Miquel Huguet, from CATNIX, highlighted the importance of celebrating the 30th Forum in Barcelona 15 years after the first Euro-IX Forum took place in the same city. Since then, both CATNIX and Euro-IX have grown both in number of participants and activities. Indeed, from being an industrial city in the course of the 19th century, Barcelona has evolved into a trade hub and a tourist attraction that now bets on technology and knowledge investment. Under this objective, CATNIX contributes, since 1999, to setting the bases and defining the actions to turn Catalonia into a leading actor within the Information Society.
Bijal Sanghani, Head of the Euro-IX Secretariat, presented the association’s main updates, especially concerning website improvements and its IXP Database.
During this 2-days forum in Barcelona, members, patrons and guests had the opportunity to share experiences and attend to both technical and commercial sessions dedicated to delve into IXP related issues and challenges. Regarding this latter point about challenges, Maria Isabel Gandía, on behalf of CATNIX, pointed out that bringing services demanded by the members close to them is important to add value to the internet exchanges.
The 30th Euro-IX Forum has been locally sponsored by Itconic, an IT Service Company which is one of the three CATNIX sites, and Internet connectivity has been provided by Orange.
More pictures at our blog.