 Okay, welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage of VMware Explorer 22. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, formerly VMworld, our 12th year extracting the signal from the noise. A lot of great guests. It's very vibrant right here. The floor is great. The expo hall is booming. The keynote's going great. We just had a keynote announced. Our next first guest here on day one is Kermina Kapoor, co-founder and COO, Minayo. Welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. You're also angel investor of variety of companies of CUBE alumnides and been in the Valley for a long time. Thanks for coming on, sharing what's going on. So first of all, obviously VMware, still on the wave. They've always been relevant. They've always been part of IT. But as that's changing, a lot's going on. Security data is big conversation. And now with their multi-cloud, we call super cloud, but their multi-cloud, it's about hyperscalar, participation, cloud universal. It's clear that VMware has to be successful in every cloud. Okay, that's really important. And storage is one of it. You guys do that. Talk about how you guys relate with Minayo, the vision, how that connects with what's happening here. Yeah. So like you already said, right? Most of the enterprises are become data enterprises in itself and storage is a foundation layer of how, and you do need a system that is simple, scalable and high-performance at scale, right? So that's where Minayo fits into the picture. And we are software defined open source. So, you know, like VMware has traditionally been focused on enterprise IT, but that world is fast-changing. They are making a move in terms of developer-first approach. And Minayo, because it's open source, it's simple enough to start deploying object storage and cloud-native applications on top. So that's where we come in. We have around 1.3 million Docker downloads a day. So we own the developer market overall, and that is where I feel the partnership with VMware as they are coming into multi-cloud on their own. Minayo is a foundational layer. So just to elaborate on it, whenever you talk about multi-cloud, there are two pieces to it. One is the compute side and one is on the storage side. So compute Kubernetes takes care of the compute side. Once you containerize an application, you can deploy it to any cloud, but the data has gravity, and all the clouds that you see AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, they're inherently incompatible with each other. So you need a consistent storage layer with industry standard APIs that you can just deploy it around with your application without a single line of code change. So that's what we do. Oh, so you've got a great value proposition. I love the story. So just kind of connect on something. So we heard the keynote today. We got to win the developers. They didn't say that, but they said that. They have the ops lockdown, but DevOps is now the new developer. We've been covering a lot of the coupon, as you know, and shifting left. Everyone's in the CICD pipeline. So developers are driving all the action, and there has to be self-service. It has to be high-velocity. It can't be slow. It's got to be fast. So that sounds like you're winning that piece. Yes, yes. And I think more than that, what is most important is it needs to be simple. It needs to get your job done in a very simple and efficient way. And I think that is very important to the developers overall. They don't like complex appliances or complex piece of software. They just want to get their job done and move on to the next thing in order to build their application and deploy it successfully. So whatever you do, it needs to be very simple. And of course, it needs to be feature rich and high-performance and whatnot. That comes with the flow in itself. But I think simplicity is what wins the developers' hearts and minds overall. So object storage always been simple. Get put, right? Pretty simple paradigm. Yes. But it was sort of the backwater before Amazon launched its cloud. How have you seen object evolve? You mentioned performance. So I presume you're not just for cheap and deep. You're for cheap and performance. So describe that a little bit if you would. For sure. Like you mentioned, right? When AWS was launched, S3 was the foundation layer. They launched S3 first and then came everything else around it. So object storage is the foundation of any cloud that you go with. And over a period of time when we started the company back in 2014, beginning 2015, it was all about cheap and deep storage. You just get put it into one basket. But over years, if you see, because the scale of data has increased quite a bit, new applications have emerged as well that require high performance. That is where we partnered very closely with Intel early on. And I have to give it to them. Intel was the one who convinced us that you need to do high performance. You need to optimize your software with all the AVX 512 instruction set and so on. So we partnered very closely with them and we were the first one to come up with, you know, you need high performance object storage and that in collaboration with Intel. So that's something that we take a lot of pride in in terms of being the leader in the direction of bringing high performance object storage to the