 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and its ecosystem partners. Hello, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante. We are at Dell Technologies World. This is our third day of coverage. As John has been saying, this is a cannon. A double cannon. Double cannon of CUBE content. We are pleased to welcome back a couple of alumni to theCUBE. We've got Beth Phelan, president. Data Protection Division from Dellian. It's great to have you back. And Sherrod Restugi, also welcome back. SVP of Data Protection Product Management. Guys, lots of news the last three days. 15,000 or so people, a lot of partners. We've been hearing nothing but tremendous amount of positivity and also appreciation from your customers and partners for all of this collaboration, both within the Dell Technologies Company, with partners. Some of the news though, Beth, you were on the keynote stage yesterday. Give us some anecdotes that you've heard from customers and partners the last few days about where Dell Technologies is going. Yeah, I'm happy to. And our big announcements this week were PowerProtect software and the PowerProtect X400 appliance. And what we're hearing from customers is this is exactly what we needed to do. Because the demands on data protection are changing with more and more workloads being distributed, with data being more and more important, and with the risks being more and more prevalent, that they were looking for us to take a bold step and introduce this next generation software defined platform. And so the feedback we're getting is you've done what you needed to do and they're looking forward to learning more. So, I wonder if we could sort of explore a little bit this concept of data management. So data management needs different things to different people, Sherrod. If you're a database person, it may be different from a person who's doing data protection. What does it mean in a data protection context? And I think first of all, having visibility of your data all across your infrastructure, whether it resides in the edge, the core, the cloud, across multiple applications, physical, virtual environments, right? So having full visibility of the data I think is one component. Second is sort of the ability to move that data across seamlessly across any source of any target, whether it is on-prem, in the cloud, private cloud, I think that's sort of a second element. The third and probably the most important is how do you actually get value from the data, right? How are you actually not only able to protect it, but make it available at the right time, right place for the right application and be able to use it? Because as you know, data is the fuel of the modern digital economy and making it available is really, really critical. And that to me, combining all of that is what I would consider data management to be. So double-click on that. I mean, can you be more specific about the attributes of a modern data management system? So I would say any modern technology needs to be modular, API-driven, ability to sort of automate scale, performance, coverage, all those attributes I think are very important for any modern data protection product and be able to meet the needs of our customers and high-scale, high coverage, and rapidly. And that gives you a cloud-like experience, presumably allows you to scale out linear performance. I've seen some of the conversations and charts associated with that. Or scale in place, Beth, you talked about that as well. Yeah, you did both, yeah. I want to explore a little bit about your business because who knew who would have predicted a few years ago that data protection would all of a sudden become this hot space, VCs diving in, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent. And of course, you're the biggest player. Yeah, yeah. So everybody wants a piece of, you know, your hide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and now you got a portfolio that goes back up to the Legato days, the Avamar stuff, the data domain, et cetera, et cetera. So you had to sort of make sure that that was logical for your customers, protect those customers that have made an investment of you, but also show them a roadmap. Jeff Clark comes in, says, okay, we're going to simplify, you know, marching orders. Your business in a very rapid time has transformed. Can you talk about that, what's taken place in your business? Absolutely, Dave. And it's so interesting, even comparing last year to this year, right? We are at this pivot point where we're building on the legacy of trust and IP and knowledge and experience that we have, but we're now setting the foundation to be number one in data protection and data management for the next 10 years. And so by introducing this new set of products, we're able to bring our customers forward. We call it the path to power. So in addition to that, bring new customers into the family who are looking for those aspects of modern data management with simplicity, with multi-cloud, with automation, and with the new use cases, where it's more than just backup. It's BCDR, it's analytics, it's test and dev, it's validation. So this is whole spectrum of things that we can expand into now that we have this new platform. It's really exciting. It is exciting. And yesterday, the Under Armour video was very cool. And one of the things that they set in there is that they're leveraging data for brand reputation. I mean, Under Armour has incredible brand ambassadors, Tom Brady, Steph Curry, but looking at it as not just a business server, but this is