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Aamer Ahkter, Director of Product Management for VMware SASE is the guest on this episode of Techie & the Biz podcast, hosted by MetTel VP of Mobility & IoT Max Silber. Aamer explains how SASE and Zero Trust secure enterprise communications at the employee edge. Max and Aamer discuss the impact SD-WAN has made and the new SD-WAN Mobile Client from VMware and MetTel.
00:00:00:15 – 00:00:12:11
Erica
This is Techie and the Biz t a podcast to explain and simplify how business technology is changing and why it can benefit your organization.
00:00:12:13 – 00:00:39:01
Max
Welcome back to another episode of Techie and the Biz. My name is Max Silber, and with me is my wife and co-host, Erica Silber. Today, we want to discuss the significant shift going on in the industry when it comes to network security and mobility and how for the first time, all three are coming together to address the constant threat of cybersecurity and the need to provide a better experience to the end user.
00:00:39:03 – 00:00:53:02
Max
To help us understand the shift, we are excited to welcome industry experts, keynote speaker and product director for Sassy Product Management at VMware, Ammar Akhtar.
00:00:53:04 – 00:00:56:19
Aamer
Hey, good morning, guys. Hi, Max. Hi, Erica.
00:00:56:21 – 00:01:00:00
Erica
Hi. Great to have you.
00:01:00:02 – 00:01:01:15
Speaker 4
Absolutely.
00:01:01:17 – 00:01:10:13
Erica
To start us off, can you tell us how you got started in technology and what was the path that led you to be an industry expert on Sd-wan?
00:01:10:15 – 00:01:38:20
Aamer
Yeah, so I actually joined one of the vendors straight out of college, actually did my co-op with another vendor, which doesn’t actually even exist anymore. So Northern Telecom, Nortel at the time, right? So they don’t even exist anymore. And I joined actually in the Cisco TAC and it was, you know, doing support for like ISPs and, you know, Cisco’s partners and enterprise customers.
00:01:38:22 – 00:01:59:09
Aamer
And, you know, it just gave me like a lot of appreciation of the complexity, the business criticality. And then from there, you know, you see all these problems and you just want to move upstream to try to solve those problems. And that’s how shall I wound up in product management where I thought I was going to go after college, was to go do like embedded programing for what was cool at that time.
00:01:59:15 – 00:02:14:24
Aamer
Digital signal processing. Right now that’s most I mean, it’s a little bit dated at this point in time, but that’s kind of where like I feel that the people that are doing like this EML and the specialized chips and stuff like that, that’s kind of a DSP was back and back in those days.
00:02:15:01 – 00:02:34:22
Max
It’s it’s it’s I feel like the story of the industry is everyone kind of thinks they have a path and then they kind of stumble somewhere else or they end up being really good at it. So they end up just kind of developing within that, within that, that kind of core specialty. So that’s, that’s very, very common, I think for for most of us in this industry.
00:02:35:03 – 00:02:45:19
Max
I wonder what are the challenges organizations are solving when they move from, you know, kind of a traditional infrastructure to sd-wan.
00:02:45:21 – 00:03:07:10
Aamer
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think of Sd-wan as really the evolution of this larger thing that’s going on with Enterprise, right? I mean, if you think back in the day and I’m going to date myself again, like when I started, you had people doing like the Marine Corps was doing Banyan vines, and then you had people doing exact 25 and then three frame relay.
00:03:07:10 – 00:03:32:00
Aamer
And really sd-wan is just the evolution of the enterprise one. And there’s things that make it more palatable, more, you know, leaning in to other industry trends that are going on. So, for example, you know, we didn’t have broadband, we didn’t have, you know, cable modems and all this other type of stuff like 20, 30 years ago. We have them now.
00:03:32:01 – 00:04:01:09
Aamer
It’s super easy to acquire or broadband connection and then to be able to connect on top of it. How enterprise applications are organized today is very different. They’re not all in the data center. The majority of them are actually SaaS applications or they might be hosted in eight of us or Azure and the like. And that just changes the nature of what the demands against the one are and ask One addresses these as well.
00:04:01:15 – 00:04:24:15
Aamer
So Max, just to sort of come back to your to your question on this one, you know, when customers look at SD one, they’re looking for that next generation of web technology. SD one specifically provides, you know, a lean in to this new type of traffic pattern. It does network optimizations that make it better over the Internet, which is the primary mode of connectivity.
00:04:24:17 – 00:04:46:11
Aamer
It provides agility compared to what was there before. And that agility actually comes from just how fast you can do deployments. We’ve had customers who have embraced one that actually deployed 8000 branch rotors in under a month. That’s an incredible number and it can only be done if you’re making use of broadband connections. You’ve got strong centralized management.
00:04:46:17 – 00:05:12:16
Aamer
You have these abilities of doing profiles. And that’s that’s the other part of it is that, you know. SD One almost always assumes the strong centralized management that makes the operations of things easier as well and cheaper on the TCO side is sorry I rambled a little bit, but there’s a lot of different things that come together. And then for a specific customer, it’s, you know, it really goes down to their business case and really what they’re trying to achieve and where they are on their journey.
00:05:12:16 – 00:05:18:07
Aamer
You know, in terms of the cloud services, distributed enterprise and those types of things as well.
00:05:18:09 – 00:05:35:02
Max
That’s great. And by the way, that’s the first time I heard Frame Relay in a really long time. So I mean, I would I remember frame relay very well. In fact, I remember when Eric and I actually started dating and broadband was available at the time I tried to get on the Wi-Fi in her apartment and she’s like, No, no, no.
00:05:35:02 – 00:06:00:04
Max
I use a dial up so that, you know, I’m very familiar with the with the older technologies, you know. No, not at all. Broadband was available, but we took care of that. Now we have broadband everywhere. So like, thank God for that. But what what are I guess what are some of the most common use cases? In which industries do you find have been kind of quick to adopt those benefits of SD Win?
00:06:00:06 – 00:06:19:21
Aamer
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, I think one of the things that make SD one or two more attractive to certain industry verticals and those types of things, and if you go back to like sort of that, that operative word over there is when while you need to have a one, if you’re like a completely like a LAN type organization, it may not make that much sense for you in the first place.
00:06:19:21 – 00:06:39:18
Aamer
Right now, if you look at sort of the extremities of that particular attribute, you would see organizations that just have a lot of edges, oh, I’m sorry, we call it color branch, other edges. It’s like I can just they have a lot of sort of branches. Retail comes to mind. Like retail is like a slam dunk for anything involving SD one.
00:06:39:23 – 00:07:02:07
Aamer
And a lot of times, especially and this goes into the other attributes that we talked about, you know, retail and specifically the networking and security team for retail almost always will actually run independent Lea as part of this larger organization that has an IP organization and they may have a standard for how they do their one. But the retail organization, this is sometimes called line of business.
00:07:02:13 – 00:07:31:08
Aamer
The line of business will have the authority like we want to make a retail networking and when really run efficiently for what it is, and they will be able to make a separate, independent decision that actually works best for that business. You’ll see that in distributed factories, things, things of that nature, like they all make independent decisions based on their their specific needs as opposed to come from from being where but like they are, there is this corporate overload or oral or, you know, mandate.
00:07:31:14 – 00:07:59:05
Aamer
But then inside the line of business, you’ll see different aspects of that. But, you know, we see government agencies making use of SD one, and this goes back to like not only are they, you know, they have distributed sort of, you know, branches, but they’re actually working in all these not hostile always, but just sort of like very differentiated environments, like the ease of use, of the ease of getting like a broadband connection in the Middle East and in Asia and all these other places.
00:07:59:07 – 00:08:05:09
Aamer
Like you don’t it’s a lot easier to just sort of be able to use a local provider for those types of things.
00:08:05:11 – 00:08:26:16
Max
What would you say? There’s also a cost benefit there because I guess they’re kind of like, you know, moving from these, you know, very heavy, very expensive kind of MPLS circuits that that have long lead times, I guess, and are typically very expensive. And now, you know, they’re essentially I guess they could choose whatever broadband they want, right, in this type of solution, potentially.
00:08:26:16 – 00:08:49:10
Aamer
We see customers either way. We see customers that are making use of their existing private line with MPLS, VPN, and they’re using the benefits of centralized management with SD one and they sort of wave that aspect of it heavily. And there’s other customers, they’re like, you know what, I’m actually going to take ownership of this broadband sort of divestiture, if you will, or just sort of local options.
00:08:49:12 – 00:09:09:13
Aamer
And that’s he reminds me of like Walmart, like India, like Egypt, Walmart, the manager has a lot of leeway in the decisions that they can make independently and that’s some of the power that happens is I guess you’re using vendor x SD when but your local decisions of broadband are independent, right? So that does exactly that. You’re talking about, Max.
00:09:09:13 – 00:09:31:03
Aamer
It leads to more local, faster decisions, deployments, those types of things. But there is sort of the other flipside of that is many enterprises actually really value centralized billing, right? Is like having like a single sort of, you know, but peo that covers all their cases and sometimes you can use that to drive better, you know, rates and those types of things.
00:09:31:07 – 00:09:39:13
Aamer
So I think just be aware as an enterprise you have to, you have to be able to balance those types of things and you know, having individual store managers take care of POS.
00:09:39:15 – 00:09:40:02
Speaker 4
Or that.
00:09:40:04 – 00:09:48:22
Aamer
For your PCI connection and those types of things like that, that might not there could be challenges in that area as well.
00:09:48:24 – 00:09:56:11
Erica
We hear terms like zero trust. And I’m not just talking about Max in the kitchen talking to my ten year old gamer.
00:09:56:13 – 00:10:06:17
Max
Of course I trust him just for the record, I’m talking about the online players that could be a bunch of old men in their basements. Yeah, but but in all seriousness.
00:10:06:19 – 00:10:13:18
Erica
But in all seriousness, we hear the term when discussing cybersecurity. So how does SD one play a role in all of this?
00:10:13:20 – 00:10:37:08
Aamer
Yeah, so, Eric, a really good question. So when we talk about zero trust, zero trust, first of all, it is an architecture as opposed to an explicit standard or those types of things. In fact, you know, the U.S. and this organization has a really good document that lays out the foundations of that architecture. The second thing, like what does Zero Trust mean for enterprises and the like?
00:10:37:08 – 00:11:01:21
Aamer
And it’s actually means different things for them depending on their specific needs. If you’re a governmental agency and you’ve gone through all the work of, you know, classifying your users, rating them and reading your documents, top secret, secret, all that other type of stuff, zero Trust may be an easier journey for you because that is actually one of the hardest things with Zero Trust is that you have to do this level of classification of those types of things.
00:11:01:23 – 00:11:23:11
Aamer
If you haven’t started the journey as an enterprise. And by the way, most financial organizations, just because of regulatory needs, are already well along that that journey. If you haven’t done that, you know, that analysis and classification zero trust may be a harder thing. Now what does SD When how does it relate to zero trust? Just going back to that idea.
00:11:23:13 – 00:11:48:05
Aamer
So, you know, we had talked about one of the trends that’s driving SD one that makes it more attractive, and the two that are the most applicable for Zero Trust is there in SD. One of the drivers for SD one is an increasing sort of case of like the distributed workforce. You’ve got hundreds of branches. People are coming into those branches, remote workers.
00:11:48:05 – 00:12:04:18
Aamer
You don’t know exactly where people are, that type of thing. And we’ll come back to like the security implications. The second one is like, you got like a lot of resources there. Maybe in the data center, they may be in the cloud, they may be in the SAS. How do you secure both sides of that equation, the users against the resources right.
00:12:04:20 – 00:12:29:23
Aamer
And by the way, distributed ops and distributed workers is one of the driving things for SD one and zero Trust offers a way to be able to secure and not prevent but reduce lateral movement in these types of cases. Right? So that’s how they overlap together. And in fact, this is one of the reasons why we launched the SD one client, because it allows us to be able to and we’re going to get to the end of it.
00:12:30:00 – 00:12:51:00
Aamer
But it actually relates to this specific thing that you’re talking about, Max, and Erika’s that, you know, the the set of customers that are looking at SD when they’re facing these challenges. Zero Trust is one of the security solutions that tries to address them. So it makes sense for an SD one offering to incorporate aspects of zero trust.
00:12:51:06 – 00:13:06:06
Aamer
But also at the same time, we have to do it in a way that is consumable and easy for an organization that isn’t, you know, well along this journey of classification already, of being able to adopt these technologies and.
00:13:06:06 – 00:13:08:11
Speaker 4
Make use of them.
00:13:08:13 – 00:13:26:17
Max
That’s great. So I it’s interesting because we recently announced the addition of the SD way in mobile client is part of our product portfolio. Maybe talk a little bit about what are the security benefits to users and the organization of using an SD win mobile client.
00:13:26:19 – 00:13:46:10
Aamer
Yeah, so, so there’s networking benefits. We’ll get to that in a bit. But on the security side, so the SD one client, it does allow the administrator, the security folks to be able to implement the zero trust architecture. And just sort of as a refresher, what the zero trust architecture means is, you know, who the who the user is.
00:13:46:10 – 00:14:09:15
Aamer
So you have some form of doing a download identity validation and you’re able to basically create a very narrow band specific to the needs of that user to a set of resources. And those could be applications that could be data share drives and those types of things. And then the final part of it is that you take into account the risk of that user, their mode of access.
00:14:09:15 – 00:14:26:03
Aamer
Are they coming in from a laptop, are they coming in from home, these types of things. And that’s actually part of that equation. So user plus context equals, you know, a very narrow band of access. And the SD one client actually does that. But the other part of this, the thing is that you don’t have to do it.
00:14:26:03 – 00:14:48:20
Aamer
You can get started with the SD one client in a very easy ways. Okay? You have users that are engineering users or you have every kind of employee at an organization and they have access to everything or they have access to only the option, this data center. So and that is not exactly zero trust, but it allows you enough freedom to get started to start providing connectivity for these remote workers.
00:14:49:00 – 00:15:11:18
Aamer
And over a period of time, as the organization builds on these ideas of better classification of users, better classification of their apps and their and the resources, they can, they can over time, at their own discretion and pace of adoption, they can they can start narrowing that access to be more and more, you know, specific to that context.
00:15:11:18 – 00:15:46:06
Aamer
And to that user. The final thing I would say, Max, is like and this is just sort of a standard zero trust story. And our answer there is, I guess we can do zero trust, but you don’t have to do it. We provide a path to it. The other part of it that I always found really interesting is that, you know, one of the things that keeps people from being super secure and to implement all these security things is that like we just as security professionals, we tend historically to make things like black and white and super hard is like you need to have this 30 character crazy password.
00:15:46:08 – 00:15:47:20
Aamer
And that’s the way to do it.
00:15:47:22 – 00:15:49:14
Max
Which I can’t remember ever.
00:15:49:16 – 00:15:53:05
Aamer
And that’s why you put it on the Post-it note right next to the keyboard.
00:15:53:07 – 00:15:53:23
Speaker 4
Right?
00:15:54:00 – 00:15:57:08
Max
That’s a that’s a great security posture. Yeah.
00:15:57:10 – 00:16:20:19
Aamer
And, you know, I think the security industry is is learning from these and newer technologies like MFA and password, less entry and these types of things, they’re they’re, they’re movements along the right path. Right. And to that same point inside of the SD one client we’ve made a concerted effort to make managing, creating and monitoring security policies super easy, right?
00:16:20:19 – 00:16:49:17
Aamer
So we understand that a user is not just, you know, one class of user, but, you know, an engineering user. Maybe, you know, they may have they may be doing or working on this project and that project and that project. How do you make that easily manageable? And these different projects may actually have different sensitivity to risk in in one project, you may be dealing in a financial institution with, you know, multimillion dollar trades, but in another one, you’re actually like, I just need access to the cafeteria.
00:16:49:17 – 00:16:58:06
Aamer
Many, like these are not the same risk. So you and you should be able to get to the cafeteria menu regardless of where you are.
00:16:58:07 – 00:17:02:00
Speaker 4
Right. And any more controls.
00:17:02:02 – 00:17:19:10
Aamer
On the multimillion dollar application, you know, transactions and those types of things. And this is one of those places where your traditional remote access is like, you can do it, but it’s extremely hard and difficult to sort of manage these different contexts. And rather than just having like, okay, you have access or you don’t have access as a whole.
00:17:19:14 – 00:17:31:14
Aamer
Yes, we do. Zero Trust, but the sensitivity to the risk for that specific resource, we’ve done some things within the SD one client that make it super easy to manage and maintain these things.
00:17:31:16 – 00:17:51:04
Max
That’s great. So it’s making it sounds like it’s making it easier for the user as well, because now, you know, I don’t have to kind of think about am I going to have access to this or that. You already have the security posture defined in your student environment. Now you’re just giving me essentially an extension to be able to access the network through the client.
00:17:51:06 – 00:18:10:19
Aamer
Yeah, and actually, that reminds me of like something slightly related, which is like we did a bunch of interviews with people that are on the operations side of security. And here’s a surprise to me is like they spend the majority, I would say like 80% of their time, basically like fielding customer requests of like, Hey, I don’t have access to this.
