 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Dell EMC World 2017. Brought to you by Dell EMC. Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here live in Las Vegas for Dell EMC World 2017. This is theCUBE's eighth year of covering since the inception of theCUBE. EMC World, which is now called Dell EMC for the first year of the combination coming together. Exciting, a lot of stories, lines here. I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE and my co-host was SiliconANGLE Paul Gillan. Our next guest, Jeff Boudreau, who's the president of Dell EMC Storage Division. It sounds weird to say that because EMC used to be a storage company. Now they're part of Dell Technologies, with a zillion brands. Jeff, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you for having me. So first, explain quickly what the storage division is because Chad Sackirk does... Converged. Converged infrastructure, but you own all the storage. Correct. So just quickly just... Yeah, real quick, keeping it simple. If you think about the components of the building blocks, you have Ashley running compute, you have Tom Burns running network, you have myself running storage, and you have Beth Failing running data protection. Then Chad's the Converged platform. So when we integrate those solutions, Chad has that piece. So yes, all storage, and that would be legacy or heritage Dell storage, but also heritage and legacy EMC storage. All that came together. So just massive revenue, massive amounts of customers, and then obviously tons of engineers around the world. You got a lot of work to do. Obviously storage is not going away. It's changing radically in a different way. Certainly cloud is accelerating it. The data center world is changing. They call it data center. They don't call it server center. They call it the data center because it's more data coming. So I got to ask you, one of my favorite quotes in your keynote this morning was, we have self-driving cars. Why don't we have self-driving storage or autonomous storage, which is provocative but also very relevant. Can you explain what you meant by that and let's dig deeper into that? Yeah, I mean actually it's one of my favorite topics actually. I have this notion of the pillars of innovation, right? And I want to start looking at to your point, things are changing in the markets and the way customers are using our products. And I want to embrace that change and innovate around that change. And the notion of the day in the life of the storage admin, the day in the life of the data center admin, the day in the life of just about anybody using the products, we got to make it simpler, right? It goes back to consumer simplicity and a lot of this stuff. And what we're trying to do there is actually make the storage be smart enough to actually just take care of itself. So it's kind of the set up and forget it notion. So as part of autonomous storage, we look at four attributes simplistically in regards to how you would have a self-driving system. The first one is about being application-centric. At the end of the day, it's all about the app and the workload. We all know that, right? And that's what the users care about. So the way I kind of looked at that this morning is the example is that's like telling your car where you want to go or is it a turn-by-turn decision, right? That you would give it. The second thing is about being policy-driven. And on that you'd say, hey listen, do I want to take the fastest route or do I want to take the scenic route? Simplistically. And then, I'm going to be honest with you, that stuff's relatively easy and we do a bunch of that stuff today. Really when it starts to get to a next level is when the stuff becomes self-aware. Understanding its resources and then understanding if you're in or out of those boundaries. So am I swerving out of my lane? Do I have enough gas? Dot, dot, dot, as an example. And then when it gets really powerful is the fourth component for me is self-optimization. And that's being able to understand what being yourself aware and then making a better outcome for your customer. At the end of the day that could be, hey, there's not enough charging stations to get to your destination or you don't have enough charge or, better yet, the storage will actually, or the system would tell you, hey, take this path, there's enough charging stations, I'll get you there on time and safely. So you'd be very happy if you had the brand bumper sticker of the Tesla of storage. Absolutely. To your point about the stations, people love Tesla, it's very sexy, it's relevant. I got to ask you about machine learning. It's obviously, AIs hyped up. We call it not artificial intelligence, more augmented intelligence, that's a better definition because artificial intelligence is weak word, but it doesn't really exist, it's kind of been around there. But augmentation of value is about machine learning and deep learning. These are the learning systems you mentioned, self-optimization. That's basically learning machines. That's right. What are you guys doing around big data? I'm at big data machine learning and some of these things. So we're doing a handful of things. So along the keynote, I mentioned built-in analytics and this two things. Dell EMC, we store, protect and secure