On this episode of the Six Five Webcast Infrastructure Matters, our hosts, Krista Case and Steven Dickens, dive deep into the evolving landscape of the cybersecurity and technology industry. Join us for a compelling conversation on the latest industry developments, including partnerships, data protection, cloud technology, and emerging cybersecurity trends.
Their discussion covers:
- The strategic partnership between AWS and Oracle, highlighting the move towards a more flexible, multi-cloud world
- The critical importance of data protection and cybersecurity in today’s digital age, focusing on ransomware protection and full-application stack recovery
- The accelerated adoption of cloud-based solutions and the significance of sovereign cloud deployments for regional security
- Emerging trends in cybersecurity, such as AI-powered threat detection and the shift towards consolidated, platform-driven security solutions
- The impact of Salesforce’s acquisition of Own Backup on the industry landscape
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Disclaimer: Six Five Webcast Infrastructure Matters is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you do not treat us as such.
Transcript:
Krista Case: Hello and welcome to episode 54 of Infrastructure Matters. I’m Krista Case, the Research Director here at The Futurum Group, and I’m joined by my lovely co-host, Steven Dickens. Steven, how are you doing today?
Steven Dickens: I’m good. I don’t know whether people would associate lovely and me, but thank you. I’ll take it.
Krista Case: Well, it’s always a lovely way to start my day here, so it’s chatting with you, so definitely appreciate you having the conversation today.
Steven Dickens: And we’re back into the craziness after the summer break. Emily and I recorded last week. Conference season is go and we’re off and running. It’s crazy.
Krista Case: It is. I know. And Steven you were mentioning, you in particular are barely going to be on the ground for the next couple of months, right? What are some of the big events you have coming up?
Steven Dickens: So I’ve got… I’m off to BMC’s event, I’m off to Red Hat, I’m off to Re-Invent just before Thanksgiving. I’ve got an IBM Analyst Summit. The next few weeks are just crazy. But that’s what we love. We love just being out on the road talking to all these vendors. I’ve just come back from Oracle’s Cloud world this week, which is a great event. So yeah, that’s the job, being on the road and being at these events.
Krista Case: It is. And nothing replaces the face-to-face communication, but, yeah so-
Steven Dickens: Absolutely.
Krista Case: Yeah. So speaking of Oracle, I know Steven, one topic that’s been very big in the news is the partnership between AWS and Oracle. So why don’t you kick us off with that one. What did you see and hear maybe at the event this past week, and what are some of your takeaways from the partnership?
Steven Dickens: Well, I think the headline for me is that we now live in a hybrid multi-cloud world. You go back five or six years, Oracle and AWS were mortal enemies, Oracle and Microsoft were enemies, Google and Oracle were enemies. You wind forward to the world we’re in today. All of the hyperscalers have got on-prem offerings with satellites and outposts, Oracle with Cloud@Customer. You look at the relationship that Oracle inked with AWS, which now completes the sets. They’ve got partnerships with Google, Microsoft, and AWS. This is Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, OCI, actually sitting in an AWS data center. So this isn’t, oh, I can buy some software and run it on AWS kit. This is Oracle infrastructure sitting in a rack in AWS, which is just fantastic, I think for clients, fantastic for AWS and fantastic for Oracle.
Larry Ellison, who absolutely needs a shout-out. I had to Google during the keynote how old this guy is. He looked fantastic. He’s 79 years old. Did the keynote, brought on Matt Garman, the CEO of AWS onto the stage, which the analyst community can’t remember the last time Larry did a walk on with somebody else. He just doesn’t do that. So that was the significance of this, talking about the partnership, and I got some time with Karan Batta who runs OCI during the event to go deep. The significance for me of this is if you’ve now got Oracle database running on OCI infrastructure in AWS and you want to move that database to Azure, that’s not an AWS to Azure egress fee charge. It’s OCI to OCI.
Krista Case: I see. Yeah.
