 Live from the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Splunk.com 2016, brought to you by Splunk. Now, here's your host, John Furrier. Hey, welcome back everyone. We are here live in Orlando, Florida for Splunk.com 2016. This is the seventh annual Splunk customer and Splunk conference where they get together. I'm John Furrier, the founder and CEO of SiliconANGLE Media Inc. And cohost of theCUBE. And I'm here with Kevin Davis who's the VP of Public Secretary Splunk who was on last year, who actually is like the star of the show in a way because the top message is security. Kevin, welcome back to theCUBE. Yeah, John, thank you for having me. It's great to be back. I know you're really busy. Thank you for spending the time to come here end of the year for you on the federal scale. Obviously we talked last year about security. We laid it out, I thought pretty well. Made some predictions. They're all coming home, but Splunk has upgraded their game with product and growth. And now with the cyber security, like even more amplified than ever before me, even today, New York Times and Marissa Mayer could have invested more in security, broken that story, the Yahoo hack, credit card frauds and trillions of dollars, the federal government being hacked, DNC, business is good and the cyber first, Splunk. It is, if you've got, for those that watched the presidential debate the other night, three questions to ask, right? And one of the questions was about cyber security. That really goes to show you just how important it is, how top of mind it is. When I work with the DOD, it's very interesting, right? They've always been the masters of the domains, right? Air, space, land, sea. Well, cyber security is a domain. The cyber space is a domain as well. And that's something that they're getting really good at. But it's definitely a lot of investment going on. Cyber security is this generation's moonshot. We heard that on the queue from their CTO. This is what's happening. They're right now, we did some research two weeks ago. 1.4 million open jobs in cyber security right now. That's not including data science, which has its own list. But cyber security in particular, just not enough people. So technology has to be a short-term and medium-term solution, ASAP. So it's interesting if you look across my business, especially the state, local and education business, they're really moving and are looking to MSSP, right? To really outsource this, they're looking for the Verizon's, the Booz Allen's and the Deloitte's of saying, I can't hire people fast enough. I can't hire the skills, I can't train them fast enough. So I think we're going to see a real shift to this MSSP model. So talk about your business, right? So Splunk is an incredible company. Obviously we've been following it from the beginning, the Cube being here in our seventh year. But when a company has a verb, you've been Splunk. Splunk my data. You've been Cubed while we've been Cubed here. I love it. But yet, you guys are still growing and still on a pioneering, you continue to have a pioneering front end, but as you start to get more mature in the IT ops piece, people are starting to operationalize Splunk, which means they're in the business, there's good procurement, it's less of teeth pulling to get them to actually, here's where it works, here's how you scale it, here's how you fund it, here's how people use it, et cetera, et cetera. That must be even harder for federal. So this year, what's going on? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was being interviewed just recently and used the words Splunk as a verb and they stopped me, they said, wait a minute, did you just use Splunk as a verb? And I said, yes, it's going to be like Googling, hopefully, soon. What we're really seeing is, we've started at the departmental level, but especially in the federal space, it's really taking off. We're on the CIO's top of mind and they're wanting to, we call them EAAs or Enterprise Agreements, basically. And that is absolutely the bread and butter of our business, especially you mentioned, this is the end of the federal fiscal year. We're doing a lot of EAAs across the federal business right now. And we're no longer just, you know, back in the security department, we're across their enterprise. Is the sales motions different on the public sector side? Because in our enterprise, it's been clear, organically growing, top down guys get a view of it with security, no problem, nice smooth sailing. It's not that easy to land and expand in the government. I know there's some Gov cloud going on with Amazon, which probably helps you guys. It does. You know, there's no kind of line item for sponk or sponk equivalent, right? This is a new paradigm for them. So that's really why we start with this kind of crawl walk run, but it works well with the government. The government doesn't do a ton of big bang, let's go all in, you know, it's kind of a slow and steady, if you will. Well, the CIA deal that was IBM had won and then lost to Amazon was really a game changer. Has that impacted your business? Do you have a strategic relationship with AWS? It has, Theresa Carlson's a friend of mine. We meet regularly, you know, our teams are locked at the hip. We're really going after some initiatives together, things like smart cities. We really think that together we can go after that and really help the customers, right? You look at us, the city of LA is a great joint customer of ours, you know, leveraging it across the city and really in a great security use case, but that's a great example of one where together we've been a fourth multiplier. We heard EDU guys on earlier talking about the on-prem and silos because that's the nature of the beast in EDU. They are, as they say, the slowest moving animal to the cloud because of the nature of EDU. Federal has embraced the cloud, obviously to Amazon. Are you seeing more Splunk cloud in Gov and federal, state, local action? The, that's, I like the question. The answer is absolutely. I'm actually seeing it most in the state and local business. They just seem to have embraced it more quickly. You know, the federal space, there's certain requirements, you know, a little bit in concern about their data being somewhere else. The message that really resonates with them is hybrid, it's on-prem and in the cloud and you pick and choose. So has the phone been ringing out the hook since the debate? Because they did mention cyber security. 