By Henry Wagner, Chief Marketing Officer

Spanning 51 cities over several months, the Megaport World Tour 2024 was a huge success. Here’s how it went, and what we learned from you.

Throughout the last few months, the Megaport team has had the privilege of hosting the Megaport World Tour 2024.

Attracting a total of nearly 900 attendees, these events were the perfect chance to discuss data center and cloud connectivity with customers and peers in our industry.

By far the best aspect of this tour was the sense of community we felt. As we hopped from city to city, there was always a collective enthusiasm and eagerness to learn and share. This camaraderie is a testament to how technology, especially in the realms of cloud and networking, fosters such a culture of knowledge sharing and innovation.

What our hosts had to say

Americas – Devin Lim
Phoenix, Las Vegas, Mexico, Los Angeles, Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, New York City, Denver, Indianapolis, Ashburn, Minneapolis, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, Austin, Portland, Nashville, Seattle, Omaha, San Francisco, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, Tampa, Charlotte, Raleigh

This industry is such a tight community of top-notch people, and everyone who joined our American World Tour was so excited to reconnect with the Megaport crew and other industry peers in person.

We had customers and partners across our entire ecosystem drop by, and chatted about some of the latest developments here at Megaport like new offerings for customers, and interesting ways that we can team up with partners to deliver better solutions.

In some cities, our turnout was huge! I may have undersized the venue in Dallas, for example – it was so packed that our team started to help the wait staff bus drinks from the bar to all of our guests!

I couldn’t be more thankful and energized coming out of this tour. It wasn’t just insightful, it was also a lot of fun.

Thanks to everyone who joined us, and if you missed out, be sure to keep an eye out for more Megaport events in future. You won’t regret coming along!

Asia-Pacific – David Frangiosa
Sydney, Singapore, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Tokyo, Adelaide, Hong Kong, Wellington, Canberra, Auckland, Osaka

After absorbing the vibe of the wicked locations, sampling the hors-d’œuvres, and grabbing a drink, our Asia-Pacific attendees quickly turned to catching up with networking buddies both old and new. If I had to sum up the APAC leg of the tour, the term “beers and peers” immediately comes to mind.

We launched new MegaIX locations in Australia just prior to this tour, so we were delighted to answer a lot of burning IX questions from attendees. Our Tech Drop-inswere mentioned a few times as well – it sounds like you’ve been learning a lot from them.

The kind of people in attendance included old customers, new customers, soon-to-be customers, and of course, our channel and alliance partners. The common denominator among our guests was a genuine interest in networking, connectivity, and always looking for a more efficient way for their business to connect to anywhere, from everywhere.

The standout event for me was Brisbane, my hometown. Picture this: A stunning rooftop terrace. A warm glow from the setting Autumn sun. Chilled vibes with a bunch of great people.

And the best part about the Brisbane event: It was hosted just down the street from where it all began for Megaport back in 2013. Look how far we’ve come!

Our solutions suite and global customer base has grown unmatched, but our goal remains unchanged from day one – to network the world (pun intended). We hope to do it again soon.

Europe – James Pavey
Amsterdam, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Berlin, Munich

Throughout the European leg of the Megaport World Tour, our guests connected with so many old and new faces. Unlike a lot of networking events I’ve hosted before, the goal wasn’t to sell or be sold to; it was simply to have interesting discussions, with great company, in lovely venues.

There were countless conversations about cloud connectivity, what’s new from Megaport, how we can work together more closely as partners, and IX and peering. Our guests got to discuss their experiences, and hopefully they left with some better insights into how their businesses can navigate today’s networking landscape.

It was great to see so many customers, partners, and peers from all sides of the industry attend all of our events. There were CEOs and CTOs; architects and engineers; sales and interconnection managers; the list goes on!

Most attendees were from mid-large size enterprises across finance, insurance, payments, logistics, high-tech, and IX companies, as well as data center operators, managed service providers, and resellers. It was great to hear about all the different ways they use Megaport to make their businesses more profitable and easier to manage!

My personal highlight would have to be Paris. On a rooftop overlooking the city, drinks in hand, we got to relax with one of the most breathtaking views I’ve seen (and we were lucky with the weather, too).

Far from a stiff-collared, corporate affair, it was great to see how much our customers and partners enjoyed the opportunity to network with their peers. Many of them remarked how nice it was to put faces to the Megaport team and to see us engaging with the community; those who knew us in the past were pleased to reconnect.

As a team, we were delighted with the positive feedback we received after each of our eight events. For me, this tour was a perfect opportunity to engage with and build stronger links with our Megaport community – and it succeeded in every way. Thanks to everyone who came out!

What we learned

As we traveled around the globe, we had an incredible breadth of conversations.

We’re big on vendor-neutrality at Megaport, and this ethos clearly resonates with you all. Without the constraints of locking in to specific vendors, IT and network managers gain the agility to adapt and optimize their operations more effectively. We had some engaging discussions on how this approach empowers your businesses by giving you the flexibility to choose the right tools and services for each project and aspect of your business.

In every city we visited, two topics of conversation stood out to us: security and efficiency. The growing cloud landscape offers immense potential, but it also presents new challenges in these areas.

We discussed essential practices to safeguard data and infrastructure without compromising on performance, including integrating your network stack to easily manage performance and costs. We also covered strategies to optimize network routes for improved efficiency and reliability.

Ever tried route filtering? It’s a great place to start when optimizing your network paths. Learn more here.

It was heartening to see a collective curiosity about how we can reshape the future of cloud and networking with evolving technologies like machine learning, APIs, and edge computing.

Megaport has always believed in pushing boundaries and innovating new ways to connect businesses, and the Megaport World Tour 2024 showed that we’re among a community of like-minded people.

To everyone that took the time to meet us at one of these events: Thank you for coming along and inspiring us. We hope you learned a thing or two and made some new industry connections. You’re not simply navigating the universe of cloud and networking; you’re shaping it.

Until next time!

Team Megaport.

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