>> Narrator: From around the globe.
It's theCube, with digital coverage
of AWS re:Invent 2020 sponsored by Intel,
AWS and our community partners.
>> Welcome to the cubes coverage of AWS re:Invent 2020.
This is the cube virtual,
I'm Lisa Martin
and I have a new member,
new guests on the cube today.
Please welcome Gur Steif,
the president of digital business automation
at BMC Software.
Gur, it's nice to have you on the program.
>> Very nice to e-meet you,
thank you so much for having me.
>> Yes, nice to e-meet you as well.
I like your office, your background,
very nice by the way.
>> It's a real background, it's not virtual.
>> I Can tell, you got style.
So,
so much has changed this year and that's,
and that's probably the most overused statement of 2020,
right?
But as we look at, you know,
on theCube, every day we talk to businesses and vendors
and every industry every part of the world.
And we've been talking a lot
about the acceleration of digital transformation,
that one of the things
that this challenging time has brought
is that acceleration.
Talk to me about it, as the leader of that for BMC,
what are some of the things that you are seeing,
what are you hearing from customers?
It's a great question
because customers are in fact having a hard time
because there is an absolute acceleration
and the need to really innovate more
and faster than ever before.
At the same time, a lot of customers have a lot of existing,
I mean, you know, I don't like using the term legacy
because it connotes something negative
and in many cases those technologies
are what made those companies great.
So I really don't like using legacy as a negative term,
but it is something you've got to carry with.
And many of our customers,
and we have been in a journey with our customers,
have grown from the mainframe to distributed systems
to virtual systems, to kind of first-generation cloud
and now going into serverless architectures.
And by the way, that's just the infrastructure view.
At the same time, you know,
on the data aspect, they went from, you know,
traditional five systems to databases and SQL databases
and now to all kinds of like no sequel databases
and big data and streaming machine learning pipelines
and on application technologies,
we went from something very monolithic to client server
to web and mobile
and now it's all about DevOps.
And the really challenging thing for customers
for many of the companies we talk with
is that none of those things go away, right?
IT is in some cases, for some of our customers,
is the archeological science.
So we may want to create
this amazing new system of innovation
and system of engagement
that is going to be 100% cloud-based.
But some of the data and some of the fundamental elements
come from systems of record that may run
on a different environment.
So this is very complex for customers.
What we've done over the years is we're able,
we're helped customers to move for distant transition
and always manage new technologies and new capabilities
without abandoning everything else
and really managing it as one thing.
What we're really excited about this year
is that we are actually going SaaS, right?
We've announced that the Control-M is going to be available
as BMC Helix Control-M, available is SaaS,
starting December 1st.
Now, the really interesting element here
is that when we are working with customers to do this,
to really help them manage their environment better,
it's not that we're saying,
hey you're going to have to move all your estate
from an on-prem to SaaS.
Many customers actually tell us
that this complexity is not going away.
But because they're going to keep running
a lot of their on-prem systems on prem, right
a lot of their system of record.
If you're a bank and you have a mainframe,
you're not likely to just get rid of it anytime soon.
Kind of like global warming, even with global warming
glaciers take a long time to melt, right?
The mainframe is going to be here for a really long time
and systems of record are going to be on the mainframe
and on-prem for a long time.
And customers want to keep managing that
because what we do is we help them run those systems better
and they want to make sure they keep doing this
but for all the no systems of innovation,
they want to be able to do that natively in the cloud.
And a SaaS offering is perfect for that.
So we really try to help make it easy for customers,
try to help them to manage any type of system they have
from more legacy or more traditional systems
to brand new serverless technologies
and do it in a way that makes sense,
whether it's on-prem or SaaS.
>> Right, so in that hybrid multi-cloud environment
which so many businesses are living in
and as you talked about,
I like your take on legacy versus sort of existing
and sort of maybe
business building foundational technologies
that were essential at the time.
So that hybrid multi-cloud world
is just something that many companies are living in
whether it's strategically, whether it's by, you know,
organically by acquisition.
In terms of having that workload automation
across on-prem, public cloud, private cloud.
Talk to me about how this is like aligning,
I'm thinking like the DevOps folks
with the lines of business.
Because they all want to be driving
towards business outcomes.
And especially right now,
it's about how can we keep pivoting our business
as the world is changing to be successful
and to be meeting our customer's demands
where they want them to be met.
>> It's a very very good point
because the business requirement in many cases
is really around agility.
How can we move faster?
And all those things we talked about,
whether it's going into cloud or going into DevOps,
or going into machine learning,
it's about agility.
