 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of VMworld 2020, brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman. This is theCUBE's coverage of VMworld 2020, our 11th year doing theCUBE. First year we're doing it, of course, virtually globally. Happy to welcome back to the program, one of our CUBE alumni, Shannon Champion, and she is the director of product marketing with Dell Technologies. Shannon, nice to see you and thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, good to see you as well. All right, so big thing, of course, at VMworld, talking about building off of what was Project Pacific at last year's show, talking about how Kubernetes, all the wonderful cloud native pieces go in. So let's talk about application modernization, Shannon. A theme I've talked about for a number of years is we need to modernize the platform and then we can modernize the applications on top of those. So tell us what you're hearing from your customers and how Dell and VMware then are bringing the solution to help customers really along that journey. Yeah, I'd love to, it's fun stuff. So enterprises are telling us that, especially now more than ever, they're really looking for how they must digitally transform and they need to do that so they can drive innovation and get a competitive advantage. And one way that they're able to do that is by finding ways to flexibly and rapidly move workloads to where they make sense, whether that's on-premises or in the public cloud. And the new standard for doing this is becoming cloud native applications. There was a recent IDC Futurescape that predicted that by 2025, two thirds of enterprises will be prolific software producers with code being deployed on a daily basis and over 90% of applications at that time will be delivered with cloud native approaches. So it's just kind of crazy to think and what's really impressive too is the sheer volume of applications that are anticipated to be produced with these cloud native approaches. It's expected to be over 500 million new apps created with cloud native approaches by 2024 and just kind of putting that into perspective, 500 million apps is the same number that's been created over the last 40 years. So it's a fun trend to be part of. Yeah, it's really amazing. When I talk to customers, there's some, it's like, oh, let me show you how many apps I've done and created in the last 18 months. It was like, great, how does that compare before? And they're like, we weren't creating apps. We were buying apps, we were buying software. We had outsourced some of those pieces. So that trend we've been talking about for a number of years is kind of, everyone's a software company, does not mean that we're getting rid of the all business models. But Shannon, there are challenges there, either expanding and moving faster or making sure that I have the talent in house. So bring us inside, what are some of the big things that your customers are telling you, maybe that's holding them back from unlocking that potential? Yeah, totally, you hit it on a couple of them. We're definitely seeing a lot of interest in adoption of Kubernetes and clearly VMware is leading the way with Tanzu, but we're also hearing that they're underestimating the challenges on how to quote unquote, get to Kubernetes, right? How do you stand up that full cloud native stack? And particularly at scale, to how do you manage the ongoing operations and maintain that infrastructure? How do you support the various stakeholders? How do you bring IT operators and developers together? So there's really a wide range of challenges that businesses are facing. And the other thing is that you hit on, they're gonna be producing more and more cloud native applications, but they still need to maintain legacy applications, many of which are driving business critical applications and workloads. So they're gonna need to look for solutions that help them manage both and allow them to refactor or retire those legacy ones at their own pace so they can maintain business continuity. Yeah, and of course, Shannon, we know as infrastructure people, our job was always to give the environment to allow the applications to run. In virtualization for years, it was, well, I knew if I virtualized something, I could leave it there and it wasn't going to, it didn't have to worry about the underlying artwork changes. Help us understand how does Kubernetes fit into this environment because as I said, the app people don't want to even worry about it and the infrastructure people now need to be able to change, expand and respond to the business so much faster than we might have in times past. Yeah, so from an infrastructure perspective, working with VMware based on Tanzu, really the essence of that is to bring IT operators and developers together. The infrastructure has a common set of management that each the developer and the IT operators can work in the language they're most familiar with and the communication and the translation all happens within Tanzu so that they're more speaking the same language when it comes to managing the infrastructure. In particular, with VMware Tanzu on VxRail, we are delivering kind of a range of infrastructure options because we know people are still trying to figure out where they are in their Kubernetes readiness path. Some people have really developed to mature capabilities in-house for Kubernetes for software defined networking and for those customers, they still may want to use a reference architecture and build on top of VxRail for a custom cloud native specific application. What we're finding is more and more customers though don't have that level of Kubernetes expertise, especially at scale. And so VMware vSphere with Tanzu on VxRail as well as VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail are ways to get a fast start on Kubernetes with directly on vSphere or kind of go with the full monty of VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail. Well, we're bringing up VxRail. Of course, the whole wave of HCI was how do we enable simplicity? We don't want to have to think about these. We want to just make it so that customers can just buy a solution. Of course, VxRail joint solution, heavily partnership with VMware. So Shannon, there's a few options. VMware's been moving very fast to expand out the Tanzu portfolio back at the beginning of the year when vSphere 7 came out. You needed the VMware Cloud Foundation, which of course was an option for the VxRail. So help us understand, you laid out a little bit some of those options there, but what should I know as a Dell customer? You know, what my options are, how the full Tanzu suite fits into it? Yeah, so we like to call it Kubernetes your way with the VxRail. So we have a range of options to fit your operational or Kubernetes scale requirements or your level of expertise. So the three options are first for customers that are looking for that tested validated multi-configuration reference architecture that will deliver platform as a service or container as a service. We've got Tanzu architecture for VxRail, which is a new name for what was known as pivotal ready architecture. And then for customers that may have minimum scaling requirements, they may have some of that expertise in-house to manage at scale. The fastest path to get started with Kubernetes is the new VMware vSphere with