IT Innovators: Is There a Better Way to Secure Stored Data in the Data Center?

As long as there are hackers and people with sordid intentions in the world, security will continue to be a relevant topic. This is especially true when it comes data storage. How confidant are you that the data you have stored in a data center is secure?

According to the March 2015 Cyberthreat Defense Report that answer may unfortunately be “not very.” As the survey results point out, over 70% of organizations claimed to have had their data compromised by a cyber attack in the 12 months leading up to the report’s release. An almost similarly large number feel they will be subjected to attack in the future. Worse yet, the cost associated with those security breaches is on the rise. In fact, between 2014 and 2015 alone, the average cost of a corporate data breach increased 15 percent to $3.5 million.

If you happen to be an IT professional in search of a way to better secure data, here’s a great example of what can be accomplished with cloud-consistent Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and infrastructure. The example comes out of Germany, where two new Microsoft data center regions confronted the issue of how to keep customers stored data secured.

It’s solution to heightening data security from the data center regions involved combining local control of customer data with access to Microsoft’s cloud services, including include Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM online. The local control will come via a German partner, Deutsche Telekom.

The data centers will have to abide by the same security standards as any other Microsoft data centers. Likewise, any data center services will have to comply with Microsoft’s trusted cloud principles of security, privacy, control, compliance, and transparency. However, for the first time ever, access to customer data will be under the control of the independent German company acting as a data trustee. Microsoft can’t even access data without the customer’s permission or that of the data trustee. When it does access customer data, supervision by the data trustee will be required.

It’s an innovative security solution and one that’s designed to not only give customers a higher level of trust in how their data is handled and where it’s stored, but to encourage local innovation and growth. The availability of services is expected to begin in 2016 and will be offered to customers in Germany, the European Union and the European Free Trade Association. For more information go here.

This blog is sponsored by Microsoft.

Cheryl J. Ajluni is a freelance writer and editor based in California. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Wireless Systems Design and served as the EDA/Advanced Technology editor for Electronic Design for over 10 years. She is also a published book author and patented engineer. Her work regularly appears in print and online publications. Contact her at [email protected] with your comments or story ideas.