October 17, 2023 • 43 mins
On this episode of the Actionable Futurist Podcast, I had an in-depth conversation with Steve Young, UK SVP & Managing Director for Dell Technologies, on why it is now critical that CEOs, CIOs, CFOs and CISOs play a role in driving a well-planned multicloud strategy for their businesses.
In recent years, cloud technology has proliferated. However, many are realising that not all workloads and applications are suited to a single public cloud environment. Or, in fact, a public cloud environment at all.. As such, going 'multi-cloud' has been implemented unintentionally rather than strategically.
The need for a multi-cloud approach is now more urgent as companies are deploying more complicated applications and services, so this Podcast is timely and important for business leaders in any organisation to hear.
The discussion made me realise that multi-cloud strategy is not just about the tech world – and as Steve highlights, it has significant implications for various industries, including financial services and FMCG
In the podcast, we discussed how a financial services organisation has efficiently utilised multi-cloud for cost and efficiency using ground-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground approaches.
We also explored Dell Technologies' vision and differentiation in the multi-cloud space and how they focus on enabling customers to consume public cloud-style services irrespective of where their data and applications sit.
Dell Technologies is helping to bridge the gap in the market for multi-cloud skilled talent. Artificial Intelligence also impacts the multi-cloud environment, and we talked about how AI will function in a multi-cloud world.
It’s fair to say that multi-cloud environments offer numerous benefits, from increased flexibility and agility to improved cyber resilience; however, the journey towards effective multi-cloud adoption is filled with challenges.
We examined in detail how each member of the C-suite can benefit from a multi-cloud approach.
More and more, CEOs understand the importance of technology in driving business innovation and growth. Embracing a multi-cloud strategy allows CEOs to get their organisations on the front foot of digital transformation.
Steve explained how organisations can successfully navigate the multi-cloud maze through strategic planning, business understanding, and the right technological support.
We also spoke about the Dell Technologies Forum on November 28th in London that I'm attending, the premier conference for technology enthusiasts and business leaders looking to drive innovation and growth. You can sign up for a free pass at futurist.click/dell-forum
Resources mentioned in this episode
Steve on LinkedIn
Sign up for the Dell Technologies Forum
This was a sponsored podcast in partnership with Dell Technologies.
Thanks for listening to Digitally Curious. Pre-order the book that showcases these episodes at digitallycurious.ai/pre-order
Your Host is Actionable Futurist® Andrew Grill
For more on Andrew - what he speaks about and recent talks, please visit ActionableFuturist.com
Andrew's Social Channels
Andrew on LinkedIn
@AndrewGrill on Twitter
@Andrew.Grill on Instagram
Keynote speeches here
Pre-order Andrew's upcoming book - Digitally Curious
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Voiceover (00:00):
Welcome to the Actionable Futurist podcast
brought to you by DellTechnologies, a show all about
the near-term future, withpractical and actionable advice
from a range of global experts.
Your host is internationalkeynote speaker and Actionable
Futurist, andrew Grill.
Andrew Grill (00:21):
Today on the podcast I have Steve Young,
Senior Vice President andGeneral Manager of Dell
Technologies UK.
A long time figure at thecompany.
Steve has spent more than 20years at Dell, starting as a
Senior Sales Executive at EMC in2001.
He's responsible for Dell's UKbusiness, client satisfaction
and employee engagement.
(00:42):
Welcome, Steve.
Steve Young (00:43):
Thank you very much , Andrew.
Great to be here.
Andrew Grill (00:46):
Now we're here to talk about multi-cloud, so let's
go back to basics.
What is multi-cloud and whatare the benefits of running a
multi-cloud environment?
Steve Young (00:55):
Yeah, so multi-cloud is effectively where
a company has their data andapplications running in
different locations.
They may be in the public cloud, an AWS, an Azure, a GCP.
They may be data andapplications running in their
own data center, in aco-location facility or
(01:17):
potentially at the edge.
So multi-cloud is when thosedata and applications are
running in different locations.
Andrew Grill (01:25):
And you mentioned public cloud and I think
everyone knows that AWS, Google,all those other clouds are very
public.
But what's the real differencebetween a public cloud and a
private cloud?
Steve Young (01:34):
Yeah, so I think about public cloud is when your
data and applications arerunning on shared infrastructure
with other companies as well,and I think about a private
cloud is where your data andapplications are running on your
own maybe owned by you, maybeowned by a provider, but running
on your own infrastructure.
Really simple way of thinkingabout it is if you think about
(01:57):
using your iPhone when you'reconnected and you're maybe
listening you're on Spotify,listening to your favorite song.
It's streaming and it'sstreaming from the public cloud.
If, for example, you'vedownloaded some of that music to
your local device, then I wouldsay that's similar to what I
(02:17):
would call a private cloud.
So say, if you're on the tubeno signal you can still listen
to your favorite tracks becauseit's on a private cloud, on your
own personal iPhone.
Andrew Grill (02:28):
That's actually a really good way of describing.
I haven't heard it describedbefore, but we actually all have
our own private clouds on ourdevices, so I really like that
analogy.
But how do you know if you'rerunning multi-cloud?
Steve Young (02:40):
You don't really need to know, because you are.
You will be consuming servicesfrom places you probably don't
even know and, fundamentally,every organization has some of
their applications and workloadsin a cloud, a public cloud or a
private cloud.
So I think, rather than spendtoo much time worrying about it,
(03:02):
I would just assume that youare.
Andrew Grill (03:05):
So a lot of challenges.
So what are these commonchallenges that organizations
are grappling with regardingtheir own multi-cloud adoption?
Steve Young (03:12):
Yeah.
So it's an interesting one andit's one from I've seen from my,
I guess, previous role withinDell Iran, our Dell technology
select business, which is ourbusiness with our largest
customers, and about six orseven years ago I saw customers
making significant commitmentsto the public cloud and
(03:35):
basically making statements likewe're going to move 100%, 80%,
60% of our workloads to thepublic cloud by X date.
And they made those significantcommitments really because
there was, there is value in thepublic cloud the access to
public cloud style services, thedeveloper experience, there are
(04:00):
a number of benefits in movingworkloads to the public cloud.
But as time has passed, they'verecognized that actually there
are sometimes good reasons whyit doesn't make sense to run the
services in the public cloud.
So, for example, datasovereignty challenges,
potentially latency issues.
(04:22):
But also many organizations havea large application landscape
sitting in their existinginvestments, existing data
centers, and some of them arenot ready for the public cloud.
So one of the major challengeswe're seeing because this we're
seeing customers almost adoptmulti-cloud by default because
they've kind of gone into thiswanting to move everything to
(04:44):
the public cloud, realizing theycan't, and now they're looking
for an answer and the answer ishow do I run my data and
applications wherever is theright place at the right time?
And that's really the challengehow do companies go from
multi-cloud by default tomulti-cloud by design?
So you alluded to it there.
Andrew Grill (05:04):
But when and how did public cloud become this de
facto in a customer'senvironment?
Steve Young (05:09):
I think it happened for a number of reasons and we
can probably rewind the clockabout six or seven years, I
think.
There was a.
All organizations were lookingto accelerate their digital
journey, digitally transformmuch, much faster.
A lot of them were frustrated,to be honest, with their own
internal IT departments andinvestments that already made
(05:34):
and how quickly they wereaccelerating the pace of digital
transformation.
So they began looking elsewhereand if you think about where
the public cloud came from,amazon have built an incredible
online business which, andrew,you and I use everybody uses a
daily basis and I think Amazongot smart and they thought well,
actually, we've got capacity,spare capacity, and we run this
(05:58):
business really efficiently.
We'd like to offer this forbusiness customers as well to
run their applications on.
So, and that started to gainmomentum and I think companies
looked at this way, listening.
They said, look, amazon aredoing a really good job.
They run it efficiently.
They're very digital native.
If we can do similar and takeadvantage of the lessons that
(06:21):
they've learned, then maybe itmakes sense for our applications
to move to the public cloud.
So I think there was a logicthere in that decision and I
think let's face it, you know,especially when, when Covid came
along, digital transformationnot just became something as
people would like to do.
It became an imperative fordoing business.
(06:43):
So I mean, I think SatyaNadella talks about Covid the
year, 18 months of Covid, hebelieves accelerated digital
transformation by five years,because organizations had to
transform to stay in business.
No longer could they servetheir customers via their retail
(07:05):
outlets, they had to doeverything online.
So it became an imperative andI think that's that's what
accelerated the journey to thepublic cloud and has left us
with this point where customersare and the public cloud still
makes a lot of sense there's noquestion about it for the right
workloads and right applications.
But I think people arerecognizing it's no longer
(07:28):
public cloud first.
It's more public cloud smart.
Let's get the rightapplications in the public cloud
, but let's make use of a multicloud process so we can run our
data and applications wherevermakes sense for our business.
Andrew Grill (07:44):
What does this mean?
We really need to look atalmost a multi cloud by default
strategy.
Steve Young (07:48):
Most organizations right now are in multi cloud by
default strategy, but there's anopportunity now to almost take
a sense check.
And we did this with afinancial services customer who
was saying look, you know, we'vemade our commitment to the
public cloud.
Most of our data andapplications still sit on
premise.
We believe in the public cloudfor some of our apps
(08:10):
Increasingly.
We want to move workloads tothe edge.
So at that point it was likelet's stop, let's press pause,
let's look at our applicationlandscape and let's make a
measured multi cloud by designapproach to deciding where those
workloads should sit.
Let's build a program aroundthat and let's begin rolling out
(08:34):
that program app by app.
And the other interesting thingin this journey with that
customer, andrew, was they hadthe foresight to actually think
ahead and say, just becausethat's the journey where we're
going to, we may not want tostay there as our business
changes, as new opportunitiespotentially around AI wants us
(08:55):
to move more to the edge.
We need the flexibility in ourmulti cloud by design approach
to move workloads in future.
So that was an amazing project.
So, and whatever you are onthat journey, there's always a
point to take a pause and saylet's take a breath, let's look
where we are and let's try andcreate some planning so we can
(09:17):
create more of a design ratherthan just a natural evolution
into this.
Andrew Grill (09:23):
So we've talked a lot about the technology, but
let's look at the business side.
Do you think boards trulyunderstand the benefits of the
cloud and, in particular,multi-cloud?
Steve Young (09:32):
I think most of them do.
To be honest, andrew, and Iwould say that the COVID has
accelerated that We've gone.
You know, we've worked intechnology for many years,
andrew.
We'll both remember the dayswhere IT was really a back
office function.
It was in the dark, typicallythe basement of most big
organisations.
(09:52):
Nobody really understood whothey were and what they do.
What they did and, let's faceit, if the phone wasn't ringing
down there, everybody was happy.
But we've gone from being inthe back house the back room of
the company to being right atthe front house, the front room
of the company.
Now, any board who doesn'trecognise that technology and
(10:17):
digital disruption will eithercreate their future or bring
competitors that will destroytheir future.
Every organisation thinks thesame way and I'm finding
increasingly in the boardroommore and more digital savvy
executives who actually believethat technology is at the heart
of the business and will be atthe heart of the future of the
(10:39):
business as well.
Now, whether there's anopportunity for them to
understand more about the nextlevel in terms of you know it's
and that's what I think we'veseen a lot almost a gold rush
towards the public cloud,because there's a belief in the
boardroom that if we make anannouncement with Azure, with
(11:01):
GCP, with AWS, about acommitment we've made a
multi-year commitment that it'salmost like they've clicked
their fingers and overnightwe've become digitally mature.
Now we all know it's not assimple as that, but yeah, I mean
, I think in essence, boardroomsunderstand the importance that
technology is bringing to theirbusiness.
Andrew Grill (11:23):
Sounds a bit like companies have put the word
Bitcoin or they use the AIphrase.
They think they've immediatelytransformed and they're more
valuable, but that's, as youknow, not the case.
So what you said is quiteimportant that the typical IT
functions were back office andnow the C-suite has a new set of
C executives, so maybe youcould talk in detail about the
key business drivers of amulti-cloud by design approach,
(11:45):
and why should the CISO, the CIO, the CFO and the CEO care about
this?
Steve Young (11:51):
Well, let's start with with the chief exec of the
organization, and you know we'retalking about, in most cases, a
digital savvy chief exec, and Ithink that's the new breed of
leaders in our organizations,global and also local now, and I
think you know they'rerecognizing that embracing
multi-cloud isn't just atechnology decision, it's a
(12:15):
strategy for innovation andresilience.
We've done a study recently atDell called the Innovation Index
, and we've looked at the numberof organizations or number of
people in an organization whowould classify their company as
digital leaders, digitalinnovators, and sadly in the UK
(12:36):
it's not as many as we wouldlike.
And I think multi-cloud givesthe CEO the opportunity for
digital innovation to get theorganization on the front foot.
Andrew Grill (12:52):
And then, of course, you.
And what about those otherroles?
The CISO, the CFO, cio.
Steve Young (12:57):
Absolutely.
I'd forgotten you'd asked thatas well.
So, yes, you're right.
So, from a CFO perspective,making the right multi-cloud
choices helps you invest in whatadds value.
It's a way to optimize costs,leveraging your existing
investments.
So what I mean by that is, ifyou've made a commitment to the
public cloud and you're behindon that commitment, adopting a
(13:20):
multi-cloud approach can helpyou accelerate that commitment,
help you move data andapplications to the public cloud
, but also leverage existinginvestments you've made in your
people and your data centers.
So, for me, the key thing forthe CFO is not cloud-first but
cloud-smart.
(13:41):
And then, of course, you talkabout the CIO.
So the CIO needs multi-cloudsolutions so that they can
respond to the businessrequirements.
When a business needs acloud-native application, built
in Azure, for example, then theywill have an offering in the
(14:02):
public cloud.
But many of those applicationsthat are built, maybe in
development initially,ultimately will have a home back
on premise in the data centeror potentially at the edge.
So if the CIO has a range ofservices, almost like a menu of
services, do you want publiccloud, do you want on premise,
(14:23):
do you want co-location, do youwant edge?
And actually, andrew, as thisevolves, I would like to get to
a point where the CIO doesn'teven offer a location.
The CIO makes the decision, orthrough self-serve, depending on
the application characteristics, it's automatically chosen.
So, actually, as a user of thatapplication and any
(14:46):
organization, or as a customer,you don't know where it's
sitting, nor should you care.
You just want a level ofservice and a level of intimacy
with your application that helpsyou engage better with the
company, or engage better as anemployee of the company, so it
shouldn't matter.
Right now it tends to matter alittle bit too much.
(15:08):
And then, finally, you talkedabout the CIO.
So multi-cloud can help boostcyber recovery ability.
So, for example, we're seeing ahuge number of ransomware
attacks in the UK at the moment.
Right now, the UK is the secondmost hacked country and, given
our GDP, something around six orseventh in the world, we're
(15:32):
probably punching above ourweight in an area that we don't
necessarily want to.
So what we're finding iscompanies are accepting the fact
that they're going to gethacked, and it's more a case of
how do we recover our data inthe event of a ransomware attack
.
And your data will sit in thepublic cloud, it will sit on
(15:56):
premise, it will sit at the edge.
So having a coherentmulti-cloud cybersecurity
strategy will be critical toavoiding the risks of cyber
attack in any business right now.
Andrew Grill (16:11):
So let's turn to what Dell are doing.
What's Dell's role and ambitionin the multi-cloud space?
Steve Young (16:16):
Yeah, it's a great question, Andrew, and it's
something that, to be honest, wespent a long time thinking
about, and we've now got to apoint where we've got a very
clear vision.
We're about 18 months into, Iwould say, a three-year roadmap
of delivering on that vision,and our vision is very simple we
(16:37):
want our customers to consumepublic cloud style services, no
matter where their data andapplication sit, so, whether
that be in the public cloud,whether that be at the edge, or
whether that be in your own datacenter, that's our vision.
Andrew Grill (16:56):
So I want to turn to the talent that you require,
because finding a talent for onecloud is hard, so finding
people with the skills to workacross multiple clouds is even
harder.
Maybe you could give us a senseof how Dell can help here.
Steve Young (17:09):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
The war on talent is huge andwe've been doing some stuff with
the government recently aroundlooking at digital skills and
right now there are four timesas many vacancies as we have
people available with digitalskills.
And with AI and Gen AI, we knowthose skills requirements are
(17:30):
going to explode, so we need tocatch up.
So I'm hopeful that thegovernment will continue to
invest in this area and we canreally bridge the gap.
But to your specific point, howdo we help?
So we clearly have a range ofservices that we deliver right
now to our customers in theirown data center.
(17:51):
It's an area that they arecomfortable in, they're trained
in, they know how to use ourtechnology and what we're doing
with that technology is we'removing it into the public cloud
at a virtual software layer.
So the beauty of that is, as auser, it's the same look and
feel, no matter where your dataand applications sit, whether
(18:13):
they be on-premise or in thepublic cloud, and that means
that investment you've made inyour people skills You're not
throwing that out and startingover again to learn something
new.
You can leverage that existinginvestment to run your data and
applications wherever is mostappropriate for your business.
Andrew Grill (18:31):
So Gartner said that multi-cloud isn't necessary
until it is I love that quoteand that the downside is
complexity.
The upside, they argue, if youstrategize properly, is
specialist services anddiversity.
So how do you mitigate thedownsides to enjoy the upside?
Steve Young (18:49):
Yes, I think we talked about that at the
beginning and that's that pausebutton.
And that's that moving frommulti-cloud by default, which
everybody has wandered into,press pause and move into a
multi-cloud by design phase.
Be deliberate, look at whereyou are, look at where you want
(19:12):
to be, have an applicationassessment and we can help with
that, adele and looking at whatworkloads are most appropriate
for what area now and how do webuild the flexibility and
agility in our multi-cloud bydesign infrastructure to allow
us to move those workloads whereappropriate in future?
Andrew Grill (19:34):
Perhaps you could give me some examples of
specific industries benefitingfrom your multi-cloud offering.
Steve Young (19:39):
Yes, so I can give a really simple example that
actually was involved in justlast week.
It's with a large FMCG companyand they were looking for.
They were being concernedrecently about risk in their
business, not just from cyberattack, but from systems going
down or from actually rogueemployees impacting their data.
(20:02):
So they wanted to have a morefluid but also more robust data
recovery strategy.
And they had both data.
As you would imagine, like anymulti-cloud by default company,
they had data sitting on premise, in edge locations, but also in
the cloud.
(20:22):
So they were looking for acoherent data protection
strategy that could span everyarea of their business and
fortunately, again because ofthe work we've done, we have a
platform which allows you toprotect your data, no matter
where it sits, whether it's inthe cloud or whether it's on
(20:43):
premise.
So that's a really good exampleof a, I guess, a more
short-term and more tacticalchallenge.
I want to also talk aboutfinancial services example,
where they did that pause button.
They had a commitment with thepublic cloud.
They had data and applicationson premise and at the edge.
A lot of those were legacyapplications.
(21:05):
One of them were net newapplications that made many
acquisitions.
So there was lack ofstandardization, there was some
risks in that infrastructureestate as well, and they kind of
came to the conclusion you knowwhat, let's just put this all
into the public cloud.
But fortunately a new CIO camealong and he pressed pause and
(21:27):
he said hang on, I don't know ifall of our data can or should
run in the public cloud.
I want to be a little bit moredeliberate.
I want to create a business caseand an implementation plan for
the next five years as to how Ican deliver on my vision, and
(21:48):
I'm going to work with thepublic cloud as a partner and
I'm going to work with Delltechnologies as a partner, and
I'm not going to pre define whatgoes where, because I don't
know, and if I don't know, theydon't know.
