Last year was my first 7x24 Exchange conference. I had been going to data center conferences for years and was sticking to that ones I knew my friends were at. Some friends and I decided to give 7x24 Exchange a try and now I have switched to going to 7x24 Exchange twice a year.
i am going to write a few more posts about my observations of 7x24 Exchange. One that helps me get a different perspective is 7x24 Exchange has a sponsored student program. I was able to get my nephew in this year. Justin just finished his sophomore year in mechanical engineering at U of Colorado-Boulder. His Dad works at Oracle, not in data centers. His aunt works at Intuit in the data center group. And, I do all kinds of fun stuff in data centers.
The one thing I told Justin is where else do you tell me people you are getting your degree in mechanical engineering, and people say "that's cool." I told Justin when he goes back to school he needs to go talk to the facility operations team, not the data center team to understand mechanical infrastructure on campus for data centers. The industry terminology can be a bit overwhelming, but getting the context at a place like 7x24 Exchange helps a lot to digest the industry news.
I would like to thank the folks at 7x24 Exchange for accepting Justin Ohara in their sponsored student program.