actually tied to our brand reputation. Data is so incredibly pivotal to the lifeblood of a business, it has to be protected. Yeah, yeah. And that's a big theme. I mean, you probably have something to add too, but in this day and time, data is no longer something that maybe people in IT worry about, right? It is now the lifeblood of most of our customers' corporations. And at the same time, risks like the threat of malware are very prevalent. And so things like what we've done with cyber recovery are ways we're working with our customers to protect their data. In a survey we just did with 2,200 IT professionals, 28% of them had had some data loss in the last 12 months. So the risk of data loss is real and we take our responsibility very seriously to help our customers protect from that risk. So I like this message in any source, any target, any SLA. I would add any workload. I mean, you guys have made it. And so, talk about your differentiation in the marketplace. That would be great, because it's hard sometimes. You got to squint through all the marketing and so what makes you guys different specifically? I think Dell EMC and data protection historically has its strengths in dealing with complex workloads at high scale, with high performance and having a wide coverage of workloads, right? That's been a strength and actually at very low cost, very efficient, right? So that strength we sort of carry on into the future and what we're adding on is I would say the next degree of simplification and ease off. Ease off, install, upgrade, use, making those workloads very, very simple, right? So I think that's another dimension we're adding on. We're adding on a dimension of what we call multi-dimensional scale, which is both scale up and scale out at the same time when you actually add more nodes and more cubes. You add not only add capacity, but you also improve performance, right? That's architecturally a fundamentally different way in how we approach it. So I think that's an element of innovation and I think on performance, we're introducing our first off-lash appliance, industry first, and so we're super excited about that and so I think it just helps our customers in terms of restore, instant access to store, do those workloads a lot faster. So those are some other elements in which we continue innovating. That's great, yeah. So you talk about the PowerProtect X400, which is the off-lash. John Rose said something on stage, Beth, I want to ask you to sort of add some color. He said this is not just secondary storage, it's protected, managed infrastructure. Huh, wow, that's a great phrase. What did he mean by that and what should we take away? I mean it shows how we're broadening the use cases that these products can help satisfy and so much of what we're talking about, technologies, is a simplified infrastructure across the board, not thinking about just point products but giving the customer that experience of a seamless, extendable infrastructure. So protected, managed infrastructure means that your infrastructure is something you can confidence it's protected and that you also are not just dealing with all these pieces and parts but can think of it as a managed whole. I think that that helps, I haven't talked to John about that but that's what I take away from what he's saying. If I can just add to that, I would say like data management is sort of the perfect glue across the whole technology infrastructure but the servers, storage, VMware, HCI infrastructure, pivotal data management, data protection, sort of cuts across everything and we can bring everything together. So I see that. I mean I'd like to add something to that if I may because as you know Beth and Sharad as well, data protection backup was always, oh, we got to back it up. Okay, boom, bolt it on. And what's happening is the lines are blurring between primary storage, secondary storage. You're seeing backup and DR use cases. You talked about analytics. I mean there's so many new emerging, that's why it is so exciting. And so because those lines are blurring, you get more value out of the system. It goes beyond just insurance. And that means there's going to be a lot of money being made here. There is and there's also a really important need, right? One thing that we haven't touched on but I also think is really important is with PowerProtect we're helping combine self-service with centralized governance. So what I mean by that is if you are a VM admin or an Oracle admin or a SQL admin, you can have control over protecting your data but we pair that with a single governance model. So if I'm the person who's responsible for my company's entire data set, I can still make sure that everything's happening as it should be and there are no anomalies. So we're really making it as easy as possible for the businesses within our customers to protect and manage their data but not making it the wild west. Because somebody in the end is accountable for saying I know where all the data is and I know it's protected. So we're serving both of those users. So as data protection has really elevated as Dave was saying to me, it's way beyond an insurance policy. This is absolutely table stakes because data has so much value and so much value that organizations haven't even been able to extract yet, right? How has the conversation within the customer base changed? It's not just to the admin girl or guy anymore, right? This is, are you seeing this really leveled up to maybe a senior level C level challenge as our business imperative that this data must be protected and