 Okay welcome back to Oracle Open World Live coverage here in San Francisco, California. This is theCUBE, our flagship program where we go out to events, extract the signal from the noise. I'm joined by my co-host on this segment, Stu Miniman of wikibond.org and we have a special guest, Eric Herzog, the SVP of product management, product market at EMC. Welcome back to theCUBE. Thank you. Thanks. It's always a pleasure to be at theCUBE. I mean, you see everything, so we can talk about a lot of things. I mean, obviously, from a product standpoint, EMC has a lot of range, but here at Oracle Open World, Tucci gave it a pretty impressive keynote this morning talking about just how he handles himself. He's just a class act thanking the customers, but you can see that the spring in his step, Joe's having a lot of fun. Then Jeremy Burton came on and talked about some of the products. Obviously, really, really hot, Oracle synergy with EMC right now is pretty high. So let's first dig into that. What is the Oracle EMC product connection right now? What's resonating the most here? Well, we have tens of thousands of shared customers, whether they be global enterprises all the way into the mid-market and everything in between, and EMC is the number one storage provider on the planet. Obviously, make sure that we tune our storage solutions to the right applications. So we do everything from having plug-ins that work with the Oracle Enterprise Manager that allow DBAs to easily manage both a VMAX or a VNX solution. We've got incredible performance. We just brought out a new VNX product a couple weeks ago in Milan, Italy, and that product is tuned towards both database and data warehouse applications to make sure that we optimize and deliver the best ROI and TCO for Oracle databases and our applications that sit on top of Oracle databases. Was that the speed-to-lead launch in beyond? Yes. It was the speed-to-lead launch. It was a pretty much incredible launch. The world was a Twitter about speed-to-lead. And we had hundreds of press analysts there, a number of our customers in Italy, and we actually back into that with the CIO Summit, where we had both mid-market and enterprise CIOs come in and talk about their experience using EMC gear and what are the common problems they face in their environments. Our own Dave Vellante was the co-host of Maggie Burke for EMC TV, so that was really fun to watch as well. We're up early in the morning though on the west coast in California. Stu, I want to get your take on the product portfolio at EMC, VisaV, CloudMobile, Social, Big Data, and Oracle. What's your take on what's happening? Yeah, sure, John. So, you know, if we look at EMC, you know, EMC was really early on in this whole wave of flash, which we've been talking about how it's really transforming storage, really started with just taking SSDs and putting them inside the storage array. You know, as things have progressed, there's been lots of changes in the architecture. And Eric, the question I have for you is there's been a lot of startups that have come into the marketplace. If you look around the show here, there's the server-based flash guys, the all-flash arrays, and I'm not seeing it so much as Oracle, but then there were the hybrid arrays, the guys that have flash and disk together. I really saw the VNX launch, which you really, you know, change the core code, really optimize the entire code for multi-core and flash technology. You know, what's the feedback you're getting from the marketplace, from the customers, as to how EMC is positioned compared to, you know, all of these startups out there, because it really has been the startups that have taken a lot of the kind of the hype and the mind share out there. Well, I think there's a couple key points. I think really one of the first points is that EMC is the largest provider of flash of any storage vendor. We publicly announced that last year. We have flash across the product line. We have flash in the VMAX. We have flash in the VNX. We have flags in our VNX, VNXE, which is really at the real entry space, you know, primarily Robo in the enterprise or department level. But, you know, in a smaller shop, you know, people run their companies on the VNXE. We use flash in our Iceland product lines and we have an all-flash array, actually a couple of all-flash solutions, a VNX based solutions. You had that for over two years now and we acquired a company, Extreme I.O. They're just about getting ready to ship as we publicly announced. So I think the key thing is people don't realize, because EMC has been around so long, is our experience. We were doing flash before anybody. Just like we did SATA in enterprise arrays in the early 2000s before any other storage company, we started doing flash before any other storage company and it's across the product family, high-end, low-end, mid-range, all-flash, flash-optimized hybrids. So no matter where you look, we're about flash and we've been about flash. We have server flash products, our Extreme Software Cache, which really optimizes read performance for both VNXEs and VMAXEs in a read-intensive environment, such as many databases are. So, you know, it's great for the startup. So I myself have been in seven startups, five of which have been acquired. But that said, you know, there's a lot of height, a lot of extra hype right now, and it, you know, quite honestly, EMC's got the flash guys really, you know, a little shaken because of the broad portfolio, multiple price points, multiple technologies, all delivering really optimized around the right tool for the right job. Yeah. So, Eric, if I look at the Oracle space being here at Oracle Open World, one of the things we've been tracking is virtualization of Oracle. And so we were talking about flash and how prices are coming down and just going through the whole portfolio. If we were our recent survey, we saw 55% of Oracle environments are virtualized and that's still growing fast. Is that why we're seeing more of kind of the VNX product line here at the market, that intersection