This episode features Jason Chan, Associate Vice President of Network, Collaboration & Observability Services at Merck. He discusses modernizing Merck’s global network infrastructure, scaling automation through infrastructure as code, and advancing business observability to drive secure, resilient, and AI-ready operations.
This episode features Jason Chan, Associate Vice President of Network, Collaboration & Observability Services at Merck. Jason shares how Merck is modernizing its global network infrastructure to deliver secure and scalable connectivity across a highly regulated environment. He discusses how automation, infrastructure as code, and business observability are transforming network operations. Throughout the conversation, Jason explores autonomous operations, AI-driven networks, and the evolving role of connected infrastructure in powering innovation across the hyperconnected enterprise.
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Guest Bio:
Jason Chan leads the Network, Collaboration & Observability Services Value Team, which provides foundational products and services in support of Merck’s global network, and how our customers connect and collaborate. His 25yr+ career has spanned across multiple industries, inclusive of pure technology companies, large conglomerates, and hospitality.
As the leader of the Austin Tech Center, Jason plays a pivotal role in driving employee engagement, fostering community both internally and externally, and growing Merck’s presence and brand in the Austin metropolitan area.
Jason holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Lehigh University and a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. He resides in Cedar Park, Texas, with his wife, two daughters, and seven pets. In his free time, he plays recreational ice hockey.
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Guest Quote
“The vendor roadmap can't be your roadmap, right? Your roadmap has to be business aligned. It's not conform the business to the vendor that you chose to do business with... We have to be business centric, customer centric, and our standards… if they're not fitting and solving the business challenge, those are the first things I'll throw away.”
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Time stamps:
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[00:00:00] Jason Chan: The vendor roadmap can't be your roadmap. Your roadmap has to be business aligned. It's not conformed the business to the vendor that you chose to do business with, and and they do or don't have those capabilities. Architect for consistency.
[00:00:18] Jayakrishnan P: Welcome to Tara Communication, hyperconnected Journeys, the podcast where we explore how enterprises are re-imagining their digital infrastructure to innovate, scale, and stay resilient in a hyperconnected world. I'm your host today, Jay, Regional Head of Enterprise Sales and Strategy at Tata Communications.
Today I'm joined by two amazing panelists, Jason Chan, Associate Vice President of Network Collaboration and Observability Services at Merck, along with Raj, our Solution Leader here at Tata Communications. Jason, Raj, great to have you both here.
[00:00:53] Raj Purkayastha: Jay, brilliant to have you and, uh, host this, this brilliant podcast.
And Jason, looking forward to the amazing discussions that we always have.
[00:01:05] Jason Chan: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me today.
[00:01:08] Jayakrishnan P: Fantastic. So, uh, today for our listeners on the Hyperconnected Journeys, we have three segments. That's the way we have kind of constructed the overall flow of our content. Uh, let me quickly start with the, the segment one.
Uh, the segment one is all about, uh, the now scaling with purpose. So Jason, if I may start with you, um, given your extraordinary experience working, uh, and supporting the Merck, uh, global network and operations with Merck, operates at a extraordinary global scale, uh, supporting critical research, manufacturing, and, uh, operations around the world, to set the context toward listeners, let's start with where things started as you, uh, see the Merck's network and collaboration environment.
Right. What are the priorities for ensuring reliability, security, most importantly, you know, across the such a complex enterprise is what you, uh, run today from Meck.
[00:02:02] Jason Chan: Yeah, thanks, Jake for the question. You know, I do have the privilege of leading Merck's, uh, global network. You know, it is a fairly large network.
Um, you know, and I've, through my career, you know, I have operated, you know, and, and reign and configured, you know, multiple, uh, net different networks, you know, across multiple industries. Um, but yeah, specifically, uh, from Merck, you know, the way that, you know, I look at it at least from a priority perspective, um, you know, one, it's really architecting for consistency.
Um, you know, but again, operating for locality, right? And, you know, because we do have very different, uh, divisions, business, uh, units, you know, that, that we do cater for. Um, you know, so for me, you know, global standards, you know, start with architecture ties to policy. You know, use our tooling. Um, again, as we really look at for network connectivity, uh, you know, really driving towards local breakout, breakout, a lot of optimization.
Uh, either in regional hubs, local internet egress, you know, we are an sd-wan. Um, we do use SD wan. We just recently deployed that, you know, completely. Um, and again, our, our use cases might be a little bit different from how we do research, you know, some of our research facilities to manufacturing, you know, and then, you know, all of our enterprise office locations, if you will.
You know, one, one thing that kind of goes hand in hand with the networks is always secured, right? And so, um, you know, part of my organization, you know, we, we do handle, uh, you know, all of our firewalls, all of our, you know, um, you know, some of our security controls. Um, so again, security is absolutely has to be nested and built into everything we do.
You know, we are in a zero trust journey, I would say. Um, you know, and. I would say, you know, we, we continue to, to turn the dial relative to, uh, making our environment more secure, right? Because our intellectual property, obviously is very, very important to us. Um, you, you know, from, uh, just being competitive, you know, and that is our advantage.
And then I would say, uh, the last priority, um, you know, is probably the, the, the third tower of my organization, which is really around observability. You know, again, we, we are really trying to improve our maturity there. There's a, you know, we've made great progress. There's, you know, the, I would say the goal line keeps on going a little bit further, right?
Um, but, you know, and then visibility is where it starts, you know, first classic requirement gathering relative to, um, you know, how how do we continue to mature so we can get to, which I'm sure we'll talk about like autonomous operations, right? At some point.
[00:04:45] Raj Purkayastha: Uh, Jason, if I can just, uh, you know, uh, ask you a question on, on what you mentioned just now and this specifically to all the CIO friends that are hearing where this podcast, uh, now you would've gone through a journey, right?
In terms of where you started, where you are today, uh, now in that journey, uh, what are the changes that you've seen? You know, what you just spoke about is, is, you know, some amazing things that you have taken up in the last, I would say, you know, three, four years, but then you had a long journey and. In that journey there, there, uh, I'm sure there'll be a lot of learnings that you've had, uh, per se, right?
So if you can just share some of the learnings in terms of things to do, not to do, uh, you know, some, some fails, uh, failures that you have some, uh, checks that you did, which the c our listeners and the CO friends that, that are looking forward to hear from you can and can pick up a few things.
[00:05:54] Jason Chan: Yeah. I'm gonna answer your question, uh, maybe a little bit at a higher level.