So what basically happened overa period of time was we worked
in partnership in this case itwas with Microsoft Azure to
(22:12):
build a multi cloud environmentwhich was ready to receive the
applications and data when theorganization was ready to move
them, and the other benefit ofthat is we put it together from
a financial perspective or anAzure service basis.
So what that meant was theydidn't start paying for any of
(22:34):
the new infrastructure untilthey moved their data and
applications there.
And that was really importantbecause, if you can imagine, a
financial services organizationstill has the legacy
infrastructure, has built thenet new multi cloud by design
and as a consequence is payingcosts.
In both areas cost go up.
So the beauty of this solutionwas, as costs went down in the
(23:01):
legacy infrastructure, the costwent up in the new multi cloud
infrastructure, so that breakeven point we achieved after a
couple of years.
Andrew Grill (23:08):
It's a really smart way of looking at the
business model and somethingthat the CFO is going to be
really happy with.
A phrase used a lot with multicloud is ground to cloud.
What does this mean in practice?
Steve Young (23:19):
Yeah.
So ground to cloud and there'sa number of organizations
adopted this approach.
We're not we're not the onlytechnology company.
Ground to cloud is wheretechnology exists in a data
center, if you like, and becausethe customers have made
commitments about movingapplications and data to the
public cloud, then we've takenour technology and made it
(23:43):
available in the public cloud.
So, if you think about a reallysimple example, in the UK we do
a lot of storage and backupinfrastructure products in data
centers and if you think aboutwhat that is, it's software
tethered to hardware.
It's a, it's an appliance, ifyou like.
(24:05):
What we've done is we've takenthe software away from the
hardware and then move thesoftware into the public cloud
marketplace.
So that means our customers, ifthey have a commitment with
Azure, can consume that softwareon an as a service basis.
But also, rather than consumingour hardware, they consume the
(24:27):
Azure, the GCP, the AWS, backend cloud infrastructure.
The great thing about that isit helps them accelerate their
workloads where they want to tothe cloud, but also helps them
draw down on that commitmentthat they've made to the public
cloud.
And it's not just as a numberof other technology vendors have
adopted that approach and, infact for the public cloud
(24:48):
marketplace.
I had always assumed that thebunch, the bulk, of the services
sold there are their ownservices, but actually more than
a third of the services soldare provided by third party
vendors to the public cloud,like us and many other
technology provides.
Andrew Grill (25:07):
So let's flip it around.
What about cloud to ground?
Steve Young (25:10):
Yeah.
So that's a that's a situationwhere and this is important
because the public cloudcompanies and again it depends
who it is I would say Microsoftare already there and I think
AWS and GCP are certainly on thejourney.
But public cloud companies arestarting to recognize that it is
a multi cloud world.
Customers want, don't, arenever going to run everything in
(25:34):
the public cloud.
So they're smart and theythought well, how do I make
available Azure services or AWSservices out of the edge?
And we all know how importantthe edge is going to become in
retail, in manufacturing, intelco, in fact, in all
industries.
(25:55):
We believe 80% of the world'sdata will be created at the edge
in the next five years.
The edge will be a key area.
So, and in a lot of those edgelocations I mean, take as an
example an oil company who maybehave a new oil services
contract in Malaysia Malaysiaaccess to public cloud services
(26:19):
is not great, so they're goingto have to have something local.
But there's other challengesaround data sovereignty as well.
Some data cannot leave acountry and in those situations,
the public cloud of recognizedthey need to be able to deliver
services at the data center inthe edge.
And what we've done and this isbased on our legacy, because
(26:40):
we've been doing this for five,six, seven years with VMware,
we've built a hyperconverged,integrated engineered appliance,
dell infrastructure with VMwaresoftware, which helps customers
run those edge and data centercloud environments really,
really efficiently.
We've just released the exactsame with Microsoft, we will do
(27:02):
the same with Red Hat later thisyear, and GCP and AWS are doing
that as well.
Now, what I love about that,andrew and I would love to buy
it because I work for Dell is Italked about a lot of companies
are doing ground to cloud andthere's a few companies doing
cloud to ground, but there's noother now organization other
(27:24):
than Dell technologies that aredoing both.
And when you're doing both, youhave the ability to deliver
multi cloud by design.
Andrew Grill (27:33):
So Edge is a really exciting technology.
We've covered edge recently onthe podcast.
Maybe you could expand a bitmore about where edge sits in a
multi cloud environment.
Steve Young (27:43):
So Edge is just an extension.
It's a, it's a mini data centerwhich is closer to your
customers or your source of data.
Think about a manufacturingenvironment.
You know right now, if you'rerunning a line to, say,
manufacture car parts in, let'ssay, argentina, you can collect
(28:09):
data from the line in Argentina.
You can then upload it to theheadquarters of the company and
you can look at it and you cananalyze it and then maybe after
a week you'll come up some ideasand you'll send them back and
you'll ask them to make somechanges to the line, to optimize
, to make it more efficient.
(28:30):
It's very slow and while it'sslow and you're losing out on
those efficiencies, you're notgetting the opportunity to
improve.
That's why edge is becomingimportant.
People want to make real-timedata decisions where the data
exists.
That's why we believe 80percent of the world's data will
be created at the edge.
(28:51):
These are often also complexenvironments.
We're not talking aboutbeautiful data centers cooled on
concrete floors, with the rightairflow, security controlled.
We might be talking about acage on an oil rig somewhere.
We might be talking about alaptop on a manufacturing line
(29:13):
getting covered in dust.
They need to be rugged andprotected devices, but they also
need the ability to be close tothe source of data and leverage
that data to make improvementsat the edge.
Andrew Grill (29:26):
Having the data at the source as close as possible
, I think will be critical as wesee more in my applications
roll out.
We've talked aboutpublic-private on-premise edge.
Who should decide what goes ina public cloud versus private
on-premise or edge?
Steve Young (29:40):
It's a good question.
I think ideally it shouldn't bedown to humans.
You really want to build a ruleset into your portal.
This is maybe utopia, but let'sdream big.
(30:00):
A user puts in thecharacteristics, the
requirements, what they need.
As an outcome.
Behind the scenes, the portalcan automatically decide should
we deploy that on-premise,should we deploy that on the
edge, or should we deploy thatin our own data centre?
That is where everybody wouldlike to get to Self-service and
(30:25):
automation.
The reality is, although manycompanies are getting there, we
still have a long way to go onthat journey.
Right now, I think it's goingto be a collective decision
between the business owners andIT, but I would err more on the
side of the business owners.
(30:46):
If IT have built that menu thatwe talked about that allows
them to move, basically delivertheir application landscape
wherever they want, then I wouldlike to get to a point where
the business can decide whatmakes sense for them.
Andrew Grill (31:01):
This could be a world record in season five of
the podcast.
We've gone 30 minutes withoutmentioning AI.
We have to mention AI becauseeveryone's talking about it.
Here's the question where doesAI fit in a multi-cloud
environment?
Steve Young (31:14):
If data is the oil, then the engine is GPU and CPU.
That data that feeds the enginein reality is never in one
boxed-off place with a bullaround it.
It's in data silos all overyour organisation, in
(31:35):
co-locators, in the public cloud.
By its very nature, if you'regoing to take advantage of AI
and generate AI, then you neednot just the large language
models that are being developedby all the public cloud, but you
then need to train those largelanguage models on your own data
(31:58):
that then becomes your uniquevalue.
If you're going to do that,you're going to need to build a
data set that takes advantage ofmulti-cloud.
So multi-cloud and data and genAI go hand in hand.
Andrew Grill (32:16):
I'm sure many people are listening so far have
thought okay, there's some realbenefits at looking at a
multi-cloud strategy.
What would you say would be thetipping point where multi-cloud
benefits overtake theimplementation challenges?
Steve Young (32:28):
I think it will depend on case to case, but the
reality is because everybody isin a multi-cloud by default
stage.
Most customers I speak to arebehind on moving their data and
applications to the public cloudand, as a consequence, I have a
commitment in the public cloudand are paying for
(32:51):
infrastructure on premise, sothere's already an element of
double paying.
So I would recommend that it'stime to press pause, take a look
at where you are on thatjourney and we can help with
that and then make some morestrategic multi-cloud by design
decisions that maybe help bringthat financial equilibrium into
(33:18):
better favor.
Andrew Grill (33:19):
So something I've been thinking about as you've
been talking.
Good example if a company goesthrough a merger and both
entities are using differentclouds, would it force a
multi-cloud approach?
Steve Young (33:29):
Yes, it would, but the reality is, even prior to
those companies merging, theywould have already had multiple
clouds running their services.
So I would argue that a mergeronly exacerbates the problem.
It doesn't bring a new problem.
Andrew Grill (33:44):
So there are a number of things that Dell can
do in this multi-cloud world.
So if you're running multipleservices with a familiar front
end provided by Dell and asingle dashboard for data,
that's part of a USP, correct?
Steve Young (33:55):
It is.
Yeah, we talked about how we'rereally the only company that
has a vision and is delivered onmost of that vision for ground
to cloud and cloud to ground.
But something we're reallyexcited about developing in
future to further our USP is astorage control layer, and this
(34:16):
placed the earlier questionabout AI and leveraging data to
make sure that we're driving newoutcomes using AI.
And what we're building is astorage control layer, and our
vision for that storage controllayer is to allow a single
(34:36):
organization to manage theirdata, whether it's file, object
or block data, whether it's inthe public cloud at the edge, or
whether it's on-premise.
Andrew Grill (34:49):
So, steve, it's time for the lift pitch.
Why is Dell Technologies theright partner to help with a
multi-cloud vision, and whatdifferentiates you from the
other cloud offerings in themarket?
Steve Young (34:59):
I think we are unique in our vision and we've
delivered a significant part ofthat vision today, and that
vision is to take all of thesoftware that our companies use,
our customers use, in theirdata centers and co-locations at
the edge and make thatavailable in the public cloud to
enable them to use workloads inthe public cloud, and that's
(35:21):
called our ground-to-cloudstrategy.
