Marc Campbell, Replicated | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2023

This is texturing TV. Hey everyone, welcome to day three here at kubecon in Amsterdam. It's real quiet.

They haven't opened the exhibit hall yet. And so this is a great time to get some of the other sponsors of cubecon. Some of the vendors here who are too busy talking to the 10,000 people who are here.

Once the show floor opens, so I was we were able to snack Mark Campbell CTO of replicated co-founder CTO of replicated. Hey, Mark, welcome to Tech strong TV. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. So Mark, we're gonna get into replicated in a second. But before we do, I think share your story with the audience a little bit.

Yeah. I mean we've been I've been the coconut CTO replicated for about eight years and Ben a programmer really been in infrastructure Ben and devops like installing servers. It's you know technology and infrastructure is kind of been my life and you know work for you know, various companies before starting replicated like she's mentioned we'll get into it but kind of salt like we're challenged with you know, like this this move to the cloud this move to Cloud native doctor and kubernetes containerization and you know realize like there's there's like some really great opportunity here to be able to help out and you know, there's a platform shift happening.

Yeah, there's no doubt. It's an opportunity and it's been growing years ago Cloud native. It was a lot different than it was today.

What was the mark what was kind of the passion? Like, I'm an entrepreneurial entrepreneur myself having started a bunch of venture companies. There's usually something that drives you that says man, there's a problem that needs to get solved.

It's a problem for me it maybe as a developer you saw and said I can't be the only one. Yeah, right. Yeah, was it with replicated that what was that spark thing?

That was created this idea like yeah, so my co-founder and I we had a previous startup that got acquired by a large publicly traded company. And this was this company was shipping software like a multi-tenant SASS and some of their larger customers said we need an on-prem version of that software to run in our own Data Center. And this was like, you mentioned eight years ago the cloud native ecosystem looked a little bit different just a little Docker was around early days.

There was not kubernetes and the you know the ways to solve that we're just like we're gonna be a lot of work in order for like ongoing maintenance and we realize this isn't the only company stuff, you know, like kind of challenged with solving this right now and we realize there's a platform shift happening containers make software more portable. We can take advantage of that. Really like build a platform that like let's a software vendor who needs to ship into their their customers' environment focus on shipping their software and not think about that delivery that management the day two operations and software.

It's not it's not unique to the org that we were working at at the time. It's going to be unique to more and more organizations. And you know, I mean we so we started the company and just solve that problem in eight years later.

We're still building that very cool that problem. That's a great. It's a great story man.

It's okay. Let's hear what so it sounds like we were already starting here a little bit. We got some hints into what you do it.

But yeah tell us more about replicated. So replicated we work with software vendors who need to ship maybe they're multi-finance SAS. Maybe they're they're like already shipping on-prem, but they have a kubernetes application a Helm chart and they need to ship their application into their and customers environments.

So we partner with the software company like hashicorp is one of our customers has she Corp wants to ship there their application terraform and our prize into like a large bank or one of Are there and customers but like it's not going to go to SAS? It might be an aircraft environment. It's a tightly controlled secure environment.

We add like services in around PreFlight checks and support bundle and Licensing and entitlements and and like some some like operational aspects of it. So they can ship updates and manage that that software remotely and deliver it. So they're their customer can run the entire platform basically shift the app into the customers environment instead of that customer environment shipping the data out to a multi-ten access.

So, you know that that's fascinating because it runs kind of counter. Just what we hear. So from so many of the vendors here where they say.

Hey, I've got an open source project, but I'm gonna Let you use it as a sass. Yeah, right because this way we handle all the infrastructure. We handle all of that stuff.

You just worry about running this. Program whatever it may be. Here with replicated we're saying hey man, you want to run it in your own data center your own private cloud or even in your own public Cloud environment, but you want to have total control over it, but you still want God rails.

You still want help you still want support you still need your license saying you could use your favorite sauce type of software. Right yourself. I mean look like the days, you know infrastructure is code programmable compute.

This this is like the SAS vendor. They might know the software really really well kubernetes has created an API in an abstraction around that to make it. So, you know, you can package it as a Helm chart and anybody can run it there's a common API to operate software but the security model the infrastructure it we moved to this this world here with AWS in the cloud where where like that that same infrastructure is available to to anybody right just because you wrote software you're running into AWS.

I have an AWS account. I can actually I have access to the same like resources sure same everything. And in fact, we actually see that eight a large number of these Enterprise software distributions that run on-prem is actually just running in somebody else.

That's right. com, which is the clouds great it delivers. a lot of what it promised but some things that people you know are talking about is this elasticity that we're seeing with the cloud.

It's kind of one way at least this city. It's it only goes up and you build only goes up very little of it comes back down and and so, you know over time. People are saying it's not cheaper.

That's for sure right going to the Cloud public cloud is not necessarily a money saver. There's a lot less control. I you know, the the trade-off for moving to the cloud is I let them worry about it, but I have a lot less control over it and it costs me more money.

And so we're seeing sort of this anti pattern of people pulling back, you know, the whole finops and and and so forth that we're seeing. I wonder I mean replicated. She capitalize on that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is It's interesting it there's a couple of different points. You know, like one is the the elasticity in that did the dynamic workload often with one piece of on-prem software. There's less of a need for it to be that elastic right an Enterprise One bank or one like one Enterprise who's running one piece of software.

They it's a more predictable workload than you running a multi-tenant SAS with customers that you don't understand. We really low focus on that like that that data model and I think the value that we see is it's a lot of the like, I don't want to send as an organization. I have sensitive information and I don't want to necessarily send it to a multi-tenant SAS provider who's going to I don't know maybe like build and training.

Yeah, I model based on that and then actually that's like that was unique to my organization. And so instead like shift that model in. Let me build.

Let me own the control. Yeah control the end of the day the control of your own IP. Yeah, exactly protect what you're like the value of your organization I get it.

Want to talk a little bit about kubecon. There's the last day it's been three days here on the show floor four days with sessions and stuff. What's your impression?

Yeah. I mean, it's been it's been great. You know like we go to kutan both North America and and EU every year and I think this this has been like the the energy is really high here like there is there has been it feels like it's kind of his back right in person is not here.

It's it's it's really really good about it. We do both too. We were in Detroit.

We were in Valencia last year and What was well that was the first imperson one for a while I think so. Yeah. Well there was like Los Angeles.

But yeah, we were in Los Angeles too. That was that was vendor Town. Yeah, like, you know, it's more vendors then then attendees, but hey, it is back that that's for sure Mark.

You know what I'd like you to do though. Well before we get in I wanted to tell people where to go. But like what is the how do people engage with replicate?

What what's the best? Yeah, like what's the road that you know the on-ramp if you will? Yeah, I mean if you're if you're a software vendor that has Requests are demand to ship an on-prem version of the software.

com and you know, we have some some videos there that kind of walk through it, but, you know just have a kubernetes application and it's relatively easy to shift into your Enterprise environment. What's the like for the average engagement? What's the timeline to take something?

That's SAS and put it on Prem or is everyone sort of a bespoke kind of yeah, I mean there's there's a little bit of a spokeness to it depending on like kind of what cloud services you might be using and how like kubernetes you already are but if you are if you're shipping your application as a home chart, it's really straightforward or just a kubernetes operator kubernetes application. It's really straightforward. You can actually like, you know in in days be able to like distribute into and on-prem environment.

If you're still in the process of kind of like building up these manifest that is a requirement. And so, you know, we piggy back on top of that very cool. Hey Mark, I'd like you to look into that camera and let people know if they want to get started with replicate, you know, where to go and what to do.

Yeah. com. There's a video there that kind of talks through it and like in reach out for more information Mark Campbell CTO of reply here with us this morning, it's Friday.

It's the last day you've gone you here and am Damn, we're gonna have a full day. I think right up to about 2:30. The floor is open today.

That's Amsterdam time stay tuned. We'll be right back.