SCION – transporting sensitive data securely
SCION – for secure data transmission
Standing for Scalability, Control and Isolation On Next-Generation Networks, a SCION network architecture delivers the highest levels of availability, security and control, combined with the openness and flexibility of the public Internet.
With a SCION network architecture, you can build a secure, private ecosystem for high-performance networks and cloud-based applications and for routing your sensitive data, enabling you to achieve any-to-any communication in the most important regions of the world (Europe, the United States and Asia) and enjoy secure data transmission within your ecosystem.
When is it the right solution?
Do your critical infrastructures in the healthcare, energy, transportation or banking sectors need secure data transmission, encrypted data transfer and maximum resistance to DDoS attacks? Are you looking for reliable, high-bandwidth, low-latency performance for your VR applications or video streaming?
If you need a highly secure network to securely share sensitive data across Swiss or international ecosystems and want to determine and control the paths your data will take, SCION is the ideal network architecture for maximum business continuity.
SCION connectivity
Typical SCION application scenarios
Swiss companies with national locations
What benefits does SCION offer a Swiss company that transfers confidential data between its locations in Switzerland?
In cases like this, Software Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) from Swisscom provide the flexibility and agility needed to meet the network challenges of today’s cloud-based application landscape.
In such a simple network example, SCION does not offer any relevant additional benefits. Critical data can be encrypted end to end over the SD-WAN, and advanced, integrated firewall features provide protection against threats from public Internet domains.
An ecosystem of multiple Swiss companies
What advantage does SCION offer a community of Swiss companies, which exchange confidential data within Switzerland?
When you have an ecosystem comprising different Swiss organisations, critical information must be exchanged securely, in real time and across organisational boundaries. This can be done by:
- connecting over the public Internet
- connecting to a single shared instance of a single-provider private network
- using a data line and connecting to the concentration node of an in-house private network
SCION technology offers the most value for the ‘Swiss ecosystem’ application scenario. If SCION is used as the ecosystem’s underlying network technology, all organisations are connected to the SCION Internet and thus have multiple paths to their destinations at all times. These diverse paths, all of which can be used at the same time, dramatically increase reliability and security – making the network the ideal transport network for business-critical data.
A SCION-based ecosystem therefore also solves existing challenges, such as the man-in-the-middle problem, and facilitates secure, any-to-any communication between the members of the ecosystem.
A Swiss organisation with locations outside Switzerland
What is the added value of the SCION network for organisations that exchange sensitive data within an international ecosystem?
A Swiss company must exchange business-oriented data traffic with its locations outside Switzerland. Some of the applications are latency sensitive (voice, video, VDI etc.). Others are bandwidth intensive (application or security updates, e-learning etc.) and some have no specific requirements (e-mail, CRM, HR etc.) but are still sensitive. The applications are hosted either in a private data centre or in the cloud. Organisations essentially have two options:
- to use the public Internet as a transport channel for encrypted tunnels such as an IP
- VPN to build an international private network, such as an MPLS VPN
Swisscom has an extensive network of high-performance, advanced business Internet IP-Plus backbones in the major cities of Europe, Asia Pacific, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa. This backbone integrates SCION technology to allow highly secure SCION connectivity from international locations to Switzerland.
The combination of Swisscom’s advanced business Internet IP-Plus backbone and SCION technology enables Swisscom to offer its customers optimum latency on international connections, fast access to Swisscom’s own secure infrastructure and secure connectivity for international business communications.
Why Swisscom?
Our partnerships
“With our Swisscom SCION Service, your critical networks become robust against network attacks and resilient against disruptions, guaranteeing business continuity.“
Urs Lehner
Head of Business Customers