 Live from the FIA Barcelona Gran Vía Compensator in Barcelona, Spain, it's The Cube at HP Discover Barcelona 2014 brought to you by headline sponsor HP. Here are your hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are live in Barcelona, Spain in Europe for HP Discover 2014. This is The Cube. It's our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal noise. I'm John Furrier. My co-host Dave Vellante and our next guest is Johann Dusschefeller. I can't always have a hard time with the chauffeur. I think I'm Gila Flore, this Canadian name. I don't know why. It's in the SVP and General Manager of HP Technology Services. Welcome back, Cube alumni. Great to see you. You know, you're in the front lines as Meg Whitman said in her keynote tip of the spear. A lot of action. HP's always had troops on the front lines and always been exceptional in customer support sales and go-to-market. So you're in that market. Software-defined networking, software-defined storage, software-defined data spanner, software-defined everything I think was my post on Forbes is what we're going to. But let's talk about infrastructure. What's going on? That's your area. Give us a quick update on the innovations that are out there for customers because there is a real need out there to do DevOps, to do cloud, whatever people call it, they basically have an infrastructure that can scale and also appeal to modern developer communities, which are rapidly coding on multiple infrastructure formats, mobile, big data, different networks, different types, different clouds. What's going on? So John, thank you for that introduction. I mean, you mentioned a lot of things that are really, really top of mind for us right now. We clearly understand that in the business, you know, you need to grab the opportunity when the opportunity arises. And that means that from an IT point of view, you need to be agile and you need to be very flexible. And so that is where SDI kicks in, software-defined infrastructure. And as you mentioned, it's about software-defined networking. It's about software-defined storage. It's about software-defined data center. And by the way, the nice thing that we have to do that with our facilities, consulting activities that we are, that we have, we also can include the data center, you know, from a data center point of view to it. And so as a result of that, we believe that SDI is going to be key for customers to link the fast deployment applications with the infrastructure that they have available right now. So it's a key thing that is going on in the market, and it's something that is very high on our radar screen. How do engagements come about? Do the customers come to you and say, Johan, we need to do SDI? Or do they say to you, look, these are the challenges that we're facing. This is the outcome that we're looking for. And then you guys say, well, look, here's how the world is changing. Can you talk about this somewhere in the middle? Can you talk about that? So typically, customers do not come to us with the request we need SDI. This is not the way it works. But what you see is that concerns that customers have on their mind. How can I go fast? How can I control? How can I do it in a cost-effective way? These things come to us. And what is remarkable right now is that our pitch is not only about technology. It's about what does the customer want to do with technology? What are the business outcomes he is looking for? And so you heard a lot about new style of IT. It's about the new style of business. How do you make sure that you have the right IT to enable the business outcomes? And so customers come to us, CIOs speak to us about what they want to achieve for their line of business managers. And of course we can help them realize that with components of SDI. And that's about flexibility. It's about agility. It's about cost efficiency. So those terms have not changed. But the way you picture it is no longer only related to technology. It's also related to business. It seems just in observing these trends that a lot of what's happening in the enterprise today is somewhat mimicking what happened with the big public cloud providers. This whole software led software defined. And it seems as though there's pressure on CIOs to be able to offer similar types of agility for their own premises infrastructure. How much of a driver is that? And are your customers responding to that pressure fast enough? So I think that just like we said in the past we are moving to a hybrid delivery environment where IT gets consumed in a hybrid way. That means a portion of the functionality can come from a public cloud. A portion can come from a private cloud. Whether it's managed by the customer or outsourced to an external company like HP. So it's going to be in hybrid delivery environment. And so the question is how can the customer depending on what are the needs of the line of business how can they provide the service in a fast way in an integrated way and also in a very safe way. And clearly the issue there is how do you handle the data? Because with the data explosion there is the data is really key to the customer. And so the question is how do you handle that data and how do you manage that once again in a cost-effective way and in a flexible way. So the vision of the hybrid cloud is I've got this resource that might be on premises it might be off my premises but I'm able to control the policies the edicts of compliance and security in a standard way. It seems like that's not happened to that vision yet. So what are people doing? First of all is that true? Secondly are they saying okay well we can relax those edicts those security policies or compliance issues for certain applications so we'll move those off site. Or are they actually building out that virtual capability on premises off the way? So I think it's fair to say that you know on one side customers need to have that flexibility to have a mix of the way they consume IT. But it's also not something that is static in time. I mean the environment of the customer changes you have mergers you have acquisitions. So it's not only something that you need to do in a flexible way at a certain moment in time you also need to prepare for flexibility as you go through the journey. And so every customer is on a different point in that journey. Even within their organization we can have one solution that is more advanced another solution that is less advanced and so it's bringing all of that together controlling it in an easy way that creates a need to have the software defined control layer in between the applications and the infrastructure that is available. And so clearly when we talk about software defined infrastructure services we do that in a very open world. Of course we do that around our one queue product and we do it around OpenStack but we also realize if customers work with external providers who may be using VMware or who may be using Microsoft platforms and what we do as a service organization is to understand where the customer is today do that assessment and then give advice on how we can move forward to where we think it needs to be in the next step. And by the way the next step is never the end of it. The next step is the start of another step. So it's going through the transition and preparing for the next step that's what we do. And so before you came on we were talking off camera about the previous steps. So the consolidation, virtualization now SDI software defined infrastructure how specifically have you changed or enhanced the consulting service offerings that you provide as that journey, you know, pursued? And so indeed we say like, you know after consolidation, virtualization is the next step to bring that level of flexibility, agility and cost efficiency. And by the way there is no conflict between SDI and cloud. In fact SDI is a way to deploy cloud in a more flexible way. So it is very complimentary. And so what we do from a service point of view is we announced three major services that discover right now. The first one is an experience workshop and you know that I told you that we have those experience workshops around cloud, mobility, big data, connectivity. So it's something that we have tested. It's something that is proven. We know how to do that. So after the experience workshops we have a readiness service. And the readiness service is really in line with the question that you asked before. You know, where is the customer today and how can we bring him to the next level? And then we have an architectural service which allows the customer to move. You know, what is the strategy that is going to deploy to move towards SDI? Now we realize that SDI on one side it's a very attractive concept. On the other side it's still new in the industry. And so what we want to make sure is that we have the right advisory services right now. And when the customer is ready in three, six, nine months then we will move forward on the transformation services. So probably more news to come for discovery. Like you said, it never ends. How much do you get involved in the business case? Are customers asking you to help them through that? Do you provide that guidance? Or is that not your... You know, I want to be very clear. Our strength is around HP IP. We belong to the enterprise group. And we are focusing on the products that come from the enterprise group. Service storage, networking, convert systems. And by the way, convert systems is really, really important when you move the software defined infrastructure. Yeah, we should come back and talk about that. And on one side we need to understand technology and we position ourselves as a technology consulting partner to the customer. But as I mentioned earlier you cannot talk about technology without knowing what is happening on the business side. The way we look at infrastructure in the largest sense so the hardware and the software layer is that it is an enabler for the new style of IT. It is an enabler for the new style of business. So more and more we talk about what are the business outcomes that a customer is looking for just to make sure that we can deploy the infrastructure in a way that it meets the business requirements. And it's strange, you know, it's not only about technology consulting anymore it's understanding what the customer of the customer is going to have as a benefit from what we do. So I think that's saying all means yes you do that but so my follow up question to that is how are skill sets having to change to accommodate those business outcomes? Well of course our skill sets are evolving and are moving towards, you know, understanding the customer business needs. But most of it... I'm sorry, I meant your customer skill sets, not HPs. Okay. I meant your customers. And is that part of your consulting activity? So what we clearly see there is that most IT organizations want to move closer to what the business expects from them and less technology. And that's an opportunity for us because that's where we are specialized that's where we have experience. And so I was meeting with a customer yesterday and clearly his concern was, you know, how can I free up cycles? How can I free up resources from technology so that I can be closer to my business partners? And so that's a good thing for us. So I want to get the question in here if I can. So you call it SDI, so I'm going to find infrastructure. Wikibon broke ground on this survey well before Gardner and IDC, other researchers. I have no doubt. We call that IO centric infrastructure. This is one flask that we've got. And then software-led infrastructure, which is based on the same thing, but the quote from the other point I want to get your opinion on says, software-led infrastructure or software-defined infrastructure refers to data center technologies that form the underpinnings for application portability, functionality, data placement, automation within data centers, and now the cloud. So that brings up the point of migration, right? So how do customers move to SDI or software-defined infrastructure? Because certainly Greenfield no problem there's some new sub-technology. So when you're out talking to customers, that's the number one concern. I need to migrate. What do you guys say in that situation? Well, so you know that we have really focused and simplified our portfolio in consulting. That was my message to you over the last few years. So then we focus on three services. We have an advisory service, we have a transformation service, and we have an integration service. And we believe that with those three services we can really respond to the need of the customer on where you see on the journey from virtualization into SDI probably towards cloud. And so the first thing we do is work on those advisory services. And the start of an advisory service is doing an assessment. Where is the customer today? What is the business opportunity he wants to cover and how can we move towards that? And so typically we do that with what we call an experience workshop. And as I mentioned before, we have those experience workshops in most areas where customers have concerns today. What can cloud mean for them? What can big data mean for them? What can mobility mean to them? What can information management mean? What can software defined infrastructure mean to them? So we start with those workshops. And it was amazing. Just to interrupt on one second there. What pattern do you see come out of those workshops? Across your customer base? Is there a few patterns that emerge that it's consistently coming up over and over again? Yeah, clearly customers want to... So first of all they want to understand the paradigm in a more detailed way. You know, when you talk about cloud, when you talk about bring your own device, what can it mean for them? Yeah. And then what we try to do is to understand, you know, how can we link it to the business? And that means that, so as a next step and that's a pattern, that means that you need to include not only the IT people, but also the business unit people, also the finance people. So that's a pattern that is coming back all the time. And then when you get the buy-in of everybody, then you can move on to the next step. So assess, understand, impact, cost, big picture, and then link to the teams operationally, and then they go forward. So three-step plan. And the nice thing about the workshops is, you know, we do the workshop. Typically it is a one-day activity with a customer, which is very well structured. There is a methodology behind it. But it's also very customer-specific. And then on Monday morning, the next week, you can do something with it. You can take action. So it's not like a six-month, you know, it's sitting in the conference room, drinking coffee, you know, a glass of wine. It's really structured. You guys come in pre-brief to go in with requirements. So there's a methodology. There's a methodology behind it. It's very well-structured. And by the way, when you go to hall seven, we have our experience workshops there. And what we do is we explain to customers in one hour how such a workshop is done on their premise in one day. So if people are interested to know more about those experience workshops, we are, they are more than welcome. By the way, we will probably deploy something like 100 workshops that discover alone in those two days. Wow, that's impressive. That's a lot. So you guys are fast. So it's pretty, pretty well done. So a question from our crowd chat here, from the people watching, comes in to Dave and I. We'll ask three from Tim Crawford. He's an analyst. My point of view, when interviewed, try to avoid buzzword bingo and talk about core opportunities with use cases and apply them to the masses. So what he's basically saying is, oh, S-D-I-S-L-I, we can talk about a lot of buzzwords. What does it mean? What's the use cases? Bottom line, what's happening? What are you seeing as use cases? Give some examples. Yeah, typically, so first of all, it's something that is emerging right now. But typically where you see the use cases is, you know, when you're a telco company or when you're a banking company, you need to grab the opportunity when it rises in the market. That means that you need to make your applications available very quickly and you need to have the right infrastructure to support those applications. And so, I mean, you mentioned DevOps before. There clearly is a correlation between DevOps and S-D-I. What you want to make sure is that you can develop new applications quickly and that you can make the infrastructure available quickly so that you can grab the opportunity of the business case that is in the market. But DevOps is interesting. We've been doing some research on DevOps. It's certainly very relevant. We're big DevOps fans. Infrastructure as code is all wonderful. That is S-D-I. That is the cloud. But when you go to mainstream customers, not everyone is DevOps enabled. The big challenge is, they don't even know what DevOps is. They want DevOps. They see other people doing DevOps, like Facebook and other companies that are in the hyper scale. So they just want CloudOps. They just, huh. So I guess the question to you is, what is that mainstream DevOps profile look like from a customer standpoint? Is it developers? Is it software? Is it in between? You know, and I learned yesterday that DevOps is the most Google term these days. So that tells something. But the way I look at it is, you need to be able to very quickly develop an application. And it can be a small application, easy to deploy, easy to use. But you capture a business opportunity that is arising at a certain moment in time. I mean, when you are a telco company and you want to launch a new plan for your customers, you cannot afford to wait weeks on it. It needs to be something that you can develop instantaneously. And then you need to make sure that you can link that with your IT admin to make sure that you have the resources available. Creating that link between the applications and the infrastructure that you have available needs to happen instantaneously. That can only happen when you automate it. And you can automate it with that software-defined control layer. Does that... This brings up a good point. A lot of people that we talked to about DevOps think, oh, it's a job type, like a DBA. And we're not seeing it that way. We're seeing it in much more of a more architectural, generalist position, where it's not one function. Because you mentioned the architecture slide about application layer and infrastructure and this middle layer is developing as software. So there's no real... Is there a software layer position? So the point about DevOps is you can be DevOps from the developer, but also making the infrastructure enabled and programmable. That's the whole beautification of DevOps. So the question is, what do you tell the organization about DevOps? Is it a training issue? When you talk to customers, do you come in and say, well, here's how you do DevOps? I think it's probably more than only a training issue. I think it's a mind shift. How do you move from the traditional IT world to the new style of IT? And once again, I may be repeating myself, but it's about how do you move to an agile, flexible, cost-efficient IT where everything goes fast, where speeds, simplicity, and flexibility are the key words. And so it is not about applications only. It's not about infrastructure only. It's a question on how do you link it all together and mainly how do you link it to the business opportunities that you have at the start? You just actually answered the comment that the analysts mentioned here. Values to start the business, not the technology typically driven by the data. And then cloud and infrastructure are enablers. Essentially what you just said. I mentioned that today, I mean, that's the reason why we want to know much more about what is going on in the business. Not, and by the way, we don't give business consulting, we don't application consulting, but we believe that to provide the right consulting on the infrastructure, we need to know what is going on at the business. Let me give you a very, very specific example here. We were doing a major migration on storage. And on that, one of the boxes that we were migrating, you know, the e-commerce that customer was running. I believe you do a migration in a different way when you know that the e-commerce of a customer is running on it versus something internally. So the migration technically is exactly the same. But knowing what the business case is behind it, knowing what the impact on the business behind it, can make a huge difference. And so when we do something on the infrastructure, whether it is hardware or software, we better know where the business impact is going today. The effort to de-risk that migration is a lot greater than it is on the website that nobody cares about. Do you need to be a finance specialist for that? Do you need to be a manufacturing specialist for that? Probably not. I mean, a little bit of common sense to know what is going on in the background and what kind of business you steer is probably more than enough to know how you need to handle it. Although there could be supply chain impacts there. Whatever, customer impacts. What about alignment? That's a topic that was, for a decade ago, CIOs are always talking about aligning with the business. Do you feel like CIOs are more aligned with the business or have the changes that have come about in this marketplace caused greater misalignment? What's your take on that? I would say typically CIOs are more aligned to the business right now. And I think it's fair to say that there is no business out there without IT. I mean, IT is the business and the business stops when IT is not working. So you clearly see that CIOs play a more important role in how the company moves forward. They need to understand where the company is going. And that's one of the ways why they need to work with the right partners who can take care, you know, whether it's about technology or about applications because they need to understand if they don't understand where the business is going, probably they cannot translate it to us. Is the CIO typically involved in an engagement with you? And if so, to what degree? So as a sponsor, are they actively participating? Or is it more, you're dealing with the infrastructure team? You know, I think both CIO and CFO are deeply involved and it's about strategic choice. You know, when you move from one idea to the next paradigm clearly and, you know, to confirm what you just mentioned, you know, when it's more a tactical move, like, you know, going from one technology to another technology, that is probably, they know about it, they need to approve it, but that's more handled by the infrastructure. And I know you have a global perspective, I'm specifically interested in the attitude in Europe. There's a discussion going on in the U.S. about the role of the CIO and how it's changing. And even one, two CIO practitioners we interviewed recently said, I see the role going away, which was quite shocking to me, the CIO would say that. And their premise was the CIO role was morphing, either into a technology role, CTO, or a data role, chief data officer, or a chief digital officer, or an operational role, CIO, that essentially this CIO has to choose a growth path, that he or she has to choose a technology path, an operational path, or a data sort of path, you know, data architecture path. Is there a similar attitude in Europe? Have you heard that at all? And what if you could sort of summarize the feeling? I would not say that there is a different attitude or a different situation, because most of our companies are very international. But I think the point that you brought forward is a really interesting one. I think there is a difference between the way you handle compute, the way you handle networking, and the way you handle data and storage. Because data is something that is really key to the company, it differentiates the company, it is what makes the company. Right. So everything around data, and we feel that more and more is becoming strategic. And so to the point that you were making, you know, probably everything that has to do around computing, around networking, is more in the technology space. Everything that has to do with data and how you can use the data, how you can use big data to bring meaningful information and decisions to your company, but also to the end users and to the customers, is something that is key to the company. And so probably there is a different role going on. Great having you on. Thanks for coming on. You guys are really a trusted partner to your customers. It's obvious the success we're seeing in the services group across the board and really enjoy our chats. You're close to the customer. Really the business value. It sounds cliche to say, you know, business outcomes, but that's really the driver and that's been the consistent theme. I'll give you the final word for the segment. Just share with the folks out there what you guys are announcing, what you're talking about here at Discover. Give the quick plug in for some of the services you guys have. As I mentioned, we have one topic that is our top priority for discovery in Barcelona. It is around software defined infrastructure and we announce three services at Discover. One is the experience workshop for SDI. The second one is a readiness service to help customers to identify where they are today to go to software defined infrastructure and then architectural services moving forward around SDI. So very focused. It has been one of the things that we have been installing and consulting for a number of years. Focus, repetitiveness, proven methodologies. No change there. And you know what? We love the DevOps message again. We were doing DevOps Day. Remember back when we were getting people staring at us? It's great to see it go mainstream, this notion of programming infrastructure. Having it just seamlessly work is an amazing innovation for developers. It's just so excited to see you guys be successful. And again, great to have the senior executives from HP here inside the queue sharing their opinions, their commentary here with John and Dave. We'll be right back with more guests after this short break live from Barcelona Institute.