How Eurotransplant cut TCO by 40% on mission-critical DCI

The challenge

Secure ethernet DCI – at what cost?

Eurotransplant relies on sensitive, real-time data to ensure fair and efficient donor matches. To support these operations, it maintains two data centers in Amsterdam with storage and LAN switches interconnected over Ethernet with its headquarters in Leiden. Given the critical nature of this data, the organ allocation network must meet security requirements under NIS2 (Network and Information Security Directive 2) and BIO (Baseline Information Security). 

With rising demands for security and operational efficiency, Eurotransplant decided to reassess its long-term strategy for data center interconnection. At the time, they were using a compliant solution, but managing encryption and infrastructure required significant manual effort and came with the added cost of a managed service agreement. The goal was to reduce complexity and improve cost efficiency.

The Solution

Switching to Smartoptics is easy and smart

Eurotransplant’s strategic reassessment led first to a change in integration partners, and then to a change in optical networking vendors. The new integration partner, ncubed, supported the migration from the previous setup to a more flexible solution from Smartoptics. With easy-to-deploy transponders, transceivers and passive multiplexers, the new solution gives Eurotransplant greater control over its own network. 

The migration process was straightforward, and the Smartoptics equipment proved intuitive to work with. By retaining existing functionality and introducing full link redundancy, Eurotransplant laid the foundation for smoother updates, simplified security and long-term efficiency gains. 

“Switching to Smartoptics helped us greatly improve cost efficiency, ease of use, and network security,” says Wouter van der Logt, Infrastructure & Security Architect, Eurotransplant.

Less hassle – more secure encryption

Overall security improved with the move to Smartoptics, thanks to easier encryption management and a more resilient design. Instead of manually renewing encryption certificates, encryption keys can now be generated easily. The full network redundancy of the Smartoptics solution also protects against battery outages, enhancing overall encryption resilience compared to the previous setup. 

“Renewing encryption certificates used to be such a pain that we used one encryption certificate for the whole network. Now it’s so much easier with Smartoptics that we have enhanced our security by generating a unique key for each link,” says Wouter.

the Result

TCO reduced by 40% with self-managed solution

The Smartoptics solution provides a fully redundant, encrypted dark fiber connection that is simple enough to manage by Eurotransplant in-house. This self-managed approach reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) by 40% over five years. With the ability to manage the solution internally, Eurotransplant no longer needs to rely on a managed service provider for daily operations. 

“I also appreciate that Smartoptics is easy to communicate with directly, that ncubed supports this, and that we are not forced into higher bit rates before we need them,” says Wouter

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