It's agility on infrastructure
or agility on the application architecture
or agility on how we drive value out of data.
So the business wants to move fast.
At the same time, we have the requirement for stability,
reliability, governance.
Many industries are very, very regulated.
If you're in the financial services industry,
you spend a tremendous amount of time
on dealing with regulation and compliance.
So one of the things that we really try to do
to help customers accelerate innovation
is really help them incorporate everything that we do
into the DevOps model,
right?
But do it in a smart way
so that they can create automation rules,
they can create everything that has to do with application,
using code, right?
It's jobs as code.
So all the flow, all the definitions, all,
everything that we do is all managed as code
and the developers can store it as part of their,
use DevOps tool chain.
But there's an element there that allows
the more traditional elements of the it organization
to drive standards, to drive compliance, to drive policies
to drive rules,
that it has to be validated against
before it goes into production.
But what that does is it allows, it makes the developer,
it makes it easier for a developer to really make sure that,
as soon as they build the application,
it is going to be compliant with all those policies.
So it's not like they do all of that and roll it on,
they do all these beautiful DevOps in tests
and when it needs to go into production,
it's close to a screeching halt
because ops need to look at it and goes,
wow, no, you need to change this, this, this, this, this
and that, right?
They're able to make sure it's all compliant
from the get-go, which is really really valuable
and allow companies
to really accelerate their transformation,
which is what everybody wants to do
to drive the business outcomes.
>> Exactly.
We're looking for that, that catalyst
or those catalysts that really facilitate businesses
not just surviving today
but really becoming the winners of tomorrow.
So talk to me Gur, about the BMC and AWS,
we talked about sort of this multi-cloud environment,
the move with Control-M into SAS,
what are you guys doing with AWS?
So when we decided to move into SaaS,
we said, we have to host our solution center.
And it's important that we support multiple clouds before,
like you could use Control-M on prem
and use it to drive workloads that run in AWS
or Azure or GCP, or you name it
or private clouds for that matter
all the way down to the mainframe.
But when we were saying,
we're going to roll Control-M out in SaaS,
we said, we have to host it somewhere
and we have to have a partner that's going to help us.
I have an amazing team of developers
that are the best, bar none in writing on-prem code.
And they are going to be trading SaaS code
for the first time.
And we just found it that Amazon AWS
with their SaaS factory, with the network of partners,
with the tools was just a really really valuable way
for us to accelerate that process.
AWS has distinct that they call SaaS Factory
which really helped us think through
how we code some things,
how to properly think about security,
how to properly think about availability zones,
how to properly think about so many things
that are absolutely critical
when you go into the SaaS world.
So it really helped us accelerate the process.
They also have a great network of partners
that we're able to leverage
and truly been a great partnership.
>> So Control-M, Helix Control-M hosted on AWS.
Talk to me about a customer situation.
Now, for example, BMC customer, AWS environment
needing to really drive their business forward,
get that control and that visibility
across their entire environment.
How do you all work together, customer BMC, AWS?
>> Great question.
If they're an existing BMC customer,
then they could simply talk to us, We can help them
and we can introduce AWS where it's relevant
or where they have some questions
about how to work with the cloud.
And many of our customers
have a lot of experience with us in the on-prem world
and they're choosing AWS as their cloud partner
and so that's just a natural evolution
and that's a super easy situation.
There are cases where we actually work with AWS
and AWS, as they work with customers
to digitally transformed their environment, go and say,
you could actually benefit from this.
So there've been cases where we've actually worked
together with AWS on some of those customer situations.
Now we are in early days, right,
the product is going to go GA December 1st.
So right now we have about a dozen customers
in what we call the early access program
that we have not yet rolled this
as generally available to the general public
but the early integration,
early work that we've done with AWS,
not just on the technical side but across the ecosystem
has been great.
>> So go to market direct, go to market also through AWS.
There's customers in that early access program,
some of the things I'm thinking about
when you're talking about what you guys are enabling
is operational efficiencies, cost efficiencies.
>> Absolutely.
>> Anything that you can give us from one of those customers
that's in early access,
big business outcomes that they're achieving?
>> I think the most fundamental aha moment for me,
talking to the early access customers was,
when we're thinking on-prem, we're thinking,
okay, you know customer buys something,
and we don't really cheap CDs, right, they download it.
But you're thinking of time to value
that's measured the days, sometimes weeks.
