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>> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage
of AWS Public Sector Summit live in Washington DC,
a face-to-face event.
We're on the ground here, it's theCUBE coverage.
I'm John Furrier, your host, got two great guests,
Both CUBE alumni, Shannon Kellogg,
VP of Public Policy for the Americas,
And John Wood, CEO of Telos.
Congratulations on some announcements on stage
and congratulations to John for being a public company.
Last time I saw you in person, you were private,
now you're an IPO, congratulations.
>> Totally virtually, didn't meet one investor, lawyer,
accountant, or banker in person.
It's all been done over zoom.
>> John Furrier: Oh, I won't go back to that,
Shannon, great to see you, you had great props here earlier.
You guys got some good stuff going on in the policy side,
ACORE, Max on stage talking about this Virginia deal,
Give us the update.
>> Yeah, hey, thanks John.
It's great to be back, I always like to be on theCUBE.
So we made an announcement today regarding
our economic impact study for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
And this is around the Amazon Web Services business
and our presence in Virginia,
or AWS is we all call Amazon Web Services,
and basically the data that we released today shows
over the last decade, the magnitude of investment
that we're making,
and I think reflects just the overall investments
that are going into Virginia in the data center industry
of which John and I have been very involved with
over the years, but the numbers are quite something.
>> John Furrier: Just to be clear, this is not part
of the whole H2O, HQO, whatever they call it HQ2...
>> Shannon: - HQ2, so Virginia,
Amazon is investing in Virginia as part
of our HQ2 initiative,
and so Arlington, Virginia will be the second headquarters
in the US, in addition to that,
AWS has been in Virginia for now many years,
investing in both data center infrastructure
and also other corporate facilities
where we house AWS employees in other parts of Virginia,
particularly out in what's known
as the Dulles Technology Corridor,
but our data centers are actually spread
throughout three counties: in Fairfax County,
Loudoun County, and Prince William County.
>> John Furrier: So this is what Max announced,
so it wasn't any kind of headquarters,
it's just Virginia impact.
What was, what did he announce?
What did he say?
>> Yeah, so there were a few things
that we highlighted in this economic impact study.
One is that over the last decade,
if you can believe it,
we've invested $35 billion in data centers that are located
in Northern Virginia.
In 2020 alone, the AWS investment in construction
of these data centers was actually $1.3 billion,
just in 2020.
And this has created over 13,500 jobs
in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
So it's a really great story of investment and job creation.
And many people don't know, John,
and this sort of came through in your question too,
about HQ2, but AWS itself has over 8,000 employees
in Virginia today.
And so we've had this very significant presence for a number
of years now in Virginia, over the last, you know,
15 years has become really the cloud capital of the country,
if not the world.
And you see all this data center infrastructure
that's going in there.
>> John, what's your take on this?
You've been very active in the county there.
You've been a legend in the area in tech.
You've seen this many,
I don't know how many years you've been doing cyber,
I think the longest-running company doing cyber,
>> John Wood: My 31st year.
>> 31st year, so you've been on the ground.
What does this all mean to you?
>> Well, you know, it goes way back to,
it was roughly 2005 when I served
on the Economic Development Commission in Loudoun County
as the chairman.
And at the time we were the fastest growing county
in America, in Loudoun County,
but our residential real property taxes
were going up stratospherically because when you look at it,
for every dollar real property tax
that came in through residential,
we'd lose $2 because we had to fund schools and police
and fire departments and so forth.
And we realized for every dollar
of commercial real property tax that came in,
we made 97 cents in profit,
but only 13% of the money that was coming
into the county was coming in commercially.
So a small group got together from within the county
to try and figure out what were the assets
that we had to offer to companies like Amazon.
And we realized we had a lot of land, we had water,
and then we had, you know,
this enormous amount of dark fiber,
unused fiber-optic.
And so basically the county made it appealing
to companies like Amazon to come out to Loudoun county
and other places in Northern Virginia,
and the rest is history.
If you look today where Loudoun County is,
Loudoun County generates a couple hundred million dollars
surplus every year,
it's real property taxes have come down in real dollars,
and the percentage of revenue that comes
from commercial is like 33, 34%.
That's really largely driven by the data center ecosystem
that my friend over here, Shannon, was talking
about a second ago.
>> John Furrier: So, the formula basically is,
look at the assets, the resources available
that may align with the kind of commercial entities
that could house there, domicile there.
>> John Wood: They could benefit from, yeah.
>> So, what about power,
because obviously data centers need power.
Fiber okay, fiber's great, power pipe.
>> The main point,
you can build power, but the main point is,
is water for cooling.
So I think we had an abundance of water,
which allowed us to build power sources,
and allowed companies like Amazon
to build their own power sources.
So I think it was really a sort of a better,
what do they say, better lucky than good?
So we had a bunch of assets come together,
>> John Furrier: The land helps.
>> that made us pretty lucky as a region.
>> John Furrier: Nice area, too.
>> It is a nice area, for sure.
>> Shannon: And John, it's really interesting
because the vision that John Wood and several
of his colleagues had on that Economic Development Board
has truly come through and it was reaffirmed in the numbers
that we released this week.
AWS paid $220 million in personal property taxes
in 2020 alone for our data centers in those three counties,
including Loudoun, Fairfax, and Prince William.
>> John Furrier: So Amazon's contribution was
how much to the county?
>> $220 million over three counties in Northern Virginia,
So Loudoun County, Prince William, and Fairfax
in 2020 alone.
And that actually makes up 20%
of overall property tax revenues in these counties in 2020.
So, you know, the vision that they had 15 years ago,
15, 16 years ago, has really come true today.
And that's just reaffirmed in these numbers where...
>> John Furrier: John, I mean, he's with Amazon,
so I'll ask you the question.
I mean, there's a lot of like,
just misinformation going around and around,
corporate reputation,
this is clearly an example
of the corporation contributing to the society.
>> John Wood: No doubt, and you think about it,
>> Like, that's some good numbers,
220 million.
>> John Wood: Yeah, $35 million capital investment,
you know, 10, you know, what is it?
8,000, 9,000 jobs.
>> Yeah, 8,800 jobs, AWS jobs in the Commonwealth alone.
>> And then you look at the economic impact on each
of those counties financially,
it really benefits everybody at the end of the day.
>> John Furrier: Yeah, good infrastructure across the board.
How do you replicate, not everyone's on Amazon though,
so how do you take the formula?
What's your take on best practice?
How does this roll out?
I mean obviously Amazon will continue to grow, but that,
you know, it's one company.
Is there a lesson here for the rest of us?
>> John Wood: I think all of the data center companies
and the cloud companies out there see value in this region.
That's why so much of the internet traffic comes
through Northern Virginia.
I mean, it's, I've heard 70%,
I've heard much higher than that too.
So, I think everybody realizes this is a strategic asset
at a national level,
but I think the main point to bring out is that every state
across America should be thinking about investments
from companies like Amazon.
There are really significant benefits
that helps the entire community.
So, it helps build schools, police departments,
fire departments, et cetera.
>> And jobs, opportunities.
Shannon, what's the vision though beyond data center,
you got solar, sustainability.
>> We do, we have actually a number
of renewable energy projects, which I want to talk about,
but just one other quick note on the data center industry,
so I also serve on the Data Center Coalition,
which is a national organization
of data center and cloud providers,
and we look at states all over this country.
We're very active in multiple states and we work
with governors and state governments,
as they put together different frameworks and policies
to incentive investment in their states,
and Virginia is doing it right.
Virginia has historically been very forward-looking
and very forward-thinking in how they're trying
to track these data center investments.
They have the right tax incentives in place.
And then, you know,
back to your point about renewable energy,
over the last several years,
Virginia has also really made some statutory changes
and other policy changes
to drive forward renewable energy in Virginia.
Six years ago, this week, John,
I was in Accomack county in Virginia,
which is the Eastern shore, it's a very rural area
where we helped build our first solar farm,
Amazon Solar Farm in Virginia in 2015
is when we made this announcement with the governor.
Six years ago, this week, it was 88 megawatts,
which basically at the time,
quadrupled Virginia's solar output in one project.
So since that first project we at Amazon have gone
from building that one facility,
quadrupling at the time the solar output in Virginia,
to now, we're by the end of 2023,
going to be 1,430 megawatts
of solar power in Virginia
with 15 projects,
which is the equivalent of enough power to actually,
enough electricity to power 225,000 households,
which is the equivalent of Prince William County, Virginia.
So just to give you the scale of what we're doing here
in Virginia on renewable energy.
>> So to me, I mean,
this comes down to, not to put my,
my opinion out there because I never hold back on theCUBE,
It's a posture issue.
>> John Wood: We count on that.
>> It's a posture issue of how people approach business.
I mean, it's the two schools of thought on the extreme.
Screw business, government pays for everything,
or business friendly.
So this is a modern story about friendly business,
kind of collaborative posture.
>> Yeah, it's putting money to very specific use,
which has a very specific return.
In this case, it's for everybody that lives
in the Northern Virginia region.
So, that benefits everybody.
>> Shannon: And these policies have not just attracted
companies like Amazon and data center builders,
and renewable energy investments,
these policies are also leading to rapid growth
in the cybersecurity industry in Virginia as well.
You know, John founded his company decades ago
and you have all
of these cybersecurity companies now located in Virginia.
Many of them are partners like Telos.
>> John Furrier: Yeah, I know John and Emmett
both have contributed heavily to a lot
of the systems in place in America here.
So congratulations on that, but I got to ask you guys,
while I've got you for the last minute or two,
cybersecurity has become the big issue.
I mean, there's a lot of,
these policies are all over the place,
but cyber is super critical right now.
I mean, where's the red line, Shannon where's, you know,
things are happening.
You guys bring security to the table,
businesses are out there fending for themselves.
There's no militia.
Where's the support for the commercial businesses,
people are nervous.
>> John Wood: So, you want to answer?
>> Well, I'm happy to take the first shot
and then we'll leave John with the last word
because he's the true cyber expert.
But I had the privilege of hosting a panel this morning
with the director
of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
at the Department of Homeland Security, Jen Easterly.
And the agency is relatively new
and she laid out a number of initiatives
that the DHS organization that she runs,
is working on with industry,
and so they're leaning in,
they're partnering with industry in a number of areas,
including, you know, making sure
that we have the right information sharing framework
and tools in place.
So the government and we in industry can act
on information that we get in real time,
making sure that we're investing for the future
and the workforce development and cyber skills,
but also as we enter National Cybersecurity Month,
making sure that we're all doing our part
in cyber security awareness and training.
For example, one of the things that our Amazon CEO,
Andy Jassy recently announced,
as he was participating in a White House summit,
that President Biden hosted in late August,
was that we were going to at Amazon make a tool
that we've developed for information and security awareness
for our employees free, available to the public.
And in addition to that,
we announced that we were going to provide free,
strong authentication tokens for AWS customers,
as part of that announcement going
into National Cybersecurity Month.
So what I like about what this administration is doing,
is they're reaching out,
they're looking for ways to work with industry,
bringing us together in the summits,
but also looking for, you know,
actionable things that we can do together
to make a difference.
>> John Wood: Yeah, so my perspective,
echoing on some of Shannon's points,
are really the following.
The key in general is automation,
and there are three components to automation
that are important in today's environment.
One is cyber hygiene, and education's a piece of that.
The second is around misattribution.
Meaning if the bad guy can't see you, you can't be hacked.
And the third one is really more or less around
what's called attribution.
Meaning I can figure out actually who the bad guy is,
and then report that bad guy's actions
to the appropriate law enforcement and military types,
and then they take it from there.
