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With ITEXPO (News - Alert) West 2011 just weeks away, TMC CEO Rich Tehrani decided to sit down and chat with some of the show's exhibitors to give attendees a window into what they can expect to see and hear next month in Austin, Texas.

One of the thought leaders who Tehrani had the opportunity to interview was Chad Kissinger, founder of Onramp Access, a provider of co-location, managed hosting and other data center services.

The focus of the discussion was on virtualization technologies, which Kissinger believes are becoming more popular due to their ability to increase computing efficiency, eliminate physical infrastructure needs and create opportunities for achieving previously unaddressed goals.

Kissinger also touched on the future of the cloud – an ever-expanding delivery model that Onramp leverages to help its software development customers better deploy their services to end users.

In addition, Kissinger discussed a few of today's headline-making developments, including the launch of Google (News - Alert)+ and the prevalence of virtual workforces.

Tehrani and Kissinger wrapped up the talk by giving readers a sneak-peek into Onramp's role at ITEXPO West 2011, which kicks off at the Austin Convention Center on Sept. 13.

Kissinger says that he is looking forward to catching up with current and prospective customers to talk about virtualization, disaster recovery technologies and the enablement of remote workforces, among other topics. Check out booth #828 to hear more from Kissinger and the rest of the Onramp team.

The complete interview can be found below.

How has your market segment evolved over the past year and what trends have fueled those changes?

The data center market continues to grow at an ever-increasing pace. The increase in the importance of IT infrastructure, along with more stringent regulatory requirements, continues to make outsourcing IT infrastructure attractive to managers. 

What do you see as the next disruptive force in technology and how will it impact your market or business?

The deployment of virtualization technologies continues to increase computing efficiency by reducing the need for infrastructure; but is also creating new mechanisms for achieving objectives. For instance, once organizations have virtualized their IT infrastructure, they can more easily achieve disaster recovery or continuity goals that might have been previously unaddressed due to difficulty or cost.

How has the acceptance and adoption of the cloud model influenced your development cycle and process?

OnRamp has rapidly changed its processes to facilitate both end users and software providers using the Internet to deliver software functionality. Changing models from a onetime purchase of software along with telephone support to a 24/7/365 delivery of functionality is a challenge for software vendors and OnRamp helps them turn their software intellectual property into a reliable service to be sold to their customers. 

What is the most common request you are seeing from your customers? How is your company addressing these demands?

We see customers using more advanced technologies, such as virtualization, to accomplish reliability and continuity goals that they previously would not have addressed. OnRamp has created a number of products and services that help organizations build, deploy and manage their data center operations on an ongoing basis. 

Will Google+ become bigger than Facebook and Twitter (News - Alert)? Why or why not?

Network effects are a very strong form of strategic control, and have historically proven tough to unseat. That said, Google+ appears to be making great headway these days. (And ask Friendster or Myspace about the power of network effects…)

As businesses continue their move toward virtual workforces, how are you meeting the need for increased mobility?  What barriers are keeping others from adopting mobile strategies?

Traditionally, all the employees in a business would work together in the same building. Today, workers connect to their IT infrastructure from home and while they are traveling. In real terms, the center of the business’ network has moved out of the building and on to the Internet. Onramp helps business maintain IT infrastructure on the Internet in a fashion as reliable as if it was sitting right in their office. 

What are you most looking forward to at ITEXPO West in Austin? What do you see as being the biggest trends at the show?

We are looking forward to being a part of the excitement of the IT community in Austin. We’re also excited to get out and talk to customers about how we as a company can be better meeting their data center services and cloud computing needs. One topic that I am sure we will be discussing is the benefits of virtualization especially in accomplishing things like Disaster Recovery and the enablement of remote workforces.

Who should visit your booth at ITEXPO and why?

Anyone that needs to be connected to the Internet, for any reason, from email to web or application hosting, can benefit from OnRamp’s suite of data center services. As people continue to generate data at an exponential rate, they need a reliable way to store, transfer and make that information available to end users. OnRamp's state-of-the-art Austin Data Center features the highest levels of security, redundancy, reliability, and technical expertise necessary to build, deploy and manage data center operations for Co-location, Managed Hosting, Private Cloud and Disaster Recovery customers.  As a SAS 70 Type II certified and a PCI (News - Alert) Level 1 compliant facility with many HIPAA compliant customers, OnRamp's Austin Data Center maintains round-the-clock security, monitoring and surveillance from experienced on-site network engineers. 

But more than just a Data Center built with best-of-class equipment, advanced security and 24/7/365 on-site monitoring, OnRamp specializes in providing Full7Layer Support from experienced network engineers 24/7/365.  And, because OnRamp is providing Managed Hosting for many of its customers, our engineers and technical support resources have the expertise and experience in configuration, monitoring, management, support and repair, to ensure that customers can be successful, whether that means making the tools and resources that we use available to you or providing you support and help in managing your critical infrastructure.

Visit OnRamp at booth 828 and learn more about how we can create a customized solution designed to build, deploy and manage your data center operations at each and every layer.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves