 from San Francisco, extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE, covering Oracle OpenWorld 2015 from Studio C, brought to you by Cisco. Now your host, Stu Miniman and Jeff Brick. Welcome back everybody, Jeff Brick here with theCUBE. We are live from Oracle OpenWorld 2015 still. I think it's our sixth Oracle OpenWorld. I was doing the math on my fingers, joined by Stu Miniman, he's been here for most of those six, I think, if not all of them, so we're really excited. I think it's 55, 60,000 people here, beautiful day in San Francisco, Moscone. We're in Moscone South, booth 801, stopped by a business, we're in the Cisco booth. We're really excited. Our next guest is Eric Lillastolen. Great manager, ISV solution, product management at Cisco, welcome. Thank you very much, happy to be here. First time on theCUBE. First time on theCUBE. Glad to have you on, so what do you think of the show? This is fantastic. I've just been walking around and talking to a whole bunch of people and learning a whole bunch of new stuff, so happy, happy, happy to be here. Biggest surprise so far, biggest, kind of, wow. The number of people. Yeah, so Eric, you walk the show floor here and there's a bunch of companies that we know from the infrastructure space. I see storage companies, see guys that sell hardware. You run solutions and we're at Oracle OpenWorld, so we've talked to some of the predecessors here about UCS and how to build stacks and everything like that, what does it mean to build a solution with UCS in the Oracle context? Building the solutions is a very interesting project that we go forward with, especially with our partners. We spend a lot of time working with our partners because we realize that our customers don't have a single answer for everything. So a lot of the time that we spend is working with our partners to figure out how do you give an integrated solution? How do you give them a complete solution? How do you give them a solution that meets the needs that they're pulling together right now? Very interesting and then we work directly with Oracle to pull together those solutions, test them, validate them, create the CBDs and pump them out to our customers. Okay, so when Cisco came out with UCS it wasn't just, hey, here's a rack server and a blade server. They were really optimized for certain environments. I talked to some of the earlier guests about some of the server virtualization. I was talking to one of your distinguished engineers about some of the analytics. Can you talk about what goes into building, like I think your space, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft. What's kind of under the scenes and what kind of special sauce do you have to do to kind of build those architectures? We, before we get into a project we spend a lot of time thinking about what's the unique value that Cisco can bring to our customers. And if you really look at it, when Cisco got into the UCS space there were a lot of other vendors that were building x86. So clearly it's not only the x86 that we're bringing. A lot of the specialties that we're bringing is around the management. And how do we leverage that management to make the customer's experience better when they're working with Cisco than when they're working with maybe some other vendors? And so we've been working a lot around the UCS integrated infrastructure which brings together not only the Cisco compute but the networking and our storage partners, wrapping it all together under this fantastic management story which really brings a strong TCO capability to our customer. And that's something we kind of hang our hats on. All right, always innovative. Yeah, can you help us unpack that a little bit so Cisco has a few different product lines there? Maybe share with us what one of the examples you have. Sure. So we've been doing a lot of work with the Blade series you've seen our record. We're number one in the America's number two worldwide with Blades in just a few short years. And part of that reason is because when we're bringing this blade to market we bring it with this idea of a server profile, a service profile. And that gives us the ability to dynamically manage the workload that's going on to that blade server along with what's happening on the storage network. So we've got this blade, we've got the management, we've got this service profile which gives us this thing called a programmable infrastructure. And the more you talk with the folks at Cisco the more you're gonna see that we're really focused on that programmable infrastructure that allows the customer that flexibility, the dynamic, the governance, compliance, all of that enabled through that programmable infrastructure. And that's what's new and unique from Cisco. Can you talk a little bit about how working with ISVs like Oracle fit into these architectures that you discussed? So the ISVs like Oracle have a lot of influence in the market as you might understand. A lot of the customers are working at the application layer. So we spend a lot of time working with value partners like Oracle or Microsoft or SAP at many different levels. We work at the infrastructure level on the product, we work with them at the sales motion, we work with them in the go-to-market play. Because we're helping the customers bridge that language gap between applications and what's going on at the infrastructure. It's more and more about the application, right? They want to bury all that infrastructure, just make it, just turn it on and make it work. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we help make that happen. So we have a broad server product line, we have the B series, we have the C series, we have a new product line that's called the M series which is a modular product series line which Oracle has been talking a lot about what's going on in the cloud space. We've been developing this new, what we'll call a composable infrastructure which is based on the M series which is smaller compute that has highly dynamic, highly scalable, shared infrastructure on IO power and the storage aspects but brings that same management story that's very popular with our customers and that layer of programmable management. That's where we help translate what's going on between the application language and the infrastructure language. Yeah, that's great. We've heard that really when it comes to the application standpoint is that management that ties it all together from the secret sauce. So here at Oracle, a little surprise, cloud really has been front and center. We've talked public cloud, we've talked private cloud, Oracle's talking about enterprise cloud. Can you talk about how in your role you'd look at all these various cloud solutions and fit them into the portfolio? Yeah, there's no one answer for cloud, right? Everybody's got their own definition, everybody has their own need. So we've been spending quite a bit of time understanding what's going on in a private cloud environment, what customers are looking for in a hybrid cloud and what they're looking in the public cloud. So we've spent a lot of time working, extending that management story beyond the server space. We now have a new technology called application centric infrastructure which brings that idea of a programmable infrastructure from the server up into the networking space, helping translate that language of the application into the language of the network. And then we have a number of server suites, or excuse me, cloud suites that layer on top of that, like Cisco Enterprise Cloud Suite, which helps customers not only figure out what they want to do in their private cloud, but how that private cloud can be extended up into a public cloud, a lot of work in that space. Yeah, so Eric, what I'm curious is, you said there's not one answer for cloud. As a matter of fact, every customer you talk to, it's, you know, how do I do cloud? Let me count the weights, right? It's, you know, I've got my on-prem stuff, I've got probably multiple public clouds, and I've got SaaS, and orchestrating those are kind of tough. I remember back, Cisco bought a company called Newscale, and they talked about can be a cloud broker that can work with a lot of public clouds. When you talk about your management tools, how much of it is kind of the on-prem basis, and how much of it can I touch in AWS and Azure and some of the SaaS applications? Maybe can you help us understand that? Yeah, absolutely. So there's a number of things that we're working on. One of these things was called the inter-cloud fabric, and the idea behind the inter-cloud fabric is you're able to use this technology to extend your, within the four walls of your data center into that public cloud. So a lot of times when you talk about bursting into a cloud, you have to set up almost like a second data center in that public cloud. With the ICF inter-cloud fabric, that your data center extends itself into the cloud. And so we've had a lot of interest like Microsoft and Azure in that space as well as the other public cloud public service providers. So really still talking about the infrastructure, still talking about enabling a single view whether it's private or hybrid or into the public space. So I'm curious Eric on the workloads, the ability to quickly configure and set up these configurations and light up all this infrastructure. Do you find customers do that? Is that just a new way to do what they would have normally done? Or are they actually really flexing heavily on some set of infrastructure that, we use it for this today, we use it for this tomorrow, we got to run into the month reports, we have a promotion with the Super Bowl. I mean, are people really learning to actively reassigned resources based on whatever the application load's going to be? Or is it just a better way to configure what they would have done before? Actually, a lot of your customers, a lot of the data center customers have what's called a bimodal data center where they've got a lot of stuff that's classic structured stuff that's been running like it has for the last 20 years. And then they've got this other group that's going on that's doing a whole lot more cloud scale work. And we're seeing like a lot of app dev work that's happening is a lot of our customers, data centers have not been set up to be that structured dynamic. And they're going outside to the public cloud to be able to get that other part of the data center that's not currently being offered. So a lot of the IT departments are now coming back to us and saying, we're seeing the behavior within our data center. Cisco, how can you help us in the Oracle