History, since 2001

Year 2001

  • 2001 - Bogdan Belu establishes Distinct New Media
  • 2001 -We start the collaboration with Radio 21 and Radio Total
  • 2001 - The project 'Lyceum', supply of school information to the parents via e-mail, SMS, web and mail letters

Year 2003

  • 2003 - We diversify our client base and our competence area by entering two emerging market segments: VoIP (Voice over IP) and SMS/Voice VAS(Value Added Services)
  • 2003 - We complete SMSPLUS, the first platform for cellphone services delivery (SMS and content) in Romanian(see the case study)
  • 2003 - We launch Dialplus (dialplus.ro) - the platform of dial-up services provided featuring automatic account creation and payment via SMS
  • 2003 - We start to provide support services and VoIP services development to the Romanian and foreign clients (H.323 and then SIP)
  • 2003 - We've developed the application 'Zapp Installer' for Telemobil SA; the application was distributed with all the mobile data clients to facilitate automatic configuration of the Internet connection (see the case study)
  • 2003 - We've opened a new office in Bucharest
  • 2003 - We've developed more websites, in general, as frontends for our technologies

Year 2004

  • 2004 - VoIP support in Iraq; we've operationally launched the first VoIP termination after the war by using Cisco access equipment and satellite uplink (see the case study)
  • 2004 - Milestone: our technical support team is available on 24/7
  • 2004 - We continue to develop new SMS services (games and information services) on the SMSPLUS platform
  • 2004 - We supply technical support for ISP, servers and VoIP. The equipment that we are responsible for are located on 4 continents (Europe, North America, Africa and Asia)
  • 2004 - We install and secure the infrastructure solution for the website of a big telecommunications operator (7 servers) (see the case study)
  • 2004 - The technical solution for national expansion of the Dialplus service (adding 40 new system access servers)
  • 2004 - We've developed Certicord (PBX that records telephone calls) and Soundercover PSTN (pre-recorded sound mixing in a telephone call) in cooperation with Simeda Gmbh
  • 2004 - We start to develop AVL (AutoVehicle Location) applications for fleet monitoring using GPS/GPRS
  • 2004 - We program the first Java MIDP application for Siemens TC45 (embedded device)
  • 2004 - We complete 'Hotline router' - call center software for IVR adult industry
  • 2004 - Support - we launch our first technical monitoring platform

Year 2005

  • 2005 - We program the applications 'Fazan', 'Kuplometru' and 'Hangman' through SMS, later on used by tens of thousands of people.
  • 2005 - We launch 'Smshouse', the SMS platform for the market in Switzerland.
  • 2005 - We develop the installation application for 'Voxell - UMTS interface' for Topex; the product is better known in Romania as 'Vodafone 3G Multioffice'

Year 2006

  • 2006 - The company 'Distinct Software' is established
  • 2006 - We complete the unification of the systems of support ticket and development, source control and project management
  • 2006 - Software - Radio 21, we create the applications from the 'ASCULT RADIO21' campaign and the SMS service 072DEMENTA
  • 2006 - We complete the project Radio Lynx (on-line radio) - servers infrastructure and website
  • 2006 - We provide training services about Internet security within the SIVECO summer school
  • 2006 - We install the first DWAP (multipurpose embedded box) equipment in locations in Bucharest
  • 2006 - We develop and we launch WSSO (Web Single Sign-On system) for the web portal of a Romanian GSM operator
  • 2006 - We install the first equipment (Stream Receiver), of our own design, for an audio live over IP distribution network at national level (see the case study)

Year 2007

  • 2007 - We install the first DWAP Printer Edition equipment (remote printing of the orders coming through the website)
  • 2007 - We provide technical support for the radio group number one in Romania (EDI Romania - Radio 21, Europa FM, RRM) (see the case study)
  • 2007 - The monitoring system reaches up to 500 automatic simultaneous checks
  • 2007 - We resolve the ticket no. 25 000
  • 2007 - We resume the project Lyceum (education system improvement through technology)
  • 2007 - We modify WSSO to accommodate the changes related to the number portability

