Sean Patrick Tario caught up with Phillip Marangella, CMO for EdgeConneX for Episode 53 of Open Spectrum’s I Love Data Centers Podcast. Based in Ashburn, Phillip shared how the industry has evolved and changed since his dot.com days in Silicon Valley. His experiences on the telecom side of the house gave him a unique perspective, “Being a telecom guy, we were like, data centers are awesome, but the interconnection is where it’s at.”

Edge Ecosystem is Key

There’s no question that the ecosystem connecting the network to cloud to content is what drives value for clients and service providers. Phillip explained, “When you start changing from being a cost center to a revenue center, then companies really realize the value of being inside the <data centers>. Networks are the key for every data center. Inter-connecting in and through the data center to the people to the devices to the company. That is the driver of the digital economy now. We talk about the volume of traffic and the volume of data and the velocity required to support these new workloads and applications.” He goes on to explain how now, you have to get more and more data centers closer and closer to end users and enterprises to support all the traffic flows and data flows that is coming from cloud gaming, IoT, AI, and ML.  “And that is the premise behind EdgeConneX — the model we did to extend the internet to the Edge.” 

EdgeConneX is the true “pioneer of the edge” and addressed the Edge “way before it was cool.” Their model is that the customer defines it.

Check out the full podcast HERE.