Microsoft Office 365 protects the sensitive data of InnoWi

How can sensitive data be accessible for every member of a company without offending the security level? This question was also raised by Bremen’s patent utilization agency InnoWi GmbH. To use confidential informations, the company now decided to trust Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azur. 

InnoWi is the leading patent utilization agency in north-west Germany. The company is specialized in protecting and merchandising new inventions. InnoWi works together with 15 universities and research institutes in Bremen and Lower Saxony. Together they evaluate optimal concepts and strategies for copyright protection.

Besides these, InnoWi acquires companies, negotiates licensing agreements and supports the inventors in reaching agreement with the project partners.

Safe working environments

InnoWi has long used its own IT systems to carry out its tasks. These were maintained by local hosters and self-initiatives. In order to protect the sensitive data even better, the company decided to replace the old systems in fall 2016 with a fail-safe, scalable and maintenance-free system in the cloud.

In addition, the increasing cooperation with partners outside the company required the possibility of a simple external access to patent data in the IT systems of InnoWi. The required data should be provided in secure workspaces for partners and be available for real-time processing.

The much higher flexibility and ease of maintenance played a central role in the design of a system exchange.

Installation of Office 365

With Axtrion a proven expert for the changeover was found. After the basic setup of Office 365, Axtrion carried out the migration of the inventory data from the company’s internal mailserver to the Exchange online server.

Here Microsoft’s cloud services were used, which allow the transfer of very large amounts of data in the shortest time possible.

To access emails and project data, Axtrion connected the workstation computers to the Microsoft Exchange online server and mobile devices.

Integration of Skype for Business

Thanks to Skype for Business, Axtrion was able to improve the communication and collaboration of the InnoWi teams. Traditional telephone calls were replaced by short messages (chat), audio conversations, video conferencing in HD quality or screen sharing and are enhanced with extensive functionalities.

Using Microsoft SharePoint, Axtrion has created secure workspaces, where documents can be shared with partners under strict access control. The previously used patent administration system with the components client, database and file system was transferred to the cloud.

Besides these Azure services such as virtual machines for database operation, Azure Storage as a file storage system and RemoteApp to provide the user interface on a PC, notebook, tablet PC, and smartphone were added. With the use of Azure Backup, a continuous backup of the files and database contents was ensured.

Cost-efficient data backup

Due to continuous data protection in the cloud, InnoWi now has a complete disaster recovery – and an enormous security through the 99.99 percent availability of the applications and data.
By eliminating many administrative and maintenance costs, the management can also look forward to considerable savings in IT costs.

This article is based on a press release of the Axtrion GmbH & Co. KG, April 2017

Image source: iStock / 4X-images