 Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's The Cube, covering EMC World 2015, brought to you by EMC, Brocade and VCE. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in Las Vegas for EMC World 2015. This is Silicon Angles, The Cube, our flagship program where we go out to the event and extract the civil noise, talk to all the people we can, get the data, share that with you. I'm John Furrier, my co is Dave Vellante, our next guest is Christopher Vrentz, Senior Vice President and CIO of Digital River. Welcome to The Cube. Well thank you very much guys, this is really exciting. You've been a CIO for a long time, you've seen the evolutions of the waves come and go. David Goulden talks about these waves and we hear them all the way the waves are coming. But we are going through a very special time right now with the cloud, economics disruption, consolidation, innovation, all happening at the same time. So I want to get your take, you know, what's going on in your mind, the reality of these waves and kind of the impact to the senior executive who now overlooks the infrastructure and now business outcomes are now thrown in there. What is the dynamic? What's your job like? Tell us, and how's that compared to trust? Where it was just even five, 10 years ago. I think the big chunk of that is convergent management. So as you look at all the technology that you one time had within your own four walls and then on top of that you now have the cloud and so you end up with this hybrid base and then you have to look at each of the technology. So we're, you know, we leverage EMC and their entire Federation suite. We have HP, we have Cisco, we have Microsoft. As you continue to VMware, as you continue to go down that stack as to what you're trying to deliver. So when you sit down with a business and they're coming to you saying what do you need to deliver on a global basis? What's your capability? You have to look at that entire set of tools and then from that you're able to, you know, figure out where you're going to do it globally and when it comes to data and what tools you're using, how do you manage data globally? How do you manage processing globally? Cause that keeps changing every country, every regulation that shows up. The global's keyword. Oh it is, I mean that's, and we're a global processor. We run globally, we're in 80 countries around the world and it's 24 by seven on. So everybody talks about, we heard this morning in the key notes, everybody's, you know, CIO's trying to digitize their business and you guys are a digital business. Correct. You know, you're not waking up in the morning and going, oh, we have to digitize our business. You're already there. But you're seeing others enter your market space. You're seeing upstarts, new entrants and you probably have opportunities to transform your business. So can you talk about that a little bit, that competitive dynamic and the opportunity dynamic? Yeah and I think, you know, over, Digital River's been around for about 20 years and it's one of the largest e-commerce and payments processors in the world and it does have competitors. But one of the things we're doing which is a lot different is we're continuing to push the innovation curve. So we were one of those, you know, we're fully virtualized, being able to run in a container process and we always step outside of the balance. So when you have new companies coming up and around, we look at what we have historically and then what can we leverage. And when we sit down with our customers and it can be a consumer based or it can also be an enterprise customer. And when we sit with them, it's really stating, here's what we have in our toolkit. So not only can I take you into a different country, not only can I help you with your solution, I can go to, I'd say core infrastructure, core technology that's repeatable, reusable. And then I can also go integrate with them and I can also integrate with a third party. So we're providing that landscape that really, you know, someone always uses the term, you know, it's just a pane of glass. That's really what we're doing. We're providing commerce as a pane of glass. So we look at all the technologies that are out there and which one fits. And I think that's where the partnership with EMC, with VMware, with HP, Cisco, all those come together because it's a convergence. We're really trying to sit down and say, what's the best solution and how do we adapt? So I got to ask, you mentioned containers, you know, global, this gets us all excited about DevOps. And that's a movement that, you know, is all about agile infrastructure as code, which really is kind of the new normal. People are shifting in that direction. But it might not be comfortable for most enterprises. So how are you pulling it off? What are you looking at it? Because you guys have an operational model that really disruption is not an option, right? So talk about the balance between DevOps and operational uptime and enabling that developer framework, that so-called DevOps model. I think one of the big steps that we're taking is really looking at the platform itself. What is it that we have multiple modules? So which one do you go look at? Which one