And, and what I mean by that is maybe not just my time here at, at Merck, right? So, you know, I'll, I'll give a quick, uh, history about myself. Um, you know, and, and the reason I'll do that is, you know, it'll probably, um, in terms of, you know, how I'm answering this question, right? And so. I don't know. I'm probably approaching 30 years in the industry.
You know, when, when I first started my career, um, which is, which has probably formed who I am and, and how I think about this today, right? Um, you know, so, so the first company I joined at college was a company called Belco, which was part of the at t Monopoly breakup. I don't know if folks are very familiar with that.
Back in mid eighties, you know, at and t kind of rolled everybody. Um, it, it, it was too big, right? And so, you know, the US federal government broke 'em up into what was at and t, which supposed to be doing long distance, and then had all the, what they called the baby bells, right? You know, that had, they're part of the continental United States to look at, uh, you know, the local exchange carrier piece.
And then there were two, like, call it research divisions, bell Labs, which a lot of folks, you know, just know by name, like, which was, uh, to at and t. There was Bellco company that I joined, which was meant to really help be baby bells with interoperability research. Um, you know, just so again, so that there would be commonality and, and still integrations of, of services.
And the rea, the reason I talk about that is it's parks so much innovation between Bellco and Bell Labs, right? Um, and again, this is, you know, now we're, I don't know how many, how many decades removed from it, right? But if you really look at like, the break of that monopoly, um, the innovation that keeps specifically out of the telecom space and the networking space, you know, that, that, that's kind of what got me excited and, and kind of what's here today.
I, I think I even have, um, at least two, like two two IEEE standards that are out there, you know, that have my name from a, you know, as a contributor person.
[00:08:08] Raj Purkayastha: I didn't know that.
[00:08:10] Jason Chan: Yeah. Well, it's funny, I actually kind of forgot about that. Right. Um, uh, you know, 'cause I was kind of young and dumb and really wasn't sure what I was doing right?
But like, you know, but, you know, so, so it started with twisted pair, like, believe it or not, right? It was two wire twisted pair, you know, when, when voice and data was separate. Um, you know, again, I I I was working on DSL and, you know, at that point in time, you know, how do you drive, uh, data across, you know, what was traditionally two copper wires, right?
That was meant for telephony. Uh, you know, from, from there, you know, I, I did leave Bellco, I was at Cisco for, for, for a number of years. And again, I was supporting large carrier base, uh, solutions that they were trying to sell to the market, which was really around DSL cable, large ETM based networks. Um, you know, a lot of it, uh, you, you know, routed protocols that were supporting that.
And it was also the start of voiceover ip, right? You know, in terms of, uh, you know, capabilities. And believe it or not, I mean, there's still twisted pair, you know, across parts of the United States and in the world, right? Like, you know, um, I know a lot of companies have been trying to harvest the copper for, uh, uh, you know, and replace with fiber.
But, but you know, the reason, the reason I share that is because, again, it was kind of a building block for me right after, after Cisco. Um, uh, working for a tech company was fantastic when I learned so much, you know, but I did then join a conglomerate that was, you know, headquartered out in New Jersey called Send It Corporation.
Um, a lot of folks probably haven't heard about Senate Corporation, but they own like over 50 different companies, right? Um, and those are the brands that people do recognize, you know, all the car rental, the real estate, hospitality orbits.com at one point, right? Um, Jackson Hewitt tax Services, and they, they own.
Yeah. You know, things that were aligned by industries and they aligned and they owned things that were just pretty broad across multiple industries. It, it was probably my greatest learning moment because it was sending, and then group I was in within Sun was meant to provide telecommunication networking services to 50 plus businesses.
Right. And so the reason I say it was such a great learning moment is again, you had companies that were either in the same industry or different industries, but they all kind of all had the same problem. Right. How do you provide networking like at scale, at cost, you know, networking obviously, and clean voice and con complex center?
You know, I, I, I kind of mentioned, you know, one of Merck's priorities that I just mentioned was, uh, you know, architecture and center, you know, but have like locality, you know, at the edges. And, and that is really where, you know, I saw that in send, right? Because it's like, again, very similar problems. How do you drive cost efficiency or, you know, how do you move packets?
You know, being a network guy, like it's, it's latency, jitter and packet loss, right? The, the three bills of networking forever, right? And that hasn't changed, you know, and ultimately to, to solve a business outcome, right? Regardless of, you know, what that use case is so adamant about, uh, standards, but it has to be fit for purpose, right?
And so, you know, again, you kind of fast forward, you know, I, after, you know, my, my time there, um, you know, I, I, I, I was at Dell. I ran Dell's global network for you, you know, almost seven years, uh, before joining Merck, you know, for, for now it's going on five years, right? And so, um, yeah, I I would say, uh, the, you know, the learning for me is, is, is have a really great network.
Not, and I'm not talking about the Data Voice Network. I'm actually talking about the People Network, right?
[00:11:54] Jayakrishnan P: Thanks, uh, Jason, I think that's an amazing point of view, uh, right. I know it's great to see the journey, what you went through. Uh, for our listeners, you know, the three key points, what I'm taking away here is the fit for purpose and the collaboration.
How it does help to, uh, deal with the larger corporations in terms of though it had a lot of, uh, other businesses, how the collaboration is going to get the simp simplification in when you deal with large enterprises. Right. So that gives a good segue for me, uh, if I move to you, Raj, um, um, you know, given you a depth of experience and, uh, engagement in the marketplace supporting large enterprises like likes of meck.
So what are the, you know, these, if you take a step back and ask us the current state of network likes of Meck, what are, what do you see the most often hidden complexity, what you see with the, as they prepare this transformation in, in large enterprises?
[00:12:50] Raj Purkayastha: Oh, brilliant question. And, uh, I'm, I'm sure, uh, Jason will agree to me on this.
You know, think about a large company like, like, uh, uh, Merck. Uh, they will grow both organically and in organically, right? And, uh, in organic growth. Uh, what Jason talked about in terms of standards, uh, what Jason, you know, touched upon in terms of the fundamentals and therefore a blueprint, I'm sure Jason, your blueprint, the framework which defines it's easier to control.
But then when you grow Ally, you go and acquire a company. You know, there's mergers and acquisitions which are happening. Uh, sometimes you do not get all the details right. You may have 90% of the details, 10%. May not be there, uh, many a times. There'll be people who would be doing site projects and bringing in, uh, you know, some cloud, uh, instance, uh, maybe a device here, maybe a device there.
Uh, and many a times there'd be a project which is forgotten. So Jet, what happens is, uh, in very large organizations, uh, there would always be a bit of an unknown, right? And that unknown at times may cause a walk. Uh, whether it's a security work that, uh, Jason was talking about. Or, you know, it has no bearing into the overall scheme of things, right?
Uh, it, it totally depends on the business needs or, uh, who, that, that device or what that device is touching at any point of time. If it is touching any business critical, uh, you know, workflows, uh, then it may lead to some, some kind of an issue. But if it is not, it'll not. Right. Uh, the other point, which, which becomes interesting is that many times, uh, you know, large organizations, which is global, which is international, uh, the configs, which is there, you know, even if you have a reference architecture, which is, which is, you know, continuous, which is defined, the configs which go in may not be the same.
Uh, you know, the OS may not be the same. There are a whole lot of things which may come in, uh, and therefore, uh, what it starts from, say for example, uh, you know, I walk into a office in Germany vis-a-vis in, uh, say in in Germany, Frankfurt vis-a-vis say, in New Jersey. The experience for me may be different, you know, and I'm not talking about a physical experience.
I'm talking about a digital experience that may be different, uh, to the fact that the security policies are different. And because there's a drift in the policy, which is there, you know, somewhere is updated somewhere. It is not, which, which actually causes more issue. Right. And, uh, uh, Jason, what do you think about it?
Do you see similar things in larger organizations? Is this a problem that, uh, you have faced in your past per se?
[00:16:13] Jason Chan: Yeah. You know, that, um. Yeah, abs. Absolutely. You know, our, the, the joke that we have, at least internal to, to our company, uh, you know, we're, we're a hundred thirty four, a hundred thirty 5-year-old company. Um, you know, so, so there's definitely some legacy, uh, you know, things that are still lingering around.
Right. Um, I, I don't wanna say they're 135 years old, but, you know, we, we certainly have different generations of, um, you know, infrastructure, you know, processes, uh, you know, of course, we'll, we'll go at it, you know, through like lifecycle efforts, you know, modernization efforts, you know, natural, um, you know, pivots and technology.
Um, but at, yeah, at the same time, you know, there, there are complex environments, you know, that again, just have, uh, not, not everything's the new and, and fancy, right. Not everything, you know, has the ability, um, you know, where we apply the modern practices, the modern DevSecOps practices, um, you know, and then your point, you, you brought up an m and a, right?
And so, yeah, I, I think every company I've been. With, through my, through my career, right, have been pretty active in m and a. Right. And, you know, uh, and Merck is no different. You know, if anything, we're pretty, uh, pretty impressive even right now. Um, you know, and they all bring different size and scale and, um, you know, the, the joys, right?
Different standards, different architectures, different again, uh, you know, may maybe different life cycles. Um, but the, yeah, the, the commonality I, I think for us obviously is, um, you know, achieving the business value so we can help the business, right? Uh, achieve what they're looking for. Um, but how do we do that securely, right?
So, again, just, uh, you know, for us, uh, you know, everything has to be rooted back into, you know, just ensure that we're putting the right guardrails over roadblocks, if you will. Um, you know, and, and taking a, the proper risk based approach.
[00:18:08] Jayakrishnan P: Amazing. I think, uh, that such an important connot, right? In my view, the complexity often heights in the plain sight.
Right? So that's the key point, what Jason was trying to bring in. Um, you know, thanks, uh, Jason. So if I, if I quickly move on to, um, our, uh, next question Jason. So, uh, Jason, you are responsible for delivering and operating a pretty extensive software defined network. You did call it in the early part of your conversation, right?
Um, uh, which, which covers from data center all the way to branch locations. The question, what I have for you is how do you balance the need for the speed and flexibility, uh, especially the compliance and the risk management given the healthcare domain, what you are in. So what, what is that, uh, three points would you like to share with our listeners?
[00:18:55] Jason Chan: Yeah, thanks for the question. Um, you know, yeah, the, I I would say, you know, being in pharmaceutical, um, you know, in industry, you know, there is obviously, uh, it is heavily regulated right at, at the same time, I think that we're able to. Move fast. 'cause that honesty is ultimately what we're trying to do, right?
We're we're trying to, either we're trying to release a new capability or, or functionality, right? Um, we're trying to either close some security gaps, vulnerabilities, um, or we're trying to squish out, I would say maybe known defects, bugs in our environment, right? And so, so our ability to move fast is really, uh, you know, foundational so that, you know, our, our applications, our business processes, right?
And our, and our ultimate, our business, you know, can move faster. So, you know, the, the way that I look at, um, that is, is really compounding like quality, right? You know? And so for us, um, you know, we, we do measure velocity by, you know, the amount of changes that we can do. Um, you know, every company I've been in, right?
The change management process, the it change management process, you know, has always been maybe one of the most, uh. I, I would say despise processes, right? Because, you know, it, there's a lot of effort, right? It's, you know, you gotta do a proper change, you gotta go through a cab, multiple cabs, get approval, and all that sort of stuff.
Um, proper validation absolutely is very important. Stakeholder, you know, um, acknowledgement and approval and support is, is completely yeah, absolutely important. Um, but, you know, but the way to get through that, and at least that we've been looking at it, is really, uh, simplifying, I would say, you know, the, the changes that we do, right?
So that they're highly repeatable, knowing, input and output makes for, you know, very easy change templates. Um, you build a lot of trust at the same time, that becomes a stepping stone to, hey, if it's, if it's that repeatable, then let's automate it, right? Um, you know, and you, you remove a lot of friction, right?
O obviously you still have to, you know, keep and maintain that trust, um, but you're able to move so much faster. Um, you know, I I, I think at least in the four years, uh, or going on five years that I've been here at Merck, you know, at least 20 x changes we're doing now per year, like compared to what we used to.
And it absolutely is tied to automation, right? But you have to, you have to get there, right? Um, and then you spend, you know, the, the human cycles on really, okay. Those complex changes that, that we, we need to wake up, be through the process, um, you know, and have those conversations, you know, with the business and, and, and, and again, you know, um, you know, build and maintain that trust, but also, you know, have their support to, to move forward.
And, and again, uh, you have to be very clear in terms of, you know, what, what's the value right, that we're trying to deliver, right? It, it's, they're, they're not necessarily a victim of our change is, is kind of what I'm saying. That, you know, they need to be a, a beneficiary of the change and, and they need to understand that.
