Cloud and connectivity to it are inextricably linked. However, we often see organisations forgetting to consider the importance of a good connection when choosing a Cloud solution. If you want to make the most of a Cloud solution, connectivity should never be the bottleneck.
When most people think of the word connectivity, they think of the internet as you use it at home for Netflix and gaming, for example. However, for business users, connectivity means much more. Since organisations' Cloud resides in a remote location, your connection is the way to go. Does it slack off or is it blocked? Then your access to the Cloud is also disrupted. For organisations that depend on applications in the Cloud for their operations, this can pose a business-critical problem.
At Fundaments, we use connections in different ways to provide the optimal ‘Cloud experience’.
FUNDAMENTS' CORE NETWORK: A SOLID FOUNDATION
At Fundaments, we use a our core network to ensure that our Cloud remains available. This core network is based on an infrastructure of 10 Gigabits per second and, depending on the connection, a multiple of it is deployed. The core network connects our data centres. We have several data centres in the Netherlands: in the east (Hengelo and Enschede) and west (Amsterdam & Schiphol-Rijk). When a primary environment is running at our site in Twente, the data is always backed up to Amsterdam. The same principle applies vice versa, allowing us to ensure that backups are kept far enough away from the production location at all times.
All data centres are connected with a redundant fibre-optic ring. In addition, we have selected specific locations where we connect to the internet and to connections of all sorts of networks such as healthcare networks, municipal networks and parties like NDIX. No further production workloads (IaaS/PaaS services) are used at these locations, so we always ensure that the impact on network connections (internet) does not impact any of our other services.
Connections to the internet are made at two locations: in doing so, the locations are each other's duplicates and we provide at least two transit parties per location. This allows us to partially direct internet traffic should the need arise, and because of this multiple redundancy, we also never have to announce maintenance with impact on internet services.
DIRECT CLOUD CONNECTION THANKS TO NDIX: FAST AND STRAIGHTFORWARD
As mentioned above, one of the network parties we connect with, besides the internet, is NDIX (Dutch-German Internet Exchange). NDIX is a platform where users and providers of all types of ICT services are connected. Fundaments is connected to NDIX as well. NDIX's network is organised in rings, just like Fundaments' network. If one connection fails, the NDIX platform can always be reached via another route, which means that failures on parts of the NDIX routes have no impact on availability.
When you, as a user, purchase a fibre connection with a link to NDIX, it is possible to access your Cloud at Fundaments without using public networks such as the internet. This comes with a number of advantages: it is safer and often delivers a faster and more stable performance than a regular internet connection. In addition, it is more cost-efficient because you don't need internet connectivity on top of your NDIX connection.
THE DDOS LAUNDRY LANE: FOR CLEAN INTERNET TRAFFIC
One of the other parties we also link with is the DDoS-laundry lane of NBIP (National Management Organisation for Internet Providers). This link gives Fundaments the ability to ‘wash’ internet traffic away from attack traffic.
Unfortunately, the risk of a DDoS attack is still present. At Fundaments, when you purchase internet from us, you have the option to make use of NBIP's national laundry. This so-called DDoS laundry ensures that your organisation is protected against unwanted attacks and therefore always remains accessible. This is because during a DDoS attack, the DDoS traffic is ‘washed’. By doing so, the DDoS traffic and legitimate traffic are separated, after which the clean traffic returns to Fundaments' own network. As a result, your service, website, application or email traffic continues to work as usual, and your employees and customers notice practically nothing of the diversion.
NETWORK CONNECTIVITY TO THE PUBLIC CLOUD
We are seeing a growing demand in services delivered from the public Cloud. Whether it's a Microsoft-based service, or one from AWS or Google, the alternative connectivity options - besides internet - are increasingly being considered by our Cloud users. Fundaments also provides this by connecting to these public Clouds over, for example, an ExpressRoute to Azure or an AWS DirectConnect. Where before these connections were mainly broadband and expensive, you see that it is already possible to get connections from 50 Mbit per second. This can be very useful if internet is inadequate from a security or performance (latency) point of view.
