Secure Infrastructures for the digital Classroom

Interview with Timo Springmann and Moritz Bunkus

CEO and CTO of LINET Services GmbH

The city of Wolfsburg has commissioned you to implement virtual classrooms in 2020. You chose the gridscale cloud as the infrastructure. Why did you choose gridscale and what were the particular challenges?

Timo Springmann: To enable up to 12,000 Wolfsburg students to homeschool, we needed an infrastructure that was scalable, secure and DSGVO-compliant. In addition, to enable students from rural areas to participate in classes, we needed to integrate a telephone system. Working closely with the gridscale team, we were able to find a solution for everything.

Data protection in particular is always an important issue for a public organization. What were the general conditions for you here?

We received the specifications directly from the city of Wolfsburg. For data protection reasons, it quickly became clear that video conferencing solutions from US tech companies were out of the question. This eliminated the classic US providers for processing and storing the data. gridscale’s IT infrastructures are located in Germany and are therefore also subject to the strict data protection guidelines here. This was therefore a decisive argument for gridscale in this project.

Were there other advantages of the gridscale infrastructure besides the security aspects?

Moritz Bunkus: The machines’ computing power, which can be quickly and easily adapted to increasing numbers of users, was also a decisive factor for us. The conference nodes, via which users connect and audio and video processing takes place, are the scaling element here. At the moment, up to 1500 users can connect via these nodes. Within a few minutes, we can add additional machines to make room for another 1000 users. So we can scale up at any time as needed. 

Doesn’t this create problems with policies, connectivity, etc.?

The RESTful API of gridscale takes a lot of work off our shoulders by automating process flows. For example, it takes care of provisioning, making sure that all servers are set up the same way, have the same network configuration, and so on. This keeps the effort for such tasks within limits.

You are also responsible for managed cloud services on behalf of the city of Wolfsburg. In the meantime, you have also taken over this area for other gridscale customers. How has this cooperation developed?

Timo Springmann: During the project in Wolfsburg, we noticed how well LINET and gridscale work together. So it made sense to expand this cooperation. gridscale can now concentrate on the role of technology provider, while we take over the managed services part. Most of our customers rely on Linux, which also speaks in favor of gridscale as a partner, since gridscale can draw on extensive knowledge in this area.

How did you communicate the start of the collaboration to your customers?

We have communicated transparently that customers are now being supported by a new service provider, but that gridscale is still part of the team in the background. The advantage for customers is clear: as a service provider, we can proactively help the customer if there are difficulties and escalate to gridscale if necessary.

And what advantages does the partnership bring for gridscale?

LINET supports gridscale in tapping companies in the SME sector as partners. We are locally oriented and can approach the right companies here. In particular, we address SMEs in this way. For smaller companies, common cloud models are often too expensive, gridscale’s flexible model for use and payment suits these companies. We establish the contact and take care of the integration.