Marlou de Jonge - Pors
I like making people play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch at lunchtime
Who is NL-ix?
Behind the world of the Internet, behind the world of fibers, protocols, peers and terabytes, are actual people making it all work. But who are these people? In other words: Who is NL-ix?
Today: 🤝 Marlou de Jonge - Pors - Solution Architect
I’m 31 years old, and I got married six months ago - I used to be called Marlou Pors but now I’m forever young (de Jonge)! My number one hobby is rowing. I was a fanatical rower at university, and we even got to the final of the World University Rowing Championships in Gravelines. I also play the saxophone. I nearly studied saxophone but went for Computer Science instead.
My first experience on the Internet was probably when I was seven or so. But my love affair with it started much later. In my second year at Delft University of Technology I started a course called Computer Networks. It led me to study Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for my Masters, which ended up focusing on Programmable Networks.
After I graduated in 2017, I started as a Network Researcher with KPN, because they were looking into Programmable Networks at the time. I learnt a lot about Network Engineering and practical innovation there. Then in 2019 I heard about the possibility of being a Solution Architect for Elastic Interconnect for NL-ix. The combination of technology and sales works well for me and here I am a few years later in a position which I believe plays to all my strengths.
The way I like to describe being a Solution Architect is as the “technical henchman of the account manager”. I come into my own when the techies come to the meeting and start asking questions. For bigger clients I make the first design concepts and check them with the Network Architects to see if we can build it. Also, when a solution is sold, I act as the link or ‘translator’ between sales and engineering. The solution I am mostly involved with is Elastic Interconnect, our unique solution which integrates Peering, Transit, and Cloud Connectivity on the NL-ix fabric.
I really like connecting the nerdy people to the less nerdy ones and making the less nerdy people more nerdy
Marlou de Jonge - Pors
I love it when customers understand what we are doing – not just nodding politely, but giving responses that could only be offered if they understand how the solution works.
There is a bit of nerd in everyone. I really like connecting the nerdy people to the less nerdy ones and making the less nerdy people more nerdy in the process. One way to do this is I like making people play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch at lunchtime.
I’m probably proudest of the Analyzer tool we created, which I built it with Leon. This tool acts as a translator from applications to networks. In other words, using simple IP addresses it can tell you where certain applications run on the Internet and show how we (NL-ix) reach these applications. This can give companies a view of what they do on the Internet. For example, one company gave us over 10.000 IP addresses but when we used the tool we found out these mapped to just 28 networks, all of which were accessible via the NL-ix fabric.
Building the tool was a fun programming project for me. Working with Python wasn’t new for me, but Leon taught me how to turn the pieces of code into APIs and how to build a Javascript front end, which was new for me. It was fun experimenting with this, we even briefly had a dancing cat GIF on the front page.
I would describe NL-ix as ‘Innovative, gezellig (that untranslatable Dutch word that covers both fun and cosiness), and eager to explain’.
Contact Marlou if you have any questions about NL-ix solutions, particularly Elastic Interconnect
