 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Discover 2016 Las Vegas. Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Welcome back everyone, we are here live here in Las Vegas for HPE Discover 2016. This is SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE. It's our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, my co-host Dave Vellante and the next guest is Dom Weil, VP of the General Manager of the Data Center Networking Group at HPE Enterprise. Welcome back to theCUBE, good to see you. Thanks, John. It's good to be here. So we chatted in London, what's changed? You got a new job? I do have a new job, yeah, yeah. Come to theCUBE, get promoted. Yeah, that works. No, it's very cool. Tell us about your new job, what's going on? So, you know, what we've done is we've decided to drive some focus in the business and networking. You know, obviously, you know, now we're a year into the Aruba acquisition so we've got a lot of focus there. Now I've been asked to step up and take on the task of focusing on networking strategy around the data center. And you're the GM, you've got P&L responsibility? Yeah. Which products, all data center products? So the data center products that include, which includes our FlexFabric portfolio of data center products and our Alto line open networking product portfolio as well. So HPE has always had good networking. We've been covering, Dave and I have been covering the networking group for a while. There's been some management change. Obviously Aruba comes in, the leadership, obviously that acquisition we've talked about for over a year now, how great that was. Really good. Dom was on, Dom McHor has been on before. Great, great guest. What's changing now because now with software defined data center at the center of this, you're seeing that the fabric of the network is now going to be strategic in how the cloud plays out. Certainly in the middleware or wherever in the past layer or for the data, wherever. What is the key threshold issue for enterprises right now with respect to networking? The network needs to get out the way. I mean, that's the real story is that the networking has been far too complex and far too long. And the real issue is that as we increase the pace of moving towards cloud networking is something that we call cloud first architecture, being able to take customers cloud first so that they design the network from the ground up to enable cloud. There's a bunch of challenges there. You've got reliability issues, you've got to make sure it's secure, you've got to make sure it's easy and simple to deploy, you've got to make sure that your operational model is now simplified enough because the other pressure that comes with moving to cloud is those expectations that the operational costs will reduce as well. So you've got to do more with less. One of the biggest issues is that it's the demands of knowledge workers who are really demanding that applications be able to be deployed rapidly to support what they're doing and that line of business managers are actually insisting that they have a say in the IT decisions around infrastructure in there. Yeah, so the old days, the control point, the control plane was networking, moving packets around, pretty standard stuff. And that was during the days of best of breed, as we heard earlier, but now when you hear about converge going to the next level and composable infrastructure, those are kind of generic categorical words, that means the network has to essentially be agile. Yeah, absolutely. With the above that stack has got to be agile too, right? So how does that work? How do you get the network out of the way? You can't just move the network out of the way. How do you get the network out of the way to make it more efficient? Yeah, I mean, it's not about, I mean, I say get the network out of the way. It's really about changing the paradigms of the past. I mean, everything was very CLI-driven, so you end up with these very heavy scripts and you have to, the network was very static. You had to envision what you wanted the network to be for the future and over a long period of time, so as you could establish VLANs and ACLs and all of these other static paradigms. What we need is we need a network to be more dynamic. We need it to be responsive and we need it to be agile. And so one of the concepts that we promote in our composable infrastructure is that we actually present infrastructure as code. So as application developers are developing their applications, they actually view the infrastructure, including the network, as simply a code library or a line of code that gets compiled into that application. Based on what the workload wants it to be. Yeah, exactly, exactly what the... Well configured appropriately for that workload, so you kind of had consumerization of IT and then obviously mobile comes in and we've been talking for years about the flattening of the network and traffic moving east-west. Is it fair to say that the data consumption patterns have far outstripped the infrastructure's ability to keep up and what will change that, if anything? How will that change? Well, I think it's, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, we're just addicted to data, right? I mean, it's ever-increasing, so the bi-sectional bandwidth that you see happening in the data center is just growing and growing and growing, which is why one of the announcements we made today was around that we're announcing that we have a full portfolio of server nicks and switches, et cetera, to satisfy the move to 2,500 gig because we're taking that next step up in bandwidth, but it's not going to stop. I mean, we'll continue to grow. While we're addicted to data, while we're storing more data, while applications are really the tool set that's driving our sort of work product, nothing's going to change. So what we need is we need a network that's easily transformed to be able to incorporate more and more bandwidth, but at the same time, that's easier to secure and it's easier to drive by policy, basically. So the customer problem there is, Tom, I don't want to rip and replace. How can you help me? So at the end of the day, there is always going to be some hardware that needs to be replaced, but one of the things that we've seen happen is when we transitioned from the one gig, 10 gig world we were in, we moved to 10 gig and 40 gig in the data center. And one of the things we had to do that was replace cabling because we were trying to take four 10 gig feeds and bring them into a single 40 gig feed. And so you had four strands of fiber coming down into a single 40 gig connection. So there was some heavy lifting there in terms of changing cabling. Now we're moving from to 25 and 100 gig, where you've got four 25s make a hundred. So you don't have to do the cabling again. So that simplified things and that helps a lot. So we'll see a faster transition to 25, 100 gig than we saw to 10 and 40. We think three years versus five years. But the other thing that we can do is in simplifying the operational model in using things like network virtualization, network virtualization overlays, and also using fabric technologies in the underlay, we can insert new physical bandwidth capacity into the network that just gets auto configured within the fabric. And then that's easily consumed in an operational model by a network virtualization overlay. So we're actually moving towards the position now where we'll be able to sort of signal the network manager that, hey, you're trying to put another application and I don't quite have the bandwidth to be able to do that, insert more bandwidth, and then run the application over that new bandwidth. And then boom, it comes IoT. Of course. So the big question that everyone has when they talk about this sounds all great. I want end to end visibility on everything. Yeah, so if things are that dynamic, that crazy, how the heck do you figure out the management side of it? Can you share some insight into the visibility angle on that? Yeah, it's definitely a challenge. One of the areas that we're looking at is having more policy driven. What you want to do is you want to unlock the context that the network already holds. The network already knows a tremendous amount about what is going on. It's a question of unlocking it and exposing it and doing that in a way that's consumable. So what you want to do is actually create business level policies that say, hey, I want to connect server A to storage B and then I want to be able to monitor that the only thing that's talking to storage B is server A and do that on an ongoing basis. So you want to take that metadata and you want to be able to constantly look at that, make sure that the policy you deployed is the right policy. But we've made great strides there. I mean, we've got big data capabilities, big data analytics capabilities that we can now bring in on the back end without over burdening the compute in the switching environment. We can just take that metadata and go look at that offline and tie that back to the policies that we deployed. So I want to ask you kind of a philosophical question since you're now a big executive running a P&L. We talked about the iPhone earlier that they brought a computer to the phone, not a phone to the computer. So it's a computer that has software to run a phone. So the question is, when will the data center be running the devices? So I think IOT, because that's the big thing that comes up is do you want to move the data back and forth? So since the density issues coming down so slow, you can actually have a very small compact box that can be like a data center. How does the network fit into that concept because we love that concept, pushing data center-like functionality out to an oil rig or the edge of the network. Yeah, so the question is, do you bring the data to the data center or do you bring the data center to the device? I like the data center to the device. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to be shifting around huge amounts of data that you don't have to. If you can actually bring the compute capability closer to the device and at least do a first level of processing at the device, that's absolutely the way to go. A cherry picking model. Yeah, I mean, I think it's somewhat dependent. When you look at the sort of, you know, the IoT landscape, you know, I think IoT is going to segment as well. You know, we talk about IoT as just this big sea of things. I don't think it is a big sea of things. I think there are, you know, there are different devices and there are different use cases that will emerge that will need different compute models and different data centers. There's windmills, there's factories, there's cars. Yeah, but does that change? My question though really kind of comes down to like the open question of, does that change the nature of networking paradigm? So if you've got programmable infrastructure, is it stateful, stateless? How do you, I mean, it seems like a very, you know, complicated environment. How do you have an opinion on that yet? At the end of the day, you know, the fundamental definition of networking is, you know, is connectivity. I think what we have proven is over the past, you know, decade or more, that the network can do so much more