more data than anybody else in the world, far none. So, but it's, and I used to joke, EMC used to be known for where information lives. Dell Technologies and Dell EMC has to be known for where information comes alive, right? And actually providing value would generate value for our customers. And so what we're going to do is we're going to have built-in capabilities into the array, but also we're going to plug into the broader ecosystem with analytics and service providers to really help drive that value and that creation. So you'll see a lot more around the storage itself around that self-learning and understanding that kind of the core components of an array. What makes it run healthy or unhealthy enables the customer to better utilize and add more value to their stack than also going into that broader ecosystem and making sure that they really can drive that value to their customers and to their business. What pieces will you be delivering first? On the storage side itself specifically, we will be, we already have a lot of products that have the capability, probably two or three of the capabilities. So between absentric policy-driven and self-awareness, those are the ones we're on right now, big time. And I have a team focused on the machine learning so we can really start self-optimizing. We actually just, we mentioned, I don't know if the guys that were on or other folks we've had on the show talked about a thing called Cloud IQ. Yes, they did. But actually, so that was something that we built a SaaS model in the cloud, which is all about machine learning. So that's part of this whole rollout. Absolutely. Moving back, moving to the cloud eventually. Yeah, well, absolutely. It's critical. So another quote that I'll offer from your keynote because that's some great sound bites. Icelon, one of the products in your portfolio. Icelon is known to be the gold standard for storage in the genome sequencing. Obviously, with the massive amounts of compute that's available, certainly cloud computing is now made it possible to do amazing things with the data and make that literally come alive and may hopefully people can live longer. But genome sequencing is actually doable and price points that- It's crazy. Probably the last two years alone, it's dramatically and drastically just reduced. Why is Icelon the gold standard for sequence? What specifically is it that's great about it? Well, it's basically in regards to the data structure and how we can process that big data and make sense of it quickly. As we analyze it, there's nothing faster in the market. And it'd be interesting now that we've brought out the Icelon all-flash ray with the new Infinity platform. We've taken something that two years ago took weeks down to days, down to hours. And with the all-flash ray, we've taken it down to minutes, 22 minutes to be exact. So I got to ask you, I'll let you think about the portfolio question I'm going to ask in about a minute how you're going to rectify all that, where the overlap is or isn't. So you can work on that. But the next question is the industry. You're not seeing a lot of startups trying to do what Icelon did. You heard Icelon guys leaving, starting companies and everyone's kind of pivoting, but you are seeing startups in the white spaces, data protection. So question, how hard is it to do a startup right now and get venture funding? Because it seems to be scale as the issue. And it's hard to be a quote, quote, pure storage company. Pun intended. No, it's pure storage. The last company to challenge you guys. I also throw net up in there as well. It's standing on their own regards to that. But let's be clear, this market's consolidating and that's good for us. No ifs ands or buts about it, right? So with our size and scale, Dell and EMC and Dell Technologies together, our size, our scale, I have buying power unmatched by anybody. And it's going to be hard for you know, there's a lot of companies out there. Not to crack for a startup to come in and compete the table stakes are too high. So in regards to innovation, spending R&D, value chain that we get, efficiency, buying power, Intel, I mean, think about all the stuff around the whole ecosystem, it's just really hard to do. So this market's consolidating, we're good with that. What I want to do is consolidate this market faster and I want to drive more share of this market in regards to that. And I think it's really tough. So you've seen small guys be bought recently, right? Some guys, they're not doing well. Some people- Accu-hires. Maybe some of these orange people are really in the red as you're going back to your pun, right? So they're struggling, right? Some of these guys are struggling. So I really think this is an opportunity as we force this market as it consolidates for us, I think it's a really big- All right, so the question on the consolidation, sorry for the interrupt, but okay, I get the consolidation. Now the growth, we're going to put the pedal to the metal, it's going to come from where? From your market, you got a mature market, your consolidating, you lock that in. So that's big dollars, by the way, it's not like small numbers. And the table stakes are high, so I'm sorry, so I'm going to crack that nut. But then you got to have the growth strategy where there's a hockey stick