The DCF Show: Bill Kleyman on The State of the Data Center in 2021

July 7, 2021
On the Data Center Frontier Show, Rich Miller and guest Bill Kleyman dig into the hot trends (cloud repatriation, FinOps and, yes, ROBOTS!)  as well as the big challenges facing the data center industry. Two guys who love to talk about data centers.

We’re jazzed this week to have Bill Kleyman, a long-time friend of our team and publications, as the guest on the Data Center Frontier Show. Bill is Executive VP of Digital Solutions at Switch, as well as author of the AFCOM State of the Data Center research report and head of millennial outreach for Infrastructure Masons. He has also been an editorial contributor for both Data Center Knowledge and DCF, and is a technology evangelist with nearly boundless enthusiasm for his work.

In this podcast, Bill and I dig into some of the prevailing trends in digital infrastructure (digital transformation, cloud repatriation, FinOps and, yes, ROBOTS!)  as well as the big challenges facing the data center industry (staffing, sustainability and inclusion). It’s a fun, wide-ranging conversation. I had a blast, and I hope you will too.

DCF Show 19: Bill Kleyman Looks at the State of the Data Center

Listen to today’s show:

Here’s a timeline of topics Bill and I discuss on the podcast:

  • 3:30 – The latest trends in how enterprise customers are using cloud, service providers and on-premises data centers.
  • 7:30 – Cloud Repatriation: Is this a thing? How important is this trend? Bill digs into the details.
  • 11:15 – FinOps is the hot new infrastructure specialty. Bill and Rich discuss the power of FinancialOps.
  • 15:00 – The data center staffing challenge: Initiatives to introduce young workers to data center careers.
  • 26:00 – How robots and autonomous systems may help maintain data centers.
  • 35:00 –  Why the growing focus on ESG is good for data centers and good for the planet.

Here are some resources that Rich and Bill discussed on the podcast:

Be sure to check our our free Annual Forecast, outlining the DCF take on the most important trends to watch this year:

Did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe to the Data Center Frontier show so you get future episodes on your app. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find quality podcasts. You can also subscribe using our RSS feed, and tell your friends and colleagues about our podcast!

We’ve also just launched the Data Center Frontier Channel on YouTube to showcase our videos, where we explain the infrastructure that powers the digital world. If you like data centers or work in the industry, you’ll want to subscribe!

About the Author

Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.

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