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Hello, welcome. Thank you for being here. So I talked to an awful lot of customers and the one thing I keep hearing again and again is a theme of uncertainty. Now, as you know, this is a season of uncertainty.
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There are risks everywhere and your businesses are demanding more of you than ever before. You deserve an infrastructure that keeps up with all of that, but the plans you put in place maybe 5 years ago are probably ready to break under the pressure or slowly bleed as Sean said. Now if this resonates with you, know that you're not alone.
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We're all feeling it. Disruption isn't on the horizon, it's here right now. Costs shift overnight, vendor models change, and the demand from AI is skyrocketing. That's why more and more IT leaders are rethinking their entire infrastructure strategy, not just where to run their apps and data, but how to reduce cost.
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Improve agility and manage that risk. Now the cloud is a critical component of that, but when I say cloud, I'm not talking a destination. It's a strategic pathway, one that organizes and standardizes your workflows. Now, as Sean said earlier, the answer isn't simply more boxes.
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It's having a true data platform, one that unites your environments, no matter where they are, one that. Makes it simple and one that unlocks the value of your data. Now with the right cloud strategy and the right data foundation, you gain the flexibility to modernize on your terms, steering the ship with confidence,
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and today we're gonna explore what that looks like in action with two experts in infrastructure transformation. We'll explore how enterprises are rethinking their strategies around virtualization around cloud and modernization initiatives by choosing platforms and partners like us that allow you to be flexible, efficient, and in control.
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So please join me in welcoming our panelists from Microsoft we have Dimitri Bromberg, general manager for Azure software and digital platforms. And from Accenture, Mike Eisenstein, global practice lead for Full Stack Synops. Awesome, thank you. All right, thank you both so much.
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So Mike, I'd like to start with you, the first question. uh, what shifts are you seeing and how enterprises are approaching cloud and platform decisions today? First, I think one of the most interesting things that we're seeing is that they're no longer thinking of cloud just as public cloud. Cloud now includes the private and in many ways the data,
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the data center estate, but private cloud is just cloud and so when we talk about synaps or cloud, it includes on-prem as well, uh, so they're and they're focusing also more on the. The costs up front in uh in what we call synops by design. The idea that we don't want to just move too really quickly and then deal with the costs later we wanna understand what the value is that we're going to get in in more of a
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proactive fashion and uh plan for how we're going to measure it after we get there. Excellent. No, that's, that's great. I think that's uh super important and having that resiliency and thinking about those things beforehand becomes really important. Yeah, it's it the the the the the um.
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The resiliency is actually the is actually a really great point, uh, that that's the, that's the one we see. We've got the, well, well, we have a regulatory environment, we have the tariffs, we have, we have, uh, AI I get to be the first one to mention AI. You win That the, the, uh, we, we have this, this environment that says that there is an
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enterprise is the only way really to handle that. That's fantastic. So Dimitri, uh, you work with some of the most innovative tech companies in the world. What's driving their cloud strategies right now and how are those conversations changing? Yeah, so first of all, some of the traditional cloud journey drivers like uh cost optimization
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or infrastructure flexibility are certainly still part of the conversation, but we're definitely also seeing that shift quite a bit towards uh AI driving cloud decisions and how our customers are thinking about it. Um, you know, first, a lot of the enterprises are thinking about opportunities to enrich their customer experience, uh, to reimagine some of the business processes and and reshape
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them. Uh, to change the way they engage with their customers as well as also potentially bend the curve on their innovation and get to market faster, um, all of that starts though when you get your data, uh, organized and, and kind of get it to the clock close to the, uh, various CI services, um, once the data is there and once it's organized,
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once it's secured and governed and all of the other good stuff they need to do with your data to keep it safe. Um, I think there's also a question of applications, uh, coming to the cloud as well, just for our, um, customers to be able to iterate quickly, um, and infuse AI services on top of the data that they bring to the cloud. Um, for most enterprise customers though,
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traditional enterprises, especially, the journey doesn't start there directly in the cloud with cloud native. It, it starts in the data center and for us it's really important for us, um, really important to meet them where they are both in terms of the technical skill set of the team as well as just the technology stack, um, and this is where,
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uh, some of the solutions that we have, uh, like Az of VMware service, for example, and the fantastic partnership with Pure, some of the storage solutions that enable it. I think provides a big unlock for customers to get started on that journey to the cloud and take advantage of AI services. Sure, I love that idea of meeting customers where they are because not everyone's in the
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same spot, are they? That's right, yeah, um, I'm gonna continue on that thought. Um, a lot of organizations are rethinking their virtualization strategies. So how is Microsoft helping customers navigate that transition, whether they're lifting and shifting or re-platforming?
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Yeah, absolutely. So I think, uh, first of all, the way we see the world and the, the what we hear from our customers is most organizations are looking to stay hybrid for the foreseeable future, um, for various reasons could be regulatory requirements, performance, accounting reasons, all kinds of, uh, you know, reasons for that,
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um, and so what becomes really important is being able to manage your infrastructure, the environment in a consistent way, uh, without necessarily again your technical team having to learn a whole new skill set from day one. Um, and this is where you know the, the VMware solution I mentioned is, is, is one of those great options. We have cloud native options,
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of course, as well and containers, etc. but by customers being able to take their existing skill set, take their infrastructure and data and applications to the cloud using technology that they already have in their data center. Uh, really takes some really, really close to all the goodness of AI,
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uh, in the cloud, as well as ability to then incorporate some of the services like, uh, no SQL database as a service or managed, uh, cooperated containers that are now a millisecond away from their applications that they just migrated, and I think that's definitely a big unlock that we see and, um, that we would call it migrate to modernize at a pattern where customers can move stuff
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quickly then really iterate rapidly and. This is where again a partnership with Pure is key because we, um, from a storage perspective customers have certain expectations and then Pure solution in Azure allows us to provide performance, resiliency, kind of continuity of skill set, while also saving cost, which is really important, right,
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as organizations are wrestling with ROI. Yeah, totally, and I think that's an incredibly powerful statement that it's about this, the people and the process as much as it is about the technology itself. It's a huge part of the equation, right? That's right, yeah. OK, over to you, Mike.
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uh, what are some of the common paths that you're seeing organizations take as they navigate this change? Yeah, so I was, I was gonna pick on Demetri a little bit. My, uh, uh, migrate to modernize is one of them. There's no one size fits all, um, and we see a lot of, a lot of cases where, you know,
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the shine has come off of lift and shift. Um, we do see, and which was a fast move to cloud. Let's just get there and we'll figure it out when we get there. That led to a lot of cost overruns and uh and frankly going back afterwards and having to make some tough decisions.
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So we're seeing more of a pattern now where they're taking uh a more considered approach to what do I modernize first? Do I containerize it, do I leave it in place, uh, the, um. You know, the, the broad com uh activity has thrown a wrench into a lot of this. Uh, we do see, uh, some of our clients almost panic moving off of VMware and other ones who
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are just, you know, biting the bullet and staying put, uh, but in all cases we do see, you know, to, to Pure's point that we do see the data plane across the, the hybrid cloud and across the container slash VM. Uh, a state whether it's native native VMs or not being uh a critical component of this. And so if we, if we get the data right.
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That lays down, uh what we call the, the uh the uh the digital core that we can then use to make much more agile decisions uh for the, the modernization or the retire when you retire stuff you have to be concerned where the data what what data is there and where it is as well. So of all the 6 Rs or 7 Rs that, uh, depending on, on who's, uh, you follow on that, we, we have to, we have to consider the data.
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As as a core component of that. So moving to that is a, is a form of futureproofing. For the, for the transitions that are coming. Well, I love that very measured approach and I think like building that trust with customers is super important for um for you and your customers.
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All right. So Mike, how important selfishly is the data layer to getting cloud economics right? Data is The second largest spend in in in infrastructure um after compute and in some cases I've seen, I, I have seen cases where it was the largest, uh, getting the optimization around it right is, is harder than core compute in a lot
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of cases and so being able to know where it is, what's the data life cycle on it, having some governability over it, um, and, and, uh. That's what I'm looking for when you have the data and you know where it is that gives you a lot more confidence in in making a lot of other decisions that are very cost centric. Now what we can do, what we've been doing with Pure in some cases is move the data into pure
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save money now, and we use that money to invest in the other modernization work that we're doing because there's there's often not budget. To, to do this, uh, you know, grand transfer to containerization or we wanna shift to no SQL, for example, and so we've got to pull money out of the system in order to use that to reinvest and so, so we do see that the the spend on storage.
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As an opportunity space to fund innovation. That's great. So storage could actually help invest in your cloud strategy. We are doing that at client now. Uh, we see that, you know, in terms of data center eggs, we're not seeing data center, uh, shutdowns broadly.
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We're seeing consolidation, OK. They're gonna stay in the data center, so the data plane from on-prem to the cloud has to be much more consistent, manageable, and identifiable, and. Um, and ideally less expensive than what I was paying for before, um, and that's enabling the investment costs in like a data center exit or a modernization
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project. Very cool. All right, Demetri, we're gonna end with you. You get to see what the most successful organizations in the world are doing to transform their cloud and infrastructure strategies. So if you had to give these IT leaders one piece of advice on what to do next,
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what would that be? Other than using pure for your storage needs, that's the right answer. We can end there. But no, it, uh, in addition, I would say two things. One, when we think about organizations that are successful in their cloud journey, uh, just getting started, frankly is really the first most important step.
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Uh, we see many organizations wrestle with, you know, where do I go and how do I start the journey, uh, but just getting on that path, I think gets really invaluable learnings for the organization as well as for the technical teams. Um, both in terms of their upskilling and getting savvier in the cloud, as well as for organizations to think through things like,
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you know, cost containment, um, you know, resiliency, security, all important topics, and by getting a couple of projects done in the cloud that are meaningful for the organization, you both achieve some KPIs that you're looking at while also getting that scaling. So I think that's super important. Um, and then the second thing I'd say is just don't go at it alone,
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right? The organizations that we see successful, they lean on their cloud provider, uh, as a trusted advisor to, to get insights on to. Best ways to implement technology pitfalls to avoid again how to be cost, uh, contained, etc.
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um, and then also lean on trusted partners like Accenture, right, uh, just to make sure that they can help you accelerate the journey again, increase that skilling, uh, and make sure that you're sustainable for the long haul. Oh, that's great. Never go it alone. You heard it here, so that's awesome.
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Well, thank you so much. I think we've gotten a lot of really great insights on how to take that uncertainty and turn it into opportunity. So let's give a big round of applause to our panelists. Thank you.