00:18:10:19 – 00:18:29:10
Aamer
Can you can you change this property to give me access? And it’s just that upkeep of it’s not new security policies, but it’s like you’ve got to sort of take care of like, you know, just repairing the roads, making sure. And a lot of that is actually user driven. And it’s like all very sort of exception based on those types of things.
00:18:29:10 – 00:18:47:17
Aamer
And that goes back to that theory of like, how do we make these policies much more easier to manage and scale and those and those types of things. So yeah, so from the user experience standpoint, you don’t have to open as many cases of like, Hey, I don’t have access to this and that creates an entire workflow for the I.T organization and the security organization is like, Wait, who are you for?
00:18:47:18 – 00:18:50:22
Aamer
Like, you need access to like those sets of questions and stuff like that.
00:18:50:24 – 00:19:06:04
Max
I want to see what the lunch menu is, but so just to shift topics a little bit with the industry talk now really focused on, I am wondering what is VM were doing to incorporate AI into their product offering?
00:19:06:06 – 00:19:42:13
Aamer
Oh, it’s so there’s a number of different things you may have to come to VM World or VM or Explorer. That’s the new name trying to actually see those. But you know, this is not something that’s new to, to VMware and specifically even the family of products attached to the when. So we we have an AI ops offering it’s called in AI, you’re very familiar with it and part of the work over there is, you know, really getting ahead of your sort of traditional troubleshooting, understanding what’s broken.
00:19:42:13 – 00:20:08:24
Aamer
It basically has all these heuristics built in. So here’s the types of issues that could go on, and it’s to really accelerate troubleshooting, identify and accelerating troubleshooting by identifying here’s the commonalities right now. Is that really A.I. and and where is that boundary between machine learning and AI really, you know, move over? I would say it’s actually a lot of machine learning and organizing of data, which you need to do.
00:20:09:01 – 00:20:39:17
Aamer
And then the part actually goes back to like, you know, back when I don’t know if you remember, like Alvin Toffler and like the futurist ideas from like 20 some years ago, which is like, you know, the building of expert systems, which is all this domain knowledge of how networking is supposed to work. Here’s a set of problems that is actually has always been sort of a fundamental part of they AI is that you need to take the knowledge that’s in this particular domain, automate it and make it accessible to non practitioners and things of that nature.
00:20:39:17 – 00:21:07:03
Aamer
So in AI does a lot of that. Now the recent thing that’s happening or has happened over the last six, seven months, which is why you’re seeing this reemergence of the AI term is like the, you know, the CBT and the like large language model type stuff and we’re actually working on those as well. And but those same ideas apply over here is that if you, you know, talk to chat chip about something super specific is start is starts to sort of fall apart.
00:21:07:03 – 00:21:25:08
Aamer
It has like a lot of confidence in the lies that it tells you, but like the more specific the topic is, especially on I was talking with an engineer over lunch last week and he’s like, you know, I wanted to learn more about how cert ads work and this, that and the other. And chatbot definitely gave me an answer.
00:21:25:10 – 00:21:29:13
Aamer
It didn’t make any sense. And then, like you could tell very clearly that it was wrong.
00:21:29:17 – 00:21:31:21
Speaker 4
Also. And I think.
00:21:31:21 – 00:21:48:22
Aamer
That’s the next generation of work is specifically taking that domain knowledge, the expert system things that we talked about with the and AI and making it much more accessible using the LMS like chatbot and and the like. And I think that is such an exciting time for.
00:21:48:24 – 00:21:49:04
Speaker 4
Me.
00:21:49:09 – 00:22:06:01
Aamer
Because I was filling out this visa form and it’s like, I don’t know what district this like Shanghai is, and I could do all sorts of Google searches and I did and I, I’d like sent some tap messages to people that I knew were in China is like, Hey, what district is this and this, that and the other.
00:22:06:06 – 00:22:31:08
Aamer
You have to catch up and organize the information and knew exactly what it was. And that and I think that’s the big change is how do you just make this so much more accessible to people that are not, you know, they don’t know the programing language, they don’t know the specific way to, you know, what’s the magic sort of sequence to get this output, to have this information and you can have this conversation with it.
00:22:31:08 – 00:22:44:12
Aamer
And it’s able to understand to some extent what you’re talking about and really get you to the next level. Sorry, I’m actually pretty excited about, you know, some of the announcements that we’re making. But it’s an exciting time in the industry.
00:22:44:14 – 00:23:10:10
Max
Yeah, that’s amazing. It actually reminded me when you said, you know, A.I. does a really good job of lying with great confidence. This came up and this was like a debate in a technology meeting I was at this week. And I like one person’s comment was, well, people lied to me to chat. GPT just does it faster, so at least I’ll get I’ll get the same confident lie, except I’ll get it much faster from you than from the human.
00:23:10:12 – 00:23:16:09
Aamer
There’s that meme, right? We’re like, It’s true because the internet said it was so it’s like this is just like a natural extension.
00:23:16:11 – 00:23:17:21
Speaker 4
Of that same thing.
00:23:17:23 – 00:23:34:01
Max
It’s it is right in today’s work environment with more employees working obviously hybrid or completely remote, how has SD Wain really played a part in this highly debated topic of remote workers?
00:23:34:03 – 00:24:12:08
Aamer
So, I mean, VMware itself is like really leaned itself heavily into remote work and we offer SD one to the remote workers, especially in fact this a sort of a side story about in AI being able to identify users that are having poor quality from their home network. And we do that by analyzing the quality of the Zoom sessions by and AI, and that actually prioritizes how fast you get the SD one component because like during COVID time there are all these supply chain, you know, challenges and whatnot and that sort of logic helped us to like, you know, address the problem with the most benefit.
00:24:12:10 – 00:24:39:24
Aamer
Well, where you can get the most benefit, you know, with that type of approach. So I think with SD one and specifically the SD one client, if you’re a remote worker, you don’t have the confidence of being able to say, You know what, I’m working from home, but I’m not in this. I’m not in the place where I’m going to get the super high quality, you know, networking, even if it’s broadband.
