 Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM Think 2019, brought to you by IBM. Okay, welcome back everyone. We're here live at theCUBE at Moscone North in San Francisco for IBM Think 2019. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman, talking to all the top executives, top people here at IBM. Getting the scoop on cloud at AI. Our next guest is Jason Gardner, Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Hybrid Cloud at IBM. Managing this key product, which is the part of the IBM Cloud Private. Big part of the announcements. Big cloud story here, it's multi-cloud. It's hybrid, welcome back. It's hybrid, multi-cloud. Thank you for having me back. CUBE alumni been on, is really going back as 2012. Now one big event. I can't believe it's been that long, but yeah, I know I'm happy to be back and I can't believe it's been that, I've been on CUBE for that long. So talk about your new role and you had previous roles within IBM, dealing with the kind of clients and the integration. Your role now as Worldwide Sales, you're taking this cloud private offering, bringing the customers, being as the linchpin for integration. Talk about what you do and some of the engagements you have. Yeah, previously I was really focused in on development and offering management on I'll say point products and how they help clients move to the cloud. Things such as our pure business, our spare business. And now I've actually been able to move into a much more horizontal role. Where I have the portfolio across the cyber cloud integration side. So everything from our web sphere family, which includes IBM cloud private, through to the integration challenges that that brings as well as our digital business automation portfolio. You know, I have a personal joy. Stu knows I'm fanatic about Kubernetes. And when I heard Jenny Rametti say Kubernetes twice in a CNBC interview, you know it's made it. Kubernetes is a big part of the cloud native containers really now has created the connective tissue to make cloud and multi-cloud viable. This is a key part of it. I want you to talk about the context of these trends and unpack this cloud private offering because it's instrumental. It seems in the news. What is this about? It is, it really creates that ubiquitous layer. I think that we've all been searching for that next generation of virtualization and connected tissue as you call it. And as you begin to unpack that it really kind of starts with the rise of microservices and the need to be able to pack them very tightly into containers. And that's really the burst of Kubernetes, right? Was the ability to orchestrate those containers. And so Kubernetes becomes that ubiquitous layer in there. But IBM cloud private takes that and takes it to the next level, right? And really what it is, it's the services on top of that, the cloud services, which enable those containers to work together. And it is a lot of open source capabilities such as Helm, Prometheus, Kibana, as some of those core services that those microservices require in order to be able to run efficiently. So Jason, we know it's a multi-cloud world. Everybody out there would love to say, oh yes, there's one cloud, I can simplify it. I'd like to get to a nice scalable model that's simple. But the reality is customers choose lots of different solutions because they have different needs. The private cloud piece is not really well understood. I'd love you to take us inside your users because they say, okay, I'm using Amazon. I'm using Microsoft business services. There's certain data things that Google has. IBM has AI and business productivity and database offering. That cloud private, what are the services, what are the use cases, what are the reasons where they say why I'm buying this and being part of my overall portfolio? Yeah, you know, Jenny called it cloud 2.0, right? 1.0 was about lift and shift. It was about cloud native. And that really got us about 20% of the way there. And it's at 80%, that's the real challenge. That's really where the complication comes into play. And that's really what private cloud is about. And because not everybody can be able to take their applications, throw them away, build cloud native, or lift and shift them. If you think of the big regulated industries like banking, insurance, healthcare, government, they really need to be able to have that level of security and assurances that they need within there. And that's really where private cloud comes into play, is those really tough, challenging problems in the industry. Yeah, I love that. A trend I've heard from a number of customers, you talk about them getting to containerization and this multi-factor services is, step one is I've got to modernize the platform that's going to enable it. And then I can modernize the applications on top of it. Is that the trend you're seeing? Yeah, definitely, we've been building on microservices and modernization, it's a journey, right? And it's a journey of discovery, I think for a lot of clients out there and we'd all love to be able to say, okay, this is my platform and now I'm going to work on the applications. But really, sometimes the starting point may be one or another. And it usually comes in a space of a digital requirement. And so they begin to modernize the application and then realize, geez, I need to be able to manage all of this. I need to be able to deploy it all. And then that's when the platform comes into play and all the other services I should say that come along with it. I think Stu, you coined the term private cloud, I think. True private cloud. True private cloud. True