 Extracting the signal from the noise, it's the Cube. Covering VMworld 2015, brought to you by VMware and it's ecosystem sponsors. And now your host, Dave Vellante. Let's go everybody, this is the Cube. We're here live at VMworld 2015. Ed Walsh is here, he's the CEO of CataLogic and Charles Fan is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Storage and Availability at VMworld. Gentlemen, welcome to the Cube. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. Charles, you're in charge of storage, availability. I mean, you got a big job. You lose the data, you lose your job. So, the weight of the world on your shoulders. So, we saw the keynotes this morning. A lot of talk about hybrid cloud. Had the container conversation of course, but the sand was right in the middle of that sort of hybrid cloud discussion. Sort of the platform on which you're building out the connections to the outside world, but also sort of emulating the facility and ease of use of that public cloud within your own four walls. So, talk a little bit about the keynotes. That was an exciting keynot. They're great to see Yen being up there. I think she looked great. She actually leads all the storage engineering team. And Visa is certainly a core part of our unified hybrid cloud infrastructure. And we are actually great to see Visa as being part of the storage part of a self-defined data center architecture and enabling the long distance V motion across clouds and that was great to see up there. And also a great kit session about the cloud native apps is very important to us. That we must pay more attention to the developers as they're developing their applications. It's actually quite related to the partnership we have with Catalogic. Yeah, so Ed, so I mean I know Catalogic. You and I have known each other for a long time. But for the audience that's not familiar with Catalogic and catalogs, you know, what's that all about? What's the company about? Tell us about Catalogs. Okay, so about Catalogs. But copy data management is where we play. And copy data is pretty simple. It's a copies of production data. Everyone has copy data. In fact, it's good. You have it for resiliency or DR or test dev or dev ops, the application team needs copies of copies. But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. So copy data is becoming an industry buzzword because IDC and others have done these studies. And IDC say it was very telling. They found it in the enterprise. If you have one copy of production data, you have at least up to 50 of the same copies on disk somewhere. Consuming about 60% of your disk, but also about 85% of your spend on software hardware to store it in enterprise environments. That's a big number. And most of these copies sit completely idle. So the same idea is how do you take a catalog? How do you understand what you have? So what we simply do is we take your infrastructure, be it your VMware environment or storage. We don't make you move it, don't change it. We talk to it via public APIs and we build this metadata catalog. Exactly what's out there and how it's being changed over time. And then we add things like orchestration automation for really interesting use cases. In the end, you're able to drive out a lot of CAPEX but really OPEX. All the manual error prone tasks you have to deploy things, self-provision. And now what you can do is literally publish those templates, allow the app teams now self-provision. Save the app team time, OPEX, but also the storage teams out of the business of even though it can be complex, multi-data center, hybrid cloud deployments, multiple recover points on each side. Very complex environments you can employ but now you can really push it out and let the app teams go provision. Those are the type of use cases we've seen and that's where we're really complimentary. When you hear VMware talking about run, build, deliver, that's what we do on the copy data side, on the storage side, how it all works with the orchestration. And that's where the relationship is. We leverage VMware's powerful APIs, also your storage primitives if you'd call that, right? So the VMotion, the storage VMotion which I studied a relationship or announcements just happened today. But also things like VADP are doing copy services and change block technology or VVOLs. Great abstraction layers but you do need a catalog to keep track of what it is so you have visibility but also the orchestration built around that to leverage it. So okay, so you're solving the copy creep problem which is a waste, economic waste but there's also a value component I heard there. And Charles, you were talking about sort of the developers, the DevOps crowd if you will. So what's the relationship in your mind between sort of this ability to sort of catalog what I have and the development team and that whole notion that Ed brought up about self-service? Right, so obviously we're seeing a great growth of data volume, a lot of copies of the same data. And traditionally we're looking at those as backup copies but now more and more they are test dev copies. As developers deploying their application they have multiple copies of data. So it's not only about data protection but also about building applications, testing applications and deploying applications. So we are seeing more and more customers running to problems like this. We're also seeing partners in our ecosystem like catalogic and others who are providing better solution in helping customers managing those copies both for data protection and application development use cases. And it's our intention really to build the best APIs to working with these ecosystem partners and really making our software defined storage and architecture complete to address the customer needs. Okay, so the catalogs have been, I guess I don't know, catalogs have been around forever. They're just buried inside of some appliance or some array, right? So your strategy is to make that available and open. Is that right? Well, you want to simplify it. So we talked about DevOps. How do you simplify that by using enterprise storage? We use the catalog to understand what's there and then the public API is to now simplify the workflows so it can be very, very complex. The infrastructure guys can set it up but now the DevOps team by making a simple REST call can go either self-provision, gold, silver, bronze, but more importantly, do DevOps. Fence off, use it, promote production, do that multiple times. Who would better do DevOps? Oh, actually the only one that can do that automation is actually the Dev team and we simplify the access by allowing the infrastructure team to keep control. Or DR, who would better do DR testing than the actual app team themselves but what you do need to do is simplify it as they can consume it. You can't make them do the same complexity but all these things also simplify the life of the guy running the infrastructure itself because now they're not doing the mundane tasks. So the catalog's a key thing. So if you don't have a metadata catalog, you can't keep track of this complexity when you had one platform was one thing but as it's the complexity is kind of spiraled in the last 25 years, you need the catalog to keep track of it but really that's a base of how you can add all these different value sets. So Charles, I wonder if we could talk about automation. Sure. You know automation obviously is hero, automation that's a good thing but a lot of times customers say, ooh, automation. I'm afraid of giving control to a machine. So talk about automation, sort of the state of where we're at with automated management and where the catalogs fit into them. Sure. So automation is the important benefit virtualization brings. In particular in storage, we introduce something called storage policy based management. This is allow you to, when you provision your VM you can specify what type of SLOs that you require from the storage component to support this VM. As opposed to traditional way where the storage management is sort of separated from the compute management whereby SPBM storage policy based management we combine the two and let the storage management to be driven by the application by the VM side. And that's the important component of our software defined data center and software defined storage vision and I believe catalogic shear that vision where a lot of these automation can be enabled by the software. So the unit of granularity for policy based management is the VM? It's the VMDK, the virtual disks that are attached to the virtual machines. Yeah, okay, and I wonder if you could follow up. Just talk a little bit about VMware storage strategy. You announced? Sure. VSAN, last year you announced Evo Rail and then followed that up with Evo Rack and create a lot of buzz. The whole hyperconverged thing is taken off. How would you summarize VMware storage strategy? So our strategy is software defined storage and hyperconverged infrastructure. VSAN was shipped 18 months ago. It's got over 2,000 customers. It's the most deployed hyperconverged solution in the market today. And in fact, there are more units of VSAN deployed than any other hyperconverged solution. And our vision is to allow customer to standardize data center with the same hardware and enable the storage functions by the software from VMware and from our partners. Okay, so, okay, so you hear that? Yeah. That's probably music to your ears, because you're not selling an array. Right. Okay, so from your standpoint, and you hear what Charles just said about the VMware storage strategy, and then you heard the keynotes this morning about hybrid cloud, where do you see catalogs fitting in midterm to longterm? So again, hybrid cloud just adds more complexity, but it has a lot of power. So a lot of things that VMware's doing to make it seamless to go across those environments and powerful, what we do is give you the catalog to see what you have as far as copy data in the environment, correlate that what you do with the VMs or the application groups, and now it's actually more powerful. In fact, when you go hybrid cloud, having a catalog, understanding it, is the critical piece to keep in control of it. And then the automation pieces, you have to understand the catalog would also tell you things like location and lineage. You understand what the production data set is and the copy of the production set. You understand what physical locations those are in, even if it's hybrid cloud or not. Having that knowledge, that allows you now automate in a much more intelligent way and do very interesting use cases. So the catalog's a key piece, but it's all the enablement that goes on top of it really gives a value because it simplifies. You hide that complexity and allow people to just consume how they want to be consumed, either an app user or the storage IT guy. Without dumbing down things, all the high power that you have in your environment, you can be as customized, but you can simplify it for users. And the point of control for what you described is in this world, vSphere? Sure, vSphere, but also the public APIs of any of the storage platforms that you're currently running. vSAN, but also IBM, NetApp, VMware, vSAN, EMC in the future. So it's wherever the customer wants that control to be. Right, exactly. And we believe the data center will be a hybrid environment, in the sense both of hybrid cloud as well as the storage will continue to see arrays for a long time. So it'll be a lot of arrays from our storage partners, but there'll be increasing amount of hyperconverged storage in the environment as well. And the beauty of software defined storage, you can manage both of them with a single policy. Okay, so you're not going to get into the hardware business, right? You guys are staying a software company, so where does, I think, thinking from a customer standpoint, I've got all these choices. Where do I, and this certainly gray area is allowed, that's cool, but generally speaking, if we can do that, generalize, where do you