[00:21:58] Raj Purkayastha: Just one question, follow up question on this, Jason. You said 20 x changes. Now those 20 exchanges came with, uh, more manpower or the same manpower or reduced manpower. This is one question that I ask all my friends.
[00:22:15] Jason Chan: Yeah. And I feeling by adding more people is not necessarily the recipe for success. Right.
So it it has to be, um, you know, the, the, the right, um, workforce, the right skillset, um, you know, and, and again, if I look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective, right? And so, you know, I, I think, uh, you know, very, very specific to the company that I'm in, or at least, uh, you know, the, the operating environment.
You know, when, when I first came in, you know, we had a, uh, you know, man managed services is used quite a bit, right? Like no offense to managed services, right? But, um, you know, but used quite a bit, um, which was at least, you know, in some cases. The more, the more bodies it was the, Hey, you did more work. Right?
And so, um, you know, part of, kind of what I mentioned in terms of okay, being very explicit in terms of automation goals, right? Um, you know, pushed the, how we do it and also maybe what products we do use, right to be, you know, that are, uh, um, more, more, uh, I would say, um, more automatable. I would, um, you know, that, that that's actually what really caused the shift.
So, yeah, so I'm, so, so my call it run rate in terms of what I pay, right? Either for external resources, full-time bodies, um, tools and services, maintenance, licensing, all that sort of stuff is, is reduced. But like our, our throughput is much higher. And yeah, you know, uh, I, I've been building more of a.
Internal, uh, aligned workforce and then managed services, at least, you know, in my particular case, right? But again, um, but it has to be driven by, uh, you know, the, the outcomes you're looking for, right?
[00:24:03] Raj Purkayastha: Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Balance is very important.
[00:24:08] Jayakrishnan P: Absolutely. I love that framing. Uh, uh, uh, Jason, I think, you know, you, you clearly brought, uh, all the key points, uh, when you deal with such a large ecosystem, right?
Um, ability to move fast, quality, frictionless. So those are all the key takeaways for our what will be, uh, listeners, right? So, uh, again, uh, the automation, you really touched upon how that's going to help us do the repeatable activities, right? So that, that gives a good, uh, segue for, uh, uh, my, uh, next question.
I think both of you touched on the visibility, right? So that's. One of your, uh, uh, you know, roles and responsibility, which is observability, uh, Jason. So I think that's one of the key needs, uh, are, which we are seeing very common in the industry with the ai, uh, scenario, is how all the cis and the, uh, c are looking to put more visibility into that.
So, if I may, uh, Jason, um, uh, you know, the collaboration has become more mission critical for a globally distributed organization like you, right? So how, uh, the, the kind of tools, what you've been rotting over the last five to six years, more focused on the observability, how is that helping you, uh, the teams which is globally, uh, spread across, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of insights, is helping to make your decision faster, right?
So you touched upon the repeatable and frictionless, so how this, uh, tools are helping you, uh, more from the observability.
[00:25:33] Jason Chan: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's interesting, you know, so, so we've, um. And my role has kind of, uh, cha changed a little bit over, uh, over the, my tenure here. Um, you know, again, when, when I first joined, I, I, I was responsible for, for the network and collaboration, uh, you know, e ecosystem company.
And again, so maybe very specific like network observability and, and, and those sort of things. Um, you know, last year, you know, I, I I do own, call it observability for, uh, you know, across the IT landscape. So it's, so the reason I, I, I share that distinction, um, you know, it is because we're still on that journey, right?
Like we, we are still on a journey. Uh, you know, even a mindset shift. Um, you know, because it used to be especially, you know, me coming from a heavy networking background. I, I actually, you know, of like, some things have never changed over time, right? Like the network absolutely is guilty till proven innocent.
Like that. That's just like, we understand that, right? Every incident requires like, you know, network representation, like we completely understand that. But what I think is, uh, changing, um, and, and again, I'm still working on, uh, you know, my, my own team, you know, with, with this mindset shift that used to be proved that the network innocence, you know, meantime to innocence is, you know, and there's a lot of, you know, jokes and memes about meantime innocence.
Um, you know, with my current remit, I was, that that's actually not good enough, right? It's, yes, the network might be innocent, but it, or not at fault, but it's like, I, I need the company or I, I need to provide the company. Well, what is at fault, right? So it's, um, so which is a much harder, uh, you know, a much harder problem to tackle, right?
Um, so. You know, we, we've made investments, you know, and there's certain like, um, you know, off the shelf tools that just, you know, kind of help with some of this sort of stuff. Um, you know, within our company we, we call it a, our way of working, like, which is honestly that the biggest, the, the bigger challenge, right?
In terms of, um, here are we even asking the right questions? Are we, or do we have folks in roles that, you know, they're incentivized to like, to care about it, right? And, and you know, versus just saying, Hey, not it, and just providing enough to say, Hey, it's not it. And then, you know, and then kind of working like in a siloed team, right?
So, um, you know, so, so, so that is like changing, you know, we are, we are trying to change there, right? So, you know, it's less about. While, while each of our silo teams might still have, you know, their specific KPIs, um, you know, that they're worried about, you know, but at a higher level, you know, it really is around like, you know, I I would say more of a recent term, like business observability, right?
It's like, okay, like how does this all really line up into, um, you know, uh, business support functions? Of course, you know, there's gonna be lots of applications and infrastructure that supports maybe pockets and, you know, that sort of stuff. But, you know, but we have to like truly lean in on the business observability piece again, you know, we, we, we have a long way to go, right?
So it's by no means am I, uh, an expert on, on that. Um, yeah, I do know, like, hey, that's the direction that we need to start thinking about. Um, you know, and ultimately, you know, as it, as it translates into day-to-day, you know, all, all the normal blocking and tackling, right? It really is. Correlation at root cause identification at scale, right?
Like, you know, the, the quicker that we're able to, um, you know, use our platforms to correlate, you know, if it's, you know, metrics, logs, traces, flows, right? Like, um, you know, distinguishing like endpoints and, and patterns, you know, again, if it's across the network or app or, you know, some of our SaaS providers, right?
Like, you know, and routing that to the right team that then actually cares, right? You, you, you know, to, to do something more aggressively, right? So, so that's, uh, yeah, that, that's our journey right now.
[00:29:38] Jayakrishnan P: Thank you. Uh, thank you Jason, for the point of view on the absorbability, and I really like the point coaching brought in on the business observability.
