elevating security standards: seveup's successful transition to azure
website
#of employees
<10
location
france
industry
architecture studios, real estate developers
services
bim models via saas solutions
background
French startup SeveUp has been in business for 5 years, providing dashboards for BIM design models via software as a service (SaaS).
BIM (Building Information Modeling) is a modeling methodology used at all stages of a building's lifecycle, from planning and design to construction, operation, and maintenance.
Collaboration between construction project stakeholders is facilitated by BIM models. In a centralized system, all users have entry to the same data.
Customers of SeveUp—primarily architectural firms and major real estate developers—can easily connect/upload data about their BIM models and set up user-friendly dashboards. After the dashboards have been built, they can be shared with anyone with a stake in the project.
Because of the massive amounts of data and processing power required by such models, they are typically housed in and accessed through cloud computing platforms. Due to the sensitive nature of the information it contains, data security is also crucial.
challenge
One of SeveUp's primary clients, the French real estate giant Icade, had stringent requirements for new levels of security. Large-scale buildings and infrastructure, including those used by hospitals, are designed, constructed, and maintained by Icade all over Europe.
In 2022, the company's assets totaled nearly 15 billion euros, with roughly 7 billion located in healthcare facilities.
The design models used by Icade contain sensitive information that must be protected from being accessed by unauthorized parties or competitors.
SeveUp had previously worked with the French cloud service OVHcloud.com, which is among the largest in Europe. However, adhering to Icade stringent security requirements proved difficult on the OVHcloud.com platform.
In order to meet stricter security requirements and gain access to more products on a more advanced cloud platform, the decision was made to migrate to Microsoft's Azure cloud.
Along with the migration to Azure, Azure DevOps were assessed and opted for so that the streamlined integrations between Microsoft's various services could be taken advantage of.
Well Advised was chosen to carry out the migration because of their experience with Azure's security tools and DevOps procedures.
approach
A key component of the security requirements was the guidance set forth by the CIS security Benchmarks for Azure and Azure Kubernetes Services.
More than 25 different vendor product families are covered by the CIS Benchmarks' prescriptive configuration recommendations. They are the result of a global consensus effort by more than 12,000 cybersecurity experts.
Upon the completion of Phase 1 by Well Advised, a penetration test was performed to prepare for a security audit. Following that, SeveUp's new environment passed a successful audit performed by their client.
All-in all, the project was a huge success that took advantage of a broad spectrum of features and capabilities in the Azure ecosystem.
With SeveUp’s stringent security requirements, the decision to migrate to Azure was obvious. A powerful set of security focused features and excellent tooling to support it made execution all but effortless. Collaboration with the team at Seve-Up was excellent, requirements were clear and with expectations set we could execute on a well drafted plan.
success
- SeveUp can now choose the right virtual machine configuration for any task, giving it many savings options
- Application Insights and Azure Monitor integrations give SeveUp powerful project insights and overview of stress points
- Advanced technologies and services, from compute and storage to AI and machine learning, to boost future innovations and development