Data centre security standards – key considerations

One of the most prevalent reasons for moving business-critical IT and workloads to an off-premise data centre is the superior security this offers - preventing unauthorised access, ensuring the safety of the equipment (e.g. cooling and fire suppression), and protecting networks and data. With the best will in the world, most companies are unable to provide the same levels of security in their on-premise data centre facilities as that offered by purpose-built datacentres, which have been designed and built to offer the most secure, resilient and efficient solution to the storage of physical IT infrastructure and mission-critical workloads and data.

This protects the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data stored and processed in a data centre. A data centre network typically consists of multiple interconnected devices and systems, including servers, storage devices, switches, routers, firewalls, and other network security devices. These can be protected in a number of ways:

• Implementing network segmentation: This involves dividing the data centre network into smaller, more manageable segments, each with its own security controls and access policies. This helps to prevent the spread of malware or attacks across the entire network.
• Using firewalls configured to block unauthorised access to the data centre network and monitor incoming and outgoing network traffic.
• Intrusion detection and prevention systems to detect and prevent unauthorised access to the data centre network. They can identify and block known attack patterns and can be configured to generate alerts or take automated actions in response to detected threats.
• Encryption to protect data as it moves across the data centre network. This includes encrypting data in transit between servers, storage devices, and other network components, as well as encrypting data at rest in storage devices.

One way of looking beneath the surface of a data centre facility is to review its accreditations, which demonstrate that a facility is compliant with industry standards and regulations and committed to providing security, reliability, and performance. Facilities like our London-edge and Manchester colocation data centres have gone through rigorous assessment procedures in order to achieve our accreditations and, importantly, we need to work hard to maintain them. These accreditations include:

• ISO 27001:2013 (establishing and maintaining effective security controls to protect information assets and manage security risks)
• ISO 9001:2015 (establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving a quality management system)
• ISO 14001:2015 (identifying and managing environmental aspects and impacts and setting objectives and targets for improving environmental performance)
• ISO 50001:2018 (improving energy performance, reducing energy consumption, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions)