Hanover’s Perspective
Marc S. Weiss Award Nominee – Pixel Factory Data Center
Three deserving companies have been nominated for the Marc S. Weiss Award and the recipient will be named at the 2018 Hanover County Business Appreciation Event.
About the Award:
Marc S. Weiss is a former Director of Economic Development and served Hanover in that capacity between 1999 until his passing from pancreatic cancer in 2011. Under Marc’s leadership, Hanover County benefitted from his career experience in land development initiatives, as well as his strategic approach to building business relationships locally, domestically and internationally. Marc had a passion for innovation and for working with businesses to help them grow and expand.
The vision and purpose of the Marc S. Weiss Award is to recognize a Hanover-based business or entity which has demonstrated a lasting commitment to innovation, meaningful growth, global involvement and leadership and service within the Hanover business community.
The evaluation criteria for this award include innovative practices or policies, investment in the Hanover business community, partnerships in Hanover County, international partnerships, growth in scope of the business, vision for future opportunities in Hanover County, established community involvement and engagement, job retention, years in business, creation and training achievement and recognition of company best practices within their industry.
The 2018 Marc S. Weiss Award is sponsored by Rappahannock Electric Cooperative.
About Pixel Factory Data Center:
The Pixel Factory Data Center and Scott K. Brown have been nominated for the Marc S. Weiss Award because of his incredible entrepreneurial spirit.
Scott, a Hanover County business owner, started the Pixel Factory for his growing commercial photography business and the industry’s need for digital storage of images for large corporate clients. He had a vision of creating a data center to serve special clients with very specific needs that were not being met by the larger and more established centers. From that vision, the Pixel Factory Data Center was born. In 2014, Scott constructed a state-of-the-art, 6,000 SF building to house Pixel Factory Data Center Inc., and it is currently undergoing an additional expansion in anticipation of more growth.
The facility’s fiber provides global connectivity via eight different paths directly connecting the Data Center to 560 of the world’s largest content and streaming providers in addition to national carriers. On an average day, more than 200,000 users are viewing content served out of the facility. That number is expected to double by the end of the year. More than 70 Gigs of outbound internet connectivity feeds the facility, and that is expected to quadruple by 2019. The facility is ranked 88th in the world for peering connectivity.
Additionally, Scott has taken a leadership role in the IT and internet community as one of the founding members of the non-profit Richmond Virginia Internet Exchange. Establishing RVA-IX.net represents another key step toward creating a more robust Internet for Richmond and the surrounding localities. It keeps the Richmond area traffic local and improves local Internet performance which will benefit both Hanover County businesses and the entire region. The RVA-IX not only establishes a neutral point of presence for Richmond, but it also acts as an anchor to attract organizations outside of Virginia to connect in Richmond. Currently the Exchange has presence in three data centers in Richmond. Two of the Exchange’s members carry more than 20% of the world web content daily. The Exchange has an outreach education program called Network Engineering Apprenticeship and Training also known as “N.E.A.T rack” that donates hardware to local high schools. This training curriculum was created in conjunction with Professor John McManus at Randolph Macon College to provide an opportunity for current students to compete in the IT job market with cutting edge skills. RVA-IX has plans to duplicate its presence in the Virginia Beach area when the new transatlantic fiber cable at the landing station.
Pixel Factory Data Center hosts clients that range from local large employers to national and international brands, and regional IT companies based in the Richmond area. Pixel’s niche market is to work with the companies that the larger data centers don’t typically serve. Their goal is to function as a small local data center with exceptional personal service on site. Scott Brown’s leadership and impact on the IT community in Hanover and the region will be felt and appreciated for many years to come.