CASE STUDY | Secure connectivity for SMEs

Cloud solutions are an integral part of the IT architecture of many medium-sized companies. Bonn-based EnBITCon GmbH recognized this trend early on. The innovative system house focuses on modern IT architectures and supports secure and high-performance cloud solutions for SMEs. A particular highlight for companies that use Microsoft Cloud Services: EnBITCon offers its own customers direct access to the Microsoft Cloud via the Microsoft Azure Peering Service from DE-CIX. The decisive added value of the solution was demonstrated by an EnBITCon customer - a large law firm from Cologne - during a global network disruption at Microsoft. However, EnBITCon customers also benefit in many ways from peering with DE-CIX via the MAPS and GlobePEER enterprise services in standard operation.

Advantages of the Microsoft Azure peering service

The Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS) was developed in close cooperation between DE-CIX and Microsoft. MAPS ensures that Microsoft's cloud services are reached reliably and via an optimized, secure connection. The MAPS data stream always takes the shortest route to the nearest Edge PoP in the Microsoft network and is also prioritized by Microsoft.

For Marcel Zimmer, founder and managing partner at EnBITCon, the DE-CIX service is a very professional solution to a ubiquitous challenge: "Secure, fast and reliable access to Microsoft 365 is extremely important for SMEs. If they use the public Internet, they have no control over the data paths and security suffers. If this in turn is to be increased with a VPN tunnel, there are often significant time delays. Thanks to MAPS as access to the Microsoft applications, our latencies are always under 20 milliseconds. All data is transmitted transparently via dedicated Layer 2 connections that are completely decoupled from the internet."

Continue working despite extensive outage

A large law firm from Cologne had been using EnBITCon's MAPS-based service for just a few weeks when it came to the acid test: a disruption in Microsoft's global network led to massive outages at the beginning of 2023. In Germany alone, Microsoft received thousands of fault reports. Thousands of users were unable to work with Microsoft 365 services, or only to a limited extent. The law firm was unaware of any problems, but used all services without restrictions thanks to MAPS. This advantage not only benefits the team's productivity, but also the law firm's reputation. Deadlines are not negotiable in court proceedings, even with network problems, and the exchange of emails must be possible at all times so as not to miss any deadlines.

Direct route to many networks

EnBITCon is one of the few system houses in Germany to have its own Autonomous System Number (ASN), which is issued by the Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) Network Coordination Center. Since 2021, the system house has been acting as a provider via this ASN, thus expanding its portfolio of managed services: EnBITCon customers can thus exchange data directly with other networks securely and efficiently (peering). The company uses this option both for direct connection to the Microsoft 365 stack via MAPS and for data exchange with hundreds of networks via the DE-CIX GlobePEER service.

Marcel Zimmer is convinced: "By peering with DE-CIX, we can offer our customers the connectivity they need to work professionally. Companies often only realize how important direct access to the cloud environment really is after moving to the cloud. According to our findings, dedicated peering increases security by a factor of 1000. Medium-sized companies in particular should not underestimate the risks of distributed denial of service (DDoS) or man-in-the-middle attacks." Peering reduces the attack vector on the way to the cloud because the exact path of the data is predefined and can be traced at any time. In contrast to the best-effort approach of transferring data via the internet, the corresponding connectivity services from EnBITCon ensure that the data is transferred securely, quickly and reliably via connections in Germany.

Professional connectivity solutions

Since it was founded in 2014, EnBITCon has been working with and for SMEs. While the topic of the cloud was still viewed critically in the initial phase, cloud solutions are now firmly anchored in the IT strategy of many companies. More and more customers are also relying on the cloud for business software such as SAP or using applications such as Salesforce. This makes it all the more important to guarantee their reliable availability on the one hand and to ensure that companies retain their digital sovereignty on the other. This also includes ensuring that sensitive data does not take any unknown detours abroad. Marcel Zimmer is certain: "Medium-sized companies need professional connectivity solutions just as much as larger companies in order to be able to act at all times. Together with the services of DE-CIX, we are putting our customers in the digital fast lane."

In the future, the IT expert expects cloud-to-cloud connectivity to play a greater role: "Multi-cloud solutions will also be increasingly in demand among SMEs in the foreseeable future. We are certain that we will also benefit from our collaboration with DE-CIX in this area."