space or with Microsoft space or the other spaces to be flexible and dynamic? Like our audience, even in the enterprise is looking for. So that's where you start to see a lot of it. So yes, absolutely. And do they have a dark capacity? It's probably not the right word or like dark fiber. But I mean, do they have some set of resources that kind of is unassigned and sits and really is the flex pod if you would for being assigned for whatever the particular load the good news is that a lot of the customers that have been working with us on this integrated infrastructure whether it be a flex pod or a V block have the ability to take that structure and be able to use it in a very dynamic way. Now, some of them will have capacity, but some of them can augment their existing infrastructure by adding additional capacity. So that flexible framework is already in place that they can use and extend as their data center needs happen. And what's driving it? The demand or the capability? Demand. The demand. Absolutely demand. All right, so Eric, as you're talking to customers what are some of the first kind of steps that you're talking to them about as to how they move forward in kind of the world that we live in today? We really start the conversation at a very high level. We don't even start with the infrastructure is that conversation. We want to understand directionally where the customer wants to go. What's their strategic intent? What are the things that they're trying to do within their data center? A lot of times that first request that you get from an RFQ, you know, what does 14 servers cost? Well, it turns out that there's a whole lot more behind that question. What would you like them to cost? Yeah. Exactly. So we have a lot of conversations to really understand where they want to go, what they're trying to do. We work with the application partner to really drive the expectation out of what the customer's looking for. Then we talk about what do you have? What are you trying to get to? How do you do plan, design, implement? And then you get into the technical part of it. But we found really stepping back, understanding what the customer's trying to do without confusing them with a whole lot of data center, moment of jumping. Again, because that conversation, I mean, if they're just coming to you saying I just need 15 servers, then that's not really a solutions type of conversation. So you've got to convert it into, hey, do you know what's going on? Do you know what the options are? Do you just want to do a simple replace? Well, even that's true. And even more than that, when the customer's coming together and they're asking for 15 servers, they're coming a lot of time from a mindset that's 10, 15 years old. And they're not aware of what's in the industry. They're not aware what Cisco can bring. And there have been, I can't even tell you the number of times we've sat down and talked to customers and they just kind of sit back in their chair and be like, well, I didn't know we could do that. So, Eric, a few weeks ago we were at AWS re-invent. And I tell you, it was a very different kind of conversation because there weren't many people there that would be saying, oh, I want to buy 14 servers. I want to buy 20 terabytes of storage. They were saying, I want to deploy this workload where I have this business challenge that I'm trying to overcome. Is that becoming more prevalent in your conversation with customers? And I guess what is the impact of what the public clouds are doing with kind of the elastic workloads, pay by the drink? How is that impacting the way that you look at the solution set? Yeah, we are seeing, we're starting to see that. And I believe that a lot of that is being driven by how vendors like Oracle are really driving a paradigm change and how customers are thinking. I think what's interesting about the public cloud and what you're seeing in the public cloud offerings is the public cloud is not about speeds and fees. Yes, they can do SLAs, yes, they can talk about how they can meet the customer's needs. But a lot of times that language is at the business level where the CXOs are talking about or the directors are talking about. And so they've extracted, the public cloud has extracted that conversation away from the infrastructure into the language that those line of business owners are really used to talking about. And so you're starting to see that momentum picking up. So what is the guy that said I want to buy 15 servers? Is he even aware of the fact that people are swiping cards and lighting up infrastructure that he doesn't even know about? He's, so it runs the broad spectrum, right? Some of them do, they have a very well-versed plan. We've talked to them and yet they need 15 servers. On the other hand, they might be somebody that's in the data center department and they have a specific project that they're working on. But when we dig into it, it's tied into a much larger aspect of the business that that individual person may not be aware of. So it's always a good conversation to have. The other thing that always comes up with cloud is obviously cloud is often the best solution, right, for a new application. Greenfield development started on your test dev, roll the deployment in there, that's great. And then there's all the legacy stuff. And