Steven Dickens: Yep. So the significance of that really dropped on the analyst community and we spent the entire chatter was the ability to be in a multi cloud, the ability to be able to have a strategy where you’ve got a common layer, which is your Oracle database, your Exadata, your Exascale, running on OCI, and be able to have that data portability and that data management. Maybe there’s not an Azure instance in the country where you need that and maybe there is an AWS one. Maybe there’s a Google instance, but there’s not an Azure instance. You can have that common layer and that common data management fabric, which was a word that Pat Moorhead, from Moor Insights & Strategy coined to fit around this phrase, that data fabric and be able to move data across that common OCI backbone, that’s crucial. That’s crucial. So absolutely fascinating announcement. I think it took everybody, well, not by surprise, I don’t think, because they’ve been doing this for a while with Azure and with Google, but I think obviously AWS just completes the set.
Krista Case: It does. It does. And that really hits the nail on the head, Steven. So in my space, I’ve seen that for really the past five or six years, more from the standpoint of recovering data and having that flexibility in terms of data management, but it is still a data management and a data migration issue, which is exactly what you’re speaking to. Customers want that flexibility. They do not want to be locked into that one specific provider for, as you’re referencing, maybe pricing between the cloud providers is going to fluctuate different capabilities and functionalities. Maybe it is an issue of data sovereignty or resiliency of the infrastructure. So definitely very powerful. And then-
Steven Dickens: It’s interesting that you brought-
Krista Case: Egress fees as you’re mentioning too, that’s really the kicker, really the kicker in that equation from a cost perspective.
Steven Dickens: Well, it was interesting on pricing, the price is going to be the same depending on which cloud you’re in. So the price-
Krista Case: Interesting.
Steven Dickens: For Oracle OCI running Exadata will be the same in AWS, the same in Azure, and the same in Google. So they’ve democratized it from a cost point of view. The solution is the same, the tech stack is the same. You just choose which cloud provider you want to connect. There’s going to be connections out to Bedrock, Amazon’s AI service. There’s connections out to Gemini and to Microsoft and some of their Copilot stuff. So if you want to be leveraging AI, it’s the classic conversation we’ve had on this podcast a number of times, bringing the data to the AI or the AI to the data. Oracle’s just made that a non-issue because it’s in Oracle, it’s on the highly tuned and optimized Exadata infrastructure. It’s got an OCI wrap around it, but it’s sitting in AWS. Fantastic. I mean, clients have been asking this. They had States Street up on the stage.
And Larry stitched up Matt, which was funny to watch. I don’t know whether Matt realized what was happening to him because they’d announced that it was in a certain number of data centers at launch, and Larry goes to the State Street guy, “Well, how many countries do you want this in?” And the guy goes, “Well, we operate in 50.” And then he turns to Matt and goes, “Well, I suppose that’s our roadmap done then.” Now, whether Larry knew that in advance, it was pushing Matt on stage to commit to the roadmap, or maybe I’m just reading a conspiracy into it. It was funny. But I mean, all joking aside, created a ripple, hit the press.
Krista Case: Absolutely.
Steven Dickens: I spoke to the Wall Street Journal about it. They were that interested that they called me during the event and wanted to dig into it. So also at the event, Oracle had their earnings-
Krista Case: Okay. Yeah.
Steven Dickens: On Tuesday, I think it was. Just got to say nine days after year-end, they announced their earnings. I need to go back and look, but that is ridiculously fast.
Krista Case: Absolutely.
Steven Dickens: Obviously that’s driven by NetSuite and Fusion and their back-end tools that they obviously sell. But Safra Catz talked about it in the keynote. The speed at which they can close their books is frankly impressive for me. Key number that stood out, I think it was 44% growth of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. You look at where the others in the market are, they’re high 20s, so they’re growing faster than their peers. I think we’re now talking about 4 hyperscalers, not 3.
Krista Case: That was going to be my question for you was we hear about the big three, and then the other cloud providers tend to be a bit distant from them. So Oracle catching up. I mean, where do you think they’re going to be sitting call it, 18, 24 months from now?
Steven Dickens: Well, I think both things can be true at the same time. I think other hyperscalers can be growing at 30% and Oracle can be growing greater than that which they’re doing today. Why do I think two truths? So I don’t see it as a, they’re taking market share from AWS. I don’t frame it that way. Public cloud adoption in some markets is still single digits. Financial services are in low single digits of how much percentage of their infrastructure is on cloud. You look at IBM, sorry, you look at Oracle’s install base, it’s probably the top five, 25,000 to 20,000 organizations in the world. It’s those big enterprise names. They’re going to be the slowest adopters of cloud. So Oracle can go and get that market share without taking it off AWS. So I think Oracle can grow faster than their peers because they’re exposed to the Citibanks, the Wells Fargos, the Barclays, the HSBCs like they have been for 40 years-
Krista Case: Yes.
