(upbeat music)
>> Narrator: Live from San Francisco celebrating
10 years of high-tech coverage,
it's theCUBE covering VMworld 2019.
Brought to you by VMware
and its Ecosystem partners.
>> Welcome back, we're here at VMworld 2019.
You're watching theCUBE.
It's our tenth year of coverage at the event.
I'm Stu Miniman.
My co-host this afternoon is Justin Warren.
I'm happy to welcome back to the program, Bob Ghaffari,
who's the General Manager of the Enterprise
and Cloud Networking Division at Intel.
Bob, welcome back.
>> Great, great to be here, thank you.
>> So, it's interesting.
I think back, last year,
it felt like every single show that I went to,
there was an Intel executive up on the stage.
We talked about the tick tock of the industry
is something that drove things.
So, last year, a lot going on.
Haven't seen Intel quite as much,
but we know that means that
you and your team aren't really busy.
Lot of things going on here at VMworld.
Why don't you give us the update since last we spoke?
>> Well, I think we have to just go back
a little bit in terms of how Intel has been
involved in terms of really driving
just this whole network transformations.
I want to say it started about a decade ago
when we were really focused on trying
to go drive a lot of the capabilities
onto more of a standard architecture.
In the past, people were encumbered by
challenging architectures using proprietary
kind of network processors.
We were able to bring this together,
Intel architecture.
We open sourced DPDK which is really
this fast packet processing library
that we basically enabled the industry on.
And with that, there's basically been this,
I want to say, this revolution in terms
of how networking has come together.
So what we've seen since last year is how NSX,
VMware NSX itself, has really grown up
and be able to sort of get to these
newer interesting usage models.
And so, for us, what really gets us excited
is being really involved with enabling
hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, from a network perspective
and that's just what really gets me out of bed everyday.
>> Yeah, and SDN is, I think, gone from early days
where it was all a bit scary and new and people
weren't quite sure that they wanted to have that,
whereas now, SDN is a thing.
People are quite happy and comfortable to use it.
It's now a very accepted way of doing networking.
What have you noticed about that change?
Where people have gone, well actually it's
accepted now, what is that enabling
customers to do with SDN?
>> I think what SDN really does, it gives
a lot of the enterprise customers,
and cloud customers, and a lot of others,
really the flexibility to be able to do
what you really need to do much better.
So if you can imagine, the first stage we had
to go get a lot of the functions virtualized.
So we did that over the last 10 years,
getting the functions virtualized,
getting them optimized,
and making sure that the performance is there
as a virtual function.
The next step here is really trying to make sure that
we can enable customers
to be able to do what they need to
and their microservices and be able to do this
in a microsegmented kind of view.
Also being in a scenario where you don't
have to trombone the traffic off to be
either inspected or load balanced
and bring in that capability, in a way,
in a distributed fashion to where
the workloads need to happen.
>> You mentioned microsegmentation there.
That's something which has been spoken about,
again, for quite awhile.
What's the state of play with microsegmentation?
Because some customers have been trying to use it
and found it a little bit tricky,
and so we're seeing lots of vendors who
come in and say we'll help you manage that.
What's the state of play with microsegmentation
from your perspective?
>> I would say the way I would categorize it
is microsegmentation is definitely become a
very important usage model in terms of
how to really contain policies
within certain segments.
One, you're able to sort of get to a better way
of managing your environments and you're also
getting to a better way of containing
any kind of threats.
So the fact that you can somehow segment off areas,
and if you basically get some kind of attack,
or some kind of exploit,
it won't go out of that segmented area.
To some extent, it simplifies how you look
at your environment, but you want to be able
to do it in a fashion that helps, ultimately,
the enterprises manage what they got on their environments.
>> Bob, one of the things that really struck me last year
was the messaging that VMware had around networking,
specifically around multi-cloud.
It really hearkened back to what I had heard
from Nicira pre-acquisition.
And of course now, VMware extending that
with the VMware Cloud.
In all of AWS, the partnerships,
they've also extended with Azure, with Google.
And on-premises with Dell EMC and others.
A big piece of that message is we're going to be able
to have the same stack on both sides.
Can you explain where does Intel fit in there?
How does Intel's networking multi-cloud story
dovetail with what we're hearing from VMware?
>> Right. So I think the first thing is that
Intel has been very involved in terms of
being into any on-prem, or public clouds.
We get really involved there.
What we really try to do, and my team does,
is really focusing on the networking aspects.
