 Okay, welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage of AWS re-invent 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We are here live in person for a real event. It's a hybrid event, it's a live stream, a lot of actions, two CUBE sets here, wall-to-wall coverage, go to siliconangle.com and of course theCUBE.net to check all the coverage out and Amazon's got their own live event site. Go check out all the action. Got Stuart McGill here, CTO of Micro Focus, the company that was part of the big announcement involving the mainframe modernization that Adam Silebsky announced on stage on his first keynote as CEO and under the covers is Micro Focus powering a lot of that functionality. Stuart, thanks for coming on theCUBE to break it down with me. Thanks, John. So what does the announcement mean that Adam gave the IBM, I mean not the mainframe announcement, obviously IBM's known for the mainframe, but he had the mainframe modernization program. What's that all about? All right, I think we'd like to think of this, it's the next evolution of the mainframe. For those customers that have been running on the mainframe for 40 years, they've bet their business on it, where do they go next, what does the future hold? And this is all part of the announcement yesterday is this is the journey that many, many customers are going to decide to go on. So talking about the relationship between AWS and Micro Focus, obviously, I know AWS is talking about migration with Oracle and a lot of their customers have these mainframes that are in the classic data centers. Adam Silebsky told me personally when I interviewed him that the mainframe is part of that data center mindset that people are chipping away at now. They want to move them out, maybe keep some functionality, but for the most part, migrate it out eventually. This is where you guys are involved. Take us through why that's important. Well, I think it's a level of agility that it has actually delivered. For many customers, they need to move a hell of a lot faster than they currently are. Let's face it, the world is changing at pace. The applications that support these customers need to also change at pace. What AWS does is give this market a momentum, which is where do we go next? Where do we take customers where workloads have been running their business? How are they going to run their business in five years' time? How are they going to run their business in 10? Well, congratulations on Micro Focus, big part of the announcement. It specifically explained to me, Micro Focus is role in the announcement with AWS. What's the relationship? I think there's two-fold, to call it out. Actually, we've been working with AWS for many, many years. This isn't something that's radically new. We've been engaging with them for literally 10 years at least. But the key element is Micro Focus provides technology that's an enabler to facilitate AWS delivering the service, as well as a competency partner to help customers actually accelerate their journey to take advantage of it. So they're bundling Micro Focus into that capability. Is it software that you guys have? What's going on under the covers? I think it's software, it's capability, it's expertise. It's everything that a customer might need to help and be successful. Our job is to support AWS. It's AWS' job to make sure that the customer is absolutely satisfied. All right, so give me an example. I'm a customer, I got a mainframe. I'm a bank, I've been using the mainframe and boy, it just squeaks in time to get my backup done before I turn on the lights in the morning. It's just working, it's humming, it's pumping in all cylinders. My cobalt programmer just quit. What do I do? How do you guys help me? Well, I think there are two reasons why you can never sick call. Number one, you need to move your business at pace. So what's going to run your business going forward? So you need to understand your applications. Number two, the cost profile of your existing infrastructure is going to be incredibly expensive. So what you want to do is essentially make the change, accelerate the change, deliver that of much lower cost. So it looks at the application, so the software says, okay, what's the app? And then there's the, create like a replica, a digital twin. I mean, I'm just trying to visualize- Oh, I see what you mean. What happens? Because I got the mainframe, I know what that is. Been dealing with that animal for a long time. What happens next? Is it containerized? Is it an app replication? The customer determines how far they want to go. If they would like their mainframe application to run in the cloud exactly as is, so it supports their customers exactly as they expect today, we can do that. On the other hand, if they need to enhance that experience for their customers, if they need to take it into a completely different environment, if they do want to containerize, if they do want to take it into new levels of service, if they do want to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning, then again, they can determine the journey. Microfocus is there to essentially support them, do that first step, which is get the applications ready to be delivered into cloud as fast as possible. Well, congratulations on the relationship. I guess I got to ask you the question, which on my mind is that, okay, is this death of the mainframe? Long live the mainframe? You know, the old expression. Are they, is mainframe dying or are they going to hang around for a while? I mean, the dinosaurs are out there, right? I think this is, we like to position it more as an evolution. We don't think the mainframe is going to die. There will be customers who want to stay there when we respect their choices. But on the other hand, this is a way to truly accelerate the future of mainframe applications. You know, and I'll say, Stu, I would talk to a lot of CACISOs and CIOs and they all tell me the same thing. When they move into the cloud, the white hot core is pretty much the mainframe or critical apps. They get the edges first, move them to the cloud and then they come in and they start chipping away at the main core and then slowly move it out because they don't want to get in there and disrupt. So disruption is a huge concern. How does this new modernization migration program for the mainframe ensure that disruption doesn't happen? I'm sure