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I am back at 7x24 Exchange and trying out a switch to iOS only devices. I am using iPad Pro with a Logitech Create keyboard. The conference has just started officially.
Well for me it started at 4p when I walked in the lobby and started with people. Great people. Many were presenting and reminded me of the ideas they are discussing.
Attendance is over 700 and the conference carries on in its relevance in the industry.
Long time ago data center events were where the industry people got together. The size of data centers were below 10MW. Now data centers can be 50MW and some companies are adding 100s of MW per year in data center capacity. The cloud has obsoleted IT closets and small business servers. While putting pressure on the mid market and even enterprises.
What happened to all the growth and interest in data centers? It has consolidated. Google and Amazon in 10 years have gone from occupying small colo spaces to be one of the biggest data center operators. Add some of the other Cloud and Web companies and they dominate the growth. Financials and Telcos used to drive the data center innovation and around their HQs. Now the data center footprints can be found in Oregon, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Carolina.
Long ago (8 years ago) when I started blogging on green data centers hardly any one discussed renewable energy. Now Apple, Google, and Facebook have made sustainability part of the data center message.
Given this consolidation and shift has the data center event gone through as big a shift? Many events have attempted to adjust their presentations. But, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft don't go to data center conferences to discover new things. If they do go, they are usually presenting or found it convenient to attend.
How many people attending a conference can be hard to find. The staff at 7x24 Exchange make it easy to know as they share the current and past attendance numbers. (Note: SC is spring conference and FC is fall conference)
This sharing fits with 7x24 Exchange updating its mission to include sustainability and social responsibility which is built on being open and transparent.
As you look at what data center conferences to attend look for whether they disclose past conference attendance to gauge whether the conference is appealing to its user base.
7x24 Exchange has been discussing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainability ideas for years. And, now its part of their official mission statement.
Astronaut Mark Kelly gave the opening keynote at the Spring 2015 7x24 Exchange Conference in Orlando on June 8, 2015 - "Endeavour to Succeed"
The keynote was well received and a memorable one. The opening video was an excerpt from this U2 video to a concert in Seattle at Qwest Field.
One of the main themes that Mark Kelly covered is having a Goal, a Plan, and Working hard. One of my data center friends had just seen Mark Kelly at another executive event and he noticed there were parts of the presentation that are his theme, and how he customized the presentation to the data center audience.
To give you an idea of what Mark spoke about here is a Ted video.
7x24 Exchange spends a lot of effort to get inspirational keynotes and this keynote by Mark Kelly is amongst the top ones.
DatacenterDynamics built its events on being in many cities around the world. They have scaled back and their next US event is in SF on July 30-31. Looking at the speaker list convinced me it was worth going to. What you will not find is Uptime Institute, 451 Group, or Gartner on the speaker list. They are competitors. Is it really that bad that you don't have analysts there presenting? All to often they are trying to sell you on their services. (So glad I stopped doing that analyst stuff years ago. Was not fun and too many times you would just make up stuff to support the sale.) :-)
It is interesting that Uptime Institute is planning on going to Dallas from Santa Clara in 2016 whereas DCD is sticking to SF one of its most popular shows. Here is a list of DCD's shows.
The other indicator of how well the show is doing financially are the # of sponsors. I had written about the sponsors at 7x24 Exchange vs. Uptime Symposium. http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2015/5/18/uptime-symposium-vs-7x24-exchange-sponsors.
Below is the DCD sponsor list. Now some of you may want to go to a show with less sponsors, but those sponsorship dollars is what help pays for the event.
