Oslo 2023

Datacenter Changemakers Norway – Episode 1
Tackling Challenges for Tech Leaders

Live talk show with the people who are changing the face of the data center industry, hosted & moderated by Liselotte Lyngsø, Founder of Future Navigator.

Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) and the Changing Role of IT in Enterprise & Government
 

I&O leaders are faced with the challenge of expanding their infrastructure platform and continuing the journey to hybrid IT & multicloud in a challenging external environment: geopolitical polarisation, supply chain disruptions, inflation, climate change, labor/skills shortages, and more. And rather than simply supporting business needs through technology, tech leaders are expected to create new business models and tap into new and additional revenue streams. In our first episode, we’ll navigate you through five key challenges in infrastructure and operations:

✅ Security – How can companies protect their business-critical data while also ensuring their applications and services comply with regular cyber and physical security assessments?

✅ Cost – Amid an economic downturn and the fear of recession, how can hybrid IT and multicloud solutions provide cost savings while assuaging CFOs accounting for cloud’s promised ROI?

✅ Sustainability – With new policy, legislation, and regulation demanding more sustainable infrastructure on the near horizon, leadership will have to face the "elephant" in the server room: Scope 3 emissions throughout the value chain. Who’s responsible?

✅ Resilience & Reliability – How can companies better manage cloud migration and distribute workloads across multiple availability zones to maintain resilience & reliability in a cost-effective and sensible way without interrupting service?

✅ Compliance – With new Norwegian legislation and EU regulation requiring companies to better evaluate and plan risks arising from third-party cloud providers, what opportunities do hybrid IT and multicloud solutions present to ensure compliance and lower risk? Moreover, how will new policy developments impact enterprise data strategies & IT infrastructure, how can they best prepare for new reporting requirements, and will it impact Norway’s conducive regulatory approach for the data center industry? 

Guests:

Halvor Bjerke – CEO Nordics, STACK EMEA

Petter Tømmeraas – CEO, AQ Compute

Ravi Shankar – Director of Cloud, Infrastructure, and Security, Nordics, Cognizant

Lovisa Hagelberg – Business Unit Director, CBRE Datacenter Solutions
Ali Moinuddin – Chief Development Officer, Uptime Institute
Jovita Januskeviciute – EMEA Research Manager, DC Byte

Kristian Kofoed-Solheim – Business Development Director, Bulk Infrastructure

Hanne Zakariassen – Sustainability Advisor, Atea

Christopher Frenning – Data Center Strategy Lead, Norway, Microsoft

Mark Acton – Editor, EU Code of Conduct on Data Centre Energy Efficiency & Head of Technical Due Diligence, Future-tech

The CLOUD is Not in the Sky

Data centers are now as crucial to all infrastructure as roads, railways, and airports. And with the ongoing green and digital transformation, the need for data centers will continue to increase. Yet, the sustainability of IT infrastructure itself is just as important as the benefits that technology can have on our day-to-day lives. This presentation will connect the technologies we are all using and relying on – both in our daily lives and at work – with the physical IT and energy infrastructure that underpins those technologies. The session will also offer perspective and insight into how data center and digital infrastructure professionals can introduce and explain the sector to the public and attract talent, as it is a growing industry with many opportunities that requires diverse expertise, all while offering a rewarding purpose: building a sustainable digital backbone for the world.

A Framework for Data Center Sustainability

While sustainability in data centers is a complicated, long-term challenge, it is clearly a business issue. Customers are demanding it, and legislation will likely require it. Meanwhile, investors are expecting it. All of this is driving the C-Level to look at it as part of future success. In the not-too-distant future, the edge will consume more energy than big data centers, so sustainability is not just about the giants; it involves all of us. At Schneider Electric, we started our sustainability journey a while ago, and we have a solid background to share our strategy and metrics for helping others at creating a holistic environmental sustainability strategy.

Lifecycle Solutions for Complete Data Center Optimisation

Our presentation explores the HVAC cooling solutions we can provide as well as how we can support integrated management solutions, optimise performance, and also highlight the service & support of the solutions we provide over its whole lifecycle. At Carrier, our solutions are designed for the data center – and we’re always here to provide the confidence you need to operate with optimised performance no matter how your demands evolve.

Enabling the Automated Data Center

In this presentation, we will demonstrate how all aspects of IT operations in a modern data center world can be automated – including provisioning, monitoring, services, and financial management. We will look at the data center not just in isolation, but as an integrated part of a hybrid world, one that also includes the public cloud.

Using DCIM software, with ITSM Automation, to meet the challenges of Hybrid Enterprise data centres

Sunbird Software is changing the way data centres are being managed. We directly help data centre operations & management manage tasks and automate processes, enabling them to work faster and more efficiently than ever before. Using case studies and workshops, we’ll show you our Data Centre Infrastructure Management software, with inbuilt powerful monitoring and control; helping to reduce risk and meet the demands of the wider business, for information and KPIs.

Building at scale with Prefabricated Modular Data Centers

IT and facility managers are increasingly confronted with the need to quickly provide additional capacity without jeopardizing IT availability. In addition, they must be sure that what they buy today is suitable for tomorrow's growth. It must therefore be a sustainable investment that does not need to be written off unnecessarily due to incorrect future-proofing. This is important for the reliability of the facility, but also for effective budget management. Prefab and modular growth scenarios can contribute to this.

