With the ongoing pandemic, many companies had to change the way they do business. Some industries are affected more than others, but overall any service provider must find a safe way to continue their work while keeping human interactions minimum. Companies need to rethink their work environment, operations, and the nature of their internal control system.
The consequences of the Covid-19 continue to unfold, and many businesses shifted to a remote work environment to keep employers safe and reduce virus transmission. But as more companies move towards a virtual work environment, the need for reliable applications, data storage, and access is becoming increasingly important. What if your employees don’t have good internet access? What if your servers shut down and the platform used by your coworkers is no longer functional? How big of an impact would this have on your business?
Data centers are increasing in popularity, and more companies are entrusting their servers with a data center. It becomes increasingly clear that the IT infrastructure that sustains our ability to provide products and services is crucial for business continuity. Data centers are holding the world together, and maintaining them at optimal performance is one of the main priorities for every organization.
However, issues that might emerge at a data center usually need to be tackled manually, and specialized technicians need to be deployed to the scene. Since data centers require physical security and manual control, many companies find it increasingly difficult to ensure these services during the pandemic. Why is data center physical security such an essential service during Covid-19, and how can we implement the optimal solution for these problems? Let’s find out!
Why Colocate With A Data Center?
With the ongoing pandemic, we can clearly see, in the world of business, that the mindset is slowly evolving. Many organizations had the general attitude that all data needs to be securely kept on-premise, but it is no longer the case. Colocating your IT infrastructure with a data center is becoming increasingly popular as it relieves companies from the pressure of having to ensure security, power, or storage for their servers. Data centers providers take care of all these aspects for you.
Colocation helps your business in many ways. It reduces the capital investment and resources required for proper cooling, storage, and security for your on-premise data center. Colocating makes it easier to scale your IT infrastructure, and your data center provider offers a team of highly trained professionals that are ready to help you with any server issues. With 100% SLA uptime, your data center will remain up and running at all times, and your servers will be in optimal performing condition.
Data Centers And Physical Security During A Pandemic
We all know that companies hold sensitive data that can’t be compromised or lost in any way. With colocation providers, you are entrusting your IT infrastructure to a third-party, and security concerns emerge. However, many realized that data center providers have a series of technologies and practices to protect the physical infrastructure from internal or external threats. Restricting and managing access is an essential part of data center security. Colocation providers have successfully implemented some of the best physical security practices to ensure safety isn’t compromised.
Lately, data center security is becoming increasingly important as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, and it raised many concerns for physical security. Unfortunately, some might see this time of crisis as an opportunity to capitalize on the pandemic. Statistics show that there has been a significant increase in cyberattacks, and in today’s climate of home working, it is essential to ensure physical safety for IT infrastructures.
Considering these events, colocating servers with a data center provider has been increasing in popularity. Aside from reasons related to cost, scalability, and reliability, colocation providers offer top physical security. Data centers are designed from the ground up with the best security practices in mind. Every element of a data center’s physical security is created while having other aspects in mind so that each security measure is enhancing the other.
The effectiveness of a data center’s physical security is given by the set of security policies in place. These procedures and protocols are meant to provide clear guidelines for data center personnel on how operations should be carried.
Data Center Physical Security Standards
Here are some of the security standards that will explain how data centers handle physical security. We have laid out some of the most critical data center physical security technologies and standards used by colocation providers. Here is what you, as a customer, should look after when searching for a data center provider.
Round-The-Clock Security
No one can deny the need for security personnel on-site to respond to potential threats and unauthorized activity. Physical security of data centers is at risk, even more so during the pandemic when personnel numbers and access is being restricted in various organizations. Your company would have one more concern to worry about if your office doors are shut. You still have to find a reliable solution to ensure the physical security of your on-premise data center.
With colocation data centers, your providers have it all figured out so that you have one less thing to worry about. They ensure 24x7x365 security for their data center, and routine patrols through the data center zone are being performed frequently. Security staff is on the lookout for any potential threats, and they can react quickly to security issues that might emerge.
Layered Security Measures
Data center providers that implement a layered security model will drastically increase the physical security of their enterprise. Security measures should work together with other elements as part of a comprehensive, layered system for maximum protection. With a layered security system, an intruder is forced to penetrate multiple layers of security to reach the valuable data or hardware inside the data center.
If one layer may prove ineffective, there are several other layers in place that will prevent a potential intrusion that can compromise the entire system. Industry-standard with the most advanced 7-point military-grade access control security protocols, featuring multiple Man-Traps, Fingerprint Biometrics (97+ Point fingerprint biometric access), and Facial Recognition biometric scanner.
Improved Security With Biometric Technology
Technology helped many data centers improve their physical security even further. Since we talked about layered security, an additional layer to data security could be biometric technology. We use biometric technology in our day to day lives without even noticing it. You probably have a phone that uses face recognition, thumbprint, or voice pattern recognition to unlock the screen.
The addition of biometric technology can significantly improve the physical security of data centers and provide more peace of mind for colocation customers. Using these methods, you can limit access to the data center facility by adding a biometric system, which scans for unique physical characteristics to grant access.
Exit Procedures
Unauthorized access inside the data center needs to be prevented at all costs for the physical security of colocation customer property. The methods we have presented so far intend to do just that, but security issues can also emerge from authorized personnel. Staff or collocation customers have access to sensitive data inside the data center, and while they are deemed as authorized personnel, their privileges don’t go with them.
Data center security systems should have procedures in place that take away authorized personals’ privileges as soon as they leave the facility. We call them exit procedures, and some of them come in the form of an access-list where all the people that came in and left are accounted for. An exit procedure can also mean that keys are being collected or biometrics are deleted. That way, the same person would not be able to pass through security in the future.
Conclusion
As the world recovers from the pandemic’s impact, companies are increasingly concerned about having a reliable IT infrastructure to ensure business continuity. The spike in remote workers shows us that more organizations are closing their office doors and implementing work-from-home policies for their staff’s safety. With these changes happening worldwide, data center strategies become crucial in keeping many businesses up and running.
As the consequences of the pandemic unfold, many companies show serious concerns for the physical security of their data. However, many of these security concerns have been promptly addressed by one of the best solutions for managing and storing company IT infrastructures. Colocation providers are increasing in popularity not only for their reliability, scalability, and access but also for providing the best possible physical security. With a data center provider, your business is guaranteed to benefit from an intelligent and scalable asset located in a secure environment.
