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>> Welcome back to theCUBE's continuing coverage
of AWS re:Invent 2021 live from Las Vegas.
I'm Lisa Martin.
We are doing one of the most important industry events,
hybrid events this year with Amazon
and its massive ecosystem of partners,
some of which are joining me next.
We've got two live sets, two remote sets, over 100 guests
on the program, I'm going to be talking about the next decade
in Cloud innovation.
I'm pleased to welcome back Anthony Lye to the program,
the Executive Vice President and General Manager
of Public Cloud at NetApp.
Anthony good to see you.
>> Nice to see you again
thanks for... >> Nice to see you in person.
>> I know... >> It's been a couple of years.
And Amiram Shachar is here, the VP and GM of Spot by NetApp,
Amiram it's great to have you on the program, welcome.
>> Likewise, thank you.
>> So the acquisition, the Spot acquisition was during
the pandemic mid 2020, Amiram talk to me about that
why NetApp, how's it going?
Give us the lay of the land.
>> I think that's the, it's one of the greatest things
that NetApp has done, and I think it's one of
the most amazing outcomes we could have as a company.
And if you think about it in a first sight,
when you look at storage company and compute company,
what's the connection?
But the thing is that NetApp is a company
that is going through a huge transformation into Cloud.
And by doing this acquisition, it's really like signaling
where it's going.
It's going way beyond, and honestly I just wanted
to be part of it.
>> And what's the customer sentiment been
the 18 months or so, post acquisition?
>> I think NetApp has done specifically with Anthony leading
that acquisition, NetApp has done a phenomenal job
of keeping Spot as a business unit,
independent business unit.
So our customers didn't really feel
that something had happened, like the only thing
we told them is we're going to have more funding, so.
>> I'm sure they like that.
Anthony talk to us about NetApp's transformation,
transition, Spot as part of that.
And then of course, CloudCheckr which acquisition
was just announced I believe yesterday?
>> We closed on actually November 7th.
>> Lisa: Okay. >> So it's almost been
a month now since we closed, but I've been at NetApp
my gosh, it'll be five years in February.
And you know, I think that the company had a real desire
to sort of, to re-imagine itself
and to sort of to embrace the public Clouds
and to give its customers you know,
what I think it's done incredibly well
is this idea of symmetry.
That we wanted to build something on Amazon that was as good
or maybe a little bit better than on-premise.
And customers really I think appreciated,
they appreciate that sort of, that desire for us to do
those kinds of things.
Now of course, CloudCheckr was my ninth acquisition
in four years.
Just to sort of, to build on what Amiram said
I mean, CloudCheckr we acquired four Spot
and we acquired what?
Four companies in the last 12 months for Spot.
So we really believe that as a company now
we can address all of their potential opportunities,
whether it's in a legacy application,
whether it's a virtual desktop,
whether it's a Cloud native application,
or we just went and announced Ocean for Apache Spark.
So Spot now has an optimization and automation solution
for Spark on AWS which we announced, I think just yesterday.
>> Correct. >> But I'd like
to get both of your perspectives
on keeping Spot as a brand, Anthony we'll start with you
and then Amiram we'll go to you.
>> Amiram is the founder, and he was the CEO of the company
and built a fantastic company.
And we, NetApp I think has a phenomenal brand,
but a brand that's that's associated with the sort of
the traditional IT organization.
And as you note in the Cloud
the buyers are slightly different.
They're sort of the application owners, or they operate
in a sort of a construct
that most people call CloudOps or DevOps.
And we felt that Spot represented that new buyer in ways
that NetApp didn't and probably couldn't.
And so we really liked the idea of having
the structure of the big N supported by a little pink
and a little blue and a more sort of Cloud native brand.
>> And that's key, especially the dynamics in the market
that we've seen the last 22 months with the rapid changes,
the pivot to Cloud customers that weren't
that digital needing to go in that direction to survive
in the very beginning, I imagine this was
really kind of core to NetApp's strategy,
but also helping both of your customers to survive initially
and then to be able to thrive and identify some of
those key areas where they can cut costs
would be a far more efficient.
>> Okay I think you are in here, if you were born physical
you're now digital, and if you weren't born physical
you were born digital.
And you know, digital is a very effective medium accelerated
by the pandemic because as you said,
we couldn't really get close to each other and you just look
at the innovation around us here at Amazon,
it's just amazing to watch.
And we've just been really, really good partners
with Amazon now for many, many years.
And we continue to see just huge, huge opportunities.
>> Well Adam Selipsky this morning in his keynote,
one of the partners he called out was NetApp.
>> Yeah I know I mean, I'll talk a little bit later on
maybe with Yancey and I
but you know, Amazon now sells our product.
They haven't done that with anybody.
So ONTAP is now a product that Amazon sells.
>> Lisa: Okay.
>> Amazon supports, Amazon bills, Amazon runs.
So we've really, really demonstrated I think not just
to our customers, that sort of a high rate of innovation
and an opportunity to sort of accelerate their businesses,
but we've demonstrated it to Amazon themselves,
that we can operate like them.
And we can develop with them at a speed that
they are comfortable with.
That maybe a few years ago many people would have doubted
that a legacy company could operate this way.
>> Right, one of the things we know about Amazon
is the speed, but also their focus on the customer
it's laser-focused, that whole flywheel of Amazon
everything that was being announced this morning
was exciting to your point Anthony, but it's also showing
how involved the customers and the partners are
in the ecosystem and that flywheel.
Amiram talk to me from your perspective
what are some of the, from a visionary standpoint
what are some of the things that
you're looking forward to going forward with CloudCheckr,
but also knowing how deeply connected
and integrated NetApp is with a big powerhouse like AWS?
>> Yeah, so a few things about that.
I think the first thing is also my take from today,
like listening to the keynote and looking at
all the new announcements.
I think the trend is that deployment to the Cloud
is becoming easier, but operations is becoming messier.
And I think when we look at our category
and where we aspire, where we want to be
and where we're going.
So I think with the CloudCheckr acquisition.
So we're expanding into an area that we haven't been to
because there are two categories in Cloud cost,
there is optimization and there is cost management.
What we've done, what we've built, what we've,
the business we had is in the optimization space.
It's actively reducing
and optimizing resources for customers.
And there are very few companies in that category
as I can say.
But right now we're expanding into that area
of cost management, so we can meet our customers sooner
and you can see us doing it in multiple areas,
not only here, but also if we look at a customer journey
in the Cloud, it starts with bring workloads in the Cloud,
deploy them, and then secure them, and then automate them
and then optimize them.
Nobody moves to the Cloud and optimizes.
So we're typically meeting customers at the end
of their journey, we're meeting customers where they need
an optimization and they have everything already set up.
And right now with Ocean for Apache Spark,
Ocean continuous delivery, Spot security,
we're meeting customers sooner in their journey
so we can provide a much more holistic solution and platform
to customers wherever they are in their migration
to the Cloud and scaling into Cloud.
And with CloudCheckr also taking us to a whole new world
of cost management.
So, I think we're scaling and ramping
and doing all these things, and it's so amazing to realize
that we haven't unleashed even 1% of what we can do.
>> Really, so there's much more under the covers
that we're still waiting for?
>> I think the good news is you know,
to comment more on what you said,
our roadmaps are now largely being driven by customers.
And that's just so refreshing to know that
you've not only solved a problem for a particular customer,
but the customer wants you to solve more problems
and that they trust us to be that sort of organization
that can help them.
So, we're full steam ahead.
You know, we're going to continue to acquire in areas
where we think we can get acceleration.
But our acquisition of Spot was very much about
as Amiram said, bringing not just a great company
into the business, but to invest significantly in it.
And that's really proven I think to me,
as Amiram said, one of the most
if not the most successful acquisition NetApp has ever done.
>> Well congratulations, that's fantastic.
But it also sounds like from that customer focus
there's clear, strong alignment with how AWS operates,
how it values its customers from NetApp's perspective
and I imagine from Spots as well.
>> You know, if there's one thing I was really proud of
during the acquisition, is I got a phone call
from a customer, it's the largest food delivery company
in South America, and they were very worried
about this acquisition and I asked them why?
And they told me, "Because your customer service,
Spot's customer service is the best customer service
I've ever gotten, and if I'm not going to continue
to get this customer service,
I need to look how I'm finding another vendor."
And they told me that, when they want to even tell AWS like
which company they can learn from,
they're always pointing at Spot.
So, and that was a very refreshing moment for me to realize
how much also at Spot we care about our customers,
but not only as a gimmick,
as something that customer obsession,
as something that we really live.
And that was interesting to see that,
that was a concern by our customers when we got acquired.
>> Well that's proof in the pudding, because you're right
it's one thing to say, companies can always say,
"We're customer obsessed, we're customer first,
we're customer focused."
It's one thing to say it as a marketing term
it's a whole other thing to actually live it
and demonstrate it, and actually have people coming
to you saying that, "We want to model that."
I'm curious Anthony, what did you pull over from that?
What has NetApp learned from this?
>> I always tell Amiram that the idea was that
they would essentially take us over.
That you know, we sort of loved their culture,
we loved their people and their process.
And we literally changed a lot of how NetApp operated
to operate along the Spot model.
So we really did, as Amiram said earlier on,
we let them not just sort of exist, but we let them thrive.
And we encourage them to point at other areas that NetApp,
that they thought we should change to be more like them.
And it's raised the bar across everything we do now.
And so, we now have a lot of the Spot business processes,
a lot of the Spot cultures sort of seeping into
the whole of the company.
>> That's a very empathetic approach,
and that's one of the things that we've learned
in the last year and a half that's been,
it's key to leadership, it's key to anything
is that empathy.
But the ability to recognize where there are things
within an organization that can be improved
and looking at leaders like Spot to go, "Let's actually make
this really symbiotic and bi-directional."
And I imagine with CloudCheckr it's going to be
the same type of influence?
>> Well as I've always said, and I say this to the employees
and to the acquisitions that we make,
what we are acquiring is people.
You know the logo, the software, even in many ways
the customer base is really very much
I think a function of the people.
And we work incredibly hard to retain the people,
but we do so by sort of empowering them
and encouraging them to lead.
We really don't want to have the historical perspective
of acquisitions, where big company swamps
the little company.
And I think we've tried very hard to make that a part
of our acquisition strategy.
And so CloudCheckr is very early in the process
but very much, we're following those things,
even Amiram and his team are learning from them.
If they're doing something a little better than Spot is,
then that's something we'll pick up from them.
>> And that's just from a very open cultural perspective,
that's a big change for NetApp
but it's also a smart way to go,
'cause you're right it's, you're acquiring people.
And we often talk about people, process, technology.
But it's, sometimes to be honest with you
it's rare that we hear companies talking about
the people focus as being that's critical.
It's because of our people that we have successful support,
happy successful customers.
So that people focus is (inaudible).
>> You know, it's the company and culture is not something
you can manufacture.
It's something that happens
and it happens I think through people.
And it's an important thing is, if you can establish
an organization with the right kinds of people and again,
all credit goes to Amiram as the founder
and CEO of the company.
I think you sort of demanded a kind of person
and a kind of culture that set you apart
from so many other companies.
>> I think the focus on culture was,
I was very obsessed with it from very early on
in the process that even Spot investors were very,
they were questioning like, how come that you are
so much obsessed with culture so early on?
And I think it paid off big time.
There was a book I read while being a CEO
that really helped me to scale from quarter to quarter,
because I really believe that as a CEO of a startup,
every quarter you're basically applying again to your job
because you're getting a new company every quarter.
And about people, processes, technology, so at Spot it was
a little bit different through the book I read,
which is "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz,
it's people, product, revenue, PPR.
And you need to take care of the people,
and if you don't take care of the people,
so nothing else matter, like it's nothing else just...
>> Right. >> And if the people
and the product are not working well,
so the revenue are not going to come.
So revenue was always for us as something that is coming,
it's trailing after a good product and good people.
>> I love that, what a great, honest focus and vision
you guys both have congratulations
on the acquisition, CloudCheckr.
But also just the cultural alignment that you've done
that's really driven by your people and the customers,
it's really refreshing to hear that
and congrats on NetApp's continued partnership with AWS.
We look forward to having you on again next time
we can see you in person and talk more
about customer successes.
>> Thank you very much for hosting us.
>> My pleasure guys. >> Thank you.
>> For my guests, I'm Lisa Martin.
You're watching theCUBE,
the global leader in live tech coverage.
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