opportunity. Yeah, so from a storage perspective, let's be clear. They're going to have the growth that's going to come through things like HCI, it's going to come through things like software to find in regards to how we do that, right? And that's obviously part of, software to find is part of my portfolio as well. So it'll be a journey in regards to where we grow it, but the traditional space is huge, let's be very clear. It's massive, right? We have to do that and do that extremely well and protect that and make sure our customers are taken care of. But as they go on the journey, if it's software to find or cloud or what have you, we want to make sure we're relevant, can help with that. So one, we'll be taking share in that space. There'll be opportunities as the consumption models, the technology and the deployment models change will be front and center and all those. Speaking about software to find, I mean essentially that can deposition some of the storage elements below it. Cisco is wrestling with that right now where they sort of held off for a couple of years on the software to find network and they're finally embracing it. What are you doing to balance the need for the elements of your portfolio to shine with also the need to get customers to software definition? Absolutely, so right now, I mean, it's a journey, let's be clear, right? And so I have actually a large customer that was on stage with me, I'll leave their name out if anybody wants to watch who I talk to on day one, they'll know who I'm talking about. They're on a journey, right? And so right now today, they're probably one of the, I would say leaders in software to find storage and driving software to find storage as part of their IT transformation in their data centers. They're 20% software to find, 80% still traditional physical infrastructure. They have a big stake in the ground that in three or four short years, 2020, they're going to be 50, 50, right? And these are guys that are leading and driving. So just give the folks a little bit of balance in regards to yes, that's where the growth will come from. This is where kind of the appeal is, but it will be a journey in how we get through that, but also for me, going back to scale and Dell technology, I have products like Scale.io, I have virtual Icelon, I have virtual Unity in regards to what we do with ECS as an object store. So file, block or object, we have it. And then I have wonderful 14G service from my friend Ashley and the compute team. Go well together. So Pat Kesher, Pat Kesher's talking about developer ready infrastructure. You mentioned on your keynote, I thought it was clever, the cloud ready storage. Talk about that dynamic because love this sound bite. Storage has to be cloud ready, cloud connected, build out on off-prem and live in a multi-cloud world. Don't come on a multi-cloud, we think that's going to happen, not ready for prime time right now. Hybrid certainly is happening. There's some latency issues on multi-cloud, but we don't want to digress. But hybrid is definitely happening, but multi-cloud is the gateway, hybrid cloud is the gateway to multi-cloud. Dealing with legacy to cloud native, that gap with hybrid, how do you look at that? Cause that's truly going to be a great opportunity for you and being cloud storage ready, what you, I'm sorry, cloud ready. Cloud ready. Ready storage, how do you make that happen? Yeah, so cloud connection is one of the big ones for me, so the ability to connect to the cloud and allow people to move, seamlessly move data in and out of the cloud. So depending if it's a traditional on-prem or off-prem. So we have great technologies for file. We have CTA, which is a cloud tiering appliance. All file-based gets rave reviews from our customers and we're able to help them not only in our products, but actually on some competitor file products to move it off to the cloud, if need be. Which has actually been a pretty big win for us. In addition to that, ISLON has a notion of cloud pools that people haven't seen it. But again, it's a transparent, seamless data mobility from ISLON, from core to the cloud, if you will. And then lastly, we have a cloud array, which is a block device that allows us to move block data from a traditional asset in to the cloud as well. So we have a handful of products or features that are natively in certain products today. We'll be evolving that over time. You got everything. Oh, good. But we'll be evolving that over time too. So we want to have a more coherent, simple story for our customers, right? It doesn't matter what the data type is, we want to be able to present it to the cloud. You, and by that I mean EMC, we're late to the flash market, but have caught up or now the leaders in the flash market, phenomenal growth year over year. What did you do to pull that off? That's kind of counterintuitive. Focus and energy, and a lot of great engineers, let me honest with you, right? And then a great sales team behind it as well. So we were late to the game. We made some decisions to lead with certain products and drive certain products where if you took a step back, I think we had said, hey listen, we all agreed flash was critical. Flash will be everywhere, compute storage network. Then you could debate on the consumption model if it would be all flash systems versus hybrid systems or what have you. But the end of the day, flash was critical. And I think we're all on the same page there. In regards to how you'd want to attack the problem if it's a hybrid or all flash, that's maybe where we got a little stuck in our own way. But then focus from all the teams, if it was VMAX or mid-range or Extreme I.O., Icelon now, teams have done an amazing job catching up and then working with Billy and Marius and the go-to market teams, they've been phenomenal. So that's been a huge hit with our company. That's a good point in my portfolio question because you guys really worked that problem hard. I think it was a two-year window. We saw all kinds of architecture, but that was then good timing on that because you were early on the trend architecturally was happening in real tense although late to the game, things kind of played out and you kind of shaped your portfolio up during that time, kind of a forcing function. One, did that what happened? And two, what is the current view of the portfolio right now? You feel comfortable about the overlap, the gaps, things that you think about? Yeah, absolutely. So let me take the media one first and go back to Flash specifically. So we learned a lot and yes, that did help us shape our portfolios to go forward and actually try to focus specific architectures to specific use cases to make our customers successful. We also learned is we don't ever want to be late again. So that's why with NVMe specifically that we actually were major contributors and actually a co-developer on NVMe, which others can talk about NVMe and their marketing material. They weren't actually at the table co-developing. So I wanted to- Get the scars, you should say it. If we don't get on this, we're going to- That's right. So we've learned and I don't want it to happen. I want to be a learning organization and I don't want it to happen again. So we're going to be driving that and we'll be a leader in NVMe. And as more media transitions happen in Flash, there'll be more, trust me, a few years down the road beyond that we're already looking at. We'll continue to make sure that we're a leader in that space. Now in the portfolio, talk to customers all the time. They love the portfolio in the sense of that we, they understand, they believe in the fact that no one size does not fit all, right? They have said though, hey, you got a lot of products and you have to simplify. So in full transparency, that's something we've been working through and we'll continue to work through that. So we will have overlap and we want overlap. It's good. Better have overlap than gaps. And Joe Tucci was a huge person and I couldn't support it more but we want it to be planned overlap versus unplanned overlap. Because we want to make it sure we make our customers successful and we say, hey, we can articulate clearly to our customers why they'd use a product and the value it's going to drive for the use case of their application. Same thing for our sales guys. Same thing for our service guys. Same thing for our own engineers. We want to keep people aligned and focused on what we're trying to do. So that way we can provide a better outcome on the other side. Are you looking at, you'll look out in the future. Do you see anything disruptive on the horizon? Is there anything that could change this industry fundamentally? Obviously I always keep cloud in the back of mind. I mean, it's still something, depending how people want to portray it or look at it, people call it a destination. Some people call it a media, what have you. I call it virtual infrastructure. Depending how you want to define it, there's different ways to go about it. A mainframe in the sky. What have you. You know, I saw that one, that one always keeps me up at night, depending on how things go. But there's a lot of cool things going on in storage actually where I think, first, let's be clear. Storage in general, maybe has lost some of the sex appeal, if you will, the attractiveness of it. I think that's starting to come back with some of the things like MVME and cloud ready and multi-dimensional scaling. And there's a whole bunch of things going around there that actually is going to kind of drive that back. Now, in addition to that though, we all know, internet of things, machine learning, you know, video, it's exploding. So let's be very clear, there'll be a lot of things going away. Storage is not going away. But the machine learning certainly is going to be a nice tool in the arm for optimization and automation. Yeah, there's a huge opportunity there in regards to that. So cloud is one of the big ones, but I think there's a lot of things, I guess, headwinds, tailwinds. There's a lot of things in favor to really kind of push us forward. Jeff Butcher, thank you for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate the insight and candid commentary and analysis and insight into your business. Appreciate it. You got, the storage is not going away. It's called the data center and the cloud for a reason. It's all about the data and the value of business will be data driven. This is theCUBE bringing data to you here live from Las Vegas at Dell EMC year old 2017. I'm John Furrier with Paul Gillen. Back with more. Stay with us after this short break.