Natural disasters can strike at any moment in any corner of the globe. I learned this first hand through my experiences as a firefighter in the emergency services. For families, this includes storing non-perishable foods and flashlights with spare batteries. For enterprises, an increasingly popular option is storing critical workloads in the cloud. And for cloud service providers, this means architecting data centers that are able to withstand whatever is happening outside.

The cloud provides offsite infrastructure and services allowing mission critical data and applications to remain operable in times of emergency. Reliability and consistency are integral features, and two essential factors we find enterprises weigh heavily in selecting a cloud provider.  Even when a data center is located in the heart of a storm, there needs to be protections in place to prevent system failover. Cloud providers must maintain the strictest building enhancements and features to prevent tragedy from striking on the inside as well. You can’t forget the fundamentals of prudent data center design just because everything is called cloud now.

One of Verizon Terremark’s flagship facilities, the 750,000 sq. foot NAP of the Americas, is located in Miami, FL. With hurricanes a staple of the regional climate, we knew the building required advanced features to protect our customers’ data.  That is why we constructed equipment floors 32 feet above sea level, designed a sloped roof to aid the drainage of floodwater in excess of a hundred-year storm intensity, and constructed seven inch thick steel reinforced concrete exterior panels, among numerous other precautions, in order to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.  We are prepared and have proven time and again all over the world that our data centers can stand up to extreme weather conditions.

Beyond the building infrastructure, the ultimate goal is to protect the equipment inside.  In the event of a power outage, if power is not generated inside the building, then servers, cooling and other critical equipment can suffer irreparable damage. This is why we architect redundant systems to maintain power and cooling, allowing our data centers and our customers’ most valuable workloads to remain fully operational.

We have to remember though that the physical infrastructure and equipment are only part of the story.  Cloud customers need disaster recovery services to function, especially when a natural disaster can compound damage. We take pride in our unique approach to Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) where we partner with our customers to provide expert knowledge and service in case of failover.  As partners, we have experts available 24/7/365 because we know every second of downtime negatively impacts our customers’ revenue and reputation. By providing access for data to burst into additional capacity, we limit downtime and save our customers major expenses.  

At Verizon Terremark, we understand full well the implications of natural disasters on IT.  We build our data centers to withstand forces of nature and give our customers peace of mind when they need it most.  Our top of the line infrastructures, coupled with our advanced power system and cloud services, provide reassurance in times of great uncertainty.  With customers in every market, including federal, financial and consumer, we are responsible for data and applications that affect the lives of millions of individuals. As a rule of thumb, leave nothing to chance.

The cloud market continues to evolve rapidly, with near daily announcements of new offerings, services, partnerships or pricing models. Embracing that evolution Verizon Terremark has recently invested in two open source cloud projects: the Xen Project and Cloudstack. In doing so, we are investing in technologies that allow us to bring high quality products to market, while also helping participate in the long term development of key components of the cloud service delivery platform. For Cloudstack, we are endorsing the project and actively participating in the community. With Xen, Verizon Terremark is making a monetary contribution to the development project and joining the Linux Foundation as an advisory board member. The Linux Foundation is the new home of the Xen project.

Verizon Terremark has long been supportive of open standards; however, now is the right time for us to get formally involved in the open-standard ecosystem. Our support and investment reflects our desire to see the cloud market mature quickly and provide businesses with cloud-based offerings that address specific needs like performance, cost and flexibility. From our perspective, investing in open source technologies at this stage of market development makes sense because it accelerates sharing, technology and ecosystem growth and reduces development and go-to-market costs. Here are some of the many benefits we see in supporting open standards:

• API, application and technology sharing – Open source virtualization platform capabilities and applications make it easier and faster to develop programs and reduce training and compliance costs for end users. Technology sharing leads to higher quality, more robust implementations.
• Ecosystem and market growth – Open standards allows developers to build rich systems of cooperating solutions which foster a market and encourage a higher level of adoption by businesses of all sizes as well as developers and consumers.
• Cost reductions – Standards lower the barrier to entry for new technology companies as well as service costs for established players. End users ultimately win with increased price competition and innovation.

Verizon Terremark chose to invest in Xen and Cloudstack because of our close relationship with Citrix. Citrix currently supports the Verizon Terremark portfolio of enterprise-class IT services. We believe our involvement with Xen and CloudStack will further the industry momentum around these technologies. While these are significant because they are our first active investments in open cloud projects, they will not be our last support of the open source movement.  We believe that in supporting open source projects we increase the overall market acceptance of these platforms thus providing additional quality, choice and value to our customers. If the cloud market is to mature at a pace and to the level we foresee, established companies like Verizon Terremark have to embrace open standards and encourage continued ecosystem development. That step for us begins today.

As Verizon Terremark serves large enterprises and government agencies running mission critical systems and information through our global data centers, we are constantly evaluating our data protection and governance models – from the robustness of the facilities that host the data to the managed and professional security services we use to fortify our customers’ assets.

