Data Center POST interview with Bill Thomson, VP of Marketing and Product at DC BLOX
By Contributing Editor Sarah Chamberlain
Bill Thomson is vice president of marketing and product at DC BLOX, a multi-tenant data center provider in the Southeast delivering the infrastructure and connectivity to power today’s digital business. The company has data centers in Atlanta, Chattanooga and Huntsville and will soon open a center in Birmingham. Before DC BLOX, Bill worked most recently at cloud communications providers Vonage and Cbeyond (Now Birch Communications).
Data Center POST was recently at the INCOMPAS Policy Summit and had the chance to chat with Bill about DC BLOX’s Birmingham expansion, new services and more.
Data Center POST, Sarah Chamberlain (DCP-SC) Question: Tell our readers about DC BLOX and the problems you are trying to solve.
DC BLOX, Bill Thomson (DCB-BT) Answer: DC BLOX is a multi-tenant data center provider serving the needs of businesses in the Southeast. We build data centers in tier 2 growing cities where options for secure reliable facilities haven’t previously been available. And what we find is that not only is there a strong need in these cities for local colocation, but also a need for rich network connectivity to customers, to the cloud, to business partners and to mobile workers.
DCP-SC Q: DC BLOX recently announced its expansion into Birmingham, Alabama with the construction of a new data center. What is unique about the market and makes it a good opportunity?
DCB-BT-A: Birmingham is a great market for DC BLOX. They are the largest metro in the SE without a multi-purpose data center, a strong local economy, fiber availability and a growing tech industry. In addition, Birmingham also has a welcoming business climate and a strong vision for business growth in their city. They understand that data centers are core infrastructure that helps attract technology-dependent businesses and create high paying jobs. With the incentives Birmingham offered, we’ll be able to pass on the benefit to our customers, which should attract more businesses to the region. We’re very excited to be part of the Birmingham community!
DCP-SC Q: What are some other ways that DC BLOX is differentiating itself as a data center provider in the Southeastern United States?
DCB-BT-A: DC BLOX has always had a community orientation. We don’t just want to do business in our markets, we want be invested, involved and respected in our communities. For example, DC BLOX is committed to responsible contracting and awarded $1.1 million to disadvantaged business entities for the Birmingham construction project. We also are donating PCs and furniture to a local recreation center in the Titusville community where our data center is located.
DCP-SC Q: The company also recently announced the launch of a new service to provide cloud storage to enterprise customers. Tell us about the new service and its primary customers.
DCB-BT-A: Companies are struggling with the rapid growth and management of data. It’s happening in every industry because data collection and analysis is such a competitive weapon. But all that data has to be stored somewhere and protected in case of a local disaster, a fire or flood for example. Cloud Storage provides an easy way to backup data at low cost from a business’s location over the Internet so it’s protected off-site. The major public cloud providers offer a similar service, but most companies we talk with would rather keep their data with a local provider.
DCP-SC Q: What are you most interested to learn about while attending the INCOMPAS policy summit?
DCB-BT-A: The summit provides a great opportunity to learn from and influence business and government leaders in the communications and tech industry. We are certainly interested in hearing about the progress of 5G and its impact on fiber deployment around the US, and the evolving regulations around privacy, both of which can provide opportunities for data center operators like DC BLOX.
DCP-SC Q: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about DC BLOX or what we can expect to see from the company in the near future?
DCB-BT-A: DC BLOX is on the move and plans to build a network of connected data centers across the Southeast. We have built our own private network which means that customers have access to very large capacity connections between our data centers and to the Internet Exchanges, providing interconnections with hundreds of providers for truly global access. Our network also connects with all the major cloud providers to support hybrid cloud scenarios.
DCP-SC: Thank you for chatting with us. To learn more about DC BLOX, please visit dcblox.com.
