5 Steps to a Smarter Private Cloud, EMEA | Alison Biers & Alyson Langon, Dell Technologies

Alison Biers & Alyson Langon, Dell Technologies

In this insightful video, join Alison Biers, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Servers at Dell Technologies, and Alyson Langon, Director of Product Marketing for Private Cloud and Edge Solutions at Dell Technologies, as they explore the transformative journey towards smarter private cloud solutions. Hosted by theCUBE Research's Dave Vellante, this discussion highlights Dell Technologies' strategic approach to private cloud, the significance of technology in infrastructure optimization, and how companies navigate the ever-evolving IT landscape. The experts, Biers and Langon, articulate the five steps Dell Technologies champions for creating a smarter private cloud. This involves selecting the right architecture, embracing disaggregated infrastructure, and leveraging industry-leading hardware such as PowerEdge servers and PowerStore storage. The dialogue includes insights from Arthur of theCUBE Research and emphasizes the role of Dell Technologies' automation platform in streamlining processes and boosting efficiency. Key takeaways from the discussion underscore the importance of avoiding hypervisor lock-in, enhancing scalability, and implementing robust cyber resilience strategies. According to the experts, Dell Technologies' differentiation lies in its intrinsic data security, comprehensive automation features, and commitment to continuous innovation, as seen in its collaboration with technology giants such as AMD and Intel. The conversation also touches on how Dell Technologies’ comprehensive portfolio, including networking solutions and PowerProtect for cyber resilience, bolsters trust and adaptability in cloud-like on-premises environments.

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More from 5 Steps to a Smarter Private Cloud, EMEA

Alison Biers

Global Marketing Sr. Director for Server, Networking, & Vertical Industries

Dell Technologies

Dave Vellante

Co-Founder & Co-CEO

SiliconANGLE Media, Inc.

Alyson Langon

Director of Product Marketing, Private Cloud and Edge Solutions

Dell Technologies

play_circle_outline Transforming Your Private Cloud: Dell's Five Steps to Smart Architecture and Disaggregated Infrastructure Solutions

play_circle_outline PowerEdge servers deliver performance, security, and flexibility for on-premises cloud environments.

play_circle_outline PowerStore's architecture ensures persistent scalability and data services for private cloud.

play_circle_outline Transforming IT: How Dell Automation Platform Enhances Infrastructure Management and Streamlines Orchestration for Greater Efficiency

play_circle_outline Enhancing Cyber Resilience: Reducing Attack Surfaces and Securing Data Recovery with PowerProtect's Centralized Management

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Transcript

Alison Biers & Alyson Langon, Dell Technologies

Alison Biers

Global Marketing Sr. Director for Server, Networking, & Vertical Industries Dell Technologies

Dave Vellante

Co-Founder & Co-CEO SiliconANGLE Media, Inc.

HOST

Alyson Langon

Director of Product Marketing, Private Cloud and Edge Solutions Dell Technologies

As part of Dell's "5 Steps to a Smarter Private Cloud" event, theCUBE analyst Dave Vellante talks with Alyson Langon, director of product marketing at Dell Technologies, and Alison “Ali” Biers, senior director for server, networking and vertical industries at Dell Technologies. The discussion focuses on why disaggregated infrastructure is central to Dell’s private cloud strategy, how an open ecosystem helps avoid hypervisor lock-in and where predictable TCO is driving on-premesis adoption. Pairing PowerEdge with Dell Networking and Enterprise SONiC creates co... Read more

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What are the steps and key considerations for creating an effective private cloud, particularly in relation to architecture? add

What role do the servers play in a customer's private cloud strategy? add

What is required for building a flexible and scalable private cloud? add

What recent developments has Dell made in terms of automation platforms and their benefits for IT infrastructure? add

What is Dell's approach to cyber resilience and the features of its PowerProtect portfolio? add

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Alison Biers & Alyson Langon, Dell Technologies

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Dave Vellante

>> Well, thank you, Arthur, for setting the stage. We definitely see organizations trying to modernize their infrastructure and their private cloud strategies. They have to find the right balance between cloud and on-prem, and again, modernize their operating environment because AI and application modernization, that's going to drive the next wave of innovation. And we're starting actually to already see that in the productivity numbers. So with that, I want to welcome two Alisons to the set here. Alyson Langon is the Director of Product Marketing at Dell Technologies. And Alison, Ali Biers is responsible for global marketing and she's a Senior Director for Server Networking and Vertical Industries at Dell. Folks, welcome. Thanks so much for coming on to theCUBE today. Appreciate it.

Alison Biers

>> Thank you so much.

Alyson Langon

>> Thanks for having us.

Dave Vellante

>> All right, we're going to jump right into what Dell technology sees. They've laid out five steps to what they call a smarter private cloud. We're going to let you decide and judge that. So step one is, choose the right architecture. So Alyson Langon, let's talk about that. What is the link between what you're referring to as the right architecture and its relevance in creating a world-class private cloud? What's Dell's point of view? What makes you stand out relative to others?

Alyson Langon

>> Yeah, great question. So as we just heard from Arthur in the previous segment, we're really seeing a move towards disaggregated infrastructure with where things are headed, the need to be able to juggle both modern and traditional workloads. A lot of challenges around disruption with AI mandates, that acceleration virtualization space are really driving this move, because what it does is it eliminates the compromises of older architectures by combining the flexibility of three-tier systems with the simplicity of hyperconverged, these two traditional approaches that we're more familiar with. Disaggregated infrastructure combines the best of both of these. We also think that Dell is differentiated in how we approach this. So, what sets Dell apart starts at the foundation of our industry-leading hardware. Our storage, our servers, our networking, our data protection, this is really our foundation where we lead across the board. Layering on top of that is our open ecosystem. The concept of a shared data layer here is very important to being able to store and manage and run all of these different workloads, working with all of these different software partners. And then the next pillar is really around our intrinsic data security. When we say intrinsic data security, what we mean is, it's security that's built into every layer of our infrastructure. So it's about proactive, comprehensive protection for your data. And then finally, the last piece is our software-driven automation across our entire portfolio. So we're going to talk more about the Dell automation platform and what we're doing there, but this is also things built into our infrastructure, like intelligent monitoring, automated issue remediation with AIOps, our data reduction and compression capabilities, all of that built in across the stack.

Dave Vellante

>> So, I wonder if I can follow up on that, Alyson. Arthur mentioned three things he said that are motivating customers today. The first one was avoiding hypervisor lock-in, we all know there's been a lot of disruption in that whole space. And he talked about scaling, compute and storage independently. I'd love for you to address that and what the benefit is there, and then automating infrastructure management. So, what are you hearing from customers? Why are these things important to them today?

Alyson Langon

>> Right, so really, that's what we are directly addressing with our approach to disaggregated infrastructure. A lot of the challenges our customers are facing with recent things going on with the Broadcom acquisition, with VMware, for example, and some changes there, where customers are just, they're sort of approaching their architecture differently and really looking at how they can diversify their environment, explore their options. No matter what approach they're taking, they want to have that peace of mind or that comfort that they're not locked in, that they have the flexibility to optimize their architecture for now and also for the future, whatever that might look like for them. The benefit of being able to scale your storage and compute independently is also, you optimize your resource utilization, essentially. So, you don't need to scale your storage along with your compute, you really optimize it for the specific workloads that you're trying to address to optimize it for you, which essentially is going to be more efficient and also reduce your overall TCO.

Dave Vellante

>> Thank you for that, Alyson, appreciate it. Let's bring Ali Biers into the conversation. You guys, you're a product company, you love to talk about products and I want to get to the products. But before we do, there's a shift going on when I talk to customers. There's just definitely a trend, there's sort of a rebalancing and new thinking. Maybe some of it is or quite a bit of it is maybe driven by AI, but why on-prem and why now? What are you seeing, Ali?

Alison Biers

>> I think there's four main things. The first is just customers are looking to avoid some of their high variable costs that they've experienced. They need predictable TCO so that they can have better budget control. They also want to avoid vendor lock-in with a modular, open infrastructure that can provide that ease of portability, as well as flexibility. And they really want to keep control of their data. They need to keep that data local and secure for stronger compliance and security. And finally, they want planned and systematic control, and they need visibility to their future costs and they want to be able to have that across there org, whether it comes from departments within their organization or from IT.

Dave Vellante

>> I was at Dell Tech World two years ago, and Bill McDermott was there, and he talked about the trust that he had in his relationship with Michael Dell. I don't know if a few folks in the audience remember that. But it was striking to me, two industry icons that actually do deals and because of the trust that they have. And Arthur mentioned that PowerEdge servers are trusted by organizations. We've always said at theCUBE research, that's one of the key strengths of Dell. But specifically as it relates to running cloud-like environments with an on-premises infrastructure, I want to understand why. How has Dell earned that trust and what sets your approach apart from other server platforms?

Alison Biers

>> Yeah, I hear you. I mean, I think if you go back to what Arthur said, that number one position is certainly not by accident. We've had that number one position according to IDC for the last 33 plus quarters for both revenue and units. So, that is over eight years of consistency, consistency in leadership and innovation with customers deciding to choose and trust us. So, why on-prem? Well, we're really talking about the compute backbone that is central to our customer's private cloud strategy. So these servers really need to deliver the performance, the security, and the flexibility that our customers need, and they do it to keep those critical workloads on-prem, while still connected to the cloud.

Dave Vellante

>> Okay, well what about PowerEdge itself?

Alison Biers

>> These are purpose-built servers that are great for hybrid virtualization. They've been optimized for really dense, virtualized workloads, and they integrate with VMware, Red Hat, Nutanix, and others, to help support both our cloud-connected and our air-gapped environments. It also provides open flexible architecture, which means you're not locked into any one vendor. It works on-cloud and on-prem, and operations can stay consistent no matter where the workload runs. There's also a few structural advantages in our partnerships with the latest AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors. You get top-tier performance, energy efficiency, and customers can choose the right infrastructure strategy for their organization.

Dave Vellante

>> So, another piece that we're really interested in is networking. I mean, Dell has always been in the networking business, but there's been really, a resurgence and a new way to think about networking, Ali. I wonder if you could talk about that.

Alison Biers

>> Absolutely. When you pair our PowerEdge servers with Dell Networking Solutions, you get a stronger foundation to empower your data center. Specifically with Dell Enterprise SONiC, this is our open standard space networking management software, which we have specifically tuned and validated for our enterprise customers to help them centrally manage their life cycles, to automate their operations, to secure their environments. And what this really means is that they can support their networking gear across multiple vendors, all with a single tool. And with Dell serving as that single point of contact for them for support, organizations can reduce their complexity while improving their resilience. The result here is they get scalable, compliant and cloud-ready infrastructure that lets them run, move, and manage their workloads seamlessly between on-prem and public cloud environments, all while they're minimizing their risk and their overhead.

Dave Vellante

>> Thank you for that. Now, one of the partners that made this program possible today was AMD. We've got a short little clip that we want to play from them. Let's do that and then we'll come back and dig deeper into this topic.

Dave Vellante

>> Look, if you look into the customer spend, I will say, and some of the data that we have, 83% of the customers are looking to rationalize their IT spend, right? But just a fraction of them are really seeing the benefit, in terms of the approach that they're using in order to be effective. And when we look into private cloud, basically, customers that are managing these type of options in their environment are looking for scalability and control. Right? And basically, these customers are looking for, hey, I want to consolidate my workloads. I want to get shrinking my licensing cost. I want to get better and better ROI from my investment. Right? And ultimately, what we are putting on the table is, hey, we have a comprehensive path for them to deploy a high-performance solution that helps them to meet all the requirements that they have. AMD EPYC is basically putting all the higher core count, the high memory bandwidth, and Dell is putting all the comprehensive path to manage all the transition in a way that is making sense from technological standpoint and cost standpoint. So basically, what we are trying to make sure is for these customers that the migration is going to be straightforward. We are working with Dell very actively to have co-engineered tools that helps them to have a comprehensive path to maximize their private clouds and the solutions that they're running in those private clouds.

Dave Vellante

>> Okay, let's go on to step three, which is storage, a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Choose the right storage. Alyson Langon, let's talk about this. We've talked about servers. What role does storage, everybody like to forget about the data sometimes, it's super important. What role does storage play in making a modern private cloud, what you call a smarter private cloud?

Alyson Langon

>> Yes, step three. So building on the compute foundation, which Ali just talked about, you also need storage to deliver the persistent scalability and data services to make your private cloud possible. You can't build a flexible, smart private cloud on rigid old-school storage, it just doesn't work. Traditional arrays were built for predictable workloads, not the agility that we see for cloud. Private clouds need agility by definition, as that's where the cloud experience starts. So, everything revolves around your data. It's the center of gravity for your applications, services, business operations. And if your storage can't keep up, that's a problem. And that's where PowerStore comes in. This is our flagship enterprise storage platform. It was built from the ground up with a modern architecture that is designed for flexibility and agility. It is designed to help organizations move fast, even in unpredictable times. So, we know that your storage is never going to be a bottleneck in your private cloud.

Dave Vellante

>> So, one of the things I've heard Jeff Clarke say, and really, the product gurus in this industry tell us that architecture matters. So, let's talk about that. What in your view makes PowerStore strong architecturally, but specifically, for private cloud?

Alyson Langon

>> Yeah, so it starts with its unified design, so it handles both block and file workloads seamlessly. Also, its scalability. You have the ability to scale up and scale out, so you can scale up in small steps or scale out in federated clusters, and it's all managed as one. So, you can move workloads non disruptively inside the cluster, this is key for a private cloud. We also have our enterprise grade security and resiliency built in, this includes our federal certifications to back it up. So, we also have the best data reduction in the industry so you can control your costs no matter how you grow.

Dave Vellante

>> Is there anything new in PowerStore that we should highlight that people should know about?

Alyson Langon

>> Yeah, absolutely. We have lots going on in PowerStore. We have AI driven automation and optimization behind the scenes. We also have new self-healing capabilities in the latest release, so you can resolve issues up to 90% faster with no human intervention. So, a lot of automation happening there, so your IT teams can focus on other higher value priorities. And PowerStore is consistently cited for its ease of use, ranked number one among competitors and some independent surveys. And just to build on that, our latest release also expands our QLC lineups, so we have a new high end QLC model to give you enterprise performance at a much lower cost. We're building in stronger security with things like single sign-on, support for biometric login, encryption enhancements, etc. We're also excited to share a new PowerStore integration. So building on our longstanding partnership with Nutanix, last year, as you probably know, we introduced PowerFlex as the first integrated external storage platform with Nutanix, but now, soon customers are going to be able to combine the Nutanix virtualization and compute management with PowerStore's enterprise class efficiency as well. So, expanding on our Nutanix partnership there. For most enterprises, PowerStore is going to be a sweet spot for private cloud deployment. So we've talked a lot about PowerStore, but if you need massive scale or ultra-high performance, we also have new things going on with PowerMax and PowerFlex. So PowerMax for example, now supports QLC flash drives, and our PowerFlex Ultra release is going to feature erasure coding. So, lots of new things going on across the board for our storage. Bottom line, Dell can deliver the right storage for any private cloud.

Dave Vellante

>> Alyson, since I've been in this business, automation has been a topic, and a lot of times there were these unintended consequences of automation and so organizations would throw labor at the problem. But we're now in an era with AI, people are much more comfortable with automation. They can't handle all the complexity with humans and they need to manage cost, and so we're seeing customers more and more demanding automation and they're much more comfortable with it, and particularly important when deploying compute and storage resources. So, how are you approaching that need?

Alyson Langon

>> Right, great question. So we've gone through the steps. We talked about choosing the right architecture with foundations around our storage, particularly PowerStore and then our compute with PowerEdge. What we do to take our disaggregated infrastructure approach to the next level using those core building blocks is what we're delivering with the Dell automation platform, and that's what gives you the simplicity and end-to-end automation with that disaggregated stack. So, we recently launched the Dell automation platform. So this is a centralized software orchestration platform that's going to combine the strength of Dell's infrastructure that I just talked about, with advanced automation to deliver simplified IT and accelerate time to value across AI, private cloud, Edge environments, etc. So this release is really, it's a culmination of decades of innovation through Dell that's come together in a single, centralized platform. So, it's going to integrate core capabilities like secure zero touch onboarding, it provides centralized inventory management. Our Dell AIOps is going to be integrated. So, just really automation up and down the stack that's going to... capabilities that extend from day zero to day two. This is going to include full lifecycle management made of ITSM integration. So, it's really about accelerating the time to value and accelerating operations.

Dave Vellante

>> Okay. So you talked about the platform. What is the role of that automation platform, but specifically in the context, Alyson, of private cloud?

Alyson Langon

>> Okay, yes, great question. So, the Dell Automation platform is our centralized orchestration management platform that enables some core offers for our customers. Starting with Dell Private Cloud for the core data center, this is a new offering we recently announced. It is built on disaggregated infrastructure, which we've talked a lot about today, meaning it delivers the simplicity of that full automated lifecycle management for an appliance-like experience that our customers enjoy. All of that simplicity and goodness of an HCI-like experience, but combining it with the flexibility to independently scale compute and storage, so you're avoiding that cloud vendor lock-in. Customers have the ability to bring their own cloud OS to streamline their day-to-day operations, while also leveraging existing tools. So, it's available with VMware and Red Hat today, and then we have Nutanix support coming soon. So, this means our customers can provision their own private cloud stack in 90% fewer steps compared to manual processes. So, that's the benefit of all of this end-to-end automation we're delivering. And you can have workload-ready clusters in just two and a half hours with zero manual effort. So, really streamlining and simplifying the customer experience. We have automated and pre-validated updates. So you're ensured that your infrastructure remains in a continuously validated state. So it's backed by lots and lots of testing by Dell experts. Over 45,000 hours of testing have gone into ensuring that customers will have a validated state with their architecture. And then finally, we talked a lot about the fear and customer concern around vendor lock-in. So, the beauty of the flexibility of Dell Private Cloud is that it's designed for investment protection, so you can adapt as needs evolve. The software subscription as part of Dell Private Cloud is fully transferable between nodes. So it enables the reuse of compute and storage, so that PowerEdge server, your PowerStore storage, you can reuse it and repurpose it to a different software stack as your needs change or as your strategy evolves.

Dave Vellante

>> Back in 2021, we made an observation that the cloud was no longer just set of remote services up somewhere in the cloud, and we coined this term supercloud, and what it was was the combination of public and private and multi-cloud and abstraction layer that brought all those pieces together. So, supercloud becomes this giant distributed system and we said eventually, Edge has to be part of that system. So Alyson, what about Edge, where does that fit?

Alyson Langon

>> Yeah, if you take what we're doing with Dell Private Cloud in the core data center and extend that automation, that simplicity, the removing of manual tasks out to the Edge, whether that's far-edge, near-edge, and just like distributed environments in general, distributed data centers, which are very common as we continue to expand just bringing together all those dispersed locations, Dell NativeEdge is an offer that's been in our portfolio for a couple of years now. And it's now integrated into the broader Dell automation platform to extend those benefits to your Edge or distributed environment. So, this is a full stack solution that's going to securely centralize the deployment, orchestration, and the lifecycle management of diverse infrastructure and applications across your Edge and distributed data centers. So NativeEdge, I said it's a full stack solution. It delivers everything that's expected from a traditional HCI clients, for example, for production grade virtualization. So things like high availability, VM snapshots, backup, migration, but it also provides differentiated capabilities that are tailored to the Edge and distributed data center needs. Things like full application lifecycle management, SaaS based management, zero touch deployments, and a mutable OS. We also have flexible architecture options, so that includes the ability to use both legacy Dell and third party infrastructure as well. So, there's a lot of flexibility to tailor this to your needs and take a lot of the manual tasks while ensuring security and flexibility and cost efficiency that's required for modernizing these distributed data centers.

Dave Vellante

>> Great, thank you Alyson. All right, so one of the other supporters that has made this program possible is Intel, and we've got a short clip from them as well. Let's take a look and we'll come back and wrap.

Dave Vellante

>> When you look at CPU recently, one of the core performance indicators, the key KPIs is performance per watt. So, and I mean, if I look at, let's use PowerEdge here as our reference point. And PowerEdge to 14G 15G to 16G. So in the transition between these generations of our Edge, we saw an improvement of about 20% in performance per watt. Now with the PowerEdge 17G, which is where we have our new Intel Xeon-6, we are seeing a much bigger jump. It's more than 40% improvement in performance per watt. Now if I go a little further, right? I look into minus two generation, the 15G to 17G, which is where people would be thinking of when they're thinking on tech refreshes. We're talking of near 70% improvement in performance per watt. So I mean, to put this a little bit in a bigger perspective, I'm kind of a performance engineer at heart, so I like the numbers. If we take the PowerEdge 15G, the top being CPU there, versus the top being from a 17G, we are seeing here a more than three times increase in number of cores. We're seeing, it's about four times increase in overall CPU capacity, with near 70% improvement in performance per watt. So, why do we care about that? So let's say back to the DPC point, if I'm considering that transition, there is a tremendous opportunity for server consolidation in there, and that adds a lot of value when I'm thinking on the constraints that every data center has today of limits, constraints in power that they have per rack and in power in the overall data center. So, you have that opportunity now to improve in a significant way your overall CPU capacity.

Dave Vellante

>> Okay, before we wrap, we have to talk about perhaps one of the most important topics on the minds of IT decision makers, and that is encapsulated in step five, which is, choose the right cyber resilience. Alyson, I was recently listening to an acquired podcast and Jamie Dimon was on. And they asked him, "What keeps you up at night?" And he talked about financial risk, he talked about balance sheets, he talked about overvaluations in the market right now. But he said, "I don't worry about any of that. I can manage that. What really keeps me up at night is cyber." So, cyber resilience has really been a growing concern for organizations. How is Dell helping businesses protect and recover from cyber threats?

Alyson Langon

>> Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is the final step and also a very crucial step that is extremely top of mind to customers. Cyber threats are more sophisticated than ever and organizations, they need to recover fast. Dell's approach to cyber resilience focuses on three pillars. So that's reduce attack surfaces, detect and respond to threats, and recover from attacks. Our PowerProtect portfolio delivers cyber resilience, securing data with these three pillars while optimizing performance, efficiency, and scale. So at its core is PowerProtect data domain. This has been and continues to be the number one backup appliance trusted by over 15,000 customers. And we're not just resting on our laurels, we are continuing to innovate with our data domain technology. We've just introduced an all flash data domain that's available now, giving customers up to four times faster resources, or sorry, four times faster resource, and 80% less power required, and 40% less rack space. So more efficient, faster data protection. And soon, we're going to be introducing an entry level data domain appliance. So, this is going to provide enterprise level cyber resilience and operational simplicity in a compact appliance. And then also, we're going to have a new PowerProtect data manager appliance as well, which is a unified experience with centralized management of data manager and data domain for consistent operations. And all of this is backed by Dell's cyber recovery guarantee.

Dave Vellante

>> Great. Guys, congratulations on the launch. I can only imagine what it's like giving birth to the products and services that you guys are providing. So, well done and best of luck to both of you. Really appreciate your time.

Alison Biers

>> Thank you.

Alyson Langon

>> Thank you.

Dave Vellante

>> All right, let me summarize and let's wrap. What we heard today is that what Dell calls smarter private cloud, the success comes down to five steps. Right architecture, scaling compute and storage independently, and of course automation, humans can't do it all. And very importantly, cyber resilience. You can't just bolt it on, it has to be designed in. We heard Dell's approach, disaggregated infrastructure, add in PowerEdge servers, power storage, these are the foundational principles which are scalable, flexible, and efficiency. And then again, automation is very, very important. You just can't throw humans at the problem. Dell Private Cloud and NativeEdge, we heard the promise from Dell is it's going to simplify your operations. You extend that to the Edge and it protects your investments further. Cyber resilience, it's compulsory, this is non-optional. You got to design it in from the start, as I say. We heard about PowerProtect, that portfolio has been a leading example for well over, it's been many decades, actually. Faster recovery, you've got all flash now, better efficiency and increased trust with your security. The big picture here is customers, they've got to support both traditional and emerging AI workloads. They've got to balance their on-prem and their cloud. They've got to deal with new cyber threats. And by the way, there's all these sustainability pressures as well, powering the next generation of data centers. Dell's challenge of course, is to construct a portfolio to address all of these issues. Is Dell stepping up? What do you think? Go to Dell.com, reach out to Dell with any questions. This is Dave Vellante for Rob Strechay, thanks for watching.