Year 2008

  • 2008 - We build from scratch the technical infrastructure for a new musical television (1Music) (see the case study)
  • 2008 - We build and we inaugurate our own datacenter location
  • 2008 - We relaunch www.distinctgroup.net / www.distinct.ro
  • 2008 - We obtain the ISO 9001:2000 certification (afterwards migrated to ISO 9001:2008)
  • 2008 - Technical SMS solution for the campaign 'ASCULT RADIO21', 800 000 transited SMSs
  • 2008 - We migrate on the private cloud solution www.tarom.ro (see the case study)

Year 2009

  • 2009 - We purchase the second high power generating set for Distinct Datacenter, we are among the few locations having a primary generating set and a separately active spare
  • 2009 - We attend Seedcamp with the Distinct Messaging platform (unified API for access to instant messaging and socialization networks)- messaging.distinct.ro
  • 2009 - First clustering installations based on Distinct NBB (Network Building Blocks) concept that integrate scalability, failover and complete virtualization
  • 2009 - We install the equipment 'Stream Receiver' no. 100
  • 2009 - We launch ,in Distinct Datacenter, the data storage cluster solution with practically unlimited capacity
  • 2009 - We launch publicmon.distinct.ro -uptime monitoring for news websites in Romania
  • 2009 - We optimize the website 'Evenimentul Zilei' for the traffic spike generated by the presidential elections in Romania (see the case study)

Year 2010

  • 2010 - We become associated member of Interlan Exchange (interlan.ro)
  • 2010 - We commission the ESP solution Mass Mail that ensures delivery in good conditions of the legit commercial mail flows
  • 2010 - We adjust 'premade' technical solutions for the most common infrastructure scenarios under the brand Distinct SaaS
  • 2010 - We become member with full rights of the Internet service providers National Association (anisp.ro) and we connect to RoNIX Exchange (ronix.ro)
  • 2010 -Further to the project started in 2007, we supply from the Distinct Datacenter the live audio streaming services to the radio stations: Radio 21, Europa FM and Vibe FM (see the case study )
  • 2010 - Distinct rebranding under the slogan 'plus through responsibility'

Year 2011

  • 2011 - We continue to provide our clients with datacenter services and quality technical support
  • 2011 - We relaunch the website distinct.ro and we make new commercial offers
  • 2011 - We develop and commission the website acceleration technology that ensures short and constant loading time for the user
  • 2011 - We relaunch libertatea.ro, one of the most visited websites in Romania on Distinct technical solution (see the case study )
  • 2011 - Daily Business and Banca Romaneasca chose Distinct services
  • 2011 - We become Microsoft Partener via Service Provider License Agreement

Year 2012

  • 2012 - We are transmiting live, using 26 cameras in 18 locations, Noaptea Agentiilor 2012 (details)
  • 2012 - We provide infrastructure (site and live streaming) for TVR ("Fabrica de Staruri" show) (details)
  • 2012 - Distinct Datacenter interconnects with Balcan-IX, launching a new POP for interconnections and installing special traffic channels for DE-CIX and AMS-IX (details)
  • 2012 - Carnation Group and Paravion/Happytour become Distinct clients
  • 2012 - Holding a seminary at Internet&Mobile World 2012 (details)
  • 2012 - Sustaining Defcamp 2012 (details)

Year 2013

  • 2013 - We provide local expertise for the Google Liquid Galaxy demonstration project together with Godmother and Vodafone
  • 2013 - Infrastructure for the online store of a top 3 hypermarket in Romania
  • 2013 - Live streaming and innovative technical infrastructure for the events "Agencies' Night 2013", "Aeromania 2013" and the Paragliding World Cup Qualifiers - "Priseaca Open 2013"
  • 2013 - Projects completed for the agencies DDB, Grey/G2 and McCann Erickson Romania
  • 2013 - Sponsorship and live broadcast of Defcamp 2013
  • 2013 - Infrastructure and optimization and support services for multiple clients participating in the Black Friday 2013 event

