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>> Good morning from New York City!
Lisa Martin and John Furrier with the Cube.
We are at AWS Summit, NYC.
This is a series of summits this year,
about 15 summits globally,
and we're excited to be here, John,
with about 10,000 folks!
>> It's crowded.
New York is packed.
Big showing here at AWS Summit so it's super exciting.
>> It's super exciting.
Just a little bit before the keynote
and we have our first guest!
Kevin Farley joins us,
the Director of Strategic Alliances at MariaDB.
Kevin, welcome to the program.
>> Thank you very much.
Appreciate you guys having us.
>> So all of us out from California to NYC...
>> Yeah. >> Lots of us.
>> We got keynote with Werner Vogels coming up.
We should be some good news, hopefully.
>> Yep.
>> But talk to us about MariaDB SkySQL cloud native version
released a couple years ago,
what's going on?
>> Yeah, well it's you know,
SkySQL for us is really a bet on the future.
I think when we think about like
what the company's real mission is,
it's just creating a database for everyone.
It's any cloud, any scale,
any size of performance,
and really making sure
that we're able to deliver on something
that really kind of takes advantage
of everything we've done in the market to date.
If you think about it,
there's not very many startups that have a billion downloads
and 75% of the Fortune 500 are already using our service.
So what we're really thinking about
is how do we bridge that gap?
How do we create a natural path for all of these customers?
And if you think about not just MariaDB,
but anyone else using the SQL query language,
all the MySQL people,
what, I think most,
Andy Jassy, TK,
anyone says, you know,
it's about 10% of the market currently is in the clouds.
That's 90% of the total addressable market
that hasn't done it yet
so creating cloud modernization for us,
I think is just a huge opportunity.
>> You guys have a great history with AWS.
I want to just step back.
You mentioned some stats on success,
can you scope the size
and track record of MariaDB for us real quick
and set the table,
because I think there's a bigger picture going on
that we've been tracking for the past 13 years.
We addresses the role of the database
has always been one of those things
where they didn't believe a one database fits all things.
>> Right.
>> You guys been part of that track record.
Scope the size and scale of MariaDB.
The usage, the use cases,
and some of the successes.
>> Yeah, I mean, like I said,
some of the stats are already throughout there
so you know, it is pervasive.
I think it is the best way to put it.
I think when you look at
what the database market really became
is very siloed, right?
I think there was a lot of unique solutions
that were built and delivered that had promise
but they also had compromise.
And I think once you look at the landscape
of a lot of Fortune 500 companies,
they have probably 10 to 15
different database solutions, right?
And they're all doing unique things,
they're difficult to manage,
they're very costly,
so what MariaDB is always kind of focused on
is how do we continue to build more and more functionality
into the database itself
and allow that to be a single source of truth
where application developers
can seamlessly integrate applications.
>> So then the theme of this event in New York City,
which is scale dot, dot, dot, anything,
must align quite well
with Maria and your objectives?
>> I mean, honestly, I think,
when I think of the problems
that most database companies face,
customers I should say,
it really comes down to performance and scale.
Most of them like MariaDB,
like you said,
it's like the car you know and love.
You've been driving it for years,
you're an expert at it,
it works great,
but it doesn't have enough range.
It doesn't go fast enough.
It's hitting walls
that modern data requirements are just breaking.
So, scale for me is the favorite thing to talk about
because what we launched is MariaDB Xpand,
which is a pluggable storage engine
that is integrated into SkySQL,
and it really gives you dynamic scale.
You can scale in,
you can scale out.
It's not costly compute to try to get for seasonality
so you can make your Black Friday numbers.
It's really about the dexterity
to be able to come in and out as you need
in a shared-nothing architecture
with full failover,
self healing,
high availability,
married to the cloud for full cloud scale.
And that's really the beauty of the AWS partnership.
>> Can you elaborate a bit more on the partnership?
How long have you guys been partners?
Where is it now?
Anything exciting coming out? >> Yeah.
>> It's actually been a wonderful ride.
