Schwaiger: Secure with the Open Telekom Cloud

In this article you will read about,

• how Schwaiger's secure data exchange takes place with the Open Telekom Cloud,
• how Schwaiger's intelligent home automation works
• and how Schwaiger processes the data from its home automation solutions quickly and reliably.
   

The name Schwaiger is familiar to technology fans. This long-established German company’s success came from satellite television. True to their slogan “Everything from a single source”, their products range from offset antennas, LNBs and SAT distributors to set top boxes and cabling. DIY and specialist stores stock more than 1,800 individual Schwaiger products as well as the large selection of aerial equipment and modern satellite reception technology. The company also offers installation equipment as well as wall and ceiling mounts – in short, everything you need for today’s television experience.

Founded in 1946 in Langenzenn, Germany, the medium-size company is at the forefront of a new development: intelligent home automation. “Customers can now control networked items such as heating, lighting, and window blinds directly from their smartphone and tablet,” explains Managing Director Mike Tänzler. According to a study by auditors and consultants PwC, home automation is a growing sector: By 2030, one in three newly-built or renovated houses will feature automated and networked electronics, heating and/or air conditioning.

When someone’s home, his or her proverbial castle, is connected to the internet, what about data and privacy concerns? A recent survey by Dr Greiger & Cie, a market research institute based in Hamburg, found that many Germans are sceptical: More than 54% of those questions do not use any smart home applications due to privacy concerns. Nearly 58% fear a hacking attack on their window blinds, heating, and lighting.

As a customer-centric supplier, Schwaiger often hears these fears during conversations with customers and now offers them a complete security system to combat these concerns. As well as a highly-secure end-user app and the use of digital, encrypted transmission protocols, all data processing takes place in certified, German cloud infrastructure.

What does that mean in practical terms? Open Telekom Cloud is Deutsche Telekom’s secure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) product. As and when needed, Schwaiger can cost-effectively call on various IT resources from the public cloud via the platform – be it processing power, storage capacity, or network/administrator services. “We introduced our home automation range nine months ago”, says Tänzler. “We are hoping for fast growth.” Thanks to Open Telekom Cloud’s scalability, Schwaiger is extremely flexible and can reserve or scale back resources with no contract restrictions. The company is not even tied long-term to Telekom as the service provider as Open Telekom Cloud is based on OpenStack, an open-source architecture for cloud computing. Thanks to real open source standards, service providers can be easily and quickly changed anytime to avoid so-called “vendor lock-in”.

Currently, the company is using the processing power of five servers to quickly and reliably manage the data for its home automation service. “For us, the decisive factors for moving to Deutsche Telekom were Open Telekom Cloud’s reliability, high availability, and outstanding data security,” explains Tänzler. No authorised user can see which commands are exchanged between the gateway and the smartphone. “When we’re explaining the home automation service to customers, another good sales argument is that data is protected under German law.”

Many customers already know that German data protection is particularly rigorous. Likewise, Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud runs certified, highly-secure data centres in Biere and Magdeburg. Independent certification such as TÜV Trusted Cloud Services and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA Star Level 2), the most important international cloud security certification, prove how secure and well-run our datacentres are. Furthermore, Experton Group identified Deutsche Telekom as one of the leading providers in security solutions in their Security Vendor Benchmark 2016. Schwaiger’s customers can be sure that their information is handled according to the strict German data protection law.

A fast internet connection is a must for today’s forward-thinking company. It was, then, a logical choice for Schwaiger to provide their company headquarters with a state-of-the-art, superfast fibre connection. With Deutsche Telekom’s “Company Connect” product, the company can now not only connect quickly and seamlessly to Open Telekom Cloud’s servers but use other online applications at lightning speed. The superfast connection allows a guaranteed speed of up to 622 Mbit/s and availability of 98.5%. “Together with the Open Telekom Cloud, this is a customer-friendly complete solution to sell a real cutting-edge product,” says Johann Obermeier, Account Manager at Deutsche Telekom.