 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell EMC World 2017. Brought to you by Dell EMC. Okay, welcome back everyone. We're here with theCUBE live in Las Vegas for Dell EMC World 2017. Our eighth year of live coverage of EMC World, now the first year of Dell EMC World. This is theCUBE, SiliconANGLE's flagship program. When we go out to the events and extract the signal noise, talk to the experts, talk to the thought leaders. I'm John Furrier with my co-host, Keith Townsend. Our next guest is Tim Rod, who's the director of sales and business development at Cisco Systems. Tim, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks, John. Thanks for coming on, really appreciate it. Cisco has owned the network infrastructure over many, many years and is moving up the stack and it's really fun to watch the transformation of the big companies, Dell EMC, particularly going through their own transformation. You guys have a partnership with Dell EMC. Talk about that relationship and where that connects and the impact of customers. Well, it's been a partnership for greater than 20 years and I think the customers have been the biggest beneficiaries of that relationship. So we've done a lot of good together in the early days of the partnership as data centers began to grow and then more recently with digital transformation. It's an unbelievable partnership. The thing that we're seeing you guys having a lot of, we had Pat Gelsinger on earlier and he's like, oh, infrastructure guys love, I'm sorry, Mary Soss said infrastructure guys are really good at security. They're used to dealing with security. I mean, the packet level all the way down to from even the early days of email spam and all those, these threats. But now you start to see the network become really instrumental and Dell EMC has a real software fabric going on around tying together what used to be speeds and fees, much more digital transformation. How are you guys looking at that differentiation? How are you guys teaming up to help with things like security as software becomes critical? What's the play there? Well, Cisco is really going through transformation as I'm sure you know, it's security is the number one priority for Cisco. We've made a lot of acquisitions in that space. We're doing a lot of our own IP in that space and we're doing a lot of that together with Dell EMC with our partners, with our customers. We even co-innovate with our customers in that space as well. What are some of the conversations you're having with customers? Can you take us through like a top three kind of high level conversations that you're engaged with, with Dell EMC. What is the dialogue look like? What is it, what's the, how is it unfold? It's really looking at the business impact of the customers. You know, customers are in a situation where the budgets are shrinking, the resources are more constrained, yet more is being asked of them. Customers are demanding. So now they're put in a position where they need to look to technology to solve a lot of their problems. And that's what we do together between Cisco and Dell EMC is solve those customer business problems. So we do a lot in healthcare as an example where electronic medical records have made a large rise. You can't do that without effective infrastructure and without effective partnerships like between Cisco and Dell EMC. Oil and gas, transportation. You can name the vertical. It always turns to customer business outcomes. What are they trying to do with the technology rather than just talking about the technology itself? So a lot of speculation when Dell purchased EMC on whether or not Cisco was going to go out and purchase a NetApp or Pure Storage or another storage vendor. Cisco, very disciplined in their approach, said, you know what, we're going to see, we're going to move forward to the future. We're going to focus on problems that customers are having. Where's the gaps in the market? Do you think Cisco specifically would add value to in the future? Well, Cisco is still a networking company. Well, obviously we're focused on security. We're focused on data center. We're the networking leader. We'll continue to fill the gaps and the gaps that are developing are developing in networking as well. So we'll focus there for sure. On the Dell side, we saw endpoints has been key. Discussion is one of the key note. Obviously VMware, the AirWatch, VDI. These are things that have been challenging for CIOs, right? The endpoint got to secure. But now end to end is becoming really, really part of the, not only the engagement with the client from a sales motion or business outcome standpoint, but there's some technical things going on. And infrastructure is code, AKA DevOps, is even more powerful than ever. I think Pat Gelsinger called it, developer ready infrastructure. This really kind of puts the bull's eye on Cisco to bring value from the network layer all the way up the stack. Thoughts there on what that means to customers and how they should think about Cisco in that relationship. Sure, well, we have to do that through our partnerships, right? Cisco does have an end to end view, everything from our security products of amp for amp points all the way through network as a sensor where we're really looking across the entire threat continuum to determine the ways to protect the customers. The threats are evolving, the software is evolving. So Cisco has to be agile to keep up with that. And, you know, with Dell Technologies, we have the opportunity to partner with RSA, with SecureWorks. SecureWorks uses a substantial amount of Cisco software to be able to meet customers' business objectives as well. So the partnership there is key. And then the end to end strategy that both Cisco and Dell Technologies have in that approach. So obviously Cisco has a very strong relationship with Dell EMC and the VBlock that you guys are adding great value UCS and your network stack. Let's talk about expanded ecosystem partners and where you guys think you fit in and adding value as data centers to continue to consolidate compute storage and networking into a single platform that's delivered as a package. Where does Cisco play in that role? Well, you know, Cisco, as you said, is an ecosystem company, right? We have a lot of partners that we work together with to add value for our customers. Our customers have demanded business and technology models that just work, right? With the VBlock and VXBlock, what we've seen is that for more than eight years we've been meeting that specific customer requirement to deliver a pre-engineered, pre-validated system built on joint innovations between Cisco, Dell EMC to just deliver technology that works. Give some examples of that because this is a theme we're seeing with Hyperconverge and the glue layer, whether it being on-prem to cloud or some sort of multi-cloud direction, requires some hardened tech. Sure, add some more perspective on the examples there. Well, it all goes back to what the customer's trying to achieve, which is down to the workload, right? Prior to coming to Cisco when I was the CIO and I was managing those business outcomes for my customers, the companies that I worked for, it was managing risk, it was managing resources and the budgets associated with those and it was managing application performance. The infrastructure has to contribute to that all of those outcomes, right? They have to reduce, mitigate risk. That's converged and Hyperconverge does that, right? Has to focus on resources, the ability to measure and manage those resources, right? And it has to fit into the application performance. The workloads have to be matched to the infrastructure and Hyperconverge and Converge infrastructure have a diversity of workloads that apply and so to meet the expectations of the customer, you need to have a diverse portfolio that you can offer to the customer. Cisco has a very diverse portfolio. UCS and Nexus contribute to that portfolio and Dell EMC has a diverse portfolio that we partner with to deliver to the customer. It's really good to see the tech environment really not being about speeds and fees and comparing and contrasting. The customers have a lot of choice. So I got to ask you, given that you have a CIO background, I'm sure you got a lot of empathy for the current CIOs out there now. So there's pressure to have all that security, all that hard and tech, but yet the pressure to be agile and get rapid development, which is going from waterfall to agile, which has kind of changed in kind of the makeup of how people are rolling out their own apps, not just to reduce cost, but to drive top line revenue. So what is in your perspective, what's the current challenges that CIOs have today? Because as it looks holistically over their environments, it's not just, I mean, from facilities to data management to revenue generation now, it's daunting. I mean, the speed of technology evolution is ever present, right? It's never going to cease. I think that the traditional models where you had server management and network management and all of the different jobs in a data center are now coming together. The lines are blurred. So CIOs are now saying, how do I take my resources and distribute those where they add the most value for my organization? How do I apply the best practices? How do I get the best return on investment for my people and not have to worry about the infrastructure? And the CIOs are also concerned. I know you're going to want to jump in, but I want to just double down on that for a second. We had Baskier on earlier. It's the CIO of Dell, formerly a VM where it does some pretty innovative things. He's kind of a maverick in my mind. I think he's really progressive. But yeah, he's conservative. Most CIOs have been very conservative. And he said, quote, we missed the wave on mobile. We missed, so the CIOs tend to kind of like wait. But he said, he's advising his friends or CIOs, don't miss the IoT wave. Get out in front of that architecture because these are absolutely critical way that they've got to be proactive on. So what's your advice and perspective on IoT because it's an architectural challenge. It's a network. I mean, a device connected to the network. Here we go. It's an IP enabled device. It's part of the network. Sure. And security is a concern. Yes, it's going to be a key driver to business value. Your thoughts? Security is a huge implication to that. The network, everything is about the network as we start talking about sensors, as we start talking