>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE,
covering InterConnect 2017.
Brought to you by IBM.
>> Welcome back everyone.
We are here live in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay
for exclusive Cube coverage for three days
for IBM InterConnect 2017.
I'm John Furrier.
My co-host, Dave Vellante.
Our next guest is Ed Walsh, General Manager of Storage
and Software-Defined Infrastructure at IBM.
Welcome back.
>> Ed: That was a mouth full wasn't it?
>> Welcome back to The Cube.
Welcome back to the fold at IBM.
>> Thank you very much, always good.
>> You're leading up a big initiative.
Take a quick second to talk about what
you're the general manager of scope wise,
and then we'll jump right in.
>> Yeah, so I run basically the storage division,
which has all of our storage from mainframe
to open systems, tape, software defined storage
and software defined compute,
but it's all under our storage portfolio.
So development, sales,
you know, run the PINA.
>> Right, and the new innovations
that are coming out, what do you have your eye on?
What's your goal, you know, you got a spring in your step.
What's the objective?
>> So we talked probably in October, I was 90 days in.
So now I'm a whopping 8 months in.
I think we kind of talked about it.
I kind of...
my hypothesis for coming here was
you know, clients are going through this big change
and some of your write ups lately
about the True Private cloud
and how they're trying to go from
where they are now to where they're trying to get to.
And that confusion eats up leadership
so as confusion...
IBM has the right vision, but it's like
clouding cognitive, as is much on PRIM.
So we have the right vision to help them get through that.
And we have a history of doing that.
And the second one was that we have
a portfolio that's pretty broad.
So we almost have an embarrassment of riches
on what we can do with someone
when they're really trying to look to
modernize environments or transform,
we can help them from anything.
From the biggest and baddest.
But it really doesn't matter.
The broad portfolio allows us to engage
and bring it forward and get them to the...
Whatever their path forward is
we can give that vision.
And then, the one thing I was really
talking about is he could bring in IBM.
If I could bring in IBM, the greater IBM,
the True Cognitive, the analytic team,
and bring that together to bear for
our infrastructure clients, or inside storage itself,
that would be where we'd have the trifecta taking off.
So we're in the middle of that transformation.
Going very well.
But along the same lines I have a fantastic product line.
We're going to continue, in fact
we're putting more investments on that.
Not only on the hardware raise,
but as much on the software-defined, and going all flash
just because a lot of operational benefits.
But then really what we're able to do
by bringing the large IBM behind us...
IBM also did some interesting
organizational changes in January.
Arvind Krishna is now running Hybrid Cloud
and research for IBM so it's bringing the girth of IBM
behind what's on PRIM hybrid into the Cloud.
So it allows us to play a very strategic role.
>> So a couple Wikibomb buzzwords, right?
The True Private Cloud, we talked about
server sandwiches, really sort of instantiation
of software-defined.
Really the impetus is that customers on PRIM
want to run the Public Cloud.
With that kind of agility and automation.
So what are you seeing?
What is IBM delivering to support that?
First of all, are you seeing that?
>> So it's kind of funny, so that...
I do talk about study a lot because I thought
the True Private Cloud, the way you coined it,
is the right way to almost just say
it's not what you're thinking I'm about to say.
But the study, it's everything you get in the
Public Cloud and you want to bring it on PRIM.
All the flexibility, all the development models, right?
How you engage developers.
All the financial models as well, but bring that.
And then it easily extends the Hybrid Cloud.
When you start going through that,
every one of our clients we engage,
they know we understand the value of Cloud.
They're at different maturity levels
of how they're using Cloud,
but it's all in their vision.
We do a lot of work to help people bridge.
So where are you know, let's talk about
where you need to get to and have
some meaningful steps to get there.
So the True Private Cloud resonates with them.
And then what we're doing is launching.
In fact we launched this week with Cisco.
So we have a converged offering
with Cisco called VersaStack.
But what we're operating on is,
how do you make a Private Cloud as agile,
and has the same use cases specifically for developers
or DBA's that you have on the Public Cloud?
And we're bringing that to the offering set
for a converged offering.
So what we do around on API later...
So a key use case would be to do would be,
why do people go to Public Cloud?
Business units like it because the developers.
It's easy to use, they have true DevOps capabilities.
They're able to swipe a credit card.
Single line of code.
Spin up an environment.
Signal out a code.
Spin it down.
They don't have to talk to an IT guy.
They don't have to wait three weeks or do a ticket system.
So how do you do that on PRIM?
So what we have now, in market is,
imagine a API abstraction layer,
that for storage allows all the orchestration
and all the DevOps tools to literally
do the exact same thing on PRIM.
So once you set it up, it allows the IT team,
it's called Spectrum Copy Data Management,
allow the IT team to set up templates.
But through roles based access,
allow a developer or a DevOps tool like Chef or Puppet
to literally infrastructures code.
Single line of code, spin up a whole environment.
An environment would be, let's say
three or four VM's, last good snapshot,
maybe Datamaster or not.
Most times it's Datamast.
Bring up an offense network, but literally it goes from,
on PRIM I just can't get it done.
It takes me two or three weeks.
So that's why I go the Public Cloud for other reasons.
I can not only choose where I put it,
where it's the right place to do,
but I can give the exact same use case on PRIM
by just doing API calls and they use
exactly the same tools for development
that are used in the Cloud, like Chef,
Puppet, Urbancode, Python scripts.
>> How's the reaction been to that?
Give us some anecdotal...
>> So once you have that conversation,
that's just one of the things we're doing to make
the True Private Cloud come to life.
Of course the extension to SoftLayer,
in other Clouds to get the...
People, all of the sudden they see a path forward.
It's not as easy to...
You have to explain how it works,
but the fact of the matter is they
don't have a lot of tools now to make...
We can bring down cost, give you
a little bit more efficiancy, consolidate it.
But that's not really how True Private Cloud is.
You need the automation.
So they're responding to it well.
In fact it's the number one demo on the floor.
For us, as far as systems, people trying figure out
actually how to do the DevOps on the PRIM.
>> John: That's awesome.
>> Talk more about he Cisco relationship.
There's a lot of interesting things
going on in the storage business.
There's consolidation, and you know
the whole VCE thing and then Cisco looking for partners.
You guys selling off BNT, it opens up a whole
new partnership potential.
So how has that evolved and where do you want to take it?
>> So I think, match made in heaven between us,
especially in storage, and Cisco.
If you look at the overall environment conversion
Hipaa converts account for about a third
of the storage industry, so we play well.
There's no overlap between us and Cisco.
It's great.
We're after the exact same accounts and actually, from a...
You think of the very top level
of our organization all the way down,
the two companies have a lot of the same cultures
and to be honest we're very tight.
So it allows us to have a great relationship.
We've already had a good relationship.
About 25 thousand joint clients,
which is amazing.
And then what we're doing with VersaStack specifically
is we're putting in the next generation,
so we have a great converged offering
that has all our all flash storage,
but also software-defined.
But what we added is we brought in
what they did with their CliQr acquisition,
which is called CloudCenter,
and you add that on top make it single click,
deploy and application anywhere,
both on PRIM in the different Clouds,
and it makes it very simple for developers.
We talked about the API Layer.
You bring that in to DevOps environment.
So we feel really strong that as far as,
if you're looking to bring in a True Private Cloud
probably the best answer that we could do,
is what we do with VersaStack.
And we just announced it this week.
And also we gave a preview.
It's Cisco live in Melbourne a week ago.
I think it's been a good uptake.
But it kind of plays to...
When you know what people were trying to do,
but you need to bring the automation.
You got to make it self-service
and that really drives, for the business units,
as well as developers.
That drove what we brought into VersaStack.
So we brought different assets in it
from Cisco and IBM to make that kind of a reality.
>> John and I were talking earlier on theCUBE this week
and somebody brought up, yeah the CIO,
they really don't think about storage.
They certainly don't want to be thinking about the media.
And the conversation shifted way off...
Even flash now, it's like, oh yeah, yeah we get it.
But you mentioned something earlier
and this is very relevent to CIO's.
They want to get from point a to point b
with this minimal disruption, they don't want to have to
buy a boat load of services to get it done.
And now you're talking about things like
automation and self-service.
What are the discussions like with senior IT executives
and how are you helping them get from point a to point b
with minimum disruption?
>> So the good thing about...
You think about the IBM brand.
It's as much about trust and helping people through it.
So people give us just a credit to say
I can engage with them, get the innovation.
But also we've been through the zeros
So a lot of the times they're asking how are we doing it?
How are we transforming our company?
How are we doing it internally?
And then if you jut kind of, common sense,
walk them through because of the broadness of the portfolio,
we don't just have this point solution
and every answer is, well you buy this box, right?
We're able to have that conversation
and when you get that broader IBM together
that's where it kind of differentiates and they love it.
Now I've been to a lot of, oh I'll say,
IBM friendly accounts which is great.
But also, some people that have never dealt with us
are eyes wide open because it's a new day.
People are struggling with this big transfer, right?
How do you get from now to where you want to go
in Cloud is a big change.
>> Those new customers,
what are they getting wide-eyed about?
What are they focusing on?
What's the big focus?
>> So we'll talk about, we'll do True Private Cloud,
but really what you can do as far as data,
and what we're doing around Cognitive
is really telling, right?
The ability to really show 'em
with symbol API calls they get more...
So to have a Cognitive conversation
that's an industry specific conversation
really gets people lit up.
In the end it ends up being, okay I see the possible.
Then, how do I get from here to there.
And typically it doesn't start,
well I'm just going to go directly that direction.
It's help me with a multi-year plan to get to there,
while I'm taking out costs, adding agility over time.
But I would say the kind of conversations are
especially with an industry lens,
which is what IBM brings to it,
is really telling.
>> So I got to ask you about the
Convergent reStructured markup because
the hot trend that's in the Cloud native world
is server lists.
So is there a storage list version?
Cause what you're basically saying
with the True Private Cloud is,
you're essentially doing server lists,
storage lists, philosophy.
Is that, I mean how do you guys
rationalize this server list trend.
Cause servers and storage are basically
the same things in my mind these days.
But, I mean, you might disagree.
>> I think in general people aren't looking to
the different components.
They're looking for a way to operate
in their environment that's more efficient.
They're looking for use cases.
They're also trying to have IT not be in the way
of what they're trying to do in development,
but actually give the right tools.
So that's why, to be honest, go back to True Private Cloud,
I've been using it a lot cause
it really resonates with people.
Is how do you get that same experience
but on PRIM, cause there's different reasons to be on PRIM.
>> It's like Cloud native on PRIM.
You could get all the benefits
of what Serverless promotes, which is
here's an unlimited pool of resources.
The software will just take of that for you.
That's DevOps.
>> And doing...
>> John: On PRIM.
>> And doing true DevOps, Chef, Puppet,
no compromises is exactly how you do it.
So you change nothing for your developers.
But now you're running it on PRIM
or in a Hybrid Cloud.
Cause there's a lot good use cases for Hybrid Cloud
even if it's born in the Cloud application.
You're making a web application or iPhone application,
the fact of the matter is,
you might want to test it against the back end.
So being able to do a Hybrid Cloud,
bring this system record data there,
to be able to do DevOps on what production looked like
maybe last night, or a week ago
is much different than the current DevOps models.
>> Well it's a good strategy too.
If you think about the True Private Cloud,
the way you're looking at it,
which I think is the right way,
is a lot of the things that we look at on theCUBE,
and talk about, is three areas.
Product gaps, organizational gaps, and process gaps.
The number one thing is organizational gaps.
So when you have that True Private Cloud on PRIM,
it's not a big leap to go Cloud Native Public.
>> It's seamless in fact.
>> John: It's totally seamless.
>> And on that case that a lot of the stuff
we're talking about is, we help people modernize and
transform their environment.
And the message is all about optimization
on the traditional application environment.
It's all about freeing up the resources.
So...
>> John: That's the ovation strategy.
That's the creativity, that's the Dev element.
>> And if you don't free up the key resources
they can't be on the digital transformation.
And without the right skill set,
because they're kind of trapped in operation.
So a lot of the automation things we're doing
are things that, to be honest,
the storage team, or the admin team will be doing.
It's manual error prone, but take it away.
But also you free up the team.
So it kind of plays to all those.
>> That must really resonate with the CIO.
I mean, I would imagine CxO goes, okay
I could have Cloud on PRIM and then
train my organization to then start thinking
Hybrid workloads as they start moving Hybrid pretty quickly.
>> And here's the thing, is what
do you have to change for developers?
Tell me what I have to get by the developer or DBA's?
And the answer is nothing.
Use the exact same tools.
So you know, on stage it'll
literally show me how Chef or Puppet...
They're not doing trouble tickets
or spinning things up, down, but...
Same thing with deploying applications.
It's like Cloud Center application.
Set up the stack and deploy either on PRIM,
different architectures, both converged and non-converged
or in different Clouds.
And they allow you to just, one click and deploy it.
And they deal with all those differences.
But that's how you want to make it, you use it serverless.
They don't have to worry about the infrastructure.
But also we're freeing up the team.
>> So Ed, I got to ask ya, on a sort of personal note,
I mean I've followed your career for a long time.
John and I call you the Five Tool Star.
You've had the start-up experience,
you've got technical chops,
you did a stint at IBM,
you went to MIT and came back with that big MIT brain,
brought it to IBM, so pretty awesome career.
By no means even close to over.
What have you brought to IBM?
I think I've known every GM of storage,
since the first GM of storage at IBM.
What specific changes have you brought
and what's the vision and the direction
that you want to take this organization?
>> It's a great culture, great history of storage.
So I guess that I would be the
first outsider coming into storage.
But I don't think it's any different.
I've been in storage my entire career.
I understand it.
Some of it is optimizing their current model.
The portfolio of what we're doing.
Some of it is just making sure we have
the right things in sales and working with channels,
which one of my companies was an actual channel partner.
So I think it's just the perspective of
maybe a fresher look, but again we are a great team.
Great portfolio.
We're quietly number two in storage hardware software.
Shhhhhhhh.
Don't tell anyone.
Cause we don't do a good job of getting the news out...
But the fact of the matter is...
>> Now we'll tell everyone.
You say don't tell anyone, we're telling everybody.
You tell us to tell everyone, we don't tell anyone.
>> Together: (laughing)
>> But we still get people,
are you guys still doing storage?
We're like, literally we're number two by revenue.
And this is IDC and Gartner software hardware.
So we are a player in the space.
We have a lot of technology and I guess
what I'm bringing is just maybe a little
spice of vision and...
>> Well you guys have a strategy
that's unique and different but
aligned with the mega trend.
That, to me I think, is something
that's been in the works for a while.
It's been cobbled together.
Dave always points it out, how the storage groups change.
But the game is still the same, right?
Ultimately it's about storage.
Now the market conditions are changing
on the organizational side.
That seems to be the thing.
>> Ed: Agreed.
>> Well all flash is probably the thing.
>> But also what you're going to start seeing is
bringing Cognitive capabilities.
So we're not going to call in Watson for storage,
but imagine bringing Watson to storage, right?
Think of all the metadata we have.
Not only for support but for insight.
You're going to all start doing more
Cognitive data management, and not only look at metadata,
but taking action on them.
Using Watson to look at images, so very interesting
use cases that I think only IBM can do.
>> I can just envision the day where I just voice activate,
Watson spin me up more servers.
And provision all flash
petabyte.
Done.
>> (giggling) Believe it or not,
we can do a chat, but we have that working.
>> John: (laughing)
>> We're looking for applicability of that, so.
>> And then Watson would tell me, well you can't right now.
>> You're not authorized. (laughing)
>> You got to grab the Watson for storage url.
He's been grabbing url's all day on GoDaddy.
(laughing)
>> Ed, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE.
Congratulations on taking names
and kicking butt in storage, in the strategy.
True Private Cloud, a good one, love that research,
again from Wikibomb.
>> Yup.
>> Kind of new but different, but relevant.
>> Ed: Very relevant.
>> Thanks so much.
>> Ed: (mumbles) So thank you, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
>> Okay, live coverage here
at Mandalay Bay here at IBM Interconnect 2017.
I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante.
Stay with us.
More coverage coming up after this short break.
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