 Okay, we're back. This is theCUBE, SiliconANGLE TV's continuous live coverage of Dell Storage Forum 2012. I'm Dave Vellante and I'm here with Stu Miniman. We're with Wikibon.org. We're here in Boston at the Dell Storage Forum. We've been eating chowder. We're going to Fenway Park tonight. We're going to try to hit homers over the green monster. You're such a homer, Dave. And I am a homer. We're here with Brian Payne, who's the executive director of Server Solutions at Dell. Brian, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. You've got that Boston accent down well. I grew up in Boston, so I know how to do it, unlike Darren Thomas, who's got that fake Boston accent, even though he grew up here. So anyway, hey, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule. So we're here at the Dell Storage Forum. We're talking about servers. We're talking networking. You know, a little storage work then. What's going on with your group? Well, you know, it's exciting that being a server guy that I'm at the Storage Forum. And you know, it's interesting. There are a lot of interesting storage technologies and changes in the industry that are happening in the server. I mean, we see a growth in locally attached storage. And our big challenge right now is how can we bring all this together? How can we bring the server storage and make it cognizant and perform better with the arrays, right? The compelling arrays, the equal logic arrays, working with our networking team. So that's why you see all three product lines represented here at Dell. Now, if I think about what's happening with servers, we just launched or refreshed our product portfolio. And so we call it the 12th generation of PowerEdge. And starting last March and still, you know, up until this day, we're in the process of rolling out a whole new fleet of servers, which is a big undertaking and an exciting thing. So I wonder if I could ask you about that. So we've looked at the, what I call the IT labor problem. And if you look at the spending that goes on in servers and storage and related activities, about 50 to 60% of it goes toward labor, either internal or outsourced labor costs. And here we are with trying to automate, you know, operations and the like. And that fact is really choking innovation. Everybody talks about the 70% goes to maintenance, 30% goes to new development. Our premise is that's really the big problem is we've got to attack that problem. So my question, Brian, is what is Dell doing to attack that IT labor problem? Yeah. It's a great question. As we develop the latest generation of servers, we had 7,700 customer interactions around the world that, you know, essentially validated your point about IT labor being the problem. And then, you know, said, okay, well, we know the problem. What can we do to help you? And, you know, the request was make it easier for us to deploy, automate and manage the life cycle of the server. And so we are on our second generation of embedded intelligence. We have what we call a iDRAC with life cycle control that's built into our servers. We're on the second generation of that. And that's all about automating tasks, making it easy to manage our servers. For example, we, one of the new innovations that we've delivered in the 12th generation servers is the ability to completely manage, monitor, deploy your server infrastructure without loading an agent. So we've just eliminated one point of complexity for customers, and we're making it, and then we took a step further. How can we automate tasks? So let me give you an example. Think about the, you know, a network controller and a server fails, IT administrators deployed, hey, go fix that. Okay, I've determined there's a hardware failure. I put in the new network controller. Now, what were all the settings? How do I associate that with the stand and the network? You know, is that stored on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere or something like that? Yeah, probably. You know, this is a typical, this is what's consuming time, right? Keeping people away from innovation. What we've done is automate that. We have something simple. It's called parts replacement. You plug in a new network controller and boom, the server reconfigures that and picks it up. So we do that at the motherboard layer. I mean, those are examples of things that we're doing to make it easier to manage our servers. So Brian, when we look at the server marketplace, there's a real balance between kind of the commoditization of the platform and where value is added. See, Dell's done a really good job on some of those hyper scale deployments. Nice kind of scale out architecture fits across the Dell product line. And we see kind of, you know, the, you know, Dell puts what almost looks like a white box with custom bezels on it. I forget the name of the group that does it. How do you balance the commoditization versus the value add, you know, keep the cost down but differentiate yourself in the industry? Yeah, you know, it's just different approaches to differentiation for different market segments. So I mean, as we, as we take a global view of the server market, we talk to customers that are, you know, small mom and pop shops up to the largest search engines in the world and all of them have different needs. And so, I mean, I think the way we create value is by listening to their needs and differentiating our product line. So, you know, I'll just give you an example at both ends of the spectrum. So at the, at the smallest, you know, officer, even a remote or branch office, you know, we talk to customers say, hey, look, the form, I need a server, you know, under the check-in desk, like here at the hotel and the technologies that are available today are loud. I mean, the acoustic level is, is poor. They don't fit. They're too big. And so we, we focused on, on that problem and, and have delivered library quiet servers with a 12th generation. You go up to the hyper scale, it's, hey, how can I, you know, enable my business by, and, and, and, and effectively the, my data center infrastructure is my cost of goods sold. So how can I optimize that, that equation? And that's where we work with the customers. We kind of go arm in arm and you take, configure to order to a new level and it's designed to order. And, and we have, you know, modular data centers that are sitting on top of, you know, buildings