That's a big shift, what we are talking about. So if I may move to you Raj, uh, uh, building on that, what, uh, you know, Jason talked about, uh, how these observability tools are bringing the, the single pane of glass view and make their decision faster with the globally spread across team, right? Um, so. If I may, uh, Raj, you know, how you are seeing observability emerge as a real differentiator in how enterprise support their collaboration and productivity at a scale, right?
Especially, you know, as, as you in your role deal with the complex global environment helping those large enterprise in their transformation journey.
[00:30:24] Raj Purkayastha: Sure. You know, I'll, I'll take a leave from what Jason mentioned. Uh, think about it like this, that enterprise, when, when they move into the journey of, of how they look at their, uh, the automation, if I may call it, right, that's the word that, uh, Jason also used.
Uh, it's a journey. And in that journey there are four, you know, phases of the journey. The first is where you are reactive, then you become proactive, then you become predictive, and then you are cognitive. Right. Everybody wants to be in the cognitive space, but companies are moving from, you know, say reactive, to proactive, to predictive, to cognitive in, in a stepwise manner.
When you are reactive, there is no observability out there. Okay? But the fund starts when you start going into the next step. Into the next step, right? And that's where observability becomes very important. Think about it like this, that you want to be in the cognitive space, but then you do not have observability for all the points or all the things.
Uh, if it is not there, you'll never be cognitive. You know, cognitive is where. The network is, for example, self-healing, or let's not talk even about the network. It's the digital infra that we are referring to out here, right? Uh, the digital infra becomes, you know, self-healing, becomes self-aware, right? It can take steps, uh, even for the future.
You know, for example, it'll look at a specific device and say, Hey, this, this device may actually, you know, shut down, uh, say seven days. Hence because the core is heating up. Or it has, you know, 1, 2, 3 things that it is seeing at this point of time. What can I do? To ensure that this, this device doesn't fail, and if it is really going to fail, then can I replace it in the next seven days?
Right? So observability becomes extremely important in the whole scheme of things when you want to move to a cognitive space. And with AI coming in and the way the networks are going to become extremely complex, which is also a point, Jay, that you touched upon. Uh, this is a, will be a fundamental building block.
You know, one of the things that, again, Jason touched upon in the, in the first, uh, section of, of your questions, you know, the fundamentals, right? Observability in my mind is a fundamental thing, which should be there to the nth level.
[00:33:05] Jayakrishnan P: Great. Amazing, uh, point of view, Raja. Exactly. So to our listeners, uh. Uh, so the observability is just not about the visibility, right?
Um, you know, it is about confidence at scale, right? So, uh, the, the key point, what I'm taking away here is the, the trust point. What we are talking about is going to be huge. Uh, you know, that's the journey, what we are in. Uh, thanks rather the bringing that what to, to reactive, to cognitive, uh, and so on, right?
So, so, uh, that puts us in a good, uh, segue for us to move to the segment too. Um, Jason, now you have clearly, uh, led these large scale network transformations and you to touch upon the 20 exchanges, what you kind of went through in the last five years, right? But really what it stands out how, uh, intentionally you have helped your teams evolve alongside this technology, right?
So every time when you bring in a change, it is important to, you know, have your team, uh, you know, come up with that confidence, right? Uh, so. That puts us in a good segment too, uh, for us. Uh, the thing, what we wanted to touch upon here is, uh, then versus now, right? What is the transformation story? How are we bringing the people into this conversation when we talk about this technological change?
Right? So Jason, earlier in your career, uh, you did touch upon the amazing things, what you did with, uh, the Bell, uh, and other other organization you, uh, you touched upon, right? Uh, um, the question, what I have for you here is, uh, earlier in your career, networks were often designed with stability as a primary goal.
And now we talked about all the, uh, you know, uh, the absorbability and the visibility, what we talked about, right? How was your mindset at net as networks become more dynamic, software driven and directly tied to the business outcome? So when you detach upon the business observability, uh, I really like the term, so can, can you help me, um, you know, more, uh, on that point?
[00:35:02] Jason Chan: You know, I would say from a networking perspective, most companies, um, you know, build networks for redundancy, right? Dual carrier, dual hardware, right up, up and down the stack. Everything from the wan all the way through right now, I, I would say, you know, from the mindset shift, most it outages are still, you know, choose, choose your percentage, right?
It, you know, caused by change, right? You know, sure. You, you know, ISP circuits go down, right? In the network space, hardware fails, right? Um, you know, you know that, that sort of thing. Uh, you know, and again, if you're built for redundancy and resiliency, then ideally, right? Like you don't really, uh, impact the business at all, you know?
But again, if, if I go back to, you know, the, the human induced, right? Again, even if it's an automated job, right? Like, but again, a plan change, right? That is, is either known or unknown to some or maybe has a. Unintended, uh, you know, um, outcome, right? That maybe wasn't, you know, expected. You know, again, I, I, I think it's really getting past that, right?
Uh, and, and I've been through many companies, right? Um, you know, where, especially in, I, I would say like, you know, certain parts of the environment, like, you know, if it's core data center, if it's core manufacturing or whatever, the, the, the, the primary business, you know, process is it's, you know, I, I mean, how many companies have done like, change freeze, right?
Like change, freeze over, you know, as a result of maybe just some recent bad adages. Maybe it's over, you know? Yeah. You know, tied to certain, you know, peaks and, and seasonality, you know, that sort of thing. You know, the, the whole concept around a change freeze is, uh, hey, we, we, I don't wanna say we don't necessarily trust you, but like, hey, we just, we, we just know when no one's touching anything.
Like, we're gonna have some stability, right? Like, um. So again, it's kind of going back to, you know, building that trust, doing more through automation. It's like, it's a lot smaller changes, right? Um, you know, more changes, more frequent changes, you know, uh, you know, more, uh, uh, you know, smaller in scope, right?
Easier to test. You could be agreeing, you know, carry canary type of deployments, you know, that sort of thing in, in, in areas, right? So I think that, that, um, that alone, I, I think is, has been the, the biggest push, right? To, to move, you know, call it more modern software driven, business aligned networks, right?
Like, because to be able to do that, you also need, you know, have, have chosen the right platforms, the right vendors, right? Like, um, you know, that are capable of doing that, where not everything is again, just CLI based, right? Like, um, you know, and hard to automate, right? Because ultimately. You know, and I've done this, like, you have to pivot away from those vendors, right?
Um, ultimately, like the vendor roadmap can't be your roadmap, right? Um, your roadmap has to be business aligned. It's not conform the business to, you know, the vendor that you chose to do business with, and, and they do or don't have those capabilities, right? Like, uh, ultimately that, that's the first sign of, you know, as much as I think I started, you know, this conversation in terms of, you know, architect for consistency, but it also means like, um, again, we have to be business centric, customer centric, um, you know, and our standards, I'll be honest, if they're not fitting and solving the business challenge, and those are the first things that, you know, I'll throw, I'll throw away, right?
So, 'cause we're ultimately, we're, I'm not doing my job at that point.
[00:38:40] Jayakrishnan P: Like, thank you, uh, you know, to our listeners, I think it's a great point. What, um. Jason brought in, right? Um, you know, all the initiatives, what we are looking at has to be a business aligned, uh, this com business outcome oriented. Then it, it, it drives the right, uh, you know, uh, engagement internally.
And, uh, bringing the team together with those changes is going to be easy. Um, when you have the, every engagement is more business alignment. Right. Um, with that, Raj, if I may, um, you know, from your point of view, uh, when we, uh, when what you have seen now when you are doing such changes, how your customers are bringing those team, when they're doing that large transformations and, uh, bringing the new technology, how they are bringing the team together, that is the center of everything, uh, you know, for these transformations.
Right? So what's your point of view that?
[00:39:31] Raj Purkayastha: Yeah. So, you know, um, one of the, one of the most interesting things that I've heard from, uh, one of my CIO friends is that. You'll have a strategy, right? That strategy will have, uh, you know, as Jason mentioned, uh, OEM changes or tools coming in, or processes changing and so on and so forth.
Uh, but with that, what becomes extremely interesting is what is the culture of the team right now? If, uh, you know, the team has a culture of, of accepting changes, uh, if the team has a culture of agility, uh, the whole thing becomes very easy. Right at that point of time, you don't have to really, uh, you know, uh, think about adoption.
You, you know, which becomes a massive challenge here, by the way. You know, you bring in something new. Adoption is one of the biggest challenges that I'm sure Jason also agrees, right? Uh, you know, thinking about new processes, if you do not shift from the old processes to the new processes way of doing things, if you do not shift, if you do not accept, uh, you know, new technology, if the culture is not shifting or if the the culture is not shifting, the culture of shift is not accepted, then, uh, you know, the whole change becomes very difficult.
It, it takes more time. Uh, there are a lot of hard ones, which is going to happen. Uh, but then if the team is agile, if the team is, is flexible, if the team says, Hey, let's do it right, let's, let's get to the next big thing. Let's, let's embrace change. Uh, you know, the whole thing flows like, you know, a, a, a, a seamless, you know, potter thing per se, right?
So I would say that tech technology is very important. Uh, the team culture also becomes very important, and I'm sure Jason has built a winning team, uh, which is doing that. Otherwise 20 exchanges will not be possible.
[00:41:46] Jayakrishnan P: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Raj. I think, you know, Jason say expand on that one point. Uh, uh, one of the key thing, what we keep hearing is investing in skills also, right?
Um, you know, uh, Raj did touch upon the culture, uh, and uh, the. Resiliency, what we are trying to bring in when we are talking about these changes. So can you talk to how critical, uh, this investing in these skills in this AI world, right? Uh, uh, you know, how critical is that going to be?
[00:42:13] Jason Chan: You know, I, I, I, I'll be honest, right?
Like I, I, I'm privileged to lead, you know, the organization that I lead, you know, I, there's not a meeting I walk into or I think I'm the smartest person, right? Like that, that, uh, if anything, you know, I am, uh, you know, my, my job as a leader is to kind of get outta the way, right? At least, you know, maybe point in a direction, but I'm not creating the full map, right?
Um, you know, so, so, and I will get to your question relative to skills, you know, but I think what has been an enabler for, um, my, myself, and my organization, you know, we, we, we are in a product model, right? It, it's not perfect, right? But, um, you know, we, we are in a product model and there's only. Maybe two things I actually care about, you know, outside of, uh, you know, the, the big dictionaries in terms of what a really good product team looks like, right?
But the two things I care about are, one, clear accountability, responsibility, and two, it's like the customer centricity, right? So like, why does your product exist? Are you talking to a customer? Like, you know, it's not, you build it and they will come and, and, and they're gonna love what you build, right?
Like, like it has to be, you know, for like someone, something tangible that's measurable, you know, you can get feedback on in terms of like, you, you're, you're not gonna outta park, you're swinging missing, or like, you need some capabilities added, right? And, and they have to be responsible. And, and, and part of that responsibility is kind of going back to roadmap.
Like they, they need to define their roadmap in terms of, okay, how do I solve the business challenge using what I mentioned relative to, you know, consistent architectures, you know, um. Locality, you know, division alignment, right? Just again, knowing the nuance in terms of who, who and how we're supporting, you know, specific customers.
'cause again, we have a very diverse customer base, but it's then pushed in terms of those product teams, um, have that ownership to solution. Right? Um, and, and yes, you know, part of my job obviously is also to, you know, kind of like nudge folks and, and nudge team to, to move a little bit faster. 'cause again, you know, we do need to support our business, you know, today.
Right? Um, and so what becomes clearly like evident is relative to, hey, do we have the right skillset?
[00:44:33] Jayakrishnan P: Right?
[00:44:34] Jason Chan: Either today, you know, is a skillset that we want for tomorrow,
[00:44:38] Jayakrishnan P: right?
[00:44:39] Jason Chan: Absolutely. You know, we have to be very, uh, mindful and cognizant relative to, um. People aspirations or career aspirations. You know, obviously, you know, like many companies, you know, we, we have folks in all sorts of different walks of life, you know, different grade levels, all that sort of stuff.
And, and you want folks to have a, um, you know, a career path, right? Um, you know, that, that's defined. And, but at the same time, you know, they, they have to also embrace and, and, you know, um, you know, uh, help dictate where they wanna go with their capabilities. And, you know, the reason I say we're in a product model is because our products will change over time and they have changed over time, right?
Um, you know, what, what might be defined, you know, as something that, Hey, we need this now and be needed for two, three years. Some of them actually might just be done after two or three years, or, you know, there's a natural progression and it morphs into something else, right? And we'll call that product something else, but that.
That helps us look at it in terms of, you know, how we're supporting, again, you know, our, our customers pretty specifically, but also for me, uh, if anything, it's actually made my job a little easier. Right? Um, you know, because again, the, the products are, you know, if they're done well, they're pretty self-sufficient.
