WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:05.639 Here we go another episode of Adventures in DevOps. Jillian, 2 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:08.359 thank you for joining me as co host today. Hello, 3 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:13.240 Warren is off on vacation getting some much needed rest 4 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:18.320 and relaxation and also joining us today, Vernon Keenan from 5 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.359 Salesforce DevOps. 6 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.519 Welcome, Vernon, Thank you, thank you. 7 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:27.280 It's great being here. I hope, like, I'm sure some insights. 8 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:29.519 Dude, I'm pretty sure you can. 9 00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:34.520 Because I'm particularly excited about this because it's not very 10 00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:37.039 often that I get to hang out and talk with 11 00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:40.119 people who have been doing this longer than I have. 12 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:43.119 So I'm not trying to like throw out your age 13 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:44.359 or anything, but I feel like. 14 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:47.240 You know, yeah, I take it as a badge of 15 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:48.920 honor that I've been doing it this long, and so 16 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:53.240 when i meet someone who's been doing it similarly, I'm excited. 17 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.520 Well, thank you, yah. I've been doing it for forty 18 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:02.039 five years now, that's a while. Started my career at 19 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:07.200 the Northwestern University working in the medical school, and then 20 00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:11.719 had a great chance to work at Genentech in the early. 21 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:14.879 Days, and that was what were we doing there. 22 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:19.719 I was doing clinical research, so I was actually one 23 00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:22.200 of the first people to see the results of the 24 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:26.680 clinical trials because I was doing data analysis and we 25 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:30.760 used a product called SASS, and of course, because we 26 00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:33.079 were genetic and we thought we could do anything, we 27 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:43.280 decided to write our own clinical research product. How hard. Yeah, 28 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:47.480 that was. That was a lesson in humility, right because 29 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.760 because we we we learned that Oracle did a much 30 00:01:50.879 --> 00:01:54.760 much better job at that particular product. 31 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:58.040 Than we ever cracked down some hubrist So I'm sure 32 00:01:58.079 --> 00:01:58.840 it was all fine. 33 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:02.799 Yeah, yeah, I mean it still happens all the time, 34 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:04.640 you know. I talk to enterprises all the time, and 35 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:07.439 people still waste their time doing custom projects they could 36 00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:08.919 buy out there. 37 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:12.639 I think it's one of those It's one of those 38 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:14.520 lessons that you can't teach anyone. 39 00:02:14.599 --> 00:02:16.360 They just have to learn it themselves. 40 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.280 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because you're so conceived, you know, 41 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:23.840 you know that you think your requirements are so unique, 42 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:27.840 You think your requirements are special, You think that your 43 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:31.520 talents and your abilities are special. Well, it turns out 44 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:35.319 they're not, generally, because usually what happens is a software 45 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:39.680 company is going to find somebody who is much better 46 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:42.000 at those qualities than you are, because they're going to 47 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.680 produce it for ten times as many people and they're 48 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:46.840 going to make ten times as much profit, so they 49 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:49.159 have as much, you know, ten times as much motivation 50 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:54.280 to find to find the right people. So but that's yeah, 51 00:02:54.319 --> 00:02:56.759 I got started there, and then I had a fascinating 52 00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:01.479 early career. I was that I was at Oracle and 53 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.599 actually Mark Benioff himself hired me there and I was 54 00:03:05.639 --> 00:03:09.919 working for him, and I had the unique experience of 55 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:13.280 going into the corporate visits center all the time and 56 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:17.840 I was basically just lying my butt off all the time, 57 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:22.159 drawing boxes on the board, putting putting arrows, talking to 58 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:26.039 the CEO of various global companies, saying, yeah, we can 59 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:28.000 do this, we can do that. We look at this 60 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:30.639 application server. It puts everything together, and it was all 61 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:38.680 It wasn't true. It wasn't true. That's that's what I 62 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:43.439 call the first act of enterprise software. We basically said 63 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:46.159 everything was gonna it was going to work. And then 64 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:47.479 and then it didn't. 65 00:03:48.919 --> 00:03:51.800 Like first act like a Shakespearean tragedy where you know 66 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:53.680 what acts too, and there you're going to be like. 67 00:03:55.159 --> 00:03:57.919 Well, yeah, I mean act too. I think was the 68 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:01.000 data Lake data warehouse era. We tried to put everything 69 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:05.479 into like a secondary storage area, and we still didn't 70 00:04:05.479 --> 00:04:08.000 get transformation and we still didn't get you know, new 71 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:10.960 capabilities out of that. And hopefully we're in the third 72 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.159 act now where maybe things will come. 73 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:17.279 It is just going to do it for us, That's 74 00:04:17.279 --> 00:04:23.160 what I think. Well, my data anymore? Who who needs 75 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:25.040 even Mango dB when I've got AI. 76 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:32.160 We could delve into that a little later, I guess, 77 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:37.560 but but yes, So my friendship with Mark Benioff is 78 00:04:37.879 --> 00:04:42.519 kind of interesting because I recently renewed it. It was 79 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:47.399 fascinating because I wrote a blog post that got his 80 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:51.279 attention that said why Salesforce trailblazers don't care about AI? 81 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:56.399 And my phone started blowing up and I and I 82 00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:01.959 was have renewed my friendship with Mark. So so that 83 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:03.680 is that that's interesting as well. 84 00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:05.839 So what's your take on that? Why don't they care? 85 00:05:07.639 --> 00:05:11.240 Well, the reason was because they didn't actually put it, 86 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:14.920 make it available in the product. So the thing about 87 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:18.560 Salesforce that I liked as a you know, like I 88 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:22.199 got my first Salesforce account actually way back in nineteen 89 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:25.800 ninety nine, and I've been using it, you know, on 90 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:28.279 and off, and I actually built my own business on 91 00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:33.839 it about starting in twenty twelve created a whole enterprise 92 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:38.439 product for telecom that I used in my business. And 93 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:42.639 the reason why I thought that the Trailblazer community was 94 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:47.879 so active and so forthcoming with chips and tricks and 95 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:51.759 like techniques and sharing and things like that was because 96 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:55.879 the SaaS pricing model basically gave you all you could 97 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:00.160 eat for a fixed price. So any Trailblazer would be 98 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:03.319 able to like go to the set up menu and 99 00:06:03.399 --> 00:06:05.839 search for a new feature, for example, and then they 100 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:09.959 could just like start trying it out. So those capabilities 101 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:14.959 were always in there. But because AI seems to be different, 102 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:17.920 mainly in terms of the cost that the companies have 103 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.680 to burden to provide it, they didn't do that. They 104 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.639 made you order a product. So while they were all 105 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:28.279 carping and you know, saying AI this and AI that, 106 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:31.480 like ninety five percent of the Trailblazers out there couldn't 107 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:35.399 get access to it. So that that was my point. 108 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:39.279 And the thing that was a fascinating story actually is 109 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:43.920 that what happened was Mark read that they sent me 110 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:47.199 the keynote and I actually was able to like edit 111 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:50.439 the keynote and tell them what they should fix. Oh wow, 112 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:55.959 And this is like three days before Dreamforce, and and 113 00:06:56.040 --> 00:06:58.519 they I sent it back to them. They put all 114 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:04.879 the changes in, They changed product timelines, accelerated timelines, and 115 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:06.560 just you know, made a bunch of people, you know, 116 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:09.240 you know what happens with the CEO says do things 117 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:11.000 to a bunch of people they weren't expecting to do 118 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:12.560 things like over the weekend and. 119 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:17.360 Weekend that at all. 120 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:20.680 That's right, it's gone. You know. It's like plus, you 121 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.839 got all the stress of you know, Dreamforce coming up, 122 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:25.360 all the prep and now they got to change all 123 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:28.800 the products. So they changed it. They actually included a 124 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:34.800 free version of their new Agent Force thing in a 125 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:39.600 new go to market version of their product they call Foundations, 126 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:43.120 which is kind of like you can just buy it 127 00:07:43.199 --> 00:07:46.199 with a credit card as opposed to dealing with one 128 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:51.160 of their account executives. They so they actually changed the product. 129 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:55.160 Not sure how effective that was, but kind of just 130 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:57.519 like in any situation, when it did, it just peeled 131 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:00.000 the onion a little bit and revealed another problem underneath, 132 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:04.800 which is how are they going to charge for it? 133 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:09.439 So they haven't really figured it out yet is the answer. 134 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:11.600 So there's a lot of confusion out there. In the 135 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:14.879 Salesforce world as to how they're gonna pay for it. 136 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.399 The all this magical AI stuff. Sure it keeps talking 137 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:24.319 about for sure, But so get back to the saastevops thing. 