Avner Papouchado

Data centre operators have been called the landlords of the internet, AI and global digital, networked economies. But not all landlords are the same. Avner Papuchado, CEO of fast growing commercial colocation data centre firm Serverfarm has always had a unique perspective on the company’s role and its responsibilities to its customers.

“We listen to our customers, and I think our customers rely on us to change with them. A lot of times we try to anticipate what our customers’ needs are before they have a problem,” Papouchado highlights.

Serverfarm has integrated advanced engineering, sustainability and digital transformation into its mission and culture. The company’s real estate beginnings in the late 1990s laid the foundations for its evolution from a US-based single-tenant landlord to a multi-tenant data centre operator and now to a global data centre owner, developer and operator.

Papouchado has been the guiding force behind Serverfarm since its founding. With 25 years in the industry, Papouchado has been an instrumental force in the internet infrastructure market with his innovative approach to data centre sustainability and growth. 

His formula of modernising existing data centre facilities using Serverfarm’s InCommand Data Center Management as a Service (DMaaS) approach has proved to be a sustainable, economical way to meet the high capacity demands of customers. Instead of simply pushing space and power, Papouchado has been intentional about building data centre solutions at the heart of the challenges enterprises face.

In the early years of the data centre industry some believed that abundant resources in terms of land and energy would always be available, and planned, built and operated accordingly. Serverfarm recognised early on that the smart investment, use and management of finite resources was the only sustainable long-term strategy.

With today’s data centres getting bigger and bigger, demand for ever-increasing capacity is set to continue. “As part of this huge increase in volume, there has to be new thinking of what data centres are. We have got very clear ideas around that, and I think there are some great solutions that will come to those that will serve it.”

In an era where sustainability is increasingly important, Serverfarm takes the issue of environmental responsibility and energy efficiency in its operations very seriously.

Papouchado identifies how Serverfarm is a data centre operator that drives sustainability through practical engineering advances and innovations that help hyperscalers and all users meet their commitments to carbon reduction. 

“It used to be that everybody had Office suites and apps in their closet, running a PUE of 3.0. Now, Microsoft for example has moved Office to Azure, running at a PUE 1.2, and that's an example of a huge driver of sustainability to the world.”

As Papouchado concludes, the data centre industry should be seen as a positive when it comes to sustainability. “It's actually good that the data centre industry can use electricity responsibly,” he says. “We can buy bulk sustainable energy and make it affordable. Data centres are really good for the world and, together as an industry, we have to advertise that.”

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