So for us, it's to not only make sure that
if you're running something on-prem,
you get the best experience on-prem,
but also the consistency of having a lot of
the key instruction sets and any cloud,
and to be able to manage that holistically,
especially when you're looking at
a hybrid cloud environment,
where you're basically trying to communicate
between a certain cloud,
it could be on-prem,
to another cloud that might be somewhere else.
Having the consistent way of managing
through encrypted tunnels,
and making sure you're getting
the kind of performance that you need
to be able to go address that.
I think these are the kind of things
that we really focus on.
And I think that, for us,
it's not only really bringing this out
and improving our instruction set architectures.
So most recently what we did is
we launched our second generation Xeon
scalable processors that really came out in April.
For us, that really takes it to that next level.
We get some really interesting new instruction sets,
things like AVX-512.
We get also more of inference,
analytic inference capabilities
with things like DL Boost.
That really brings things together
so you can be more effective and efficient
in terms of how you look at your workloads,
and what you need to do with them,
making sure they're secure.
But also giving you the insights that you need
to be able to make the kind of decisions you want
from an enterprise perspective.
>> Stuart, it always amuses me
how much Intel is involved in all of this cloud stuff.
We don't care about hardware anymore.
It all terribly extracted, and yet--
>> Come on, Justin, there is no cloud,
>> Oh, I know. >> it's just someone else's
computer and there's a reasonable chance
there's an Intel component or two in there, right?
>> There's an Intel inside.
The fact that Intel comes out
and is continuing to talk to customers
and coming to these kinds of events,
and showing that it's still relevant.
And that the technology that you're creating,
exactly how that ties into what is happening
in cloud, and in networking.
I think it's an amazing credit to Intel's ability to adapt.
>> It's definitely been very exciting.
Not only have we really been focused on
how do we really expand our processor franchise,
really getting the key capabilities we need,
so anytime, anywhere, you're doing any kind of compute,
we want to make sure we're doing the best
for our customers as possible.
But, in addition to that,
what we've really done is we've been able to
round out our platform capabilities
from a solution perspective to really bring out
not only what has historically been
a very strong franchise for us,
with what we call our foundational NICs,
or network interface cards.
But we've been able to expand that
to be able to bring better capabilities
no matter what you're trying to do.
So let's say, for example,
you are a customer that wants to be able
to do something unique,
and you want to be able to accelerate
your own specific networking functions,
or virtual switches.
Well, we have the ability to do that.
So with our Intel FPGA M3000 card, as an example,
you get that capability to be able to
expand what you would traditionally do
from a platform-level perspective.
>> I want to talk about the Edge, but before we go there,
there's a topic that's hot conversation here.
But one I've been talking to Intel for a lot of years.
Containerization in general,
and Kubernetes more specifically.
Where does that fit into your group?
I mentioned it just 'cause the last time
Intel Developer Forum happened,
a friend of mine gave a presentation,
who was working for Intel.
Just talking about how much was going on in that space.
I made a comment back there a few years ago.
We just spent over a decade fixing all the networking
and storage issues with virtualization.
Aren't we going to have to do that again
in containerization?
Of course, we know we are having to solve
some of those things again.
So--
>> You know, for us, as you guys probably know,
Intel's been really involved.
One of the biggest things that sometimes is
kept as a secret is that we're probably
one of the bigger employers of software engineers.
So Intel was really, really involved.
We have a lot of people that started off
with open source Linux and being involved there.
Of course, containers is sort of a evolution to that.
For us, really trying to be involved
and making sure that we can bring the capabilities
as needed from our instruction set architectures,
to be able to do containers, Kubernetes,
and being able to do this efficiently and effectively,
is definitely key to what we want to get done.
>> All right, so that was the setup I wanted
for Edge computing.
Because in a lot of these we have different architectures
we're going to doing when we're getting to the Edge.
Starting to hear it a little bit at this show,
but it's an overall piece of that multi-cloud architecture
that we're starting to build out.
Where's your play?
>> For us, the way we look at it is,
we think it starts, obviously, with the network.
So when you are really trying to do things,
oftentimes the Edge is the closest to where
the data's being realized.
So for us, making sure that we have
the right kind of platform-level capabilities,
that can take this data and then,
you have to do something with this data.
So there's a compute aspect to it.
Then you have to be able to
really ship it somewhere else, right?
So it's basically going to be to another cloud.
It might be to another microservice somewhere else.
So for us, what really sets the foundation
is having a scalable set of platforms,
sort of this thick to thin kind of concept,
that says depending on what you're trying to do
you need to have something that can go,
and mold into that.
