1623 Farnam VP looks ahead to an incredible 2022

Greg Elliott, vice president of business development for 1623 Farnam, recently joined host Jim Davis, editor of EdgeIR.com, for a Fireside Chat touching on 1623’s rapid growth, opportunities for enterprise customers, and the industry outlook for 2022.

The conversation began with a quick overview of the 1623 Farnam facility in Omaha, Neb., and its Omaha IX internet exchange. If the three main rules of real estate are “location, location, location” the same could be said of the carrier neutral data center industry. Situated very near the geographic center of the continental United States, 1623 Farnam is like a digital crossroads for the nation with numerous hyperscalers located nearby.

“We’re the de-facto carrier hotel for Omaha – 9 stories, 75,000 square feet of data center space, cabinet-by-cabinet co-lo, cage co-lo, multiple fiber entrances into the building,” Greg says. He notes the facility recently underwent a $40 million renovation which greatly enhanced 1623’s capabilities, including new power and cooling.

The heart of the 1623 facility is its third-floor Meet-Me Room.

“In the Meet-Me Room, we have next-generation carriers like Megaport, so that’s an easy way to interconnect with multiple cloud infrastructures as well as different data centers across the world,” Greg says. “Right now, we’re helping a lot of enterprise customers with their digital transformation strategies because things are moving so fast, from 5G to mass machine learning, AI, hybrid cloud strategies. There’s a lot going on there. And so the ecosystem we have in our Meet Me Room is positioned very well to help an enterprise connect quickly, efficiently, and securely to all of those things.”

Greg looks ahead to further growth in the new year.

“We’re always building that ecosystem,” he says. “We have 50-plus carriers and ISPs that have that physical fiber presence, but we’re always looking to add more.” 1623 is always looking to stay on top of the latest technology and looks forward to building its augmented reality and virtual reality capabilities in the coming year, he adds.

One big date to look forward to is Sept. 22, when 1623 will host its annual Meet Me in the Middle conference for network providers, carriers, and industry partners. The agenda includes a golf  tournament and a tech-related scavenger hunt.

To see the full video, click here.