Next Layer GmbH

next layer GmbH is an owner managed Austrian internet service provider and digital infrastructure company headquartered in Vienna. Founded in 2004, the company designs and operates cloud, network, voice, and server infrastructure for business customers, with a strong focus on colocation, cloud services, enterprise networking, and high availability connectivity. next layer says it operates four highly energy efficient and certified data center locations in Vienna, alongside its own fiber infrastructure in Vienna, network nodes in Austrian state capitals and neighboring countries, and direct connectivity into a broader regional data center footprint. Its positioning is especially strong for organizations that need Austrian hosting, carrier rich colocation, hybrid cloud connectivity, managed Kubernetes, backup, and resilient enterprise networking. A notable recent milestone was the takeover of the Heiligenstädter Lände 27c data center, which the company says expanded its Vienna data center footprint to four locations.

⚙️ Facility Highlights

Data Center Footprint:

next layer publicly states that it operates four colocation facilities in Vienna. The colocation overview identifies these as Fleischmarkt Vienna, Digital Realty Vienna in Floridsdorf, NTT Vienna at Wienerberg, and Heiligenstädter Lände 27c / Medienhaus in the north of Vienna. The company also describes these as certified Austrian data center environments designed for business critical infrastructure.

Beyond its own sites, next layer says its fiber network directly connects more than twenty data centers in Vienna, Austrian provincial capitals, neighboring countries, and the Netherlands, and that it also has infrastructure at four sites in Frankfurt/Main for data center networking. That strengthens the company’s broader connectivity footprint even though the core colocation estate is concentrated in Vienna.

Facility Design & Infrastructure:

next layer’s colocation offering is based around secure racks, redundant power, efficient cooling, and high performance internet connectivity. The company offers quad, half, and full cabinets, and at some sites it explicitly supports scaling up to dedicated cages and handing over operational management to next layer.

Site specific materials add more depth. Digital Realty Vienna is described as using a room within a room concept and as having multiple redundant fiber paths plus several fully separated hot and cold aisle areas. NTT Vienna is described with redundant air conditioning, redundant power supply, early fire detection, fire suppression, renewable energy, and individually lockable cabinets. Fleischmarkt Vienna is positioned as a high availability central Vienna site with Tier II+ class characteristics, while HL27c is being modernized and technically upgraded after its acquisition from Drei Austria.

Service Portfolio Overview:

Publicly evidenced next layer services include:

• Colocation

• Cloud services including IaaS, managed Kubernetes, cloud backup, DRaaS, storage on demand, S3 compatible object storage, Hosted Exchange, and Nextcloud

• AWS Managed Services and operational management for hybrid cloud environments

• Network services including internet upstream, Layer 2 Ethernet, MPLS, remote peering, cloud connect, and data center interconnects

• Voice over IP and domain management / DNS hosting

🔐 Security & Compliance

Infrastructure Resilience:

next layer positions its colocation service around redundant power and cooling in certified Austrian data centers. Its Managed Kubernetes materials state that clusters operate across three data centers and advertise 99.99% uptime, while the DRaaS pages describe fast recovery from certified Austrian data centers with recovery targets under 15 minutes.

The most detailed public resilience information appears on the NTT Vienna page, which describes 1+1 redundant UPS, redundant emergency power systems with at least 72 hours of fuel supply, N+1 cooling, ASHRAE aligned cold aisle design, and a published 99.98% annual service availability for that Tier III data center environment.

Physical & Logical Security:

next layer’s colocation pages describe a secure environment with 24/7 customer access for maintenance. The detailed NTT Vienna description adds video surveillance, 24/7 monitored operation, access by ID against managed access lists, contactless key cards, personal separation systems, leakage warning, VESDA early fire detection, gas based extinguishing, and continuous infrastructure monitoring. Cabinets can also be individually locked.

For cloud operations, next layer says its services are based on ISO 27001 and ITIL aligned operational practices, and it markets GDPR compliant Austrian cloud services and storage.

Compliance & Standards:

next layer publicly states that it is ISO 27001 certified, follows the ISPA Code of Conduct, and holds the Cyber Trust Austria Silber label.

At the facility level, NTT Vienna is described as certified to ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 50001, and DIN EN 50600, with TUV Süd Tier III based on TIA 942, plus LEED Platinum pre certification. Digital Realty Vienna is described as having achieved all standard industry certifications, though the specific list is not enumerated on the snippet reviewed.

🌐 Connectivity & Carrier Access

Carrier Neutrality:

The strongest public evidence for carrier neutrality appears at Digital Realty Vienna, where next layer says “practically every Austria based carrier and ISP” is present on site, including a PoP of the Vienna Internet Exchange VIX. That supports a carrier rich, effectively carrier neutral environment for this key site.

More broadly, next layer’s business model is deeply network centric. It operates its own fiber infrastructure in Vienna, directly connects numerous third party data centers, and provides remote peering to global exchanges, making its colocation proposition strongly connectivity driven even where every site is not individually labeled carrier neutral.

Network Capabilities:

This is one of next layer’s strongest areas. The company publicly offers Internet Upstream, Layer 2 Ethernet, MPLS, remote peering, data center interconnects, Fibre Channel services, Cloud Connect, and Microsoft ExpressRoute connectivity. It says it works almost exclusively over fiber, with bandwidth from 100 Mbit/s to n x 400 Gbit/s, direct connections to eight leading internet exchanges, and high availability connectivity for enterprise sites, campuses, and data centers.

The company also offers DDoS mitigation, with mitigation for attacks exceeding 100 Gbit/s, and says it has directly connected over 100 office buildings and nearly all major business campuses in Vienna with its own fiber infrastructure.

Connectivity Use Cases:

• Enterprises connecting office sites to colocation or cloud infrastructure over Layer 2 Ethernet, MPLS, or dedicated fiber.

• Businesses building hybrid cloud architectures with direct connectivity to AWS, Azure, GCP, and other cloud services.

• ISPs and network intensive customers using remote peering and exchange access to reduce latency and improve quality.

• Customers needing Austrian colocation plus optional operations management, backup, Kubernetes, and cloud services from one provider.

💼 Who It Serves

next layer says its customers include banks, insurance companies, authorities, computer service providers, and system integrators. Its profile and product pages clearly target business customers rather than consumers.

The strongest fit appears to be mid market and enterprise organizations that need Austrian data residency, resilient colocation, cloud infrastructure, hybrid cloud connectivity, and complex network services, especially in Vienna centric and DACH region deployments.