Episode 028 - Alan Fagan - IT Components, SDN and The Irish Technology Boom

This week on the I Love Data Centers podcast: IT Components, SDN and The Irish Technology Boom, I interview the North America Sales Manager at EPS Global, Alan Fagan. This interview is part of our partnership with Enterprise Ireland and in conjunction with an upcoming Irish Data Center Forum Sean will be participating in at the end of September. Alan Fagan is an IT industry expert with over 20 years selling the infrastructure that lives in the data center. He began his career in Dublin, Ireland and is now working out of Boston, MA for EPS Global as their North America Sales Manager. EPS Global is a leading, privately owned, franchised distributor for specialized IT components used in high-speed data and storage networks to accelerate, multiplex, store and manipulate the huge amounts of data generated by online and telecoms activity. Alan shares his history growing up in Ireland and watching the technology boom through the 90's. We also discuss the tremendous growth of the IT components industry. Show Notes: 1:12 Episode begins 3:44 Alan’s upbringing and getting involved in technology 9:51 What is the Celtic Tiger? 15:44 Enterprise Ireland 18:40 2 distinct areas in data centers 26:39 How have the components that make up the physical infrastructure inside a data center evolved over the past 10-15 years? 30:15 Have these components seen price compression recently? 33:25 The evolution of buyers 35:54 How will the industry change over the next 5 years? 42:07 In what ways do you think Ireland will continue to innovate and what might be some hurdles to that innovation? 50:31 How big is EPS? 52:45 Who are some of Alan’s biggest buyers? 54:16 How to get in contact with Alan Links mentioned Des Bishop – comedian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyouxDwyK9U Contact info Email - afagan@epsglobal.com Phone number (978) 930-1492 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-fagan-2b39932