 from the Silicon Valley media office in Boston, Massachusetts. It's theCUBE. Now, here's your host, Dave Vellante. Hi everybody, welcome to this special presentation. This is CUBE Conversations, this is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Colin Mahoney, who's the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Big Data for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Colin, great to see you again. Thanks for coming in. Great to see you too, yeah, thank you. It was a great meeting. So the Big Data Conference, BDC, what started as the Vertica user conference, we were there for the inaugural one three years ago. theCUBE is really excited to be back and you have been there since the beginning, you were part of the Vertica acquisition. So in the early days, this was a, you know, kind of a little, you know, roll the dice crap shoot and it's turned into one of the best, most intimate big data conferences in the business. Yeah, it's amazing. It's hard to believe that this will be our fourth big data conference as you point out. And three years ago when we did this, we'd always heard from our customers that they want to learn from other customers. They'd always heard stories about each other. They knew there were use cases that they shared. They wanted to get together. And we set up a lot of these informal conversations between our customers, but we took a chance. Everybody told us actually we were crazy to do this type of thing. But we took a chance a couple years ago and we sold it out. You know, it was, we could have had twice as many people there. And it was so clear to us that the conversations that people were having, what they were learning about, really were impactful and important. And we've continued it. It's grown significantly every year. This will be the largest it's been, but we still keep it the right size. It's really focused on what we do and what our customers do. We do a lot of big data shows, as you know. And, you know, it's like, it reminded me of the early days of Hadoop World. It was a lot of practitioners and a lot of really substantive conversation. And now it's become a big marketing event. BDC isn't a marketing event and you've succeeded. You've not polluted the event with a bunch of marketing BS. Talk about that. How have you succeeded in doing that? So we don't allow any marketing presentations whatsoever at the Big Data Conference. And I think that is the key. And that is what has made it so successful. We have our engineering team. We have our customers that are doing real things. Those are the folks presenting as well as, you know, some incredible keynotes that we always bring. But it's very real. And I actually think it reflects the Big Data Platform Organization that we have. We probably don't make nearly enough noise about what we do. We're not very showy. We're not very flashy. But we are the company that delivers and we empower some of the most significant analytic environments. And, you know, don't get me wrong. Our marketing team does a phenomenal job with this conference. But what they do is they set up the venue. They get everything lined up so that those conversations can happen. And we can talk about real technology, real business use cases and real issues. Let's talk about the marketplace a little bit. So when Stormbreaker came up, sort of the idea for this, you know, columnar database, if not the first, one of the first, solving the problems of relational database management systems and performance specifically. And then the market took off. Vertical was part of that tailwind. And then this whole Hadoop thing came in. So take us back a little bit to the progression of Vertica and then, you know, where you became HP and what's happened in the market since then for the last, you know, five, seven years. Yeah, I think so it has been an incredible renaissance of just all different types of innovation and technologies and Hadoop being a huge part of that, obviously. I would say what we did was we always focused on what we were really good at. We knew our strength was on the optimizer, the execution engine, running the best analytic database engine we could for Vertica in this market. And there were a lot of tendencies and pressures for us to branch out and try to become a massive Hadoop platform and a database engine and all these things. And instead we said, we know what we're good at. Let's focus on what we're good at, but let's integrate with this open ecosystem of lots of open source vendors, whether it's Hadoop, whether it's Kafka, Spark, you name it, but let's stick to what we do well. And what's really funny now is what we see in the market is that each of these technologies has sort of found their place. I think people know that Hadoop is not a panacea for everything, but it's very good at some things. And we have now extended our platform to be able to run seamlessly on Hadoop or to be able to run seamlessly in the cloud. And that focus, I think, is what has really helped us be successful because we know what we're good at and we know more importantly what we're not necessarily good at. So we try to make that ecosystem work a lot better, but it is amazing watching sort of the ups and downs of some of the hype cycles of things like Hadoop and lots of other technologies that are out there. Let's talk about what some of the customers are doing. So over the