Solving for ZOOM in China

Most CIOs are heavily focused on optimizing the end-user experience. MacroNet partners with IT teams to deploy forward-looking network and collaboration solutions around the globe to accomplish this objective.

Problem:

Last week, the popular software-based ZOOM video and collaboration service was interrupted, impacting thousands of enterprise users who initiate web sessions in mainland China.

ZOOM engineers quickly identified DNS corruption as the root cause, which is a common censorship tool employed by Chinese authorities to control internet access to specific web sites and internet services. Popular business apps like Slack, Dropbox, Google apps, and Microsoft OneDrive are currently blocked from public internet access. ZOOM users can still access meetings in audio only mode by selecting globally available conference bridge numbers.

Solutions:

Enterprise IT organizations will need to ensure that they are nimble, educated, and that they understand the legal environment of business in China. They need to be continuously prepared for various unannounced blocking techniques employed by the Ministry and other Chinese Government organizations.

• Option 1
  One or more private network links from a hub site in China to an enterprise node outside of China is the best way to mitigate the risk of disruption. Procuring private network services such as Ethernet Private Line or MPLS to transit out of China is very costly and will most likely equate to the highest cost links (on a per Mbps basis) for most IT budgets.
• Option 2
  SD WAN solutions are available that can be deployed quickly in China but must be designed to meet application performance needs and regulatory compliance. Some SD WAN providers will terminate client overlay tunnels to their registered private core backbone and haul the traffic to gateway locations outside of China. Client-specific SD WAN forwarding logic will then enable internet applications like ZOOM to launch without interruption. Some SD WAN service providers will enable remote users in China to terminate registered VPN tunnels with 128-bit AES encryption to the private network service, simplifying remote access for users inside of China.

MacroNet represents over 250 network service providers and has assisted many enterprises with global wide area networking and unified communications strategies to enable their teams to seamlessly collaborate and optimize business critical applications. Contact us today to learn more.