So for us, having a scalable platform
that can go from our bigger Xeons
down to an atom processor is really important.
Then also what we've been doing is working with Ecosystem,
to make sure that the network functions,
and software-defined WAN, that we think
sets the foundation to how you want to go
and live in this multi-cloud world.
But starting off with the Edge,
we want to make sure that that is really
effective, efficient.
We can basically provide this in a very
efficient capability,
'cause there's some areas where this
is going to be very price-sensitive.
So we think we have this awesome capability here
with our atom processors.
In fact, yesterday it was really interesting.
We had Tom Burns and Tom Gillis
basically get on this stage and talk about
how Dell and VMware were collaborating on this
and this basically revolves around
platforms that are based on the atom processor
and that can scale up to our Zeon D processor
then above that.
So it depends on what you're trying to do.
We've been working with our partners to make sure that
these functions that start off with network
are optimized and you can do as much compute
or as little compute as you want on that Edge.
>> So of the customers who are starting to use Edge,
because it's kind of new, but it's also kind of not.
It's been around for awhile, we just
used to call it other things, like ROBO.
For the customers who are using Edge at the moment,
what's the most surprising thing
that you've seen them do with your technology?
>> You know, what is interesting is
we sometimes get surprised by this ourselves.
So one of the things that some customers say,
we really need low cost,
'cause all we really care about is just
low-level, we want to be able to deploy
this into a cafe, and we don't think
you're going to be able to hit the price points,
because they automatically think that
all Intel does is big Xeons.
We do a great job with that,
but what is really interesting is that
with our add-on processors,
we get to these very interesting solutions
that are cost-effective,
and yet gives you the scalability
of what you might want to do.
For example, we've seen customers that say,
yeah, we want to start off with this,
and networking is it,
but you know what, we have this plan,
and this plan is like this may be is,
say, a 90-day plan
or it could be up to a two-year plan
in terms how they want to bring
more capabilities at that branch.
They want to be able to do more,
they want to be able to compute more,
they want to make decisions more.
They want to be able to give their customers
at that place a much better experience.
We think we have a really good position here
with our platforms.
Giving you this mix-and-match capability,
but easily be able to scale up
and do what our customers want.
>> Okay.
>> Bob, when I think about this space in general,
we haven't talk about 5G yet.
5G, Wifi 6, expected to have a significant
impact on networking.
We were talking a little bit about Edge,
it's going to play into that environment.
What are you hearing from your customers?
How much is that involved with the activities
you're working through?
>> You know, it's definitely really interesting.
5G is definitely getting a lot of hype.
We are very, very involved.
We've been working on this for awhile.
Intel is on the forefront of enabling 5G,
especially as it relates to network infrastructure,
one of the key focus areas for us.
So the way we look at this on the Edge,
is that a lot of enterprises,
some of them are going to be leading.
Especially in cases where latency is really important.
You want to be able to make decisions rather quickly.
You want to be able to process it right there.
5G is going to be one of these interesting
technologies that starts,
and we're already starting to see it,
enable these newer use cases.
So we're definitely really excited about that.
We're already starting to see this in-stadium
experience being enabled by 5G,
what we're doing on the Edge.
There's experiences like that,
that we really get excited when we're part of.
We're really able to provide this model
of enabling these new usage models.
For us, the connectivity aspects, 5G is important.
Of course, we're going to see a lot of workloads
use 4G as basically a predominant option.
Of course, the standard wired connectivity
of IP, MPLS, and other things.
>> All right.
>> Bob, I want to you the final word.
Obviously, Intel, long partnership as we know,
current CEO Pat Gelsinger spent a good part
of his early part of his career at Intel.
Give us the takeaway, Intel, VMware,
from VMworld 2019.
>> We've had a long partnership here
between Intel and VMware.
We definitely value that partnership.
For us, it started off with virtualized servers
a while back.
Now we've been working on networking.
So for us, the partnership has been incredible.
We continue to be able to work together.
Of course, we continue to see challenges
as we go into hybrid cloud, multi-cloud.
We are very excited in terms of
how we can take this to the next level.
We're very happy to be great partners with them.
>> All right, well, Bob Ghaffarri.
Thank you for giving us the Intel networking update.
We go up the stack, down the stack,
multi-cloud, all out the Edge, IOT
and all the applications.
For Justin Warren, I'm Stu Miniman,
we'll be back for our continuing coverage
of Vmworld 2019.
Thanks for watching theCUBE.
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