Where's Bobby?

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Hey, I was going to Steve Townsend principal of the CTO advisor and over here on the other screen we have Bobby Allen It will talk about where he's at in a second, but first Bobby The some big news hit in a essence talking about where people are going. Oh, yeah Yeah, singer is headed over to Intel. Mm-hmm Yeah, this was this was huge Keith I mean, I think so I'm a former Intel guy for those on the program that don't know I was actually an Intel fellow my wife and I were both Intel fellows at University of Michigan meaning Intel paid for both of us to go to grad school there and Then I lived in Oregon for a while and so I actually coincided with some of the time when Pat was there and and honestly when when Intel and Pat parted ways it always felt wrong Because Pat was always kind of considered the heir apparent So for those who don't know the structure of Intel a lot of the senior level executives have what they call it a TA a technical assistant Pat was the technical assistant to Andy Grove back in the day, right?

It was always he was the first CTO of Intel very well respected in the community It just felt like man This is this is the guy that's going to take the reins and bring Intel into the future And so this is really very much like a homecoming I can imagine for the folks inside of Intel. This just feels right And this feels like the guy that's going to help them right the ship And kind of get back on track as we're in into kind of a new season now so a Provocative quick question.

Do you think Intel ship could be right? I mean, obviously Pat is not going to stake his reputation to go somewhere where he doesn't think that he can Impact the org, but do you think Intel can kind of fix this? I Do I do think the ship can be right it. I think that Pat is gonna make a lot of changes that could be acquisitions. I'm certainly Expecting us going to be rewards and new leadership. I mean Intel has prowess in manufacturing supply chain management Things that are very adjacent to technology and Pat has a vision that's big enough and Intel's got a big enough pocketbook To try out some of those bets.

So I do think they can write the ship to be honest Keith This is not going to be something that's overnight because they've had some things that they've been stumbling on in terms of manufacturing processes Changing over it's gonna take a couple years I think people need to be patient with Pat But I think he's got the vision and he's got the street cred With the engineers and the folks at Intel that I think he's gonna get it done So I'm a big bullish on Intel in general You know, they sponsored the CQ advisor hybrid infrastructure and I think I like the overall Strategy move or I think they have a very solid strategy.

It's about execution and Pat proved anything He can do both strategy and execution. He pulled VMware kind of out the teeth of AWS and and Built a juggernaut there so Let's talk about what's really important You know a couple of years ago, you know, I teased the where's Keith going and you helped me with that It's been about a few weeks since I've had you on the program. We teased that you're no longer At cloud general you are now the what at where?

So Keith, thanks for having me back on the program Yes, I'm no longer at cloud general much respect to the folks over there Just want to say for for those of your listeners. I want to make this point briefly I did not leave a toxic environment and especially when you're an underrepresented group in cloud It's important to say that I didn't leave something that was on fire a lot of respect for the folks over there But I moved on to something that I think is different and a different growth opportunity So I landed at a large mature startup called turbonomic I'm now the vice president of strategic alliances and my core focus is actually AWS so first off Congratulations VP of strategic alliances at turbonomics With a focus on AWS.

So let's unpack that a little bit because there's a lot there Turbonomics formerly known as VM turbo extremely aligned with VMware VMware community they provided a lot of telemetry data and not just telemetry data, but Spanning data, etc. It was a light was directly aligned to that So the ability to kind of optimize your VMware environment was the original value prop of being turbo They you know kind of sense pivoted and said, you know what? It's not just about VMware. It's about the entire Cloud movement turbonomics is the new brand or not so new.

It's been a few years now probably about five years Mm-hmm Turbonomics is the new brand obviously AWS is the juggernaut in this space and your VP of strategic alliances Tell me what's the strategic relationship between turbonomics in AWS? So there'll be some things that are going to continue coming out over the next year some videos We've shot some things are doing together. Really what it means is my job is to align A lot of the different organizations within turbonomic engineering the product team the engineering team the marketing team to make sure that we're aligned to a lot of the different things that Amazon is doing and in AWS as we've talked about before has tons of different options that are out there and What what's the synergy that we've seen between our executives and AWS executives is what they're embracing Keith is this term that we've coined automating innovation Because the way that I would argue we introduced the term confusion as a service before Right, and I think the way that you address confusion as a service is by automating innovation as much as possible Where someone can kind of realign you so let me let me unpack that a little bit part of my evolution Keith in It's interesting when you when you pursue a new job in a pandemic you do some soul-searching Not just what I want to do when I grow up, but why?

So I had to think about like what does this next move look like and part of what I thought about is Where do I think the puck is going to use the Wayne Gretzky analogy and I think part of it comes back to I'll give this this thought for your audience Keith. I think we're confusing Self-service with self-help Because cloud is really big on self-service. That's can I do it on my own but self-help is can I be effective on my own? And I would argue that because there's so many options out there We cannot be effective in choosing in this myriad of options with the right thing to do it So what Amazon is embracing is?

Turbonomic is the best way to realign my application to the latest and greatest things that are that are out there We automatically do that So if your app would run better on gp3 storage or io2 or a different type of VM or a different configuration and RDS We automatically do that for you and so what people like is don't just give me a Recommendation do it for me and free up my mind to work on the next problem So there was a lot of debate on this when turbonomic was focused in the VMware landscape you the team kind of did the same thing where You know and there was a lot of debate should Turbonomic automatically make recommended changes Or should they just recommend the changes and then you go out and implement?

I think one of the practical problems we saw out of the VM world world It's that no one actually went back and made the recommended changes The system has to be automated. Yeah, but there was a huge issue of behind trust Like why should I trust turbonomic to make those changes and even more so when we talk about? Custom written applications for the AWS landscape. We're talking about which storage platform should I be on? the in these infrastructures a Infrastructure as a service constructs that melt with applications and APIs directly How do you guys build trust with developers and devop teams that your recommendations should kind of be automated?

Yes, that's an excellent question Keith the trust part is interesting because What people would people? Like about turbonomic is that we're making those decisions based on performance So the the bedrock of what we're doing is to make sure that we are ensuring the right Resources are given to the right application. So nobody starves and nobody's Picking out right because most applications you're gonna have you know If you think about Thanksgiving dinner if the two-year-old at the table got the big piece of chicken We got a problem and that's what's happening in a lot of enterprises, right?

the little baby application is getting the big piece of Computer the big piece of storage and then the 16 year old teenagers getting a little itty-bitty piece of resources Turbonomic fixes all of that But because we start with performance Keith not with with pricing some of the other vendors out They are going to look at pricing or look at stuff on paper We're looking at actual performance metrics of what the applications are using and then because of that we're earning that trust To make it happen, you know, we do POVs and POC's or whatever else is necessary in the environment But typically in less than 30 days, we earn the trust of the organization They see the actions that we can take proactively they see that it's based on trust and and honestly Keith Here's the other part of it, right?

I've evolved my thinking in terms of what the real issue is in cloud. I used to think the gap was between Information and insight. I don't know what to do. The real gap Keith in my opinion is between intent and execution Even if I know what to do, do I have time to do it? And the answer for the most part has been no Right what most people are seeing where they're leaning in Keith and we've had some monstrous cloud deals in The past year or so, right people are really embracing the turbonomics automation helps them Free their minds up for other problems because what they're seeing is even if I know what I need to realign I don't have time to do it.

I don't have time to explore the options They've got to consider automation to free them up Even if it's in their heart to turn things off or spin things down or size things up or whatever they just don't have the time and so what I think about Keith is When we talk about things being hard in the cloud I want to make sure that we're embracing better vocabulary and better conversations this year Like what kind of heart are we talking about? Are things hard because we haven't had time to do it or because we haven't had time to think about it If so, let's talk about can we do it?

So let's talk about risk mitigation because something that you've said in the past is always fuck with me which was you can't give to a fact of gonna Paraphrase a little bit. You can't give unlimited resources to apps with limited financial upside Yes So I can't simply point turbonomics at my entire landscape and just say make it the best performance Sometimes I don't care about performance cost optimization is Sometimes an issue but more importantly, I don't want a undifferentiated Undifferentiated application eating up more cost than what it is.

So yes, it would be great if it performed awesome But if I don't need the results for two if I won't use the results for two or three days Why spend the most amount of money to get the results? How do you guys balance that because I know turbonomics? Primary use isn't cost optimization, but cost is a factor. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that key So here's what I would say. I would say the focus is performance But the outcomes of Ensuring performance are that we help your people your pocketbook and the planet.

Let me unpack that. So we focus on performance We help your people because you don't have engineers and architects that are constantly having to pull reports About resizing right size and deep provision and that type of thing because the reality Keith is that applications are not static Right depending on what's happening in your business. There are You know, whether it's performance review time and then your internal HR app is getting hit whether it's a retail customer or retail business and Black Friday's coming Applications are moving all the time So if I'm automating the demand and allocation of resources based on what applications need I'm freeing up people to focus on more interesting problems.

I will often free up Money right pocketbook, but I'm also helping the planet because I'm reducing electricity and reducing waste what ends up happening is I am I'm automating the stuff that I can keep the free my people up to have the better conversation So again performance is the goal. The other things I talked about our outcomes as you do the goal So here's how I say it to kind of wrap it up. You may not save money, but you will not waste money If that makes sense We're gonna ensure that you're not wasting resources and because most of us are in the cloud environment The outcomes are likely freeing up time freeing up money and helping the planet Well, Bobby, I really appreciate you, you know Holding back and not updating your LinkedIn.

Although that that caused my team a little consternation when they went to go create your Your profile on the webpage you're like, what do you mean he's no longer the CTO cloud general that's what he that's what his LinkedIn says now you can go and update your LinkedIn profile and Let the world know that you're at Turbonomics VP of strategic alliances Focused on AWS. That's a big title inside of a bigger organization Inside of our overall ecosystem I'm excited to see what you and the team at turbonomic does for those who want to follow you on the web Where can they spot you?

So they can find me at Bobby J. Allen dot me That's my personal website Turbonomic comm for our company and then you can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn at B Allen underscore CLT Think ballin in Charlotte representing Silicon South Helping get Charlotte on the map as it as a destination for tech talent And as always you can find me on the web the CTO advisor comm is the brand new web page We've spent a lot of time and resources Bringing it up. I hope you like it.

And of course on Twitter at CTO advisor talk to you next CTO dose