Year 2014

  • 2014 - VoIP telephony solution, advanced PBX and integration with existing TDM infrastructure for the Den Braven Romania factory
  • 2014 - Participation in the Webit Congress 2014 - Istanbul
  • 2014 - Presentation at the Internet & Mobile World 2014 conference: "Case study: How Distinct helped evoMAG.ro cope with the Black Friday 2013 traffic peak" (details)
  • 2014 - Azure Cloud infrastructure for "Black Friday 2014" at the invitation and with the assistance of Microsoft Romania
  • 2014 - Several clients from the financial segment choose our infrastructure and technical support services (Idea Bank, IFN Extra Finance - extrasimplu.ro, Fast Finance IFN - fast-finance.ro)
  • 2014 - Gemius Research becomes a Distinct client

Year 2015

  • 2015 - Complete streaming solution for Ringier Romania (storage, transcoding, delivery, player with adserver integration) for all sites in the group.
  • 2015 - playtech.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2015 - Partnership with Customsoft (customsoft.ro) - infrastructure and technical support solution for the clients of the "Eva e-commerce" solution
  • 2015 - We design and deploy in production a "waiting room" technical solution for the extreme traffic peaks of "Black Friday 2015"

Year 2016

  • 2016 - Smart Activity (teotrandafir.com, huff.ro, fresh24.ro) becomes a Distinct client
  • 2016 - Customization of a video streaming technical solution for a private conference with special security requirements and a global audience (~1000 participants)
  • 2016 - Streaming solution for the UNTOLD festival
  • 2016 - Credit FIX IFN (creditfix.ro) becomes a Distinct client
  • 2016 - We expand our international client base for infrastructure services with clients from Switzerland and India.
  • 2016 - Architecture, infrastructure and technical support for a Big Data/Deep Learning project for Avandor

Year 2017

  • 2017 - Infrastructure support and innovative developments (ALPR solution integration) for a logistics application - Brenntag Romania
  • 2017 - Honda Romania chooses Distinct for infrastructure and technical support (honda.ro, hondatrading.ro, honda-moto.ro)
  • 2017 - We carry out a technical security audit for a secure instant messaging application and recommend an alternative solution.
  • 2017 - Majoritas (majoritas.com), a leader in election technology, becomes a Distinct client
  • 2017 - Implementation of a high-security interconnection project with the Credit Bureau
  • 2017 - We choose Kubernetes technology for an infrastructure project with 336 containers

Year 2018

  • 2018 - Doraly becomes a Distinct client for a marketplace application
  • 2018 - Distinct becomes a member of RIPE NCC - Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre (details)
  • 2018 - Implementation of a high-security interconnection project with the National Bank of Romania/RCI
  • 2018 - Sponsorship and technical assistance for the commemorative event Constantin "Bazu" Cantacuzino - 26.05.2018, Banesti Aerodrome, Prahova
  • 2018 - cancan.ro (Web Editing Development), one of the most visited sites in Romania, starts using Distinct's datacenter and technical support services
  • 2018 - Setup of direct BGP Peering Facebook-Distinct
  • 2018 - We begin the daily execution of a high-resolution weather forecast model (WRF) covering Romania. We provide free public access to the information
  • 2018 - We start developing our own PaaS solution. We deploy Ansible and Yubikey security tokens in production
  • 2018 - Bogdan Belu delivers a presentation for students of the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Bucharest on the topic "Live video broadcasts via Internet" (details)

Year 2019

  • 2019 - We successfully pass a complex security audit carried out by a European company for one of our clients
  • 2019 - Fresenius Kabi Romania (segment: pharma) becomes a Distinct client with its online store
  • 2019 - "Buna ziua Iasi" - bzi.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2019 - prosport.ro and promotor.ro become Distinct clients for infrastructure and technical support services
  • 2019 - We attend the AWS APN Live event in Bucharest as an Amazon partner
  • 2019 - We host the official website of one of the top candidates in the Romanian presidential elections

Year 2020

  • 2020 - gandul.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2020 - We provide constant technical support to our clients throughout the pandemic. We handle the sharp increase in online traffic and the transition to Work From Home
  • 2020 - We begin our collaboration with fanatik.ro (Fanatik Online)
  • 2020 - playsport.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2020 - We host the official website of one of the top candidates in the Bucharest local elections
  • 2020 - We obtain the ISO 27001 certification (Information Security Management Systems) (details)

