 Hello, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of HPE Discover here in Barcelona. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host and analyst, Rob Streche. We have two guests for this segment. We have Dionne Ubert, who is the global hybrid cloud sales director at Microsoft. Welcome. Thank you. And Valerie Difonseca. She is the senior director worldwide hybrid cloud sales at HPE. Welcome, Valerie. Thank you very much. Thank you. So you both pretty much have the same job at different companies that you have. Microsoft and HPE have a long, storied 30-year partnership. Can you tell, I'll start with you, Valerie, but I'd like to hear your answer to Dionne about what makes this partnership so strong and so special. I think that, I mean, first it's a long relationship. We're talking of 30 years of being working together. And I think that the last years is really what brings us even more together as we're moving from old cloud to hybrid. And that brings us into a single, I would say, a single story where we have more to bring together in that partnership because you'll hear that a lot from those days from Antonio and everyone. We are really trying to bring that consistent experience operating model across all the different IT states. And that includes obviously all of that operating model, integrating public cloud integrations. And that's where our relationship with Microsoft is really taking and has been kind of growing even more the last years because we've decided to create more of those integrated solutions that would make it even more relevant to what we are discussing with our customers. And I'm sure you've got more examples. I think you've captured it really well, but like, first I'm thankful for the great relationship we have with HPE globally. I think to Valerie's point like, it's not only that we sell together, we engineer together, we develop together, we design together, we sell together. And if you take all those things over the last 30 years, I think we have created amazing milestones. We've think about Windows Server, but now especially in a world where everything is hybrid with GreenLake and our joint platforms is I think really like a magnificent approach. So yeah, I think we have a great historic relationship. Yeah, and in hybrid cloud, and I would agree because I think Antonio was on hybrid cloud and calling it out that it's going to be a hybrid world. In the research that we do, we see it balancing out. Right now 50-50 pretty much on-prem and cloud at this point where people are putting different workloads and depending on how you count numbers and stuff like that. What are some of the trends that you're seeing within the customer base around hybrid and how are you going in bringing that to bear to really solve that problem? It's a really interesting time right now in the market and in the industry, right? There's a lot of trends happening with big acquisitions, like new solutions coming to market and as well one of the big drivers is Windows Server 2012 end of life. And so when you take all those trends together and you take as well like the innovation, digitalization in like different segments of the market when you talk about retail, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, government, where you have data regulations where data need to stay on-prem, then you really create a new kind of demand in market. And that's where I think Antonio did an amazing job in the recent years really creating GreenLake. The world is hybrid, we know that data and apps stay outside of the public cloud and so creating this hybrid approach is really driving that demand in our perspective. So I'm not sure if you want to add anything to that. Absolutely agree. The only thing I would add maybe is all about data. And when we take all that bunch of data, bringing the AI on top of that, it becomes super obvious that you need to really bring and cover everything across hybrid. And when we say 50% of those workloads are outside of cloud, they are a lot at the edge. And that's really where we want to bring together joint forces and going back to that integrated solution that will sit in a consumption-based model where you will be able to bring the same experience everywhere. And that's exactly where I think that trend is bringing us even more together. In terms of trends, maybe if I can add one other thing is that you want to bring all the challenges that our customers are facing today. And it's about compliance, security, but also performance and you want to say, okay, that's great to have all that great experience in the cloud, but how can I bring it and manage in a unified way my IT environment so I have that consistent operating model for whatever I do and I want to deliver for my company, for my business and make sure that they will get the service that they need in just the same way that they would do in the cloud. That's really how we are trying to bring an on-HP GreenLake and with our platform. Can you talk about some specific customer use cases? You had mentioned the various ways to use it in retail and manufacturing. How are customers using Azure and GreenLake together? Yeah, though, I think we have some recent wins together that really highlight those use case scenarios. So there's a really big retailer in Asia and who had multiple retail stores and each of those retail stores that had an all-window server sitting in the back. And to manage over 1,000 retail stores with outdated Windows server in the back is pretty hard. And so one of the things we did together is say, hey, how can we digitalize those retail stores? What are the challenges those retail face? And one of the things with retail right now is like, hey, how do we have a digital experience online? But how do we pull that through all the way to the edge in the retail store itself? And then as well, how do we connect our sensors in the retail stores to platform? So when you think about cameras and then if you think about AI tech protection, how do we work with the right ISVs to build on top of that? So if you talk about this specific retailer, we connected their 4K retail cameras with an ISV application on top of that that do tech protection with AI algorithms. We connected that into an HPE platform with Ashtag HCI and connected back into our cloud. And