past several years, we've had some great customer stories on theCUBE and you've presented at the conference. I mean, guys like Etsy, Wayfair, and the early days Zynga was kind of a showcase. Customer NASCAR has been on. What are customers doing? Maybe even add a couple of other examples. Yeah, so some of those customers are going to be here. I mean, we're going to have customers like Laxosmith Client. We're going to have customers like Saber. We're going to have AmeriPrize, Nimble Storage, DreamWorks Animation. So many incredible customers that are just changing the game when it comes to data and analytics. One company too that we're sort of incredibly proud of as a customer and I think the whole world has seen how they've just created an entire industry as Uber and we've got Corey Kendrick coming from Uber who's going to talk about a lot of the data science work that they do, a lot of the policy things that happen and just implications and the power of what you can do with information. We have the Spanish Ministry of Defense coming to talk about how they counter terrorism using these types of technologies. We've got the New York Genome Institute talking about how they fight cancer through big data and analytics. So the use cases, whether it's private sector, public sector, whether it's healthcare, whether it's telco, everybody is taking information and leveraging it in a way that they can help their organization or help an individual do something better, faster. And with regards to people, I think that's one of the most exciting things too. One of the key themes this year is the power of people because one of the things that we learn, as much as we love the technology, it comes down to the people. And so we've got two phenomenal speakers. We've got Phil Black, a former Navy SEAL, Navy SEAL instructor, entrepreneur, he was on Shark Tank. When you talk about somebody that has been able to reinvent themselves physically and mentally, sort of hacking themselves, there's no one better than Phil. And then from an organizational perspective, we have the author of that High Velocity Edge, Steve Spear coming, talking about how organizations have to constantly take that feedback, close the loop, using data, using a whole bunch of other things and people to enhance what they do as a company. And I think whether it's the customers that are coming that some of whom I've talked about, you're gonna see in their presentations, not just presentations about technology and cool things that they do with it, but really about what do they do with that technology in combination with people, which really gets at the heart of culture and how do they change the world? And we've got some incredible examples. Corey will talk a lot about the Uber example, but incredible examples of companies and people that are just changing the world every day. They always have some fun outside speakers. I remember Billy Bean came. Yeah, yeah. And he was obviously the poster child for data in sports, and you're right, it's not just about the tech. In fact, most of the conversations we've had with the customers, I would say, let me take a stab at it and you can add some color. It's groups of people that were sort of in between the business and the technical world that were frustrated with data warehouse. They would describe it as a snake swallowing a basketball and just struggling to keep this aging infrastructure going. And then all of a sudden this new technology opened up a whole new world of possibilities and they got excited about the business impact of what they could do. And there's so many examples, all the companies that you mentioned and that we've talked to in theCUBE, how they've transformed their business and now are driving either new revenue opportunities, trying to solve the cancer problems, nature's, you know, nature, conservancy issues, things of that nature, which are just really exciting for people to watch, not just ad tech, you know, but really branching out into society. What's your take on that? Yeah, well, and it's funny that you bring up ad tech because I think that as annoying as some of the personalization ad targets are that we see, the reality is that industry has innovated so many different things that have now permeated into other industries. So the personalization of healthcare, for instance, a lot of what they've learned in terms of the algorithms, much of that has come out of the advertising space. So I think every industry, and to your point about these folks in these organizations who think different, you know, these people who are frustrated with the status quo, who understand that there is a lot of information out there that should be at their fingertips to help them make decisions and make those decisions with as much data as they can. And if they make the wrong decision or something changes, it's the ability to change as an organization and changes a person. And I think what you find with almost every single one of our customers is they have that trait. Somebody took a bet on us, even in the earliest days, you know, back when I've joked with you in the past that, you know, the first version of Vertica, you couldn't delete data. You know, we basically asked our customers to come on a ride with us that we were starting from scratch and building this thing. And whether it's Vertica or it's Idle, you know, from on the unstructured side, which is our other engine on the Big Data platform for unstructured information, both of these have roots in academic institutions and then we commercialized them and we went and we partnered with customers who took a bet on us and now they're doing some incredible things. And what we're trying to do is stay focused, deliver and keep delivering the value. And we've, you know, we've got some great announcements coming on that front as well from the innovation side and help them as they work through the challenges and the opportunities, frankly, that are coming down the pike. I think every business, every organization is in the data business. I don't think there's any way anybody can avoid that anymore. And as stewards of that, as folks that are in the mix to power and help them through it, that's what they're, we're really there to do. And that's what the Big Data Conference is about. And of course we're going to be interviewing you next week at BDC. So I don't want to go too much into the topics that we're going to cover there, but one of the challenges that people talk about all the time is the complexity. And you certainly saw that with Hadoop and just the number of open source projects and people struggle with that. Are you seeing progress being made there? Is HPE, what are you guys doing to help solve that complexity problem? You guys are more of a solution anyway to begin with, but are you seeing that problem and is the industry addressing it? Yeah, I think, I do think it is a huge challenge for the industry. Part of that renaissance of innovation is that you have so many disparate technologies that are popping up. And a lot of them are rough around the edges. You've got to be a developer or a programmer to really get them up and running. This is coming at a time where the business users just want answers. They want to have conversations with their data and they want to move the business forward. So it's creating a conundrum where you have a whole bunch of technologies, not a lot of solutions. And so part of what we've tried to focus on with our platform, and I won't say we're perfect by any means, but I think we constantly strive to make it better, is we're trying to wrap more around some of those technologies to deliver them as part of the solution. So I mentioned Kafka, integrating Kafka natively with Vertica helps you bring data right in or right out of Vertica seamlessly into that ecosystem. And the good news about the ecosystem often around many of these technologies is that the openness is allowing a lot of people to develop on top of it, to package around it. So I do think it's getting better, but I think that there are so many different projects out there, so many different technologies that it's a constant battle to stay ahead of that. And frankly, as much as enterprises love open source and the notion that you don't get locked in, I think the reality is you are locked in. Whether it's open source or not, you're gonna develop on something and just by making that decision, you're locked in. And so they need to understand that there is a parent parental guidance behind these organizations and that's able to stand up and support them in what they're doing. And I think that's the role that Hewlett Packard Enterprise plays in so many different scenarios. It was a really important point because the euphoria around big data led everybody to sort of hop on the bandwagon. A lot of customers went into that sort of blindfolded to the open source world. And what's happening is you're starting to see consolidation. Some companies aren't going to make it and you could be stuck with this open source mess that you have to deal with. So you're saying, okay, we bring adult supervision, but you guys are also participants in that open source world. It's not like you don't embrace that. So it's a nice balance and it's a good hybrid. It is a balance. And I think the hybrid approach is important. I think what every company has to deal with is we are in the business of delivering revenues and profits and those sorts of things. And sometimes the open source models that you see out there don't easily do that. And so there's a timeless model over the last decades that you can see in any type of company. And if we can't achieve that, if an open source company comes out and it's just bleeding cash, that gives a lot of companies concern. Do I want to bet on this technology? So I think that's something that Hewlett Packard Enterprise brings that's really important. Well, we get excited about the new technologies because, oh wow, we can store all this data now for way less. And then it becomes a business problem. Okay, what do we do with it? You know, who's got the data architecture? What's the governance approach? And what's the business model? And what does this mean for new opportunities for us? And those are the really hard problems that people are trying to solve, isn't it? Those are the hard problems. And I think the good news, what we refer to as Hadooponomics is exactly what you said. All the data gets stored now, which is great because in the past, so much data was thrown away. And once it's gone, it's gone. So at least now you have the data, but your point is right on, which is, okay, so now what? Just storing the data? There's no value in just storing the data. We need to get at the gold. And how do we get at the gold? Well, it turns out, having an analytic engine to get at the gold or having a great search engine to get at the gold, those are really important. And I think from an economic standpoint, what we're seeing is the industry is really starting to value those again. Whereas everybody was sort of being commoditized and talking about the lowest price per terabyte. Now the industry is realizing, okay, I know this is good for that, but it's not gonna deliver this type of value. And so the market is starting to sort itself out, which is a great time for us. And at the same time, a lot of our competitors are long gone. Well, and everybody talks about the digital transformation, HPE at its conferences talks about that, Meg was big on that whole theme. Everybody is. And the exciting part is digital is data. And data can be used in a lot of different ways. It doesn't have high asset specificity. It can be fungible. It can be used in a lot of different use cases. And it's trying to figure those out, trying to optimize those, understand the value of the data that organizations are now trying to grok. And they haven't figured it out yet, for the most part. And, but the opportunities are amazing. Well, and I think those opportunities we refer to a lot as the idea economy. And, you know, I think Uber is a great example. There's so many great examples. And what I love to think about is, you know, somewhere there is a young girl who's probably in high school, if that, and she is programming right now. Somehow somewhere in the United States. And what she is able to do with her technology and her mind is like nothing that you could have ever done 10 years ago as a massive organization. And I think that disruption of the idea of economy, that somebody, an individual contributor who's not necessarily in the largest corporation can come in and create some innovation that could be so profound and do it for a fraction of what it used to cost. I think that inherently is what is behind the big data movement. It's not just about data. It's really about the programming and the empowerment and all the things that happen. And it's exciting. And there's so many examples that we've had, whether it was Zynga, you know, Uber, Twitter, just customers that are doing these amazing things. You know, data is a huge part of it, but data is only part of it. And it really gets to the culture and the people. Well, that's a great point. We're reshaping the innovation curve in this industry. It used to be, we'd mark it as the cadence of Moore's law. And now it's like, okay, here's some cheap compute and cheap storage. What can you do with it? And that's where innovation lies. Yep. Yeah, once you give people the resources, once you remove the barrier, and somebody can just start creating something for the right price, which has never been cheaper and never been easier for somebody to do, they just start going at it. And that's just so exciting to see. But one thing we do watch, too, is that where Vertica started was getting away from proprietary enterprise data warehouse appliances. And one thing that I find really interesting now, we're gonna talk about this at the conferences, as the world shifts to cloud, all of a sudden it looks like the world is moving towards another proprietary dinosaur. You know, getting locked into a single stack. And so something that is very unique to us in this space is that we offer an engine with a lot of choices. You can run it wherever you want. We have great hardware to run it on. We, you can run it on the cloud, many clouds. You can run it on Hadoop distributions. And I think that choice in the data democratization is going to become more and more important for enterprises, to be able to choose the right software but leverage all the innovations that are happening in the ecosystem. And we're going to talk about this stuff at the Big Data Conference. Take us through the week. So people are going to be getting there, arriving on Monday. Arriving Monday, it kicks off, really. You know, there's a reception, but then it kicks off on Tuesday morning. And it will run through midday on Thursday. So we pack a lot into a couple of days. We do leave a lot of time for mingling and people to do the networking. But as I said, we've got some great keynote speakers. We've got amazing customers. We've got a lot of our partners coming in as well. And I promise you won't get any marketing BS. It's at the seaport in Boston. Get some chowda. Yeah, come see us. Go across some legal seafood. Yeah, yeah, come see us. Great spot on the water. And if the weather is like it is today, it should be beautiful. This is the best time of the year. We are doing it a little bit later this year in August. And the reason is we want our colleagues and friends from Europe to really be able to attend. Last year, when it was the beginning of August, actually, and every year we've done at the beginning of August, it's in the middle of a busy holiday time in Europe. So we're doing it a little bit later, but the weather looks to be even better. And come see us in Boston. All right, Con, well, thanks for coming out to the SiliconANGLE Media Studios here on the East Coast. And really great to see you. We'll see you next week. You too. Awesome. Thanks, Dave. All right, thanks for watching, everybody. This is Cube Conversations. This is Dave Vellante. We'll see you next time.