readily accessible at any time? Who are you talking to? So I'll answer quickly and then I'll add to you. When we're talking to the IT decision makers, so CIO, you know, that level, data protection strategy has become something that they have in their priority list, right? It's not really in any way what it was maybe five or 10 years ago. Now it's something that there's core to what they hold as their responsibility as executives. And then that's great. It's great to have those kind of conversations because it's strategic. Another conversation just an example from yesterday was speaking with one of the chief architects at our major company. They're really talking about cybersecurity. And how do you use extend, you know, what we offer into a full solution across Dell technology to address, you know, there's a use case, right? So I think it's expanding beyond just backup and protection to true protection of the data where your most mission critical data is available. And not just protected, they also want to talk about how can you recover that real quickly in very quick time so that you're operational when you do have that cyber attack, right? So I think it's just expanding to touch a lot more customers, I would say, or people buying decision makers across the company. And Beth, when I talk to people in division, I sense a renewed energy, a renewed focus. I mean, EMC before Dell, Dell EMC, always been really good at taking engineering resources and getting products out to the market. But I see, again, a more focused effort here. And one of the things I'm going to keep pushing on is this notion of cloud model. So beyond just, okay, there's a target, how do we now get to that, you know, data protection as a service model? I know that you're working toward that. I know it's, you know, a lot of that's, it's early days there. But you've got to be a leader in that, I presume. So I'm going to keep watching that, pushing that. I wonder if you guys could comment on your thoughts here. I want to comment on both things that you said. First of all, there's absolutely a level of excitement and focus and confidence in what we're doing in the product groups. And really changing the way we're developing software so that we have, you know, new customer value coming out every quarter. And then we're having clarity between the top level strategies, right down to what individual engineers are working on. So that's fun and exciting. Because we are truly transforming the way we're developing product. So that's point one. And the second one, absolutely, you hear that theme throughout all of what we're talking about. You heard it on day one. You know, giving people that cloud-like experience, infrastructure as a service, which certainly includes data management and data protection, so that they can consume it in a way that fits their business, that scales with their business, that's automated, that doesn't require, you know, massive manual steps. And it's more what people expect today is a cloud-like experience even for their on-prem data centers. Clearly that's where we're moving. And just one more point is, you know, people really want automation. They don't want to have to think about, did I remember to protect everything? They want the system to do that for them. And so you'll see more of that from us as well. You know, how are we helping them with machine learning and AI and automation so that they can have confidence that all of their assets are protected even if they haven't remembered to do it all. I mean, I just add to it. I've been at Dell EMC for about a year. It's been a fantastic journey. Innovating, it's exciting. It's been an awesome, awesome experience. So I totally see the focus very driving. And I think that renewed focus, the cloud-like model and the innovation, they all go hand in hand because the old waterfall model of, okay, we're going to develop probably a shipment every year, 18 months, whatever it is, that doesn't fly anymore. People want innovations, you know, they want to push code every day, right? So, or maybe every quarter at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it brings a new energy to the engineers as well. Yeah, so I mean, I understand that many of your team, if not your entire engineering team has been trained in Agile. Is that, am I getting it right? Is that right? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And not just like internal training. You guys brought in outside people and really took them through some formal training, right? We have multiple different kinds of training and we have lots of communications inside to give people coaching and it's not just a process book that we're following. It's really a different way of thinking about how you bring customer value in small increments, staying in a good known state and making sure that we're maximizing our engineering capacity. Right, yeah. And that's big and I wish we had more time because that's cultural change. Yeah, yeah. That you guys are really driving and we also didn't have time to touch on partners but I can imagine there's a lot of excitement in your huge partner community about what you guys are doing. It is. Congratulations on all the announcements. We're just going to have to have you back because there's just so much more to dig into with Beth Sharad, thank you for joining Dave and me this afternoon on theCUBE. Thank you both. Thank you so much, thank you. Our pleasure. Yes. For Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from day three of Dell Technologies World 2019 on theCUBE. Thanks for watching.