ENX is the leading standard for secure and reliable communication between manufacturers, suppliers and other partners in the automotive industry. The ENX network provides the automotive industry with a basis for handling B2B business processes efficiently in the complex value creation chains between companies, partners and suppliers. The ENX Association relies on the expertise and services of the Telekom subsidiary in order to operate the central infrastructure components. These components allow all ENX providers competing against other to protect their customers against knowledge drain, industrial espionage and sabotage.
Precise coordination and the seamless exchanging of data are among the most important requirements when it comes to the entire industry working together successfully and according to schedule. Members of the ENX Association established the group in 2000 in order to improve communications between all global partners with a shared solution. Their sector network should work like the Internet but with better performance and protection. The IP network connections should satisfy the same quality and security requirements as those of closed company networks and at the same time allow straightforward, economical communication with large numbers of external partners.
The ENX sector network is made up of a number of ENX subnetworks operated by CSPs – the CSPs provide their customers, the ENX users, with an ENX connection to the relevant subnetwork. Working on behalf of the ENX Association, T-Systems connects these subnetworks to central interchange points (points of interconnection) – highly available managed LANs. The Telekom subsidiary operates these POIs redundantly at three international data center sites in the Rhine-Main region, in the Paris metropolitan area and on the east coast of America.
It thus ensures highly secure communications for all connected users. Each CSP must link its subnetwork to at least two of these switch sites. An ENX connection between two users comprises an individual IPsec tunnel, a robust IP VPN standard, which is used for the integrity, authentication and confidentiality of IP data traffic. The encrypted data are transmitted “E2E”, i.e. securely from end customer router to end customer router. The confidential exchanging of data between users is based on a public key infrastructure which T-Systems has operated ever since the ENX network was developed for the ENX Association.
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The ENX Association brings together European car manufacturers, automotive suppliers and associations. As an association in accordance with French law, it functions as a legal and organizational umbrella for the ENX network standard which the industry uses to exchange critical development, purchasing and production control data in a secure, economical manner.
