>> Narrator: Live from Copenhagen Denmark,
it's the CUBE!
Covering Nutanix .NEXT 2019.
Brought to you by Nutanix.
>> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage
of Nutanix .NEXT, here at the Bella Center in Copenhagen.
I'm your host Rebecca Knight,
co-hosting alongside of Stu Minamin.
We're joined by Bala Kuchibhotla.
He is the VP/GM Nutanix Era and
business critical apps at Nutanix.
Thanks so much for coming on the show, Bala.
>> Thank you, Rebecca and Stu.
Yeah, it's an honor to stay here,
or come here and then talk to you guys, yeah.
>> So you were up on the main stage this morning,
you did a fantastic job doing some demos for us,
but up there you talked about
your data is gold.
And you said there are four Ps to
the challenges of mining, the mining process.
Do you want to go through those for our viewers?
>> Definitely.
So, for every business critical app, data is gold.
This is unambiguous for a lot of people, not everyone.
Now the question is like similar to how
the gold gets processed,
and there's a lot of hazardous mining that happens
and process, finally we get this processed gold.
To me the data is also sort of similar
for business critical apps.
The database systems can be processed
in a way to get the most efficient
elegant way of getting the database back, data back.
Now the four pains that I see
for managing databases starts with provisioning.
Even today, some of these biggest companies that I talk to,
they take about three to five weeks to provision a database.
It goes from infrastructure team.
The ticket passes from infrastructure team
computer networking storage to database team,
and then database administration team.
That's number one.
Side load.
Number two, is like a prolifEration.
It's very consistent.
Pretty much every big company I talk to,
they have about eight to 10 copies of the data,
for analytics, QA, development staging, whatever it is.
It's like where you take a photo and put it on WhatsApp
and your friends download it.
They're basically doing a copy data, essentially.
That photo maybe becomes 40 in no time,
in our WhatsApp.
It's the same thing that happens for databases.
Database gets cloned, refaced all the time,
but the seemingly simple,
simple operation of our clone copy,
copy paste opEration
becomes the most dreaded, complex,
long running, error prone process.
And I see that there are dedicated DBAs
just to doing cloning.
That's another thing.
And the lineage problem,
that someone is cloning the data to somewhere,
I don't know where the data is coming from, kind of stuff.
And the third pain that we talk about is
the protection, actually to me it's like
my number 1 and number 2 problem,
but I'm just putting it in the third.
If you're running databases
and if you're running it for mission-critical databases,
your ability to restore the database
to any point in time is an absolute must.
Right?
Otherwise, you're not even call it a database.
Question is, are the technologies,
do they have this kind of protection technology?
Are they already taken care of?
They did it, already.
But the question is, on our Nutanix platform,
on our cloud platform, can they be efficient and elegant?
Can we take out some of the pain in this whole process?
That's what we're talking about.
And the last one is a big company problem.
Anyone who has dozens of databases
can empathize with me how painful it is to patch.
How painful it is to kind of get your confluence
going to it.
How do you manage your end-state driven
database services kind of stuff.
So these are the four things that we actually think that
if you solve them,
your databases are one step,
or a lot of steps closer to database service.
That's what I see.
>> Bala, it's interesting.
You've spent a lot of time working for
you know, the big database company out there.
There's no shortage of options out there for databases.
When I talk to most enterprises, it's not one database.
They now have often dozens of databases that they have.
So, explain why now there's still
an unmet need in the marketplace
that Nutanix is looking to help fill there.
>> So, you're absolutely right on the dot
that there are lots of database technologies,
actually that compounds the problem.
Because for all these big enterprise companies,
there are specialty site administrations for Oracle,
Postgres, MariaDB, MySQL, SQL Administrator.
Now, there are a new breed of databases in NoSQL, MongoDB.
Now it's like, how do you manage the MongoDBs,
how do you manage the MarkLogics,
and stuff like that.
So now, I personally think that databases
need to be consumed like LXCD.
Right?
So most of these banks and telecos,
all the companies that we talk about.
Database is just a means to an end for them.
Right?
So, they should focus on the business logic,
creating those business value applications.
And databases are more like,
okay, I can just manage them with almost no touch,
kind of stuff.
But whether these technologies that were created
around 20 years back are they there yet, kind of stuff.
So that is what we're trying to talk about.
When you have a powerful platform like Nutanix
that actually abstracts the stories,
and solves some of the fundamental problems
for database upstream technologies to take advantage of,
we combine the database APIs, the blender API's,
As well as the strength of the Nutanix platform
to give that simplicity, essentially.
So that's what I see.
We're not inventing new databases,
we're trying to simplify the database.
That's all it is.
>> And Bala, help make sure we understand that, you know,
Nutanix isn't just building the next great lock in.
You know, from top to bottom Nutanix can provide it,
but optionality is a word that Nutanix talks about a lot.
>> Absolutely, we live and thrive by choice
and freedom for the customers.
In fact, I make this as one of
the fundamental design principles even for error.
We use APIs provided by the database vendors.
For example for RMAN, we just use RMAN APIs.
We start the database in the backup using RMAN APIs.
Where we take that one data is the platform
once that database in the backup mode,
we are taking the snapshots of the database.
The result is pretty much like RMAN
we can backup with image based backup.
Essentially outcome-based.
So, the customer is not locked in.
The second one is,
if the customer wants to go to the other clouds,
or even other technologies, kind of stuff,
we will prorate this to kind of migrate.
So, that's one of the things that I want
to kind of emphasize is that,
we are not here to lock in any customer.
In fact, your choice is to what works.
In fact, I emphasize if the customer has
the compute environment on the ESX,
we're more than happy.
We can support ESX or HP.
They both are equal for us.
All we need is the AWS and Era,
because AWS is something that we leverage a lot of
platform patents of Nutanix technology
that we are passing on the benefits, kind of stuff.
Down the road where we are trying to see is,
we'll have Zi clusters and AWS and GCP and Azure,
and customers can move databases from
on-premise private cloud platform
through hybrid cloud to other clusters,
and then they can bring back the databases.
That's how we kind of protect the customer's investment.
>> Yeah, I mean, I'm curious your commentary,
you know, when you go listen to
the big cloud player out there,
they tell you how many hundreds of thousands
of databases they've migrated.
When I talk to customers
and they think about their workload,
migrations are going to come even more often
and it's not a one way thing,
it's often moving around and things change.
So, can we get there for the database?
Because usually it's like, well, isn't it easier
for me to move my compute to my data?
You know, data has gravity.
There's a lot of physics challenges there.
>> And those are great questions too.
So, what is happening with hybrid scale-ups is
they're asking the applications to be written
again as cloud native databases.
Obviously, if you are writing an application,
again it's cloud native database,
say AWR even GCB Bigtable,
they are pretty much locked in, technically.
'Cause part of that application to come back to on-prem,
there is no way.
There is no Bigtable on the on-prem.
There's no AWR on the on-prem.
Whereas what we're trying to say is,
the more than one applications, the Oracles,
the SQLs, we're trying to glorify them.
We're trying to bring the simplicity to them.
So if they can run in the cloud, they can run in on-prem.
So that's how we protect the investment,
that there is not much new engineering
that needs to be done for your apps.
As is, we can move them,
only thing is we are taking out the pain of mobility.
Leveraging our platform.
So obviously we can run your apps as is,
Oracle applications on the public load like Oracle,
and if you feel like you want to do it in on-prem,
we can do it in on-prem too, kind of stuff.
And to protect the investment for the customers,
we do have ground fill investment.
That means that you can have databases
running on your EXE data
and you can do custom mediation,
means tier two, tier three environments on Nutanix
using our time machine technology.
So we give the choices to customers.
>> So, thinking about this truly virtualized DB,
what are some of the things you're hearing
from customers here at .NEXT Copenhagen,
what are the things that their pain points,
I mean in addition to those four Ps,
but what are some of the next generation problems
that you're trying to solve here?
>> So, there are first of all for the customers
common acknowledgements
that this is a true database virtualization.
So until now what happened is,
virtualization is all about compute
and when it's all a computer virtualization problem
you throw in database server
and then try to run the database and see.
You're not really solving the problem of the data.
Now with Nutanix our DNA is data.
So, we have started or pioneered
this storage virtualization,
and then extended it to the files and objects,
now we're extending it to database,
making that application native virtualization,
database virtualization,
leveraging the storage virtualization.
Combining that with computer virtualization,
we think that we have an honest effort
to virtualize databases.
Now, the trend that I see is, everyone is moving,
or everyone wants cloud-like experience.
It's not like they want to go to cloud,
but they want the cloud-like agility.
That one-click simplicity,
consumer great experience for their databases.
I would like to kind of manage my databases
in self-service manner.
So, we took both these dimensions.
We made a great, we made an honest effort
to make the databases truly virtualized.
That's the copy data management and all that stuff.
And then, coupled with how cloud works,
ability to do provisional self-service,
ability to manage your back-ups in self-service way,
ability to patch self-service way.
And customers love it,
and they want to take us to new engines.
One of the other thing that we see
big advantage with Era is,
cloud is all about new databases, generally,
or the Postgres, and that kind of stuff.
But there's a lot of data on Zibiz,
there's a lot of data on SAP HANA,
there's a lot of data on DB2.
Why don't we enjoy the same kind of experience
for those databases?
What did they do wrong?
Right?
So can we give those experience the cloud-like experience,
and the true virtualization,
for those databases on the platform.
That is what customers ask for, kind of stuff.
Obviously, they will have asks for more and more
DR kind of facilities and other stuff
that in the old method we will be able to take care of.
>> You know, Bala, one of the questions we've had this week
is as Nutanix builds out some of these application software,
not just infrastructure software pieces,
go to market tends to be a little bit different.
We had an interesting conversation with Wipro.
They're wrapping a service for Era,
so that seems like a really good way to be able to
reach customers that might not even know Nutanix.
Tell us, how is that going, is there an overlay sales force,
is it some of the strategic tunnel
and partnership engagements,
because this is not the traditional Nutanix?
>> Yeah, yeah.
So, obviously Nutanix is known
and it made it's name and fame
for infrastructure as a service.
So it's going to be a challenge to talk about
database language for our sales people.
But contrary to that, I had the doubt,
when I kind of started my journey at Nutanix,
okay we will build a product,
but how are we going to GTM with this kind of sales force?
But believe me, we're making multi-million dollar deals,
mainly led by the application nativeness,
or application syntaxness.
So, I could talk about Federal organizations
in the US who may purchase,
because Era was a defense station for them.
We're talking about big teleco company in Europe
trying to replace their big engineered appliances,
because Era makes a defense management.
We are providing almost two X value
at almost half the price.
So the pain point is real,
question is can we translate that to,
can we connect with the right kind of customer.
So we do have a sales overlay for my region,
they speak database language.
Obviously, we are very early in the game
so we will have selected few people in highly dense,
important geographic regions who go after that.
But I also work with channels, work with partners like GSS,
like Wipro, GSS and all that kind of stuff.
And they are the best people to leverage
and take this whole thing and back this as a solution.
In fact, companies like GSS, like Wipro,
they can offer managed database sites.
Right?
So, we have a product, people can build a cloud with it,
but with Wipro they can offer,
you know, why do you want to go to public cloud?
I can provide the same cloud, managed database service,
more in optics, more that kind of stuff.
So, we are kind of firing on all cylinders in this sense,
but very selective, very focused,
and I really believe that our customers will
understand this message that
Nutanix is not just infrastructure, but it's a cloud.
It's a cloud platform where,
I consider it as like Microsoft Office Suite
on Microsoft operating system.
Think about that, that's the power of pull power
that we think that Era can make it happen.
>> And who are, you know,
you said you're going in very tight.
Who are these target customers?
Without naming names,
but what kinds of businesses are they in,
how big are they, what kinds of challenges are they facing?
>> Looking at all the early customers,
we are hardly in the third quarter of the business,
but financial sector is big.
The pain point of database management is so acute there.
Campus studio mediation is a huge thing.
They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars
on this big, and that kind of stuff,
and can they run, can the EXE stack,
infusions is out of this whole outlet investment.
Second thing is manufacturing and teleco.
And obviously, Federal is one of the
biggest friends of Nutanix,
and I happen to pitch in Era,
and the Federal agents laud it and they say,
"Is this real?
"Let's do a real demo and let's make it happen."
They actually tested the product
and they're up taking it.
So the ERPs, whether they're on Oracle,
whether they're on Big SQL kind of stuff,
this is what we are seeing.
>> All right, Bala, want to make sure,
there was a bunch of announcements about Era 2.0.
Just walk us through real quick, kind of where we are today
and what should we be looking for
directionally in the future?
>> Yeah, so we started Era with four or five engines,
basically, and you know that Oracle SQL and My SQL,
Postgres kind of stuff,
and we attacked on the four problems,
this provisioning, patching, copy data management,
and then production.
But when we talked to all these customers,
and I talked to CIOs and CTOs, they love it,
they wanted to say that hey, can it have even more engines.
Right?
So that's one.
But more importantly, they do have product clusters,
they have data clusters, QA clusters.
They want to have single pane of management of Era
managing databases across.
So, the multi-cluster capability,
what we call as like equal and a prism central,
which manages multiple processes.
They want Era to manage multiple clusters
that manage databases.
Right?
That's number one, that's big.
For a product which in one Era, like we got to that stage.
Second thing was, obviously people,
end press customers expect role-based access control,
but this is data.
So it's not a simple privilege
and you would define the roles and privileges
and then get it all worked out kind of stuff.
You do want to know who is accessing the data,
whether they can access the data,
and where they can access the data.
We want to give them freedom to create clones and data,
kind of give that access to data,
but in a controlled manner.
So they can clone on their QA clusters.
They don't need to file a huge, big ticket,
wait for two weeks.
They have that flexibility,
but they can manage the data at the particular QA cluster.
So this is what we call DAM, data access management.
It's like a dam like you construct on the river,
control the flow of the water
and then channelize it to the right place
and right persons, kind of stuff.
So that's what we are trying to do for data.
That's the second big thing that we look for in the Era 2.0.
Obviously, there's lot of interest on engines.
Expand, both relational engines as well as NoSQL.
Or we are seeing huge interest in SAP HANA.
We are going to do in couple of months,
we'll have tech preview.
MongoDB's the big guy in NoSQL space,
we'll expand that from MongoDB to MarkLogic and other stuff.
But even DB2 and Zibiz there's a lot of interest.
I'm just looking for committed customers
who are willing to put the dollars on the table
and we're going to roll it out, kind of stuff.
That's the beauty of Era
that we are not just talking about cloud native databases,
just four squares and kind of stuff,
with all this innovation that happened in 30, 40 years,
we can renew them to the new age, basically kind of stuff.
Yeah. >> Great.
Well, Bala, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE.
>> Thank you, it's my pleasure.
>> Pleasure talking to you.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Minamin,
stay tuned for more of theCUBE's
live coverage of Nutanix .NEXT.
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