For over 20 years, Apex Datacom has engineered customized software program options for enterprises that depend on real-time communications. From voice and video platforms to cloud-native purposes, Apex operates on the intersection of efficiency, reliability and pace.
“All the things we do is about pace,” stated Glen Scotzin, COO and CTO of Apex Datacom. “In a software-defined world accelerated by AI, time to market is time to worth.”
However as Apex scaled their infrastructure to assist mission-critical purposes, the menace panorama advanced. The very infrastructure powering their innovation grew to become a goal for cyberattacks—forcing Apex to confront a rising pressure between velocity and vulnerability.
Why Cloud-first Infrastructure Calls for Good Safety
Apex Datacom started experiencing a surge in brute-force credential assaults focusing on their Lumen edge environments. With highly effective 10GbE circuits and wealthy information environments, Apex’s infrastructure attracted malicious actors searching for entry to delicate buyer information and proprietary purposes.
“These are very enticing for hackers,” Scotzin defined. “It’s not solely about defending our mental property—it’s about stopping reputational harm and enterprise disruption.”
Conventional safety fashions couldn’t maintain tempo. Standing up infrastructure, configuring firewalls and managing menace intelligence demanded time and experience—sources higher spent constructing customer-facing options.
Apex wanted a safety answer that might match their velocity. One which didn’t require deep configuration, specialised coaching or weeks of tuning. One that might ship worth on day one.
Zero-touch Safety with Actual-time Impression
Apex turned to Lumen Defender℠ Plus for a basically completely different method to cybersecurity. Quite than ready for threats to succeed in the entrance door, Defender Plus intercepts malicious site visitors on the community edge—leveraging the Lumen globally ranked IP spine and Black Lotus Labs®, the menace analysis and operations arm of Lumen.
“Lumen has captured a lightning-in-a-bottle second,” Scotzin stated. “It’s not only a firewall—it’s like residing in a gated neighborhood with safety forces maintaining dangerous guys distant from your own home. That’s the type of safety we would have liked.”
Defender Plus is constructed on the identical U.S. ultra-low-loss fiber spine powering AI workloads for hyperscale leaders—giving Apex enterprise-grade safety from day one.
“Defender Plus is what I might name a zero-delay configuration, zero-touch configuration and zero-day time-to-value proposition,” Scotzin stated. “You flip it on and also you’re already seeing threats blocked with none IT involvement.”
The deployment was speedy and impactful. Inside 30 days, Defender Plus blocked over 200,000 threats throughout two circuits. “And that’s all for about 100 bucks a circuit*,” Scotzin emphasised. “That’s simply phenomenal worth.”
Defender Plus attracts its power from deep integration with Lumen international community visibility and superior menace intelligence. By working on the fringe of the #1 peered international community¹, Defender Plus offers Apex a proactive protection posture from day one.
Scotzin credit this unmatched community visibility as a key differentiator: “Lumen sees farther than anybody else,” he stated. “And whenever you mix that attain with the experience of Black Lotus Labs, you get best-in-class menace intelligence that powers Defender’s real-time safety.”
Built-in infrastructure that multiplies affect
Defender Plus marked the start of a layered safety technique powered by Lumen. Apex expanded their method to incorporate:
- Lumen Defender Plus: A zero-touch, pre-firewall safety platform powered by Black Lotus Labs menace intelligence
- Lumen Edge Cloud Options: Together with Edge Naked Metallic and Community-as-a-Service (NaaS)
- Lumen® SASE with Fortinet® and Lumen® DDoS Mitigation: For complete community safety
The affect of this strategic composition of AI-era infrastructure was clear: brute-force assaults dropped dramatically, remediation workloads decreased and builders shifted their focus from protection to innovation.
“Defender helps company America perceive that the time to guard the enterprise is now, not subsequent 12 months,” he stated. “It creates a method for us to speak with the C-suite concerning the state of safety.”
$200 funding.* 200,000 neutralized threats. Zero configuration required
With safety streamlined, Apex centered on constructing new options—like Bandwidth IQ, a community orchestration and monitoring platform that integrates instantly with Lumen APIs just like the NaaS portfolio. The platform gives real-time visibility into community well being, enabling adaptive insurance policies and automatic remediation—a crucial step towards AI-driven operations.
“We’re giving clients the flexibility to have eyes-on-glass functionality to see community well being,” Scotzin defined. “Then tying that into orchestration to allow resilience and scalability.”
Now, Apex is increasing into voice AI for contact facilities—leveraging Lumen low- latency infrastructure and an SIP gateway footprint to ship high-definition audio that feeds clear, attributed information into AI fashions. The aim: improve sentiment evaluation and training capabilities at scale.
“Lumen is a key stakeholder in how we try this,” Scotzin emphasised. “They supply the constructing blocks, the infrastructure and the relationships that permit us to ship mission-critical purposes at scale.”
The spine of Apex’s innovation roadmap
From deep fiber investments to edge infrastructure and hyperscaler partnerships, Lumen gives the inspiration for Apex to scale securely and innovate quickly.
“We consider Lumen is the spine of the AI financial system,” Scotzin stated. “Their footprint, capability and partnerships make them uniquely positioned to assist the following wave of transformation.”
Now, with Defender Plus in place and Lumen infrastructure behind them, Apex isn’t simply defending what they’ve constructed—they’re constructing what’s subsequent. Whether or not it’s community orchestration, voice AI or real-time analytics, they’re transferring quick and staying forward.
As Scotzin put it: “For as we speak’s companies, the chance is just not merely digital transformation—it’s artistic capitalization. Your ceiling is actually your creativeness. What are you able to construct with Lumen?”
To be taught extra about Apex Datacom’s transformation, learn the total buyer success story.
Go to our buyer story library to learn the way organizations in just about each trade are attaining their enterprise goals.
*Lumen Defender Plus fee is per hour, per circuit of 100Mbps to 1Gbps, accessible for Lumen Web On-Demand and requires entry to a NaaS-enabled port. A $50 NRC will apply if bought separate from web. The acknowledged fee is the typical always-on month-to-month value and excludes taxes and costs. Extra phrases and situations apply.
¹Center for Utilized Web Knowledge Evaluation (CAIDA), AS Rank, January 2025.
Present Lumen buyer compensated for his or her endorsement.
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