[Narrator] Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE.
Covering Vmworld 2018.
Brought to you by VMware, and its ecosystem Partners.
>> Welcome back to theCUBE.
We are live at Vmworld 2018, Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
I'm Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante, hey Dave.
>> Hey Lisa, how's it going?
>> Great, this morning started off with tremendous amount
of momentum from Pat Gelsinger,
including a new tattoo that he debuted.
20th anniversary of VMware, 20th anniversary
of the Rackspace, DellEMC partnership,
please welcome to theCUBE a veteran and alumni,
Peter Fitzgibbon, the VP and GM
of the VMware practice at Rackspace.
Peter it's great to have you back.
>> It's great to be back here at Vmworld.
>> And we're excited to welcome David Trigg
to theCUBE, the Global Vice President of Market Development
and Service Providers from DellEMC, welcome.
>> Thank you, glad to but be here.
So happy 20th anniversary to Rackspace and DellEMC.
>> Thank you.
>> Longstanding partnership, what's going on?
A lot of momentum at Dell Tech World just,
what, four months ago?
What's some of the momentum that you guys have seen
in your joint customer space this summer?
>> Yeah, so at Dell Technologies World we launched
our Rackspace private cloud, R by VMware,
our Everywhere edition, as we're referring to it,
which is extending Rackspace private clouds
into customer data centers and colos.
And since that announcement back at Dell Technologies World,
we've seen fantastic adoption
from both our existing installed base that's interested,
and knows the Rackspace brand, and our fanatical experience,
as well as new customers that know now
we can service them in new locations.
>> And then David, for you, Dell Technologies World
was all about IT transformation, digital transformation,
security transformation, and making it real.
How is DellEMC working with Rackspace
to help customers make these transformations
a successful reality?
>> Yeah, well one of the fist things, in my opinion,
to highlight is the length of time
that we have worked together,
and through that length of time, Rackspace has made
incredible investments in their skill set,
their ability to manage infrastructure,
you know, there's a lot of a deep knowledge there,
so customers can feel very confident
about the ability to provide the services.
And as customers go through transformation,
customers have more choices now, and more things,
as we talk about the edge, and the core, and the cloud,
they have to manage infrastructure in more places
than they've ever had to manage before.
So we're very proud of the relationship that we've had,
the investments that they've made,
because our customers are needing help in managing through,
not only the transformations, but all of the choices
that they have to make on where's the best place
to put an application?
Where's the best place to put a workload, and how do they
manage the migrations and the modernization?
So yeah, it plays very, very close
into our transformation message,
and quite frankly, we couldn't do it
without partners like Rackspace.
>> Let's talk a little bit more about that,
because you're talking about more
than just a storage partnership, right?
Is that, >> Oh, yeah.
>> A lot more to its, it's much more comprehensive,
>> Absolutely.
>> Sets of integration, practices, and areas of expertise,
so let's double click on that a little bit.
>> Yeah, there's a lot of skill sets that are required
to even just do assessments, where I'm really
understanding where do the applications go.
Really then making sure that they understand,
how do you support the infrastructure?
How do you monitor the infrastructure
and how do you make sure that it's running a lot?
And again, Rackspace has made a lot of investments,
is one of the best in the world
in being able to do a lot of this.
>> Let's talk a little bit more about that.
Why Rackspace?
>> Well, we are offering customers
strategic flexibility, really.
Whether they want to deploy in a Rackspace data center,
a customer data center, get access to our deep expertise,
not just a DellEMC, but our 150 plus VMware certified
experts that our customers can now tap into,
because this world gets more and more complex.
And you saw the evening announcements this morning.
It was like, how do our customers get the best value
from those technologies, and not simply have shelf ware?
Tap into Rackspace, with our partnerships
with DellEMC and VMware to get the real value
out of that expensive technology.
>> So from a customer's standpoint,
help us understand what's really going on.
We asked the question a lot this week,
is things like the AWS VMware partnership,
is it a one-way trip to the cloud,
or is it boom for the data center?
And a lot of people are saying the latter.
What are customers saying?
What do they really want to do?
>> Listen, customers are going to be living their data center
for a long time yet to come.
We've got legacy applications, they've got mainframes,
we got client server applications,
and then we have direct cloud-native applications,
but there's a slew of applications in the middle
where customers are kind of unsure about where to go,
and they lean on a trusted partner like Rackspace,
who really is cloud agnostic to help them figure out
should they go public cloud?
Should they be private cloud?
Or are they in a hybrid cloud journey like everybody is on?
So we want to be the Switzerland,
where we can help people determine where they should go,
and really offer unbiased expertise.
>> So you guys announced,
kind of along the lines of being Switzerland,
at Dell Technologies World,
Rackspace Private Cloud Everywhere,
powered by VMware, Everywhere.
I know you've got, what,
five data centers in five continents.
Talk about that Everywhere.
How does it help customers to embrace
the reality of multi-cloud, and to actually do so
in a way that allows them to understand,
working with you guys, where different applications
should be placed at different times in the year?
>> Yeah so, Everywhere is a natural evolution
of what we've offered in our own data centers over time.
So now deploying out in customer data centers and colos,
well later this year, we hope to launch
a formal VMware on AWS software as well.
So Everywhere constitutes three parts, really,
Rackspace data centers, customer data centers,
to get as close to their data as needs be,
and VMware on AWS as our product matures,
as you saw from a number of announcements this morning.
>> And to add on to John's question
about the promise of the cloud,
I think the original promise, and maybe the threat
of the cloud was everything was going at the cloud.
Well as we're learning through IoT and other new,
emerging trends, that's not realistic.
Customers really have to think about the edge,
their own data center, because their own
data centers are not going away.
They have to think about the SLAs that they're providing
to their end users, to their employees,
and that's where you have to place the application,
the workload in the right place
to enable the best customer experience
for their customers and their employees.
And that's were a company like Rackspace,
that can really get to the edge, the core, the cloud,
by managing that infrastructure regardless.
Obviously, the investments that VMware's making
to help enable that as well, and being supported
by a lot of the DellEMC stuff.
It's an exciting time, I think.
>> I Want to follow up on that, because Peter,
off camera said cloud migration
doesn't mean leaving your data center.
>> Absolutely.
>> This Gartner analyst came out,
not that recently, but I think it was last year,
and said that 80% of data centers will shut down by 2025,
so that caused a lot of, right?
Both eye rolling and no way, and et cetera.
The Wikibon crew, which is affiliated with theCUBE,
a sister company, sister division,
just came out with a report that said true private cloud
is going to be a $32 billion market this year.
So that means on-prem cloud.
>> Yep.
>> So you have all these countervailing messages going on.
Then you see, of course, the epitome
of Andy Jassy up on stage today
with Pat Gelsinger talking about hybrid cloud.
What do you guys make of all of this?
What's really happening and going to happen?
>> I think customer data centers are going to live
for some time to come, as people figure out
where should the workload actually go?
What can they do with that specific workload?
Can they refactor it and rebuild it and go cloud-native?
Great.
Can they move to a hosted private cloud model
with Rackspace rolling racks into a customer data center?
Or is it a legacy application that really needs
to be kept and maintained over time
until the next disruption happens,
where they really have to refactor it?
>> Yeah, really, in that case there may be no business case.
Why lift in and shift it, for what?
Just to say, >> Exactly, they get it.
>> Hey I'm in the cloud.
>> Exactly, I think with cloud migrations,
does not mean leaving your data center.
I think that's going to continue for some time,
where people can get the benefits from Rackspace,
moving from a CapEX to an OpEx model
with managed services, with industry leading SLAs,
but still in their own data center,
because they have applications running that cannot be moved.
>> Well it's interesting, David to see this equilibrium
that's kind of being reached, you know?
A few short years ago, there was sort of antagonism
between VMware and the AWS.
You know, the whole book seller comment.
Andy Jassy was like, pfft, on-prem cloud,
there's no such thing, and now you see
those worlds coming together, underscoring the reality
that you can't just shove your business
into the public cloud.
