Data centres – locking down physical and cyber security

Every business appreciates the value of its business-critical IT and accepts that downtime is simply not an option. The need to ensure business continuity, whilst keeping pace with an ever-evolving IT landscape and the rise of new data-generating technologies (such as cloud computing, AI and IoT), means that many businesses are looking for alternatives to in-house IT facilities in a bid to reduce their CapEx investment costs and ensure excellent performance, low latency and flexibility. This is why so many businesses are turning to data centres to house their business-critical IT infrastructure, and why the global data centre industry is expected to achieve such strong growth over the next five years, reaching a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10-15 per cent (according to figures from M Capital Group):

“The data centres industry is one immediate bright spot within and post COVID-19, in a world of challenges and short-term dim outlooks” (MCG managing partner Christian Mouchbahani).

Security risks come in many forms and businesses find themselves fighting on many fronts. Some IT teams might be primarily concerned with safe infrastructure and data storage, others with protecting data and systems against increasingly sophisticated methods of cyber attack or implementing disaster recovery strategies. Whatever the priorities, lost or stolen data and business downtime damage reputations, alienate customers and incur high recovery costs. Only businesses with the deepest pockets can develop and maintain in-house IT facilities that offer sufficient protection, so many are turning to data centre facilities to offer them the security provision they require.

As businesses become ever more connected, attackers are identifying new entry points into systems and data, and new cyber threats are constantly evolving, spurred on by emerging technologies, which increase the scope for potential infiltration. Multiple layers of protection are required that prevent hackers from moving freely through networks should they manage to penetrate one layer of security. Partnering with a colocation datacentre, like Datum Datacentres, offers clients the benefit of specialist facility-wide security measures to secure their systems and data in addition to their own firewalls and antivirus protection.