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In this compelling episode of "Expedient: The Podcast," join us as we engage in a profound discussion with Brad Stokes from Race Winning Brands, navigated by digital strategist Jim Gehring. This insightful CIO cloud chat unfolds amidst the innovative backdrop of Race Winning Brands, where technology meets precision in the aftermarket automotive sector. Delving into the heart of IT infrastructure and the pivotal role of edge systems, Brad shares his journey of navigating technical debt and the strategic pivot towards cloud solutions, highlighting the transformative partnership with Expedient. This conversation reveals the intricate challenges of managing IT infrastructure across dispersed manufacturing sites and the seamless solutions provided by Expedient's edge systems. Through Brad's experience, we explore the importance of reliability, agility, and the significant cost savings in optimizing IT operations, ensuring the uninterrupted flow of manufacturing processes. This episode is an exploration of the convergence of technology and manufacturing excellence, offering valuable insights into the future of IT strategy and infrastructure optimization, all delivered with the authentic and insightful perspective that "Expedient: The Podcast" is renowned for.
Creators & Guests
What is Expedient: The Podcast?
"Expedient: The Podcast" is your gateway to the inner workings of technology and innovation, presented with unparalleled clarity and expertise. Each episode is an invitation to join the luminaries of Expedient along with special guests from the forefront of the tech industry. We delve into the latest advancements in cloud computing, the evolution of data centers, cybersecurity trends, and groundbreaking developments in AI and machine learning. This podcast strips away the complexity of the technology landscape, offering listeners an exclusive look at the real stories of challenge and triumph, innovation and leadership, that are driving our digital future.
But we don't just stop at presenting groundbreaking ideas; "Expedient: The Podcast" is about building a community. It's for the IT professionals charting their course through the ever-changing cloud environment, and for the tech aficionados keen on decoding the future of digital infrastructure. Our episodes provide the essential insights and perspectives to keep you at the forefront of a world in constant transformation.
Tune in to "Expedient: The Podcast" for a deep dive into the technologies and ideas propelling us towards tomorrow. Experience the journey through the eyes and voices of those shaping our technological landscape, all presented with the authenticity, insight, and forward-thinking Expedient is celebrated for. This is not just a podcast; it's your insider's look into the technologies transforming our lives.
00;00;05;08 - 00;00;17;16
Jim Gehring
Well, hi, everybody. My name's Jim Gehring I'm a digital strategist. And at the we of this with Experian. And we are here today to do a CIO cloud chat with Brad Stokes from race winning brands. Brad, welcome to you.
00;00;17;16 - 00;00;17;28
Brad Stokes
Appreciate it.
00;00;17;28 - 00;00;36;28
Jim Gehring
Yeah, yeah. It's really nice to have you here. I know we've had a few conversations before starting this talk, but really exciting to sit down with you and talk about race winning brands. We just went on a tour of the facility and it's absolutely awesome. We really appreciate the manager taking the time to get us around that. To start out.
00;00;37;01 - 00;00;44;04
Jim Gehring
Tell our audience a little bit about race winning brands. In fact, in that process, if you want a little bit about what's going on behind us too.
00;00;44;08 - 00;01;09;08
Brad Stokes
Yeah. So maybe we'll start what what's been going on behind us. So that machine actually is measuring the schematics of that device there. And really it can measure within I understand, the width of a hair. So it's pretty precise. And honestly, it's a machine that we use and our high end customers use. Right. So, you know, again, right here at the Quality lab, make sense of this here.
00;01;09;15 - 00;01;26;17
Brad Stokes
Yeah. Yeah. Raceway Brand So you know, aftermarket powersports Aftermarket Automotive. We do everything from Pistons to transmissions engine blocks, right. To, you know, computers to run vehicles today out of our side and Australia.
00;01;26;19 - 00;01;39;06
Jim Gehring
Right, right. And obviously a lot I mean I've been walking around the place, I see a lot of race cars, I see water vehicles, I see, you know, motorcycles both on and off the track. That's that's your main mark.
00;01;39;08 - 00;01;58;21
Brad Stokes
It is. It is. Right. We started with the enthusiasts so you know, it was on making, you know, hot rod at home. You know that's when our days of the covered days we helped our market and you know skyrocket up because everyone had time enough time on their hands. So we do a lot of that. We do more semi cost custom more call it.
00;01;58;24 - 00;02;04;01
Brad Stokes
And then we do sell to like the O'Reilly and apples of the world to us though amazing amazing.
00;02;04;03 - 00;02;20;09
Jim Gehring
So we're here today to talk about it infrastructure obviously and you know it's specifically we're going to talk about edge systems. Yeah but before we go to that, tell us a little bit about the challenges the business was having in this arena and the challenge that it was having with it.
00;02;20;16 - 00;02;49;16
Brad Stokes
Sure. Yeah. Well, I joined race winning brands about a year ago and heard a lot technical debt, right? So end of life hardware, we're just aging hardware, right. So what to do with that, How to approach that? We're kind of the main challenges I got around to. Of course, is all kinds of things around performance and disaster recovery and business continuity that were kind of a byproduct, unfortunately, of, hey, this is the most important thing, but these things are also important.
00;02;49;18 - 00;03;09;21
Brad Stokes
And so we started looking at the cloud, right, which seems to be the the area that one looks at what I try to get out of the on prem hardware business and and we looked at Expedia, right. So we looked at Experian to help us kind of make that first move. But probably like a lot of folks, not only in our space, but I think everyone has an idea, what do you do with the edge?
00;03;09;21 - 00;03;21;06
Brad Stokes
Right? There's always something that stays behind, which then require someone to how to administer or support hardware, etc.. And we were no different. Right? So. So here we are.
00;03;21;08 - 00;03;49;15
Jim Gehring
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's definitely a challenge and not, you know, if you're in a primary facility and you have a lot of compute on hand, that's great. But often manufacturing sites are all over the place. You guys are no different. So it's how do you take care of things out there at the edge with all those other services you talked about backups in and the security, so on and so forth, yet allow those systems to run when they get disconnected, which is the biggest thing, so that the factory floor can keep running.
00;03;49;15 - 00;04;13;02
Brad Stokes
Yeah absolutely that were again, no different. They're 23 sites globally 40 United States obviously I don't have staff, you know, and manufacturing everywhere. I was trying to run as lean as they can or no different. Right. Right. So I don't have the ability to have a person at all sites, nor would I want to get honestly. Right. So again, how do I best achieve supporting, you know, what's there in those sites?
00;04;13;02 - 00;04;20;17
Brad Stokes
And they could be, you know, very remote sites like maybe like a Boise, Idaho, or they could be in our backyard in Cleveland or in Detroit.
00;04;20;22 - 00;04;51;13
Jim Gehring
Right. Right. And what were we coming from before Experian came in with an ad solution for you? And if I could set this up for you a little bit, I mean, my understanding is having served this market in past lives, so to speak, in this business, you're dealing with those remote sites. You can't have somebody on site, but it starts even before that, like preparing the system, having the right system, getting it there, having somebody set it up, like all the way through until it's done running and support is needed.
00;04;51;16 - 00;04;57;02
Jim Gehring
Break fix. If something goes wrong with it. Tell us a little bit about where you were before you came to this solution.
00;04;57;02 - 00;05;24;13
Brad Stokes
Yeah, so that's I mean, that's exactly right. So we had have an edge site that likely would not have an I.T. support person. So either I'd have to sell one of my guys or gals down there, right. Or up there where I'd have to partner with a MSP, maybe, perhaps. Right to provide support. And then again, you know, beyond that, it was the challenge would be, let's say that something does break to your point, like then you have to go order replacement parts and install the parts, right?
00;05;24;13 - 00;05;43;08
Brad Stokes
And so there's all kinds of different challenges with that, right? So not just, hey, can I identify someone? Sure, I could, but then they're supporting the hardware. Maybe they're supporting the virtualization layer, maybe they're supporting the server layer, right? Or maybe they're supporting one piece or not the other. Right? So we still have always gaps that could exist, right?
00;05;43;08 - 00;06;00;16
Brad Stokes
So very challenging to support remotely in that way. And and really, you know, hard for us to bring new sites on, which is also something we do pretty commonly in our businesses. Or we go acquire a company, we're run with the same challenges over and over again. So what's the solve for that?