than connectivity. The network can give you insight, can give you context. So yes, it will change the nature of networking. I think, you know, networking has subsumed more and more functionality and I think we'll continue to do so. Security is one of the big things, is do you need separate security devices or does the network do the security for you? And I think, you know, we've got a lot of SDN models that are showing that through things like micro-segmentation, the network can actually be the security enforcer that you need. And, you know, you tie that to a very powerful and simple policy model. You know, the network becomes the security model as well. So network becomes the perimeter security, then you can focus other resources on whatever, analytics for detection, remediation. Yeah, it's not necessarily the perimeter model. I think the perimeter goes away. I mean, I think in all circumstances. Yeah, however that's defined. Right. It becomes a case of, you know, whether you're in the branch or the campus or the data center, it becomes about the perimeter becomes as big as the device. It's self-defining. Yeah, right? Yeah, okay. But the network is that the one thing that's a common denominator in everything you do in a compute infrastructure is the network. It connects everything. It's either going to do that wirelessly or wired whether you're in the data center or the campus, it doesn't matter. So that's the common denominator. Talk about that common denominator, how that translates to digital transformation because we were talking before we came on camera that the digitization of everything is driving a lot of the growth that you're seeing. What can you share for the audience out there that you've seen specifically around this digitization trend? So, I mean, I think there's really interesting use cases. I mean, you mentioned earlier on the car industry. You know, I have a car that probably has more computers in it than I have in my office. And you know, and what car companies are doing now in terms of offering the service to their customers. You know, you run Wi-Fi in your car, your car auto-diagnoses itself. It can notify you that some part is failing and then you need to, you know, get it into the dealership or, you know, whatever it is. Or download it. Yeah, download it, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, if you look at what Tesla is doing, yeah, you know, download your new update and you've upgraded the capability. You know, if I didn't buy a particular feature when I bought the car and I find six months later I want it, hey, I just pay the money and download it. It's great. But, you know, there's really interesting use cases like that where, you know, yeah, we're digitizing and disrupting everything. I mean, people used to talk about fridges and things. I think cars are more interesting than fridges, but. Yeah, of course. Yeah, they all know that I roll through all those stop signs in Palo Alto. Exactly. I never stopped that car. So the instrumentation picked that up. You got the autonomous car coming for you, John. We'll take care of that. I need that. I won't say it, it's going to say something, but since we're live TV, we're only getting in trouble. And I'm saying, go for it. We're not going to get crazy predictions that got me in trouble last time. Tom, final question, I want you to spend a minute to highlight the latest innovations that you guys are launching here today in the data center cloud first. What are some of the key things, products, technologies that you're launching and talking about here at HPE Discover? So I mentioned earlier the full set of 2,500 gig technologies. So that's, you know, in concert with the server team as well. And being the number one, you know, server vendor, we, you know, we can help to sort of drive the adoption of those 25 gig technologies. So that's one. The other is we've taken our Intelligent Management Center management platform and we've integrated that with HPE 1View 3.0. So in our composable infrastructure environment, integrating those two things extends the reach and capability in terms of, you know, the depth of networking functionality that can be offered in composable infrastructure. And then, you know, finally, as we move into the new brave age of containers, we've taken our network virtualization solution, which is called DCN, and we've integrated Docker container capability there so that what we can do is, you know, is track and do sort of admission control and policy on containers as, you know, they pop up and disappear because they're very temporal in nature. And so that is a problem. We're trying to get our arms around before it becomes a problem, before we see the, you know, the explosion in containers. So, you know, those are the three sort of major things that are network related that we've financed today. Tom Weil, VP and General Manager of Data Center Networking here inside theCUBE. Join the conversation. We're three days of wall-to-wall coverage. This is still on day one. We've got a couple more interviews to do, but two more days of live coverage. Go to our crowd chat at crowdchat.net slash HPE Discover. Join the conversation. We're having a big threaded conversation over there. And of course, go to crowdpages.co slash HPE Discover and check out our new digital experience site. We're pushing out there today. And of course, go to youtube.com slash SiliconANGLE for the videos, siliconangle.com, wikibon.com, siliconangle.tv for all the coverage. And we're here live theCUBE at HPE Discover live in Las Vegas. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. We'll be right back. You're watching theCUBE.