France-IX Portal
December 2015
Franck Simon has been managing director of France-IX Services since its inception in 2010 and brings his extensive industry experience to the management and ongoing development of the non-profit association Internet exchange point. Prior to taking up his role at France-IX, Franck was the technical director of Renater, the French academic network, for almost 15 years.
Franck has in-depth experience in wide area networks and is knowledgeable about the strategies and policies for interconnection between operators and the context of peering in Europe.
What helped you decide on a career in the IT industry?
I decided to embark upon a career in IT in the early days of my employment. Having focused almost entirely on science as a student, I then coupled this area of study with computers, and quickly embraced computer science. This led to my first job, with the French Academic Network, and when I started work and grew more experienced I became absolutely convinced that I wanted to continue not only in computers, but in IT and networking.
What are the biggest changes you have seen in the data centre industry?
I have seen three major changes in the data centre industry. First, there has been an increase in terms of the power supply (electronical capacity) inside the data centres, as well as the supply of high density racks for the customers of these data centres. The racks and network equipment with a high density of ports consume much more electricity, and necessitate a significantly increased power supply.
Secondly, there has been a significant increase of the numbers of ‘carrier neutral’ data centres, resulting in more competition between these data centres.
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(...) Finally, I have witnessed a diversification of the types of networks colocated in the data centres, and in particular have seen many more corporations of all sizes using these data centres.
Read the full interview on DCN