sets for DevOps? Because DevOps is it for everything. And it isn't for maybe all of the associated platforms that you're using. So basically sitting down with the development teams, what are we doing with using Docker, using Rocket or any of the other ones that are out there? That's an interesting part of it. But to your earlier point, how do you push this into release management? How do you make sure you can back it out? And then working with the development teams that literally say, you're now supporting this 24 by seven. So that's- Is it a challenge? Is it, do you guys have a groove swing on this? It's getting much better. So I think one of the big parts is, is that you're seeing this whole convergence. What you used to have from a UNIX operator and Intel operator storage, that's all converging. Those Chinese walls are all being taken down. Same as Dev. So when I have to write code, it has to run in a virtualized environment. I don't care whose. And it has to be performant. And it's going to cost me operational dollars if it's not. So I have to get through that whole life cycle. Does that change your personnel decision-making, obviously hiring and managing? Talk about that dynamic. Because you're talking about essentially jobs shifting. Yep. Kind of service-oriented, Lego block model. I mean, how do you handle that? And what's your mandate to your team? I think one of the big things that we're looking at is just looking at the maturity curve. So there's always going to be the generation something that comes up that's the ones that you want to get in there because of a lot of the way they think of the world. But then you have to have the standard guys that are there that are helping keep the wheels on the bus. So we're really using a hybrid approach. When it looks to hiring, what are we doing? How are we making sure we're bringing the right talent in? And then if individuals don't want to, you know, play in that space, it's really trying to find out where they want to play. Because you're always going to have that core. And so you're always going to have to have those smeeze. So you talked about the single pane of glass for your customers. Now, underneath that, you've got your infrastructure. And everybody's always talking about single pane of glass for the infrastructure. So I want to talk about how you address complexity and get into that analog of a single pane of glass at the back end. One of the things is just full standardization. So literally making sure that everything we do is repeatable and reusable across all of our data centers, either Kolo or something that we host. And that's really, it's, you know, it's really stepped back and said, what are we trying to accomplish? And so the new cloud banks, so we have a hybrid cloud base, everything's virtualized. So we literally stepped back and said, you know, what's best to breed, you know, leveraging. It didn't matter if it's EMC's federated products. We use RSA, we use a Vesca, Abelmars, you know, all of those pieces build into, we have kind of a wedding cake model. You have the core base, then we've got the security that goes along with it, then we have the applications, and then there's the verticals from the business. So we've really tried to standardize everything, make it repeatable, reusable, so that it can burst into a cloud. So we can leverage the same tools. So let me, let me help, help me understand that. So you're standardizing, at least the minimizing the number of vendors, right? Not, you don't have a single vendor, I presume, but okay. So you standardize on a set of vendors. Correct. You have a technology portfolio that you say, okay, this is what's in the portfolio today. This is what's, we're going to build our services on top of this platform. Correct. And then how often do you sort of refresh that portfolio? I mean, it's- Continually, it's continually ongoing, because we really look at, you know, what are you doing with a third-party cloud provider? And what do they need for those tool sets? What are you trying to do? The same as we got into dev ops, you know, what are the development teams doing? So that's one thing that I think differentiates DigiRiver, we're really flexible and really fast. So we really sit and make prudent decisions, but we really vet out our technology. So if you look at, you know, what's Extreme I.O. going to do for us? What is the, you know, other EMC tools going to do for us? So we leverage all of these tools, but we're really trying to figure out what's the best for throughput, resiliency, what makes the, you know, what is the customer requirements? So take us through, what's underneath the covers and the infrastructure? You mentioned Extreme I.O., what do you got? So literally it's all an HP-based, server-based. It's all EMC for any of the storage that's there. It's all a VEXA. So anything we do for our backups, there's all EMC backups across the- So you got data domain. We have data domain- You got VNX's? We have, yep, we have VNX. We also have Extreme I.O. where we're piloting right now. VMAX or no? VMAX, yep. Okay. And then what we're trying to do is we look at, you know, our data centers are worldwide, and so they're active active, and they run, you