private cloud. So the private cloud, again, it's all cloud operations. So I kind of disagree in this whole point about one cloud or multi-cloud, because I think, yes, multi-cloud, but you're seeing people use cloud for workloads, right? So pick the right cloud for the right application. So this basically says, okay, if you want to use Amazon, use Amazon, that's what you want, but if you're going to use 365, maybe use Azure, if you're going to use G Suite, use Google, you guys kind of have the business apps nailed down, right? If you're going to use your business apps, maybe IBM. This is your opportunity. This is our opportunity. Talk about specifically the kinds of apps that you guys will power with your cloud, because multi-cloud certainly makes sense for you guys, it's multi-cloud, you want to have that portability and interoperability, but the apps that you're going to power with IBM cloud, talk about what they are, how's it, how's it? If you look at, from a language perspective, over the last, jeez, it's been 23 years, I think, since the rise of Java, right? And, you know, 1995, when the first app servers came out, that, those app servers, that is really where the core applications really run on top of, right? And it's those core Java applications that are now needing that facelift, right? They need to be able to be injected with new forms of AI, new types of integrations, new types of, of really personalization of that digital transformation that's driving it, and that's really the core suite, right? And if I look at that core suite in there, and then, you know, what do you do to modernize a Java application? What kind of tools are available to you? How do you then manage, how do you distribute, and how do you scale those applications? It's very important. What is the adoption of the private cloud, or the cloud private product? Talk about some of the trends. How is it being used, specific on how customers are using it, what are the use cases? Yeah, so, so, so the primary use case is to increase the agility, lower cost, on, you know, the overall managing of them. And, but it's the increase in the agility, which is kind of really hard to measure, because clients want to be able to react very fast to it, and so, as they build up microservices, microservices then become independent with one another, you can then update ones very quickly and easily, they manage, and they run independently, they scale independently, and so, cloud private provides you with all those services to be able to run those microservices as containers, but then be able to tie them together in a much more comprehensive, you know, enterprise, you know, suite. You know, a core technology like Helm, I'm waiting for Ginny to say that one on stage, but a core technology like Helm really provides that, you know, robust enterprise class distribution for scalability and high availability of a microservice-based application. Yeah, Jason, can you bring us inside the organization that the customers you're selling to, you know, used to be, it was the refresh cycle, it's like, okay, my X86 refresh, or, you know, the budget cycles that I had, cloud's quite a bit different. Private cloud is kind of straddling between the old world and the new world. What are the dynamics you're seeing as to who controls the purse strings? Are they moving faster to that OPEX model? You know, there's no one person who owns the purse strings on it, but it does float between the infrastructure team, knows that they need to do something different, the developers or the application development team, and then really the strategy, you know, Chief Strategy Officer, you know, in that IT organization, is really where it's coming together, because one thing I think that we've all learned is that developers will find the easiest, fastest way to do something no matter what rules or policies we put down. And this is about providing them with an environment that has guardrails, you know, for them to be able to innovate as fast as they want, use the tools that they want that they're most comfortable with, and so really it's a grassroots kind of movement into these microservices led by the developers, but the purse strings are still held at the CTO side. That's always a fascinating interest because the developers, they're going to go do it, but they're not usually the ones with the budget, but when do the ops people get involved, the business people to make sure that IT manages it, gets rid of like stealth IT. And a lot of our clients have learned to listen to the developers because the early days of cloud, they didn't, and developers found ways through it no matter what, and so that's really what it's about, it's like a game of bumper cars, right? You got to make sure that they stay within the ring of what's safe, and especially in this day and age of the security requirements that are out there, it's more important today than ever before. Jason, can you share some data around just observations that you've noticed on trends around industry uptake, or is there any patterns in terms of the customer base? Affinity, obviously people aren't going to cloud operations. Just Jenny mentioned 60, 40, 80, 20, these ratios, what does that all mean? Can you just share kind of the trend data around adoption and patterns? Probably the biggest one in there is the 80, 20, right? That there's still 80% of the applications left in the world are still locked behind the brick and mortar, and that's probably the biggest piece of that opportunity and providing clients with a way to be able to lift them up and be able to modernize them. I think it's where the huge opportunity is, but then looking at where do they land, it's not all going to public cloud, right? And so private cloud is a huge business. I think underestimated, I think a lot of us underestimate how large that business really is. And depending on the industry, you'll see 50, 50, 60, 40, 40, 60 split, depending on the regulations within that industry, the country, the geography of where they really want to go to. And a lot of our clients are asking us for solutions around that private side, but yet be able to have the flexibility to be able to go over there. So you're seeing friction on the public cloud, mainly it's inherent from either regulatory compliance or just technical challenges. Is that kind of the fiber? That's probably the first one. I think is there's still that inherent regulatory requirements of data residency and how do I get my data to my application? I can build all the applications I want in the cloud, but how do I get my data there? How do I synchronize it? My lineage of my data? And so they really challenged around that. But then on the other side of it is around the cost, right? And if you wanted to rebuild all your applications as true cloud native from scratch, it will take you a very long time and be very, very expensive. And so there's also a cost element and speed. You can modernize something much more quickly and be able to get it to that same level of service without having to spend all the time. We had Irvin on earlier yesterday and I want to get your thoughts on the impact of the Red Hat Acquisition News, because if you look at what OpenShift is doing with cloud private, Irvin was saying yesterday that, Irvin Krishna, he's like, this is really enabling a lot of the acceleration for the modernization of the new cloud stuff and keeping the legacy stuff and or transitioning that on different timetables. Your thoughts on that? Absolutely, right? OpenShift is going to be a critical component for our overall hybrid strategy. I'm very excited about it and really looking forward to it and cloud private and the services that I talked about, run an OpenShift today. And that was part of our partnership agreement. I think that you guys were at that Irvin talked about at that time, but it provides the platform for all of those traditional applications which we've modernized. And the interesting thing is that we've actually modernized ourselves. We've modernized our middleware. We've modernized some of those products that are 10, 20 years old. Everything from WebSphere to MQ to BPM, they've all been modernized in that same fashion. Yeah, Jason, speaking of modernization, bring us inside your Salesforce a little bit. How do they keep up? What's the skill set that you're looking for on your team to sell in this? They need to understand Helm and Kubernetes and all these microservice architecture where five years ago it was a totally different world. Absolutely. I think if I look at, it's not a skill, but it's passion, right? And it's that never give up kind of mentality I think that we look for in a Salesforce and that never give up attitude really provides you with that foundation for never stop learning, right? If anything that you guys have noticed here over the last 10 years and your guys' journey is that this industry just changes so rapidly all the time. And so as a Salesforce, you can't just acquire skills. You don't go out and hire skills. You hire people and you hire passion and you hire people with that never give up attitude. I've been going around. We've been doing our sales kickoffs. I've done two out of the three now so far. And I tell you, they are energized. They love it. They're energized about the Red Hat acquisition. It shows that IBM really gets it. They've been telling me, does IBM really get it? Now they're like, wow, we really do get it. And they're really energized because all the pieces are falling into place around this modernization and clients and we're hitting the timing. It's time to hit the pedals with the metal, put the gas on that. They always say there's no speed limit on sales. Exactly, okay, first of all, great, great conversation and thanks for pointing out our journey, Stu. I would say that the sales people are going to watch all the CUBE videos because all the best contents coming out of the CUBE here and great to have you on. But quick plug, I'll give you the last word. What's the pitch? Share the pitch for the hybrid cloud what your team's offering. What's the core pitch for your customers when you go to them? The core pitch is around modernization. It's the journey that clients are on from application development and how you build your apps and how you build the microservices, how you integrate those applications, what's your API strategy, how do you move that data around securely and then how you manage all of those pieces together in that new modern world. And then really looking at your overall processes and can you modernize your overall processes, add AI capabilities into that. And so it's that modernization journey. That's really what I talked to them about and you don't have to do everything, right? Start small, start as a pinpointed piece and we'll help you along that journey and it becomes a journey of self discovery and but we're there the whole way. We're a partner. That's really what it's about. Jason Gardner, Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Hybrid Cloud at IBM. It's theCUBE bringing all the data here from IBM Think 2019. This is day three of four days of coverage here in Moscone live in San Francisco. We'll be right back with more after this short break.