of, you know, flash coming down market and virtualization? Because if I think back a couple of years ago, it would have been EMC's ESD portfolio, the VMAXEs of the world and kind of the bigger iron, if you will. Well, I think there's a couple of things there. First of all, people are stratifying their workloads and certain things really belong on a VMAX with its six nines and its reliability, availability and serviceability characteristics. But five nines delivers no more than five minutes of statistical downtime and for many workloads be those Oracle or application sitting on an Oracle database. Yeah, if it's not a tier one mission critical, we will go out of business, they're putting it on the VNX. The other thing is, of course, performance centric. The VNX has the best cost per transaction for an Oracle workload. In fact, working with Cisco, the VNX set a world record for the Oracle e-business suite. It did a million paychecks in an hour, which was a world record for performance in that space dramatically outperforming anything else available. And then lastly is the integration with hypervisors, whether that be VMware, whether that be OpenStack, whether that be what Oracle is pushing from their own virtualization perspective, whether that be Hyper-V, doesn't matter. Whatever the virtualization workload, the VNX in particular, and in fact, the Wikibon team has written some articles both from a VMware perspective and also Hyper-V perspective about the level of integration between a VNX and these hypervisor platforms. So when you're putting an Oracle workload or any other workload in those virtualized environments, one of the key things is virtualization admins, whether they be VMware admins, Hyper-V admins or other admins in the virtualization market space are saying the best integration was the VNX and that cuts time to deployment, cuts really total cost of ownership because it's easier to deploy and they're not wasting time fooling with the storage. They're configuring the storage very quickly to work with and work on the various applications in a virtual environment. Eric, it's great to have you on the Cube. I love the startup comments and given that unique background, you see, you know, it's like to be in a startup world also now at EMC as an SBP. So I got to ask you the question that Joe Tucci kind of posed out there and was captured on Twitter. Joe Tucci's keynote, he said, we have built a differentiated technology stack. Ours is built horizontally. Can you explain what that means and what that means to EMC, EMC being traditionally a storage vendor selling a product to now more solutions oriented? And what does that mean that that's that we have a stack that's differentiated and it's horizontal? What do you what does he mean? Well, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, we've got our converged infrastructure with the VCE company. We've come out with an Oracle centric solution that did over 3.7 million IOPS. You can get it either with a VMAX or a VNX configuration. We've got our V specs product line, which has a little bit more flexibility using different server infrastructure than our VCE products do. We have tons of integration. For example, the Oracle Enterprise Manager integration said that a DBA could manage the storage, not just the storage admins. And then of course we've got the right tool for the right job, you know, in certain configs you want to VMAX and certain configurations you want to use a VNX. You want to make sure it's always backed up and archived with our BRS products. And the fact we have such a broad portfolio and we're the leader. In fact, earlier this week, we were just announced as IDC for Q2 as the number one vendor for purpose built backup, right? So just in time for Oracle Open World at just in time. So you've got that broad portfolio. We've got it for a reason. We're protecting more data than anybody. We're storing more data than anybody. And we want to make sure that whether you're a high-end company, whether you're Herzog's Barn Grill, the small company, or whether you're a global enterprise, you can get the right solutions from EMC, big, small, medium sized backup, primary storage, and then integration with various stacks so that we can work with various hypervisors and of course across server and network infrastructure with the VCE products or our VSpecs product lines. Yeah, with Dave and I, I always talk about the tech industry being more like a car automotive industry. Look under the hood, show me your stack, show me your engine. The stacks are now becoming the bragging rights for the tech companies. And you know, Amazon showed great success in the cloud with how they're handling and integrating those stacks together. And integration is key. So I have to ask you that next question, which is you guys are unafraid to make big acquisitions. We talked to David Goulden about all the time, big bets. What does startups need to do to one, either survive EMC from rolling over them or two, to integrate into EMC's ecosystem, whether it's a white space or something else. So, you know, startup has two dilemmas. Survive and thrive within an EMC world. Get acquired by EMC. The other one is get stepped on or rolled over. You know, so I mean, this is what startups think about. What's your advice there? Well, I think the key thing is number one is delivering the right solutions that meet the needs of customers. That makes EMC take notice. EMC prides itself on doing that across the portfolio. Big, small, medium customers. Doesn't matter to us. Oracle infrastructure, other infrastructures. You know, the Microsoft infrastructure market space, all the various hypervisors we support. So, the key thing is delivering solutions and then mapping that with support and service. And that's something that, you know, quite honestly, one of the good things, the great things about EMC is you can almost out-support and service pretty much anybody, certainly in the storage space. And that's a key advantage to the customers. You know, if a customer is down, someone's there