00:24:39:24 – 00:25:05:23
Aamer
I mean, we have workers on my team that are in Idaho that work out, you know, not off of a farm, but they work on a farm and their primary mode of connectivity is actually StarLink. Right. And that’s not uncommon. Right. And a big part of that remote work, you know, the benefit of it, I mean, there’s a huge debate that’s going on, but it increases your accessibility to a talent pool rather than just like the immediate metro that you’re in.
00:25:06:00 – 00:25:25:11
Aamer
But those people are out there. But then how do you do that umbilical cord of data communications that needs to be super reliable. It needs to be effective. It needs to be if that person is right next to you. And that’s where. SD When the technology aspects. So how it’s able to improve the network connection really, really start to become important.
00:25:25:11 – 00:25:52:21
Aamer
In fact, it’s not uncommon to see. SD When coupled, for example, with StarLink and with other satellite technologies and the like, because they sort of go together in that in that way. The second item of that is we’ve taken, you know, those benefits of network optimization that exist in our appliance based SD one model, but now it’s accessible also in a software model with the SD one client.
00:25:52:23 – 00:26:10:11
Aamer
And that in my mind is a game changer because not everybody is able to. I mean, there’s a cost analysis of like, Hey, you need to go buy an appliance in a deploying appliance. But there’s also this You’re not always going to be like tethered to the appliance. Like, what if you need to go to Starbucks as opposed to a weird non product placement?
00:26:10:11 – 00:26:12:05
Speaker 4
Sorry, shop at a.
00:26:12:05 – 00:26:15:24
Max
Starbucks with an appliance. So I’m just going to use the internet real quick.
00:26:16:01 – 00:26:37:15
Aamer
And that’s where the SD one client in a software like because a software makes it much more usable in those other scenarios as well. And then from an IP perspective, there’s also the recovery cost. As I okay, the employee left, how do you recover the hardware? You just write it off. So all of those sets of issues just sort of fade away with the SD one client as well.
00:26:37:17 – 00:26:38:12
Max
That’s great.
00:26:38:14 – 00:26:49:15
Erica
Yeah. I was going to say, when I think of a network of network infrastructure, I think of a physical location. So how could SD can be expanded to users that are very mobile, like Max?
00:26:49:17 – 00:26:52:24
Max
Yes, like me, pretty much.
00:26:53:01 – 00:26:54:19
Speaker 4
Yeah. So.
00:26:54:21 – 00:27:14:11
Aamer
So the thing is like because the software, you install it on your laptop, you then the SD one client actually is available on the Apple II store as well as the Android store. So it’s not unusual to actually have the SD one client with this network optimization technologies available on your phone. Forget I mean, yes, it’s on your laptop, but it’s also on your phone.
00:27:14:11 – 00:27:47:12
Aamer
It’s on your tablet. And in fact, it would work as well on your mobile, like not just, you know, the broadband or the WI fi at your coffee shop and things like that. Yeah. So it’s completely, I would say, untethered to the concept of this physical appliance. And it’s and I think the other part of it is it’s available across a variety of platforms laptops, Mac OS, Windows mobile platforms like from Apple as well as Android, but Linux as well.
00:27:47:14 – 00:28:15:17
Erica
Yeah. Okay. Well, actually I was going to ask you, in the interest of anyone who has ever tried to text message with Macs and then receives this like sad green bubble because he’s always using an android. I can’t tell you how many times I get all we can name the text we like. Weisberg So I was wondering if client would work on any smartphone device, including Max’s Android.
00:28:15:19 – 00:28:16:18
Max
The sad.
00:28:16:20 – 00:28:20:04
Aamer
Fact is Android, I don’t even know what the Apple’s by, I should say.
00:28:20:04 – 00:28:21:15
Speaker 4
But I don’t know. Is it the.
00:28:21:15 – 00:28:23:15
Aamer
Istore or is it the Apple store? As you don’t.
00:28:23:15 – 00:28:24:10
Speaker 4
Know the.
00:28:24:12 – 00:28:26:18
Max
Apple Store? I think it was dirt.
00:28:26:22 – 00:28:29:07
Aamer
But that’s the physical thing, isn’t it?
00:28:29:09 – 00:28:31:00
Erica
No. Well, there’s.
00:28:31:02 – 00:28:34:05
Max
No I mean, it’s the App Store, I guess. I guess that’s what.
00:28:34:07 – 00:28:35:01
Aamer
I think that’s what it.
00:28:35:01 – 00:28:36:17
Speaker 4
Isn’t.
00:28:36:19 – 00:28:39:02
Aamer
I’m on, I’m on. I’m on Team Max on this one.
00:28:39:05 – 00:28:41:22
Speaker 4
Oh, okay.
00:28:41:24 – 00:28:43:22
Max
Fellow, fellow Android user.
00:28:43:24 – 00:28:45:00
Speaker 4
When you look at this.
00:28:45:00 – 00:29:13:07
Aamer
Issue, I mean, it’s not directly a networking concept, but this is sort of tied in to being agnostic to these sort of platforms, which is, you know, more than the Sims. And with my my wife and colleagues, we’ve actually moved over to sort of the untethered thing, which is like, for example, WhatsApp. Right? And that’s pretty much and that’s across is the same experience across the board is not tied directly to your phone number.
00:29:13:11 – 00:29:30:21
Aamer
And in fact, you know, when I travel internationally, like I’ll have a different phone number, but my what WhatsApp identity is exactly the same and you sort of see those. I’m trying to draw the line back that’s behind the SD one because it’s not tied to sort of, you know, it’s agnostic of your like are you using brand relay or are you using x20 But it doesn’t really care.
00:29:30:21 – 00:29:37:09
Aamer
Like you can use it where we want to use it. In fact, you can pick up that appliance and if you really want to take it to Starbucks, you can.