in Arizona running without any, any kind of cooling because that drives the, the lowest cost structure and the most efficiency. And, and that's valuable to those customers. So it's, there's really, I mean, we talk about commoditization, but there's actually the approach, the design of the products. And, and of course there's a continuum in the middle of, there's plenty of room to create value and differentiate our products. So you, you guys have also done a lot to kind of the, you know, lower the footprint and, and lower the power. I haven't had a chance to dig into it, but I, I definitely piqued my interest to the copper announcement that you did recently. So I was wondering if you could just kind of give us the thumbnail as to, you know, what you're doing there and, and when we can expect to see, you know, things that we can touch and play with. So copper is about, you know, enabling a, an emerging market segment, right? I mean, there, there's a lot of interest in, you know, the arm based server solutions and, and what that technology can do in terms of, you know, improving around power and improving just the overall, all footprint. So Dell's approach to that is, hey, you know, this is a nascent market. We think it has a lot of potential and, and we want to enable the development of, of that, that marketplace. And so copper is about, you know, putting, putting products in the developer's arm so that they can, you know, start to work with that and, and eventually enabling, you know, a broader community through our solution centers to, to go in and, and understand, hey, how can arm benefit them? And so it's, it's more about enabling the ecosystem is, is the starting point there. You know, but that, that's one place, but the approach to, to power and, and driving efficiency, you know, goes across the product portfolio. And so it's, you know, copper is a great example of, of the leading edge, but there's still things that we're doing, you know, at each server design level to drive the, the, you know, the density higher and the, the power required to, to run your data center lower. So we were talking, Brian, about this IT labor problem and your answer to that, the automated, you know, capabilities that you're putting in. You're up against obviously the, the biggest and most well-funded server companies in the industry. You've, you've been there, you know, effectively competing for many years. As it relates to these automated operations capabilities, do you feel that Dell can compete with the roadmap, not automated operations with organic investment, R&D, or do you feel like you still need to do more acquisitions in that area? Yeah, so I mean, there, there's certainly, you know, there's organic work that's going on everything I described about the, the server has been organically led and even our, our ability to extend those capabilities into frameworks that customers are using, like, you know, the Microsoft system center solutions and the, you know, VMware V center solutions, you know, that's all organically driven. Dell has acquired technology in the past with the advanced infrastructure manager product. And so, yeah, I mean, I think as we look to the future, you know, there's going to be a combination of, we've built up quite a bit of, of capability through the acquisitions of, of software, you know, internal capability that we'll continue to build. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't rule out any acquisitions in the future to, to build up that portfolio. So the other question I have is obviously, as I said, you're up against a lot of big competitors and then you got some new competitors like Cisco coming in with UCS. How does Dell, what's your philosophy on winning business to keep a footprint, you know, at any price versus doing the value sell? How do you guys balance that act? You know, I mean, it's, I think the, the approach is understanding our customer's business problem and focusing there. And then how can we, you know, arm in arm consult them on what the right solution is to fix their business problem. And so it's, it's less about the footprint but more about the, the solution engagement experience. And that's, that is the, the transformation that is underway at Dell and, and continuing to, to progress. So it's, it's more about, you know, how can we engage arm in arm to enable their business? That's the focal point. What's, what's your, Brian, what's your long term vision for the Dell server business? Yeah, so I mean, I, it's about enabling efficiency and agility for our end users. So, you know, that comes in many forms. That means that we're going to, you know, have to explore new technologies like arm and, and continue to drive that. A lot of the, the changes that are a lot of the, you know, efficiencies that we see going on and the large data center, large, you know, search internet properties, we think are going to migrate into the mainstream over time. And so we definitely want to be on that, that leading edge and, and driving those capabilities and helping the market achieve those efficiencies. But in the, by the, in the same time though, you know, there's traditional applications. You know, many times that, that kind of environment is organic application development that's optimized for those kinds of environments. And we understand that well and we can bring those into the, to the mainstream. There's still traditional applications that are being virtualized that aren't going to change. And so as we look to the future, how do we make that, you know, call it a private cloud, call it what you will, how do we make that experience more efficient? And then how do we link the two in a secure and, you know, efficient manner? So I mean, as, as we look to the future, it's all about driving efficiency and it's looking at this kind of, we call it revolutionary, the, this new model that's, you know, emerging and, and evolutionary and, and making both hyper-efficient and then, you know, how do you, how do you co, those two coexist in a, in a data center and off-premises? So the premise of that vision is essentially these hyper-scale or web-scale companies are a harbinger for the traditional data center. Of course, the traditional data center has a lot more legacy apps, you know, guys like Facebook have one app for, you know, billion people and your clients have different challenges, let's say. But at the same time, they seem to be those web-scale companies seem to be leading the trend in whatever, architecture, design, things like DevOps. Yep. What's the, what would be a game-changer that if you could put in your portfolio today would like wipe out your competition in that context? Well, I mean, I, I think, you know, anything you can do around big data, managing big data and making, you know, delivering solutions that, A, help people, you know, make good use of this information that's floating out there. I mean, there's, in, in, in my mind, that's a, a big untapped area that, I'd say it's, it's just not fully developed at this point. I think to the degree that Dell can accelerate and drive solutions in that space, I think that's a, a big game-changer. We totally agree with that by the way. We think that, that data is going to increasingly become the source of competitive advantage, and that people who can figure out how to extract value and monetize and package and deliver and find new channels for that data are going to make tons of money. Not necessarily the vendors, the vendors will too, but we think that the practitioners of, of those that, you know, utilize data more effectively are really going to be, you know, the next wave of great companies, you know, be they technology companies or manufacturers or, you know, energy companies and, and so forth, almost like ERP, you know, was applied to change business models. So, so, so Brian, one of those kind of potential game-changers out there, we've been dealing with virtualization for a while. Yeah. We've got your new announcement about the ecologic coming into your blade, you know, chassis and kind of the line between server and storage is blurring a lot. You look at HP, you know, a box, you know, I don't know whether that's, you know, a storage box or a compute box, it's both. EMC talks about taking VMs and putting it in some other storage boxes. So, where do you see the kind of the line between server and storage going over the next couple of years? Well, I mean, it's clearly, it's going to sound funny, clearly blurring, right? Yeah. I mean, the, the. That's a good oxymoron, clearly blurring. Yeah. The, you know, the blade array, I think is the beginning of the trend. And I, but it takes a orchestrated approach in order to create the value for our customer. So, for example, you know, the blade array is interesting in our M1000 E chassis, but you've also got to have the server designs that compliment that. So, that's where we've got to have a combination of density so you can fit the infrastructure that you need for the virtualized environment. Now, another thing that we, you know, talked about yesterday in the general session is this idea of extending the fluid data architecture into the server. So, a lot of talk about flash out there of, you know, quicker response times. We've done some very innovative things in our, in our server designs that we announced earlier this year. We announced something called Express Flash. Express Flash is effectively flash that is hooked up to the CPU via PCI-E, you know, connection. And so, the latency and bandwidth available to that are, you know, it's unmatched. Now, as we looked at this, we said, well, we also need to deliver traditional, if you're going to put valuable data on this that you need, we need traditional hard drive, you know, usability, you know, kind of paradigms. And so, we designed a two and a half inch form factor and a common connector, which is the vision for attaching this device, or attaching these devices. That's something that we're driving at industry working groups because we want to standardize this technology. Really interesting though, so that's kind of enablement, right, that's creating a foundation with Express Flash, putting it close to compute, but how do you relate that to the storage architectures that customers rely on for their enterprise application? So, you know, all the snapshotting, all the advanced storage features that you have in a compelling array or something like that, how do we tie that together? And that's what Project Hermes is all about. How do we, you know, pull the data you need closer to drive application performance, but still retain the enterprise availability? I think Dell is uniquely positioned because of our ownership of the, you know, the design point in the compute node, as well as the storage in the interconnect to deliver value there, and we're well on our way. What's the hardest problem you're working on that within the next three to five years is going to have an impact for your customers? Is it, you know, you sort of tend to get new IO architectures? Is it automation? Is it codifying workload and application knowledge into the system? What do you think is going to have the biggest impact for your customers? I think, I mean, you know, the transformative technology is Flash, and then there are other technologies beyond that, but it's changing IO, and then doing that in a way that we can drive application performance. I mean, that's, in my mind, that's what's going to give a business a competitive advantage, you know, in terms of delivering something quicker than, you know, their competitors. I mean, response time being faster, more productive, and there's a lot of amazing technology, a lot of potential for tying this all together in a unique way that will, you know, really change. I mean, open up new business opportunities. So, I mean, to me, that's the middle of it. Real-time sort of, you know, quasi-real-time is closing. You know, Goldman Sachs has that stat out there, every millisecond they shave off their, you know, application access time or latency, they put a hundred million dollars in the bottom line. That's real dollars, and I think you're starting to see other industries have that type of dynamic where performance, business performance, latency, really makes a difference to the bottom line dollars. Yeah, cool. All right, Brian, well listen, I know you got a hard stop here. Thanks very much for stopping by the queue. Yeah, no, no, thank you. It's a pleasure seeing you, great segment. Brian Payne, Dell Server Story, you know, very, again, we're hearing very stew, very practical and incredible stories from Dell, across the board, storage, server, networking. Keep it right there, this is Silicon Angles, The Cube. We'll be right back from Boston, live.