81 million people watching. They could have just said Splunk. Business was good before that. It continues to be good. But I'm expecting- But you're happy about that. You got to be thrilled. I am. It's a significant portion of our business in the government space. Yes, we're very scared. We're at a great spot right now. What's the trending items in the federal and state, the federal state level of Splunk? What are the top things that you're most concerned about besides cyber security? Yeah, so the probably first and foremost is kind of the end-to-end visibility, IT operations, of just knowing when something goes down, what is it? What is the chink in the armor that went down? If you look at an example of a global entry program for CBP, if that system goes down, people's phones are ringing and it's not friendly calls. And the ability to do- And it does go down. And the ability to know end-to-end and quickly determine what's wrong with the system is a great example of Splunking use. You should have a lot. I know we had just talked about what we came on. You're on the road. What are you hearing? What is exciting you these days? Share with the audience what's out in the field. What are you seeing? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I carry a Splunk bag, generally have a Splunk shirt on and folks are always happy to stop me in the airport. Always happy to talk about Splunk, which is great. So we are definitely being talked about. There's a great buzz around our company, our brand and that's really exciting. And what I love to talk about is how we're helping the mission of government, right? And that's really what I enjoy the most. And they're trying to simplify too. So you've got some receptive audience. We do. We're having conversations at the highest level in some of these organizations. I've been doing this for a long time and I have not had the response that I've seen here at Splunk. Well, you guys are a public company but still a startup in my mind. You still act like a startup. How long can Splunk continue being this nimble? Yeah, that's a great question. I hope forever. Refer to us as a rocket ship. It feels like it. It is still a startup mode. Our office, if you come out to it in Tysons, McLean, Virginia is always a buzz. And I just, I love it at the end of the day. So Theresa Carlson and I wanted to get in more cube action to the public sector events. There's a lot of demand that certainly Amazon is seeing a ton of action as well. So let us know what's going on. We'll do. And I was just at a third public sector user conference if you will out in DC and it was standing room only. I was absolutely packed. People want the use cases. The number one thing we hear, I want the cloud. I want simplicity. I want the security. Who's got the playbook? The analysts aren't getting it. The way I'm seeing it, you get the old school analysts, but Splunk is doing things in a new way. And the customers that we interview here, it's like the success is like the reverse of the way it used to be. Yeah. And as we, we're put into the sim market a lot and we compete in that space. But the truth is we're so different than the traditional sim vendors. And I think once folks really get a taste of what Splunk can do for them and really empower these analysts, these are very smart, brilliant people within these agencies and allowing them to ask the right questions of their data as well. Well, I think Splunk has got a big opportunity. I think it's so much more trajectory here because you really talk about a data sharing platform. Because the customers I've been noticing here, they're self-forming amongst their own constituencies across companies. Yes. And using Splunk as the common ground between them. And they're sharing data, real data across the companies. That's unprecedented. So I've been in a ton of meetings where we're actually introducing people that work at the same base, the same company, the same agency. We're introducing people that have worked down the hall from each other, but have never met. But now that IT operations and security can work from the same pane of glass, it's really an eye-opener. Plus it's, they're actually creating groups around this. Yeah. IT cells, analytical cells to look at the information. So here's the final question for you. Okay. I'm a fastball. I'm a right out down the middle. High and tight. I love Splunk. I'm a public sector guy. But I want headroom. I don't make a lot of moves. I'm making a big move now. What do you guys offer for me, for headroom? For headroom. I need future. I want a future-proof. Yeah, yeah. The buzzword is headroom, future-proof. Okay, yep. So it is absolutely the conversation I have with every one of our largest customers, right? So our go-to market really around that is let's talk about a one-year to three-year. Let's do unlimited. Just take it off. Open up the spigot all the way. Let's bring in all the data sources. And at the end of that one-year, two-year, three-year term, let's look at it. So we're not going to turn you off. So do a look-back. Give them all you can eat. That's it. And then look back. They're not happy. Then everyone walks away. Walk away. That's right. Absolutely resting. That's a good bet for Splunk. You've got a good track record in look-backs. That's right. It's a very sticky product. So yeah, it's great. It's classic sales. What's your, you know, you want to do a look-back? No problem. But then we're going to charge you basically on the other side. Holy kidding. That's right. It's not your sales tactic. We agree to something up front as well. Well, thanks so much. Final question. What's the takeaway from the show this year for you? Yeah, you know, the buzz. So this is my third dot com, second time on theCUBE. And the buzz gets stronger, better every year. I cannot believe just how sticky it is, how excited our customers are. And that's what it's all about. And big events you guys got coming up. What's on the radar next year? So well, the first one as well. The one that I'd like to talk about is Gov Summit. So I basically bring a one-day, let me bring dot com to you in DC. Last year we had over a thousand people attend. So that'll be November 15th in Washington DC. We call it Gov Summit. And that's, you know, the next one for me. Finish up here, close out the federal fiscal year and then off I go to get ready for Gov Summit. So Gov Summit should one day with Amazon be doing that with you? Or is that your deal? So last year I had Teresa up on stage with me. We talked about our partnership. She was a guest. She was a guest. Okay, guys, it's not a joint thing. It's not a joint thing. So why? Well, she does it in the event too, I believe. She does, she does. But they're absolutely partners. They're sponsoring it and they'll be part of it. Will you be a re-invent coming up? Absolutely. We'll see theCUBE there. We'll be a big stage there. Thanks so much for spending the time. Really appreciate it. Great to see you. Thank you. All right, Kevin Davis here. In charge of the public sector for Splunk, which is really, really hot because we all know what's going on this election year. 81 million people saw the debate. Cyber security up and down the country and the enterprise is the number one issue. You're addressing it. It's theCUBE, live in Orlando. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching.