Meet the people behind LON3: 5 minutes with…Ronnie...

Q. How long have you been at Interxion?

A. 'I've been working at the company for just over six years now, I started in 2013 as a Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) Engineer and was promoted to my current management role a year later.'

How did you get into data centre implementation and service delivery?

'For a number of years, I was a Telecoms and Data Engineer installing and testing data cabling, working within BT exchanges across the UK. A role at Interxion came up, I thought it looked like an interesting place to work so I applied and got the job!'

What excites you most about your job?

'The most exciting thing is that I'm constantly faced with new challenges. Each and every customer has increasingly different connectivity and colocation needs depending on their size, end-users or workloads, and they all come to us with differing requests. There's always something new that we have to work out.

'For example, our financial services customers need to be as close as possible to the end-user or exchange where they are trading to minimise latency. We worked hard to find a tackle this requirement for LON3 and successfully reached a great solution to help our customers achieve their goals. It was quite a large project but it means the data centre is now more appealing to FS companies, who make up a lot of our customer base.'

Describe your happy place?

'On a beach in Barbados with a cocktail.'

What can't you leave home without?

'My phone - I can't work without it!'

If you could have three famous people over for Come Dine with Me, who would you choose and why?

'This is difficult… The people I'm thinking of, I'd definitely like to go to their house instead! The first would have to be John Terry - I'm a Chelsea fan and I've grown up watching the game and him as captain. Then I'd have Jose Mourinho. He's managed the team successfully twice and I think he'd probably be an interesting character and a good laugh. Finally, I'd invite Lewis Hamilton as I've followed him since his early days in F1 racing.'

What is your day-to-day role / main responsibilities at Interxion?

'My main responsibility is leading and managing the team of engineers at Interxion. We have 12 engineers who work on a 24-hour shift pattern so our data centres have round-the-clock support should any issues arise. I work with them on a daily basis on everything from setting up new customer cabling and rack space in the data centre, to managing migration, inspecting and maintaining systems, and even creating process documents. We rotate disciplines and tasks so all our engineers are constantly challenged. Employee satisfaction is very important to me.

'Another part of my job is dealing closely with people in other areas of the organisation including sales and finance to ensure policies set out by HQ are being met.'

What role did you play in the development of LON3?

'My role was largely implementing the cabling infrastructure into LON3 and linking this to the other data centre buildings in our London campus - LON1 and LON2. Being in central London, unfortunately means we don't have endless space so we need to make our data centres as high density as possible. I worked to source a new cabling provider to ensure LON3 was working at maximum capacity from the offset. We also brought in a new fibre provider to connect our entire campus and Meet Me Room (MMR) so we're able to offer the best connectivity to multiple carriers and providers. LON3 now has three times the fibre capacity of LON1.

'Finally, I was responsible for installing the ICT system within the new data centre, this included many components including the DMS, connectivity, monitoring, and security systems, and switches etc.'

Were there any challenges you had to overcome?

'Yes, naturally there were a few challenges. One of the main problems we faced was working while building works were in progress. There would be days when our engineering team would need to access a certain area of the DC but wouldn't be able to due to builders being in there. Overcoming challenges like this is all part of the job though!'

To find out what our newest data centre, LON3, can offer your business, get in touch or download the LON3 factsheet.

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