Steven Dickens: And grow. And with the new announcements, they’ll grow with AWS, they’ll grow with Google, they’ll grow with Azure, so it’s really dynamic in the market. So fantastic set of earnings. Great to see Larry bossing it on the keynote stage, age 79, and a fantastic announcement with AWS would be the summary.
Krista Case: That’s amazing. So maybe we’ll continue with that AWS theme. I know Steven, another topic that you wanted to touch on was AWS and what they’re doing in the UK. So do you want to double click on that?
Steven Dickens: Yeah, well, I’ve been talking about sovereign cloud for a while on the podcast here. Typically, when I cover one of those sovereign cloud announcements, this is Oracle in Japan, this is IBM in Canada, this is AWS in Germany. We’ve seen a raft of those, and if you search on our website with the word sovereign on them, you’ll pull up all my coverage. Because I did that the other day. I’m being consistent on what I call them. So if you want to search, but I’ve probably written 7 or 8 research notes this year on sovereign cloud deployments. The interesting thing for me was the size of the investment here. This is £8 billion, just over $10 billion. That’s 10X the size of the investments. Now, was this new investment? Was this just counting what they were going to invest over the next five years? I think whichever way you frame it, this is a huge investment in a key market for AWS.
This got attention from the government in the UK. Various members of parliament jumping on to talk about the investment. I’m in the process of writing a research note and I’ve got a call with AWS that I’m trying to schedule to understand more. But what stood out for me is just the size and scale. Obviously London is a key market globally for financial services. We talked about cloud penetration in financial services markets in the context of the last segment. I think this is just a huge investment and good news for the market in the UK for AWS and a good news story for AWS around their commitment to deploying sovereign cloud-based workloads.
Krista Case: Absolutely. And as you’re referencing, it will absolutely help to speed adoption in these highly regulated industries like financial services for example. So it is interesting how the two announcements are very correlated and likely will feed each other.
Steven Dickens: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Krista Case: Yeah. So continuing to pull on that cloud thread, one piece of news that I covered recently was the fact that Salesforce plans to acquire a company called Own Company, which they do backup and data protection primarily for Salesforce for $1.9 billion actually. So obviously, a pretty hefty price tag. And-
Steven Dickens: Yeah.
Krista Case: From my perspective, there’s a few things that are very interesting about this. So Salesforce years ago, they had some backup and data protection capabilities. They decided to move away from that because naturally that’s not the core business and functionality of what Salesforce does, but their customers are reeling them right back into it. Due to the customer demand, Salesforce entered the data protection space again with some of their own capabilities that they built in-house, and now they’re announcing that they’re going to acquire a company that is, you can make a case that they’re the specialists when it comes to protecting Salesforce applications and that SaaS backup-as-a-service type model.
Steven Dickens: That was going to be my question. Is Own backup a Salesforce-only backup solution or is it in the Commvault Rubrik theme type space and a bit more general purpose? When I saw this on the docket, that was my question.
Krista Case: So they started focusing on Salesforce exclusively. They have extended their workload coverage to a number of other SaaS applications, I believe even some on-premises databases and file servers. But what I’m thinking, Steven, is that assuming the acquisition does close, I think that they will pivot back to focusing exclusively on Salesforce. I don’t believe that Salesforce wants to make this broad spread play in the data protection space. What I believe is happening is that Salesforce customers are asking for this functionality as an extension of their Salesforce contract. And so Salesforce is realizing that it does need to step up to the table and provide some of these capabilities. I don’t expect that they’re going to be really trying to put pressure on, as you mentioned, your Commvaults and themes of the world, though of course they’re going to coexist altogether in the same ecosystem.
So that’s going to be interesting. How much will Salesforce offer in terms of maybe some APIs for these third-party data protection software companies to integrate with the Salesforce Own solution? Things of that nature. Where I do think that they may continue to expand. So Own has been investing not only in additional workloads, but also in some additional capabilities such as data governance and compliance and some capabilities around cyber resiliency, that I would anticipate would be smart for Salesforce to continue that drumbeat just because those capabilities are becoming table stakes as part of a data protection offering because they’re so critical to that data privacy, data resiliency story.
