Data Center POST interview with Jezzibell Gilmore, SVP Business Development and Co-Founder, PacketFabric

By Contributing Editor Sarah Chamberlain

Jezzibell Gilmore is SVP of Business Development and Co-Founder of PacketFabric, the highly scalable connectivity-as-a-service platform. Prior to her work at PacketFabric, Jezzibell was an early stage employee at AboveNet Communications and Akamai Technologies. She has also served as VP of Operations at RoamData and VP of Business Development at GTT.

Data Center POST recently had the chance to chat with Jezzibell about PacketFabric’s milestones, industry challenges, and goals for 2019.

Data Center POST, Sarah Chamberlain (DCP-SC) Question: Tell our readers what problems PacketFabric is attempting to solve right now?  

PacketFabric, Jezzibell Gilmore (PF-JG) Answer: Traditional network service providers require long provisioning times, inflexible contracts, and opaque pricing. PacketFabric solves these problems with network automation; pricing and data transparency; and innovative technology and business processes.

All PacketFabric network services are available on-demand, with instantaneous provisioning through a web portal and API, transparent and competitive pricing, and flexible month-to-month contracts.

Automation is the future, and that’s what we’ve built our platform around. Our mission is to make network services easy to consume.

DCP-SC Q: What milestones did you achieve in 2018 and how will these developments help PacketFabric keep up with the demands of the quickly growing and ever-changing telecommunications industry?

PF-JG A: In 2018, we focused on making our platform easier and more convenient to use for our customers. We expanded the reach of our network to more than 150 locations in 19 markets in the U.S. and Europe, brought additional service providers onto our fabric, and secured strategic partnerships to bring PacketFabric into Asia and beyond.

Here’s a few specific highlights:

  • We launched our private cloud on-ramp product, PacketCOR, to offer connectivity to cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Packet, Oracle, Salesforce, and more
  • PacketFabric is now available in London! We announced our first location outside of the U.S. in June, and we’ve already seen tremendous customer demand for our London PoP
  • We recently added PoPs in new areas including Asia and Miami
  • In December, we announced a strategic partnership with StrataNet, which will allow us to bring PacketFabric into Asia, as well as expand StrataNet’s reach to every location on our fabric

DCP-SC Q: What are you most looking forward to accomplishing over the next year? The next 3-5 years?  

PF-JG A: In the next year, we’re bringing our services to the underserved enterprise market. We plan to continue bringing automation to the networking industry, expanding our network footprint globally, and supporting the networking needs of our customers by continuing to build our ecosystem, bringing new PoPs on-net, and offering truly on-demand network services.

Over the next 3-5 years, PacketFabric will focus on bringing innovative networking services over our platform in support of the growing demand for storage, security, and interconnectivity.

We’ll further strengthen our presence outside of the United States while adding partnership solutions to reach enterprise destinations.

DCP-SC Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge(s) that is impacting your industry and how are you working to overcome it?

PF-JG A: The telecom industry is resistant to change. Customers want the fast time to market, insight into traffic data, and control that only network automation can provide.

There’s a lot of talk in the industry about software-defined networking; unfortunately, many legacy carriers simply aren’t capable of true network automation. This is why PacketFabric exists. We had to create a greenfield network from the ground up, designed for automation, to provide truly on-demand network services for our customers.

With PacketFabric, our customers gain faster time to market, easy to use network services, and deep insight into their network data thanks to our focus on network automation, transparency, and innovation.

DCP-SC Q: The theme of PTC’19 is From Pipes to Platforms. How do you believe that theme relates to PacketFabric and your mission?

PF-JG A: PacketFabric isn’t just a network provider; we go way beyond just offering dumb pipes. We’ve built a true network-as-a-service platform, offering our customers network automation, reliable and scalable connectivity on-demand, and a rich ecosystem of potential customers, business partners, and service providers.

We offer easy to use network infrastructure as a service, enabling our customers to build their own businesses and free them up to focus on their core competencies.

DCP-SC Q: What are you most looking forward to accomplishing at PTC’19?

PF-JG A: PTC is always a great event for us! We successfully launched PacketFabric as a company at PTC 2017, not just with our truly innovative service offering, but with a kick-ass party that set the tone for our first groundbreaking year.

With a year of hard work in between, in 2018 we were recognized at the inaugural PTC award ceremony. Our platform won “Best Application / Service Innovation” and we won a second award for “Best Networking Innovation” with our partner Aqua Comms.

We’re looking forward to kicking off 2019 by meeting with new business partners for new innovation and network expansion, helping existing customers grow, and meeting with prospective customers to join our ecosystem.

PTC is a fantastic event for setting the tone for those who have already garnered the benefits of the PacketFabric ecosystem, and those who are looking to join our fabric.

DCP-SC Q: Thanks so much for your time. To request a meeting with PacketFabric at PTC’19 please contact packetfabric@imillerpr.com.  To learn more about PacketFabric, please visit www.packetfabric.com.