138 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:27.199 I just tell my story a little bit more so, 139 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:30.759 Like I said, I was in Telecom, I had this. 140 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:35.399 I had built an actual tax engine on the Salesforce 141 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:39.240 platform for Telecom, which is you can imagine, it's pretty complex. 142 00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:43.600 And I had an opportunity to kind of like leverage 143 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:49.960 that tax engine outside of Telecom. And so I realized 144 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.960 that Salesforce was kind of a bad platform for that 145 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:56.360 because of its performance characteristics. You know, like if you're 146 00:08:56.399 --> 00:08:58.519 gonna have an API service, you don't want to rent 147 00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:01.399 it off as salesforceas it was just too much overhead, 148 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:05.960 too many constraints. So I personally got into more of 149 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:08.879 I think your world of DevOps kind of like the 150 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:15.200 go Kubernetes world, and I implemented all of my stuff, 151 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:20.120 you know, my new API, my new database everything with 152 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:25.200 Go Kubernetes. It was beautiful scalables, you like, one hundred 153 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:29.799 times faster than Salesforce. And so I had that, but 154 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.480 you know, business wise, that project didn't go anywhere so 155 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:38.159 I had all this wonderful new DevOps knowledge plus being 156 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:41.519 the Salesforce expert, so I turned my attention back to Salesforce, 157 00:09:42.679 --> 00:09:45.679 and then I realized that they were in deep, deep, 158 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:51.720 deep trouble when it came to release management. Basically what 159 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:57.759 happened was Salesforce had an initiative in the late twenty 160 00:09:57.799 --> 00:10:02.759 tens was called the sfd initiatives where they essentially created 161 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:10.440 a command line interface to their metadata API, and this 162 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:17.240 enabled developers to pull configurations out of a Salesforce org 163 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:22.799 and put them into a get repository. So now this 164 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:24.559 is starting to sound a little bit more like a 165 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:29.320 regular DevOps workflow, right where you have repository, you have 166 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:31.759 a somewhat kind of a source of truth, and then 167 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:36.879 you're able to deploy it again in some fashion, maybe 168 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:40.480 to another org, or you're changing the deployment and you're 169 00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:44.320 redeploying it to add a capability, fix an error or 170 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:51.559 something like that. So it turns out that the SFDX 171 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:54.840 effort was noble and was good and actually was kind 172 00:10:54.840 --> 00:11:00.559 of sufficient to begin the DevOps movement within Salesforce. And 173 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:07.039 so what happened was all these end users basically started 174 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:11.000 to try to figure out how to use this SFDX 175 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:15.879 tool to manipulate Salesforce. And then at the same time, 176 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:19.000 a group of companies I'll name a few of them. 177 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:24.840 The leaders are Capato and back then Flowsome, and another 178 00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:28.559 one that's come out is gear Set and all of 179 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.519 these companies. What they did is they kind of operationalized 180 00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:39.080 that API or that CLI interface the Salesforce that provided 181 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:44.120 end users and put a low code CLICKI interface on 182 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:51.120 top of that capability, so that Salesforce admins and other 183 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:56.080 folks who were accustomed to a low code interface could 184 00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:59.639 start to do release management in a more rigorous way 185 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:06.159 using tools like get or vs code or things like 186 00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:10.480 that to you know, have a more kind of rigorous 187 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:15.039 development effort. But at the same time, it was still 188 00:12:15.399 --> 00:12:21.279 constrained a lot by the way that Salesforce works. So like, 189 00:12:21.639 --> 00:12:26.039 here's here's a crazy thing. I mentioned this metadata API, right, 190 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:29.159 and you think that this metadata API would love let 191 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:31.879 you to actually pull all the information out of a 192 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:35.759 Salesforce org so that you could reproduce it, like maybe 193 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:39.720 copy it to another org or something like that. Turns 194 00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:45.639 out that there is neglect within Salesforce the company to 195 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:54.440 implementing the metadata API, so they have they have definitely 196 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:58.360 a priority to get the low code interfaces out there first, 197 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:03.080 so they actually recognize that they've gone to the point 198 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:07.480 now where it's a real problem. And some of these 199 00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:12.440 DevOps companies. Another one I'll mention is Elements Cloud, and 200 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:17.879 they're interesting because they have all kinds of proprietary ways 201 