Enhancing reliability, security and data sovereignty

When seeking a new cloud service provider (CSP), uptime and data sovereignty will be decisive considerations for many customers.

At a time when cloud outages can bring down a huge number of web services and make the news, reliability is a hot topic. A survey by Information Technology Intelligence Consulting (ITIC) found that 80 percent of businesses require an uptime guarantee of 99.99 percent. Of those responding, 15 percent require at least 99.999 percent uptime, equivalent to just five minutes of downtime per year.

There is also a growing sensitivity towards where workloads are hosted, following the introduction of regulations that may require data to be stored within certain geographies. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) restricts the transfer of personal data out of the European Economic Area (EEA) without there being similar data protection safeguards in the host country. Data may be transferred to an organization in the US, for example, if it has a current Privacy Shield certification or other appropriate legal safeguards in place. The maximum fine for non-compliance with GDPR is EUR20 million or 4 percent of the company’s turnover, whichever is greater. Countries worldwide have introduced their own rules on data storage. Personal healthcare data may not be transferred out of Australia; and China, Russia, India and Malaysia all have policies in place that restrict the international transfer of personal data.

While the cloud was previously stateless and global, cloud customers increasingly need to know where their data is being stored.

In this eguide, we’ll outline how CSPs can take advantage of Intel® technologies to improve uptime and enforce geolocation of data.