00;06;00;23 - 00;06;18;21
Jim Gehring
Yeah, Yeah. And so to your point, not just setting it up, but with different people supporting different parts depending on what it is when it breaks, that means that getting somebody out there and the time it takes to do that means that parts of manufacturing floor could be down.
00;06;18;22 - 00;06;40;08
Brad Stokes
Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's I mean, that's the one nice thing and bad thing about manufacturer in my my world is hey, when one slows down there's a true cost that which helps the justification. But also hey, it was close down, it cost us money. And that's a real thing. That's a real issue. So it's not like an outage where you get to it and you're like, Hey, yeah, we're down a little bit and production may be impacted.
00;06;40;08 - 00;06;43;08
Brad Stokes
We actually lose money like for every hour we're down. So.
00;06;43;11 - 00;06;58;03
Jim Gehring
Right. So is that the perception from the business side? Because I know there's an I.T. perspective. You and I have been talking about it. We're both very familiar with it. How did the business see that? Was this downtime the big driver for justification of getting the right solution here?
00;06;58;06 - 00;07;16;06
Brad Stokes
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably the largest one for sure, because, you know, again, they saw where we were challenged by when those things happen, you know, varying levels of response rates. So you may have a good partner that can really support you in those areas, but you may not. Right. Right. Or you may be relying on the maintenance guy who's remote hands.
00;07;16;06 - 00;07;40;02
Brad Stokes
Right. And that's fine for rack in the sack and something, but that's all that's a limitation of what you can do. Right. So something doesn't work right or the cabling is not correct. We're still down, right? So clearly the driver from the business perspective is that I think beyond that is performance and, you know, stabilization operationally. Like what can we put in place that we can rely on?
00;07;40;04 - 00;07;56;19
Brad Stokes
And that's I think that was maybe their feedback to me was also like beyond just a downtime situation or an outage, what can you put in place? It's more reliable, you know, where you know, we know what's going to happen, knew how to respond to it. We know how to support it, those kind of things.
00;07;56;19 - 00;08;16;25
Jim Gehring
Right. Gotcha. So how did you hear about Expedient? How did that come, you know, to interview you as a possible solution? And tell me a little bit about that journey as you went through, looking at this as a possible solution. How did you guys make, you know, what was it that made you make that decision to go with the expedient edge?
00;08;16;27 - 00;08;49;11
Brad Stokes
Sure. Yeah. So I think initially, obviously, I knew expedient. This is a company right from from my days in Columbus, meaning folks down there, when the optics initially came up where we had a choice to make to refresh infrastructure or go to the cloud, we evaluated Expedia versus Gas and Azure and Google Cloud and made the decision to go with Expedia and had a really good success story, a very positive response, a very easy path to get there.
00;08;49;14 - 00;09;09;14
Brad Stokes
So that obviously made us more likely to think about you guys again when something came up. And so I think it was a combination of our prior experiences being so positive and then, you know, the relationship I have with with my account manager as, as new opportunities or solutions come up to snap back and forth of, Hey, have you thought about this?
00;09;09;15 - 00;09;29;23
Brad Stokes
We thought about that, right? Because obviously in technology, I can't know everything, right? No one was right. So Right. So him bringing something to into the view that I didn't even wasn't aware of. Right. So that was kind of what started the process. And then when we started digging into the the what what the solution is and discover was a really cool solution and actually kind of almost like surprise in a way.
00;09;29;23 - 00;09;36;23
Brad Stokes
No one else is doing it right because it seems like such a no brainer at the time when you think about it. But like, well, there's nothing else like it out there.
00;09;36;23 - 00;10;00;14
Jim Gehring
So yeah, no, I agree. And actually we leverage HP equipment. In fact, we dropship from them when it goes to you so empty you place your order and talking with some of their engineers, not too long ago was like, who else is doing something like this? They said there's not really anybody who is wrapping it the way we are so that when we drop it in place, it's actually phoning home.
00;10;00;17 - 00;10;20;18
Jim Gehring
And based on what you ordered, configuring the system automation. Yeah, and setting you up to go. But tell us a little bit more about your perspective on what it did, because I know you have experience with Edge Systems. So what what was that like compared to how it used to be done and having the opportunity to do it in this way that you didn't even know existed?
00;10;20;18 - 00;10;40;04
Brad Stokes
Yeah, I mean, I think as you said, there's been people have tried to do something similar in the past. I mean, the technology wasn't there. You know, I think even in my own past, there was an HP sort of solution that was out there, gosh, ten or 15 years ago, but it was still full sized gear. i001 use server one use, which is right.
00;10;40;04 - 00;10;59;08
Brad Stokes
So the footprint was still the footprint. But I think what makes us really different unique is it's more than it sends the hardware. I mean, I think that's probably somewhat the easy part. As much as I hate to make light of it being easy to reduce all that, it's a small box, right? But it's the support otherwise. Right.
00;10;59;08 - 00;11;30;12
Brad Stokes
So I think from our perspective or my teams perspective, right, as we see people getting out of sort of the hardware administration business. Right. Right. That's a different skill set and one that's a bit aging. Also, you know, trying to recruit for virtualization expertise, like maybe not the place that we add the most value. Right. And you're giving us the solution that has those things in place that you're saying, hey, here it is, here's the hardware, here's the virtualization.
00;11;30;14 - 00;11;47;14
Brad Stokes
You put what you want on top of it, and here is the compute you need based on what we learned about you. Right, Right. It just makes it easier for my team then to just take off with it and to start using it as opposed to how are we going to configure it and set up an, Oh, by the way, who's going to support us?
00;11;47;14 - 00;12;07;20
Brad Stokes
Because, you know, again, I don't have experts, right? I mean, you know, you know, unless you're at a massive I.T organization where you can have a virtualization team and a server team. I have an infrastructure team and they can't do all games from networking to server administration center to saying, right. So it was those things are what drew me to it because that's a major sore right.
00;12;07;20 - 00;12;08;14
Brad Stokes
A major challenge.
00;12;08;21 - 00;12;34;02
Jim Gehring
Yeah. And in ed systems especially when it's all over the country or all over the world, you spoke about it before you know, break fixed of the hardware level networking, the virtualization, finding somebody who can do that so that you don't have all these different solutions across those different areas is huge, especially for your team, because when they're working in their own data center.
00;12;34;05 - 00;12;38;22
Jim Gehring
So a lot of problems that go away that aren't there when you're working with all those different edge systems.
00;12;38;26 - 00;13;00;06
Brad Stokes
Yeah, I think that's a good point that you made that we hadn't really touched on yet is again sameness, right? Are they that repeatable process and then makes it easier for us to. Right. So if we deploy it, even if I have a person and I'll say again, Boise or Cypress, California, where we have sites, we know they can expect the same behaviors, right?
00;13;00;06 - 00;13;24;25
Brad Stokes
So not, you know, I might otherwise go buy one Dell server here, one Dell server there and maybe there are different models, etc. But like this is the same right? Yeah. That repeatable process again, is even more attractive to us because those are prizes, right? Right. Not, not those kind of challenges. Once we kind of learn how to use one, we know what to expect from future deployments.
00;13;24;25 - 00;13;27;16
Brad Stokes
So again, that repeatable process is probably worth its weight in gold.
00;13;27;23 - 00;13;51;02
Jim Gehring
Yeah, and to me when I think about the box because it is something that small enough to be carried in a, you know, carry on case, literally when you get on the plane, it would go in the overhead, no spinning disks. I mean this thing is meant to take really high temperatures, which in most manufacturers, especially those that are spread around, it's getting stuck in a closet somewhere that's typically pretty grungy.
00;13;51;05 - 00;13;53;03
Jim Gehring
Tell me a bit about your example.
00;13;53;07 - 00;14;14;13
Brad Stokes
That's another amazing solve for us because, I mean, literally before you guys introduced that to us, we were looking to build out pseudo server rooms at all of our edge sites, right? So now we got a, you know, take, take it beyond the janitor floors it, we got to have power, we got to have AC meth rerun all the network gear in that room, Right.
00;14;14;13 - 00;14;41;29
Brad Stokes
How do we lock it down? Yeah, that solves all our own other issue that we were trying to start to solve of, here's one construction project after another, because to your point, like in an R sort of environment, allow that can ways we've acquired as we've built race winning brands have been for lack of a better description, small mom and pop shops right so the IT room really is after fire right so well same time that there's a cybersecurity risk concern there.
00;14;41;29 - 00;14;58;26
Brad Stokes
Right. So we were solving again the traditional way which is why I love a solution because it's like such a modern solution for an age old problem. Like we would have built a room out and put AC in there, but power in there and hopefully the guy, the rack actually fit into the room. Yeah, and then secure the row.
00;14;58;26 - 00;15;11;18
Brad Stokes
And now it's like it gives us more options, right? Because it's so small. And again, I'm still shocked by how small it is. We'll go to sort of in our server room here a little bit and show you the other racks and show you the little footprint that this is in.
00;15;11;18 - 00;15;34;06
Jim Gehring
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's amazing. And I think we when we spoke once before, you mentioned something about the fact that there are things that you do to innovate so that on the factory floor you're using applications that are changing how you're making things. But right now you guys are in a position where you like way things are. What you're trying to do is optimize and modernize those servers and those systems that are behind the scenes, correct?
00;15;34;06 - 00;15;52;03
Brad Stokes
Yeah, absolutely right. And I think that's that's a great point. I mean, again, back to the we know we have a hybrid model, right? There's some some form factor. It is remain, you know, on our side whether it's at a directory or a file server or in our case, a lot of shop floor tools. Right. Right. And those software tools will always need to stay behind.
00;15;52;03 - 00;16;12;14
Brad Stokes
Right. Because of the challenges, you know, that they have or performance will be degraded. You know, trying to go across the Internet to a cloud solution, perhaps. Right. That's always going to be there. We accept that. So we're trying to optimize that situation, that environment. But again, the old school way, right, throwing more resources at things, right, etc., etc..
00;16;12;14 - 00;16;27;29
Brad Stokes
And so this changes that whole narrative, Right? Oh, and forget the fact that it's like an OpEx cost versus like apex call. So that's a whole another piece like, right. So because of the technical debt, we would have been, you know, full on replacing sites one by one by one. Right. Of the giant calls.
00;16;27;29 - 00;16;49;29
Jim Gehring
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny when I think about it and I've been in this business for a number of decades, things like V motion when it came out, I was so surprised that you could just move something while it was turned on. Then disaster recovery came out where you're doing what we call push button ADR. And now I can not only move everything, but if I want to move an application I can.
00;16;50;01 - 00;17;07;00
Jim Gehring
And now we have these systems. To your point, here's a box small. You can drop it on the floor, put it in Iraq, it's easy to run. You plug in a few cables, it dials home and sets itself up. I really felt like and I think I hear you saying this like, this is new. This is something I didn't know.
00;17;07;00 - 00;17;08;07
Jim Gehring
I didn't know. Well.
00;17;08;09 - 00;17;28;29
Brad Stokes
There's nothing new, but it's it's transformational in the way of like, if I think about other things, I want when I when I go to the cloud, one of the other opportunities is that someone else is supporting that system. And that gives me opportunities for back up and dhiraj said that's also part of this, right? So that's that's even beyond like we're already one over without that stuff.
00;17;28;29 - 00;17;47;03
Brad Stokes
But now you're giving us like cloud, like support, right? And back up in the air functionality to like that's like is saw beyond the solve. That's why I mean it's so transformational like it's one thing to sell the hardware that would be a great thing. We would buy it every day like we already are. Right. But like the fact that does more than that, yeah, that's what sets it apart.
00;17;47;03 - 00;17;50;09
Brad Stokes
We're like as we talk about, it's like emotion. It's almost like robbery.
00;17;50;11 - 00;18;07;28
Jim Gehring
Right? Right. We call distributed cloud because we can literally run Kubernetes there if we wanted to. Most of the solutions in our portfolio, whether it's monitoring or logging or micro segmentation and as you mentioned, backups, etc., Those things can run on that box which we find our customers really love.
00;18;08;02 - 00;18;09;07
Brad Stokes
Yeah.
