 Welcome back to SuperCloud 2, an open collaborative where we explore the future of cloud and data. Now you might recall last August at the inaugural SuperCloud event, we validated the technical feasibility and tried to further define the essential technical characteristics and of course the deployment models of so-called SuperCloud that is sets of services that leverage the underlying primitives of hyperscale clouds but are creating new value on top of those clouds for organizations at scale. So we're talking about capabilities that fundamentally weren't practical or even possible prior to the ascendancy of the public clouds and so today at SuperCloud 2, we're digging further into the topic with input from real world practitioners and we're exploring the intersection of data and cloud and importantly the realities and challenges of deploying technology for new business capability I'm pleased to have with me in our studios, West of Boston, Veronica Durgan who's the head of data at SACS. Veronica welcome, great to see you, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much, thank you for having me. So it's nice to be here. We have to say up front, you're here, these are your opinions, you're not representing SACS in any way so we appreciate you sharing your depth of knowledge with us. Thank you Dave, yeah I've been doing data for a while, I try not to say how long anymore it's been a while but yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, you're welcome, I mean one of the highlights of this past year for me was hanging out at the airport with you after the Snowflake Summit and we were just chatting about sort of data mesh and you were saying yeah but there was a yeah but you were saying there's some practical realities of actually implementing these things so I want to get into some of that and I guess starting from a perspective of how data has changed, you've seen a lot of the waves, I mean even if we go back to pre Hadoop that would shove everything into an Oracle database or Hadoop was going to save our data lives and the cloud came along and that was kind of a disruptive force and now we see things like whether it's Snowflake or Databricks or these other platforms on top of the clouds, how have you observed the change in data and the evolution over time? Yeah, so I started as a DBA in the data center kind of like growing up, trying to manage whatever physical limitations a server could give us so we had to be very careful of what we put in our database because we were limited. We purchased that piece of hardware and we had to use it for the next, I don't know, three to five years so it was only, we focused on only the most important critical things, we couldn't keep too much data, we had to be super efficient, we couldn't add additional functionality and then Hadoop came along, which is like, great, we can dump all the data there but then we couldn't get data out of it so it was like, okay, great, doesn't help either and then the cloud came along, which was incredible. I was probably the most excited person online but I was super excited because I no longer had to worry about what I can actually put in my database. Now I have that, you know, scalability and flexibility with the cloud so, okay, great, that data's there and I can also easily get it out of it so which is really incredible. Well, but so, I'm inferring from what you're saying with Hadoop, it was like, okay, no schema on right and then you're going to try to make sense out of it but so what changed with the cloud? What was different? So I tell you a funny story, I actually successfully avoided Hadoop, the only time. Congratulations. I know I'm like super proud of it. I don't know how that happened but the only time I worked for a company that had Hadoop, all I remember is that they were running jobs that were taking over 24 hours to get data out of it and they were realizing that, you know, dumping data without any structure into this massive thing that required, you know, really skilled engineers, wasn't really helpful. So what changed and I'm kind of thinking of like, kind of like how Snowflake started, right? They were marketing themselves as a data warehouse. For me, moving from SQL Server to Snowflake was a non-event. It was comfortable, I knew what it was, I knew how to get data out of it and I think that's the important part, right? Cloud is like kind of like vague, high level thing, magical but the reality is cloud is the same as what we had on prem. So it's comfortable, it's not scary. You don't need super new additional skills to use it. But you're saying what's different is the scale. So you can throw resources at it, you don't have to worry about depreciating your hardware over three to five years and, hey, I have an asset that I have to take advantage of. Is that the big difference? Absolutely, actually from kind of like operational perspective, which is, it's funny, like I don't have to worry about it. I use what I need when I need it and not to take this completely in the opposite direction, people stop thinking about using things in a very smart way, right? Like scale and you walk away and then, you know, the cool thing about cloud is it's scalable but you also should not use it when you don't need it. So what about this idea of multi-cloud? Super cloud sort of tries to go beyond multi-cloud. It's like multi-cloud by accident. And now we're, you know, whether it's M&A or you know, some skunk works is, hey, I like really, I like Google's tools. So I'm going to use Google. And then people like you are called on to, hey, how we clean up this mess? And you and I, at the airport, we were talking about data mesh and I love the concept. Like it doesn't matter if it's a data lake or a data warehouse or a data hub or an S3 bucket. It's just a note on the mesh. But then of course you got to govern it. You've got to give people self-serve. But this multi-cloud is a reality. So from your perspective, from a practitioner's perspective, what does multi, what are the advantages of multi-cloud? We talk about the disadvantages all the time. Kind of get that, but what are the advantages? So I think the first thing when I think multi-cloud, I actually think high availability disaster recovery. Like that is, and maybe it's just how I grew up in the data center, right? We were always worried that if something happened in one area, we want to make sure that we can bring business up very quickly. So to me, that's kind of like where multi-cloud comes to mind because you put your data, your applications, let's pick on AWS for a second in US East in AWS, which is the busiest kind of like area that they have. If it goes down, I want for my business to continue. I would probably want to move it to say Azure, hypothetically speaking again or Google, whatever that is. So to me and probably again, based on my background, disaster recovery, high availability comes to mind as multi-cloud first. But now the other part of it is that there are companies and tools and applications that are being built and pick your cloud. How do we talk to each other? And more importantly, how do we data share? I work with data, this is what I do. So if I want to get data from a company that's using say Google, how do we share it in a smooth way where it doesn't have to be this crazy, I don't know, SFTP file moving? So that's where I think super cloud comes to me in my mind is like practical applications. How do we create that mesh, that network that we can easily share data with each other? So you kind of answered my next question is, do you see use cases going beyond H? I mean the HA, DR, remember that was the original cloud use case, that and bursting for Thanksgiving or Black Friday, but so you see an opportunity to go beyond that with practical use cases. Absolutely, I think we're getting to a world where every company is a data company. We all collect a lot of data, we want to use it for whatever that is, it doesn't necessarily mean sell it but use it to our competitive advantage. So how do we do it in a very smooth, easy way which opens additional opportunities for companies? You mentioned data sharing, that's obviously, I met you at Snowflake Summit, that's a big thing of Snowflakes and of course you've got Databricks trying to do similar things with open technology. What do you see as the trade-offs there because Snowflake, you got to come into their party, you're in their world and you're kind of locked into that world, now they're trying to open up and of course Databricks say, no, no, our world's wide open when we know what that means, governance. So now you're seeing, you saw Amazon come out with data clean rooms, which is, that was a good idea if Snowflake had several years before, it's good, it's good validation. So how do you think about the trade-offs between kind of openness and freedom versus control? Is it a ladder just far more important? I'll tell you it depends, right? It's kind of like, everything and it's not, it depends because I don't know the answer, it depends I think because on the use case application, ultimately every company wants to make money, that's the beauty of our like capitalistic economy, right? We're driven because we want to make money, but from the use, how do I sell a product to somebody who's in Google if I am enabled, yes. It's like we're limiting ourselves if we just do one cloud. But again, it's difficult because at the same time, every cloud provider wants for you to be locked in their cloud which is why probably whoever has now data sharing because they want you to stay within their ecosystem. But then again, companies are limited, there are applications that are starting to be built on top of clouds. How do we ensure that I can use that application regardless what cloud my company is using or I just happen to like? You know, and it's true, they want you to stay in their ecosystem because they'll make more money, but as well, you think about Apple, right? Does Apple do it because they can make more money? Yes, but it's also they have more control, right? So it's probably, am I correct that technically it's going to be easier to govern that data if it's all the sort of same standard? Absolutely, 100% I didn't answer that question. You have to govern and you have to control and honestly it's like it's not like a nice to have anymore, their compliance is their legal compliance is around data. Everybody at some point wants to ensure that, you know, and as a person, quite honestly, you know, not to be, you know, I don't like when my data is used when I don't know how, like it's a little creepy, right? So we have to come up with standards around that. But then I also go back in the day, EDI, right? Electronic Data Interchange, that was figured out. There were standards, companies were sending data to each other, it was pretty standard. So I don't know, like, we'll get there. Yo, so I was going to ask you, do you see a day where open standards actually emerge to enable that? And then isn't that the great disruptor to sort of kind of the proprietary stack? I think so. I think for us to smoothly exchange data across, you know, various systems, very applications, we'll have to agree to have standards. From a developer perspective, you know, back to the sort of super cloud concept and one of the components of the essential characteristics is you've got this PAS layer that provides consistency across clouds and it has unique attributes specific to that, the purpose of that super cloud. So in the instance of Snowflake, it's data sharing in the case of, you know, VMware, it might be, you know, infrastructure or self-serve infrastructure that's consistent. From a developer perspective, what do you hear from developers in terms of what they want? Are we close to getting that across clouds? I think developers always want freedom and ability to engineer. And oftentimes it's not, you know, just as an engineer, I always want to build something and it's not always for the, to use a specific, you know, it's something I want to do versus what is actually applicable. I think we'll land there, but not because we're, you know, out of the kindness of our own hearts. I think as a necessity, we will have to agree to standards and that'll like move the needle. What are the limitations that you see of cloud and this notion of, you know, even cross cloud, right? I mean, this one cloud can't do it all, you know, but what do you see as the limitations of clouds? It's funny, I always think, you know, again, kind