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>> Hey everybody.
Welcome back to theCUBE.
We are live in Las Vegas at Caesar's Forum,
Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante,
covering Snowflake Summit 22,
this is day one action packed,
it kind of feels like we were shot out of a cannon,
which is great.
We love that at theCUBE.
Our next guest from Slalom joins us, Hilary Feier
the GM of Data and Analytics.
Hilary, it's great to have you on the program.
>> It's great to be here,
so excited to be here.
>> Isn't it great to be back in person?
>> It is, it's amazing,
it's like filling my cup
just to be back with people again.
>> I felt the same.
And you could tell that on stage during the keynote
which was not only standing room only,
but there was an
overflow room. >> I was in the overflow room.
>> Lisa: Were you? >> I have to admit it.
We had a breakfast meeting and we got there right on time
and we ended up in overflow,
but it was great.
We, there was just great energy
and it was exciting to see all the progress
that's coming down the pipe.
>> Tremendous progress,
tremendous innovation,
a lot of evolution since we last saw Snowflake in person,
which was 2019.
Talk to us from Slalom's partnership perspective
how is data evolving,
the use of data evolving,
what are you hearing from the front lines of the customer?
>> From the front lines of the customer,
we're seeing a lot of customers go to the cloud,
and Snowflake's at the forefront of that evolution.
We're seeing them take advantage of this separation
of compute and storage
to be able to scale to different levels
and concurrency at different levels and collaborate.
And we always say, what we're actually seeing them unlock
is this modern culture of data,
where people and organizations can fully take advantage
at all different levels of this accessible
but governed data.
And I think Snowflake makes that a reality.
>> So we go to a lot of events of course,
and you hear both sides of the story
when you talk to a company like Snowflake,
or one of the hyperscalers, like yeah,
cloud makes ton of sense.
When you talk to some of the more established companies,
call 'em legacy companies,
everybody's like oh no,
people are repatriating,
they're moving back on-prem,
or they can't move data,
or they won't move data in the cloud.
The truth is probably someplace in the middle.
But when you look at the numbers
cloud is growing,
substantially faster.
What are you seeing with customers when,
with regard to modernization,
the role of cloud
and the role of Snowflake?
>> I think they're flocking to the cloud,
I think COVID had people flock there right.
You realize the agility it provides for you,
it is unparalleled.
And to some extent,
I'd had conversations with customers years ago
that they were like,
hey I know security,
I do it better than anybody.
And I go,
honestly AWS,
Google, like the the hyper cloud providers,
they know security,
and Snowflake doing that data layer across all of 'em.
They do security at a whole different level
than any data center or any IT group
that I've seen out there.
>> Have you, we've seen the secure,
the threat landscape changed dramatically
in the last couple of years
where it's now no longer,
are we going to get hit, it's when.
>> Right.
>> How have you seen the security conversation elevate
when you're talking with customers
in terms of up the executive stack?
Is that now something that it,
since we? >> It's a top priority,
it's a board priority.
I can tell you last year I actually spent time internally
helping implement Snowflake for us at Slalom,
and it's our president's top priority was security.
And that was one of the reasons honestly
that we went that way,
we were a little out of date,
we needed to modernize,
we needed to migrate,
and we wanted to practice what we preach with our customers.
So we did a little bit of both,
and we did more than technology.
We did a lot of process change,
a lot of people up leveling,
'cause we really feel like
technology's only a piece of the puzzle.
You have to bring the people along for the journey
in order to make that a reality.
>> So what was the business driver to make that change?
>> I think it was honestly to empower more people,
and then we also had the threat of
systems that were falling over
and just not meeting the needs of the business.
We were pretty data driven
and the systems weren't keeping up.
>> And they were on-prem systems,
they were hosted in the cloud? >> They were kind of on-prem,
kind of hosted in the cloud.
They were SQL1, EC2 instances,
but we just,
we didn't,
we weren't able to scale,
literally was falling over.
Like we have a day a week
where all of the reporting comes out
because we're time driven,
and it would fall over, literally.
>> Dave: So you had a halfway house,
sort of? >> Yeah.
>> Okay, and then you moved much of it,
most of it,
all of it,
into Snowflake? >> All of it.
>> All of it into Snowflake?
>> All of it. >> Dave: And.
>> And then some. >> Dave: Okay.
>> Because we had certain systems that we were afraid,
like Workday, right.
All the PII,
all the privacy data.
We were afraid to bring that into our SQL server before,
but we were able to bring that into Snowflake now
and it unlocks in a governed,
we have security,
in very compliant ways,
we have a lot of interesting things
that we've done in this past year.
To both empower more people,
but do it in a governed and secured way.
>> And how long did that migration take?
>> I'd say it took about a year,
and it was. >> Dave: Pretty fast.
>> And it was a tough year,
honestly. >> Yeah they're ugly,
migrations.
>> We do it with internal consultants
and some of them in the beginning of COVID,
we were looked at as an opportunity.
Let's get them,
let's do it internally.
And then we got super busy,
the market just took off
and then we were begging for resources.
We were like, okay where can we find somebody
to help us with this? >> Cobblers kids.
>> Yeah, we were the cobblers kids.
But we got it done.
>> And as a partner drinking the Snowflake champagne.
Talk to me about the ability to influence
the technology,
the direction, the roadmap.
We've heard so much innovation announced this morning alone.
Do you have that capability as a Snowflake partner?
>> Yeah, for sure.
So I feel like we're always on the forefront.
We're doing these strategy projects with our clients,
and so we want to keep our ears
to what's going on in the innovation.
We look at a lot of the other partners that are here.
There's a whole ecosystem that's grown up around Snowflake
and it's amazing to see the advancements that are happening
and the cloud allows you to leapfrog just so quickly
the advancements.
And, you know we talked about this before we started
that you know, I've been in this data space for 30 years
and it's changed a lot,
the progression,
the real time data,
what you can do,
the separation of compute and storage.
It's amazing what you can do.
And yet some of the same problems are pervasive.
I have too much data,
not enough information.
And so we're seeing the advent of more governance
and catalogs,
and you know that whole semantic layer
is coming into play.
>> Yeah, the problem is data is plentiful,
insights aren't,
and then monetizing data is really, really hard.
I, what's your take on Snowflake's ability
to change that dynamic?
>> I think they're making it a lot easier.
I mean, some of the advancements
they're coming out with,
and more and more companies are looking to monetize
and we're doing that in partnership
with some companies like Meredith Corporation.
They're a, I don't know if you know who they are?
But they're like allrecipes.com.
If you go there,
they collect a lot of that data.
We have a partnership together
where we're looking,
and they're on Snowflake
and we're doing a joint data monetization
offering out to customers.
>> Snowflake and Slalom have over 200 joint customers.
Slalom has won Partner of the Year now, five times.
Congratulations by that.
>> Hilary: Thank you.
>> What is the secret,
what's the secret sauce?
What does the future of the partnership look like
given the flywheel that is Snowflake,
that is incredibly fast.
>> Yeah, I think the secret sauce to me is
we started early,
and we liked the product,
but we had a lot of core values in common.
If you look you know,
the customer obsession,
do the right thing always,
just get it done, right.
Like, you know really very, very similar.
And so that translates out in the field
and that's why we team so well together.
But at the end of the day our secret sauce is
we know the product.
We invested really early in getting skilled up on Snowflake,
and we did,
we were the first partner to do Train the Trainer,
and so we've literally certified
hundreds of folks on the product,
and we stay on the leading and bleeding edge.
And we're now working with their professional services arm
to really take a joint offering
to the market around,
helping organizations,
not just migrate but really modernize
because that's when you truly take advantage of the cloud.
And some people were quick to migrate
and they're not seeing those advantages
and we want to make sure we're unlocking all the advantages
of actually modernizing.
>> What do you think last question is we are almost
out of time here.
What do you think in the 30 years
you said you've been in this business,
you talked about the modern culture of data.
What does it take for a legacy organization
to pivot, to be able to pivot,
to be able to adopt a modern culture of data,
if they're so used to old school processes?
>> I think it's having someone with a bold vision at the top.
That's willing to say,
hey, we want to go to the new frontier,
and then sticking to the guns
and taking a holistic approach.
Don't just put in technology,
don't just change a process,
But think about it holistically,
we have a whole framework
where we look at five different dimensions,
and we help our customers go through
and maybe you don't want to get to,
the most mature stage across all five,
but figure out where you want to get to
and then start actually slogging it out
and going step by step to get it done.
>> And it's all about people, process and technology.
Those three together are absolutely critical.
>> It sure is.
>> Excellent, Hilary, thank you for joining Dave and me
on theCUBE talking about the Slalom partnership.
What you're doing with Snowflake
and on top of Snowflake we appreciate your time
and your insights.
>> Thank you so much,
really appreciate it. >> Dave: Thanks Hilary.
>> For our guest and Dave Vellante,
I am Lisa Martin.
You're watching theCUBE's live coverage
from Snowflake Summit 22,
live from Las Vegas.
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