Tanzu on VxRail. And then last, I mentioned kind of that full, highly automated turnkey on-premises cloud platform. That's the VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, which is also known as Dell Technologies Cloud Platform. And that option supports Tanzu with software-defined networking and security built in with that automated lifecycle management across the full stack. So there's really three paths to it from a reference architecture approach to a fast path on VxRail clusters all the way to the full Dell Tech Cloud Platform. And Dell Technologies is the first and only really offering this breadth of Tanzu infrastructure deployment options. So customers can really choose the best path for them. Yeah, so Shannon, if I think back to what we saw on the keynote, you know, VMware lays out their hybrid and multi-cloud solution. So of course they're public cloud, the VMware cloud on AWS, they have that solution, they have extended partnerships now with Azure, the offering with Oracle that's coming. And I guess I can think to just think of the Dell Tech Cloud on VxRail as just one of those other clouds in that hybrid and multi-cloud solution. Do I have that right? Same stack, same management, if I'm living in that VMworld world. Yeah, so the Dell Tech Cloud Platform is an on-premises hybrid cloud. So, you know, a lot of customers were looking to reduce complexity really quickly, especially, you know, with some of the work from home initiatives that were sprung upon us and trying to pivot to respond to that. And, you know, the answer to solving some of that complexity is to jump into public cloud. What we found is a lot of customers actually are driving a hybrid cloud strategy and approach and we know many customers sort of have that executive mandate. There's value in driving that on-prem hybrid cloud approach and that's what Dell Technologies Cloud Platform is. So you get the consistent operations and the consistent infrastructure and more of the public cloud-like consumption experience while having the infrastructure on-prem for security, data locality, other, you know, cost reasons like that. So that's really where VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail comes into play. So, leveraging the VMware technologies you have on-prem hybrid cloud, can connect to all those public cloud providers that you talked about. So you have, you know, core to cloud and one of the new capabilities that VMware Cloud Foundation has announced support for is remote clusters. So that takes us kind of from cloud all the way to edge because you now have the same VCF operational capabilities and operational efficiency with centralized management for remote locations. Wonderful, I'm glad you brought up the edge piece. Of course, you're talking the emerging space, VMware talking about AI, talking about edge. So, help us understand how much is it the similar operational model? Is it even, is that part of the VxRail family? What's the state of the state in 2020 when it comes to how edge fits into that cloud core edge discussion that you just raised? Yeah, when you look at trends, especially for hyperconverged edge and cloud natives are kind of taking up a lot of the airwaves right now. So hyperconverged is gonna play a big role in the adoption of both cloud native band edge. And I think the intersection of those two comes into play with things like the remote cluster support for VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail where you can run cloud, you know, cloud native based modern applications with Tanzu alongside traditional workloads at the edge, which traditionally have more stringent requirements, less resources, maybe they need a more hardened environment, power and cooling, you know, constraints. So, with VCF on VxRail, you have all the operational goodness that comes from the partnership and the levels of integration that we have with VMware. And customers can sort of realize that promise of full workload management mobility in a true hyper cloud environment. Shannon, I'm wondering what general feedback you're getting from your customers is they look at, as you said, these cloud native solutions, you know, what's the big takeaway? Is this a continuation of the HCI wave that you've seen? Did they just pull this into their hybrid environments? I'm wondering if you have any, either any specific examples that you can anonymize or just the general gestalt that you're getting from your customers is that how they're doing expanding into these, you know, new environments that kind of stretch them in different ways. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, there's customers that run the gamut. When we look at those that are sort of the farther down their digital transformation journey, those are the ones that were already planning for cloud native applications or had some in development. There's also some trends that we're seeing based on, you know, the size of cluster deployments and the range of, you know, various configurations that are an indicator of those customers that are more modernized in terms of their approach to cloud native. And what we find from those customers especially over the last six months is that they're more prepared to respond to the unknown. And that was a big lesson for some of the other customers that, you know, had knew that digital transformation was the way of the future but hadn't yet sort of come up with a strategy on how to get there themselves. We're finding those customers are pivoting their investments to areas that can help them be more ready for the unknown in the future. And cloud native is top of that list. Absolutely, Shannon. Dave Vellante has shown a few times there's the people in the office, you know, with their whiteboard doing everything and there's the wrecking ball of COVID-19 kind of like, well, if you weren't ready and you weren't already down this path you better move fast. Wonderful, all right, Shannon. So we know from past years, you know, VxRail usually is all over the show. So in the digital world, what do you want the key takeaways? What are some of the key, you know, hands-on demos, sessions that people should check out? Thank you, yeah. So hopefully your takeaway is that VxRail is a great infrastructure to support modern applications first and foremost. We have, you know, a jointly engineered system built with VMware or VMware environments to enhance VMware. And we do that with our VxRail HCI system software which I didn't give a shout out to yet which extends that native capabilities and really is the secret behind how we do seamless automated operational experience with VxRail. And that's the case whether it's traditional or modern applications. So that's my little commercial for VxRail. At the show, please tune into our VMworld session on this topic. We also have hands-on labs. We are launching a fun augmented reality game. So please check that out. And we have a new webpage as well that you can get access to all the latest assets and guides that help you, you know, navigate your journey for cloud native. And that's at deltechnologies.com slash Tanzu. Wonderful. Well, Shannon champion. Thanks so much. Great to see you again and be sure to, we look forward to hearing more in the future. Thanks, Stu. Stay with us, lots more coverage from VMworld 2020. I'm Stu Miniman as always. Thank you for watching theCUBE.