And when we did the first proof of value
with some of the early access customers,
they didn't want to get
into all the technical capabilities of the product at first,
but the fact that they were able
from the moment they got the welcome to BMC Control-M email,
to the point that they were able to actually run jobs
and drive value from the product in less than 10 minutes.
That was eye opening for them and frankly,
eye opening for me because I realized
that the way you think about is different.
because the fact that you can start to driving value
within 10 minutes of getting your,
welcome to BMC helix Control-M email, is just phenomenal.
It's something that nobody could really accomplish
with an on-prem environment.
>> We've been talking about time to value
for a long, long, long time.
But I think in the context of today's world it's different
'cause as we saw when this pandemic first started,
there was massive pivot.
Businesses are pivoting and pivoting and pivoting.
It's not just the one time,
but it was really in the beginning
I think about keeping the lights on and survival.
Now it's as we get into this,
and as we expect certain parts of this to be permanent
in terms of how we work is changing,
how we deliver services to customers that consumer demand
is there in the consumer space,
it's there in the it world as well.
But like give me some nuggets of,
what's of value to say like a higher education,
like a university for example,
is it being able to get students online faster?
I'm just kind of looking for that silver nugget
of value in a contextual setting.
>> Let me give you an example from, actually let's,
I'm going to pick an example from a really old industry,
like a company that's been around
for over a hundred years, right?
So they've been around since before the mainframe, right?
They build farming equipment, they build tractors,
they build trucks.
And every one of those has hundreds and thousands of sensors
that collect data.
So if you think about it now,
this is a company that's been around
for over a hundred years
and never thought of itself as a technology company,
but now they collect all this sensor data,
they aggregate it, they try to make sense out of it.
And then not only do they try to figure out,
hey, you're going to have,
one of your gaskets in the engine's going to to blow.
They also kind of integrate that
to some of the more legacy applications
where they store customer data and parts information
and dealer networks.
So they can send the owner or the operator of the vehicle,
an email saying, we can tell
that your gasket is going to blow in the coming week,
here are three dealers in your area
that have that part on hand
and are certified to make that repair,
Would you like us to schedule an appointment?
And they were able to reduce unplanned vehicle downtime
by 40%.
Now think of this, what this really means
is that revenue producing assets are working more,
more efficiently.
Now, whether this is farm equipment, or,
again, I'm deliberately picking old line industries
to kind of make the point.
So whether it's it's farming equipment
or oil pipelines and oil Wells, right
that if you have your revenue producing assets
running at the higher uptime,
that is a business outcome that everybody loves.
>> Absolutely.
I always loved those stories of traditional businesses
that you talked about,
who've really embraced digital transformation,
done it in a smart way.
But last question for you, that's a cultural shift.
I'd love to just get your perspectives
on the conversations that you're having with customers now,
as you work with companies like that,
like the traditional historical businesses,
how quickly are they able to adapt their cultures
and align those IT and business folks
so that they don't get you swept
by a newer fresher company born in the cloud
that maybe has more agility
and more willingness to take risks.
>> One of our core beliefs of BMC
is that companies are evolving
into what we call the autonomous digital enterprise.
That's a big transformation that the companies go through.
And there are several tenants then on what it takes
to really become an autonomous digital enterprise
and you don't necessarily make progress
on all of them at the same time.
But one of those, as an example is enterprise DevOps, right?
How do you read a drive agility,
not just in your DevOps development processes
but across how you think about it as an enterprise, right?
Part of it is the data driven business, right?
So the example we just gave, is how you really use data
and turn it into insight
and actually drive actionability,
based on what you can really get from data.
Which if you think about it makes so much sense,
but it's not that easy to do and it requires you
to also have these enterprise DevOps mindset
as you innovate.
There's many things, right?
One of those things is automation everywhere, right?
But at the end of the day we talk about automation.
The more you automate,
the more you could actually free up valuable resources
to go do things that are high value.
So there's plenty of elements to it but we believe,
it's one of our core fundamental beliefs of BMC
that enterprises are evolving and will continue to evolve
to become autonomous digital enterprises.
They will have to be digital,
they will have to rely on technology
to really survive and thrive in the decades to come.
And we just want to be we with AWS, with BMC Control-M,
Helix Control-M,
just want to help them succeed in that mission.
>> As a facilitator at that autonomous digital enterprise,
well, Gur, it's been just a pleasure
to have you on the program.
Thanks for joining me today
and sharing with us what BMC and AWS are doing together
and how you're helping those organizations
become the autonomous digital enterprise.
We appreciate your time.
>> Thank you so much.
For Gur Steif, I'm Lisa Martin
and you're watching theCUBE.
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