7 Questions to Ask Your Cloud-hosting Company

World-renowned analyst firm Gartner posed seven questions you should ask of your cloud-computing host. We present our answers.

1. Privileged User Access

Issue: Who is able to access your data?  Can you trust them?

We work closely with our ISP to ensure that your data is secure. As well, rather than a faceless relationship, because we have worked with our ISP for over a decade, we are on first name terms with all the key personnel ensuring the highest levels of accountability and trust.

In terms of physical access to your data, the ISP employs five levels of security from entering the building to the data centre - access is restricted, for example, by pin number access, key, and motion sensors. The data centre is also monitored by CCTV recording systems at all times.

The servers themselves are protected by firewalls and other measures to generate a highly restrictive access regime.

2. Regulatory Compliance

Issue: What Regulatory Compliance regime protects your data?

Your data is protected by regular, industry-standard server security audits.

3. Data Location

Issue: Do you know where your data is held - under what legal jurisdiction does it fall?

All your data is held in data centres in the UK. This means you data is subject to the jurisdiction of UK and European law.
Unlike many competing products, we do not outsource to cheaper, non-UK datacentres because of our desire to ensure control over your data and the systems that secure it.

4. Data Segregation

Issue: Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers.

Unlike many other hosted solutions, your data is segregated from that of others in terms of physical location - it is held in dedicated directories. You also have a dedicated database for your information - you data is not intermixed with that of others.

"Physical separation is vital to protecting information assets. Eliminating fundamental threats introduced by shared environments and virtualized infrastructure positively eliminates all threats that simple segregation has always provided." Micheal Peters, Chief Information Security Officer for a large financial organization (link)

5. Recovery

Issue: What happens to your data in the case of a disaster

Every few minutes all your data and databases are securely replicated to a separate datacentre in another location. In the event of a disaster striking the first datacentre, the second datacentre will automatically take over serving your content (automatic failover) minimising the risk of downtime and data loss.

6. Investigative Support

Issue: Investigating inappropriate or illegal activity may be impossible in cloud computing.

We are not a faceless organisation, and we take the security of your data very seriously. All our servers are monitored 24/7/365 and any significant issues are relayed to our customers.

http://status.ice3-portal.co.uk

7. Long-Term Viability

Issue: What is the viability of the company delivering the solution?

Ice³ Online Collaboration is a product of a privately-held company, Web Marketing Strategy Ltd. Web Marketing Strategy is a financially sound and profitable enterprise headed up by highly-experienced individuals. There is no intention to sell the company or Ice³ to any third party.

Conclusion

Nothing valuable in life is available without risk. We believe it is our job to minimize the risk to you in using our systems. Should you have any further questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss them further.

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