Year 2021

  • 2021 - Significant PaaS update: precache solution (with impact on SEO and performance) available and enabled by default for all clients
  • 2021 - We sponsor xcro.ro
  • 2021 - voxbiz.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2021 - The television channel B1 TV becomes a Distinct client for datacenter and technical support services
  • 2021 - We pass a PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) audit for one of our technical support and datacenter clients
  • 2021 - bestmag.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2021 - impact.ro becomes a Distinct client

Year 2022

  • 2022 - noizz.ro becomes a Distinct client
  • 2022 - We handle an unusually powerful DDoS attack (later publicly confirmed as coming from a state actor) against one of our clients
  • 2022 - We develop our own recorded video streaming solution with "on the fly" transcoding (to minimize the time between upload and availability to visitors) and make it available to the first 2 clients
  • 2022 - Significant PaaS update: frida - dynamic instrumentation at process level for inspection and debugging of production applications, without restart and without code modification

Year 2023

  • 2023 - Significant PaaS update: we develop and deploy in production our own SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) solution.
  • 2023 - We are present at the "Critical Infrastructure Protection Forum" conference
  • 2023 - We actively participate (through ANISP) with feedback to ANCOM within the decisional transparency process regarding the obligations of "certain electronic hosting providers with IP resources". As a member, we get involved with feedback in the process of updating the RIPE NCC budget structure.
  • 2023 - We assist a provider from the national registry of essential service operators to successfully pass a mandatory audit
  • 2023 - We handle the 10th consecutive Black Friday event for evomag.ro
  • 2023 - We complete the migration of all Distinct clients to the new proprietary platform (PaaS)

Year 2024

  • 2024 - Significant PaaS update: real-time traffic classification on 90 criteria, integration with SOAR and automatic "under attack" mode - generally available
  • 2024 - Partnership with Tux Care for extending support for CentOS Linux after official EoL
  • 2024 - We pass an in-depth audit, performed by a UK firm, for the PCI DSS recertification of one of our clients
  • 2024 - We design and implement in record time a scalable infrastructure (Distinct+AWS) for a specialized adserver (>7 million unique users and >30 million daily impressions)
  • 2024 - We host the infrastructure for one of the top candidates in the Romanian presidential elections
  • 2024 - Significant PaaS update: transparent proxy (with TLS support, configurable access, monitoring and audit logs) for all outgoing requests - generally available

Year 2025

  • 2025 - Significant PaaS update: upgrade of the adaptive threat-blocking system in response to the widespread use of botnets and residential proxies. Optional Cloudflare integration.
  • 2025 - Migration of the Distinct PaaS solution from physical servers to the cloud (AWS EC2) for a major client
  • 2025 - NIS2 registration with DNSC
  • 2025 - We detect and neutralize an atypical DDoS attack: very large budget, "low & slow", seemingly legitimate traffic, highly distributed sources (>1M requests originating from 20 countries, ~4,500 ASNs, ~8,900 networks and ~34,000 IPs)
  • 2025 - Inauguration of a secondary Distinct Datacenter site, mirror-configured, in the Feper building (Bucharest, North)
  • 2025 - Milestone: we responsibly integrate a partially autonomous AI agent into our internal processes

Year 2026

  • 2026 - We develop a solution for auto-scaling the local GPU processing capacity using NVIDIA L4 hardware in GCP (Google Cloud Platform)
  • 2026 - We participate, at the invitation of ICI Bucharest, in 2 round tables on the topic "Dual-Use Technologies and NATO Requirements"
  • 2026 - Significant PaaS update: our own solution for verifying suspicious traffic using PoW (Proof of Work) in the browser - including at country/ASN/subnet level (complementary to the CAPTCHA solution)
  • 2026 - Relaunch of tarom.ro on an improved technical platform
  • 2026 - Distinct celebrates 25 years of uninterrupted activity


See more:


Client recommendations Case studies
Our activity in numbers Why Distinct ?
History Press
Competencies Client list