23M strengthens digital sovereignty in the data centre with Nokia and Xantaro

23M GmbH is an established hosting provider specialising in highly available and scalable solutions for mission-critical applications. With infrastructure located at a Tier 3 data centre site in Frankfurt and strict certifications in place, the company focuses on security, performance and digital sovereignty – proudly “Made in Germany”.

To uphold these standards, a major technological modernisation was required, particularly across the data centre’s network and automation infrastructure.

Project Goals and Requirements

23M was looking for a solution that:

• Enables full transparency and reproducibility of changes
• Makes automation secure and manageable
• Allows realistic lab replicas of the production environment
• Ensures stable software releases and open collaboration with the community
• Comes from a European vendor and supports a sovereign supply chain

The previously used solutions were no longer able to reliably meet these requirements.

Solution: Nokia & Xantaro as Technical and Strategic Partners

With many years of experience in designing and delivering data centre infrastructures, Xantaro proposed Nokia and its new data centre portfolio as a suitable vendor and provided professional support to 23M throughout the entire process, from structured evaluation through to final procurement.

Key components of the new data centre architecture:

• Nokia 7220 Interconnect Routers (IXR) as an EVPN-VXLAN data centre fabric
• Nokia SR Linux as the operating system
• Seamless integration with containerlab, an open-source project for realistic replication of the infrastructure

By leveraging this setup, 23M can replicate the entire production environment within the lab, test changes and automation comprehensively beforehand, and minimise operational risks.

Achievements and Added Value

Harnessing the benefits of an open ecosystem:

• An active SR Linux Discord channel that enables direct exchange with developers
• Highly stable release cycles and strong feedback from the community
• High innovation speed in both hardware and software

Overall, this results in a technologically future-proof foundation and an economically attractive overall concept.

Customer Benefits

• Strengthening digital sovereignty through European technology
• Significantly reduced risks during changes and upgrades
• Automation potential through Event-Driven Automation (EDA)
• Future-proof scalability
  
  

With this approach, 23M establishes a future-proof foundation for a independent, highly automated, and economically efficient network operation - perfectly positioned for further growth, new services, and the increasing demands of modern data centre infrastructures.

Hear from the experts

Tobias Rehn, CEO 23M GmbH:
“With Nokia SR Linux, we gain the freedom to mirror our networks realistically using containerlab and then roll out changes automatically and with low risk. This strengthens our digital sovereignty. At the same time, by choosing Nokia, we are deliberately relying on a strong, innovative partner from Europe, which fits perfectly with our strategy of a European supply chain.”

Jürgen Städing, Chief Operation Officer, Xantaro Group:
“We are proud to be the trusted partner of our customer, 23M, together with Nokia. Their approach to automation, which is based on a very open and agnostic concept, is fully in line with our strategy of preparing customers for the future of automation in data centres and network structures. SR Linux and Event-Driven Automation (EDA) enable our customers to reduce operating costs and increase operational stability. This is one of our core areas of expertise.“

Michael Siegel, Head of Sales Germany, Nokia:
“Nokia SR Linux, our modular, microservices-based network operating system designed for operational reliability and automation, brings greater scalability, flexibility and resilience across modern network infrastructures. Together with our long-standing and trusted partner, Xantaro, we are proud to offer a sovereign data centre solution to 23M.”

23M stärkt digitale Souveränität im Data Center mit Nokia und Xantaro

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