at 24 by 7. And it doesn't matter whether you're a small customer or you're a global enterprise. And that's one thing that EMC has always pride itself on support and service. And that's something hard for startup to match, that's for sure. So basically to get EMC's attention, start taking some of their clients away and then Joe Tucci will take notice, right? And then get it on the radar. Well, I can't comment on acquisitions. As you know, we're in the quiet period, but you can say that you know, EMC is always, always looking at our data domain products came through an acquisition, the Extreme IO, all flash rays through an acquisition. Actually, our VNX was an acquisition in the late 90s of the data general storage product line. What was at the time, the Clarion Solera, now the VNX technology and of course, one of our most successful in all the backup and archive space, the Legato acquisition, the Avamar acquisition, the data domain, you know, to give us a very broad backup and archive portfolio. EMC has been very impressive on acquisitions. One, they do them, they take, they pay a premium for the validation in the market, but they also have great on integration. One of the hardest things to do on an acquiring a company is taking it into the culture. What does EMC do right on that? How do they make that work? They have such a good track record. Is it just a management discipline? Is it just the culture? What's that secret sauce? Yeah, I think I think that's that's actually a great question because when you look around at our competitors, many of our competitors have their acquisition record is mediocre at best and not that EMC is perfect. We had a few that weren't that great, but in general, the Iceland acquisition obviously the DG acquisition, which is now the VNX product lines, you've got all the backup acquisitions that we've done. The Extreme IO products are doing very well. We already talked about how we'll be shipping that at the end of the year. Don't forget about VMware. Oh, and VMware, although we don't own the entire company. We own most of it. But all those acquisitions, I think the key thing that we do is we are really focused on the right tool for the right job from a solution perspective for the end user. And by doing that means you can't do everything the EMC way. We are very flexible on how we do things and there are things that we've learned from startups that are now part of the EMC culture. And there's some of the rigor and discipline that EMC offers that helps the startup grow their business. And all those, every company we've acquired, particularly the ones that we've been very, very good at and done well with have all grown tremendously under the EMC umbrella. Eric, I'm wondering, you were talking about the ecosystem. The channel is such a big part of, especially in kind of the mid-range product line. Can you talk about, you know, how that's changed recently? You know, how is flash kind of the education process of the channel and how have they embraced what you're rolling out lately? Well, from a channel perspective, first of all, EMC is all about the channel. Both here and in Europe, we've won a number of awards which have been voted on by channel partners, not by the editors of some magazine, you know, not by the analysts, not that we don't love analysts, but literally by channel partners themselves, both here and in Europe. So it's been a critical advantage for EMC. We have a very strong training program, a strong accreditation program, our velocity partner program to make sure that they can sell the entire portfolio and extensive training, extensive training for the channel partners is one of the key things we like to do to make sure that, again, they deliver the right tool for the right job, when they should sell VMAX, when it needs to be Iceland, how you make sure that that's always backed up in archive with the BRS portfolio, when a VNX needs to play. And quite honestly, you know, many of them are very adept at selling the whole solution portfolio. In fact, there's a huge portion of VNX's that go out the door with either a Vplex, Recover Point or the BRS products for backup and archive at the same time. It's all about delivering solutions and those integrated solutions is why we looked at our solution partners, our channel partners, because they're used to putting all of this together, right? We happen to be able to be their storage play when they're doing an Oracle deployment. Great. You need to talk about, well, what do I need to do to optimize that Oracle environment? And often, you know, you need to refresh the storage infrastructure as well, not just buy a new version of Oracle. You need to do both to get the best performance and the best value out of that Oracle Play by the end user themselves. Eric, final question here on the Oracle Open world. Let's just kind of put a little bow on it from your standpoint. What are you seeing here? What's the takeaway? We've got Larry Ellis' keynote expecting to hear some things about some new announcements. What's the takeaway so far Oracle Open World? What's the big theme here? Well, I think for us, the big thing is how robust the market is. It's a great market for EMC around the Oracle community. Again, we showed our integration with the Oracle Enterprise Manager here at the show for both the VNX and for the VNX product line. For us, this has been an incredible market for us. Whether that's people with an Oracle database running something else on top of it, be that SAP or something else, whether that is an Oracle full combination of the Oracle database with the E-Business suites. And from our perspective, one of the key things we want to do is make sure that we always optimize around the applications. And for us, that's bearing incredible fruit. That's why EMC and Oracle have so much overlap in the customer base, why so many Oracle customers choose EMC storage. Yeah, Joe Chuchy talks about platform three. I always think of like the third rail on a train. But this new third platform is the new modern era. Millions and millions