Meeting the needs of the next-gen data center customer
02
Flexential: Customer-centric investment in data center infrastructure
03
w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
FLEXENTIAL
CEO Chris Downie discusses the key differentiators putting Flexential ahead of the competition as a flexible and essential data center partner with a company-wide focus on customer success.
H
aving combined in August 2017, Peak10 and ViaWest rebranded as Flexential in January 2018 to highlight the organization’s
commitment to being both flexible and essential 04
to its IT customers. Since then, the data center and hybrid IT operator has continued its forbears’ strong expansion methodology and commitment to the customer experience. “We spend a ton of time making sure that we’ve got a customer success culture – an organization-wide strategy that puts customers at the top,” says CEO Chris Downie. A seasoned data center industry veteran, Downie is also a passionate rugby fan with both college and postgraduate playing experience. He carries the cooperative, strategic and spiritual ethos of the sport through his role as chief executive – with great success thus far. “Rugby is a sport where strategy and teamwork are key to how you execute plays – you have to pass backwards to advance your team and there are no breaks between plays. At Flexential we also focus on strategy and teamwork.
Flexential expanded its data center to 142,000 sq. ft. in Atlanta’s technology corridor
05
40
Data centers
1,000
Approximate number of employees
21
Domestic and international markets w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
FLEXENTIAL
“ We spend a ton of time making sure that we’ve got a customer success culture – an organizationwide strategy that puts customers at the top.” 06
— Chris Downie, CEO, Flexential
Our brand is anchored in the concept, ‘The Power of People in a Technical World®, which for us is all about making our customers successful. Their success is infused in everything we do.” Having been at the heart of the data center industry for more than ten years, Downie has seen firsthand how it has become a vital component of modern business. In light of today’s demands for capacity, security, redundancy, reliability and recovery, flexibility and network expansiveness, Flexential has invested heavily in establishing itself as the best option for companies undergoing digital transformation and expansion across the US. The sheer volume of data being created and being digitized is set to necessitate continuous upgrades to capacity as more data-heavy technologies take root. “There are massive amounts of data being generated for technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and a whole host of other applications requiring a data center to function effectively,” says Downie. “Having the capacity for this accelerating growth, and the exponential amount of information that needs to be stored, contained and kept safe for the rest of time, is massive for our
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘FLEXENTIAL FLEXANYWHERE TM SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORK’ 07 strategy going forward.” With 40 data
Flexential’s ability to go beyond the
centers across 21 US markets, Flexential
traditional expectations of a data
has not only the capacity but also the
center operator. Enterprises increasingly
geographical reach to set it apart from
operate in a hybrid world where their
a significant chunk of the competition.
infrastructure is located in many
“Having the ability to offer our products
physical locations and in a variety
across a broad geographical reach
of forms, making Flexential an ideal
allows us to get in front of demand
choice as the home base for a customer’s
across the country,” adds Downie.
hybrid IT operations. “We can provide
The company recently announced
our customers a variety of colocation
expansions to its facilities in Portland,
and cloud infrastructure choices,
Nashville, Charlotte and Atlanta.
helping them manage and protect the
Highlighting customer demand for
data that fuels their business, and most
solution providers with broad capabili-
importantly interconnect that infra-
ties, Downie is enthusiastic about
structure in a highly scalable, secure, w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
Don’t let your business go darK If downtime in your business equals disaster, Mitsubishi Electric achieves the highest reliability among backup power electronics suppliers. Our proprietary technology delivers continuous critical power in the most demanding environments at the highest levels of efficiency. It’s time to rethink your UPS.
www.MitsubishiCritical.com (800) 887-7830 • (724) 772-2555
DON’T LET YOUR BUSINESS GO DARK Design
Powered by Mitsubishi Electric’s revolutionary semiconductors and control Static switch with wrap around contactor for increased reliability
QUALITY
Legendary workmanship Every unit shipped is fully tested Utilize long life components, including 15 year capacitors and industrial grade fans
SERVICE
Over 200+ certified service technicians providing 24x7 tech support with 4 hour on-site response times Large inventory of parts on hand Industry-leading extended warranty terms
VALUE
Functionality & performance designed for 15+ year lifetime Generate less heat and require less cooling Lowest TCO over the lifetime of the UPS
Mitsubishi Electric UPS Reliability
99.9993%
FLEXENTIAL
10
and reliable fashion,” he says. “Our ability
being consumed and where, Flexential
to also offer professional services that can
is working to help them “future proof”
solve the challenges that our customers
their infrastructures. “One of our critical
face serves to make their engagement
differentiators is the network; the
with Flexential even more meaningful.”
investments we’ve made in resources
Flexential’s broad utility set is further
across our portfolio enables our
enhanced by its stellar network
customers to federate their data and
capabilities, and its aggressive invest-
resources anywhere and everywhere
ment strategy in this area is reaping
they need to.”
dividends. As more and more enterprises
A significant facet of Flexential’s
are considering architecture for edge
network platform is its access to the
and distributed computing, as well as
Asia Pacific market via subsea cables.
machine learning and artificial intelli-
Hosting direct access to three
gence toolkits to analyze how data is
trans-Pacific subsea cables, supplying
connectivity between Asia and the
those cables we have an entry point
West coast of the US offers a huge
to massive data sets, and this puts us
opportunity to Flexential’s customers
in a position to assist consortium
and makes Flexential more competi-
members, and other customers that
tive abroad. “The New Cross Pacific
want to be near those cables, to
(NCP) cable has some of the largest
complete the solutions they’re looking
cloud and communications providers
to build in the US.”
in Asia as consortium members, and it
Flexential has also been actively
extends to China, Taiwan, Korea and
investing in capitalizing on the
a whole host of other countries,” says
opportunities afforded by its size and
Downie. “We also host the Hawaiki
geographic reach, namely the ability
subsea cable which extends to
to communicate with larger customers
Australia and New Zealand. In hosting
that make decisions across multiple 11
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Chris Downie, CEO Chris leads Flexential as a proven Chief Executive Officer with deep expertise in the economics, delivery and operations of the data center and hybrid cloud businesses. He is responsible for setting and managing the strategic priorities that drive profitable growth. Chris joined the company in 2016. Prior to Flexential, Chris was the Chief Executive Officer of Telx Holdings, a leading interconnection and data center solutions provider based in New York City, New York. He has more than 25 years of combined executive leadership experience in finance and operations, working for Daniels & Associates, BroadStreet Communications and Motient Corporation. Chris holds a B.A. degree in History from Dartmouth College as well as a M.B.A. degree in International Business from New York University.
w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘THE NEXT BIG THING IS HERE: ATLANTA – ALPHARETTA EXPANSION’ 13 geographies and themselves have
financial institution at one of our
demanding requirements. “You can call
southeastern facilities, and that’s
it wholesale, you can call it multi-mega-
going to become one of the largest
watt transactions, but it’s really serving
processing centers for financial
large enterprises and large technology
trading transactions in the world.”
companies with greater deployments
The attractiveness of Flexential’s
than your average company.” Flexential
offering is further compounded by its
has been investing in its internal capabili-
leading security and recovery capabili-
ties to facilitate such deals with growing
ties, aiming to maximize peace of mind
success. “We recently completed a
for customers. “Security starts with
3MW deal in one of our western markets,
the physical security of the data center
with a large SaaS provider that’s
itself,” says Downie. “We’ve been very
focused on data storage; a hyper-scaler
focused on meeting and maintaining
in terms of their global growth. We have
compliance standards across a
also secured a 1.5MW contract with a
number of verticals in our domain. w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
FLEXENTIAL
14
111,000+ square-foot data center with unprecedented PUE of 1.3 at full capacity
“ Our ability to offer Professional Services that can solve the challenges our customers face, serves to make their engagement with Flexential even more meaningful.” — Chris Downie, CEO, Flexential
15
w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
DataOps is your data practice for the AI era. Connect your data consumers and data creators to accelerate collaboration and digital innovation. We help you place the right data in the right place at the right time. We are analytics, industrial expertise, technology and outcomes rolled into one great solution partner. We listen. We understand. We work with you. Get your DataOps advantage today with Hitachi Vantara.
hitachivantara.com
We also have a host of security functions
DRaaS. At the time of writing, seven of
built into our network to ensure data
Flexential’s facilities are equipped with
running through it is safeguarded,
its disaster recovery capabilities, with
encrypted and so forth. The network
more on the horizon.
is also a foundational element of our
Looking forward, Flexential continues
Disaster Recovery as a Service
to seek innovation and opportunities
(DRaaS) and recovery cloud functions.”
to enhance its customer offering.
In April 2019, Flexential was recog-
Downie offers Edge computing as
nized by Forrester Research as one of
an example of a customer trend that
eight leading contenders in the DRaaS
Flexential is keen to accommodate.
space, receiving the highest possible
“Data is being generated everywhere,”
rating for Forrester’s core DRaaS
he says, citing autonomous vehicles
offerings criteria. In June, Flexential
and connected vending machines as
was honored by Gartner and included
examples of data generators at the
in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for
edge of the network. “Those data sets
w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
17
FLEXENTIAL
YOUR BEST ELECTRICAL CONNECTION SINCE 1912. Sturgeon Electric’s commercial and industrial electrical construction division specializes in large-scale commercial electrical projects, telecommunications, high voltage distribution service, and maintenance to clients. When it comes to data centers, Sturgeon Electric is the premier contractor of choice. We have provided solutions for mission-critical facilities since the dawn of the digital age. Over the years, we have attained an unparalleled level of knowledge, skills, and experience. More importantly, we’ve gained the trust of our clients in some of the world’s most sensitive data environments.
our customers are consuming power, the scale at which they’re consuming network resources, and whether there is customer interest in different network technologies.” Downie adds that Flexential is equipped with the expertise to make the right call when it comes to such investments and in the personalization of its service offering. “We’re firm believers that the cloud is not the right home for all workloads, and helping our customers appreciate where workloads should reside is really important. As IT environments become more complex, our customers need help making the are coming from very far afield, so
right choices. The challenge for
having the ability to capture, process
operators is being prepared to have
and store them close to the given use
that conversation with customers.”
case is becoming increasingly impor-
Flexential is certainly prepared,
tant. When it comes to the information
empowered by Downie’s team-oriented
generated by a self-driving car, the data
and strategic leadership, and it is clear
needs to be processed by the car itself
that such preparation in each facet of
but it’s also sending huge amounts to
its operations will continue to grow.
local processing centers that need to be proximate to wherever the car is.” Flexential consistently evaluates areas for improvement in its environments, particularly as the needs and expectations of the customer continuously evolve. “We actively monitor how w w w.f l exe nt ia l. com
19
8809 Lenox Pointe Drive Suite G Charlotte, NC 28273 T 888-552-3539 www.flexential.com