but outside of the 12C, one of the things we were discussing yesterday was data, right? Obviously we had Gary Blum on, a longtime Oracle executive. Oh, Gary, they used to work for Gary. And Gary's now with CEO of Markology, but you know, we were talking about the old days, everything was relational databases. Now the new data, all of the data's not just stored in a relational database, so it's a challenge. And I know EMC's been really investing in the big data going back, you know, three full years now when cloud meets big data, but now that it's been sharing, how do these new sources, because that's outside of the wheelhouse, or say Oracle, but yet Oracle now has to move into that direction. So how do you get your arms around that conversation around the data? Precisely diverse data sources. And again, Tucci talked about fast data, meaning machine data, machine generated data. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, look, I mean, we sort of focus on, you know, cloud, you know, big data and trust are kind of our primary focus areas, right? So you look to how do you, you know, so we kind of understand our big data strategy. You've talked about some of the things we're doing there, we're talking about what we're doing with Pivotal and some of the exciting activity going there. And we're trying to sort of marry that up. We're seeing what Oracle's doing on their big data strategy. And so, look, there's the disparate data types, structured and unstructured database data, and we're really trying to marry those and provide a consistent infrastructure across all of those. Talk about the Alliance role in your anime, because the Alliance is a very interesting position. It sounds easy on paper, but you know, when you talk about Oracle, you need to quarantine some conversations. You know, you're cooperating and also competing in markets. You also have other partners, and this is a balancing act. So, just on a personal level, what's it take to be successful at the Alliance game? Because it is around the relationship, certainly, and a lot of the value activities involved in engineering to go to market and across the board. What does it take to be successful there, and what's the day-to-day life for you, day-in-the-life of an Alliance executive? It's a fine line, right? You really straddle a fine line of providing, I guess at the end of the day, it's really providing value back into the customer, back into our businesses, right? That are ultimately trying to expand their footprint into critical, key, macro, you know, businesses like Oracle's, right? Oracle's a big market for us. We focus really on a couple key partnerships, really a handful of them. Oracle's one of them. And so, the challenges are really understanding what value do we bring to, you know, EMC? What value can we bring to Oracle? At the end of the day, what do customers need and want? And how do we architect those solutions that they can sort of maximize return? So, you know, it's a delicate dance that we do. You know, and you try to kind of put that strategy together that helps bring out the most out of the partnership. Look for those sweet spots. I mean, that's really kind of what we do. We look for, kind of, here's our product on one access and their product's on another access, and what are those sweet spots that we can really focus in on that? Provide, you know, the biggest sort of return on investment, the biggest sort of revenue opportunities for our company. What do the customers want in the alliance? So, obviously, besides, you know, obviously having these work and integration, collaboration is very important, but integration's big, right? I mean, you've got stats now integrating. What are the big top three customer requirements? I mean, there's some baseline stuff, interoperability. I mean, it's kind of, it sounds like a legacy term, but at the bottom line of the bare minimum, we've got to, our products have to work together. And then they look for advanced functionality, and that's where we layer in our other technology. So, it's not just so much that, you know, your products work together, but, you know, how do you take it to the next level? How do you optimize your database? How do you virtualize the database? How do you back it up? How do you, you know, how do you disaster proof it, right? So, I think that's the next layer of expectation they have. You know, simplicity and manageability, you can't speak enough about that. So, again, tools like this OEM plugin that allow that DBA to manage our storage are really just focusing on simplicity and manageability. We're getting up to the keynote at 1.30 in about 10 minutes. What's next for you guys? What's next for you on the Alliance front? What's around the corner that you can speak of publicly? What's on the radar? Yeah, I mean, there's increased investment, right? Increased focus, right? Really, EMC is going to get extremely focused on a small number of partners. Oracle's definitely one of them, right? So, we're going to have a lot more investment in the technology side, and the marketing side, and the go-to-market side, and the field engagement side, right? We're really getting those experts up to speed. As far as deepening with Oracle, there's some key areas. Definitely focus heavily on the database, right? 12C, the in-memory functions that are just announced, which I think is very exciting. You know, we're going to really focus in on those high-value solutions that our customers want to see. So, look to not only on the database, but expanding into middleware and applications, right? We do a lot of work there, but we have to focus even more there because the value continues up the stack. Look for triangulation with some other key partners, right? EMC's got strong partnerships with some of Oracle's most critical partners, like Cisco and Intel. So, look for some exciting kind of triangulation we're going to do there, or some configurations that you'll see in market together. It should be a really exciting time over the next few months. Awesome, well, congratulations. I'll give you one final word on the ending of the segment here. What is the biggest thing that people need to know about the EMC relationship with Oracle that they might not be top of mind if you want to share with them, and we'll wrap this up and we'll go to the keynote. You know, I think what's most important takeaway is it's a strong partnership, long lasting, tried and tested over the years, really founded on innovation and solutions that provide value to the customers, right? And no matter where you kind of, whatever kind of noise you hear as far as, oh, you're collaborating, you're competing, whatever you're doing, you know, customers are voting with their wallets, they're voting on us together, they want that best of breed solution, and we're going to provide it to them together. Dr. Navey, director of alliances here at EMC. Again, congratulations. Again, we watched four years ago with great interest, looking at the balance of power as a transformation. Both you guys, both companies doing great, moving quickly into a portfolio of services and stacks. Congratulations, EMC Alliance is here at Oracle OpenWorld. This is theCUBE, our flagship program. We go out to the events, extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman. Stay tuned, Dave Vellante and I will be back commenting on the keynote, starting at 1.30. We're taking a break and we'll be back for a picture and picture commentary. Here inside theCUBE, should be fun, colorful, and of course, the signal from the noise is right here inside theCUBE. We'll be right back after this short break.