market, especially for big data workloads, AI ML workloads, they're all object first. Like even, you know, new age applications like Snowflake and Databricks, they are not built on SAN or file system, right? They are all built on object storage. So that's where you need performance. I think the Databricks Snowflake example is good. And you mentioned in 2014 when you started. Yes. At that time, big data was Hadoop and even, you know, data lakes, data swaps. Yes, yes, yes. The ones that were successful, the ones who optimized, had the right bets like you guys. Now we're in an era of, okay, I got to deploy this. So you got great downloads and updates from developers. Now we see ops struggling to keep up with the velocity of the development cycle. And with DevOps driving the cloud native, security data ops becomes important. Okay, security and data, a lot, with storage going on there, how do you guys see that emerging? Because that becomes a lot of the conversations now in the architecture of the ops teams. I want to be supportive and enablement of Dev. Yes. You guys target that world too or? Yeah, we do target that. So the good thing about object storage is that, if you look at the architecture in itself, it's very granular in terms of the controls that it can give to the end user, right? So you can really customize in terms of, you know, what objects need to be accessible to home, what kind of policies you need to implement on the bucket level, what kind of access controls and provisions that you need to do. And especially like with ransomware attacks and whatnot, you can enable immutability and so on, so forth. So that's an important part of it, especially I think the ransomware threats have increased quite a bit, especially with the macro situation with war and stuff. So we see that come up quite a bit. And that's where I think the data immutability, the data governance and compliance becomes extremely, extremely important for organizations. So we are partnering very closely with a lot of big organizations just for this use case itself. So how's it work? If I want to build some kind of multi-cloud, whatever, X. Okay, I can use S3 APIs or Azure, blah, blah, blah. Okay, and they're all different. But if I want to use Minio, what's the experience like? Describe how I go about doing it. So if you've had any experience working with AWS, you don't need to even change a single line of code with us. You can just bring your applications directly onto Minio and it just behaves and acts same way transparently what you would have experienced in AWS. Now you can just lift and shift that application and deploy it wherever you need it to be, whether it is Azure, blah, whether it is Google Cloud, or even on edge, like what we are seeing is that data is getting generated outside of public cloud. And most of the data that, you know, the emerging trend is that we see that data gets generated on edge quite a bit, whether it is autonomous cars, whether it is IoT, manufacturing units and so on. And you cannot push all that data back in the central cloud. It's extremely expensive for bandwidth and latency reasons. So you need to have an environment that looks and feels exactly what you have experienced at the central cloud on the edge itself. So a lot of our use cases are also getting deployed with Minio on the edge itself, whether it is on top of VMware because of the footprint that VMware has within all these organizations itself. So we see that emerging quite a bit as well. And then you can tear the data off to any cloud, whether it is Minio cloud, whether it is AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and so on. So you can have like a true multi-cloud environment. So you would follow VMware to the edge and the object store there or not necessarily if it's not VMware for Kubernetes or whatever. Exactly, exactly. Depending on the skill set that the organization has within their setup, if they're DevOps heavy, Kubernetes becomes a very natural choice. If they are traditional enterprise IT, VMware is an ideal choice. So you're seeing a lot of edge action you're saying. We have seen it increasing, yes. Are customers, so they're persisting data at the edge? It's not just ephemeral. No, they are not because the cost of putting all the data through bandwidth is extremely expensive to push all the data in central cloud and then process it and then store it. So we see that the data gets persisted on edge cloud as well in terms of processing and only the data that you need for further processing through whatever application systems that you have, whether it is snowflake or data bricks and whatnot. You choose what applications from compute side you want to bring on top of storage and that can just seamlessly and transparently work. Brian, you were saying that multi-cloud games around Kubernetes, that Kubernetes is all about multi-cloud. That's the game. Yes, yes. Can you explain what you mean by that? Why is multi-cloud a Kubernetes game? So multi-cloud has two foundations to it. One is the compute side, another one is the storage side. Compute Kubernetes makes it extremely simple to deploy any application that is containerized. Once you containerize an application, it's no longer tied to the underlying infrastructure, you can actually deploy it no matter where you go. So Kubernetes makes that task