The growing volume of information available and constant threats to corporate environments require more investment and attention from companies. The ISO 27001 standard was created in this scenario to establish the global standard for Information Security management in IT environments.
The ISO 27001 is granted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the leading certifying organization in the development and publication of international standards. The ISO defines the proper standard to establish, implement, operate, monitor, review and manage Information Security Management Systems. The ISO 27001 covers more than 100 aspects, such as:
Information Security Organization and Policies;
Access Control;
Encryption;
Supply Chain;
Human Resources, among several others.
Benefits for your company
The ISO 27001 certification acknowledges Ascenty’s commitment to protect the strategic value of its customers’ information, across all aspects and stages:
Reliability – restricting access to information;
Integrity – ensuring that the original content and characteristics of information are preserved, even when the information is processed;
Availability – keeping the information always available for its rightful use.
Finding a reliable partner for your company raises a few questions. This is also true when contracting a Data Center. Will the IT infrastructure available be enough? Is it aligned to the business needs? Do they have proper technical support?
Considering these doubts and uncertainties, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the ISO/IEC 20000 certification: the first global standard specifically targeting the quality of IT services. It reassures businessowners that the contracted solutions and/or partners comply with best practices and constantly improve all services offered.
Benefits for your company
Assurance that all services are standardized and based on best market practices;
Assurance of efficient control over the quality of contracted services;
In addition, this certification reassures Ascenty’s total dedication to service each client based on their specific needs.
The higher the volume of financial transactions, the more attempts of fraud, password theft and other virtual threats. The PCI Security Standards Council was created to tackle these threats: an organization created under an initiative of the payment industry. Its goal is to develop and disseminate security standards regarding data protection.
The PCI standard was created in 2006 by a committee featuring the top credit card brands worldwide. From that point on, the IT environment security requirements to process data from these cards were established. The PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Security Standard) ensures the security of environments and protection of data from credit card transactions
Benefits for your company
With the PCI-DSS certification, Ascenty ensures full compliance with international security requirements to process credit cards, including the protection of credit card data environments against unauthorized access.
Focusing on the excellence of services delivered, quality management ensures to clients and suppliers a standardization based on a set of technical standards outlining a quality management model. To ensure superior efficiency, a documentation management process was implemented to reach specific quality goals, creating processes and procedures to boost efficiency and quality in our staff’s activities.
The benefits of the ISO 9001 extend across multiple business areas. Evidently, market expansion and visibility is one of the most sought after, but it is important to remember that “Quality” applies to all meanings, both professionally and personally.
Ascenty, Latin America’s leader in colocation services – with 22 proprietary data centers spread across Brazil, Chile and Mexico, 15 of which are in operation and seven under construction – will link up to all Cable Landing Stations (connection points to international submarine cables) by the end of 2020.
Ascenty’s fiber optic network will be connected to all submarine cables currently in operation in Brazil, connected to three stations: Praia Grande, in the State of São Paulo, Praia do Futuro, in Ceará, and Rio de Janeiro; as well as two others that will be completed by the end of the year: Malbec Cable, linking Brazil and Argentina, and EllaLink, connecting Brazil and Europe, which contractors say are on track to be finished by December 2020.
By expanding the Cable Landing network in Brazil, the connection between countries, continents and states improves the capacity to send telecommunications signals over long distances, since submarine cables are responsible for 99% of communications between countries separated by oceans.
All Ascenty data centers are connected to the new NAP Brazil, which forms a complete connectivity ecosystem. That means all Ascenty customers have full access to the connectivity and solutions ecosystem.
“This scenario will give us the perfect interconnection environment for our customers, who are looking for a low-latency, high-capacity interconnection. Because in addition to connectivity with all Cable Landing Stations, we also have the Network Access Point (NAP), which are one or more points with high connectivity potential and access to the world’s leading carriers,” said Marcos Siqueira, Vice President of Operations at Ascenty.
The main objective of having a connection between the data center and the Cable Landing Station is to ensure that information reaches customers quickly and reliably, thus enabling a vast array of projects, interconnections and global reach.
Ascenty was named leader of the ISG Provider Lens™ 2020 Colocation Services Quadrant in Brazil, as the independent study by the Information Services Group (ISG) emphasized that the company “provides unparalleled capacity to accommodate the large data centers of the most demanding customers.” According to analyst and author of the ISG report, Pedro Bicudo, Ascenty has been providing an excellent contribution towards developing the data center market in Brazil. “Its investment capacity to expand the service offering is unparalleled, ensuring that companies can grow their digital businesses without worrying about the data center space, which is always accessible through Ascenty,” Bicudo said.
In addition to creating a routing point for international carriers within Ascenty, it also guarantees the best transport between underwater stations and the data center through the underground optical fiber network, offering a high-quality connection, very low latency and international reach.
With a fully interconnected ecosystem, Ascenty’s data centers are carrier neutral, allowing customers to connect via dozens of national and international carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISP) or even Ascenty’s dedicated network.
This is an undisputed truth: cloud computing has taken the market by storm. Its benefits are, besides offering financial relief to companies, a way to boost their business performance. More security and agility in the digital world. However, some providers may deviate from this path and offer a service that the client, i.e. your company, cannot escape — Cloud Vendor Lock In.
Therefore, it’s important that organizations study and prepare to avoid being trapped in a contract.
At times when flexibility – something that Multicloud offers – is key to being competitive, it’s essential that your company understands everything about the subject, avoiding possible great losses in the case of a service migration.
In this content, we will explore a bit more about Cloud Vendor Lock In, its drawbacks, how to avoid it, and also an incredible tip on how to take advantage of an entire cloud infrastructure without the risk of a Cloud Vendor Lock In.
Learn more ahead!
Cloud Vendor Lock In: what is it?
Today, the SaaS (Software as a Service) market is huge. According to a Gartner study, this segment alone is expected to be worth more than US$151 billion by 2022. As Sid Nag, VP of Research at Gartner, states in the study, “at this point, adopting cloud computing is par for the course.”
That means that if any company is not already on the cloud, it must be in a hurry to migrate to it.
The problem is that, in some cases, the promise of freedom and flexibility for your company to grow in a scalable and organic manner is not fulfilled. And so, some providers started to “lock” their clients into contractual clauses and development requirements that prevented them from migrating to another server.
Imagine the following scenario:
Company A hired SaaS from Provider X. Upon reaching a certain period of its journey, Company A identified the need to migrate its operation (or part of it) to Provider Y, which better fits its demands.
However, due to contractual impediments — which make this operation expensive and technically complex — Company A is helpless and unable to migrate its workload.
That is Cloud Vendor Lock In.
Besides SaaS, it can occur when contracting PaaS (Platform as a Service), in which the client develops its own applications — and that can represent another impediment for migration.
For these providers, Cloud Vendor Lock In can be justified as a way to retain clients in their solution environment. However, the practice does not take into account the clients’ own need to make their operations more flexible and improve deliveries. Sometimes, a provider’s capacity does not meet the client’s needs.
Therefore, once a provider has implemented the Cloud Vendor Lock In, performing necessary migrations becomes very costly for the client.
Besides the financial impact, these restrictions also hinder future migrations and integration of applications — due to the development characteristics of each PaaS.
How to avoid Cloud Vendor Lock In
So, how can this problem be solved? The good news is that Cloud Vendor Lock In is not an industry standard. It can be avoided, even if it requires some commitment to studying certain issues.
To make it easier, we have listed some key considerations. Ready to escape Cloud Vendor Lock In? Check below:
Escape Cloud Vendor Lock In at all costs
Sounds obvious, right? Nevertheless, it’s the first step of the journey.
Check your provider’s flexibility: can you move your app to other clouds, or migrate the service from another provider, if necessary? If not, does the provider set conditions under which this is possible (such as faults)?
Also, if you need to build apps that require complex customization, make sure you have a backup plan. Even better, if you can afford it, is to have an alternative cloud to run your code as a backup.
Get to know the different PaaS
One alternative is to split the risk. That is, use resources from multiple PaaS providers.
If they are not dependent on a single cloud to deliver their applications and businesses, you can set out to explore the options of the PaaS you control.
This requires some genuine interest, so ask your providers questions and try to understand how the PaaS runs and how your risk management is set up (especially in the case of a large centralizing cloud).
Ask questions about redundancy and the system architecture
Try to fully understand your software architecture and system redundancy with the help of your cloud provider. This comprehension will give you more autonomy when negotiating with the provider.
A good look at the architecture diagrams of the cloud environment can provide in-depth information about system reliability — and whether or not it’s possible to escape Cloud Vendor Lock In.
Ascenty ACCX: a powerful ally against Cloud Vendor Lock In
Ascenty’s ACCX, part of Cloud Connect, is a turnkey solution for companies searching for this exact flexibility between service providers and cloud platforms.
Ascenty Cloud Connectivity Exchange is a solution that integrates different distributed data environments in several public clouds (AWS, Oracle Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud) to a single platform, integrated with your data network (IP/MPLS).
It’s an ecosystem that integrates the environment of multiple layer-3 public clouds into your infrastructure.
This way, you have full integration potential of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS solutions. With ACCX, clients reallocate their workload to the public cloud that best meets their demand according to their strategy, besides creating an easier network integration with their private structure.
The platform enables interconnection between Cloud Providers, guaranteeing simplified migration or simply ensuring that through low latency interconnection there can be interdependencies between applications and clouds, so you have gains in time, in availability and can take advantage of full interoperability of different public clouds at a fair price.
Cloud Vendor Lock In can be an issue for your company. Therefore, it’s ideal to choose a partnership that eliminates these risks, enabling the free use of the cloud resources that your business requires.
So, talk to Ascenty and understand how ACCX can serve your organization today!
The increasing use of the internet, and the resulting exponential growth in digital data ultimately led to an upsurge in the number of data centers to meet the demands of companies of all sizes and segments.
However, there are two types of data centers in the market: Carrier Neutral and Carrier Specific.
Carrier Neutral data centers allow access and interconnection to several different carriers, offering optimal services to your business. Carrier Specific data centers, on the other hand, only work with a single carrier, which controls all access to corporate data. This might not be the ideal choice.
After clarifying this important difference between them, in this article we have listed the main advantages to take into account when choosing a Carrier Neutral data center over a Carrier Specific one for your organization. Check it out!
Carrier Neutral Data Center: What is it?
A Carrier Neutral data center – or simply “neutral” – enables interconnection between several different telecommunications carriers and the colocation solution provider.
Even if some of the data centers are owned and operated by ISPs (Internet Service Providers), Carrier Neutral data centers are operated by third parties (usually by the colocation solution supplier), which has little or no part in providing internet access services.
That is what makes the Carrier Neutral data center a more interesting choice compared to Carrier Specific. They promote competition and diversity, since a service located in a colocation can have a single or multiple providers, or even connect only to the head office of the company that owns the server, for example.
Another major hosting benefit in Carrier Neutral data centers is the ability to change the internet provider as needed without having to physically move the server elsewhere.
We have also listed 4 other main benefits of the Carrier Neutral Data Center solution. Check them out below.
Benefits of a Carrier Neutral Data Center for your business:
1. Free to use any carrier
Colocation data center solutions offer a high level of control and scalability, reducing the need for developing new projects when your company’s demand increases or decreases.
In addition, the neutrality aspect further expands this opportunity to save. Since companies are free to use any carrier in a Carrier Neutral data center, they can choose the one that offers the best contract. That is, the one that meets their needs with the best cost-to-benefit ratio.
2. Competitive edge: scalability and flexibility
The flexibility to quickly shift your data management strategy is yet an other advantage of the colocation solution.
The Carrier Neutral model is essential to those looking to expand their business. All it takes is a few commands in an interface or a call to the colocation central to increase or decrease the network transmission capacity.
All of this scalability and flexibility represent another important edge in such a fiercely competitive market.
And this element is very important for organizations working with processes using data that require immediate access any time of the day, regardless of the size of information flow and client needs, for example.
3. More freedom for your business
Making changes in case of an emergency is much easier when you have several options available, right? The flexibility of being able to use different carriers based on your data center is also a unique benefit of neutral alternatives.
This is a benefit you can’t find in Carrier Specific data centers.
Since Carrier Neutral data centers do not belong to any specific carrier, this also means greater resilience when it comes to accessing your company’s data.
4. Local and regional redundancy
Carrier Neutral data centers offer local and regional redundancy. But what does that mean?
Basically, the term means duplicating the information stored in these data centers.
The goal is to ensure your data can still be accessed even after hardware failures, damages and even natural disasters at the head office of the colocation solution provider, for example.
This benefit grants neutral data center users all of the options they need to protect their significant investments in virtual infrastructure and data, even when facing a serious setback.
Working with carrier neutral data centers clearly offers a wide range of benefits to your organization. Ascenty offers Carrier Neutral data centers for your company to use its network or define a provider that best meets its needs.
Contact our experts to learn what your company stands to gain by switching to Carrier Neutral data centers.
Connectivity is a key element for companies to thrive in today’s marketplace. The vast supply of services, on the other hand, muddles the limitation of several connectivity resources. This prevents corporations from accessing 100% of the information, which ultimately affects their business. However, there is a concept that can change all of this: NAP. Learn more about its benefits here.
The NAP concept
NAP stands for Network Access Point. One or multiple points with high connectivity potential and access to main Carriers, providers and contents worldwide.
One of the main benefits of the NAP is that ISPs connect their POPs (Point of Presence) to it, in order to interconnect with the main services and contents. This allows companies to access any local and global resource via the NAP connection.
In other words, the NAP enables corporations to transcend barriers and frontiers, connecting to a world of new possibilities.
In simple terms, the NAP makes it easier to access information, allowing companies to break free from the limitations of their countries or geographical regions, besides accessing a wide range of international connections.
ROI in Colocation: the full rundown
NAP benefits: what companies stand to gain
Modernization and coverage are the main keywords.
The NAP offers several benefits in general. There is a wide range of different options that add value to companies that contract this service. However, all of them focus on modernizing and expanding the reach of your business.
NAP enables the development of your IT sector, adopting multicloud environments or even hybrid environments much easier and more efficiently.
This service allows you to interconnect your environments to as many vendors and partners you need.
That is why this resource fuels companies that seek to scale their own business through major changes in their network infrastructure. The NAP also helps maintain maximum efficiency in your production routine, guaranteeing an available and very low-latency connection.
It includes resources such as Golden Jumper or Cross Connect to bolster your strategic execution, connecting your company to the entire world.
This means a company based in Brazil can use all of the structure and applications of carriers operating in Europe, North America, Africa and many other locations!
The NAP’s benefits are even better for companies that rely on international connections to carry out their business activities. The NAP gives your company a powerful connection with much lower operational costs.
Having an NAP is crucial for companies seeking to update their network and maximize the coverage of their operations.
The differential of NAP at Ascenty
It’s one thing to use an ordinary NAP service, but nothing compared to Ascenty’s NAP.
Ascenty’s data centers feature countless international carriers. That is why the company can take its clients to wherever they need to go.
Ascenty’s NAP is an interconnection point that allows clients to reach content and information anywhere in the world.
How is this possible?
In Ascenty’s design, fiber-optic cables are connected to the Submarine Cable Landing Stations in Praia Grande (state of São Paulo). That is where the first and main connection points of submarine fibers of major international carriers are located.
Instead of simply creating a routing point for the signal of these international carriers within Ascenty, we take one step further and ensure optimal transport between the submarine stations and the Data Center, through the fiber-optic network itself.
This ensures an extremely high-quality connection with very low latency and international coverage, allowing clients to access and use countless resources from several different carriers.
By contracting any carrier (with a connectivity point at Ascenty), your company already has access to the benefits of Ascenty’s NAP. Simply request a link for the carrier to make a cross-connect and bring your company to Ascenty’s NAP. All of that without even having to contract a Rack or data center at Ascenty.
After all, Ascenty strives to meet each and every one of your business needs, delivering custom services to help solve your problems and ensure scalable growth for your company.
Besides, it is important to point out that all of Ascenty’s data centers are connected to the NAP. That means that all clients have full access to the entire ecosystem of connectivity and solutions.
Enhance the quality of your connection, securing your data and expanding access to information around the world – schedule a meeting with our experts and let us guide your company through this modernization process!
Remote work, which seemed distant to some companies before the Covid-19 pandemic, is now part of the daily life of many. What was supposed to be an emergency solution will likely have a lasting impact on how people work. This is what a study by professor André Miceli, ofFundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), points out, concluding that the format should grow about 30% when activities return to normal. In this scenario, in which online operations are increasingly present, one of the actions that should be prioritized is the cybersecurity of systems and applications.
To have an idea of the current dimension of cybercrimes, data from Fortinet Threat Intelligence Latin America show that, in the month of March alone, when the coronavirus pandemic led to social isolation mandates, there were approximately 600 new phishing campaigns per day in most countries. The attacks occur through malicious links, which lead the user to provide personal data on fake pages or download files through illegal software. The goal is to control devices and steal information.
This situation is aggravated by professionals working remotely using their home networks. But that’s not where the problems end. There are several other types of virtual attacks that can compromise operations and cause millions in losses for companies. Therefore, it’s essential to protect yourself.
Cybersecurity: 9 valuable tips for enterprise information security
As mentioned above, organizations can suffer from numerous cyber attacks that are facilitated by remote work, such as spyware, ransomware, hijack, and DDoS. Thinking of helping to ensure the security of their data and applications, we have compiled a list of 9 things you should do to promote cybersecurity both now and in the future :
1. Creating policies and raising employee awareness
The first steps to guarantee that information security measures are successful are to establish clear policies and make employees aware of the importance of following them. In addition, you need to continuously train the teams about the threats that can hinder processes and what precautions to take to protect themselves from each of them, as well as to clearly and directly show how harmful cyber threats can be for employees and company.
