The Internet was just a cloud

For years, we've drawn the Internet as a cloud in our network diagrams. A convenient way to represent everything beyond the corporate network. But as organisations increasingly depend on the Internet for their daily operations, it's worth taking a closer look at what we've been leaving out of the picture.

The Internet was just a cloud

When you look at a typical enterprise network diagram, you'll see routers, firewalls, switches, servers, security layers and connections between locations. Everything carefully designed, documented and managed.

And somewhere at the edge of the diagram, there's a cloud labelled Internet.

For years, that was enough. You bought an Internet connection, plugged it into your network and expected it to work. There wasn't much reason to think about what happened beyond that connection.

And to be fair, the Internet has done a pretty good job.

But while we've continued drawing the same cloud, the way organisations use the Internet has changed considerably.

Your network no longer ends at the firewall

Today, employees work from different locations, business-critical applications run in cloud environments, and organisations continuously exchange data with customers, partners and suppliers.

The Internet has become essential to everyday business operations.

Yet when it comes to managing connectivity, we still tend to make a clear distinction between our own network and everything beyond it.

Inside the corporate network, we want to know exactly what's happening. We monitor performance, manage security, build in redundancy and keep track of how systems communicate.

But once traffic leaves that network, visibility often becomes much more limited.

We know where our data needs to go. But do we know how it gets there?

What's really inside that cloud?

The Internet isn't one big network. It's thousands of independently operated networks, interconnected to exchange traffic.

When your organisation connects to a cloud platform, application or business partner, traffic may pass through several networks before reaching its destination.

Which networks? That depends on how traffic is routed.

Internet routing is dynamic. Routes can change because of network policies, available connections, outages or other circumstances. And the shortest geographical route isn't necessarily the route your traffic takes.

That's how the Internet works. And generally, it works very well.

But as more applications, infrastructure and business processes depend on the Internet, knowing what happens to your traffic along the way becomes increasingly relevant.

Traditionally, enterprise Internet connectivity has largely been about bandwidth, availability and price. And of course, those things still matter. But today, there are other questions worth asking:

• Which networks actually carry your business-critical traffic?
• Which countries does that traffic pass through?
• How many intermediary networks are involved before traffic reaches its destination?
• And how much influence do you have over the connectivity supporting your critical operations?

These aren't necessarily questions most enterprises have been asking their Internet providers. But perhaps they should.

Regulations such as NIS2 are also putting greater emphasis on how organisations manage cybersecurity risks, including those related to their networks and supply chains. Responsibility for securing business-critical operations doesn't simply end at the corporate firewall.

The Internet may look like a cloud. But what happens inside is your business.

This doesn't mean the Internet is suddenly unreliable or that every organisation needs to understand every technical detail of Internet routing.

It does mean that we've become increasingly dependent on infrastructure we often know remarkably little about.

Making the Internet a more deliberate part of your network

At NL-ix, we believe enterprises should have more visibility into what happens to their traffic beyond their own network, and more control over the paths that traffic takes.

We can help you take a closer look at what happens beyond your own network. By analysing your Internet traffic, we can identify which networks sit between your infrastructure and the networks hosting your business-critical applications, giving you a clearer picture of the routes your organisation depends on.

And that's where our Sovereign Internet proposition comes in.

NL-ix operates a distributed European interconnection infrastructure, connecting more than 2,400 networks across over 100 datacentres.

By exchanging traffic directly with connected networks and keeping traffic on the NL-ix backbone wherever possible, we can reduce the number of intermediary networks involved in reaching a destination.

NL-ix provides a secure, sovereign and controlled part of the Internet, giving organisations visibility into how their traffic is routed, with controlled paths that avoid third-party networks wherever possible. In practice, an average of 95% of enterprise traffic remains on the secure NL-ix backbone, without passing through unknown third-party networks.

Through our ICON portal, customers also gain insight into their traffic flows, including routing and performance information.

So, what's inside your cloud?

The next time you look at your organisation's network diagram, take another look at that familiar Internet cloud.

You probably know exactly what's happening on your side of the connection. But how much do you know about what happens beyond it?

The Internet may look like a cloud. But what happens inside is your business.