 Welcome. Thank you for joining us for this JSA TV interview. I'm Greg Elliott, VP of Business Development with 1623 Fartum. With us today is Mike Rockwell. He is the Global Head of Solution Architects with Megaport. So thanks for joining us today, Mike. I'm super excited about this conversation, so really appreciate it. Yeah, me too. It's great to be here with yourself and JSA TV. For the viewers and yourself out there, I do use a lot of hand motions and expressions. This is a video production, so I'm not having a medical event. Just forewarning here. I always like to get that out of the way because it can be good to know. Good generation. I speak with my hands too, so I get it. So let's jump into it. So over the last however long, we've had multiple, multiple conversations with customers, central customers, industry experts about cybersecurity and how the network is a key component to that. Can you shed some light on how Megaport could be used as a tool in that fight for better network security? Yeah, now that's a great question. I think anytime we're onboarding a customer, the first thing that comes up is they want to validate our security profile. So we're diving straight into the questionnaires or accident 100 questions. So they always want to validate that we're a secure option for their network. A little just kind of preface about what Megaport does. We're a global network as a service provider. So primarily customers are building on demand private connectivity from data center to the cloud. Certainly, there's other ways that customers utilize the network, but we are a network as a service provider. When it comes to security, it's kind of interesting. I think there's three things that come to mind in our conversations. One is simplicity, another one is control and another is flexibility. So when I talk about simplicity, it is still shocking. The term network sprawl comes to mind quite often. We'll get on the phone with the customer. We'll start talking about their cloud connectivity strategy and they'll pull up a busy diagram. Right. And this thing looks like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. I want to throw the sauce on the screen and start soaking it up. Right. But one of the issues with that is they start to dig into it deeper. And we're strictly talking about kind of the data center to the cloud connectivity portion and the conversational progress into, Hey, what's what are we using this link for? What are we using this link for? What's this connected to? What resources ultimately are are we trying to reach from this location to this location? And, you know, that's a huge security risk. Right. If we don't know what network links we're using for one, that's an issue. If we don't know what endpoints ultimately they're connecting to, that's an issue as well. So when I talk about simplicity and really in the form of Megaport, a lot of it comes back into you. They want to take control of that network infrastructure and they want to be able to manage it from a single platform. Really a lot of the same conversations around SD-WAN where they're taking their control of their network, they have a management platform, able to push down all their policies through their controller to all their edge devices and have that single platform for management and bringing that into the kind of network connectivity model. That's one of the easy resources that Megaport provides is that management console where they can see all those network connections and see the endpoints ultimately they're connected to. The other piece is control. So Megaport, we operate a private network that any endpoint from A to B that the customer is connecting to. It's over Megaport's private layer to network. So they know exactly from point A to point B that it's routing across a private platform. We're not handing it off to a third party provider or routing it over the internet. So really we're taking the given the customer control to route the traffic, how they like, over a transparent connection. The next piece is flexibility in the world today with the distributed applications, distributed users. We want to have the flexibility to make it make change in a moment's notice, right? So that old traditional architecture of waiting 30, 60 days. You know, that's just doesn't work anymore. So they want to have that flexibility from a pure security standpoint. Some of the key things that that we're seeing. Max sec comes up right of it, right? We're providing a layer to transport across our network. So max sec being a layer to encryption or security protocol. A lot of a couple of the cloud providers, AWS and Azure, specifically come to mind. They offer it over their dedicated connectivity model for their private connections and express route and direct connect. So we're helping customers to facilitate those connections today, and that's definitely a huge topic. It sits outside of kind of that standard partner model, but certainly gives the customer that simplicity and control. The other piece is sassy. I'm sure is. I think there's a recent Nannog event, my guess is that you know, secure access service edge was top of mind. They talked about it quite a bit. I'm sure they did. And, you know, we're getting involved in some of those sassy solutions as well. So we have a mega port virtual edge that allows customers to deploy virtual network functions on mega port compute. And then they have the benefit of building out the private connectivity from the data centers like 1623 Farnum, your data center to the cloud providers, but also integrating that underlay into their SCO and overlay. And where that really comes into play from a security perspective is now they're able to build out these these virtual pops. So maybe you have a customer that's there in 1623 Farnum. They don't have a data center or presidents or a president that sits within Europe. They can deploy an MVE and essentially turn up a sassy pop where they're able to incorporate their network as a service and security as a service on one central platform. And that's integrated with with their SDWAM providers. So Cisco, Fortnight and Versa are some of the folks that we're working with. So, you know, those are some of the ways that, you know, we at mega ports, you know, address some of customer security concerns. That's great. So can we go a little bit deeper into maybe the higher regulated verticals like health care or government or financial? How do you tackle this? Oh, man, well, we work across all verticals, as I know you all do. I think in the data center space, this is probably your daily thing. Keeping up with these certifications, it's got to be quite the the resource. A lot of resources dedicated to that, right? You know, our network itself is built in third party data centers, such as yourselves at 1623. And, you know, so a lot of accreditation and a lot of the security is built in with that in that data center from a network perspective. You know, we're we're taking the customer out of that data center to the cloud provider edge primarily. So when you start thinking about, you know, the verticals and government, for instance, I think is one of the the topics that's in the question. You have to get out of the data center. You need to get to the edge of the cloud. You need to be able to access a government on ramp to reach your your government cloud resources, right? To sit in that regulated environment outside of the commercial cloud environment. So with Megaport, those are the type of connections that we're facilitating to, you know, with Azure, Google, and a Azure Google AWS and Oracle primarily, and they all have different ways that they set up those connectivity models and certainly we're able to provide that for them. You start thinking across the different verticals. And again, we're we're connecting network resources from point A to point B. So we're providing that private layer to connectivity. So it is a secure platform. One of the interesting things or one of the interesting customers that we're working with is Intercontinental Exchange or ICE. They're a NASDAQ Clearinghouse. They utilize our network as part of the underlay for their ICE Global Cloud Connect offering. And essentially through ICE, they have their own dedicated network where part of the fees that they're trying to access within the public clouds. So they're utilizing our network to build private connectivity from the edge of their network, from their data centers to the cloud provider edge and ultimately to access these data fees that they're pulling back down into their network for their customers. So that's one of the financial use cases that we support. And certainly there's a lot more detail around that that customers can look at on our website. But I think, you know, one of the interesting things that we got from their head of their global network services is that you are a Megaport software to find a private network is really purpose built for the capital markets. So I think if someone at ICE is giving us that type of credibility from a security perspective, that our network is considered to be secure across all the verticals that we work with. That's great. Yeah, just back to your point on just all your case studies that Megaport has on it. I spent a lot of time going through Megaport when you guys decided to come to 1623 and pop us with the dual feed. But like it helps to see those use cases out there and how Megaport is helping so many different types of businesses. Yeah. I don't think it's, I mean, any, you know, service provider out there, you know, getting a use case is not. I think you would agree, right? It's not easy, right? It takes time. It takes resources within the business. So, you know, I think if you're lucky enough or you're good enough to get a use case, that really shows the value that your customer is bringing to the business, or that your service is bringing to the business. Sure. And so most of our customers and other companies out there have a hybrid cloud strategy and you kind of touch on this a little bit earlier. But like how can businesses use Megaport as they're trying to educate or execute on their digital transformation strategy? Yeah. Hybrid multi-cloud. I mean, that's our daily conversation, right? Sure. You know, I think if I'm an expert at anything, which I don't know if I am or not, but yeah, I feel like that's probably what I'm an expert at. I think if you talk about it every day, you've probably become somewhat knowledgeable, that there's no way around it. But the biggest thing about when you start thinking about building a hybrid connectivity or building connectivity to the cloud is, as you know, at 1623, you have Google in your data center, right? You've got the Edge, the Google Edge in your data center. Customers can connect directly to 2623, connect right to the Google network. And great for Council Bluffs, that central region with Google, outstanding option, right? But as you know, not the edge of each cloud provider is not going to sit within your particular data center, right? Or any data center provider, it doesn't matter, right? Right. They're not everywhere. So you have to have a strategy to be able to get outside of your data center and get to the edge if you're going to have a hybrid cloud strategy, right? And one of the great things about Megaporton where we fit that need and we assist some of the folks that sit within 1623 Farnham, they can essentially connect to our network. And 1623 is an example. And we have 700 data and enable data centers across the globe. But 1623 customer connects to our network in your data center. It essentially brings the cloud provider edge to the customer. Because once they're connected to the Megaport network, they're able to build private connectivity to the cloud provider edge across the globe. So a great example in this particular use case, you're sitting in Omaha, Nebraska. You connect at 1623. You build a private connection across the Megaport network to, say, AWS or Azure in Chicago if you want to go east. If you want to go west, you can build connectivity into Denver. You can build it all along the east or west coast. But you can also extend your network outside of the United States. You can build connectivity across Europe. You can build connectivity across APAC. So when we start thinking about hybrid cloud connectivity and having a strategy and building your network, one of the things that we like to say is really future-proofing that network, is we all know that in working with our customers that maybe I'm in AWS today, maybe I don't have any intention of going to GCP or anywhere else. But inevitably, someone's going to find a resource in another cloud that they're going to want to access. And they're going to want to build that connectivity. So you have to have a strategy that allows you to really pivot and make change in a moment's notice. And that's really where our network is purpose-built to facilitate those types of connections. Yeah, that's great. So I've been in the business for about 15 years in the carrier hotel space. So I've seen how customers can be successful when they have multiple options. And as their business changes and scales and whatever they have to pivot, they have at a carrier hotel type facility, you have 50 carriers and ISPs. You can now have on-ramps to different clouds. But then I think Megaport just takes it to the next level, just to your point. So we really love that you guys have a diverse deployment at 1623. It's just another builder to the network ecosystem. Do you have any interesting, the ICE was a great example, but do you have some other interesting ways customers or your customers are using Megaport that you can share? Yeah, I think there's many ways we continue to expand. I think what's interesting is our customers sometimes find ways outside of maybe what we had envisioned for the network, which is outstanding. It's incredible, really. I think the other interesting thing is when you talk about hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, when customers do work in a multi-cloud environment, they want to be able to route directly between those clouds but also back into their data center. So as a service type of functionality is another great tool to have in the bag. Because if you are going to develop a multi-cloud strategy, typically those resources, you want to sit in very close proximity, right? So a great example here in the US is the East Coast. I mean, Ashburn, anybody who's in cloud and is in probably anywhere in the world, especially here in the United States, we know that that Northern Virginia tech hub is unbelievable, right? The data center operators that are there, the cloud provider regions, they all have regions that sit there, right? So if I'm building out a multi-cloud strategy, that's probably one of the primary places where I'm going to build it out. One of the great things that tools that we have is a virtual routing appliance that a customer can turn up on demand. It sits on top of our private network. It sits, the appliance itself physically sits right at the edge of the cloud provider networks. So if I'm on a route from say AWS, I have some front-end applications that I'm utilizing in AWS and I want to keep the Oracle databases, people have Oracle databases, I want to integrate those two networks together. One option is doing that over the internet, which the reliability issues there, security issues there, also throughput issues. An easy way to do that is to have a virtual routing type of platform that you have access to. So that's one of the probably unique use cases that we see. The other thing that's great about that is I can still offer that virtual edge. I can still build private connectivity back to my reuse sources at Farnham as well, at 1623 or any data center across the Megaport network. So that's kind of one of those, I don't know if it's a unique use case, but it's certainly one that I think customers aren't always aware of, that they're able to use as a service type of routers as prevalent as they are today. Oh, that's great. Well, this conversation has been amazing and I really appreciate you taking the time. Anything else you'd like to add before we head on out? Oh, man. Wow. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's hard to shut me up, so I don't know. That's a risky proposition. But I think the other thing that I would add is that we didn't really touch on is building in that resiliency as well. You mentioned out of 1623 Farnham that we have dual fiber paths from a layer one perspective and then from a layer two perspective, we have protection across the network. The other thing that's a key tool to have in the bag and again, bringing those edge connections into your data center ultimately from far away is being able to build that high availability architecture and that resiliency across the platform. So the only other thing I would say around that hybrid cloud is work with a strategy that does allow you to connect potentially in multiple geographical locations, but also gives you the flexibility to manage it as you see fit. And I think that's it. Maybe there's probably more. I'm sure there's a lot more we could go on forever. Yeah, no, we could, I appreciate that. Thanks for hosting Greg and it's been a great conversation and thanks to JSA TV. Yep, thanks Mike and thank you to JSA TV and we'll see you on the next one.