You can't just move all your data there,
and there may not be a business case,
or an advantage of doing that.
>> Right, right. >> What do you think?
>> Well a lot of times the answer to the question in the,
one, I'm not an analyst, so it's not my job
to really predict where it's going to go.
I mean, obviously we watch trends and look where it's going.
You know, my job and our job is to help customers deal
with the realities that they're dealing
with right now, right?
And they have data centers.
They are thinking about the cloud.
They are having to take care of the edge, right?
And in time, we've seen some of those shifts, right?
There was a lot of the, where are we going with the cloud?
Where's it going to go?
Are they going to shut down all their data centers?
Regardless of that, we will adjust to the market
and make sure that we're adjusting the market.
But more importantly, we're going to do what's right
for our customers, to help enable them to those journeys,
and it's still yet to be proven.
There's a lot of Predictions out there.
Will they shut down all data centers?
I'm sure there'll be some consolidation of it,
but yeah, it's getting more complex.
>> Okay, so VMware, Rackspace, DellEMC,
you're not screwed, check. (David laughs)
what about the edge?
Help us unpack that a little bit,
you know, whether VMware at the edge, Rackspace, DellEMC,
what do you guys see evolving there?
>> I think there's many definitions of the edge,
and when you talk about it, everything's IoT initially,
but even just deploying smaller data centers
in customer locations in partnerships with these guys,
to kind of meet customers where they are,
and get smaller, roll in racks into different locations
is continuing to be something that
customers are looking for.
>> So there's the hinterland edge,
which is a bunch of devices, you know IP cameras,
they're going to be instrument,
most of the data's going to stay there anyway,
but then I think you guys call it, I don't know, the core.
There's a aggregation point,
>> Well the core, >> if you will.
>> which is typically what we refer to as
kind of the customer data center,
and then there's the cloud, right?
So kind of the two different,
customer data center versus the cloud,
and then, truly, the edge, capturing,
And it started, and we referred to everything
from laptops, phones, as well as,
really a lot of the sensors that are going to be out there,
and your ability to have to process and analyze
and react real time at the edge.
And so a lot of use cases, public safety use cases,
where, you know, when an event happens,
that connection back to a place where you would analyze it.
Obviously the autonomous cars, right?
They can't have to connect to a data center
every time it wants to make a left turn.
So a lot of that ability has to be pushed out
to the edge, but yet, then also being able
to bring that data back, be able to manage that,
and be able to update those computers,
or those data centers.
I mean, an autonomous car is basically a mini data center.
Someone's got to manage that, patch that,
make sure it's running, and manage that.
So yeah, to your point, the edge is beginning to
mean a lot of different things.
There are the hinterlands, I think was the word you used,
and some of those things, but then there are
the more traditional work cases, and even just
running a phone app is now considered an app,
versus, you know, and that's were people start
to really look at, is how do you deliver that experience
on a phone, and that's an application.
>> A lot of data.
Well, I like to follow the data, you know?
A lot of data at the edge.
There's a lot of data, like I say, at the aggregation point,
and then if you want to do some hardcore modeling,
go to the cloud, and that cloud can be your own,
on-prem data center. >> Yeah.
>> Right.
>> Yeah, there's just so much data being generated,
and data is power, I think was one
of the key taglines of DellEMC Worlds.
And I was like, it truly is.
Where the data is, is where the power is.
So some has to be transferred back to the core.
Some may be pushed up to the cloud for deep processing
with AI and ML type processing,
but there'll be data at all these different points.
>> Well that's the other point, is it's just like
the innovation engine no longer
is Moore's Law in this industry.
it's the data, applying machine intelligence,
and then cloud scale.
And then, you got to, as suppliers in this business,
you better be playing in some way, shape, or form,
in all three of those, right?
>> Absolutely.
>> So how, and speaking of that,
I think Pat Gelsinger talked about it this morning
in the context of superpowers.
He talked about autonomous vehicles,
AI machine learning, advanced analytics, IoT.
