IXleeds 3 – the third conference of the Leeds Internet Exchange – held at aql June 20th
The third event to be held by IXLeeds, Yorkshire’s internet exchange, was held at aql’s newly restored Salem Chapel Auditorium on the 20th June. The event included talks by internet guru’s and also an address by Tom Riordan, the Chief Executive of Leeds City Council. In addition to the event there was also a mini expo with around 10 vendors and sponsors exhibiting – including Bytemark, Fujitsu, Level(3), ADVA Optical, Hardware.com, FlexOptix, Leeds and Partners, and IXLeeds themselves.
110 attendees from a variety of vendors, ISP’s, engineering companies, fibre operators and regional businesses attended to listen to the array of talks centred around the subject of security. The event was introduced by aql CEO, Adam Beaumont who handed over to IXLeeds Board member and experienced internet guru, Andy Davidson, to chair the session. Talks on Fraud and DNS security started the sessions.
The closing sessions were of a lighter nature – including an in depth briefing from Tom Riordan, Chief Executive of Leeds City Council – Tom opened the conference in great humour by checking that everybody was getting their bins emptied ok ! He continued to explain how important the digital ecosystem is in Leeds and echoed Adam Beaumont’s message that Leeds has a prime opportunity to build the right digital infrastructure in the south of the city and also touched on how hard Leeds Council had worked to bring the largest sporting event in the world to Leeds – the 2014 Tour de France – Grand Depart – a once in a lifetime opportunity. He also announced the success of the Citys own free wifi programme which was launched successfully earlier this year.
The session was closed off by Leeds University Mechanical Engineering lecturer Dr Jon Summers, who did the ‘Science Bit’ for the session – describing how datacentres can be made to be more energy efficient and how they can also harness some of their waste heat. He also highlighted a revolutionary cooling technique his department is involved with – ‘Icetope’ – a cooling concept where the entire circuit board of a server is immersed in a non-electrically-conductive (high dielectric) liquid which acts as a coolant.
All in all – the session was a great balance of scientific, commercial, technical and also regional relevance. IXLeeds Director Thomas Mangin said “The aql events team managed the conference seamlessly – a great credit to them – especially considering that the events space has only been open for a number of weeks“.
A great success and we look forward to hosting the next one.