>> John Furrier: Unless he's not attributed either so,
>> Well, no, but the basic point is,
we can't as industry hack back, it's illegal,
but what we can do is,
provide the tools and methods necessary
to our government counterparts, this,
that point about information sharing,
where they can take the actions necessary
and try and find those bad guys.
>> John Furrier: I just feel like,
we're not moving fast enough.
Businesses should be able to hack back in my opinion.
I'm a hawk on this one item.
So like, I believe that.
Because if people dropped on our shores
with troops, the government would protect us.
Why wouldn't they protect business?
>> John Wood: So your point is directly taken,
when cyber command was formed,
you know, before that, as air, land, sea, and space,
physical domains,
each of those physical domains have
about $150 billion they spend per year,
when cyber command was formed,
it was spending less than JP Morgan Chase
to defend the nation.
So, you know, we do have a ways to go.
I do agree with you that there needs
to be more flexibility given the industry to help,
you know, help with the fight.
You know, in this case,
Andy Jassy has offered a couple of tools, which are,
I think really good, strong tokens, training.
Those are all really good.
We've been working with Amazon for a long time,
ever since really ever since the CIA embraced the cloud,
which was sort of the shot heard round the world
for cloud computing,
we do the security and compliance automation
for that air gap region for Amazon,
as well as other aspects of Amazon.
>> Well, the world needs more Telos faster,
keep cranking up that software because,
telling you right now, people are, are getting hit.
>> And people are getting scared.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, the Colonial Pipeline Hack?
Everybody started going, wait a minute,
I can't get gas.
>> But again, in this area...
>> Follow the line.
and Jen Easterly said this this morning here at the summit,
is that this truly has to be about industry working
with government, making sure that we're working together,
you know, government has a role,
but so does the private sector.
And I've been working in cyber issues for a long time too.
And, you know, kind of seeing where we are this year
and this recent cyber summit that the President held,
I really see just a tremendous commitment coming
from the private sector to be an effective partner
in securing the nation's cybersecurity.
>> John Furrier: Well, this comes full circle
to our original conversation around the Virginia data
that you guys are looking at,
the Loudoun County Amazon contribution,
the success formula is really commercial public sector.
I mean, the government has to recognize
that technology is now lingua franca for all things,
everything, society.
>> Well, and one quick thing here that segues
into the fact that Virginia is the cloud center
of the nation,
the President issued a cybersecurity executive order earlier
this year that really emphasizes the migration
of federal systems into cloud,
and the modernization that John has worked on,
John heads a group called
the Alliance for Digital Innovation.
And they're very active in the IT modernization world.
And we're a member as well, but you know,
the federal government is really emphasizing this,
this migration to cloud.
And that was reiterated
in that cyber security executive order from the President.
>> John Furrier: Well, we'll definitely get you guys back
on the show, you want to say something real quick?
>> Just all I'd say about the executive order is that
I think one of the main reasons
why the President thought it was important is
that the legacy systems that are out there
are mainly written on COBOL.
There aren't a lot of kids graduating
with degrees in COBOL.
So, COBOL was designed in 1955, I think.
So I think it's very imperative that we move as many
of these workloads as we can.
>> John Furrier: I don't even think they teach it anymore.
>> They don't.
So from a security point of view,
the amount of threats and vulnerabilities are
through the roof.
>> Awesome, well, John, I want to get you on the show,
our next cybersecurity event,
maybe you have you come and do a fireside chat
and really kind of unpack all the awesome stuff
that you're doing, but also the challenges.
And there are many,
Shannon, keep up the good work on the policy.
I still say we got to remove that red line
and identify new rules of engagement relative to what's
on our sovereign virtual lands.
So, you know, a whole 'nother ball game.
Thanks so much for coming out, I appreciate it.
>> John Wood: John, Thanks. >> Shannon: Thank you John,
Appreciate it, man. >> Thank you.
Okay, CUBE coverage here at AWS Public Sector Summit
in Washington, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching.
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