that's on their mind. Well, I think what you're describing is what's the cut over, which is you're running on the mainframe today, you want to run on the mainframe tomorrow. You know, if that's the case or do you want to run on the mainframe today and you want to run on the cloud tomorrow? Essentially, the cut over is the same. The process is fairly separate from the mainframe itself. You're obviously bringing applications off, we're getting them ready to go, tested, regulated, so it's been approved, security's all in place and then essentially it's literally a switch cut. We literally have customers that turn off the mainframe and they're already running in the cloud and then we even have some that have photographs of them shipping the mainframe out the door. So I got to ask, is there a cut over party at that point? People, you know, champagne. Some people do that. It's certainly true. Remember, their people are also going along for this journey and they're not, it's a big moment for them. You know, I hate to sound old. Today's my birthday, so I have to say this. I remember when I was breaking into the business in my 20s, I never programmed on punch cards but I remember pointing at the mainframe guys and saying, those old relics, I guess that's what I would be today but the young guns coming into the industry today, they want containers, they want microservices, they want cloud, you see what's going on here at AWS. I mean, some really cool stuff happening. They want to take advantage of all the cool stuff that is there and every single announcement that's been made today and yesterday and the days ahead, all of those are great capabilities if you can get them into the core of your business. And so the key is to actually take what's running your business today, enhance it and improve it and take it forward. Yeah, I think the key point is great insight on your part about this cut over because people know what that means. It's a project plan. Cut it over, get it set up and I think that's the hard part. How hard is that on the cloud side in terms of staging? Can you share some timetables with me just to kind of give me a feel for order of magnitude? I got a mainframe, assume it's pumping, it's an app I'm using, I really can't shut it down but I want to cut it over storage. How much time to prepare to get it to the cloud? Roughly just order of magnitude. Most customers, they tend to phase these things. They're not trying to, if you're a really big bank, you are not going to do that overnight. That isn't going to come as a big surprise but what you're going to do is you're going to take it in chunks and they're typically 12 to 15 months which is the biggest step of the journey which is going from mainframe to cloud. The next iteration is going to be modernizing those applications and it's going to be much shorter timeframes than you're getting into months, weeks, days after that. Is there any categories that you see that are more susceptible to migration? I mean, as you mentioned, banks, I know some banks that they swear they're never going to touch the mainframe because literally, I don't, it's just so critical that the migration has to be longer. Is there other areas with more insurance, there's obviously a big mark for mainframes? Is there verticals that kind of like are more converting than others? Well, yes, but actually I take it back. One of the reasons is are these applications absolutely critical to these businesses? If they are, that's the reason why they're still running where they are because they're really truly valuable. They are the business. So you're taking the business into your new framework. So in that context, actually it tends to be financial services, insurance as you say, but also government for example, federal governments, state and local, as well as then you move into retail and it's surprising how often as you go into some of the other verticals where some of these mainframe applications are still existing. I hate to ask a dumb question only because I don't know it, so I want to ask it. And if you can say it's a dumb question if you think it is, just Dave, tell me. Are there still COBOL programmers out there? There are, to be clear, actually COBOL's not the problem. You can train a new guy in COBOL in literally weeks. If they don't quit. The issue is, yeah. Yeah, that issue is the mainframe itself. The mainframe experience about how it works is getting rarer and rarer. So the key element is, how can you take the new young guns and give them the application and see what they can do? And this is a mechanism to do that. Great announcement, congratulations. I was really impressed to see the mainframe. Actually surprised to see Adam kind of focused on that. But again, in the spirit of this tradition of re-invent, Jassy before Adam, Andy Jassy did the same thing with Oracle and all the other kind of big legacy, old guard, they call them, technologies, mainframes one. You guys are part of that, so congratulations. Just final word, your take on the event so far, what's been the feedback on the announcement? Share some color commentary on what the feedback's been for you guys. Now we actually, since the announcement, we've had some great customer conversations. I mean, there are a lot of businesses that really do want to make this change. We're kind of there to help them. And that's really the next step, which is what needs to happen to make this a reality. I mean, Amazon may not like me saying it, but I think there's some use cases where you keep the mainframe in there and you don't touch it, it works there, you keep it unless you want to move it. But if you want to move it, people sometimes want to move it faster and get in this path there. Even AWS respects customer choice. The purpose is to meet the demand of the customer. And if the customer chooses to sell the mainframe, great. If they want to move off, we're there to help. Get to the mainframe, long live the mainframe. It's theCUBE coverage here in Las Vegas. I'm John Furrier, love the mainframe. I used to have a 3270 terminal when I worked at IBM back in the 80s, dating myself. Well, when you need to. McGill, thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it. Pleasure. Okay, CUBE coverage here in Las Vegas. theCUBE, you're watching the leader in global tech event coverage. I'm John Furrier, your host, thanks for watching.