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:21.600 to go into the Salesforce Org and get out that 202 00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:29.440 metadata that's not available through the API. So this kind 203 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:33.039 of gets into a central theme that I have all 204 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:38.159 the time when I'm talking about SaaS stevops and Salesforce DevOps, 205 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:43.720 which is that the way these things work is that 206 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:47.480 you kind of have to treat the subject's system, you know, 207 00:13:47.559 --> 00:13:53.480 like the Salesforce Org that you're updating or the org 208 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:57.799 that you're reading or copying. You have to kind of 209 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:02.000 treat that thing like a living system where there's there's 210 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:07.360 no source of truth really other than the state of 211 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:11.759 the thing that it's running in now. And that's really 212 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:16.440 quite problematic because you have to, like in order to 213 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:20.919 understand if you can produce a deployment that's going to work, 214 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:22.559 you know it's not it's going to go through and 215 00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:25.960 not have any errors. Essentially have to like the only 216 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.720 way to do that is the is to submitted to 217 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:32.159 the org and see if any errors come out. So 218 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:34.759 you can imagine how slow that would be on an 219 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:42.440 iterative basis and how frustrating. And this actually gets back 220 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.720 to a complaint that Salesforce developers in the community have 221 00:14:46.159 --> 00:14:50.440 about working with Salesforce, which is that it's very slow. 222 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:54.639 It can and like as somebody who went from goot 223 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:59.120 Go to apex, you know, Apex is the is the 224 00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:02.200 development language, this jab alike language they have for Salesforce. 225 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:06.440 So like with Go, I could just you known't compile things, 226 00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:10.320 you know, hit you know, recompile or whatever, go and 227 00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:13.440 I'd have like ten seconds between a coding change and 228 00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:16.679 being able to see if it worked. With Salesforce, that 229 00:15:16.759 --> 00:15:20.799 can go out to maybe two or three minutes sometimes, right, 230 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:25.840 So when you submit a package to either your Scratch 231 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:31.159 org or even you know, a Sandbox org for testing, 232 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:34.360 it's still going to take you know, like ninety seconds 233 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:38.240 two minutes that for that submission to go in. So 234 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:43.840 I think Salesforce developers are always complaining about this this 235 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:48.600 flow of work thing, and the way that you can 236 00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:54.039 fix that as a vendor is to do kind of 237 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:57.759 what Elements is doing, which is to create what I 238 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:04.360 call a very complete digital twin of your subjects SaaS 239 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:11.480 system within the DevOps product that you're working with. So 240 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:19.879 Elements has a separate like AWS thing running where they 241 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.919 essentially ingest all of the metadata from an org and 242 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:28.559 convert it into like a graph database or some other 243 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:33.320 kind of representation that they can then manipulate. And then 244 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:35.639 they can use that to do something which is very 245 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:41.080 essential in Salesforce, which is called impact analysis. So like 246 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:44.399 if the boss says, oh, we got to have another 247 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.919 you know, shipping type in the shipping module or whatever, 248 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:55.679 then that thing needs to be defined in what they 249 00:16:55.720 --> 00:17:00.480 call a picklist in Salesforce. And when you change the 250 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:04.960 picklist though, you could actually impact a whole bunch of 251 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:07.240 different things, you know, different screens all over the place, 252 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:13.359 apex code, user interface mechanisms, and other things like that. 253 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:18.440 So by having a digital twin, you're able to easily 254 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:24.039 pick do what I call impact analysis or change intelligence 255 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:26.640 is another word they use for that. My favorite term 256 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:31.960 is blast radius for sure. You know, like like when 257 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.240 you when you make a change, what's the blast radius 258 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:38.000 potential of that particular change? And so that's a that's 259 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:41.759 a critical and that's just one thing, one example that 260 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:45.039 you can't get out of salesforce and that you do. 261 00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:52.559 You need a DevOps service provider to help you delve 262 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:56.200 into that and to help you organize that stuff. 263 00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:59.359 So let me pause you real quick right there and 264 00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:01.880 like reach out the problem here for our listeners. So 265 00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:08.200 with these large enterprise style SASS, I think you're describing 266 00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:12.039 two problems here. One is you never know what the 267 00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:15.960 true state is. So someone with the appropriate permissions could 268 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:20.079 go in make a change to the environment and you 269 00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:25.119 don't have any way of tracking that change to see 270 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:29.039 what was actually impacted, aside from asking that person, hey, 271 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:31.839 would you do and getting their typical response nothing. 272 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:33.519 And then the. 273 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:36.839 Other one, the other aspect of this is if you 274 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:40.920 want to introduce new features or capabilities to your system, 275 00:18:41.720 --> 00:18:45.079 you don't have any way to create like a staging 276 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:48.480 area and test your changes before you apply to production. 277 00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:54.960 Correct. Correct. So those are those are both capabilities that 278 00:18:55.039 --> 00:19:00.519 DevOps products, salesforce and SaaS stevops products that you do. 279 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:05.319 And the most popular salesforce s deevops product is from 280 00:19:05.319 --> 00:19:09.759 a company called gear Set. They're in England and the 281 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:16.359 simulated deployment is the most popular feature of that product. 282 00:19:16.519 --> 00:19:20.759 So that's and it's also affordable, so like for two 283 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:23.200 hundred and fifty bucks a year or whatever to get 284 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:27.680 a seat for that thing. Yes, yeah, it's pretty cheap, 285 00:19:28.839 --> 00:19:33.000 and it'll save you a ton of time. Basically, it's 286 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:34.240 that iteration. 287 00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:37.039 Yeah, at that price, it doesn't even need to save 288 00:19:37.079 --> 00:19:38.519 you more than a few minutes per year. 289 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:44.000 Yeah, yeah. No. And and gear sets easy to buy too. 290 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:46.599 That's another reason why they're popular. They kind of have 291 00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:53.039 a you know, a PLG product led growth concept where 292 00:19:53.039 --> 00:19:54.920 they just try to make it easy to use, easy 293 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:57.400 to buy, you don't have to talk to a sales rep, 294 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:00.880 where with most of the other products, is more like 295 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:05.079 an enterprise sales Yeah, sales loop where you got to 296 00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:08.480 kind of delve into dealing with somebody and then coming 297 00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:10.559 up with a license agreement. 298 00:20:12.119 --> 00:20:14.799 Jillian, you were about to say something, Yeah, I. 299 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:17.799 Was just wondering who is kind of the target audience 300 00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:20.000 for this, because on the one hand, we have salesforce, 301 00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:23.119 which is you know, like a sales tool, right, and 302 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:26.160 then on the other hand, we're talking about DevOps and 303 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:29.279 from the you know places that I've been at the 304 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:32.519 sales and marketing team is not necessarily going to know 305 00:20:32.599 --> 00:20:35.200 where I want to have anything to do with any 306 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:38.599 type of DevOps project. Right if they could be running 307 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:42.200 things off of their laptop and accel or whatever, they 308 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:45.240 probably would and would have nothing to do with somebody 309 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:47.000 like me. So I'm just wondering, what are kind of 310 00:20:47.039 --> 00:20:49.839 the target audiences of these different tools. 311 00:20:50.839 --> 00:20:54.319 Well, that's changed over the years, so I think that's 312 00:20:54.359 --> 00:20:59.119 important to realize. So the Salesforce has evolved over the 313 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:04.400 last let's say eight or nine years into an enterprise platform, 314 00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:09.599 so it's more like an application delivery platform than a 315 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:15.079 pure CRM than it was in the past. And also, 316 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:20.480 if there are several customers out there, salesforce customers out 317 00:21:20.480 --> 00:21:22.559 there who are spending in excess of one hundred million 318 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:28.279 dollars a year on Salesforce and kind of the minimum 319 00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:32.200 for a fortune five hundred type company, the minimum expenditure 320 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.160 is in the tens of millions. So because of that, 321 00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:41.240 a lot of the responsibility for maintaining Salesforce has moved 322 00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:44.880 off of the departments and into the office of the CIA. 323 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:49.640 So I think that that's part of the explanation for 324 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:54.920 why people care about DevOps is in Salesforce now, and 325 00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:58.160 it's been it may have been taken out of the 326 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:03.240 hands of some of the departmental because that they want 327 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:10.200 to increase efficiency. But I think, Jillian, you're right that everybody, 328 00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:12.680 you know, there are lots of people out there who 329 00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:17.200 could care less about DevOps and really want to use 330 00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:21.559 Salesforce kind of like what they've been telling you. How 331 00:22:21.559 --> 00:22:26.079 they've been telling you. 332 00:22:24.599 --> 00:22:27.519 For marketing tool, I thought it was like a more 333 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:29.480 robust like HubSpot or something. 334 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:31.599 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. 335 00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:34.359 A contractor thing and I have like Harvest and HubSpot 336 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.839 for emails. I thought that it was a fancier version 337 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:38.519 of that. And now I'm finding out that I was 338 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:39.279 so wrong. 339 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:43.200 Is well, you're not, of course, are not wrong, but 340 00:22:43.319 --> 00:22:45.720 I mean, there's just the they it's more like they 341 00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:48.720 want it to be bigger. And the other thing to 342 00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:52.079 appreciate about salesforces is that when they're in a big 343 00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:56.960 company selling, their number one goal is to have multiple clouds, 344 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:58.960 as they call it. So they have their sales cloud, 345 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:03.319 their marketing cloud out, their commerce cloud. Now, they have 346 00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:06.160 data cloud, now, they have you know, all these other 347 00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:09.960 things that are kind of all designed to work well. 348 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.680 Actually they're not well designed to work together, dirty little 349 00:23:14.680 --> 00:23:17.400 secret out there, but and they're trying to make them 350 00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:19.440 all work together. They're actually rewriting. 351 00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:20.279 Somebody doing their best. 352 00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:24.960 They are, you know, I'm a critic of them, and 353 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.640 I always like to, you know, have a little empathy 354 00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:32.680 in my criticism. But they're, yeah, they're they're trying. They're 355 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:38.960 trying to do that. But I think they definitely want 356 00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:43.000 the attention on their product to be at the CIO level. 357 00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:47.880 And a lot of vendors now are in the salesforce 358 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:50.519 ecosystem are kind of like turning their sales pitches in 359 00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:54.680 that direction. Where before the sales pitches need to be 360 00:23:54.920 --> 00:23:57.839 used to be more in a land and expand kind 361 00:23:57.880 --> 00:24:02.839 of philosophy, so that they would be pitching to the trailblazers, 362 00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:05.759 would be pitching to the sales managers, would be pitching to, 363 00:24:06.359 --> 00:24:11.720 you know, the people who are actually using these products more. 364 00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:15.839 But the pitch has definitely turned more to the CEO 365 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:22.319 CIO level pitch and like. And also let's look for 366 00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:25.960 a minute at where DevOps is most prominent in salesforce, 367 00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:31.880 and it's it's almost always in a critical application. So 368 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:38.240 there's a salesforce partner out there called Encino and Capital 369 00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:42.599 ci n O and they are a multi billion dollar 370 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:48.200 valuation public company that that runs on top of Salesforce 371 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:53.799 and what they do is banking, so there will do 372 00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:59.200 financial transactions and banking service. So you can imagine that 373 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:03.880 the people who are running and Sino installations definitely want 374 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:07.799 DevOps right because they they definitely want to be able 375 00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:11.480 to have a record of all the changes they made 376 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:14.680 to their system. They have validation protocols, they have q 377 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:19.440 A protocols and they and they have to sustain them. 378 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:23.759 And there's actually a DevOps company that's pretty much devoted 379 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:28.359 to that one sector and it's called auto Rabbit. It's 380 00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:33.160 a cute name, huh yeah. The their annual conference is 381 00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:34.119 called dev hops. 382 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:39.759 Yeah, good job. 383 00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:44.119 Yeah. I like auto Rabbit. They have some Greek people 384 00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:48.200 there and and they they're very rigorous in terms of 385 00:25:48.599 --> 00:25:52.759 the security aspects. It often gets folded into salesforce DevOps too, 386 00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:58.079 like static security analysis and and other things like that. 387 00:25:58.319 --> 00:26:02.000 So yeah, I think the reason why there's been a 388 00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:08.440 transition from Salesforce being kind of this this SaaS platform 389 00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:12.359 that you just use to being something that has to 390 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:17.200 have like a change management process associated with it is 391 00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:23.920 mainly the introduction of critical applications into it. There was 392 00:26:23.960 --> 00:26:28.680 another product used to be on Salesforce called Viva. Made 393 00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:32.680 a heard of them. They're a big, another giant software 394 00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:37.160 company who services pharmaceutical industry. So you know, like I 395 00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:40.839 used to work at Genetic, and it totally reminds me 396 00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:44.240 of what we're doing. Is kind of like the software 397 00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:47.839 QA and validation that we had to do for the FDA, 398 00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:50.119 you know, like a Genetic we had to like have 399 00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:53.440 a protocol for for how we like did all the 400 00:26:53.519 --> 00:26:57.920 rat lab way, you know, so that we could produce 401 00:26:58.000 --> 00:26:59.880