While utility industries are considered to be slow moving when it comes to adopting technological advances like cloud, there are companies continuing to change the way utilities have been run and operated. One of those companies is eMeter, a Siemens AG business — a software development company that focuses on the utility industries. And it has partnered with Datrium Inc. to help them with its needs for cloud and big data.

“We do enterprise-level software for utilities — so gas, power, water, just about anything that has a meter,” explained Bryan Bond (pictured, right), director of information technology infrastructure at eMeter. “We deal with all the data that comes from those meters. So, data acquisition, meter data management, loss prevention; all those types of things that come from that data that’s leaving your house or your business.”

All types of customers are now looking at how they can leverage both public and private cloud, as well as create the ideal hybrid cloud, according to André Leibovici (pictured, left), field chief technology officer and vice president of solutions and alliances at Datrium. “And I believe that as part of our journey as a company embracing private data centers, we’ve got to embrace also the cloud,” he said.

Bond and Leibovici spoke with John Walls (@JohnWalls21) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas. They discussed the ways utilities companies are embracing the cloud and how to provide the best cloud service to customers. (* Disclosure below.)

Using cloud for big data in utilities

Selling technological advances to utility companies is tough, but Bond is seeing the digital transformation trickling down into the industries. “The good news is most countries on the planet have decided that they need to go full-on smart grid and they need to do it fast,” he said. eMeter is 100 percent virtualized, and its uses VMWare Inc.-based cloud services to enable the company’s services for its utility customers.

Datrium is helping customers like eMeter on the journey to take their workloads running on-premises to the cloud. However, the company is pushing it further. “We’re actually releasing very soon a fully orchestrated [disaster recovery] from our platform to the VMware cloud, to VMC,” Leibovici said. “[It’s] fully orchestrated and enables you to fire over environment to the cloud and back once your DR site or your primary site is actually back.”

This development for Datrium is all about simplicity, which is something data centers are wrestling with as customers demand ease. Customers like eMeter certainly want overall ease of management and cost efficiency, according to Bond. “For us, the big thing was going to [network file system]. So, single file system for management,” Bond said. “Six months, seven months later … I don’t manage storage anymore. None of my guys manage storage anymore.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World 2018 event. (* Disclosure: Datrium Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Datrium nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE