Warren Buffett, the Reuben sandwich and data centers. If this were “Jeopardy!” the answer would be “What is Omaha known for?” Sure, the hometown of the billionaire investor and the birthplace of the corned beef sandwich are obvious examples, but what about data centers? Well, it turns out it’s a pretty advantageous place to operate them.
ITW Tidbits
Greg Elliott, 1623 Farnam’s Vice President of Business Development, talked about the benefits of the location during a recent interview appearance along with fellow Vice President of Business Development Matt Reed at ITW 2023, held May 14-17 at National Harbor, Maryland. With a physical location in the middle of the country, Omaha is the nexus point for internet traffic in the United States.
“We have lots of great fiber routes, long-haul fiber routes, north, south, east and west and everything in between, so that’s huge,” Greg told JSA TV. Greg also goes on to explain how electricity rates are low in the region, which attracts hyperscalers and helps to build the rich ecosystem we have at 1623 Farnam.
Greg and Matt’s trip to ITW was just one part of a busy month here for us at 1623 Farnam, with lots of opportunities to showcase our facility and highlight the benefits it delivers. In addition to the location’s value — and our on-site Internet Exchange, Omaha IX — Greg and Matt talked about how 1623 continues to build its ecosystem and how they’re able to help companies who are navigating uncertain economic times.
“We’re truly carrier-neutral, content provider-neutral and cloud-neutral,” Greg told JSA TV. “That puts us in a unique position to help enterprise customers as they’re working on their digital transformation strategy, and we act as a consultant. That’s why we’re here at ITW, to learn as much as we can about the different networks, new technologies and new connections that can happen. We take that back to our enterprise customers and our content customers to help them maximize their IT spend, from hybrid cloud solutions to peering on the exchange.”
The full interview with JSA TV at ITW can be found here.
News From Channel Partners
Another way 1623 Farnam’s location helps is in meeting sustainability goals, as President Todd Cushing explained in an appearance at the Channel Partners Conference and Expo, held May 1-4 in Las Vegas. Omaha’s winters create a great opportunity to reduce power usage, Todd told JSA TV, as heat from the data center is redistributed to other businesses. This arrangement provides 7,000 hours of cooling-free operation a year. “We [also] have the benefit of actually participating in a co-op to get rid of some of our heat in an efficient way,” Todd noted.
Still, the big news to come out of Channel Partners was the announcement that 1623 Farnam launched its channel partner program. It gives partners a range of resources, including experienced channel managers, brand materials, co-marketing opportunities and more, to ensure customers can easily find strategic, digitally transformative solutions.
“We’ve got our portal set up, we’ve got our marketing, our contracts, everything is in order,” Todd told JSA TV.
Don’t miss the whole interview with JSA TV at Channel Partners. Watch here.
A Podcast to Remember
Todd also touched on the new program when he joined the Data Movers Podcast earlier this month to talk about 1623 Farnam and the Omaha IX. The conversation spanned various aspects of the data center and IX operations, including the opportunities presented by peering.
“It’s just a good way to go for people who want to share data and lots of it,” Todd told the Data Movers Podcast. “Hyperscalers are dumping data out in the IX and then people peer with that data. It’s just a gamut of ways it can be used, from gaming to video content for all kinds of things that people watch on their TVs and don’t realize it’s coming through an IX. But it’s very misunderstood. A lot of people still don’t know what an IX is or how to leverage it, so it’s pretty common for us to break it down with people and explain to them what it is and how it can be used.”
Check out the full Data Movers Podcast episode with Todd here.