 Welcome back to JSA TV and JSA podcast where we're covering the latest stories trends and innovations from leaders across the digital Infrastructure world and we're sitting here at PTC and beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii right now and right now I'm joined by Chris Downey with FlexCentral. Thanks so much for stopping by. Yeah, thanks for having me It's great to be here. Have you been enjoying PTC so far? Absolutely I this is probably my 15th PTC so I've been able to see you know the conference grow to from you know more of a buyer exchange to and you know kind of industry leading Conversation agenda, so it's been awesome. Yeah, absolutely It's it's definitely turned into a campus event here in the industry. So we're so glad that you're here Yeah, before we dive in and talk a little bit more about what you have going on at FlexCentral We want to point out greener data, of course We've got the last copy here on the table But you are going to be an author contributing to our next chapter coming out very soon Earth Day of this year Can you give us a little sneak peek of what your chapter is about? Yeah, sure And I was it was a privilege to be able to participate There's a lot of a lot of great topics in the greener data Book here, so I'm looking forward to the to the release if you will but I'd say for my part it was really about the evolution and the Innovation of data center technologies and so in particular at a time when sustainability has become You know a really important thing for the industry and and also the world So I talk about how you know advanced power and cooling technologies have changed or quite frankly need to change if they're going to continue to to really allow for the digital transformation that They're really our customers are looking for and the and the world needs so it's a very dynamic area and and you know, I think I have some credibility to lend to How that has evolved and really what needs to happen over the course of the next decade Well, we look forward to reading the chapter. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks. All right Well, let's switch gears here just a little bit and talk about what's been going on lately with FlexCentral So you recently announced FlexCentral fabric. Can you tell just tell us a little bit about that and how Your customers will be using that. Yeah, absolutely So perhaps just before I before I get to that FlexCentral's got a really a national platform of data centers We have 41 facilities across 19 US geographies But interconnection really the glue that that makes that a platform Is is really the network resources that we bring to bear So we've been investing in really network resources of FlexCentral for the last 20 years but in the last seven years in particular really building capabilities that are are almost The first time the market has seen it. So FlexCentral fabric is really a next generation solution that allows for software defined Software-defined Networking capability and and really software definite that software divine component really make it makes it almost seamless for the customer to To consume that that resources, but because we have a broad range of interconnection solutions within the FlexCentral Platform that ability to access all of those capabilities over a single port is really the The first time component of the FlexCentral fabric offering. So we have a whole array of resources from IP transport to direct private line Connections between between facilities that we call data center interconnect. We provide our own private private cloud resources to customers We also provide federation to the hyperscale cloud resources, and then we also have some virtualized Product capabilities on the data protection front, which has become Increasingly important to almost every customer in the world and so really over that single single port connection It's kind of one and done so you can connect to all of those resources that are embedded in the flex any Flex anywhere platform over that single connection and that that here to four hasn't been available to to customers So we're very excited about it. Absolutely. It's something to be excited about Yeah, you mentioned flex anywhere and I wanted to ask you about the flex anywhere platform So how do you define that? And then what are those main benefits for the customers and the partners? Yeah, so the flex anywhere platform is really our moniker for everything that we do within the within that that breadth of data center capabilities that I that I talked about earlier and so it's it's about reach which gives customers the the ability and the agility to scale Wherever they need to and it also Provides the optionality to access resources on on demand that are elastic based on the requirements of the customer Whether it's a requirement today or it's a requirement a three three three years from now So flex anywhere is not just about geographic reach it's about flexing to the the resources be it physical in terms of colo or physical level cost connects or to To flex to products that you're going to need so it's both about reach But it's also about Scalability within the product themselves and with our industry Shifting and evolving so quickly you have to be ready to quickly turn it on and flex to where you need to be Speaking of the future. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you while we've got you here What do you see as far as trends for 2024 and beyond in the co-location? Yeah Well, it's it's a great question because 2023 really saw a whole set of unprecedented Trends I'd say set upon the industry and all and all great things but really size which shifts in the way that Our product is consumed and thus the expectation of how quickly and at what scale we need to deliver it And that's not just the data center itself. It's the interconnection that enables Really the Federation of the those large-scale data sets anywhere and everywhere they need to go and and so I'm you know Really talking about the AI and GPU Compute capability that is now, you know available to everyone. That's really transforming The way that people consume our resource so for 2024 I think it's keeping pace with that is critically important But then also recognizing that there may be additional seismic shifts about how our customers And I'm kind of talking about the enterprise customers here consume our resource how do they consume a color resource relative to a virtualized compute resource because Given some of the constraints on raw on raw materials There may have to be an elasticity in and other products that still allow the compute to kind of To be as agile as it needs to be and what is to your point become an incredibly complex Dynamic in in the data center domain. Yeah Well anything else you want our viewers to know about flexential and what you might have coming up in the next year Yeah, for us as we as we looked at 2024 and beyond. It's really about Scale and and and bringing the resources that we've invested so much time and effort in to our customers in as as Dynamic and as scalable ways as possible. And so And we talked about interconnection here in particular. That's that's really a focal part of our business It's really a lifeline for For making our data center resource as dynamic as it needs to be for customers So you'll see flexentials and we've committed that to our existing customers We'll continue and invest in that year in and year out and and And always great to to be here at PTC Well, it's always it's great to have you here at the JSA TV desks So thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your experience here at PTC for the 15th year you said yeah 15th year so It's gonna be great. It's been great so far and I'm on a panel a little bit, but thank you for your time as well Absolutely. Well, thanks again Chris for stopping by and thanks to our viewers for tuning in and stay connected