We also have the reverse, whichis our cloud-to-ground strategy,
which is enabling the publiccloud to move to the data center
, to the edge, to enablecustomers to run their workloads
, their data and theirapplications wherever is
appropriate for their business.
We believe we're unique.
(35:41):
We're the only organizationthat's doing both
ground-to-cloud easy to say andcloud-to-ground.
But on top of that, we're alsodoing something unique as well
we're building out somethingcalled a storage control layer.
Now, this will be like a databroker and will be a single
(36:02):
dashboard to allow a company tomanage their data whether it's
file, block or object,unstructured data, any sort of
data source and whether it'ssitting on-premise at the edge
in the cloud any of the publicclouds and manage that in a
single dashboard.
And, when you think about theopportunities coming with AI and
(36:25):
GenAI, the ability to managethat single dashboard.
As we know, if the GPUs are theengine, data is the oil, and
that allows the company toaccess as much of the data as
they can to deliver new insights, new outcomes and deliver on
(36:45):
the promise of AI in the future.
Andrew Grill (36:48):
This podcast is all about the future.
What excites you most about thefuture of MultiCloud?
Steve Young (36:55):
The really exciting thing I can see us getting to
is a point where almostMultiCloud becomes irrelevant.
And it becomes irrelevantbecause people don't know and
they don't care.
Everything is seamless, ourdata and applications are
managed no matter where they sit, with exceptional level of
(37:17):
services and with the datadelivering exceptional insights.
And, I think, with the promiseof AI and MultiCloud combined
together, I think organisationswho are at the leading edge, the
front edge of innovation, willtake advantage of this and it
will propel their success forthe future.
Andrew Grill (37:36):
So the message there is you need to really be
thinking about MultiCloud rightnow, and hopefully podcasts like
this and organisations likeyours can bring all that
together.
So we're almost out of time.
We're up to my favourite partof the show, the quickfire round
, where we learn more about ourguests.
So let's do it iPhone orAndroid, iphone all day, window
(37:57):
or aisle, definitely a windowpreference.
Steve Young (38:01):
However, when I travel with my wife, there's
always a fight and I usuallylose, so I'm usually the middle
seat then.
Andrew Grill (38:08):
In the room or in the men averse?
Always in the room, yourbiggest hope for this year and
next.
Steve Young (38:19):
I guess right now my biggest hope is that Scotland
get win the Rugby World Cup.
By the time this podcast goesout, I'm sure we've probably
already not made it past thefirst round.
Oh you little faith.
Yeah, it's a typical Scott lotsof hope but very little faith.
(38:40):
If I think about my hope forfuture, I think I'm really
optimistic, but I need to seethe delivery of some of the move
that government are makingaround building our
supercomputer capability in theUK.
(39:01):
I think Rishi and a lot of thegovernment see the UK as the
opportunity to be a real leaderin AI and I think in order to do
that we talked about the enginebeing computing power we're
going to need to establish astrategic supercomputer program
(39:22):
in the UK University ofCambridge.
I think are doing great thingsto be in a strong position to
take advantage of that, but Iwould like to see the investment
come from the government toreally drive us up in terms of
league tables of where we stand,because right now we're a
little bit behind.
Andrew Grill (39:41):
I wish that AI could do all of my tax return.
Steve Young (39:48):
Actually, having said that it probably already
can do my tax return, I maybejust haven't given it the chance
to, so I'll stick with taxreturn, but I should maybe go
and see if it can.
Andrew Grill (40:00):
The app you use most on your phone.
Steve Young (40:03):
I'm afraid it is the traditional email and text
WhatsApp.
I do enjoy playing with chatGPT.
I have to say, though, we wereonce in a in a forum where we
met with a customer and apartner, and it was a four or
(40:25):
five or planning session.
We were really looking to put astrategic plan together, and it
was a very productive meeting.
We were very, very happy withthe output.
And then, as a bit of a laugh,I thought I'm going to ask chat
GPT if this company, thispartner, this technology
organization got together andcame up with a strategic plan,
(40:46):
what would it look like?
The good news is it was verysimilar to ours.
The bad news is we spent fivehours doing it, and chat GPT did
it in 20 seconds.
Andrew Grill (40:59):
It's becoming the future.
I think what's the best pieceof advice you've ever received?
Steve Young (41:06):
I've always kind of had this from my parents and
leaders I've worked for as well,and it comes in lots of
different forms, but in essenceit's about keep moving forward.
You know, I think it's veryeasy to look back and to have
regrets.
You know, either personally orprofessionally, but my
(41:27):
philosophy in life has alwaysbeen to they're behind.
There's nothing I can do otherthan learn from them.
Keep moving forward.
So keep moving forward is thebest bit of advice I've ever had
.
Andrew Grill (41:39):
What are you reading at the moment?
Steve Young (41:41):
Well, actually it's related to that theme.
So I'm reading the MidnightLibrary.
I cannot remember who wrote it.
I think it's an English writer.
He's had a few novels.
I haven't got to the end of it,so I'm making an assumption as
to what it's about, and it'sbasically about someone who had
a tough life and decided theydidn't want to carry on anymore,
(42:04):
so took their own life, butthen ended up in the Midnight
Library.
And the Midnight Library is alittle bit like a sliding doors.
It has a book full of everysingle different decision you
could have made and, as aconsequence, what journey you
would have gone on in your life.
So she drops into thesedifferent parts of her life in
(42:26):
this like holding zone betweenwhatever she was going to next.
But I think and I haven't gotto the end of it yet and maybe
this is a spoiler alert, but forme again it's about regret.
I assume what she's going toconclude is the reason I wasn't
happy with my life was I'veregretted previous decisions and
(42:47):
actually, if I focus on movingforward, life is worth living.
So that's kind of the essenceof what I think it's about, but
I'm really enjoying it so far.
Andrew Grill (43:00):
Who should I invite next onto the podcast?
Steve Young (43:03):
So I've got two really good potential guests for
you and I can even probablyspeak to them about getting on,
but assuming they will meet withwhat you're looking for.
So I would recommend ProfessorPaul Kilesia I mentioned earlier
on at University of Cambridgeare really making great strides
(43:25):
in terms of AI, incredibleprojects, and also want to be at
the forefront of the next bigsuper and computer in the UK.
So I think getting ProfessorPaul Kilesia talking about and
he's a fascinating guy as well Iknow you'll spend a lot of good
time with him, so I wouldrecommend him as one.
The other person is somebodycalled Chester King.
(43:46):
Chester is the chief exec ofBritish eSports.
Now, I'll be honest, I didn'tknow this, andrew, but eSports
is huge.
It's an Olympic sport next yearin Paris.
Children are playing eSports,they're watching eSports,
(44:07):
they're engaging in eSports andI fundamentally believe and Dell
Technologies have partnershipwith British eSports I
fundamentally believe this willhelp bridge digital skills for
future Children working togetheron game type strategies,
(44:27):
analysing data, working inteamwork.
Gaming is an interactive way ofdoing things.
It's not like consuming fromNetflix or YouTube, etc.
And that's why I believeeSports, and gaming specifically
, could hold the keys tounlocking the castle, to bridge
(44:49):
our digital skills gap in the UK, so I would definitely spend
some time with Chester, anotherfascinating individual.
Andrew Grill (44:57):
You've totally re-oriented my thinking on
eSports.
I thought it was just frivolousgaming.
But you're actually rightlinking the skills together.
They're not looking atmind-numbering things.
I think that's brilliant.
Steve Young (45:06):
As a parent, I thought the same.
You know.
You know how gaming used to besomething your kids did in a
dark room.
You'd put their food underneaththe door.
They'd not come out for days.
I want to get that in the open.
I want to shine a light on it.
British eSports are setting upa campus for the British team in
Sunderland.
They're about to launch thatnext month and they're going to
(45:26):
bring the best gamers togetherso we have the best team to go
to the Olympics in Paris nextyear.
Andrew Grill (45:33):
I would love to speak to both of those guests,
so if you could connect us, thatwould be fantastic and be a
really great addition to thepodcast.
So yeah, thank you.
Final quickfire question how doyou want to be remembered?
Steve Young (45:45):
For me and again, this is probably uniquely me and
I know this isn't everybody'sjourney but for me the most
important thing that I can do inmy life is create a stable
foundation for my children to dowhatever they want to do in
their life.
So I'd like to be rememberedfor that and, I guess, maybe
(46:10):
more selfishly, I'd like, whenI'm not here, those children,
and maybe their children'schildren, to have fond memories
of me If I achieve those twothings in life.
Andrew Grill (46:24):
I will die very happy.
Back to business now, as thisis the actionable Futures
podcast.
What three actionable thingsshould our listeners do today to
prepare for a multi-cloud world?
Steve Young (46:35):
So the first thing is a shameless plug, but
actually it's an incredibleevent.
It's our Dell Technology Forum,which is our annual flagship
event Over 2,000 people lastyear.
We have some amazing guestspeakers as well, which we're
going to trail, so I'm not goingto talk about right now, but
it's our annual flagship event.
(46:56):
We welcome customers, partners,enthusiasts, business leaders
who are looking to drive,ultimately, innovation and
growth, and we have a range ofcontent and speakers, including
technology focus, breakoutsaround multi-cloud security,
sustainability, of course, ai,modern data center and also
(47:16):
hybrid work, and I think therewill be a link with this podcast
to allow people to register.
We would love to have you along.
There's an executive track,there's a generalist track and
we're also having an executivedinner in London in the evening,
so I would encourage you.
If you want to know more aboutDell Tech, or even more about
our partners or technology ingeneral, then please sign up for
(47:39):
Dell Tech Forum.
Andrew Grill (47:41):
It's a fantastic event.
I'm already signed up for it.
There'll be a link on the videoand in the podcast show notes,
and I encourage people to signup as well.
So how can people find out moreabout the Dell Technologies
multi-cloud solution?
Steve Young (47:52):
I would recommend that, and we're in a very
fortunate position.
I'm in my office in London,just next to the Gherkin right
now, and upstairs from me is ourexecutive briefing center.
It's the center for Amia and wewere really proud of it.
We only finished it I think itwas in September September of
last year and already we've hadsix or 700 different sets of
(48:18):
customers through the doors fora conversation, and the key is
it's a conversation.
This isn't a sales pitch.
This is us listening andunderstanding some of our
customer challenges, bringingour subject matter experts
together, having conversationsand debates about those
challenges and how collectivelywe've seen others overcome those
(48:40):
challenges, and then workingtogether on a strategic plan to
help drive progress.
And so I would recommendcontact me.
We can work with my team andorganize an executive briefing
in our flagship center upstairs.
Andrew Grill (48:56):
Steve, a very timely topic.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
Steve Young (49:00):
You're very welcome .
It was a pleasure to be here.
Thanks.
Voiceover (49:01):
Andrew, thank you for listening to the Actionable
Futurist podcast brought to youby Dell Technologies.
You can find all of ourprevious shows at
actionablefuturistcom and if youlike what you've heard on the
show, please considersubscribing via your favorite
podcast app so you never miss anepisode.
(49:22):
You can find out more aboutAndrew and how he helps
corporates navigate a disruptivedigital world, with keynote
speeches and C-suite workshopsdelivered in person or virtually
at actionablefuturistcom.
Until next time, this has beenthe Actionable Futurist podcast.
Welcome to the Actionable Futurist podcast
brought to you by DellTechnologies, a show all about
the near-term future, withpractical and actionable advice
from a range of global experts.
Your host is internationalkeynote speaker and Actionable
Futurist, andrew Grill.
Andrew Grill (00:21):
Today on the podcast I have Steve Young,
Senior Vice President andGeneral Manager of Dell
Technologies UK.
A long time figure at thecompany.
Steve has spent more than 20years at Dell, starting as a
Senior Sales Executive at EMC in2001.
He's responsible for Dell's UKbusiness, client satisfaction
and employee engagement.
(00:42):
Welcome, Steve.
Steve Young (00:43):
Thank you very much , Andrew.
Great to be here.
Andrew Grill (00:46):
Now we're here to talk about multi-cloud, so let's
go back to basics.
What is multi-cloud and whatare the benefits of running a
multi-cloud environment?
Steve Young (00:55):
Yeah, so multi-cloud is effectively where
a company has their data andapplications running in
different locations.
They may be in the public cloud, an AWS, an Azure, a GCP.
They may be data andapplications running in their
own data center, in aco-location facility or
(01:17):
potentially at the edge.
So multi-cloud is when thosedata and applications are
running in different locations.
Andrew Grill (01:25):
And you mentioned public cloud and I think
everyone knows that AWS, Google,all those other clouds are very
public.
But what's the real differencebetween a public cloud and a
private cloud?
Steve Young (01:34):
Yeah, so I think about public cloud is when your
data and applications arerunning on shared infrastructure
with other companies as well,and I think about a private
cloud is where your data andapplications are running on your
own maybe owned by you, maybeowned by a provider, but running
on your own infrastructure.
Really simple way of thinkingabout it is if you think about
(01:57):
using your iPhone when you'reconnected and you're maybe
listening you're on Spotify,listening to your favorite song.
It's streaming and it'sstreaming from the public cloud.
If, for example, you'vedownloaded some of that music to
your local device, then I wouldsay that's similar to what I
(02:17):
would call a private cloud.
So say, if you're on the tubeno signal you can still listen
to your favorite tracks becauseit's on a private cloud, on your
own personal iPhone.
Andrew Grill (02:28):
That's actually a really good way of describing.
I haven't heard it describedbefore, but we actually all have
our own private clouds on ourdevices, so I really like that
analogy.
But how do you know if you'rerunning multi-cloud?
Steve Young (02:40):
You don't really need to know, because you are.
You will be consuming servicesfrom places you probably don't
even know and, fundamentally,every organization has some of
their applications and workloadsin a cloud, a public cloud or a
private cloud.
So I think, rather than spendtoo much time worrying about it,
(03:02):
I would just assume that youare.
Andrew Grill (03:05):
So a lot of challenges.
So what are these commonchallenges that organizations
are grappling with regardingtheir own multi-cloud adoption?
Steve Young (03:12):
Yeah.
So it's an interesting one andit's one from I've seen from my,
I guess, previous role withinDell Iran, our Dell technology
select business, which is ourbusiness with our largest
customers, and about six orseven years ago I saw customers
making significant commitmentsto the public cloud and
(03:35):
basically making statements likewe're going to move 100%, 80%,
60% of our workloads to thepublic cloud by X date.
And they made those significantcommitments really because
there was, there is value in thepublic cloud the access to
public cloud style services, thedeveloper experience, there are
(04:00):
a number of benefits in movingworkloads to the public cloud.
But as time has passed, they'verecognized that actually there
are sometimes good reasons whyit doesn't make sense to run the
services in the public cloud.
So, for example, datasovereignty challenges,
potentially latency issues.
(04:22):
But also many organizations havea large application landscape
sitting in their existinginvestments, existing data
centers, and some of them arenot ready for the public cloud.
So one of the major challengeswe're seeing because this we're
seeing customers almost adoptmulti-cloud by default because
they've kind of gone into thiswanting to move everything to
(04:44):
the public cloud, realizing theycan't, and now they're looking
for an answer and the answer ishow do I run my data and
applications wherever is theright place at the right time?
And that's really the challengehow do companies go from
multi-cloud by default tomulti-cloud by design?
So you alluded to it there.
Andrew Grill (05:04):
But when and how did public cloud become this de
facto in a customer'senvironment?
Steve Young (05:09):
I think it happened for a number of reasons and we
can probably rewind the clockabout six or seven years, I
think.
There was a.
All organizations were lookingto accelerate their digital
journey, digitally transformmuch, much faster.
A lot of them were frustrated,to be honest, with their own
internal IT departments andinvestments that already made
(05:34):
and how quickly they wereaccelerating the pace of digital
transformation.
So they began looking elsewhereand if you think about where
the public cloud came from,amazon have built an incredible
online business which, andrew,you and I use everybody uses a
daily basis and I think Amazongot smart and they thought well,
actually, we've got capacity,spare capacity, and we run this
(05:58):
business really efficiently.
We'd like to offer this forbusiness customers as well to
run their applications on.
So, and that started to gainmomentum and I think companies
looked at this way, listening.
They said, look, amazon aredoing a really good job.
They run it efficiently.
They're very digital native.
If we can do similar and takeadvantage of the lessons that
(06:21):
they've learned, then maybe itmakes sense for our applications
to move to the public cloud.
So I think there was a logicthere in that decision and I
think let's face it, you know,especially when, when Covid came
along, digital transformationnot just became something as
people would like to do.
It became an imperative fordoing business.
(06:43):
So I mean, I think SatyaNadella talks about Covid the
year, 18 months of Covid, hebelieves accelerated digital
transformation by five years,because organizations had to
transform to stay in business.
No longer could they servetheir customers via their retail
(07:05):
outlets, they had to doeverything online.
So it became an imperative andI think that's that's what
accelerated the journey to thepublic cloud and has left us
with this point where customersare and the public cloud still
makes a lot of sense there's noquestion about it for the right
workloads and right applications.
But I think people arerecognizing it's no longer
(07:28):
public cloud first.
It's more public cloud smart.
Let's get the rightapplications in the public cloud
, but let's make use of a multicloud process so we can run our
data and applications wherevermakes sense for our business.
Andrew Grill (07:44):
What does this mean?
We really need to look atalmost a multi cloud by default
strategy.
Steve Young (07:48):
Most organizations right now are in multi cloud by
default strategy, but there's anopportunity now to almost take
a sense check.
And we did this with afinancial services customer who
was saying look, you know, we'vemade our commitment to the
public cloud.
Most of our data andapplications still sit on
premise.
We believe in the public cloudfor some of our apps
(08:10):
Increasingly.
We want to move workloads tothe edge.
So at that point it was likelet's stop, let's press pause,
let's look at our applicationlandscape and let's make a
measured multi cloud by designapproach to deciding where those
workloads should sit.
Let's build a program aroundthat and let's begin rolling out
(08:34):
that program app by app.
And the other interesting thingin this journey with that
customer, andrew, was they hadthe foresight to actually think
ahead and say, just becausethat's the journey where we're
going to, we may not want tostay there as our business
changes, as new opportunitiespotentially around AI wants us
(08:55):
to move more to the edge.
We need the flexibility in ourmulti cloud by design approach
to move workloads in future.
So that was an amazing project.
So, and whatever you are onthat journey, there's always a
point to take a pause and saylet's take a breath, let's look
where we are and let's try andcreate some planning so we can
(09:17):
create more of a design ratherthan just a natural evolution
into this.
Andrew Grill (09:23):
So we've talked a lot about the technology, but
let's look at the business side.
Do you think boards trulyunderstand the benefits of the
cloud and, in particular,multi-cloud?
Steve Young (09:32):
I think most of them do.
To be honest, andrew, and Iwould say that the COVID has
accelerated that We've gone.
You know, we've worked intechnology for many years,
andrew.
We'll both remember the dayswhere IT was really a back
office function.
It was in the dark, typicallythe basement of most big
organisations.
(09:52):
Nobody really understood whothey were and what they do.
What they did and, let's faceit, if the phone wasn't ringing
down there, everybody was happy.
But we've gone from being inthe back house the back room of
the company to being right atthe front house, the front room
of the company.
Now, any board who doesn'trecognise that technology and
(10:17):
digital disruption will eithercreate their future or bring
competitors that will destroytheir future.
Every organisation thinks thesame way and I'm finding
increasingly in the boardroommore and more digital savvy
executives who actually believethat technology is at the heart
of the business and will be atthe heart of the future of the
(10:39):
business as well.
Now, whether there's anopportunity for them to
understand more about the nextlevel in terms of you know it's
and that's what I think we'veseen a lot almost a gold rush
towards the public cloud,because there's a belief in the
boardroom that if we make anannouncement with Azure, with
(11:01):
GCP, with AWS, about acommitment we've made a
multi-year commitment that it'salmost like they've clicked
their fingers and overnightwe've become digitally mature.
Now we all know it's not assimple as that, but yeah, I mean
, I think in essence, boardroomsunderstand the importance that
technology is bringing to theirbusiness.
Andrew Grill (11:23):
Sounds a bit like companies have put the word
Bitcoin or they use the AIphrase.
They think they've immediatelytransformed and they're more
valuable, but that's, as youknow, not the case.
So what you said is quiteimportant that the typical IT
functions were back office andnow the C-suite has a new set of
C executives, so maybe youcould talk in detail about the
key business drivers of amulti-cloud by design approach,
(11:45):
and why should the CISO, the CIO, the CFO and the CEO care about
this?
Steve Young (11:51):
Well, let's start with with the chief exec of the
organization, and you know we'retalking about, in most cases, a
digital savvy chief exec, and Ithink that's the new breed of
leaders in our organizations,global and also local now, and I
think you know they'rerecognizing that embracing
multi-cloud isn't just atechnology decision, it's a
(12:15):
strategy for innovation andresilience.
We've done a study recently atDell called the Innovation Index
, and we've looked at the numberof organizations or number of
people in an organization whowould classify their company as
digital leaders, digitalinnovators, and sadly in the UK
(12:36):
it's not as many as we wouldlike.
And I think multi-cloud givesthe CEO the opportunity for
digital innovation to get theorganization on the front foot.
Andrew Grill (12:52):
And then, of course, you.
And what about those otherroles?
The CISO, the CFO, cio.
Steve Young (12:57):
Absolutely.
I'd forgotten you'd asked thatas well.
So, yes, you're right.
So, from a CFO perspective,making the right multi-cloud
choices helps you invest in whatadds value.
It's a way to optimize costs,leveraging your existing
investments.
So what I mean by that is, ifyou've made a commitment to the
public cloud and you're behindon that commitment, adopting a
(13:20):
multi-cloud approach can helpyou accelerate that commitment,
help you move data andapplications to the public cloud
, but also leverage existinginvestments you've made in your
people and your data centers.
So, for me, the key thing forthe CFO is not cloud-first but
cloud-smart.
(13:41):
And then, of course, you talkabout the CIO.
So the CIO needs multi-cloudsolutions so that they can
respond to the businessrequirements.
When a business needs acloud-native application, built
in Azure, for example, then theywill have an offering in the
(14:02):
public cloud.
But many of those applicationsthat are built, maybe in
development initially,ultimately will have a home back
on premise in the data centeror potentially at the edge.
So if the CIO has a range ofservices, almost like a menu of
services, do you want publiccloud, do you want on premise,
(14:23):
do you want co-location, do youwant edge?
And actually, andrew, as thisevolves, I would like to get to
a point where the CIO doesn'teven offer a location.
The CIO makes the decision, orthrough self-serve, depending on
the application characteristics, it's automatically chosen.
So, actually, as a user of thatapplication and any
(14:46):
organization, or as a customer,you don't know where it's
sitting, nor should you care.
You just want a level ofservice and a level of intimacy
with your application that helpsyou engage better with the
company, or engage better as anemployee of the company, so it
shouldn't matter.
Right now it tends to matter alittle bit too much.
(15:08):
And then, finally, you talkedabout the CIO.
So multi-cloud can help boostcyber recovery ability.
So, for example, we're seeing ahuge number of ransomware
attacks in the UK at the moment.
Right now, the UK is the secondmost hacked country and, given
our GDP, something around six orseventh in the world, we're
(15:32):
probably punching above ourweight in an area that we don't
necessarily want to.
So what we're finding iscompanies are accepting the fact
that they're going to gethacked, and it's more a case of
how do we recover our data inthe event of a ransomware attack
.
And your data will sit in thepublic cloud, it will sit on
(15:56):
premise, it will sit at the edge.
So having a coherentmulti-cloud cybersecurity
strategy will be critical toavoiding the risks of cyber
attack in any business right now.
Andrew Grill (16:11):
So let's turn to what Dell are doing.
What's Dell's role and ambitionin the multi-cloud space?
Steve Young (16:16):
Yeah, it's a great question, Andrew, and it's
something that, to be honest, wespent a long time thinking
about, and we've now got to apoint where we've got a very
clear vision.
We're about 18 months into, Iwould say, a three-year roadmap
of delivering on that vision,and our vision is very simple we
(16:37):
want our customers to consumepublic cloud style services, no
matter where their data andapplication sit, so, whether
that be in the public cloud,whether that be at the edge, or
whether that be in your own datacenter, that's our vision.
Andrew Grill (16:56):
So I want to turn to the talent that you require,
because finding a talent for onecloud is hard, so finding
people with the skills to workacross multiple clouds is even
harder.
Maybe you could give us a senseof how Dell can help here.
Steve Young (17:09):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
The war on talent is huge andwe've been doing some stuff with
the government recently aroundlooking at digital skills and
right now there are four timesas many vacancies as we have
people available with digitalskills.
And with AI and Gen AI, we knowthose skills requirements are
(17:30):
going to explode, so we need tocatch up.
So I'm hopeful that thegovernment will continue to
invest in this area and we canreally bridge the gap.
But to your specific point, howdo we help?
So we clearly have a range ofservices that we deliver right
now to our customers in theirown data center.
(17:51):
It's an area that they arecomfortable in, they're trained
in, they know how to use ourtechnology and what we're doing
with that technology is we'removing it into the public cloud
at a virtual software layer.
So the beauty of that is, as auser, it's the same look and
feel, no matter where your dataand applications sit, whether
(18:13):
they be on-premise or in thepublic cloud, and that means
that investment you've made inyour people skills You're not
throwing that out and startingover again to learn something
new.
You can leverage that existinginvestment to run your data and
applications wherever is mostappropriate for your business.
Andrew Grill (18:31):
So Gartner said that multi-cloud isn't necessary
until it is I love that quoteand that the downside is
complexity.
The upside, they argue, if youstrategize properly, is
specialist services anddiversity.
So how do you mitigate thedownsides to enjoy the upside?
Steve Young (18:49):
Yes, I think we talked about that at the
beginning and that's that pausebutton.
And that's that moving frommulti-cloud by default, which
everybody has wandered into,press pause and move into a
multi-cloud by design phase.
Be deliberate, look at whereyou are, look at where you want
(19:12):
to be, have an applicationassessment and we can help with
that, adele and looking at whatworkloads are most appropriate
for what area now and how do webuild the flexibility and
agility in our multi-cloud bydesign infrastructure to allow
us to move those workloads whereappropriate in future?
Andrew Grill (19:34):
Perhaps you could give me some examples of
specific industries benefitingfrom your multi-cloud offering.
Steve Young (19:39):
Yes, so I can give a really simple example that
actually was involved in justlast week.
It's with a large FMCG companyand they were looking for.
They were being concernedrecently about risk in their
business, not just from cyberattack, but from systems going
down or from actually rogueemployees impacting their data.
(20:02):
So they wanted to have a morefluid but also more robust data
recovery strategy.
And they had both data.
As you would imagine, like anymulti-cloud by default company,
they had data sitting on premise, in edge locations, but also in
the cloud.
(20:22):
So they were looking for acoherent data protection
strategy that could span everyarea of their business and
fortunately, again because ofthe work we've done, we have a
platform which allows you toprotect your data, no matter
where it sits, whether it's inthe cloud or whether it's on
(20:43):
premise.
So that's a really good exampleof a, I guess, a more
short-term and more tacticalchallenge.
I want to also talk aboutfinancial services example,
where they did that pause button.
They had a commitment with thepublic cloud.
They had data and applicationson premise and at the edge.
A lot of those were legacyapplications.
(21:05):
One of them were net newapplications that made many
acquisitions.
So there was lack ofstandardization, there was some
risks in that infrastructureestate as well, and they kind of
came to the conclusion you knowwhat, let's just put this all
into the public cloud.
But fortunately a new CIO camealong and he pressed pause and
(21:27):
he said hang on, I don't know ifall of our data can or should
run in the public cloud.
I want to be a little bit moredeliberate.
I want to create a business caseand an implementation plan for
the next five years as to how Ican deliver on my vision, and
(21:48):
I'm going to work with thepublic cloud as a partner and
I'm going to work with Delltechnologies as a partner, and
I'm not going to pre define whatgoes where, because I don't
know, and if I don't know, theydon't know.
So what basically happened overa period of time was we worked
in partnership in this case itwas with Microsoft Azure to
(22:12):
build a multi cloud environmentwhich was ready to receive the
applications and data when theorganization was ready to move
them, and the other benefit ofthat is we put it together from
a financial perspective or anAzure service basis.
So what that meant was theydidn't start paying for any of
(22:34):
the new infrastructure untilthey moved their data and
applications there.
And that was really importantbecause, if you can imagine, a
financial services organizationstill has the legacy
infrastructure, has built thenet new multi cloud by design
and as a consequence is payingcosts.
In both areas cost go up.
So the beauty of this solutionwas, as costs went down in the
(23:01):
legacy infrastructure, the costwent up in the new multi cloud
infrastructure, so that breakeven point we achieved after a
couple of years.
Andrew Grill (23:08):
It's a really smart way of looking at the
business model and somethingthat the CFO is going to be
really happy with.
A phrase used a lot with multicloud is ground to cloud.
What does this mean in practice?
Steve Young (23:19):
Yeah.
So ground to cloud and there'sa number of organizations
adopted this approach.
We're not we're not the onlytechnology company.
Ground to cloud is wheretechnology exists in a data
center, if you like, and becausethe customers have made
commitments about movingapplications and data to the
public cloud, then we've takenour technology and made it
(23:43):
available in the public cloud.
So, if you think about a reallysimple example, in the UK we do
a lot of storage and backupinfrastructure products in data
centers and if you think aboutwhat that is, it's software
tethered to hardware.
It's a, it's an appliance, ifyou like.
(24:05):
What we've done is we've takenthe software away from the
hardware and then move thesoftware into the public cloud
marketplace.
So that means our customers, ifthey have a commitment with
Azure, can consume that softwareon an as a service basis.
But also, rather than consumingour hardware, they consume the
(24:27):
Azure, the GCP, the AWS, backend cloud infrastructure.
The great thing about that isit helps them accelerate their
workloads where they want to tothe cloud, but also helps them
draw down on that commitmentthat they've made to the public
cloud.
And it's not just as a numberof other technology vendors have
adopted that approach and, infact for the public cloud
(24:48):
marketplace.
I had always assumed that thebunch, the bulk, of the services
sold there are their ownservices, but actually more than
a third of the services soldare provided by third party
vendors to the public cloud,like us and many other
technology provides.
Andrew Grill (25:07):
So let's flip it around.
What about cloud to ground?
Steve Young (25:10):
Yeah.
So that's a that's a situationwhere and this is important
because the public cloudcompanies and again it depends
who it is I would say Microsoftare already there and I think
AWS and GCP are certainly on thejourney.
But public cloud companies arestarting to recognize that it is
a multi cloud world.
Customers want, don't, arenever going to run everything in
(25:34):
the public cloud.
So they're smart and theythought well, how do I make
available Azure services or AWSservices out of the edge?
And we all know how importantthe edge is going to become in
retail, in manufacturing, intelco, in fact, in all
industries.
(25:55):
We believe 80% of the world'sdata will be created at the edge
in the next five years.
The edge will be a key area.
So, and in a lot of those edgelocations I mean, take as an
example an oil company who maybehave a new oil services
contract in Malaysia Malaysiaaccess to public cloud services
(26:19):
is not great, so they're goingto have to have something local.
But there's other challengesaround data sovereignty as well.
Some data cannot leave acountry and in those situations,
the public cloud of recognizedthey need to be able to deliver
services at the data center inthe edge.
And what we've done and this isbased on our legacy, because
(26:40):
we've been doing this for five,six, seven years with VMware,
we've built a hyperconverged,integrated engineered appliance,
dell infrastructure with VMwaresoftware, which helps customers
run those edge and data centercloud environments really,
really efficiently.
We've just released the exactsame with Microsoft, we will do
(27:02):
the same with Red Hat later thisyear, and GCP and AWS are doing
that as well.
Now, what I love about that,andrew and I would love to buy
it because I work for Dell is Italked about a lot of companies
are doing ground to cloud andthere's a few companies doing
cloud to ground, but there's noother now organization other
(27:24):
than Dell technologies that aredoing both.
And when you're doing both, youhave the ability to deliver
multi cloud by design.
Andrew Grill (27:33):
So Edge is a really exciting technology.
We've covered edge recently onthe podcast.
Maybe you could expand a bitmore about where edge sits in a
multi cloud environment.
Steve Young (27:43):
So Edge is just an extension.
It's a, it's a mini data centerwhich is closer to your
customers or your source of data.
Think about a manufacturingenvironment.
You know right now, if you'rerunning a line to, say,
manufacture car parts in, let'ssay, argentina, you can collect
(28:09):
data from the line in Argentina.
You can then upload it to theheadquarters of the company and
you can look at it and you cananalyze it and then maybe after
a week you'll come up some ideasand you'll send them back and
you'll ask them to make somechanges to the line, to optimize
, to make it more efficient.
(28:30):
It's very slow and while it'sslow and you're losing out on
those efficiencies, you're notgetting the opportunity to
improve.
That's why edge is becomingimportant.
People want to make real-timedata decisions where the data
exists.
That's why we believe 80percent of the world's data will
be created at the edge.
(28:51):
These are often also complexenvironments.
We're not talking aboutbeautiful data centers cooled on
concrete floors, with the rightairflow, security controlled.
We might be talking about acage on an oil rig somewhere.
We might be talking about alaptop on a manufacturing line
(29:13):
getting covered in dust.
They need to be rugged andprotected devices, but they also
need the ability to be close tothe source of data and leverage
that data to make improvementsat the edge.
Andrew Grill (29:26):
Having the data at the source as close as possible
, I think will be critical as wesee more in my applications
roll out.
We've talked aboutpublic-private on-premise edge.
Who should decide what goes ina public cloud versus private
on-premise or edge?
Steve Young (29:40):
It's a good question.
I think ideally it shouldn't bedown to humans.
You really want to build a ruleset into your portal.
This is maybe utopia, but let'sdream big.
(30:00):
A user puts in thecharacteristics, the
requirements, what they need.
As an outcome.
Behind the scenes, the portalcan automatically decide should
we deploy that on-premise,should we deploy that on the
edge, or should we deploy thatin our own data centre?
That is where everybody wouldlike to get to Self-service and
(30:25):
automation.
The reality is, although manycompanies are getting there, we
still have a long way to go onthat journey.
Right now, I think it's goingto be a collective decision
between the business owners andIT, but I would err more on the
side of the business owners.
(30:46):
If IT have built that menu thatwe talked about that allows
them to move, basically delivertheir application landscape
wherever they want, then I wouldlike to get to a point where
the business can decide whatmakes sense for them.
Andrew Grill (31:01):
This could be a world record in season five of
the podcast.
We've gone 30 minutes withoutmentioning AI.
We have to mention AI becauseeveryone's talking about it.
Here's the question where doesAI fit in a multi-cloud
environment?
Steve Young (31:14):
If data is the oil, then the engine is GPU and CPU.
That data that feeds the enginein reality is never in one
boxed-off place with a bullaround it.
It's in data silos all overyour organisation, in
(31:35):
co-locators, in the public cloud.
By its very nature, if you'regoing to take advantage of AI
and generate AI, then you neednot just the large language
models that are being developedby all the public cloud, but you
then need to train those largelanguage models on your own data
(31:58):
that then becomes your uniquevalue.
If you're going to do that,you're going to need to build a
data set that takes advantage ofmulti-cloud.
So multi-cloud and data and genAI go hand in hand.
Andrew Grill (32:16):
I'm sure many people are listening so far have
thought okay, there's some realbenefits at looking at a
multi-cloud strategy.
What would you say would be thetipping point where multi-cloud
benefits overtake theimplementation challenges?
Steve Young (32:28):
I think it will depend on case to case, but the
reality is because everybody isin a multi-cloud by default
stage.
Most customers I speak to arebehind on moving their data and
applications to the public cloudand, as a consequence, I have a
commitment in the public cloudand are paying for
(32:51):
infrastructure on premise, sothere's already an element of
double paying.
So I would recommend that it'stime to press pause, take a look
at where you are on thatjourney and we can help with
that and then make some morestrategic multi-cloud by design
decisions that maybe help bringthat financial equilibrium into
(33:18):
better favor.
Andrew Grill (33:19):
So something I've been thinking about as you've
been talking.
Good example if a company goesthrough a merger and both
entities are using differentclouds, would it force a
multi-cloud approach?
Steve Young (33:29):
Yes, it would, but the reality is, even prior to
those companies merging, theywould have already had multiple
clouds running their services.
So I would argue that a mergeronly exacerbates the problem.
It doesn't bring a new problem.
Andrew Grill (33:44):
So there are a number of things that Dell can
do in this multi-cloud world.
So if you're running multipleservices with a familiar front
end provided by Dell and asingle dashboard for data,
that's part of a USP, correct?
Steve Young (33:55):
It is.
Yeah, we talked about how we'rereally the only company that
has a vision and is delivered onmost of that vision for ground
to cloud and cloud to ground.
But something we're reallyexcited about developing in
future to further our USP is astorage control layer, and this
(34:16):
placed the earlier questionabout AI and leveraging data to
make sure that we're driving newoutcomes using AI.
And what we're building is astorage control layer, and our
vision for that storage controllayer is to allow a single
(34:36):
organization to manage theirdata, whether it's file, object
or block data, whether it's inthe public cloud at the edge, or
whether it's on-premise.
Andrew Grill (34:49):
So, steve, it's time for the lift pitch.
Why is Dell Technologies theright partner to help with a
multi-cloud vision, and whatdifferentiates you from the
other cloud offerings in themarket?
Steve Young (34:59):
I think we are unique in our vision and we've
delivered a significant part ofthat vision today, and that
vision is to take all of thesoftware that our companies use,
our customers use, in theirdata centers and co-locations at
the edge and make thatavailable in the public cloud to
enable them to use workloads inthe public cloud, and that's
(35:21):
called our ground-to-cloudstrategy.
We also have the reverse, whichis our cloud-to-ground strategy,
which is enabling the publiccloud to move to the data center
, to the edge, to enablecustomers to run their workloads
, their data and theirapplications wherever is
appropriate for their business.
We believe we're unique.
(35:41):
We're the only organizationthat's doing both
ground-to-cloud easy to say andcloud-to-ground.
But on top of that, we're alsodoing something unique as well
we're building out somethingcalled a storage control layer.
Now, this will be like a databroker and will be a single
(36:02):
dashboard to allow a company tomanage their data whether it's
file, block or object,unstructured data, any sort of
data source and whether it'ssitting on-premise at the edge
in the cloud any of the publicclouds and manage that in a
single dashboard.
And, when you think about theopportunities coming with AI and
(36:25):
GenAI, the ability to managethat single dashboard.
As we know, if the GPUs are theengine, data is the oil, and
that allows the company toaccess as much of the data as
they can to deliver new insights, new outcomes and deliver on
(36:45):
the promise of AI in the future.
Andrew Grill (36:48):
This podcast is all about the future.
What excites you most about thefuture of MultiCloud?
Steve Young (36:55):
The really exciting thing I can see us getting to
is a point where almostMultiCloud becomes irrelevant.
And it becomes irrelevantbecause people don't know and
they don't care.
Everything is seamless, ourdata and applications are
managed no matter where they sit, with exceptional level of
(37:17):
services and with the datadelivering exceptional insights.
And, I think, with the promiseof AI and MultiCloud combined
together, I think organisationswho are at the leading edge, the
front edge of innovation, willtake advantage of this and it
will propel their success forthe future.
Andrew Grill (37:36):
So the message there is you need to really be
thinking about MultiCloud rightnow, and hopefully podcasts like
this and organisations likeyours can bring all that
together.
So we're almost out of time.
We're up to my favourite partof the show, the quickfire round
, where we learn more about ourguests.
So let's do it iPhone orAndroid, iphone all day, window
(37:57):
or aisle, definitely a windowpreference.
Steve Young (38:01):
However, when I travel with my wife, there's
always a fight and I usuallylose, so I'm usually the middle
seat then.
Andrew Grill (38:08):
In the room or in the men averse?
Always in the room, yourbiggest hope for this year and
next.
Steve Young (38:19):
I guess right now my biggest hope is that Scotland
get win the Rugby World Cup.
By the time this podcast goesout, I'm sure we've probably
already not made it past thefirst round.
Oh you little faith.
Yeah, it's a typical Scott lotsof hope but very little faith.
(38:40):
If I think about my hope forfuture, I think I'm really
optimistic, but I need to seethe delivery of some of the move
that government are makingaround building our
supercomputer capability in theUK.
(39:01):
I think Rishi and a lot of thegovernment see the UK as the
opportunity to be a real leaderin AI and I think in order to do
that we talked about the enginebeing computing power we're
going to need to establish astrategic supercomputer program
(39:22):
in the UK University ofCambridge.
I think are doing great thingsto be in a strong position to
take advantage of that, but Iwould like to see the investment
come from the government toreally drive us up in terms of
league tables of where we stand,because right now we're a
little bit behind.
Andrew Grill (39:41):
I wish that AI could do all of my tax return.
Steve Young (39:48):
Actually, having said that it probably already
can do my tax return, I maybejust haven't given it the chance
to, so I'll stick with taxreturn, but I should maybe go
and see if it can.
Andrew Grill (40:00):
The app you use most on your phone.
Steve Young (40:03):
I'm afraid it is the traditional email and text
WhatsApp.
I do enjoy playing with chatGPT.
I have to say, though, we wereonce in a in a forum where we
met with a customer and apartner, and it was a four or
(40:25):
five or planning session.
We were really looking to put astrategic plan together, and it
was a very productive meeting.
We were very, very happy withthe output.
And then, as a bit of a laugh,I thought I'm going to ask chat
GPT if this company, thispartner, this technology
organization got together andcame up with a strategic plan,
(40:46):
what would it look like?
The good news is it was verysimilar to ours.
The bad news is we spent fivehours doing it, and chat GPT did
it in 20 seconds.
Andrew Grill (40:59):
It's becoming the future.
I think what's the best pieceof advice you've ever received?
Steve Young (41:06):
I've always kind of had this from my parents and
leaders I've worked for as well,and it comes in lots of
different forms, but in essenceit's about keep moving forward.
You know, I think it's veryeasy to look back and to have
regrets.
You know, either personally orprofessionally, but my
(41:27):
philosophy in life has alwaysbeen to they're behind.
There's nothing I can do otherthan learn from them.
Keep moving forward.
So keep moving forward is thebest bit of advice I've ever had
.
Andrew Grill (41:39):
What are you reading at the moment?
Steve Young (41:41):
Well, actually it's related to that theme.
So I'm reading the MidnightLibrary.
I cannot remember who wrote it.
I think it's an English writer.
He's had a few novels.
I haven't got to the end of it,so I'm making an assumption as
to what it's about, and it'sbasically about someone who had
a tough life and decided theydidn't want to carry on anymore,
(42:04):
so took their own life, butthen ended up in the Midnight
Library.
And the Midnight Library is alittle bit like a sliding doors.
It has a book full of everysingle different decision you
could have made and, as aconsequence, what journey you
would have gone on in your life.
So she drops into thesedifferent parts of her life in
(42:26):
this like holding zone betweenwhatever she was going to next.
But I think and I haven't gotto the end of it yet and maybe
this is a spoiler alert, but forme again it's about regret.
I assume what she's going toconclude is the reason I wasn't
happy with my life was I'veregretted previous decisions and
(42:47):
actually, if I focus on movingforward, life is worth living.
So that's kind of the essenceof what I think it's about, but
I'm really enjoying it so far.
Andrew Grill (43:00):
Who should I invite next onto the podcast?
Steve Young (43:03):
So I've got two really good potential guests for
you and I can even probablyspeak to them about getting on,
but assuming they will meet withwhat you're looking for.
So I would recommend ProfessorPaul Kilesia I mentioned earlier
on at University of Cambridgeare really making great strides
(43:25):
in terms of AI, incredibleprojects, and also want to be at
the forefront of the next bigsuper and computer in the UK.
So I think getting ProfessorPaul Kilesia talking about and
he's a fascinating guy as well Iknow you'll spend a lot of good
time with him, so I wouldrecommend him as one.
The other person is somebodycalled Chester King.
(43:46):
Chester is the chief exec ofBritish eSports.
Now, I'll be honest, I didn'tknow this, andrew, but eSports
is huge.
It's an Olympic sport next yearin Paris.
Children are playing eSports,they're watching eSports,
(44:07):
they're engaging in eSports andI fundamentally believe and Dell
Technologies have partnershipwith British eSports I
fundamentally believe this willhelp bridge digital skills for
future Children working togetheron game type strategies,
(44:27):
analysing data, working inteamwork.
Gaming is an interactive way ofdoing things.
It's not like consuming fromNetflix or YouTube, etc.
And that's why I believeeSports, and gaming specifically
, could hold the keys tounlocking the castle, to bridge
(44:49):
our digital skills gap in the UK, so I would definitely spend
some time with Chester, anotherfascinating individual.
Andrew Grill (44:57):
You've totally re-oriented my thinking on
eSports.
I thought it was just frivolousgaming.
But you're actually rightlinking the skills together.
They're not looking atmind-numbering things.
I think that's brilliant.
Steve Young (45:06):
As a parent, I thought the same.
You know.
You know how gaming used to besomething your kids did in a
dark room.
You'd put their food underneaththe door.
They'd not come out for days.
I want to get that in the open.
I want to shine a light on it.
British eSports are setting upa campus for the British team in
Sunderland.
They're about to launch thatnext month and they're going to
(45:26):
bring the best gamers togetherso we have the best team to go
to the Olympics in Paris nextyear.
Andrew Grill (45:33):
I would love to speak to both of those guests,
so if you could connect us, thatwould be fantastic and be a
really great addition to thepodcast.
So yeah, thank you.
Final quickfire question how doyou want to be remembered?
Steve Young (45:45):
For me and again, this is probably uniquely me and
I know this isn't everybody'sjourney but for me the most
important thing that I can do inmy life is create a stable
foundation for my children to dowhatever they want to do in
their life.
So I'd like to be rememberedfor that and, I guess, maybe
(46:10):
more selfishly, I'd like, whenI'm not here, those children,
and maybe their children'schildren, to have fond memories
of me If I achieve those twothings in life.
Andrew Grill (46:24):
I will die very happy.
Back to business now, as thisis the actionable Futures
podcast.
What three actionable thingsshould our listeners do today to
prepare for a multi-cloud world?
Steve Young (46:35):
So the first thing is a shameless plug, but
actually it's an incredibleevent.
It's our Dell Technology Forum,which is our annual flagship
event Over 2,000 people lastyear.
We have some amazing guestspeakers as well, which we're
going to trail, so I'm not goingto talk about right now, but
it's our annual flagship event.
(46:56):
We welcome customers, partners,enthusiasts, business leaders
who are looking to drive,ultimately, innovation and
growth, and we have a range ofcontent and speakers, including
technology focus, breakoutsaround multi-cloud security,
sustainability, of course, ai,modern data center and also
(47:16):
hybrid work, and I think therewill be a link with this podcast
to allow people to register.
We would love to have you along.
There's an executive track,there's a generalist track and
we're also having an executivedinner in London in the evening,
so I would encourage you.
If you want to know more aboutDell Tech, or even more about
our partners or technology ingeneral, then please sign up for
(47:39):
Dell Tech Forum.
Andrew Grill (47:41):
It's a fantastic event.
I'm already signed up for it.
There'll be a link on the videoand in the podcast show notes,
and I encourage people to signup as well.
So how can people find out moreabout the Dell Technologies
multi-cloud solution?
Steve Young (47:52):
I would recommend that, and we're in a very
fortunate position.
I'm in my office in London,just next to the Gherkin right
now, and upstairs from me is ourexecutive briefing center.
It's the center for Amia and wewere really proud of it.
We only finished it I think itwas in September September of
last year and already we've hadsix or 700 different sets of
(48:18):
customers through the doors fora conversation, and the key is
it's a conversation.
This isn't a sales pitch.
This is us listening andunderstanding some of our
customer challenges, bringingour subject matter experts
together, having conversationsand debates about those
challenges and how collectivelywe've seen others overcome those
(48:40):
challenges, and then workingtogether on a strategic plan to
help drive progress.
And so I would recommendcontact me.
We can work with my team andorganize an executive briefing
in our flagship center upstairs.
Andrew Grill (48:56):
Steve, a very timely topic.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
Steve Young (49:00):
You're very welcome .
It was a pleasure to be here.
Thanks.
Voiceover (49:01):
Andrew, thank you for listening to the Actionable
Futurist podcast brought to youby Dell Technologies.
You can find all of ourprevious shows at
actionablefuturistcom and if youlike what you've heard on the
show, please considersubscribing via your favorite
podcast app so you never miss anepisode.
(49:22):
You can find out more aboutAndrew and how he helps
corporates navigate a disruptivedigital world, with keynote
speeches and C-suite workshopsdelivered in person or virtually
at actionablefuturistcom.
Until next time, this has beenthe Actionable Futurist podcast.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.