Redundancy, Automation, Independence – Three Dimensions of an Infrastructure Decision

Technological Independence Begins in the Data Center: Why We Rely on European Network Technology

Digital sovereignty doesn’t start with legal texts or strategy papers – it begins where infrastructure is planned, implemented, and operated. At ayedo, this means: every component, every layer, every interface is scrutinized. Not out of distrust, but out of responsibility.

In our current data center expansion project, we have deliberately invested in more redundancy and performance – while also taking another step towards technological independence. The focus was on network infrastructure. Specifically: the use of European routing technology, which not only provides us with technical advantages but also sets new standards in terms of control, maintainability, and legal clarity.

The Setup: 320 Gbit Routing Capacity Added

At the heart of our initiative was the implementation of an additional Mikrotik CRS326-24s+ – a modular, powerful Layer-3 switch with the following specifications:

• 24 SFP+ ports with 10 Gbit/s – ideal for fiber connections in core environments
• 2 QSFP+ ports with 40 Gbit/s – for backbone or aggregation uplinks
• 320 Gbit/s non-blocking throughput
• 64 Gbit/s switching fabric
• Layer-3 routing with VLAN support
• Integration into automation tools via RouterOS CLI & API

By deploying these systems, we were able to not only increase router redundancy but also significantly enhance availability and performance across the entire system. This is particularly crucial in the context of modern, container-based applications with high east-west traffic.

Why Mikrotik – and Why European Technology?

Beyond the technical specifications, three points convinced us about Mikrotik:

1. Automatability:

   The routers run on RouterOS and offer a complete CLI, a JSON API, and SNMP interfaces for seamless integration into our infrastructure automation. Configuration, monitoring, and failover logic can thus be controlled directly through existing systems.

2. Cost-effectiveness:

   In terms of price-performance, Mikrotik sets standards. The combination of functionality, throughput performance, and stability is achievable in many competing products only at significantly higher costs.

3. Legal Clarity and Transparency:

   Mikrotik is a European company headquartered in Latvia, whose products are developed and distributed under European law. For us, this is not a political argument but an operational decision criterion. With every non-European component, an additional risk factor arises – be it through different legal frameworks, export regulations, or third-party access rights.

Infrastructure Control in the Age of the Cloud Act

Even though we can rely on a multitude of legal and regulatory frameworks in Europe, the reality shows: Infrastructures developed or controlled outside European jurisdiction are subject to different rules.

The so-called Cloud Act is an example of this. It obliges companies based outside Europe to disclose data under certain conditions – even if this data is physically stored in Europe. This creates uncertainty, especially in security-critical or highly regulated environments.

The use of European network technology is a step for us to address this dilemma not only organizationally but structurally. In the end, it is of little help to store data in Europe if the control and operational levels are located outside.

The Path to Technical Self-Determination

At ayedo, we understand technological sovereignty not as dogmatic ideology but as part of our responsibility for our customers and their systems. We believe that every data center, every cloud, every platform must answer one question:

Who controls what – and under what conditions?

With the investment in expanded fiber routing capacity based on European systems, we achieve exactly this:

• Technical redundancy
• Performant scalability
• Legal clarity
• And a system that we can understand, automate, and secure down to the last detail

For us, this is a logical step.