So that was some of my big takeaways. Again, I do think that it’s interesting, we’ve seen this in the backup-as-a-service market that really customers are, they’re recognizing that they need that enterprise grade functionality. I think we’re at a point in the market where customers realize that the recycle bin isn’t an effective data protection policy, especially for something like Salesforce. When you have these implementations that are highly customized, you have very critical CRM data, for example. So they’re recognizing that they need more, but they’re wanting to subscribe to that through their application provider if they can. So it’ll be interesting to see-
Steven Dickens: One take to turn it on rather than, hey, I need to go somewhere else into a different… It’s just fully embedded in your Salesforce instance. Do you want pay for backup? It’s the, as I describe it, do- you-want-fries-with-that-type solution.
Krista Case: Exactly, exactly. And so I do think there will need to be some connectivity into some of these other data protection offerings. Enterprises are already accustomed to working with multiple different data protection solutions. You typically have something that’s going to protect your virtualized environment. Maybe you’re working with a different provider or two for some of these SaaS applications. So there’s already a bit of fragmentation, maybe 3 or 4 vendors already existing in large enterprises. So if this is another one, it’s something that I would say at least from an IT upside, they’re already used to working with it from that perspective. But I do think that the more the Own backup solution can feed into the broader perspective, especially as we start thinking about some of those cyber resiliency capabilities I was referencing, data governance and things of that nature, that’s going to be important in order to get that holistic view.
Steven Dickens: Yeah. That makes sense. Notice the next one up on the dock. It was Druva, so I’ll be the host for a minute. Tell us a little bit more around what they’re doing in the AI space.
Krista Case: Yeah. So they have a chatbot that they call Dru. And what Druva has done is they’ve launched what they call Dru Investigate. And what that does is it allows customers to have some insight and analysis into the backup data, for example, to potentially detect that threats are occurring, things of that nature. My take on it, and I had a conversation with TechTarget, I also had a conversation with Druva, I got the question, how much of a draw is an AI chatbot to a data protection solution? And based on our research, so we actually did ask cybersecurity decision makers as a part of our intelligence data here at Futurum, and what we found was that only I think it was 10 or 12% of respondents indicated that a chatbot was really the attraction. But what I think it is it’s really about what the chatbot enables. So it’s more about the insight that the chatbot unlocks. So it’s about the ability to maybe more quickly sift through data and make new correlations that they wouldn’t have been able to make before to do things like improve their ability to detect that an attack has occurred.
Steven Dickens: Yep.
Krista Case: Or-
Steven Dickens: So less the chatbot, more what the chatbot’s doing-
Krista Case: Exactly.
Steven Dickens: Interesting, you think?
Krista Case: Exactly. A hundred percent.
Steven Dickens: Makes sense.
Krista Case: Yeah. And when you think about, as I was talking about, just, especially if there are multiple solutions that are existing in the environment and also just how fragmented data is these days. So we have multi-hybrid cloud environments where data is existing, as you were talking about when we were discussing Oracle, data is existing across all these different environments. Then if we have, for example, a zero trust approach where we’re trying to really segment data as much as we can to inhibit that malicious access, it becomes difficult to get that centralized visibility.
So if a chatbot can help to unlock that, enriching the insights for IT and security teams… And actually on that topic, I think that one other thing that a chatbot can do, but again it’s, from my perspective, more about the outcome, is it really can provide insights that the IT and security teams can use to start collaborating together more. And they have more of a common language to start to speak for cyber resiliency, cyber security, things of that nature. So it’s really interesting.
Steven Dickens: There’s value in that if nothing else.
Krista Case: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So it’s an interesting announcement. We’re seeing a number of data protection companies are introducing similar functionalities from a chatbot perspective. And I just think that little spin on it in terms of it’s more about what does it enable you to do that again, we got that feedback that I think is interesting and tied in there.
Steven Dickens: Yeah, that’s fascinating.
Krista Case: Yeah.
Steven Dickens: Well, one topic left. I think it’s me.
Krista Case: Yes. Yep.
Steven Dickens: I’ll try and focus my inner Camberley and get all storage here. So IBM launched its 10th generation of the venerable DS 8000 range, so the DS8 K. This is the high end storage. I think the headlines were doubles the throughput of PCIe Gen4, they’re bringing NVMe flash drives that bring a boost in performance. This advanced ransomware protection via AI, enhanced RAID and security management, continued market-leading integration with the mainframe. So I think continual drumbeat, nothing revolutionary here, just IBM doing what it does best with the DS8K, focusing on those customer requirements where we need better performance, we need better availability, we need this thing to be the home of our mission-critical data and we need this to connect to our most valuable systems. And one of those is obviously the mainframe. So if you can connect it to the mainframe in the most seamless way, connectivity into the IBM mainframe cyber vault technology as an example there. A seamless integration. I talked about that.
So I think if you’re a DS8K customer, you are probably going to upgrade. You’re probably going to go and get onto the 10th generation. And if you are comparing this against a Hitachi or a Dell with their former EMC offerings, you’re going to be, I don’t think it rapidly changes that competitive landscape, but what it does do is continue to demonstrate that IBM’s innovating in this space, bringing more value add and been focused on the customer requirements. It was a very evolutionary briefing that they talked us through it. These are the themes we’re getting from customers. It’s all about security, it’s all about performance. It’s around availability. Ransomware is important. Some of the operational requirements of regulations like DORA. So as I say, nothing that made you go, wow, they’ve completely changed the landscape, but continuing to drive the value where people need it absolutely the most. Camberley would’ve done a better job of that than me, but I’m not a storage expert.
Krista Case: I think you did a fantastic job.
Steven Dickens: I tried. I pitch in.
Krista Case: And I think one thing that’s interesting about that to me, Steven, with my own personal bias is hearing some of these security and resiliency capabilities alongside the speed and performance and what you’re describing as this was an evolutionary as opposed to a radical, for lack of a better way to describe it, update. So to me that just really underscores the fact that when we look at not only the data protection environment, but also production storage, the fact that those security and availability capabilities are more table stakes than they’ve ever been before. They have to be there in order to meet what customers need to do.
Steven Dickens: This is the crown jewels of data storage. This is the stuff that if it goes down the business is the front page story on tomorrow’s newspaper. This is the most mission-critical transactional systems, the tier one or tier zero storage, which all of those things, this is what a DS 8000 does.
Krista Case: Absolutely.
Steven Dickens: Customers I think aren’t looking for revolution there. They’re looking for, I’ve got real hard requirements around performance, availability, security, ransomware protection. Give me that. Keep turning the crank IBM and I’ll buy your next box. That’s how I took this. So I mean that we live in a dynamic world where every product manager wants to tell us that they’re changing the world and fixing world peace with their product offering launch. It wasn’t one of those. But actually I think that’s what customers will want from this release, from IBM, rather than revolution.
Krista Case: Especially a company like IBM, they’re known, they’re trusted. We don’t need to necessarily make this huge fanfare. We need to just say, we’re listening to you, we’re delivering what you need and we’re going to continue to be there and support those requirements.
Steven Dickens: Trusting partner status. Trusted partner status for your tier one storage is the way to look at this, I think.
Krista Case: Absolutely. And with that Steven, I think we’re just about at the top of our time here. Thank you so much. I enjoyed our conversation as always.
Steven Dickens: How did we sneak that into half an hour? I’ve got no idea.
Krista Case: I never know how we do it, but somehow we manage to. So thank you so much to the audience for joining us today. Again, this is Infrastructure Matters. Make sure to like and subscribe so you don’t miss any of our future episodes as they come out. And make sure to engage with us in the comments. We’d love to hear from you, hear your feedback, what are some of the topics that you want to see covered. And with that, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thank you so much.
Author Information
With a focus on data security, protection, and management, Krista has a particular focus on how these strategies play out in multi-cloud environments. She brings approximately 15 years of experience providing research and advisory services and creating thought leadership content. Her vantage point spans technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her work has appeared in major publications including eWeek, TechTarget and The Register.
Prior to joining The Futurum Group, Krista led the data protection practice for Evaluator Group and the data center practice of analyst firm Technology Business Research. She also created articles, product analyses, and blogs on all things storage and data protection and management for analyst firm Storage Switzerland and led market intelligence initiatives for media company TechTarget.
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