00:29:37:11 – 00:29:38:17
Erica
You know, that’s really interesting.
00:29:38:20 – 00:29:39:20
Max
Isn’t it?
00:29:39:22 – 00:29:57:00
Erica
All right. Well, that brings us to game time as a way for our audience to get to know you a little better. I will. We will be playing a game where I will rapidly ask you this or that. And you say the first one that you feel suits you best.
00:29:57:02 – 00:29:58:02
Speaker 4
Of the two. I was not.
00:29:58:02 – 00:29:59:12
Aamer
Told about this.
00:29:59:14 – 00:30:00:22
Speaker 4
This is why.
00:30:00:24 – 00:30:04:00
Max
We like we like we like a little surprise.
00:30:04:02 – 00:30:05:03
Erica
Are you ready?
00:30:05:05 – 00:30:06:19
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:30:06:21 – 00:30:15:23
Erica
Texter Call Text Feature Mountains, mountains, Facebook or Twitter or should I say x?
00:30:16:00 – 00:30:17:07
Max
X? What’s X?
00:30:17:13 – 00:30:18:19
Erica
Yeah.
00:30:18:21 – 00:30:20:13
Speaker 4
I heard like more people.
00:30:20:13 – 00:30:23:13
Aamer
Came out of the woodwork like we have already copyrighted.
00:30:23:15 – 00:30:23:24
Speaker 4
Where am.
00:30:23:24 – 00:30:25:01
Max
I been? I didn’t hear that.
00:30:25:01 – 00:30:27:13
Erica
Changed it. There’s no more bird, right?
00:30:27:15 – 00:30:31:19
Aamer
So I don’t use I don’t use Twitter. I don’t use Facebook.
00:30:31:21 – 00:30:32:07
Speaker 4
But you know.
00:30:32:12 – 00:30:43:05
Aamer
The thing I started using a lot recently is Reddit. And it’s just like and it and it’s kind of funny, like when I started using it is when like the downfall of Reddit started.
00:30:43:07 – 00:30:43:21
Speaker 4
But that’s like.
00:30:43:21 – 00:30:46:09
Max
Me. I’m always late to the party late.
00:30:46:11 – 00:30:50:21
Aamer
But I do maintain my MySpace page so interesting.
00:30:51:00 – 00:30:51:10
Erica
Wow.
00:30:51:12 – 00:30:53:15
Speaker 4
Hey.
00:30:53:17 – 00:30:57:19
Erica
I was I’d say iPhone or Android, but I think I know this one.
00:30:57:21 – 00:30:58:23
Speaker 4
Definitely a.
00:30:59:03 – 00:31:01:00
Erica
Cat or dog.
00:31:01:02 – 00:31:14:21
Aamer
Neither. It’s like I think I’m my daughter has a cat. And every time that cat’s around, it’s I feel it’s always trying to kill me. I like the allergy type thing that’s going on.
00:31:14:23 – 00:31:17:11
Erica
Something with the eyes. I don’t know.
00:31:17:13 – 00:31:19:17
Aamer
I’m on the I’m on a more on the pet rock.
00:31:19:17 – 00:31:20:11
Speaker 4
Spectrum.
00:31:20:13 – 00:31:30:16
Erica
Of a drug that you don’t have. Not a lot of maintenance there. So a documentary or action film.
00:31:30:18 – 00:31:57:20
Aamer
You know, is actually I would say action film. But the other side of it is that I do read a lot of books and they’re all nonfiction, right? I see. Like, I’ll be like the last fiction book was like I reread like Tolkien stuff and Dune and those types of things, but I haven’t like, read any fiction for a really long time, But I actually hardly ever watch any documentary TV.
00:31:57:22 – 00:32:02:17
Erica
Keynote speaker or speaker on a panel.
00:32:02:19 – 00:32:27:14
Aamer
They’re different experiences. I think with keynote it’s more about a lot of it is about the presentation, it’s a lot of it about making things like super accessible to a large sort of audience, but you don’t get that feedback loop other than, you know, the clapping. And sometimes you’ll see like people like not sleeping, that type of stuff.
00:32:27:16 – 00:32:49:16
Aamer
But on a panel, the benefit I see is there’s a lot more interactivity. There’s this chance for follow up and those types of things. But I think the downside of the panel, whether I will be on a on a panel problem or explore the downside I think of the panel is that it’s it has to be ad hoc just because of its nature.
00:32:49:18 – 00:32:56:10
Aamer
And sometimes I wish was like, you know what, it could have given such a much better answer like that Costanza thing where he’s like, he has a real orchestrate.
00:32:56:10 – 00:33:02:00
Speaker 4
That entire thing with this group. So I feel like that’s true.
00:33:02:02 – 00:33:04:00
Aamer
With the panels.
00:33:04:02 – 00:33:07:19
Erica
On Batman or Superman.
00:33:07:21 – 00:33:10:06
Speaker 4
I think Batman and.
00:33:10:08 – 00:33:13:10
Erica
Cliff jumping or jumping out of a plane.
00:33:13:12 – 00:33:19:13
Aamer
I’ve actually done the I’ve never done the cliff jumping, but I have done that.
00:33:19:18 – 00:33:20:05
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:33:20:07 – 00:33:21:08
Max
Wow.
00:33:21:10 – 00:33:39:08
Erica
That’s cool. I have to say that on a recent vacation, Max, using a rope to climb out of the ocean and UPROXX jumped off of a cliff and we were like, in amazement. And all these younger men were just watching. That was very impressive.
00:33:39:10 – 00:33:40:21
Max
That was a great trip.
00:33:40:23 – 00:33:42:00
Speaker 4
But how did you how.
00:33:42:00 – 00:33:45:22
Aamer
Did you know that you weren’t going to, like, land on a rock? That would be like my worry.
00:33:45:24 – 00:33:48:10
Max
I mean, so the answer is I didn’t. I kept.
00:33:48:11 – 00:33:49:18
Speaker 4
Saying.
00:33:49:20 – 00:33:58:21
Erica
Jump out like that, you know, like the people on this boat and like I would say, oh, my God, as you see that rock sticking two feet off the cliff, 30 feet.
00:33:58:23 – 00:34:07:04
Max
They said they said, by the way, it’s safe. And I said, when’s the last time you did it? And the response I got was, we’re afraid of heights. So we haven’t actually gone up there.
00:34:07:06 – 00:34:08:03
Erica
So here he is.
00:34:08:07 – 00:34:10:06
Max
I’m here, I’m here. I made it.
00:34:10:08 – 00:34:14:01
Aamer
Where I’m actually, I think even graduate to alcohol, go cliff diving.
00:34:14:01 – 00:34:21:05
Erica
And so next, I’d like to see some acrobatics, you know, maybe a little so I could start judging. I get a hold of some numbers.
00:34:21:05 – 00:34:23:22
Max
That’s never going to happen.
00:34:23:24 – 00:34:27:07
Erica
Okay, That’s cash or credit.
00:34:27:09 – 00:34:54:17
Aamer
I actually don’t carry cash at all. Credit card. It was interesting, though, like on a recent trip to to Japan where they it’s a it’s not always guaranteed you’re going to be able to use a credit card. So my daughter went with me and she’s like texting me But what’s happening Me actually, she’s what’s having me about like the amazing meals she’s having this, that and the other, and like 20 minutes later is like, they don’t take credit card.
00:34:54:19 – 00:34:57:03
Speaker 4
You can see like, like 40.
00:34:57:03 – 00:35:04:15
Aamer
50 minutes away. I’m like, well, you’re going to have to get some cash. He’s like, Well, I don’t have any cash is like, you’re going to go apply to find an ATM machine.
00:35:04:16 – 00:35:05:14
Speaker 4
Right? They pull it.
00:35:05:14 – 00:35:15:12
Aamer
Out and the minimum was like, I think like you had to pull out like ¥10,000, which is like $100. And then, you know, all, all the other fees. So she’s like, this meal cost me.
00:35:15:12 – 00:35:16:09
Speaker 4
Like a lot.
00:35:16:11 – 00:35:32:00
Erica
So I could see that happening with our daughter as well. Yes. I kid and scientist and analyst. That’s love smells numbers don’t lie. 71 Things You Need to Know About the World or Oil A Beginner’s Guide.
00:35:32:02 – 00:35:57:21
Aamer
I’ve actually read oil from I don’t know how to say this and vice massive smell or something like that. So I used to run product management for a group in Cisco for Iot. And one of the really cool things about and I think any Iot organization is that especially if you’re in what I call like a horizontal Iot, which is like you’re not coming out of, you know, the oil and gas industry.
00:35:57:21 – 00:36:20:03
Aamer
You’re you have a sort of a horizontal platform that’s trying to match multiple industries is you get to learn so many things about all these amazing industries that exist already, or the oil and gas industry is just amazing. There’s the downs, all the downstream work, all the upstream work, all the stuff about how I know that I got a lot of bad press about how fracking works.
00:36:20:03 – 00:36:43:24
Aamer
But the fact is that, you know, how they get that oil is like they’ve could be zigzagging that, you know how they get and they work around like curves. It’s it’s amazing. There’s just so many like in every industry, in transportation in or in the oil and gas industry is they’re just like it’s like this is like a wonderful time for human civilization because there’s like so much specialization.
00:36:44:01 – 00:36:48:07
Aamer
And then I watch all these TV shows where like all of it blows up in like, no one is like.
00:36:48:09 – 00:37:04:10
Erica
Yeah, I think it’s really interesting. Yeah, you would really enjoy them. He does all this disciplinary, which, you know, I love that word. Disciplinary research. I think it’s cool and it’s, it’s fun to learn OC Yoga or CrossFit.
00:37:04:12 – 00:37:15:00
Aamer
I’m just trying to lose weight, to be honest. I’ve heard, though, that CrossFit is not as good for your knees, so that would be like something I would worry about.
00:37:15:02 – 00:37:28:23
Max
I think if you go to high end way too soon, I’ve I’ve been doing CrossFit and you know, knock on wood, I’m not, I’m not injured so far. I’ve been doing it for probably six seven months now. But I think it’s when people try to go up and way too quickly.
00:37:29:00 – 00:37:36:22
Aamer
What helps like Max like in that case is that like, are you counting on a trainer or your own sort of self judgment to tell you this is too much.
00:37:36:24 – 00:37:47:08
Max
A a little bit of both. I think that the trainers like put more weights on it. That sounds like a really bad idea.
00:37:47:10 – 00:37:57:14
Aamer
I think that’s my challenge is like, I don’t know. And like a lot of my like if I’m trying to do weights, it’ll be like, is this YouTube video giving me the right angle So like.
00:37:57:16 – 00:37:59:03
Speaker 4
I can do the proper form and.
00:37:59:03 – 00:38:01:02
Aamer
Not hurt myself?
00:38:01:04 – 00:38:02:23
Max
That’s true.
00:38:03:00 – 00:38:04:23
Erica
Uber or Lyft?
00:38:05:00 – 00:38:09:12
Aamer
Lyft, actually most most of because of the credit card, like sort of.
00:38:09:14 – 00:38:09:21
Speaker 4
Like.
00:38:10:00 – 00:38:27:13
Aamer
Benefit thing that I’m part of. But I’m also like, I got I was in the car with this Lyft guy and he’s like, you know, Lyft has made according to him, they’ve made an effort to be the anti-tumour from all their sort of, you know, all the crazy policies and behaviors that Uber has. And Lyft is trying to be different and stuff like that.
00:38:27:19 – 00:38:38:01
Aamer
But I did like the TV show, like the one about like I forget which channel did it. It was like a really that was a really I was really good Watch.
00:38:38:03 – 00:38:41:11
Erica
Super Strength or Superspeed.
00:38:41:13 – 00:38:43:18
Speaker 4
Super Speed. I think.
00:38:43:20 – 00:38:46:03
Erica
Planet are doing it.
00:38:46:05 – 00:38:46:19
Aamer
Outside.
00:38:46:21 – 00:38:47:01
Speaker 4
The.
00:38:47:06 – 00:38:50:15
Erica
Planet wing. It.
00:38:50:17 – 00:38:52:15
Aamer
How that means.
00:38:52:17 – 00:38:54:08
Erica
You plan everything or you’re just, Oh.
00:38:54:10 – 00:38:59:21
Aamer
I see what you mean. Okay. As I think we were talking about like, you know, superheroes, I was thinking like, planet Earth.
00:38:59:23 – 00:39:03:21
Speaker 4
That’s it. Because here I was going.
00:39:03:23 – 00:39:25:12
Aamer
I think if I. If you talk to my team, it’ll be like he’s definitely like the plain guy, because he’s always that the plan. But I think it depends on context. It’s like, like if I’m traveling like, and I have Google Maps working, then I’ll be just waiting, right? I think it’s stuff to just sort of balance the risk and those types of things.
00:39:25:14 – 00:39:30:16
Aamer
My worry a lot of times is that if you plan to thoroughly you spent too much time planning.
00:39:30:22 – 00:39:31:15
Speaker 4
And you.
00:39:31:17 – 00:39:41:17
Aamer
You don’t actually get to enjoy it but also and that you talked about this earlier is like you know life happens like yes, I thought I was going to go into DSP, but yeah.
00:39:41:19 – 00:39:43:12
Speaker 4
I haven’t touched DSP.
00:39:43:14 – 00:40:06:13
Aamer
For like 20 some years. You also have to be sort of open to there’s going to be some value in the non plant activity and actually happens in product management all the time. It’s like you thought you I mean this is what the the pivot is all about. If you’re not paying attention and you’re like, I don’t want to go do this plan is I you’re not going to have very many customers if you just stick to your own plan.
00:40:06:15 – 00:40:07:08
Speaker 4
That’s true.
00:40:07:10 – 00:40:08:11
Max
That is.
00:40:08:13 – 00:40:11:05
Erica
Work out or sleep in.
00:40:11:07 – 00:40:15:22
Aamer
Trying to do both. To be honest.
00:40:15:24 – 00:40:19:09
Erica
Knowing it all or having it all.
00:40:19:11 – 00:40:20:17
Speaker 4
I think look down.
00:40:20:17 – 00:40:44:02
Aamer
Down the line on that one. I think having it all is it’s it’s most it’s a lot of on definition. And also I think it depends on where you are in your life. Is it material, is it about experiences those types of things. Yeah. So and even on the the having it, it starts to intersect with the knowing it minus the TV documentary thing we talked.
00:40:44:02 – 00:40:45:21
Speaker 4
About.
00:40:45:23 – 00:40:48:18
Erica
Forget your wallet or forget your phone.
00:40:48:20 – 00:40:49:10
Aamer
Always have the.
00:40:49:10 – 00:40:51:07
Speaker 4
Phone you.
00:40:51:09 – 00:40:57:12
Aamer
Now like, you know, like with all the the Android pay and Samsung pay.
00:40:57:14 – 00:41:00:01
Speaker 4
Leaving out the apple so.
00:41:00:03 – 00:41:03:16
Aamer
It’s I think it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s an.
00:41:03:16 – 00:41:04:15
Max
All you need.
00:41:04:17 – 00:41:06:01
Aamer
Yeah.
00:41:06:03 – 00:41:09:09
Erica
Sunrise or sunset.
00:41:09:11 – 00:41:34:19
Aamer
I struggle to I aspire to wake up early it was a lot easier in Japan so like sunrise you would so sunrise first of all in Japan at this time of year in Japan was like 330 in the morning. Right. But because of the time zone change and whatnot, I was waking up at like four anyways. So I was like, I was like, this is really awesome.
00:41:34:21 – 00:41:37:09
Aamer
But then when I came back, it all fell apart.
00:41:37:14 – 00:41:43:01
Erica
So yeah, there’s something exciting about watching the beginning of a new day. I know.
00:41:43:02 – 00:41:44:03
Speaker 4
It is. Yeah.
00:41:44:05 – 00:41:50:23
Aamer
That I think the quietness of it is what I really like about it is that you got some time to just sort of sort through your thoughts and all that. So.
00:41:51:00 – 00:41:57:08
Erica
Yeah, I’m not. I read minds or teleport.
00:41:57:10 – 00:41:59:18
Aamer
You know, as a product manager or read minds.
00:41:59:20 – 00:42:02:00
Speaker 4
Which is it’s.
00:42:02:00 – 00:42:09:04
Aamer
Like, are you, are you actually telling me the truth or are you just telling me what I want to hear? And I see are you going to buy this book.
00:42:09:06 – 00:42:10:23
Max
The product manager superpower.
00:42:11:01 – 00:42:16:09
Speaker 4
That would be able to predict the future. That would be the other.
00:42:16:11 – 00:42:20:09
Erica
Young at heart or an old soul?
00:42:20:11 – 00:42:33:13
Aamer
I feel old these days. They’re just like a too much stuff happening all at once. And I just sort of feel feeling. Yeah, I think. Is that like fear of missing out of a lot of.
00:42:33:15 – 00:42:37:13
Erica
So those were awesome. Thank you for talking to us today.
00:42:37:15 – 00:42:42:17
Aamer
Well, absolutely. Thank you, Eric. And thank you, Max. It was a lot of fun.
00:42:42:19 – 00:42:54:06
Max
Awesome. Great having you. To learn more about SD, weigh in, Sassy and the SD win mobile client, visit Mattel dot net or contact your Mattel sales representative.