2. Investing in cryptography
Cryptography solutions for e-mails and files can significantly help with cybersecurity. The benefit is that their implementation is simplified and does not depend on high investments by companies. For those who don’t know, the practice refers to building and analyzing protocols that prevent malicious users from reading private messages.
3. Installing a VPN
Installing a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which, as the name implies, creates communication networks between computers and devices with restricted access, is also a good strategy for protecting data during remote work. To do that, you can use the infrastructure that already exists in operating systems or open solutions.
4. Using authentication solutions
The two-factor or two-step authentication consists of the user entering a password, followed by a code provided through SMS, tokens, or other resources. Because the codes change constantly, cybercriminals cannot gain access to systems and data.
5. Installing good antivirus software
While working from home, many employees use their own computer and other devices to work. Therefore, they should be encouraged to install antivirus software as well as monitor antivirus updates and new subscriptions to ensure that their systems are operating properly.
Although these systems do not guarantee absolute protection against cybercrime, they already prevent a good deal of attacks, and may even notify you of the presence of suspicious activities such as malware, trojan viruses, worms, and possible changes to the registry and file system of operating systems, for example.
6. Implementing tracking software
Another situation that can compromise the cybersecurity of organizations is the loss or theft of devices provided to employees. To avoid this type of situation, installing tracking tools that locate each device and delete the data remotely is advisable.
7. Creating backups
Even with remote work, maintaining the backup routine (safety copies) to minimize unforeseen events is important. An interesting alternative for companies is to invest in hiring cloud data centers, which ensure efficiency and protection and facilitate remote access to their data.
8. Keeping systems and software up-to-date
Another action that must be taken to promote cybersecurity in companies is to keep operating systems and software up to date. This is because many updates already bring security improvements, as well as new tools and functionalities that can make the corporate day-to-day easier.
9. Watch out for criminals posing as colleagues
Individuals working at home should be extra careful about cybercriminals who may pose as co-workers. They may take advantage of employees, access the professional network of contacts and thus request details about the operation or confidential data, negatively affecting the company, both in terms of business continuity and financial loss.
It’s also worth noting that, along with the practices that optimize the organization’s cybersecurity, preserving the physical integrity of machines and devices used for work is necessary. To this end, professionals should always keep the equipment stored in safe places, even when indoors.
Even though at this moment the contact between people is restricted, minimizing the movement of strangers at home can avoid damage that could take time or cost the company.
Moreover, it’s important that the IT teams take human error into account when implementing cybersecurity solutions. The reason is that, no matter how much training helps in assertive conduct, one is never completely free from criminal acts.
With these measures, your organization can enjoy all the conveniences of remote work, while at the same time having the necessary protection of data and applications.
So, do you like our tips? Want to know more about how we can help your company to increase the level of cybersecurity? Get in touch with one of our consultants.
Ascenty begins construction of two Data Centers in Mexico
Ascenty, the leading data center company in Latin America, announced the beginning of construction of two sites in Mexico, simultaneously. This expansion consolidates the company’s leading position in the region. With these two new additions, Ascenty will have a total of 22 data centers across three countries, further expanding its ability to meet the needs of national and multinational clients.
Based in the state of Queretaro, the two new data centers should go live in 2021. Each unit covers an area of 24,000 sqm and has a load capacity of 30 MVA. Total investments to build both units amount to $ 300 million.
“Mexico is a promising region for Ascenty’s expansion, and our strategy is always to assess the possibility of building new data centers based on demands that justifies such investment. The facilities in Mexico as well as Chile generate new business opportunities and further expand our reach, consolidating the position of Ascenty and Digital Realty as global leaders in Colocation infrastructure,” said Chris Torto, Ascenty’s CEO.
Ascenty also has an interconnection ecosystem that features 4,500 kilometers of dedicated fiber-optic network, connecting all of the data centers in operation with the world’s leading cloud providers and cable landing stations in Brazil. The company’s facilities are carrier neutral, which allows its customers to connect through any carrier or through its own dedicated network.
Ascenty’s VP of Marketing and Institutional Relations, Roberto Rio Branco, underlines the benefits of being able to rely on Ascenty’s connectivity structure. “Interconnection forces companies to roll out a digital migration process to the cloud. That is the only way they can truly harness the power of features such as remote access, mobility and big data, among other trends, which should account for more than 50% of businesses in a few years.”
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