extremely easy and from storage standpoint, the state of applications need to be held somewhere. People say it's cloud but it's computer somewhere, right? So it needs to be stored somewhere. So that's where storage systems like Minayo come into play where you can just take the storage and deploy it wherever you go. So it gets tightly bound with the application itself just like Kubernetes is for compute, Minayo is for storage. I saw Scott Johnson, the CEO of Docker in Palo Alto last week, they hit a spring to a step, so to speak. Docker's doing it pretty well as a result. They got, you know, starting to see certifications. So people are really rallying around containers in a more open way, but that's open source, but it's the Kubernetes that's the action that the container's really there. And now Docker's got a great business right now going with how they're handling. I thought they did a great job, but the Docker is now lingua Franklin, right? That's the standard. It is, it is. And I think where Kubernetes really makes it easy is in terms of when the scale is involved, right? If there are, if the scale is small, it's okay. You can work around it, but Kubernetes makes it extremely simple. If you have the right Kubernetes skillset, I just need to put a disclaimer out there because not a lot of people are Kubernetes expert, at least not yet. So if you have the expertise Kubernetes makes the task extremely simple, predictable, and automate at scale. I think that is what is the- So take me through a use case because I've talked to a lot of enterprises, multiple versions. We're lifting and shifting to the cloud. That's kind of the, you know, get started, get your feet wet. Then there's like, okay, now we're refactoring. We're really doing some native development. And they're like, we don't have a staff on Kubernetes. We do a managed service. So how does, how do you see that evolution piece taking place? Because that's a critical adoption component as they start figuring out their Kubernetes relationship to compute, how they roll it out. How do you see that playing out as a big part of this growth for a customer? Yeah, so we see a mix. You know, we see organizations that are born within cloud. Like they have just been in mono cloud like AWS. Now they are thinking about two things, right? With the economy being, you know, and the state that it is, they're getting hurt on the margins. Some of the SaaS companies that were born in cloud. So they are now actively thinking in terms of what more they can do to bring the cost down. So they are partnering with Minayo either to, you know, be in a co-location at Equinex, like data centers, or go to other clouds to optimize for the compute nodes and so on. So that's one thing that we see increasingly amongst enterprise. Second thing that we see is that because, you know, of that whole multi-cloud and cloud does go down. It's not like it, you know, and it's been evident over last year or so that, you know, we've seen instances where Amazon was down or Google cloud was down. So they want to make sure that the data is available across the clouds in a consistent way. So with Minayo, with the active-active application and so on, you can make the data available across the cloud. So your applications, even if one cloud is down for DR purposes and so on, you can, you know, transparently move the applications to another cloud and make sure that your business is not affected. So from business continuity reasons as well, the customers are partnering with us. So like I said, it's a mix. So the Tanzu, you know, 1.3, the application development platform that we heard in the keynote this morning, critical, you have to have that for cross-cloud services. If you don't have a consistent experience, forget it. I mean, it's table stakes. But there's a lot of chatter on Twitter, a lot of skepticism that VMware can appeal to developers, some folk, John as well, chimed in saying, well, you know, don't forget about the upside of the equation as well. They need security and consistency. What are you seeing in the marketplace in terms of VMware specifically, their customers and what do you, how do you rate their chances in terms of them being able to attract the developer crowd, your peeps? Yeah, so VMware has a very strong hold on enterprise IT. You know, you have to give it to them. I don't come across any organization that does not have VMware, you know, for with 500,000 customers, right? So they have done something really right for themselves. And if you have such a strong hold on the customers, it's not that hard to make the transition over to the developer mindset as well. And that is where with VMware partnership, with partners like us, they can make that jump happen. So we partnered with them very closely for the data persistence layer, and they wanted to bring Kubernetes, the VMware Tanzu natively to the VSAN interface itself. So we partnered with them, you know, we were their design partner, and in I think 2020 or something, and we were their launch partner for that platform service. So now through the vCenter itself, you can provision object storage as a service for the developers. So I think they are working in terms of bridging the gap and they have the right mindset. It's all about execution like this here, right? So it's about being just focused and... It's the execution and timing. Exactly. And if they overshoot and shifts over here, you know, this comes up a lot in our conversations. I want to get your reaction to this, because I think that's a really great point. You guys are a nice foundational element of VMware that plugs into them, that makes everything kind of float for them. Yes. We were comparing OpenStack back in the day. That had so much promise. Yes, it did. If you remember, storage was a big part of that conversation. But the one thing that a lot of people didn't factor in on those industry discussions was Amazon was just ramping. Yes. So assuming that the hyperscales aren't stopping innovating, how does the multi-cloud fit with the constant struggles? Because AWS is not ra ra multi-cloud. Is there for the cloud? Customers are using Azure for state of office productivity teams or whatever, and then they have apps over here, and then that's the on private. So hybrid's there, we get hybrid. The clouds aren't changing. How does that change the dynamics in the market? Because it's a moving train, some say. You know, I would not characterize it like that, because AWS strength is that it is AWS, but also that it is not outside of AWS, right? So it comes with the strengths and weaknesses and same goes for Azure and same goes for Google Cloud, where VMware strength lies is the enterprise customers that it has. And I think if they can bridge the gap between the developers, enterprise customers, and also the cloud, I think they have a really fair shot at making sure that the organizations and enterprise have the right experiences. In terms of everyone needs to innovate, there is just no nothing that you can just sit back and relax. Everyone needs to innovate. And I think the good part about VMware is the partnership ecosystem that they have developed over the years and also making sure that their partners are successful along with them. And I think that is going to be a key determining factor in terms of how well and how fast they can execute because nobody can do it alone in the enterprise world. So I think that would be the key. Well, Garima, you're a great guest. Thanks for coming on and sharing perspective on theCUBE. And obviously you've been on this from day one, 2015. Yes. You're really early and you guys made some great moves in a great position with VMware. I like how you're the connective tissue and bridge to developers without a lot of disruption, real enablement. I think the question is can the VMware customers get there? So congratulations. No, thank you. And we've got a couple of minutes left. Take a minute to explain what's going on with the company that you co-founded, the team, what's going on, any updates, funding? Very well funded, yeah. How many people do you have? What's new? Are you going to hire? Where, take a minute to give the plug, give the commercial real quick. For sure. So we started in 2015. So it has been like seven, eight years now that we are at it. And I think we've been just very focused with the S3 compatible object storage being AWS S3 for rest of the world. Like we get characterized at. And over the years we've been like now we are used 60% in Fortune 500 companies in some shape or format. So in terms of the scale and growth, we couldn't be more happier. We are about to touch a billion dollar, billion docker downloads in September. So that's something that we are very excited about. And in terms of the funding, we closed our series B sometime, I think end of December last year. And it's a billion dollar valuation. And we have great partners in Intel Capital and Dell Ventures and SoftBank. So we couldn't be in a more happier spot. You're unicorn, soon to be deco-corn, right? What's next? Yes. I think what is exciting for us is that the market, we could not be more happier with how the market is coming together with our vision, what we saw in 2015 and how everything is coming together nicely from the organization realizing that multi-cloud is the core foundation and strategy of whatever they do next. And lot has been accelerated due to COVID as well. So in those terms, I think from market and product alignment, we just couldn't be more happier. We think multi-cloud, hybrid's here, steady state, multi-cloud is going to be a reality. It becomes super-cloud with the new dynamics. And again, Dave and I were talking last night, storage, networking, compute, never goes away. Never goes away. The operating system's still going to be out there. It's just going to look different and act differently. Yes, I mean, yeah. And like in 10 years from now, Kubernetes might or might not be there as the foundation for compute. But storage is something that is always going to be there. People still need to persist the data. People still need the performance data stored. People still need something that can scale to hundreds and hundreds of petabytes. So we're here. They're better against data. Yeah. As Andy Groves said once, you know, let chaos reign, reign in the chaos. There you go. Chaos cloud is going to be simplified. Yeah. That's what innovation looks like. That's what it is. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Okay, more coverage here at VMware. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Thanks for watching. More coverage, three days. Just getting started. We'll be right back.