They've really invested from the very beginning.
We went through the satisfactory
so they really brought a lot of resources to bear.
And I think if you're looking at why it works,
it's probably two things.
I think the number one thing is that
we share one of the core tenants,
and it's customer obsession.
In an environment where there is coopetition, right,
you have to find paths
for how do you get the best thing for the customer.
And the second is pretty obvious,
but if you look at any major cloud,
their number one priority
is getting large mission critical workloads into their cloud
because the revenue is exponential on the backside.
So what do we own?
Large mission critical workloads.
So if you marry that objective with AWS,
the partnership is absolutely perfect
for driving true revenue growth scale
and revenue across both entities in the partner ecosystem.
>> So, Kevin, talk about the hybrid strategy
'cause you're seeing cloud operations-
>> Yep. >> Go hybrid.
>> Amazon announced.
AWS announced.
Outposts like four years ago. >> Right.
>> Now, Edge is super hot. >> Yup.
>> So you're seeing like most of the enterprise is saying,
"okay, love cloud.
Love the cloud database
but I got the on-prem hybrid cloud operations."
>> Right.
>> So it's not just proprietary operations,
it's CloudOps. >> Yeah.
>> How do you guys fit into that?
What's the story?
>> We actually, it's...
I mean, there's all these new deliverables.
Outposts, you know,
come out with a promise.
What we have is that reality right now.
One of the largest networking companies
which I can't mention yet publicly,
they want a really big SkySQL deal
but they had many manufacturing plants,
they needed to have on-prem deployments
so MariaDB naturally syncs with SkySQL.
It's the same technology.
It works in perfect harmony.
So we really already deliver on the promise of hybrid
but of course there's a lot more we can grow on that area
and certainly thinking about Outposts and other solutions
is definitely on the the longer term roadmap
of what could make sense on our customer.
>> What are some of the latest things
that you guys are doing now
that you weren't doing a few years ago
that customers should know about?
The audience should know about?
>> I mean, I think the game changer,
we're always innovating.
And when you're the company that writes the code,
owns the code,
you know, we can do hotfixes,
we can do security patches,
we can always do the things
that give you real time access to what you need.
But I think the game changer
is what I mentioned a little bit earlier
and I think it's really the holy grail of the cloud.
It's like how can we take the SQL query language,
which is well over 50% of the open source market, right,
and how do we convert that seamlessly into the cloud?
How do we help you modernize on that journey?
And Xpand gives you the ability to say,
"I can be the small,
I can be a small startup.
I got my C-round.
I don't want to manage databases.
I can use the exact same service
as the largest Fortune 100 company
that has massive global scale
and needs to be able to drive that across the globe."
>> Yeah.
>> So I think that's the beauty.
It's really a democratization of the database.
>> At least that, you know,
we've been covering the big data space for 10 years.
Remember all those different conversations,
had do those days and oh yeah, big data.
>> Right.
>> But then it's like too hard to set up.
Then you had that kind of period
where you saw a spark and data lakes emerge.
>> Yeah. >> Then start...
Now, it almost seems like now more than ever,
there's a data revolutions back.
>> Right.
>> It was also like a lull in the market a little bit.
Yeah, I mean democratize data science.
>> Right. >> Now, you got data.
>> So now it just seems to be an explosion at that level.
What's your analysis on that
because you've been in the weeds
and in this market for 10 years.
>> Yeah. >> Okay.
>> And nothing really changed.
It's just now, it's more ready.
>> Yeah, I think- >> What's your observation.
>> I think that's a really good question
and I love it 'cause I mean,
what the promise of things like could do
and net new technologies
sort of it was always out there
but it required this whole net new lift.
And how do I do it?
How do I manage it?
How do I optimize it?
The beauty of what we can do with MariaDB
is that SkySQLs is what you already know and love, right?
And now we can deliver,
you can deliver a data lake on S3, right?
You can pull that data.
And we also have the ability to do both analytical data
and transactional data from the same database
so you can write applications
that can pull column store data up into your application,
but you can also have all of your asset transactions,
which are absolutely required
for all of your mission critical business.
So I think that we're seeing more and more adaption.
You've seen other companies start to talk about
bringing the different elements in
but we're the only ones that really do it.
>> And SQL standardizing that front end.
>> Yeah.
>> Even better than ever before.
All the stuff under the covers is all being connected.
>> That's the awesome part.
Is, right, is you're literally doing
what you already know how to do
but you blow it out on the back end,
married to the cloud.
And that I think is the real revolution
of what makes usability real in the data space.
And I think that's what always the problem before.
>> When you're in partner conversations,
you mentioned coopetition.
>> Yeah.
>> So I think when you're in partner conversations
and customer conversations,
there is a lot of the,
there's a lot of competition out there.
Everyone's got their own key messages.
What are the key differentiators
that you're saying AWS-MariaDB together better
and here's why.
>> Yeah, I think that certainly you start with
the global footprint of AWS, right?
So what we rely on the most
is having the ability to truly deal with global customers
in availability zones,
they're going to optimize performance from them.
But then when we look at
what we do that really changes the game,
it comes down to scale and performance.
We actually just ran a suspense test against cockroach.
There's also those distributed SQL.
Absolutely, you know,
the results were off the chart.
So we went public and said,
"we have an open challenge.
Anyone that wants to try to beat Xpand and SkySQL,
well, if you can,
we'll put $25,000 towards charity."
So we really are putting our money where our mouth is
on that challenge.
So we believe the performance
'cause we've seen it and we know it's real.
But then it's really always about data scale.
Modern data requirements are breaking the mold of charting.
They're breaking the mold of all these band aids
that people have put in these traditional services
and we give them future.
We future proof their investments
so they can say,
"Hey, I can start here.
But if I end up being a startup that becomes Airbnb,
I'm already built to blow it out on the back end.
I can already use what I have."
>> Speaking of startups being the next Airbnb,
if you look at behind us,
here you can see,
this is a really packed event in New York City.
>> Yeah. >> Events are back,
but the ecosystem here is even flourishing.
So Dave and I and Lisa were observing
that we're still kind of in a growth mode.
>> Yes. >> Big time.
>> So, yeah, there's some market forces headwinds
up for the big unicorns,
overfunded, you know,
public companies,
maybe the valuations are a little bit off,
but there's still a surge of new innovations,
new companies coming out of this,
and it's all around data and scale.
It's all around new names that we've never heard of.
>> Absolutely.
>> What's your take on and reaction?
>> Well, actually it's another awesome segue
'cause in addition to the public clouds,
I manage the ecosystem.
And one of the things
that we've really been focused on with SkySQL
is making it accessible,
API accessible,
so if you're a company that has a huge MariaDB footprint,
change data capture might be the most important thing
for you to say,
"we want to do this,
but we want you to stay in sync with our environments."
Things like monitoring,
things like BI,
all of these are ecosystem plays
and current partners that we have,
that we really think about how do you holistically look at
not only the database and what it can do,
but how does it deliver value
to different segments of a customer base
or just your employee base that are using that stuff.
So I think that's huge for us.
>> Well, you know, one of the things that we talk often about
is that every company these days,
regardless of industry,
has to be a data company.
>> Yup. >> You got to be able to access
the data glean insights from in it
and act on it quickly,
whether it's manufacturing, retail, healthcare,
are there any verticals in where MariaDB really excels?
>> Um, yeah so,
certainly we excel in areas like financial services is huge.
DBS bank in APAC,
one of our biggest customers,
also one of the largest Oracle migrations, probably,
deed that we've ever done.
A lot of people trying to get off Oracle,
we make it seamless to get into MariaDB.
You can think about Samsung cloud and another,
their entire consumer cloud is built on MariaDB.
Why? It's integrated with Xpand, right?
Seasonality.
So there's customers like that
that really bring it home for us,
as far as ServiceNow.
Tech sector, right?
So these are all different ones
but I think we're really strong in those areas.
>> So this brings up a good point.
Dave and I coined a term called super cloud and reinvent.
And Lisa and Dave were at multiple events,
we're together at events,
and so a lot of people are getting behind this
'cause it's multi-cloud,
sounds like something's broken.
>> Yeah. >> So we call it super cloud
because customers are building on top of ecosystems
like MariaDB and others. >> Yeah.
>> Not just AWS. >> Right.
>> So AWS does all the CapEx.
>> Absolutely. >> They provided the value.
>> So now people are having this new super cloud moment.
We're saying we can get all the benefits of cloud scale
without actually being a cloud.
>> Right.
>> So this is where the next gen layer comes.
What's your reaction to super cloud.
Do you think it's a thing?
>> Well, I think it's a thing in the sense
from our perspective as an ISV.
We're laser focused on making sure that we support any cloud
and we have a truly multi-cloud platform.
But the beauty of that as well is from a single UI,
you're able to deploy databases in different clouds,
underneath that you're not looking at
so you can have performance proximity,
but you're still driving it through the same SkySQL UI.
So for us, it's unequivocally true.
>> Got it.
>> And I think it's only ISVs like MariaDB
that can deliver on that value.
>> Because you're enabling.
>> We're enabling it, right.
We partner,
we build on top of everything, right,
so we can access everything underneath.
>> And they can then build on top of you.
>> Sure, exactly. (John laughs)
And that's exactly where it goes, right?
>> Yeah >> So that I think,
in that sense,
the super cloud is actually already somewhat real.
>> It's interesting.
You look at the old IT spend,
they take a big company,
I won't say a name,
but a leader in a vertical,
they have such a big spend.
Now they can leverage that spend in
with the super cloud model,
they then could become a service provider in the vertical.
>> Absolutely. >> Capital One is doing it.
>> You're seeing Goldman Sachs doing it.
They have the power on the spend
that they're leveraging in for their business
and servicing their vertical and the smaller players.
Do you see that trend?
>> Well, I think that's the reality
is that everyone is getting this place
where if you're talking about
sort of this broader, super concept,
you're talking about global scale, right?
That's if, in order to deliver a backbone
that can service that model,
you have to have the right data structure
and the right database footprint to be able to scale.
And I think that's what they all need to be able to do.
And that's what we're really well positioned with SkySQL.
>> To enable companies,
as we talked about a minute ago,
to truly become data companies.
>> Yeah.
>> And to be competitive and to scale on their own,
where are your customer conversations?
Are they at the C-suite level?
Has that changed in the last couple of years?
>> That's actually a really great way to state that question
'cause I think you would've traditionally probably
talked more to the DBAs, right?
They're the people that are having headaches.
They're having problems.
They're trying to solve.
We see a lot of developers now.
Tons, right?
They're thinking about,
"I have this new thing that I need to do
to deliver this new application
and here's the requirements
and the current models broken.
It doesn't optimize that.
It's a lot of work
and it's hard to manage."
So I think that we're in a great position
to be able to take that to that next phase and to deliver.
And then of course,
as you get deeper in with AWS,
you're talking about, you know, CIO level.
CSO level.
They need to understand
how do you fit into our larger paradigm.
And many of these guys have, you know,
hundreds of million dollar commits with AWS
so they think of their investment
in the sense of a cloud stack.
And we're part of that cloud stack,
just like AWS services.
So those conversations continue to happen certainly
with our larger customers,
'cause it truly is married.
>> It is and they continue to evolve.
Kevin, thank you so much- >> Yeah, you're welcome.
>> for joining John and me talking about
what's going on with MariaDB.
>> Thank you, John.
Thank you, Lisa.
On behalf of MariaDB it was wonderful.
Really appreciate it. >> Excellent.
>> Fantastic.
We enjoy it as well. >> Thanks a lot.
For John Furrier,
I'm Lisa Martin.
You're watching the Cube
live from New York City at AWS Summit, NYC.
John and I will be back with our next guest in a minute.
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