How is DellEMC and their technology, Peter,
helping to enable Rackspace to optimize your offerings
to be able to take advantage of machine learning AI?
To be able to deliver on customer expectations?
>> Yeah, we're deeply partnered with these guys
from those announcements you head earlier this year,
that we're already investigating the different capabilities
they're having from an AIML perspective,
and really seeing what sort of technologies
are they launching that we can then
put into our private cloud practice,
and offer to our customers.
So it's our deep partnership allows us
to kind of get a front seat at that
and working closely to investigate and to do a lot
of R&D with the new capabilities they're coming out with so.
>> What superpower does that give Rackspace?
In terms of differentiation?
>> Uh, you've stumped me on that one. (laughs)
>> Well customers have, we talked about,
everybody wants flexibility.
They also have choice.
>> Yeah.
>> What are some things that
this 20 year partnership infuses
into Rackspace to give you those differentiation points?
>> Yeah, it's the deep partnership, and knowing,
working so long together that we know who to pick up
the phone to solve some of these complex problems.
>> Yeah, and of us, from my perspective,
we always start with out joint customers in mind first.
So it's our job to bring the advance technologies,
the advanced capabilities that we're making
big investments in, and make sure that Rackspace
is able to support and leverage those within their business
so that we'd provide a better experience
for the end customer, but then also making sure
that we show Rackspace how they make money on that,
and how they can run a business on that,
that's really, is differentiated to your point.
Because a lot of,
you know, you painted a very pretty vision
of what the world might look like.
Most customers aren't there yet.
Most customers aren't taking advantage
of AI and deep learning.
They're still dealing with some very traditional legacy
issues, and it's that gap that becomes very,
we love talking about the cool, new, exciting stuff,
but for a lot of customers, they're stuck somewhere
in the middle, and that's were partnerships like this,
because you can not only help them
with the legacy, old stuff.
How do you migrate, and then how do you
take advantage of the really new stuff?
Or how do start at least thinking about that
and exploring that and looking.
A lot of the original IoT use cases, the ROI wasn't known.
They're setting up projects, then they hoped
they'd get a benefit out of it, right?
And that's continuing to emerge
and evolve as time goes on.
>> Well it's hard, too.
I mean, everybody's afraid of getting Uberized
and disrupted, et cetera, et cetera, but they,
at the same time, if you over rotate, to a new,
you can spend bunch of money and not get any return.
>> Yeah.
>> Everybody's trying to get digital right, it seems,
but it's unclear what that means.
So they look to partners like you
to help them figure that out.
>> Well, it's a scary journey to your point,
because they obviously have existing revenue streams.
It's the inventor's dilemma, right?
It's they have existing revenue streams,
but how do they digitize their business?
How do they reach customers in a different way?
And so they don't become Uberized or Airbnbed,
or whatever, what term you want to use.
Every CIO, every executive is thinking about that.
IT for a long time was about taking cost out of the business
which, after a while, that's no fun,
because that usually means head count reductions,
that usually, I mean, that's not a fun
conversation to have every single day.
Now with the digital transformations mode,
how do you generate new revenue streams?
How do you, in a way, a lot of companies never,
one of the most older industries, being taxis,
a little bit not that exciting.
It's gotten reinvigorated through some of these things.
So it's kind of cool.
>> Yeah, and you said digital transformation, right?
What does that really mean?
Cloud transformation, security transformation,
app transformation, so there's many different factors.
And companies like Rackspace can offer expertise
in all those different areas,
where some of our competitors may only hit on one of those.
They're only a security company,
or only a VMware shop, or only an AWS shop.
>> Helping customers really glean the power from that data,
because if they can't, it's not powerful.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE
and talking with Dave and me.
We appreciate hearing what's going on
with Rackspace and DellEMC.
>> Thanks guys. >> Thank you so much,
I appreciate it. >> Thanks very much.
I appreciate the time. >> Thank you.
>> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE.
For Dave Vellante, I am Lisa Martin.
We're at VMworld day one.
Stick around, we'll be back after break.
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