Behind every seamless digital experience is an infrastructure team working hard to keep systems scalable, responsive, and resilient. In this episode of IT Infrastructure as a Conversation, I’m joined by Jesmar Cannaò, COO of ProxySQL, to explore the story behind one of the most trusted open source tools in database management today.

What began as a side project born from the frustrations of a single DBA has evolved into a critical component for teams managing MySQL and PostgreSQL environments around the world. Jesmar walks us through the origins of ProxySQL and explains how it empowers DBAs by placing intelligent query routing, load balancing, and failover handling directly in their hands.

We discuss the architectural advantages of ProxySQL in both cloud-native and on-premise setups, its ability to operate with minimal friction inside Kubernetes, and why open source remains at the heart of its mission. Jesmar also offers a candid look at what it takes to build a distributed team, maintain performance across time zones, and foster a global community of contributors and users.

As database architectures grow more complex and DBA roles continue to shift, ProxySQL is evolving to meet those changes head-on. With the recent alpha release of its PostgreSQL protocol support and plans to expand further in 2025, Jesmar outlines how the team is staying ahead of industry demand.

Whether you're a database engineer, a cloud architect, or simply someone trying to future-proof your infrastructure, this conversation is full of practical insight into what open source can offer in a fast-changing world.

Explore more at proxysql.com and join the conversation around high-performance infrastructure that does not compromise on transparency, flexibility, or control.

In a world where business users expect instant insights from tools like Power BI and Tableau, few stop to consider the heavy lifting happening behind the scenes. Dashboards may look simple, but the infrastructure powering them often involves layers of complex data engineering, expensive queries, and frustrating delays. This mismatch is what Nicolas Korchia, Co-founder and CEO of Indexima, calls the BI paradox.

In this episode of IT Infrastructure as a Conversation, Nicolas joins Neil to explore how Indexima is solving this issue by automating the most painful parts of business intelligence. Rather than forcing engineers to build yet another manual data pipeline, Indexima uses AI to identify query patterns and automatically generate dynamic tables directly within Snowflake. The outcome is faster dashboards, lower compute costs, and a smoother experience for analysts and engineers alike.

We unpack how Indexima’s engine monitors live dashboard usage, detects inefficiencies, and rewrites queries on the fly to target optimized aggregation layers. This not only improves performance but also contributes to sustainability by reducing the volume of data scanned and processed. For organizations under pressure to balance data speed with environmental impact, it is a practical and forward-looking approach.

Nicolas also shares real-world use cases from retail and finance, where customers have slashed dashboard load times from minutes to milliseconds and eliminated the need for nightly data extracts. The conversation touches on broader trends too, including the role of large language models in BI workflows and how tools like ChatGPT might soon assist in building semantic layers.

For anyone responsible for scaling data infrastructure, this episode provides a grounded look at how automation is reshaping BI from the ground up. If your teams are still wrestling with slow dashboards and spiraling query costs, this is a conversation worth listening to.

What if the future of analytics was not about working harder, but about letting your infrastructure work smarter?

As AI agents begin to influence how businesses operate, there's growing urgency around building infrastructure that supports their complexity without adding new risks. In this episode of IT Infrastructure as a Conversation, I speak with Alexander Alten, Co-Founder and CEO of Scalytics, about the architecture powering the next generation of AI and machine learning systems.

Alexander’s journey includes leadership roles at Cloudera, Allianz, and Healthgrades, and a deep commitment to building scalable, privacy-respecting technologies. At Scalytics, he's helping organizations avoid the limitations of centralizing data by building distributed systems that support federated learning. Rather than extracting and duplicating data across systems, Scalytics enables analysis directly at the source, making it easier for businesses in regulated industries to innovate with confidence.

Recorded live at the IT Press Tour in Malta, our conversation dives into the origins of Scalytics Connect, the company's AI agent infrastructure that leverages open-source frameworks like Apache Wayang. We explore why ETL pipelines often create fragility instead of flexibility, how decentralization supports both compliance and collaboration, and why open-source technologies continue to outperform closed systems over the long term.

For any CIO, CTO, or data architect looking to align AI capabilities with real-world constraints, Alexander’s perspective offers a refreshingly pragmatic path forward. His framework simplifies the complexity of federated machine learning while preserving data sovereignty, auditability, and future-proof flexibility.

If your organization is struggling with data silos, regulatory friction, or the scaling of AI models, this episode offers insight into a model that avoids duplication, improves trust, and accelerates results by treating infrastructure as the foundation for intelligent systems.

Could sustainable IT hold the answers to rising infrastructure costs and environmental pressure?

In this episode, recorded live during the IT Press Tour in Malta, we speak with François Machacek, an IT veteran with nearly thirty years of experience and a strong focus on digital sustainability. Now part of the team at EasyVirt, François is helping organizations measure and reduce the environmental impact of their digital operations.

The conversation begins with François’s career journey, from managing enterprise data centers across Europe to becoming a leader in responsible IT. He introduces EasyVirt’s technology, which includes DCscope, DCnetscope, and CO2scope, and explains how these tools provide real-time, high-frequency resource usage measurements across virtualized and hybrid environments. This level of visibility helps organizations make informed decisions that improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions without compromising performance or security.

We examine how the environmental costs of digital technology are growing fast, especially with the expansion of AI workloads and data center demand. François discusses how EasyVirt addresses this challenge by offering software that works inside client environments, avoids reliance on average estimates, and instead delivers precise, continuous monitoring. He outlines the financial and environmental benefits clients are seeing in both the short and long term, including reduced compute waste, time savings in planning, and improved reporting against ESG targets.

The episode also highlights how FinOps and GreenOps can work together to guide smarter infrastructure use. François explains how these principles allow IT teams to balance financial planning with environmental goals, resulting in better resource control, improved compliance readiness, and more credible emissions reporting.

Looking ahead, François shares what’s next for EasyVirt, including new tools for measuring AI energy use, upcoming multi-impact assessments (carbon, water, materials), and a free new comparison platform called ECLIO. This tool gives IT teams insights into pricing and emissions data across major cloud providers, supporting better planning for cloud migrations.

If your infrastructure strategy needs to align with both cost efficiency and sustainability expectations, this episode provides a grounded look at how to get there using accurate data and practical solutions.

What does long-term data preservation really require in a digital-first world where technology changes faster than it can be archived? In this episode of IT Infrastructure as a Conversation, recorded during the IT Press Tour in Malta, we explore a fresh perspective with Antoine Simkine, co-founder of DigiFilm Corporation.

Antoine’s background is nothing short of extraordinary. Having produced digital visual effects for iconic films like Amelie, Alien Resurrection, and The Ninth Gate, and serving as VFX producer for 20th Century Fox’s I, Robot, Antoine understands the challenges of preserving digital assets in an industry where formats evolve and decay at a relentless pace.

Bringing this cinematic experience into the world of infrastructure, Antoine shares how the fragility of digital media inspired him to rethink data preservation. We examine his journey from pioneering digital VFX to founding DigiFilm Corporation and developing Archifix, a solution that combines the permanence of film with the precision of digital encoding.

As organizations generate more data than ever before—and as regulatory demands for data integrity and security intensify—this conversation shines a light on why traditional storage methods may not be enough. Antoine explains how Digifilm’s approach addresses the risks of obsolescence, media degradation, and escalating costs associated with perpetual migration.

Beyond cinema, Antoine reveals how sectors such as defense, nuclear energy, and architecture are beginning to recognize the need for offline, futureproof data storage strategies. Could an idea rooted in the oldest form of recording still hold the answer to our most modern infrastructure challenges?

What steps should enterprises take today if they want their critical digital assets to survive for centuries? And how can organizations balance innovation with the responsibility of long-term stewardship?

This is your conversation.

Learn more at https://digifilm-corp.com/home

What if the future of enterprise storage wasn’t locked behind expensive licenses and proprietary ecosystems?

In this IT Infrastructure as a Conversation episode, recorded during the IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley, we explore how TrueNAS is reshaping expectations in enterprise storage. Brett Davis, Executive Vice President, shares the TrueNAS story—from its roots in Berkeley Unix and FreeBSD to becoming the world’s largest open-source storage platform.

With over 500,000 annual downloads and adoption by more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies, TrueNAS is proving that open source and enterprise-grade performance aren’t mutually exclusive. Brett takes us inside the company’s philosophy, its decision to remain bootstrapped, and how it built a sustainable business by serving both community users and enterprise customers.

We dig into what differentiates TrueNAS from established players like NetApp, Dell, HPE, and Pure Storage, and discuss how it addresses growing concerns over vendor lock-in, inflated storage costs, and budget constraints. Brett also highlights how the platform is being used by organizations like NASA, CERN, Skywalker Sound, and the JFK Library—bringing real-world credibility to the open enterprise storage conversation.

As we look ahead, Brett previews TrueNAS’ upcoming software release, codenamed Fangtooth, which will deliver enhanced deduplication, support for RDMA, and enterprise-ready container support. He also unpacks trends such as the steady growth of both cloud and on-prem storage, the squeeze on IT budgets due to AI and VMware licensing hikes, and how businesses are rethinking their infrastructure choices.

If you’re exploring more cost-effective, transparent, and flexible storage solutions or questioning whether your current setup is built to last, this conversation offers timely insight and practical perspective.

What happens when enterprise storage finally catches up with the needs of AI-driven workloads and hybrid cloud architectures? In this premiere episode of IT Infrastructure as a Conversation, recorded during the IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley, I sat down with David Flynn, CEO of Hammerspace, to unpack how his team is rethinking the foundations of enterprise data storage.

As businesses grapple with ever-expanding datasets, scattered infrastructures, and the pressure to enable real-time AI, Hammerspace is stepping in with a distinctive vision. David shares how their Global Data Platform removes long-standing storage bottlenecks by enabling unstructured data to be orchestrated across edge, cloud, and data center environments—without the friction of traditional silos.

We explore how the Parallel Network File System (pNFS) is playing a central role in this transformation. David demystifies why it’s suddenly gaining traction and how it supports the high-performance demands of modern workloads. But more importantly, he explains why orchestration—not just accessibility—is the real differentiator.

The conversation also challenges assumptions about global namespaces. While they’ve become a buzzword in storage circles, David argues that without true orchestration, they fall short. He outlines how Hammerspace combines both to make data truly fluid—instantly accessible where and when it’s needed.

As AI continues to reshape enterprise demands, this episode offers a window into what’s next for storage architecture, data management, and the infrastructure decisions that support them. We also touch on Hammerspace’s rapid rise, tenfold revenue growth, and its growing leadership team—all signs of a company hitting its stride at just the right moment.

Are we entering a new era where storage finally adapts to meet the needs of AI and hybrid cloud? Let me know your take. I’d love to hear what you think.