there's a lot of legacy stuff that just should not be touched. But how are you seeing the conversation change with the folks you're talking to about, hmm, I didn't know that I could do that. Maybe this is an opportunity to move a store application workload into a cloud because of some of the capabilities that I didn't have before. So a lot of times it starts with the infrastructure. We have those discussions of all the great things that Cisco and UCS can do. It's a big effort to go from a legacy system based on legacy software and legacy processes into a cloud-based, cloud-scale-based solution. It is a, that's a long journey. And that's not something you're going to talk about as an infrastructure story. That's something you're going to talk about as a company strategic business and how that strategy is going to be affected by what's happening in the IT department. That's not a procurement discussion. That's a much bigger conversation. Well, Eric, one of the hot button items this week is security. I'm curious, we see Oracle, they're putting security right down in the Silicon. So what is the security conversation you're having and what do you think about something when Oracle bakes it into that hardware? How does that impact the way that Cisco and your customers look at things? Yes, if you recall in the keynote last night, one of the comments that Mr. Ellison made that it was really like right there was the deeper into the infrastructure, into the push it, the security, the bigger the payback is. And Cisco has been all over that for a very long time. We have a huge investment in security and we're really looking at traditional security but also as you're looking into the cloud-based, as you're looking at IoT, as you're looking at big data, the security demands fundamentally change. And so we're looking at how does security impact as we go forward. This new tool, for example, or this new capability, application-centric infrastructure is really one of the strong points of that is the ability that it has to offer security across the system right from day zero. You know, it's a zero policy-based, it's a zero permissions-based system, it has built-in governance and compliance, risk management, it controls who can talk to who, who can't talk to you. And right at that very basic level, down at the infrastructure, you're now driving a lot of security. I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is, you know, security in a lot of ACS software and Oracle's, I mean, they're baking it into that. I mean, the hardware sets the keys and sets everything else like that. Security cannot be a software-only solution, right? There are aspects of security where you absolutely have to build that into the application because there are ways that compromises can happen at the application. But if you're only vector that you're protecting and security is the application, you're exposing that whole other part of your data center open to, and given the impacts of a compromise in today's business, you have to have end-to-end, right from the bottom infrastructure up through the application, right from the back of the data center, all the way to the front where you have your mobile apps integrated with the customer. So what's next? What are you working on? What are you excited about for the next six months? The next six months, well, I'm looking forward to the end of the football season. Timber Bronco's going 16-0, how do you like that? Being in Colorado more, I'm going to go with that one. Yeah, we'll see what happens after the change when you're still there. So let's go beyond six months. All right, next year, we come back at this show. What are the hot-button issues? What are you looking forward to? What will this go be telling us? I think you're going to see a couple of things. You're going to see a lot more, a continued emphasis on the cloud. That's the easy one, right? You're starting to see more and more customers asking more detailed questions about the cloud. We're going to see a lot more about security. I think security is a discussion topic that has always been in the background, so you're going to see more definitive solutions happening in the security. The other thing that we're starting to see a lot more and it's going to be burgeoning up in the next 12 months is the interaction of IoT, the big data, which is consistently being considered unstructured data, being really brought together with the classic structured data and gaining that information from those two data sources that was not available in the past. But with great advantage, there's a whole lot of challenges that come with that as well. Where do you compute? Do you do it in the back? Do you do it in the front? Do you, how do you secure it? How do you tie it all together? So we're going to see these new data sources. We're going to see new security and I think we're going to see all wrapped together in a cloud discussion. Awesome. With new opportunity comes new challenges and with new challenges comes new opportunities. Sign me up. Absolutely. All right, Eric. Thanks for stopping by Eric Lila Stolen from Cisco. Stopping by theCUBE. We are live at Oracle OpenWorld 2015. I'm Jeff Frick with Stu Miniman. You're watching theCUBE. We'll be back with our next guest after this short break. Thanks for watching.