about the internet of things. We're still going back to that same question is, what are we going to do with this technology? Who's best positioned to be able to deliver on those customer outcomes? From an IoT perspective, it's going to impact every vertical, every industry. And so Cisco is very well positioned in the internet of things. We're one of the innovators in that industry. Our ecosystem partners that we have in the internet of things are tremendous. Just to give props to Cisco, not to over fawn on Cisco's vision, but you guys were basically on top of IoT or IOE as you call it, internet of everything, years ago before it's fashionable. Right. I mean, you got to be like, hey, we call that one. Yeah, we're on the front of the wave. And so that's great, but we can't do it alone, right? We need our customers' help. We need our partners' help. And we need our technology partners like Dell EMC to help us there. We can't get there without them. Our customers are demanding it. So a big theme of the show has been digital transformation. You've talked to that digital transformation is a conversation that your customers are having with you. One of the underlying enablers of digital transformation is agility and what we've termed as DevOps, the ability to program the infrastructure. Networks have had a ding that, they're not exactly programmable. What's the vision of offering that capability within Cisco-based solutions? I have to rotate to Cisco ACI, right? I mean, with ACI, the programmable fabric, our ability to automate the data center through ACI is an unbelievable innovation at Cisco. It's really provided the ability to really underpin everything that you need to do from a digital transformation perspective. It allows you to do more with less. It allows you to be more agile. It allows you to be more consistent, to be more compliant, to do all the things that you need to be able to once again deploy your resources where they make the most sense, where they add the most value for your company. So is that a commitment from a customer perspective? Do I have to rip and replace to get ACI? Is that a all Cisco environment? What's the commitment I'm making to Cisco when I adopt ACI? Sure, I mean, Cisco, it's an evolution, right? And ACI is certainly a Cisco technology based on the Nexus 9K, right? Right now, there's innovations that we're putting out with ACI and UCS, but the interactions between ACI and VMware vSphere and vCenter, there's a number of ecosystem partners that we've connected with ACI to be able to manage up and down the entire stack. So it absolutely is a central part of the data center, but it interacts across so many third-party partners. What's the impact of VBlock? I was talking to VBlock, or the former VC-CTO last night at the media reception, and VBlock has been very successful over the years. What's the update now? I mean, obviously that's been early, one of the first real kind of the hyperconverged, kind of packaged, high performance. What's the update there on VBlock? Well, I mean, we started out years ago as a joint venture, right? And like every good joint venture, you don't want to have that run forever that way. So we recapitalized the joint venture in the proper way. Dell EMC now as the owner of that asset is our partner going forward. We've made a staunch commitment to the relationship. You've talked to Chad Sackett recently as well. He'll continue to make that commitment to the relationship. Everybody's committed because our customers are requiring it, right? Going forward, you're going to continue to see UCS and Nexus as part of VBlock, period, going forward. It's been a nice eight-year run. We've been covering VBlock, and eyes has been astounded by the success. Initially, I was a skeptic, no offense, but been turned on that over the years, so congratulations. Final question, what's your thoughts on this event? This is the first Dell EMC world, but we've been covering EMC world for eight years now at theCUBE. It's always been EMC world. Now you have a breadth of a portfolio with a Dell that's seen a lot of synergies coming to the table quickly, just for the folks that aren't here, share your perspective of what's happening on the ground here, vibe, content, what's your thoughts? Well, I've been coming to the show for 10 years. I came as a customer, I came as a reseller, and I came as part of Cisco. The show is different this year than it's ever been. It's broader, there's a new perspective, it's a fresh perspective, it's outstanding. There's no judgment on past shows, but it just continues to get better. But this year, leapfrog past year, for sure. Yeah, I mean, definitely, there's more strategic conversations than before. It's always been kind of speeds and fees, okay, mostly, obviously, storage company, but you know. Indeed. You know, you know. Well, Tim, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE, really appreciate it. We are excited to have Tim Rod here from Cisco on theCUBE, breaking down the relationship between Cisco and Dell EMC, continuing to thrive. Again, a big portfolio, big change here. Dell EMC World 2017, it's theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, Keith Townsend. We'll be right back with more for this short break. Stay with us.