Louis Blanchot

With a decade of data centre experience, Etix Everywhere Group CEO Louis Blanchot has seen it all when it comes to the once fledgling industry that is now integral to our lives.

Formed in France in 2012, Etix Everywhere now operates 15 data centres, and has grown quickly in the last three years. The number of data centres has tripled in that time, while turnover has grown eight-fold.

Etix Everywhere is committed to providing colocation solutions that are both sovereign and environmentally friendly, all within 200-km of its partners' headquarters. This USP has really helped to drive the business.

“We only focus on the edge market, which for us means bringing the service to the customer and not the customer to the service,” says Etix Everywhere Group CEO Louis Blanchot.

So what makes Etix Everywhere different from other edge data centre operators?

Blanchot points to the main USP and reason why customers move from a hyperscaler to Etix as the range of IT partners that can bring added services. On top of the colocation factor, Etix is able to deliver a service similar to hybrid cloud.

“Edge data centres provide customers with access to a lot of solutions to develop their hybrid cloud infrastructure, but also what we see is that there are more and more services that require low latency – for example, autonomous vehicle, IoT, streaming, gaming all these new trends,” says Blanchot.

“There is a growing demand for low latency and also the question of traffic congestion that you can have on connectivity. So, when all the telco companies want to bring a service to their customer, if they had to send data from Marseille to Paris to come back to Marseille, or basically to send the data to be computed, like in all those tier one locations, it creates virtual traffic congestion. When the data can be computed straight away, locally, it will save a lot of bandwidth.”

Part of the appeal of Etix is the fact that it offers a modular solution, and always has done. Back in 2012, it was innovative, but now many operators are trying to use modular architecture.

“It's funny. It's what we created,” declares Blanchot. “It was our innovative design when we created Etix, and the design that we have sold to all our customers ever since – because the benefits are obvious. 

“Firstly, you only invest in what you need, and you are not building a huge campus and trying to get the revenue and cover your huge Capex. The other main benefit is that we know that the PUE [Power Usage Effectiveness] is really related to IT usage.”

Evidence of how Etix is looking to expand its footprint in a sustainable manner comes with its first edge data centre in Thailand’s capital Bangkok.

Instrumental in this expansion into Asia is trusted partner Schneider Electric – the energy consultancy regularly voted the world’s most sustainable company.

Blanchot points to several factors that Etix Everywhere had to tackle, from culture to climate, and how Schneider Electric’s expertise helped them to navigate these challenges.

“Having the support from a big partner like Schneider Electric is huge,” says Blanchot. “That's why we only work with such a world-class supplier. They have been brilliant for us – and have been able to deliver the same level of quality in a new country.

“Working with Schneider, they helped provide a turnkey solution, so we can just push the button and know exactly the price, the timing, and the level of quality.

“It's just a copy and paste of how we worked with Schneider Electric in France, and being able to rely on them has been a big comfort and given me the confidence that we can deliver for our customers.”

Read the full story HERE.