How Green Mountain Brought TikTok to Norway

Social media giant TikTok, with more than 150 million European users, needed capacity to store their data locally in Europe. In addition to two sites in Ireland, they decided to partner with Green Mountain to meet their needs. Green Mountain will now build a 150MW site in Hamar, Norway, for this purpose. It is one of the largest colocation deals in Europe and will double Norway’s existing colocation capacity. Green Mountain CEO Svein Atle Hagaseth will explain how they landed the deal and why TikTok chose Norway as their new data center location.

The Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) ICE data center unit in Luleå has a fully functioning, demonstrator proof-of-concept of green-gas-powered fuel cells powering an immersed liquid-cooled data center with combined heat recovery into a local heating network. At Datacenter Forum Copenhagen 2021, Jon presented the concept of the demonstrator. Now, after operating with continued developments and improvements from March 2022, results from the fully operational system highlight some interesting observations and lessons learned.

Datacenter Changemakers Norway – Episode 2

Global IT Infrastructure: Norway & The World
 

Live talk show with the people who are changing the face of the data center industry, hosted & moderated by Liselotte Lyngsø, Founder of Future Navigator.

The Cable That Came From the Cold: Subsea Cabling & Geopolitics
 

As the Arctic region experiences new challenges faced by climate change and melting ice, new possibilities are emerging for the deployment of digital infrastructure and subsea cabling. Chief among them is Far North Fiber – a 17,000 km submarine cable system linking Europe and Asia through the Arctic region expected to come online in 2026. What are the opportunities and challenges associated with building and maintaining digital infrastructure and subsea cables in the Arctic Circle and across the Nordics? What are the broader implications for economic development, environmental sustainability, international collaboration, and geopolitics that submarine cables pose for the region and beyond?

Guests:
Jovita Januskeviciute – EMEA Research Manager, DC Byte

Alexandra Middleton – Researcher, Connectivity Solutions in the Arctic, University of Oulu

Dag-Kjetil Hansen – CEO, Bredbåndsfylket (Far North Fiber's partner in Norway)

Merete Caubet – Vice President, Business Development, Fiber Networks, Bulk Infrastructure

Nordic Data Centers United

An abundance of renewable energy; political stability; great (inter)continental connectivity; a skilled workforce – can cross-country cooperation help the Nordic data center industry become the sustainable digital backbone of both Europe and the world?

Guests:

Petter Tømmeraas – Chairman, Norwegian Datacenter Industry

Isabelle Kemlin – Vice Chairwoman, Swedish Datacenter Industry

Henrik Hansen – CEO, Danish Data Center Industry

Sigríður Mogensen – Director, Samtök iđnađarins & Representative, Data Centers by Iceland

Mikko Aho – Board Member, Finnish Data Center Association

Data Center Outages: A Trends Analysis from The Uptime Institute Annual Survey

Greener and Smarter Hands: Sigma2 and Lefdal Mine Datacenter Using Augmented Reality

With Roger Kvam, Senior Project Manager, Sigma2

Lefdal Mine Datacenter and Sigma2 uses augmented reality (AR) technology at the new NRIS storage system. Sigma2 deployments at Lefdal Mine Datacenter consists of advanced technology, which means maintenance and other technical occurrences must be addressed by experts. However, the experts in the operation organisation NRIS, where Sigma2 is a partner, are located at the partner universities and travel to Lefdal Mine Datacenter is not done on a regular basis. Therefore, NRIS and Lefdal Mine Datacenter uses AR to assist local smart hands remotely. This entails that the smart hands wear HoloLens, which allows the experts to experience the environment as if they were present.

Utilize your hidden assets with Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR)

Learn how much you can you earn by selling your flexibility

Discover how data centers can tap into the flexibility market to generate revenue by reducing electricity consumption during periods when the demand on the electrical grid is high. Learn how this opportunity not only benefits the environment, but also presents opportunities for businesses to capitalize on.

Datacenter Changemakers Norway – Episode 3

Join the Sustainable Digital Revolution

Live talk show with the people who are changing the face of the data center industry, hosted & moderated by Liselotte Lyngsø, Founder of Future Navigator.

Ask Me Anything: Meet the People Building the Sustainable Internet of the Future
 

In Ask Me Anything, students can ask our guests anything about the data center industry, its careers and opportunities, and the role IT infrastructure in Norway can play in building a sustainable digital backbone for the world.

Guests include:

Halvor Bjerke – CEO Nordics, STACK EMEA

Irene Vikingstad – HR Director, Green Mountain
Lovisa Hagelberg – Business Unit Director, CBRE Datacenter Solutions

Startup Extreme: Startups and Scaleups in IT Infrastructure & Renewable Energy

Datacenter Changemakers and Startup Extreme would like to introduce you to the most-promising Norwegian startups and scaleups in the digital infrastructure and renewable energy sectors.

The startups:

Evyon – represented by Daniel Bunte, Senior Software Engineer

Iagon – represented by Navjit Dhaliwal, CEO

Glint Solar – represented by Harald Olderheim, Co-founder & CEO

The panel:

Lovisa Hagelberg – Business Unit Director, CBRE Datacenter Solutions

Verineia Codrean - Head of Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships, Startup Norway