The World will be a Cloud with Christian Koch, Founder and Editor at Foundations

This episode of Over the Edge features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Christian Koch, Founder and Editor at Foundations, a modern publication about digital infrastructure. He is a veteran leader in the digital infrastructure space having held several leadership and operational roles at companies such as Microsoft, Twitter, and Globix. Christian was most recently the Head of Interconnection Product at DataBank, and previously a Director of Product Management at Digital Realty and PacketFabric. In 2016, Christian Co-Founded the New York Network Operators Group, a non-profit organization that aims to connect network operators and technology professionals through educational events and programs.

In this episode, Christian talks about how his interest in information and curiosity to learn about as much as he could, led him to become both a generalist and expert in the world of digital infrastructure. He explains the landscape of interconnectivity, including its history of development, current infrastructure, expansion, evolution, and use throughout the United States. Christian also delves into what he thinks edge is becoming, the different layers of networking, and how the cloud will become a primary infrastructure for workloads in the future. 

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Key Quotes:

“Ethernet seems to be having this resurgence because it's probably the one technology that's is flexible as virtual machines in the cloud. You can basically scale it up and down. Whereas, you can go from a five gigabit ethernet circuit to a 10 gigabit ethernet circuit by issuing some configuration commands and making that change. Similar to how you can configure or reconfigure a virtual machine. Whereas, a wavelength isn't really like that, because it's all about dedicated connectivity. So if you think about ethernet share connectivity, that's what cloud computing is at the end of the day anyway; the shared infrastructure platform. So it makes it a little bit more flexible, and a little bit more easy to scale and deliver those services.”

“I don't even like using the word edge anymore because, you know, because I think it really boils down to it's just a place like geographical place. Right? You know, it doesn't have to do with networks. It doesn't have to do with clouds. It didn't have to do with computing. It's just, you know, kind of the perimeter between almost like interconnection.”

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Show Timestamps:  

(02:00) Getting Interested in Technology

(04:30) Path to Networking and Interconnection

(05:50) Explaining Interconnection

(09:15) Backbone of Interconnectivity in the United States

(15:43) Public versus Private Networks

(18:45) Internet as a Fabric

(21:06) Network as a Service

(32:00) State of the Edge 

(37:30) Internet Trends

(40:30) The Price of Shipping Data

(44:00) Future Trends

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies - unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting DellTechnologies.com/SimplifyYourEdge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Links:

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn

Foundations Newsletter

www.CaspianStudios.com