Privacy concerns drive cloud collaboration with European firms

Univention partnered with IBM to found the Open Cloud Alliance and the demand greater cloud privacy.

By Donna Donnowitz
November 24, 2014
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The European data center industry mirrors our own in many respects, including ongoing competition between rival firms to establish the industry's best practices. A single trend can quickly become integral to the future of cloud services if it gains sufficient momentum, and these days increased paranoia about international data privacy is a central concern for European IT staffs. It's no surprise then that German tech firm Univention recently partnered with IBM to found the Open Cloud Alliance and meet the European demand for greater cloud security.

Cloud services with a European flair
The new cloud alliance is not the only one to pop up in the last few years, noted Data Center Knowledge. Multiple groups, including the Open Data Center Alliance, have risen up to influence the industry's attitudes toward Infrastructure-as-a-Service. The Open Cloud Alliance is dedicated to shifting that same focus to open software and services. With this added focus comes a response to industry desires for a more secure cloud experience. American-owned clouds are viewed with an eye of suspicion in European data center markets, even when they are erected on local soil. European data center customers prefer smaller, less imposing data storage companies that facilitate stronger personal ties between data center staff and customers and promise storage that is safe from prying international eyes.

OCA encouraging industry shifts
One way that the Open Cloud Alliance is dedicated to improving cloud privacy is by encouraging more European colocation centers to evolve into cloud services, according to Business Cloud. Not only is this strategy forward-thinking, it also provides the data center industry with additional home-grown solutions for cloud storage. A company looking to diversify their data storage strategy, for instance, might combine colocation storage with additional backups at a remote location.

Moves like this ensure that intruders can't view all of a company's secure data at once. Gear like remote console servers makes these privacy strategies a breeze. Data collected by Crisp Research estimated that the worldwide compound average growth rate of the cloud hosting industry in 2013 was at 27 percent. Several colocation centers, at home and abroad, are likely to follow the OCA lead and branch out into the cloud services in order to chase the growing market.

Perle's wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.

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