I started my data center conference attendance 5 years ago with Uptime Symposium, then DatacenterDynamics. Eventually going to Data Center World and Gartner data center conference. I had heard about 7x24 Exchange, but I was so busy going to the other conferences I didn't fit in a trip to 7x24. Thanks to words of encouragement from David Schirmacher, I decided to go and convinced another data center executive as well to go to a 7x24 exchange conference and compare. Now keep in mind what I am sharing is biased. David Schirmacher is a good friend whose opinion I trust and he is now the President of 7x24 Exchange. I get to go to almost all the conferences as media so I get access to people and information that people are interested in having written up. So the value of what I am getting from these conferences is not looking for equipment or ideas to put in a data center that I run. I am looking for who is the most innovative in the industry and interesting to write about.

I just went through the speaker list for 7x24 Exchange and more of my friends are speakers at 7x24 Exchange than any other conference. These are good friends that we will chat in bar, hang out to discuss a variety of topics, get together whenever we are in the same town, and would gladly cook a meal in my woodstone pizza oven. Here is picture of the oven on a pallet before installation. It does kind of look like something that could be installed at a data center. :-)

This is my fifth 7x24 Exchange, going twice a year for 2 1/2 years and one simple measure of why I go is I see more of my friends as speakers at the conference than any other one. Which has the side benefit of when I do want to write a blog entry for a presentation I have access to the speaker. Writing about my friends can create a bias, but why try to fool anyone with unbiased reporting. Everyone has biases. My bias is to help my friends spread the word on where the industry needs to be going.