From the SiliconAngle Media office
in Boston Massachusetts, it's theCUBE.
Now here's your host Dave Vellante.
>> The imperative to protect data
has never been more pressing.
As companies transform themselves
from businesses into digital businesses
the intrinsic value of their data Rises exponentially.
The problem for infrastructure pros
is that everything in IT is additive.
It seems like nothing ever dies.
Which means more things to manage.
Now think about that.
When you're protecting data
you have bare metal, Vms, now containers,
you've got cloud
you got to worry about the edge.
All this data needs to be protected.
Not only does this increase complexity
it expands the attack surface for adversaries
wanting to steal or ransom your data.
Now at the heart of all this
is a build out of a massively global distributed cloud.
We saw wave one of the cloud which was public.
Wave two was really hybrid and that's evolving.
Now in parallel you're seeing the emergence of multicloud.
And as I said these earlier trends are additive
they're not replacements.
And with me to discuss these important issues
and how Dell's EMC specifically is pivoting
toward cloud data protection is Beth Phelan
who is the president of Dell EMC's Data Protection Division.
Beth great to see you welcome.
>> Good to be here again.
>> So we know the world is hybrid.
It's a fundamental the on-prem stuff
is part of the fundamental digital
digital transformations of these these companies.
And now you've got data protection for the cloud.
So what do you see happening in that world?
>> Yeah let's start with what we're seeing in the market.
We recently re-ran our global data protection index.
We've been doing it for many years
and we've been really using that
to help us understand the landscape
and what our customers need.
And first not surprisingly
it shows that continued trend of movement and reliance
towards cloud environments for business applications
continuing to increase.
On top of that the customers despite that
are continuing to struggle
with ensuring they have the right data protection
for their cloud environments.
>> Right so they're struggling you see that
we see that as well.
what's going on there?
What does the data tell you?
>> Yeah first of all more than half the customers
don't have a comprehensive data protection solution
for their SaaS, cloud native and multicloud environments.
More than two-thirds of the customers
who may be relying on their
cloud service providers for data protection
say that they do not have a solution
that covers all of their workloads.
So whether they're working with a cloud service provider
or some other vendor,
they're being really clear that
they do not have a comprehensive approach
to cloud data protection.
>> Yeah So I mean you see the cloud adoption
is growing like crazy
but it seems like the data protection component is lagging.
How is that affecting the traction in your business?
>> Yeah you know it's double-edged sword right?
On one level customers see the advantages
of moving to a cloud but on the other hand
you know they are really looking for vendors
that they can partner with
to still have the same confidence
that the data is protected that they have on-prem.
And what we're seeing now
is that customers are turning to us
to help solve that problem.
We have over a thousand customers using Dell EMC
for their cloud data protection
and we're narrowing in on three exabytes of data
that we're currently protecting in the cloud.
So it's happening.
>> Yeah that's pretty good traction.
So I want to talk about VMware.
Obviously VMware is the linchpin of many
customers hybrid strategy
and it's a clearly an important component
of Dell technologies.
Talk a little bit about the relationship
between Dell EMC data protection specifically and VMware.
I'm interested in you know they've announced project Tanzu
and there's Kubernetes.
How are you guys working together
to really deliver value for customers?
>> We are super excited about the opportunity to work
so closely with VMware.
Cause as their cutting edge in their domain
we're working directly with them.
And that's an advantage that
comes with being part of the dell technologies family.
And so we were the first company
to bring data protection for
Kubernetes environments out to market.
It's available now.
So you'll see us bring that into the Tanzu
mission-critical has been moved forward
partnering closely with with VMware.
And of course we're already
fully certified for VMware cloud.
It's really an ongoing regular conversation
about how we can work together
to bring the best to our customers.
>> So Beth I got to ask you
so part of your role as the leader
of the the division is obviously you got
a you got a lot of mouths to feed,
big division you got to make your plan,
you got to deliver for customers.
But strategy is another key component of this.
How do all these cloud trends shape your strategy.
So core to our strategy is to be the essential
provider of data protection for multicloud environments.
So no matter where customers are choosing
to deploy their applications,
they can have the same confidence that they always did
that that data was protected and that they can get it back.
So that's core.
And if you want three words
to remember for our strategy
think VMware, cloud and cyber.
Cloud is central to it
and you're going to be hearing a lot more about it
in the weeks and months ahead.
>> Okay so I got to ask you to break out your binoculars
maybe even the telescope.
What are the future
what do the futures look like
when you think about the division and the market?
>> So we've been talking about cloud for a long time
but we are still in the middle of this journey.
Customers are going to rely on the cloud even more
for additional use cases
and especially in the data protection space.
Right now we're seeing backup to the cloud,
DR to the cloud,
but the future will include cyber resiliency
that's leveraging cloud deployments.
You're also going to see more and more of an emphasis on
people leveraging SaaS for their software consumption.
And for us that means not only protecting SaaS applications
but it also means giving customers the option
to consume data protection in a SaaS model.
We already do that today
with things like Cloud Snapshot Manager,
with things like the
Power Protect Management and Orchestration
but you're going to see us do even more of that
because they're just such incredible benefits
of people leveraging SaaS to consume their software.
>> Data, constantly evolving landscape,
data protection has to evolve with it.
Beth thanks so much for coming on theCUBE.
>> It's great to be here.
>> And thank you.
Keep it right there.
We'll be right back right after this short break.