Your Data Centre, On Demand

Nicholas Voth • August 31, 2021 • 5 minute read

Hybrid IT, Colocation, Channel Partners in Data Centers

Cyxtera is a leader in global data centre colocation and interconnection services and provides intelligently automated and deeply connected infrastructure to businesses around the world, enabling them to scale faster, meet rising consumer expectations and gain a competitive edge. Nicholas Voth, Vice President, Global Channel Strategy and Sales, recently sat down with James Kirkland, Director, MSP Channel Sales/EMEA, to talk about the company’s EMEA-focused channel.

Nick Voth: Cyxtera today is a global company with operations spread across 28 markets, but it hasn’t always been this way. We talk a lot about how we provide partners with a host of future-proofing solutions, but the data centre is still the heart of our business. Please describe our data centre operations within EMEA and what we offer our customers and partners in the region.

James Kirkland: I think what you’ve said is spot on, in terms of the important role our data centres serve. Dating back to 2017, when Cyxtera was formed through the purchase of CenturyLink’s data centre and colo business, colocation has been our bread and butter. We count six strategically located and highly connected data centres in the EMEA market. They’ve proven ideal for companies looking for disaster recovery and backup solutions or simply looking to scale their storage operations.

Nick Voth: What, in your opinion, sets Cyxtera apart from the competition?

James Kirkland: You know, of course, that we pride ourselves on being a high-performance, trusted and reliable global platform. And that sounds great on paper — and it is! — but I think the real difference lies in what you can’t see and the fact that while we’re a global company, we’re still small enough to really listen to our customers and partners and customize our solution to align with their needs.

We see our partners and their customers as an extension of Cyxtera, and we’re not happy until they are. Regardless of what our partners need, we work with them to create a bespoke solution that not only solves the immediate problem, but adds long-term business value. Our customizable array of solutions allows partners to centralize their complete data ecosystem with a software-defined platform that has on-demand provisioning and lets them tailor each element of a traditional data centre, including storage, compute power, networking, and management.

Beyond that, if they’re looking for on-demand compute or more robust storage solutions, our digital exchange offers both these things, as well as a host of other benefits including a remote management portal, a fully automated provision platform, and an ecosystem of network and technology service providers at their fingertips. Our data centre platform, meanwhile, gives them the physical and digital infrastructure they need to compete in today's digital world. We want partners to see the data centre as a profit centre, and leverage solutions to drive sustainable growth, all without sacrificing their ability to connect with customers.

Nick Voth: Cyxtera might not be as well known in the EMEA region as some of the other data centre solution providers. Can you share what you see as being among the benefits of partnering with us?

James Kirkland: You’re exactly right. In fact, I joke with our EMEA-based customers that we’re the best company you’ve never heard of. If you asked someone in EMEA to name 10 data centre providers, we might not make the list. Not because we’re not on par with them, and personally, I think our offerings are competitive with the best of the best, but we’re just not as well known. Ironically, if you ask someone about CenturyLink data centres, however, they’d say “Oh, yes!” not realizing that our European data centre operations have grown in their footprint.

Today, we are future-ready and designed for scale. In fact, we built our API-driven carrier-neutral platform from the ground up with the goal of becoming the most future-ready, extensible data centre in the world. For companies that want to avoid the cost and complexity of constant migration and instead, take advantage of pricing that allows them to easily scale up and down, our customers and partners repeatedly tell us Cyxtera is the way to go.

We don’t believe in locking customers into rigid contracts or large capital expenditures. In fact, it’s just the opposite. We want to increase our customers’ agility through intelligent automation that allows for instant provisioning, enables remote monitoring and control, reduces operational costs, and makes interconnectivity a breeze. All of these things combined serve to enhance their network security, reliability, and performance.

Nick Voth: As the director for MSP Channel sales in EMEA, you have unique insight into what companies in the region are looking for in a channel partner. Where does the channel fit into Cyxtera’s overall strategy?

James Kirkland: That’s a great question, and I can tell you that we’re steadfast in our belief that partnerships are more than transactions. Even now as a public company, we continue to see the channel as an integral part of our success — together with our partner community, we build the solutions that customers need. Our job is to make our partners’ jobs as easy — and seamless — as possible. We provide colocation, interconnectivity, networking and on-demand services such as bare metal and storage, but when our customers require services above this, whether it’s Infrastructure as a Service, backup and recovery, disaster recovery analytics, AI, or any managed service — that’s when we connect them to our partner ecosystem.

Nick Voth: What would you say to someone who is on the fence about partnering with us?

James Kirkland: To quote Nike: Just do it! I truly feel partnering with Cyxtera is unique. For starters, we have a high level of engagement with our partners. We address their specific needs. We understand what their success looks like and that solutions such as on-demand and the OpEx flexibility of bare metal and digital exchange enable them to bring to market new services in a low cost, sow-as-they-grow way. When combined with our global footprint and existing marketplace of enterprise customers it provides them with an unparalleled opportunity to innovate and grow their business.

If you’re interested in learning more about our channel efforts in EMEA, we’d love to hear from you. For more information on our channel program, please visit: https://www.cyxtera.com/about-us/partners.

This article is the third in a series, spotlighting our partner programs.

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Nicholas Barron, CTO, Harbor Solutions, has to say: “Flexibility and willingness to help were attributes demonstrated from the very beginning of our relationship with Cyxtera. It is not often that vendors and partners form a true partnership, spending the time to listen, understand and take action that leads to growth.”

Martin Powell, CTO, NextGen UX: “In choosing to partner with Cyxtera we have been able to build and launch several new services, including a competitive Desktop as a Service solution using the Cyxtera Data Centre Platform, expanding our Strategy, Solution and Services business to now include a platform for Modern Workplace Solutions.”

Stuart McMinn, CTO, Bell Integration. “Our engagements with Cyxtera have been very collaborative and in every case so far, we have been able to present to our customers solutions that are not only commercially competitive but also compelling by the way they address the customer’s business needs.

Views and opinions expressed in our blog posts are those of the employees who made them and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Company. A reader should not unduly rely on any statements made therein.