of apps sources a handful in the old days. I mean, that's a challenge. Well, and again, part of the beauty, particularly of the VNX product line and some of our other products, is the ability to handle mixed workloads. So you've got a little bit of file. You've got a little block. You've got an Oracle database. Someone's using SQL. Someone's using Exchange, SharePoint, all the other apps, machine-generated applications, often file-based, but sometimes block-based. And the key thing we do is make sure that these hybrid combo workloads that people want to put on their storage these days, they don't want to dedicate a box for anything anymore, you've got to make sure that you can handle all the various workloads. And then, you know, certain things are optimized, for example, for streaming network attached, where our Iceland products play. So, you know, for us, it's been a very, very strong mix. And, you know, the platform three for us, actually, you know, we're all about big data, right? We're one of the few. You're one of the first guys to coin the use of the big data term, and you saw what we did last year with the book we did. So, for us, all these things are great opportunities for our customers to leverage the EMC portfolio. The horizontal stack platform, you have diversity of applications, diversity of workloads. This is the modern requirements in today's cloud mobile social. Yeah, absolutely. You know, no matter whether you're in a virtualized environment, you've gone all the way to the cloud, you're still doing it the old way. It doesn't matter. You know, EMC is leading the charge in all these technologies. We led the charge in Flash. We led the charge in the use of SATA drives way back when. We led the charge in the mid-range, you know, with the original acquisition. We've really put purpose-built backup on the map. So, you know, I think the key thing that, you know, customers need to understand in the Oracle community is we're always innovating as Oracle makes changes to the database and to their application suites, we make sure that all of our platforms across the board can really leverage and optimize that for our customers. Eric Herzog, final, final question, since that was a great little riff at the end there. I want to give you a perspective on the anecdotally, just talk about giving your experience and startups now at EMC, just how important this massive change that we're in right now from an under-the-hood perspective from technology, market, you know, the converging forces. I mean, try to compare and contrast it to previous generations of innovation and collection points. What, how massive, what's the order of magnitude of significance that we're living in today versus other major waves? So I think that this is a dramatic, much more dramatic change than the past. A, it's been driven by the consolidation in the marketplace, you know, EMC, as you know, publicly traded over $22 billion in the storage market space, you know, our partnership with both Pivotal and VMware and how that comes together on the end user side, the amount of data they're generating. I've been doing storage so long, I remember when a five megabyte drive was a big drive and when it was the size of a washing machine, back in my days at IBM and the world has changed dramatically, I can tell you this, they will always find ways to use that storage. They always want it faster than they say they want it and there's always way more data being created than anyone envisioned. So, you know, the amount of data, particularly now with machine generated as well as everything, whether it's the videos that can be stored on an Iceland archive or whether it's a cloud deployment, whether it's, you know, high availability needs that you want the VMAX for purpose-built workloads, you know, the backup. The bottom line is storage is never getting old-fashioned. Storage is sex, as we said in 2010. Well, I got to ask you another follow-up question that is that the, you remember the Winchester disk drive bubble that we had in the 80s and so you know that that VC community invested heavily and everything that moved around Winchester disk drives. So the question is, are we in a flash bubble? I mean, every single VC is investing in a flash company these days. And there's just a variety of different versions of flash. So, you know, are we in a flash bubble like we were in the old, you know, 10 meg drives, you know? Well, I would argue that, yeah, we are in a bubble. Not everyone's going to make it. Some people are really doing unique and innovative things such as ExtremeIO, which we acquired. We're doing unique and innovative things with our flash-optimized VNX and what we do in the VMAX space. And sometimes, you know, investors sit there at the table and you bring out your napkin and say, boom, boom, here's my business plenty. Don't really have one, whether that's from a business perspective or what. Go all in. Yeah, and then the guy invests. And, you know, some of the guys out there in the flash space really don't offer differentiated solutions in any way, shape, or form. Some do. And, you know, a couple of those guys will survive independently, maybe. A bunch of them will be acquired. We already acquired one that was highly differentiated ourselves. You know, IBM's acquired somebody. A lot of people are acquiring people in the flash base. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. But we are seeing a bubble of it in the investment community with everyone. If it's Flash, I will invest. And everyone's not going to make money that way. When the music stops, you've got to be sitting down in a chair. Because when the craze is over, Eric Herzog, thanks for coming on theCUBE, SVP of Product Management, Product Market, EMC. We'll be right back. Live coverage from San Francisco. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman, Silicon Angles theCUBE, our flagship program. We'll be right back after the short break. And we will be doing live commentary on the keynote at 1.30. So stay with us. John and Dave, we'll be right back.