 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome everybody to our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott-Rocataya, CEO and founder of JSA. And with me is my fabulous co-host, as always, top B2B social influencer, Evan Costel. Hey Evan. Hey Jamie, great to have you on this episode where we sit down with the most influential men and women. And yes, there are women in the data center space, leading today's telco and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of our next normal. But first, let's chat about something pretty exciting, the Facebook rebrand. What do you think? Feta, the new Facebook. What do you think of the rebrand? Oh, I'm sorry, Meta. Meta. A cheese network. I kind of like the cheesy version, yeah. Yes, it was super cheesy and not just usual self, but what's your takeaway from the big Meta, Metaverse rebrand? Obviously PR is something I'd like to study and read up about and deliver to our clients. So I think it's an interesting PR play, the timing of it all, suspect to me. But the theory, you know, Zuckerberg wanting to be more Metaverse focused, very interesting in the sign of the times perhaps, that we're all living our best virtual reality selves. Right. Now, wonderful escape from the real world of lawsuits and storming capitals and misinformation. But yes, let's dive right into the Metaverse. It'll be great, believe me. But first, let's talk about infrastructure that's gonna power the Metaverse because that's what we're really here about, right? That's exactly right, exactly right. So as you know, guys, data movers, we love to have our guests just dive into background stories, career highs and lows, the unique perspectives on the future of our industry. And so I'm really excited today to introduce our guest, Jennifer Herson. She's the president of Data Canobine. Hey, Jennifer. Hi. Welcome, Jennifer. Nice to meet you. So let's dive into the most important part of this interview. You're from Baltimore. I grew up in Baltimore. How are the blue crabs this season? That's really important to know. They're very expensive. They're very expensive. Yeah, I heard you might need a mortgage to have a dozen crabs. Yeah, they're running a little low this season, unfortunately, but you can still get some if you come into town. All right, well, I'll take you up on that. Jamie? I love Baltimore. I'll be there in a heartbeat. But really, to kick it off, could you tell us a little bit about your career background and how far did you get into this data center space? Sure. So I started in Children's Book Publishing. I wrote books for Scholastic. It really helped me to figure out how to break down really complex subjects. And when I moved into technology, it was a natural fit to go into marketing. So I have worked for small companies as well as large companies. I then came to hosting through a web design and hosting firm Unleashed Technologies, who are still a client of ours, actually, at Data Canopy. So I met Ryan there, my business partner, Ryan. And the rest, as they say, it has been quite a journey. But it's been starting in arts and then moving into technology. It's been really interesting, but it really helped to provide a really solid foundation for me. I love that. Fantastic. So Data Canopy has a really strong focus on offering cloud solutions. But when I think of cloud, I think of AWS or Azure or Google Cloud. So how do you help companies exactly embark on this cloud journey? And how do you make that journey to the cloud seamless? Well, one of the things that our clients and that you see, I'm sure, as marketing folks yourselves, when you're doing your industry studies, the biggest challenge that a lot of companies are facing is a lack of expertise in-house and not really understanding what that first step has to be. So as they go and embark on their cloud journey, a lot of times what happens is they take almost like a ready fire aim approach. And they're not putting in the time that is needed in discovery and really understanding what is required and what would be the best fit for them. So Data Canopy really helps to solve that issue for them. We have a very in-depth discovery process that helps our clients to prioritize, to choose the right cloud. A lot of times clients will come to us and say, we want to be in AWS. And then we say, OK, why? What are you putting in AWS? What are you virtualizing? What is going to make the most impact with your business? And by taking the time to step back, look at what your goals are and really understand what the best path forward is. That's how you get successfully to the cloud and have a successful cloud journey that isn't abandoned midway because you're not seeing the results that the C-suite was expecting to see. Yeah, and for sure controlling those cloud costs, another really challenge that companies are often facing when they're journeying into the cloud. So what are some factors that they should consider to select that proper cloud platform? Well, again, it really is in the discovery process. One of the main factors is how you're going to use the cloud. What data are you putting up there? One of the things we like to say is AWS is really cheap until you have to use it. If you are pulling the data down from AWS and using that data over and over again, you're going to have egress fees out the wazoo. We actually have a client. Their budget was in the low single digit thousands monthly with AWS, but once they implemented because of what they put up there, they had tens of thousands of dollars in charges that were unexpected monthly. So asking the right questions to understand where you're going to be using your data, how you're going to be virtualizing your applications, and what your usage looks like and how you are planning to increase that usage over time will help you to budget. And I know I'm probably a broken record at this point, but that discovery process and really taking the time to deconstruct everything, do the planning, get the strategic understanding of where you want to go, how you're going to get there, that's key. Oh, I love the idea of due diligence before you embark on a cloud project. Such an exciting, but nerve wracking time in the cloud. There's all kinds of new options, new entrance, the tier two, tier three side, and you have multi-cloud and other things, hybrid cloud on the horizon. But what are some of the cloud infrastructure trends that you see in working with clients towards 2022 and why? So hybrid and multi-cloud, we've been beating that drum for a while. We like to call ourselves a hybrid cloud infrastructure or a hybrid infrastructure provider. We are really paying close attention to the opportunities for automation. The artificial intelligence that's coming into the industry, serverless computing that's coming into the industry, it's still a bit leading edge. So we're watching it, we're understanding how we can adapt those technologies and make them affordable and accessible for our clients. Because the big way that we help our clients is in giving them access to things that typically only enterprises have access to. So we help them to gain that competitive edge. So that's something the serverless computing, artificial intelligence, containerization, all those ways to help make cloud computing more optimized and efficient for our clients, those are the trends that we're really keeping an eye on and implementing as we can as they start to get to the leading edge from the leading edge. And clearly it's all working for you. Data canopy is on a growth trajectory you recently expanded into Europe, I believe. So tell us more about that. We did, we did, thank you. Now we just expanded into Ireland with a interaction data center and they are a part of DRT. So that has been a great partnership for us. We have several clients in Europe. We've done a lot of expansion there because their maturity in cloud is really, really taking off right now. And again, we're seeing it in the Americas as well as in Europe that need for cloud expertise, the need to also keep lower latency. So they're looking to people who have the expertise but if you aren't local, anyone that has any sensitivity to latency is really going to kind of look twice. But with this expansion, we've been able to provide that higher level of service to our clients. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We're eyeing up a lot of other expansion opportunities in the coming months. So Jennifer, you're a channel focused organization. What are your thoughts on the channels steering away from the old term master agent? Well, master agent, I really think that moving from master agent to what is it, technology service distributor, that really does say what they do and helps to define it for those in the industry. I've read some articles that talk about what the connotations are and it really does make it more of what it is. It is a partnership where the distributors, the, I guess are they gonna call themselves TSDs? I don't know, but that the distributors are distributing the services via their partners rather than being a master in sub agent relationship. So, I mean, I'm all for it. I think that it really does help to redefine the relationship in a positive way where everyone is cooperating and that it is a partnership. It'll be interesting to see how long it really takes how long it takes to take hold. And now it's my favorite part where we have our rapid-fire fun fact section. So, tell us the first thing that comes to mind if you can, Jennifer. So, what is an upcoming purchase who are thinking about, maybe for the holidays? Oh, yes, for the holidays. Actually, don't tell my husband or my son, but it's going to be season passes to Hershey Park for us. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. It's a surprise. Well, Hershey Park. I haven't been there since I was about eight. That's awesome. My son's about to turn eight. So, that's perfect age. When did I say? So, I'm guessing we're up coming up to the holiday season. So, what's your favorite holiday? Actually, it's Thanksgiving because there are no expectations other than just to visit and eat. Don't ruin the turkey. That's the key. That's right. And I'm not in charge of cooking that, so it's fine. And if you could jump on a plane and go anywhere in the world, especially in these days, I know that can be challenging, but if you could, where would it be and why? So, I read an article, probably about 20 years ago at this point, about on the coast of Turkey, this ice cream that is made and it's out of orchids and it's very, very stringy and elastic. And apparently it's this like amazing delicacy. I've always wanted to try it. That is where I would go. Probably the best answer to that question I've ever heard, by the way. And there's ice cream involved, which is the first time I've heard of it. I've heard of ice cream. I've heard of ice cream. I've heard of that now. I'm having everything. So, besides being an ice cream fanatic, what else might surprise people about you? Well, I've lived for four years on a sailboat, a 40-foot sailboat. We need to do a whole podcast just on that. I've got a lot of stories, but yeah, I did that in, that was my quarter-life crisis. I moved on to a sailboat when I was in my mid-20s. So, yeah, that was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Oh, okay, well, we'll do it. We'll do a special episode, Jamie, just on that. Yeah, live on some beautiful yacht as we sail over to Turkey to get our orchids. There you go. All right, and last question on your phone, what is the most used app? Well, I don't know if email and text counts, but probably, you know, I'm boring in that way. It's probably Facebook or Instagram. You know, I'm always keeping up with things and sharing pictures with a little guy. So... Now on Twitter. I was hoping you'd say Twitter, but sadly, not the case. No, that's too stressful for me. It is very stressful. It's not a lifestyle you want to pursue, that's for sure. Well, look, thank you so much for joining us, Jennifer, really intriguing the way you're educating, you know, customers about cloud opportunities. And I can't wait to share some of these insights with my father, believe it or not, he's 88 years old. He still lives in Baltimore. And the other day, he actually asked me, where is the cloud? Oh. And no matter how I tried to explain it, I could not explain to him where the cloud was. You know, I tried explaining what data centers are and what distributed infrastructure is and the internet didn't get it. So finally, I gave up and just said, the cloud's in New Jersey, dad. So that was kind of my attempt to answer. But really, in all seriousness, you're trying to really help customers on a very difficult journey, challenging journey and congratulations on all your success. Thank you so much. All right then. Can't wait to hear as you guys further expand and take over the world, looking forward to those headlines. And guys, if you enjoyed today's Data Movers podcast, as much as I did, go ahead and check out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes. We release every other week on Wednesday. So go ahead and check us out there. And follow us on Twitter, at jscotto and every curstell. And like and give us some reviews on the pods, cast players. That would really help us. Yeah, let us know what you want to hear next time. And from whom? And as always guys, stay safe and happy networking.