know, so we can continually move traffic. So all of the technology, all the tools that bind them together also have to be supportable. So you got eight data centers, is that right? Yeah. Okay, so you've got this standard technology platform, which includes a lot of different products. Correct, yep. So you essentially will refresh those periodically. You don't refresh the whole thing every year. No, but it really, you would look at each piece and say, you know, if we have, you know, X number of petabytes worth of data. Right. What is the best tool that we need for that, either for replication, deduplication, capability? We go through those assessments. Okay, and then you recently brought in Extreme I.O., or? Probably about four months ago, five months ago. Now, you're doing that for new apps? You're doing that to sort of compliment existing, say VMAX? It would be a compliment. So literally it's throughput. It's really looking at what can we do for burstability? What can we do for the fastest throughput that we can provide for any of our transaction profit? So you didn't have Extreme I.O.? If you didn't have Flash, what would you have done? Just had to buy more VMAX? Sure, we'd buy different, we'd go evaluate whatever additional drive capability we needed. So in your case, the Flash, the all Flash array is supplementing what would have been a traditional array, right? And do you see that over time, bringing in new applications, mobile, or other types of apps? Yeah, I mean, yeah. So I think we're going to be able to, any of the dynamic apps that we build, making sure that they can maximize all the Flash capability, everything that we can do in memory, everything that we can get cached. So literally, especially when we're using a third party in a cloud, if you're using something like Akamai or Edge or any of those, what else can we get that's closer to the point of origination so that we can take all those barriers off? And what about cloud storage? If I can use that term. I'm not even sure what I mean by cloud storage. What are you doing for cloud storage? I guess when we look at all of our, all the infrastructure we control, we have cloud storage. I guess when we look at that capability, but then we look at third parties, same thing. So making sure that what we run in house, because remember, it's all dynamic. So it's got to process real time and real time and real time can be in a third party cloud. So making sure of those tools and that capability are there. And using public cloud or? Yep, we have public cloud capability up. So you'll use maybe an object store in a public cloud. Sure, yep. And then you'll connect that into your sort of, our thing of it are assigned to our backend fabric. Talk about some of the stats you guys run. Can you share any data on the scale, orders, servers, capacity? Kind of stay away from some of that, but yeah, I can go into, we have, we've probably about 6,000 servers worldwide, if you think of physical, and then the virtualized environments that are on top of that. And we run somewhere between 10 to 15 to one, depending on what's there. Because we virtualize everything, including the database, from all of our capabilities. And data centers global. Data centers global. UK, Germany, data issues. Yeah, so there's, no, so basically there's a couple in Stockholm, there's on the continent, and then the US is what we do when we use those to balance load around the world. So depending on what Asia's doing, cause we have to follow the sun. We're talking to Stephen Manley earlier about the cost and complexity of managing multiple architectures you mentioned for HP all these different vendors. Back in the old days, multi-vendor was the big deal. Oh, multi-vendor support. Now you have multi-stacks, multi-services, or microservices. Now you have architectures. What is this new dynamic that you're seeing in the cloud, hybrid cloud? Is it multiple stacks, multiple architectures? Cause you might have a great use. Multi-cloud. You might have a use case, say, data protection for instance, which is a really unique workflow. That has a great architecture, but might not fit with real time and some of the dynamic cloud stuff. Is it a blending of architectures? What do you see? Well, it's trying to figure out what is that, you know, that mustn't tag connection if you want to go to old school. Because we're going to take, you know, we're going to take a third-party cloud provider that isn't going to have all the same standards. We have our standards in there and now it's working through where they are. So what are the tools that are helping us bridge that? So when you talk about, we've tried to standardize our stacks and then we really partner with, you know, each of the vendors and say, this is where our roadmap is. This is what we're trying to get to. Where do you guys fit in there? Where are the hiccups? And I think the biggest part is all the user communities, literally working with all the other CIOs, figure out what's working and what's not. And that's been one of the things. And what about integration? Talk about the focus of integration. Is that a big discussion conversation you're having? Oh yeah, because now it's trying to figure out how are you going to take an application that runs internally and then how are you going to run it somewhere else? And then now you have all the client integrations because everybody else has a SaaS offering of something. And so now we have to tie into that. So if you want to go to use a tax calculation, you're going to have to go to their cloud provider to do that. I mean, so now it's, and so you don't, now the big part of this becomes monitoring. Yeah. And then you see it end to end. And that's where the, I think the big future is, is I need to know what's happening in a third party cloud that I don't control. That's a big data opportunity as well, right? It's a big data opportunity as to how we manage it. My HR cloud, I got my manufacturing cloud. I got my IT service management cloud. Yep, a lot of clouds. And it really does, you become an orchestration process. And you think of all your regulatory, your compliance, everything you're doing in each country. That's one of the things that we're doing is how do we manage data in country? So as a technologist, how does your role change as you, the industry changes? You really have to understand where it's going. I mean, it sounds like a really simple answer, but you have to really keep up. You really have to go and talk to your clients, talk to all your vendors, and really in a big chunk of that is trying to figure out what all the regulatory's going on. Because that's what's driving a ton of this, especially new business. Well, but a lot of it's going outside, right? Yep. I mean, how do you- You have to- So how do you- Well, one of the things is you end up with a, you know, you have your standard technology people. The next thing is you have to have your cloud management guys. So literally we're growing the guys that are inside those third party clouds, understanding all those capabilities. So that's that next generation that you're breaking down that Chinese wall because they really have to know what's happening there. What are the SLAs, the OLA's, and you know, they're going to have upgrades and you're going to find out you're not compatible. And that's a new skills layer. It's a new skills layer because you're taking someone that knows how to change control, the technology, security. You're starting to pull that all into one group that has to be able to see across that entire ecosystem. And you work for the CEO? COO? You work for? COO. Great. Christopher. I'll start, go ahead. No, it's becoming, but when you're asked earlier, it's, you know, what's sales doing? What's the business doing? What's technology doing? You know, what's the vendors doing? You have to start to bridge all of that. Okay, it's not a department like IT anymore. No, it's, you know- Well, a company. It's the company because it touches everything that someone wants to, they can run an entire instance on their laptop. It's super exciting. I mean, I got to get the final question for you, the final word for you to share the audience. What have you learned? You've been very successful in your operation, global business, a lot of volume, a lot of operations efficiency. What advice would you give others out there who are looking at the same transformation challenges? They want hybrid cloud. They want DevOps. They want a developer environment. They want to be fast and agile, use real time. Same time, not screw up the important operational, in some cases, older use cases. Correct. I think the big thing, you know, is communication. Really making sure that they step back and read. It's not, and I hate to say this, but it's not an article that's in an airplane magazine that says you can move everything to the cloud. So it's really sitting down. It's communication to the business. What are they trying to do? What's your customer base? And what's your level of risk? Because that's going to be your big component, what's your revenue impact? What's your conversion? And then how do you get the big part of this whole thing is how do you retain your employees? Because they are the ones that know how all of these things plug together. And so that's a big part of this. It's not just technology. The people have to run it, even if it's automated. You mentioned risk, final follow up. What bets have you made and what should bets, other CIOs bets, should they be in for the big game changing transformational move? I think the big thing is understanding that everything you touch today touches somebody else's computer. And so if you're going to go use a cloud, understand what that means to your business and that it goes from capex to op-ex, you can leave the faucet run and you can run up a bill so fast that you don't have the ability to back it out. You spent the money. I mean, it's those sort of things. So it's really, you have to be real close with your finance guy and really follow along with your technologies. Joyride, IT joyride, right? No, the meat is running. Chris, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate the insight. CIO perspective, really awesome conversation here inside theCUBE at EMC World. Join the conversation, go to siliconangle.tv or crowdchat.net slash EMC World. It's theCUBE, we'll be right back after this short break. Thank you very much guys.