Shashi: Hello and welcome to a new edition of the Aryaka Dreamers and Doers podcast. This is where we have conversations with part leaders and technology practitioners from all over the world. Today, we feature a special guest from Nvidia. Yes, I'm talking about this exciting and innovative ship company with a headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and locations all over the world. I'm thrilled to welcome this technology leader, joining me all the way from the state of Israel, Vladik Arshanski. Vladik is a long time Aryaka customer and the director of infrastructure at the network business unit and Nvidia. Vladik, welcome to the podcast.
Vladik Arshanski: Thank you, Shashi. I'm glad to be here.
Shashi: So how about we kick things off with what you do at NVIDIA, and perhaps you talk a bit about your association with Aryaka.
Vladik Arshanski: I am working in Nvidia networking business unit already 12 years, and I'm started in the engineering IT group as LABs Administrator, which basically means the IT of gathering the LABs activity which, takes care for all engineering needs and requests. After almost six years, there was a marriage between engineering IT and the corporate IT, and we became one IT unit, which takes care of all the engineering and the business IT needs together, under one management unit.
Vladik Arshanski: So now I'm responsible for the infrastructure and communication activity at the company, which means worldwide networking activity, audio and video, which basically [inaudible 00:01:53] support of activity in Europe and APAC, end to end, in manufacturing IT in project management responsibility. And the last is I'm responsible to design LABs and sites of the company. I'm associated with Aryaka more than six years already. When we had at the beginning two or three small sites that connected via Aryaka and now we became the company that connected all the sites together, more than 24 sites, and we are growing with small sites and activities.
Shashi: Vladik, that's a lot of diverse responsibilities. Now I understand your association with Aryaka originally began with Mellanox. It was acquired by Nvidia for nearly seven billion dollars. During this process, you managed to convince a lot of people about the merits of the Aryaka architecture. Could you share what exactly happened?
Vladik Arshanski: We started the conversation with Nvidia worldwide IT guys during 2019, already from the networking perspective and we thought will be the best way to connect such two big companies together with lots of sites but on the other side, it should be very fast. And after one minute I recognized, and it was very clear for me, that we are going to connect the sites and the companies together via Aryaka, as it is very fast and very easy to implement. I had to explain the solution architecture and benefits and show the confidence in my proposed solution to Nvidia CIO and networking business unit CIO, and say that this is the best option for both companies.
Shashi: What exactly did you tell them about Aryaka to bring them all on board?
Vladik Arshanski: So I like Aryaka that the solution is works fabulously, very fast without any issues and it was a great choice that was easy to implement and it worked fabulously. Of course it was the best choice that I could choose during the acquisition because we have great professional support on the Aryaka side with solutions no matter what is the problem.
Shashi: Let's talk about this acquisition process. You described it earlier as "A marriage" which in many ways is a very appropriate word. Now, I imagine a lot of planning goes into it. It can be quite complex with people from the two companies, processes and different IT systems, all needing to come together. You have to merge the infrastructure of two companies and yet be careful not to disrupt the day-to-day operations. It can be quite a task. So what advice would you give for some of your peers in the industry that are going through something similar?
Vladik Arshanski: First of all, you need to be calm with a lot of patience to work and make the connectivity requirements and needs meet the business needs of course, in order to provide the right solution. After that we need to understand the policies as it could be different for each company and we need to run step-by-step, according to plan with rollback tests end-to-end, because each step will bring us issues. So we need to find a way how we can work on those issues and resolve very, very fast.
Shashi: Well, an acquisition scenario can be a great forcing function for architectural change, and I must compliment your entire team for handling that one gracefully. Now fast forward, we're seeing another forcing function that's impacting almost the entire globe with the pandemic that's acting as a huge trigger for architectural change. So how has the team at Nvidia navigated this pandemic over the past year? And then how do you see architectures evolving post pandemic?
Vladik Arshanski: So a few words about the last year, it was a big shock for all of us. And at the beginning of the COVID-19, a lot of companies were not ready for working from home from their VPN capacity lines, bandwidth, and the other stuff that requires our land lock for a long run for current and and future usage. But from our side, we already as we did and still continue doing changes, adjustments and all the time with basically dry run every quarter in order to understand that we are ready for such situation. Once we understood that the impact is big for the company, we'll be upgraded the equipment, the lines, the bandwidth. We were ready from the VPN capacity, which was the most important thing because all the people started to work from home.
Vladik Arshanski: So we provided the company the focus for the business, so they can focus on the most important stuff right now and develop the products. From the architectural perspective, we'll be more focused on the working from home for the future. And we are going to easy on the employees from the connectivity wise performance and quality, because this is the future.
Shashi: Managing change is always hard. And again, kudos to you and the entire team at Nvidia for making that seamless transition. We kind of went through something very similar ourselves, so I can totally empathize with you. Switching gears a bit, I would like to talk a bit about your use cases. As an engineering and manufacturing company I understand that predictable connectivity into China is very important for Nvidia. Could you talk about why this is so critical?
Vladik Arshanski: Sure. A few years back we had a big issue with the connectivity from local Chinese sites as we have engineering activity in China, manufacturing activity in China, and the connectivity became an issue due to Chinese great firewall. And this Aryaka solution it became very stable, easy to implement, no issues. The quality became fabulous. The performance and stability, the most important stuff for the company in order to run the business and to operate the right activity because each interruption to the company will bring us an issue and delays to develop the next generation of the solution and of course to support business and to provide the needs for the customers.
Shashi: Vladik, you're based in Israel and you have distributed teams all over the world. And clearly what you just said is reinforcing the strategic nature of the network globally in service of applications. When you're managing this global network and global teams, how do you end up aligning everyone? What's your collaboration and leadership style?
Vladik Arshanski: So the most important thing is to sync meetings with the guys because we have distributed sites and a lot of people sitting in abroad. So we need to follow after the abroad guys together with activity, but on the other end, we need to bring them independency based on company needs. And we need to provide them the understanding at this critical mission in order to succeed with all the balance of their life. So once the people understand it, and understand the goal, so we are on the good road and we continue working together as one unit.
Shashi: I imagine the concept of the team extends to partners as well. And I know we have a common friend with Internet Binat there in Israel. Any thoughts about them?
Vladik Arshanski: Well, Internet Binat is a great company, first of all. They're very professional guys that brings added value to the company with lots of benefits. They are experienced providers, very good solution, very fast, 24 by seven. And their knowledge in [inaudible 00:10:25] is very nice and it's easy on the customers, and of course on our business. They jump on the issue right after the customer complains, and even before this, with their active monitoring and activity. So I have a lot of good words on the company, on the technical guys, on the marketing, on the sales, and of course on their CEO Shmulik Haber.
Shashi: I'm sure Shmulik would be very pleased to hear your words, and on our part, we kind of feel the same. There's a good DNA compatibility, which is very important to make such partnerships work. Now, getting back to technology again. Now we're seeing all over this convergence of network security, cloud applications sort of coming together, and we're hearing about these new categories, like SaaS that are occurring as emerging. So from your vantage point, how do you see all of this playing out?
Vladik Arshanski: More and more communications and solutions like cloud PBX, [inaudible 00:11:29] the cloud and other cloud services is the Office 365 integrated into one big pile with multiples solution that depends on single and great connectivity, which will deliver all the needs from the customer and without big management and without big efforts for this service. But sometimes it could be a big disadvantage as in a converged network you always put all of your eggs in one basket. And if the network has a problem, then both data and telephony feels that ethics and bring the big issues to the company.
Shashi: That's actually a very interesting perspective. In addition to being at an innovative company like Nvidia, you're also in Israel, which has such high energy as a phenomenal technology hub. So I must ask you this, as you look ahead, what are some of the technologies that excite you?
Vladik Arshanski: Oh, that's a great question. I guess the trend will be about the artificial intelligence with IOT. Automation with network security is all of them are the future of the auto pilot which the world is looking for, like cars and trains without drivers that will take us safely from place to place. And for that, the networking should think fast, learn fast, see everything together, but on the other end, be safe and secured.
Shashi: Yes. The Jetsons seem to have become a reality now. And what you described is also this network Nirvana, I think it's an exciting time ahead for sure. Vladik, it's probably time for us to wrap up. And before we do that, is there any special advice or best practice that you would like to share with your colleagues out there in the industry?
Vladik Arshanski: First of all, we need to be calm and see the whole picture together in order to provide the right solution and the right deal for the company. And I think the most important advice is to keep the good relationship with your employees and team members and be a good leader and take the guys to the next level of success as their success is your success and will be a huge added value in the future. Each employee needs his managerial treatment and some types specific and fastest with patient is people very different and it is our job to understand it and act accordingly.
Shashi: Now that's spoken like a true leader. Vladik, I'm very glad you were able to take some time out to converse with me today. I understand you have a critical and very busy job at Nvidia. You guys have been great customers and it's been an amazing relationship. We watched Mellanox and Nvidia really scale and become such great successes in the industry, and we're very proud of the fact. And as vendors as core technologies, we cannot ask for anything more than happy customers such as yourself. So I want to thank you again personally for your time today and then really a big thank you for the entire team at Nvidia. I really enjoyed the conversation and would love to have you back again some time to share some new perspectives and new insights. Until then, please stay safe, ta-da.
Vladik Arshanski: Thank you Shashi.
Note: The transcripts of the podcasts may not be fully accurate. Please excuse any grammar and spelling issues.