Um, again, with the right metrics, you know, to, to help ensure that we're, you know, business aligned. Right. Cool.
[00:46:07] Jayakrishnan P: Thanks. Uh, Jason, I think, uh, the, the key takeaway for our listeners is, um, the investing in skills is us just as, uh, critical as investing in platforms, right? Uh, um, Jason did touch upon the, um, the culture and accountability, uh, customer centricity, define the roadmap when you are doing those transformation story, and most importantly, the, you know, get this aligned with the business outcomes.
Right? So, thank you, Jason. Amazing, uh, point of view, and I'm sure, uh, this is going to, uh, you know, really help, uh, us. Our listeners look at, uh, the transformation engagement in their own organizations, right? Uh, that puts us in a good, uh, segue to move to the, uh, segment three. Uh, now let's look forward, because the future is, future of network is being shaped now, right?
Uh, you know what? We talked about the observability and we talked about the AI and ml, how that's bringing that single pane of glass view, how that is empowering the business outcomes for our, uh, enterprises, right? So with that, uh, Jason, if I, uh, you know, come to you as you look ahead, how are you positioning more network and observability platform to support more automation, intelligence and realtime decision making?
Right? So you broadly covered that. If it could, you know, high level summarize, um, you know, the, in this context that, that will be helpful for our listeners.
[00:47:30] Jason Chan: Yeah, yeah, sure. The question, um, yeah, for us. The, you know, we, we've been making a very large, in terms of managing as much of our environment, you know, as code, right?
So, you know, the infrastructures code, um, you know, validated designs, you know, we're working with some of our, you know, core suppliers. Um, we're, we're not exactly there I'll, to be completely honest, right. You know, some, again, as I mentioned, may or may not have native capabilities. Right. Some kind of make it hard or some, you know, we have to, uh, you know, do our own, you know, scripting and, um, you know, a lot of Ansible, a lot of terraform, like, you know, that sort of stuff.
Um, you know, at, but at the same time, you know, we, we have investing platforms where from the get go, it, we only deploy as code. Right. You know, um, so you know that that alone just, it brings the quality, it brings, like I, I would say, you know. How do we interact with it as like practitioners of managing it, but also, um, you know, how do we actually move some of those capabilities directly to, you know, some of our consumers, our software developers, right?
And, and again, so we move to, I would say, uh, you know, I don't wanna say an API first, right? But, you know, we're, we're, we're definitely trying to get there, you know, especially in some of our high volume, um, you know, areas, right? Like, you know, within networking, uh, you know, no surprise, right? Like the, the, the largest buying stuff that we always see, or, you know, all day, every day DNS requests, lot of firewalls, lot of search, a lot of load bouncing, right?
Like, all these things that application teams need, right? Or, or platform teams need, right? That to stand up, initiate their services, right? So, so the more that, hey, that's not a service n to get into a individual team queue to now either one manually do today. Tomorrow do the automation. It's like, Hey, how about we, that's all self-service, right?
And, and you, you know, we'll do have coffee, right? And like, while they, you know, have a, a more natural experience within their IDE, um, it's faster delivery. Uh, you know, and again, that, that's honestly how, um, you know, we're, we're actually doing more changes, right? It is because of self-service, right? And so that's how we're really pushing, um, you, our automation, which, you know, especially as we get into now, you know, ai, right?
Like, uh, agent ai, autonomous operations, that's at least for us, the natural progression, right? So again, more that we're able to, um. You know, uh, standardize, you know, what used to be manual changes to automated changes to now, like self-service changes within API then yeah, we, you know, we, we can let agents, AI agents go crazy, you know, of course.
Like, we're, we're not to that point yet, but that, that is the progression for us. Right. I would say autonomous operations. Right.
[00:50:30] Jayakrishnan P: Interesting. That's exciting. Uh, um, thanks Jason. I think, you know, the key takeaway for us here is in you using intelligence, not, not just to respond faster, but to anticipate what's coming in our way.
Right. Uh, so if I may move to you, Raj, uh, what are you seeing enterprises get the most immediate attention and the value from these automation and analytics in the network operations today? I guess broadly, uh, you know, Jason did touch upon the kind of, uh, intelligence what these tools are bringing in for their first decision making.
So can you throw some light from your broader industry experience and how you see. Customers like soft meck.
[00:51:08] Raj Purkayastha: Sure. So the first thing is, I loved something that Jason mentioned, and not a lot of people are actually going that way. Uh, he's obviously the cutting edge already, right? Which is infra as a code for a lot of people.
It's but obvious, but, uh, not many are moving into that space. Uh, that being said, the, the way I look at it is that the network, as we know today, the infra as we know today. The digital, uh, infra that, that we have defined for today is going to have a very, very, very, uh, traumatic change going forward. Right?
Uh, you know, when, when we think about the applications of today, they are defined for humans, uh, applications and the network and the digital info of tomorrow will be defined for humans and agents, right? So, uh, I'm sure, uh, we are all looking at agent web. Uh, we are looking at agent flows and so on and so forth, and it's, it's, but natural.
I'll give you an example. Okay? Sometime back, uh, 1 million tokens was $20. Today it is 50 cents, uh, per million tokens. Uh, but all the LLM providers are actually seeing a growth, right? Uh, uh, we are, we are talking about trillions of tokens per month, if not more, uh, or per day. I'm forgetting the, the, it's, it's crazy numbers at this point of time, which means that that's, that's going to have a material impact on the way our digital infra network and so on and so forth, looks like, and, and, uh, I don't think enterprises are ready at this point of time, right?
So there'll be a shift change in terms of the way you look at things, the, the way you do things, uh, the way you define your observability and so on, so forth going forward, right? So. Uh, with that as a background, you know, the human network will, will remain the way it is and, and move forward, uh, uh, in, in a, I'll say in a incremental manner.
But then the transformation change will come about because of the agent tech and they will all merge together, right? Uh, in today's world, we talk about three segments when it comes to network from very high level, but in tomorrow's, uh, uh, you know, agent tick plus human, there will be minimum five, six segments that you'll have talk about, think about, and, and really go after, right?
So, uh, interesting times, and by the way, when I'm saying tomorrow, it's not like 50 years down the line. It's like next two, three years, right? By 20, 27 agents will be all over the place. I don't know how many agents. Jason himself is making, but on an average, uh, you know, a, a enterprise like Mers will have hundreds if not thousands of agents and individually, me and you will have two, three agents.
[00:54:09] Jayakrishnan P: Okay, that's a very strong point. Um, Raj, you know, thanks for sharing. Uh, it's a lot of great point. Uh, you know, how we should look at, uh, when we are looking at future, right? The, how we should, uh, you know, get ourself aligned on the future thinking and bring those innovation and to Jason's point, you know, always aligned with the business outcome, right?
Uh, um, so with that, uh, you know, I, I quickly move on to my next question, uh, to you, Jason. Um, this is going to be our last segment. Um, uh, Jason, looking at, uh, you know, we, we did talk about quite a bit of, uh, the transformation story, how you're bringing people and the process and the automation, uh, you know, as a game changer in this conversation.
Uh, obviously I'm aligning more towards the business outcome and, uh, bringing the business observability into that context. Right? So looking at three to five years from now, how do you see the role of network collaboration and observability teams changing within the large enterprises? Right? So that will gives a good summary of what we talked about in the last, uh, 45 minutes, uh, if I may, Jason, right?
[00:55:16] Jason Chan: Yeah. Yeah. There, there's a lot to unpack there. Um, you know, obviously in three to five years, right? This is my hope, right? That it's more ubiquitous, right. You know, in terms of, I would love to get to, you know, a, a single like logical, I don't know, like high throughput, right? Um, you know, a networking fabric that, that helps support our different workloads, you know, and, and the reason I I start there is, hey, we're, we're.
Again, we're, we're kind of built, you know, for that, you know, again, there's some legacy, you know, and just normal lifecycle in terms of how we can remodel some places. Right. But if we can get there, um, you know, nested in with security at its core, I wanna call it a later bolt on, right? Like, which is kind of like how some of that's happening now.
You know, again, we're, we're on a zero trust journey. Um, you know, again, we keep on turning the dial, right? The, the, the to be, I would say, you know, for further secure. Um, you know, but it, but it is a Bolton, right? And so, again, you know, once we can get it, I would just say native into, you know, the environment, then yes.
Then, then absolutely integrated observability, you know, automation. Those are non-negotiables at, at that point, right. You know, and then, uh, you know, I, I know I've used the term autonomous operations, right? But that's, you know, that, that, that's coming soon. Like it really is, you know? And so, um. You know, yeah.
We, we talked about some of the agents and, and all the different use cases, uh, you know, that we're looking at to do again, you know, we, we'll, I would say co-pilot that until, uh, you know, we have certain comfort levels. But again, we're, we're diverse enough where, um, you know, that there are certain use cases or certain site types, certain user profiles that, I don't wanna say we can take more risk, but, you know, but we can take more risk, you know, and then certainly as it gets closer to, uh, you know, maybe more of our crown jewels mission critical applications, ecosystems, and, you know, yeah.
We'll, we'll maybe have to, uh, have a few at bats, you know, first, right. And, and build a little bit higher trust. But that's how I think we're really gonna see it. Right. Um, again, coming back to just deep collaboration, I, again, I, I think the, you know, both either from a network perspective, observability perspective, or you know, even our collaboration suite, um.
I kind of joke that for the last three decades I've been a plumber. Right. Y you know what I mean? In terms of it, it's just foundational, like expectations are there, there's a lot that I obviously has to go on. Um, you know, but that's like, we need to provide that plumbing, we need to provide those capabilities.
So again, we, we can push, uh, again, that, uh, that the business aligned conversations, you know, the, the co-development solutioning, right? So I, I do see, you know, in terms of what we do and how we do it, it, it's, it's gonna be less on like, um, you know, the day-to-day, you know, kind of checking interfaces and all that sort of stuff.
And yeah, health checks, reconciling environments and like that, that stuff will be, you know, pretty, pretty, I would say, uh, self, self solvable at least. So hopefully, um, and then we can actually have, you know, um, you know, folks really, uh, you know, really co-development, like truly co-developing in terms of, um.
How do we help our company? You know, I would say do drug discovery faster. How do we do some, you know, help with clinical trial process? You know, how do we manufacture, but, you know, our entire supply chain, um, you know, how do we move large, uh, amounts of data, which, you know, we, that, that our research labs generate, right?
So that they can use that for you all their, you know, ai, uh, ML initiatives, right? And so, um, you know, it's, it's the same business challenge, but I, I think, you know, how we show up and what, you know, to work in a couple days and, and how we have our workforce, you know, thinking about things like it will be significantly different.
[00:59:24] Jayakrishnan P: Great. Thanks. Uh, that's a powerful way to close, uh, Jason. Thanks. Amazing point of view. Uh, so Raj, you know, what's your, uh, view, um, how you look at, uh, the 3, 2, 5 year horizon? I know as you're going, as you going to help, uh, the large chance engagement with the enterprises.
[00:59:41] Raj Purkayastha: So first thing is that I totally agree with what Jason mentioned, right?
Uh, in this, one of the other things, which, which is very important, is ensuring that we are, we are kind of ready for tomorrow. Uh, and when I say ready for tomorrow, ready for anything, right? Uh, tomorrow, the tomorrow may throw a different challenge, which, which, uh, you know, will come out of the blue. Uh, but we should be as, uh, as a culture, uh, and as a team should be strong enough to stand up and say, Hey, you know, let's take it up.
Uh, that being said, there are a lot of things that we know are. In the horizon and, and, uh, we should start getting ready for it. Uh, you know, we spoke about a few things, uh, through the, uh, last 45, 50 minutes. Uh, and, uh, you know, a few other things which are going to come up are likes of quantum, which you should look up to because Quantum has not only implications from a compute perspective, but also has a huge implication when it comes to security and going forward in the network space also.
Right? So look forward to those things, uh, because it'll have an IM impact on the, uh, you know, digital info per se.
[01:00:57] Jayakrishnan P: Thank you. Thank you Raj. Uh, and that brings us to the end of, uh, the episode Hyperconnected Journeys. A big thank you to you, Jason, for sharing how Merck is modernizing its network while investing in people.
Process and automation and other things, which we, you know, greatly touched upon. And Raj, for offering the broader industry perspective. What you bring it to the table, right? Uh, to listen as we hope this conversation gave you a glimpse into how enterprises are building resilient networks, leveraging IOT and empowering collaboration to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Don't forget to subscribe. Join us again. Thank you.
[01:01:34] Raj Purkayastha: Thank you. Thanks, Jason.
[01:01:35] Jayakrishnan P: Thank you Jason. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks guys.