that's really an improved example from cloud to edge where you connect the whole digital environment. So that's just one single example with retail. But when you think as well around manufacturing, walk into an all manufacturing facility, right? It's basically like big machines, not a lot of compute, but there's a lot of sensors when you think about production of cars or like sauces or like other consumer products, there's like robots, there's like machines, there's like freight coming in. And so all that data need to be collected in a certain way. And so when you really think around in the past where customers had that data sitting in a warehouse and just hope that the machine was up and running, now they want to have an holistic perspective because the world is global. And so if you have over 20 or 30 like global factories across the world, how nice it will be to have one single control plane and see what is up and what's down and where are the challenges? And I think with GreenLake, with the GreenLake portal, enabling that in those kind of scenarios really allows customers to be more efficient, to drive innovation, but as well to utilize their data in a much efficient way to really say, okay, what are the things coming up? When do I need to do maintenance? When I'm down? Like what kind of optimizations can I make to really have a better environment? But it's also the fact that they have to be able to operate on their own as well at the Edge. And be disconnected sometimes from the cloud or they want to do inference at the Edge because they don't want to bring all of that data back into the cloud. And is that how you're seeing things develop and why this has become more important now? They want to keep control. You know, that's exactly what it is about is that how you make it simple for them with pre-validated architecture, integrated, something that is making it simple so they don't have the headaches of bringing the two company together. We do that for them. So they just have to go, but they keep the control and they say, you know, where we manage and where they want to manage, having the visibility, cost control of everything that they need. And that particular case of the retailer, that was really a really value added for them because they said, hey, you know, I don't want to deal with Microsoft on one side and HP Greenlight. I want the best of both worlds. So how can you make it simple for me? Bring that solution so I can just take the benefits and keep control and manageability over it. That was really the right example. I don't know if you want to talk about the manufacturing around the plant also. Yeah, like especially with this big manufacturer from the US, like it's just mind blowing how they just make those factories smart, right? Like when you think about making things smart in your home or making things smart with a car, there's this whole digitalization as well with like big companies who say, hey, how do I make my manufacturing smart? And so connecting their like robots and connecting their machinery into our platform and then have all that sensor data being optimized and bring that back in the cloud. But that's what bringing that back is really critical. I think one of the most important things is security. Security is such an important topic for like protecting their data, protecting their manufacturing but that's what retail or healthcare or government. And so pulling through like the Azure Defender or Azure Sentinel or Azure Monitor all the way to like an HPEA platform at the edge is really making differentiation in the market. Detecting anomalies before they actually impact your business, that's all about it. And that's exactly what we did for that factory. I would assume that also helped simplify their manageability of it as well. Yeah, like I think especially when you think about the control plane we created together, right? Like if you look at Microsoft's hybrid, it's for us basically three products. It's Azure Stack HCI and dedicated OS that works definitely like with the Azure cloud and it's optimized for the HPE hardware. We call it GreenLake or DL380s. We have created a single control plane that allows customers to manage all of their environment workloads at skill. And so that works together with the GreenLake portal as well. We call it Azure Arc. And the third pillar is really like we know that customers love container-based approaches. So yeah, VMs and containers, customers love containers. So our investment in like Azure like Kubernetes services is a really like big investment as well. And those three things together, combining that with HPE hardware like GreenLake and DL platform creates really like a unique platform. And that allows us to pull through all the workloads from the cloud to the edge, but as well bring data back into the cloud when that is needed. I'd like to know about where demand is coming from. You talked about the different things on customers' minds in terms of security, performance. What are they also asking for in their conversations with you? Where's the demand? I think they're asking, and I'm going to repeat myself, but I think that they're really asking for that unified operating model. That's about, hey, Mr. or Mrs. HPE, I really have that headache today. I've got all my challenges. I need to deal with all those environments. I've got new ask from business that are coming every day. And everything is siloed because I need to deal with my clouds, but also my on-premise, my edge. And I know that everything will come together and I've got also all my old system, my legacy system. So how can you help me so I can really manage it in an efficient way? So I can have visibility, control, and I've got also the right workload placement because it's not about having one application that I put it here and it stays here. No, I just want to make sure that I always have the right workloads at the right place and the right price because that's also a lot about that workload placement in the right way, in an efficient way for the customer. So I really, I think it's how the discussion starts with our customer. And then we move into those very industry use case where they have something specific to solve for, but if you don't get the operating model right, you can come with the best solution, it will never work. I mean, talking to customers, I think part of what they're looking for is that cloud operating model everywhere. And being able to bring it to the edge and bring it to their core and bring it to the cloud and have it all operate and be managed in the same way. I think at the same time, they're looking at, to your point on the retail or manufacturing, they want to qualify applications that then go and live in those different places. Are you seeing that as a big piece of it too? Because you're qualifying it on the platform and you're able to then support that one platform out at these different locations or in the cloud. Yeah, we made it much easier for our joint customers. So what we did as Microsoft is we created a catalog of solutions that are prefelidated by our engineering product teams. What means it is like, literally the customer can choose from our catalog, take the platform, deploy it in their machines or in their factories or retail locations, connect it into Azure and it's up and running. So it's just a matter of like sizing it but like everything else is preset. What makes it so much easier? And then when you think about our integrated systems that we jointly have together, we have now one ticketing support system. So instead of customers need to go to support from Microsoft if that's needed or like HPE, if they have like a challenge or an issue, they can open one ticket that goes both to our organization, firmware wise, like we can have one single firmware update for the whole machine based on Microsoft and HPE and making those things easier allows our customers to deploy it easier, to maintain it easier and have that overview at the stage. And that allows them really to skill in a much faster pace. And I would add to that that there's another dimension that is really important and becoming even more important is the standardization because if you're really thinking of that workload placement for one specific platform, you'd better think on how you stop thinking of standardization. So it's not only valid for two day, but also for year one, year two, year three. So you can adapt and make it a viable application that will just help you and drive your business not only two day, but in three or four years. I want to ask about the future because as we started this conversation by talking about this storied relationship between Microsoft and HPE and you've described how you design together, you develop together, you sell together and that this year the relationship has deepened. What are you expecting for 2024? There's only a few weeks left in this year. What can customers expect on the roadmap if you can share? Yeah, no, like happy to start. So I think the future's bright because the world is hybrid. And so I think HPE is in the forefront of hybrid computing and like GreenLake is there to really help customers with that transition. So I think we have a great opportunity ahead of us. We really look at like the demand that's coming from the market, right? Like with Windows Server 2012 end of life, those there's millions of customers across the world who are looking now, hey, how do I go hybrid? How do I pull through security? How do I optimize my manufacturing retail locations? How do I optimize my workloads? So we have a lot of customers that we are helping and being their trusted advisor in that journey. And then we really think from like development and like what's right for the future is like one of the big things that's coming soon is the GA date for Azure Virtual Desktop on Ashtek HCI. And I think we have a huge opportunity there together on driving VDI environments in a hybrid environment for our customers. So yeah, I would say there's just too much demand out there like that. It's just sharing what we just discussed two hours ago about the future. So that's great. It's a quick study. Absolutely. And I think the last thing is like artificial intelligence, right? Like everyone talks around AI and AI is really brought like word and like umbrella basically of different services. But like how do you make things smart? How do you use AI in the right way? How do you do responsible AI? And like pulling that through at your machines in factories like retail or all those use case scenarios we talk about? I think we're currently in a perfect storm if you call it like that way. There's a lot of market circumstances. There's an end of light with Windows Server 2012. AI is here and will stay here forever. A great platform from HPE and that together in my perspective from perfect storm what makes our future bright. And that makes sense with the data privacy as well being that you want to keep it local especially like France has very strict data privacy laws as well as Germany and others to the point where they outlawed certain different products that go across that. Are you seeing that from a wave with AI in particular that the security and being able to be local is a huge advantage to this? I mean that's the core of all the discussions that we are having when we talk about security, data privacy. They really want to understand where they can trust our solutions from everything that you can from chip to really the platform how you can really build that trust across the different steps. And I think that you shared perfectly all the different options than the future and where we are seeing the demand and security will just not be a separate topic. Security needs to be part of each and every discussions that we are having as we move to new applications, new workloads, new platforms, how are we going to integrate AI in everything that we do? You'll hear some announcements also this week on how we are bringing that into our platform, acquisition of Opsramp and everything that is coming. So I think that you will see more and more going into the way that we go to market together with more integrated solutions. Well we will be watching with, very closely, Valerie Dion, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE. Thanks for having us. And thank you so much for watching theCUBE's continuing coverage of HPE Discover here in Barcelona. I'm Rebecca Knight for Robstretch. Valerie will be back with us later today and Dion will be on with us again tomorrow. You are watching theCUBE, the leader in high tech enterprise coverage.