see the fit for your vSAN versus say the array-based solutions? Sure, so vSAN is a new solution. It starts with three strongest use cases, namely VDI, virtual desktops, the remote offices, branch offices, as well as test dev use cases. That's what we introduce a version one of vSAN. Now with version two that we shipped in Q1 this year, we're extending it to tier one mission critical production apps. In fact, from the latest customer survey, we found that quickly become the number one use case by our customers. So vSAN has quickly stepped up to really addressing both the data center use cases as well as continues to be a great solution for the user's VDI environment. So why do I need an array? No, I mean so, I know there's a spectrum of mission critical, right? But is it largely because I've got processes around that array or those arrays can do things that is not going to do with vSAN? Where we still have a gap is the completeness of data services, where traditional arrays has been developing those data services for 15, 20 years. A storage stack. The storage stacks, the various deduplication, for example, compression, encryption and various data services. And those are the areas that we are still working on. We're actually previewing a beta version of our software in Q4, that's going to introduce in a dedupe capability as well as the erasure coding. So we still have a little way to go in terms of completing our data services, but customer is finding vSAN to be a very robust and performance solution for their enterprise use cases. So dedupe is going to, you know, the data reductions, you know, solve the economic issue and then the other services that you build out will take some time, but it's your strategy to continue to add value in that space, right? Right, right. And I think the key is no matter what customer chooses, whether they pick an array or whether they pick a hyperconverged solution, they can be all managed through the same automation layer, which is our SPBM. So through SPBM and vSAN and vVol connecting to the arrays, you can have a single management playing for this mixed environment. And Ed, what's unique about CataLogic? Well, I think what we do is we're very complimentary to what VMware is doing. Everything you just said, we do exactly the same thing, but we focus on the specific issue of the copies that are being created. What's unique about it is we actually don't make you change your storage. There's other solutions that make you take your copy and make another copy of it to solve your copy problem. We look at the specific issue and give you the, what I'll say, more holistic solution to it, but we give you the flexibility and openness, just like VMware just kind of is a software-defined copy data management. Download in 15 minutes, don't change what you have, and I can give you all these great use cases. And it doesn't matter what you have or how you evolve what you're using underneath the covers, it doesn't matter. The same workflows, the same policies, the same single-painted glass goes through. And so you've announced for VMware, you mentioned IBM. And NetApp. And NetApp. And you'll see more. So basically we started in February with one storage provider, and now we have nine. You'll see us very easily go across the rest of the infrastructure. So there's nothing architecturally that limits you from doing that. And you as well are a software company, you're not planning on. 100% software, in fact, that's a differentiation. Some people are using the term copy data dimension 2.0. It's like all about in place. What you currently have, don't move it. Let me give you the flexibility that simplify those workflows across it. And have ISVs started to sort of pick up on this and give us the update there? Well, MSPs for ISVs as well, but people are looking for, how do I get control? The metadata catalog is rich, so we're seeing a lot of different people saying, boy, if you have that metadata catalog, how do I get after it and leverage for analytics and other use cases? But the biggest use case we see is people trying to get on top of their OPEX and CAPEX in their enterprise hybrid cloud. And in almost all cases, we're there with VMware. So metadata. Charles, are we going to see a day where we have more metadata than data? Is that take over? Are you there? I mean, it's really, I mean, we never used to talk about, but we used to talk about metadata, but the public didn't until Snowden came out. But now it's like on everybody's mind, but it's true, there's so much data about the data. And that's where a lot of the value is, right? Where does metadata fit into your storage strategy? Well, metadata is data about data, and that's actually the key pointers to where your data is. I don't actually think the volume of metadata will ever exceed data, but without metadata, your data is useless. So that's certainly really the backbone of your data infrastructure. All right, Ed, we'll give you the last word. Can I summarize your experience here at VMworld, the catalogic, you got a booth, you got a little buzz going on, you got some good partnerships happening. Give us the bumper sticker. I couldn't say any better. So we're excited to be here. It's exciting for us to see kind of the adoption of the market, a copy data management. In fact, people come out and buy the booth and call it the new buzzword, which is great. But in general, it tackles a really big prompt for clients, and we do it in the most easy way for people to consume. It's an agentless download. Don't change what you have, and you get these great benefits. So it's exciting to see things grow and really take off. Well, congratulations, Ed. You have a knack of finding these companies that have interesting technology, great ROI. So thanks very much for coming to theCUBE. Thank you. Charles, good to see you. All right, keep it right there, buddy. We'll be back with our next guest right after this. This is theCUBE. We're live from Moscone in San Francisco. Right back. Thank you. Thank you.