00;18;09;09 - 00;18;17;25
Jim Gehring
Anything else you want to add to what we're talking about as far as what this was for you and where are you seeing see things going now that you have this in place now?
00;18;17;26 - 00;18;31;23
Brad Stokes
I mean, I think it opens up lots of possibilities that we hadn't considered before. Right. So you know, like a lot of people were going through a budgeting cycle. Right. And so, you know, before that would be a challenge to think about what do we do with these edge sites? It also helps us to plan for future acquisition.
00;18;31;23 - 00;18;50;19
Brad Stokes
So again, now we have a very, you know, concrete footprint, a very fixed cost that we can anticipate. Right. So when we go to say, hey, we're going to buy X, Y, Z company, what it can come right, is this is going to be the costs, right? We're going to drop this right in it replace wall that they have already.
00;18;50;22 - 00;19;05;03
Brad Stokes
And it's very supportive. We don't need to add a person. Right. So it makes those what would be an easier way to muscle a transition from an acquisition. This shrinks that right considerably. And again, I think the possibilities are endless. But like, those are things that get me excited about it.
00;19;05;05 - 00;19;16;15
Jim Gehring
Yeah. Yeah. And how did the install go for you? I know in past customers, we've actually had them say you guys went faster than we were ready for. Now, what's that for you?
00;19;16;17 - 00;19;38;09
Brad Stokes
That was exactly our reaction. So it showed up and I think we were surprised that showed up so fast. Right. So they we were we were told like, hey, anticipate this. But like, again, given the supply chain challenges that have kind of you know, lingered on post COVID, I have that was not our expectation that one day it's here and then everything oh crap, we weren't ready for it, right?
00;19;38;09 - 00;20;01;03
Brad Stokes
So we had to react to that which we had. Like again, how often do people overdeliver anymore? Right, Right. So I think, again, this is a testament to you guys in the service offering because again, I had it faster, sooner I did it. And the cool thing one of the email mentioned is beyond the insights, we've actually deployed it here, which is our headquarters as well.
00;20;01;07 - 00;20;20;04
Brad Stokes
Right. So kind of your point, like the opportunity realism that it does solving edge fit, you know, solution or edge challenge, but we're actually going to do it here too, because I want my wife, folks that are here that operate off this site to focus on other things, add value and not be the hardware administrator or the server administrator.
00;20;20;04 - 00;20;23;23
Brad Stokes
Those say an administrator, right? All the things. So we've done it at our headquarters.
00;20;23;23 - 00;20;31;21
Jim Gehring
Yeah. And it's amazingly powerful. I mean, you can easily run 100 VMs on that box. So for what you're doing here, it really covers the gamut for you.
00;20;31;21 - 00;20;39;19
Brad Stokes
Oh yeah, yeah. And you'll see, I think the picture will be the testament to like, yeah, the empty racks versus the little box that sits there is kind of amazing.
00;20;39;19 - 00;20;48;01
Jim Gehring
That is amazing. That is amazing. Well, this has been fantastic. Before we close, is there anything else you want to add to the conversation here?
00;20;48;03 - 00;21;13;25
Brad Stokes
Oh, gosh. Again, you know, I think I share with you like there was a point in time, my career where there was a solution we were trying to work out similar to this and why was successful were not the same regions access again, in part because the technology wasn't there. But again, I think to me that the value add really is the sort of other cloud attributes that come with it, right?
00;21;13;25 - 00;21;25;02
Brad Stokes
Those are the things that really sort us beyond just the fact that it reduces for prayer and phones home. The fact that you treat it like this is an extension of the cloud service area offer us. Yeah. Is really a differentiator.
00;21;25;02 - 00;21;39;22
Jim Gehring
Yeah. So can I summarize that saying that it was really like giving you something as a service for all those components we talked about even the break fixed. We take care of that for you on location so that I know from personal experience makes a big difference for the team.
00;21;39;22 - 00;21;40;14
Brad Stokes
Yeah, absolutely.
00;21;40;14 - 00;21;43;27
Jim Gehring
Yeah. Great. Brad, thank you very much.
00;21;43;28 - 00;21;44;13
Brad Stokes
Welcome.
00;21;44;15 - 00;21;45;02
Jim Gehring
It is great.