Here we are, gathered around
two round tables, as it were.
But let's start the conversation
by maybe making introductions,
maybe for the audience.
So we'll start with Iyad,
go ahead and introduce yourself.
- Thank you Roy, as always, it's a pleasure.
I'm Iyad Tarazi, CEO of Federated Wireless.
We're a software company that is really focused
on taking the best that AWS has to offer,
and turn it into private wireless solutions,
for the best customers, as you're going to hear.
- Yeah, let's talk to one of those
best customers, introduce yourself, please Bill.
- Thanks Roy, Bill Britton, Chief Information Officer
at California State Polytechnic University in California.
We are so big estate, we have three
polytechnics now, so you can get lost there.
- All right, Chris, introduce yourself please.
- Yes, thanks Roy, I'm Chris McKenna,
I lead business development for
private networks for AWS.
- Excellent, very good,
and we're here to talk about private wireless.
So we'll start with Bill, so what is it
about private wireless that you see
as value, to someone like Cal Poly?
Right, how does introduction of private wireless
enhanced the life, and maybe, you know,
the productivity or the capabilities of Cal Poly?
- Well, you know, it starts with our conversation
around going to the cloud, and the amount
of data we generate on the university.
And so that's really big for,
particularly a polytechnic,
because we have Ag, we have high tech,
we have all of those things, all massive data generators.
And so we're pushing data around
the university, like never before, and
believe it or not, where we are,
is one of the largest fiber hubs in the US,
but it's still just not enough
because we're limited by the capacity on campus,
that is, our current wireless systems and other things.
And so if you really look at what
I'm dealing with, it's a matter of subtraction.
Everything we do on the internet, is a subtract.
If I want to add more data from our Ag school,
I have to subtract it from somewhere else.
And so what we really wanted in
the private 5G arena, is to look
for some solution that is no longer detracting
from the ability to push data, but an additive.
And not only that, it's smart in how it does it,
so that it allows us to pick and choose, where
and how the data is processed, how it's moved,
how it's pushed along, where it's computed at,
and really expand the capability
that drives us now to a digital campus,
with the proper enterprise to support it.
- Yeah, I think that couple of things in there
were interesting to me. The fact that, you know,
you have a lot of different use cases on campuses
like industrial, right, agricultural.
Ag-tech generates a lot of data.
- Absolutely.
- Where private wireless, it's not
just connectivity, but an enabler,
right, for you to do something with
the students - very, very valuable.
And so I know recently, we all saw
the announcement of this thing called
"Integrated Private Wireless," on AWS no less.
And who better to tell us about IPW and AWS
than Chris, so what is IPW?
- Yeah, thanks Roy, so last week
we announced a new partner program in AWS.
We're calling it, "Integrated Private Wireless on AWS."
And the program is designed to help customers
like Cal Poly to explore private 5G offerings,
to explore use cases, industry verticals
where it's relevant, and learn more about
the benefits that private 5G solutions can bring to them.
So inside that partner program,
we have Federated Wireless who
play a really important part in that.
Actually they play two roles within the program.
One is to build into end solutions,
to take out to the market, using pre-integrated
AWS infrastructure and pre-integrated connectivity
and over the top application vendors,
and package all that up and take it
out to market as a single managed services offering.
And what that does, is it breaks down kind
of three barriers to entry that
we see in the market today, that our customers
are telling us we need to solve.
One is high upfront cost. We work to
create a managed service offering together,
which has that cost, spread across
the whole life of the agreement.
We work to ensure that the solutions
that are are part of that offering
are pre-integrated in AWS, so AWS pick up
the sort of heavy lift of doing all
the architectural work and the integration work.
And what that means is that it breaks down
the complexity, but it also accelerates
time to market, which is the third problem
that we're trying to solve, is get things out quickly.
So as we go and we address specific
industry verticals, and we go and address
the requirements of Cal Poly and others like them,
we can create reusable offerings
that we can then take to customers, just like those.
And that's what the program is all about.
So that's number one role at Federated play.
Number two is we are also working
with CSPs to create end-to-end offerings.
CSPs need solutions, integrators, SIs.
So Federated also play that role
within the program, so we're delighted
to work with Federated on that.
- Excellent, so in terms of the dual role
the Federated Wireless plays, I mean
I think it's really critical for programs
like IPW and AWS, which is, I think, very helpful
as Chris points out, right?
Reduce the cost, reduce the complexity,
and reduce the time to market, or time to value,
as it were, right?
Not necessarily to market, but time to value.
So yeah, you've been in this space
for some time now, private wireless,
you clearly are experts in this space.
Given what you're seeing at Cal Poly
and other customers, and with your partners
like AWS, what do you envision -
what do you see for private wireless, right?
What do you see in the next couple of years,
explosive growth perhaps?
- Oh, absolutely, we're beginning to see the curve pick up.
We're an ecosystem company,
we're a partner enablement company,
we're a customer enablement company.
Our belief has always been the bigger
the party, the better the results.
And we believed in AWS, not just because
of technology and solutions, but also
the massive partner ecosystem they bring.
That's a huge advantage. We believe
in people like Bill to enable him,
support him in whatever he needs,
because it's the Bills of the world,
they're going to create the application,
that are going to design what's going on.
So I am not a believer that this
is one SKU, one application, solves the world.
I'm a believer, this is about enabling
the enterprise customers at the end
of the day, to do what they need
to do in the simplest way possible.
So what do I see, I see a lot more people
following on Bill's steps, and asking Bill
for advice, which is exactly what we're working
on now, is to create a community around Bill,
a community around supporting the community
that AWS is creating, enabling all
of the models that they're creating.
We're here to bring other people with us.
We all want to succeed, and the issue
is big and needs to be solved.
Customers want to manage their networks,
they want to solve their problems,
but they want to do them in the most
flexible and economic, and secure ways.
We're here to help them.
- I think that's absolutely fair.
I think private wireless brings that reliability
to security, that enablement of digital use cases.
I think that's the critical thing.
I think one thing that I've learned
in this industry, is that, you know,
very, very often we look at enterprises
or organizations, you know, historically Wi-Fi
was about connectivity, fundamentally.
But private wireless is about application
and business problems that people want to solve, right?
And I think collectively, what we're
seeing here, is a way to solve this.
And speaking of parties, if we want to get
on the Integrated Private Wireless on AWS party,
where do we start, Chris?
- So I would say to enterprise customers,
one thing I didn't mention earlier is that,
as part of this launch, we have also launched,
I think what we call the,
"Integrated Private Wireless Portal."
This is a rich set of information
about industry verticals, about use cases,
and about the partners we have
that can deliver against those use cases.
So what I would say to enterprises is,
"Go and have a look at the portal."
There will soon be Federated Wireless
solutions on there, and Federated solutions
are also available on our AWS marketplace today,
which is another source of procuring those.
- Excellent, so that's a great way
to get started, and I want to thank Iyad,
thank you, Chris, and especially thank you Bill
for making the trip to this round table,
and hopefully you've enjoyed the conversation,
and hopefully the audience is able to get
on that Integrated Private Wireless
on AWS, is a mouthful, band wagon, party
- IPW.
- Yeah, IPW, is that okay?
- Very good. - That works.
- Well thank you gentlemen. - Thank you.
- [Iyad] Thank you.