The inaugural Data Centre Magazine LIVE, BizClik’s third virtual event, saw the likes of VMware’s Vittorio Viarengo, NTT’s Marientina Laina and Schneider Electric’s Steven Brown interact with attendees via streaming application Brella wherever they are in the world for the day-long immersive experience.
Here’s Data Centre Magazine’s round up of the top 10 sessions at Data Centre LIVE 2023.
The Multi-Cloud Promise with Cross-Cloud Services
VMware Vittorio Viarengo’s keynote speech explored the advantages of the multi-cloud, the role that cross-cloud services play in achieving the promises multi-cloud offers and provided insights on how organisations can use cross-cloud services to achieve their business goals.
Viarengo also delved into the challenges of having a multi-cloud environment, and how cross-cloud services can help to mitigate these challenges.
Sustainable Innovation in Data Centres
“I hope to inspire you to connect, to collaborate - not to work on a problem by yourself but really share the journey you are taking in sustainability towards a carbon-free future for the social benefits of our people,” Susanna Kass, Co-Founder of InfraPrime said as she opened her solo keynote, looking ahead of 2025 and 2030 goals.
Kass led two discussions on sustainability - first in the Sustainable Data Centre Forum alongside Uptime Institute’s Ali Moinuddin, Steven Brown of Schneider Electric and Virtus’ David Watkins followed by her Sustainable Innovation in Data Centres keynote.
Predictions for the Metaverse
Discussing predictions for the metaverse and working towards an understanding of the metaverse and its use cases, Kabuni co-founder Nina Jane Patel - a psychotherapist and a doctoral researcher - delved into investigating the psychological and physiological impact of immersion, presence and embodiment in 3D immersive virtual environments. With parameters for the metaverse still somewhat debated, Patel led a keynote on the technological components of what the metaverse is and the technology required to bring it to its full fruition.
“What I find most interesting as a psychotherapist, researcher and as a mother raising children in this era…is the level of change that we are embarking on in our relationship to the digital, digital, synthetic worlds and by proxy to each other,” she said.
Generative AI on the Data Centre Industry
Although Generative AI (GAI) has gained significant attention in recent years due to its ability to create new and original content, the power-hungry nature of GAI poses challenges for data centres, particularly in terms of increased processing power and electricity consumption. Michael Ortiz, CEO of Layer 9 Data Centres - data centre provider that specialises in prefabricated, modular and hyperscale solutions - discussed the increased demand for data centre capacity and electricity and how this will impact the data centre market in Latin America.
Digital Infrastructure Trends in 2023
Senior Consultant Matt Bamforth of STL Partners, whose core responsibilities include working in TMT with a focus on edge computing, provided his insights into 2023 trends and projecting forward to how the industry may change in the future.
The whistle-stop keynote looked at three key major trends for this year - strong growth in the Southeast Asian data centre market, continued sustainability investment in data centres and consolidation in the UK fibre market.
Digital Infrastructure
Guy Willner explored the cutting-edge trends and technologies in cloud computing, edge computing, and 5G connectivity to gain insights into how data centres are driving the digital revolution and shaping the interconnected future we inhabit.
Edge Computing Forum
Jon Eaves, CEO & Founder of Edge Centres shared his insights on edge computing in his one-man panel at Data Centre LIVE 2023. “The idea of Edge computing,” Eaves explained, “is you store that data and that compute closer to the end user. It’s primarily about reducing the latency and bandwidth requirements by processing the data in proximity to where it’s generated.” Eaves shared how this paradigm helps minimise costing and being the driving force behind the increasing demand for data in the digital era.
Empowering the Hybrid IT Journey
“It’s about helping companies find the best, optimal solution for their various IT workloads and dealing with different aspects like security integration, development and resiliency - all things we’ve come to care about here in the last four or five years of really being a network-focused economy and network-focused world,” Jason Carolan of Flexential said in his fireside on Empowering the Hybrid IT Journey. The talk addressed the journey towards hybrid IT and the strategies and technologies driving its adoption, and how organisations can harness the power of hybrid IT to achieve greater agility, flexibility and efficiency to empower themselves to succeed in today's rapidly changing digital landscape.
The Multi-Cloud Forum
Featuring Mike Milner, VP Cloud Technology at Trend Micro, Samta Bansal, the Global Consulting/Services Marketing and Strategy Executive of Hitachi Vantara, and Vittorio Viarengo, Vice President of Cross-Cloud Services at VMware, the 45-minute Multi-Cloud Forum delved into the depths of all things multi-cloud, where the executives offered insights into the benefits and challenges of modern multi-cloud strategies. Bansal emphasised the flexibility and vendor choice that multi-cloud offers, highlighting that with multi-cloud, organisations can select vendors based on their specific requirements and optimise workloads, considering factors such as speed, performance, reliability, geographical location, and security.
Africa on the Cloud & Wholesale Connectivity Map
Ayotunde Coker, who was appointed CEO of Open Access Data Centres in September, shared how OADC plans to digitally transform Africa. His fireside opened discussion on how the push for digitalisation and cloudification of enterprises across African nations is well underway, with spending on public cloud set to triple over the next four years. Also discussed were subjects including the 5G rollout, cost-effective fibre strategies and data centre capacity demand.
