Consorsbank deploys ADVA FSP 3000 for secure data center interconnect

European banking and financial services firm Consorsbank, part of the BNP Paribas group, has deployed the ADVA FSP 3000 for secure data center interconnect, according to ADVA Optical Networking. The secure data transfer that the system's ConnectGuard Layer 1 encryption technology provides proved a major selling point, according to the optical transport systems vendor.

Computacenter, an independent provider of IT infrastructure services, helped design and deploy the fiber-optic network infrastructure, ADVA adds.

Consorsbank serves more than 800,000 digital banking clients and manages assets worth more than EUR 25 billion, says ADVA. Thus, the financial services firm required both security and scalability in its data center interconnect network. ConnectGuard provides data encryption capabilities at data rates of 100 Gbps (see "ADVA Optical Networking ConnectGuard tackles optical, Ethernet security").

"We're creating banking products for a digital world, services that instantly respond to customers' needs," said Stephan Eck, senior team head, networking, Consorsbank. "Encryption at the optical layer means they can be certain that their sensitive financial information is safe as it moves between our data centers.

"It's also given us far more capacity," added Eck, referring to the new transport system itself. "Previously we managed with a limited number of leased fiber channels. Now, with the ADVA FSP 3000, the amount of data we can transport has massively increased. It puts us in control of the network so we can channel that capacity where and when we need it. Flexibility means we can offer even more because new services can be accessed and switched between data centers at the push of a button. The installation was also incredibly fast and smooth, meaning no disturbance at all to the banking experience our clients receive."

"Working with Consorsbank was an exciting challenge. We were tasked with integrating new technology into an existing network and the demands of 24-hour digital banking meant it had to be installed with zero downtime," commented Josef Sißmeir, director, sales, Central Europe, ADVA Optical Networking. "Drawing on a huge amount of experience in the financial sector, our team was able to create a parallel structure for soft migration, making the process seamless."

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