of probably my background, I grew up in the data center. We were physically limited by space, right? There's like, you can only put, you know, so many servers in the rack and, you know, so many racks in the data center and then you run out of space. Earth has a limited space, right? And we have so many data centers and everybody's collecting a lot of data that we actually want to use. We're not just collecting for the sake of collecting it anymore, we truly can't take advantage of it because servers have enough power, right? To crank through it, we will run out of space. So how do we balance that? How do we balance that data across all the various data centers? And I know I'm like, kind of maybe talking crazy, but until we figure out how to build a data center on the moon, right? Like we will have to figure out how to take advantage of all the compute capacity that we have across the world. Is, and where does latency fit in? I mean, is it as much of a problem as people sort of think it is, maybe it's in it depends too, it depends on the use case, but do multiple clouds help solve that problem? Because even AWS, 80 billion dollar company, they're huge, but they're not everywhere. They're doing local zones, they're doing outposts, which is less functional than their full cloud. So maybe I would choose to go to another cloud and if I could have that common experience, that's an advantage, isn't it? 100% absolutely. And potentially there's some maybe pricing tiers, right? So we're talking about latency. And again, it depends on your situation. If you have some sort of medical equipment that is very latency sensitive, you want to make sure that data lives there, but versus, I browse on the website, if the website takes a second versus two seconds to load, do I care? Not exactly. I usually watch, I don't notice that. So we can reshuffle that in a smart way and I keep thinking of ways. If we have ways for data where it kind of like, oh, you're stuck in traffic, go this way, go reshuffle you through that data center, maybe your data will live there. So I think it's totally possible. I know it's a little loud. No, I like it though. But you know, when you first found ways, you're like, oh, this is awesome. And now it's just- And it's like crowdsourcing, right? Like it's smart, like, okay, maybe, you know, gonna pick on US East for Amazon for a little bit. They're oldest, but also busiest data center that, you know, periodically goes down. But then you lose your competitive advantage because now it's like traffic socialism, right? Yeah, I know. Happened the other day. Everybody's going this way up. There's all the ways there's taking- And also, again, compliance, right? Every country is going down the path of where, you know, data needs to reside within that country. So it's not as like a socialist or democratic as we wish for it to be. Well, that's a great point. I mean, when you think about the clouds, the limitation, now you go out to the edge. I mean, everybody talks about the edge and IoT. Do you actually think that it's like a whole new stovepipe that's gonna get created? And is that that concern you? Or do you think it actually is gonna be, connective tissue with all these clouds? I honestly don't know. I live in a practical world of like, how does it help me right now? How does it, you know, help me in the next five years and mind you in five years, things can change a lot because if you think back five years ago, things weren't as they are right now. I mean, I really hope that somebody out there challenges things because, you know, the whole cloud premise was crazy. It was insane. Like, who came up with it? Why would I do that, right? And now I can't imagine the world without it. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is same wine, new bottle, you know, but a lot of it is different, right? I mean, technology keeps moving us forward, doesn't it? Absolutely. Veronica, it's great to have you. Thank you so much for your perspectives. If there was one thing that the industry could do for your data life that would make the world, your world better, what would it be? I think standards for like data sharing, data marketplace. I would love, love, love nothing else too, but you have to have some agreed upon standards. I had one other question for you actually, I forgot to ask you this, because you were saying every company is a data company, every company is a software company. Do you see the day, we're already seeing it, but how prevalent do you think it will be that companies, you've seen some of it in financial services, but companies begin to now take their own data, their own tooling, their own software, which they've developed internally, and point that to the outside world, kind of do what AWS did, working backwards from the customer and saying, hey, we did this for ourselves, we can now do this for the rest of the world. Do you see that as a real trend, or is that Dave's pie in the sky? I think it's a real trend. Every company is trying to reinvent themselves and come up with new products, and everybody, every company is a data company, every company collects data, and they're trying to figure out what to do with it. And again, it's not necessarily to sell it, you don't have to sell data to monetize it. You can use it with your partners, you can exchange data, you can create products, Capital One, I think created a product for Snowflake pricing, I don't recall, but they built it for themselves, and they decided to monetize on it. And I absolutely 100% on board with that, I think it's an amazing idea. Yeah, Goldman is another example. NASDAQ has basically taken their exchange stack and selling it around the world. And the cloud is available to do that. You don't have to build your own data source. Absolutely, or for good, right? Like we're talking about again, where we live in a capitalist country, but use data for good, we're collecting data, we're analyzing it, we're aggregating it, how can we use it for greater good for the planet? Veronica, thanks so much for coming to our Marlboro studios, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. You're really welcome. All right, stay tuned for more great content from SuperCloud 2, this is Dave Vellante. We'll be right back.