For this reason, we generally welcome the overall objectives of the framework proposed by the European data protection law in January of last year and the European Cloud Computing Strategy released in late-September. The spirit of both initiatives embodies what I believe responsible cloud providers should do – vigilantly defend sensitive data to protect customers and their users. And with security often cited as a cloud obstacle, it’s good to see legislators note the relationship between the two.

I realize that some companies have expressed fears for unintended collateral damage from this legislation. Rather than shun collaboration, we suggest that legislators and technology leaders come together at the table to engage in open dialogue. Potential compromises to discuss could include an addendum to the law that allows for more flexible security recommendations for businesses or systems that are not storing/transacting personally identifiable information.  

And it’s important to note that even among the non-reformist group are many who see benefits stemming from these proposals.  A recent survey found that while a majority of senior IT managers believe implementation of the law would incur additional cost for businesses, a smaller but still majority of respondents agreed that the law “would improve business security processes and consumer data protection.”

While legislators negotiate the complexities of data protection laws, Verizon Terremark is used to maintaining secure environments for customer data based on our heritage in enterprise cloud.  We will continue to enforce the following security recommendations – which we implement in our own infrastructure and align with the guidelines from the EU:

• Redundant systems and on-site monitoring (at the data center level) to allow for improved security and availability for customers’ mission-critical systems
• Provide robust facilities that deliver:
  • Essential IT & cloud infrastructure to enterprises active in the region
  • Diverse connectivity options in the region
  • Protection for customers’ data through Verizon’s managed and professional security services

I see and hear comments about the readiness (or lack thereof) for enterprises to embrace the cloud – in the media, at conferences, the issue is front and center almost everywhere you turn these days. A host of issues are regularly cited as dangers in the cloud: data protection, proliferation of BYOD, systems integration, just to name a few. The general perception right now is that enterprises understand the benefits of cloud services, but security concerns are undermining mass adoption. The reality, however, is different and there’s actually a lot more to this story.

Let’s take a look: I am sure that a lot of us have at one point or another made a hotel reservation, bought a song or applied for a loan online. If you have, chances are you’ve used the cloud, and you may very well have used Verizon Terremark’s cloud.  The truth is that most people use the cloud on a daily basis and don’t even realize it. A great example of perception conflicting with reality is a national survey conducted by Wakefield research which showed that 54% of respondents claimed to have never used cloud computing, when 95% actually do; 65% reported using online banking and 63% online shopping – unbeknownst to many, these essential everyday activities are powered by cloud computing.

On the enterprise front, according to an Everest Group survey, “an overwhelming majority of Cloud Buyers expressed high levels of satisfaction” with their cloud service, and intend to move additional workloads to the cloud because they believe they can “derive greater business value from cloud technologies in the future.” To top it off, a CIO survey conducted earlier this year showed that 85% of IT professionals were “confident in a cloud provider’s ability to provide a secure environment.” This goes to show that enterprises are experiencing the benefits and consequently moving full speed ahead toward the cloud. In fact, Gartner included cloud computing among its top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013.

So, in reality, is the enterprise ready for cloud? Absolutely. Is it secure for the enterprise? Yes, if you use the right provider.

With that in mind, you should also think about the selection of your cloud provider, which should not be taken lightly. There are numerous factors to consider, including the global reach and security capabilities of a provider’s network of data centers, disaster recovery services, and the availability of public, private and hybrid cloud options. 

Verizon Terremark has been a pioneer of cloud computing for more than five years, at a time when people were still trying to define it. The general rule of thumb is, unless you own the network, you are not a real cloud provider.

Needless to say, we own one of the largest networks in the world. And we believe that offering a global network and cloud services from one trusted company delivers unmatched value to the enterprise.

Our recent healthcare cloud and Brazilian security services launch announcements remind me that anyone can commission the building of a data center, but it’s just a gigantic warehouse of little use to enterprises if key services are missing. Just look at how the data center has evolved in the last three years. Hosting players are increasingly rolling out cloud services from the same data centers to capitalize on the flourishing cloud marketplace. As we say at Verizon Terremark, enterprises are consuming many flavors of cloud, which means that certain requirements have to be in place. So, what’s the next evolution of cloud?

Verizon’s healthcare cloud is a great example of a vertical focused flavor of cloud. Anchored in Verizon Terremark’s cloud-enabled facilities, Verizon is delivering a comprehensive portfolio specifically designed to help the healthcare industry address HIPAA requirements for safeguarding digital information. Healthcare providers and their stakeholders can now utilize hybrid clouds, colocation and managed hosting solutions. They can have additional peace of mind in knowing that Verizon Terremark’s Miami, Fla. and Culpeper, Va data centers meet a number of security requirements, including, PCI-DSS Level 1 Compliant Service Provider, ITIL v3 based best practices, and facility clearances up to Department of Defense, Top Secret. In bringing this portfolio to market, Verizon – and Terremark by extension – is one of the first top-tier providers to offer a full range of public and private cloud services that meet applicable physical, administrative and technical security controls under HIPAA.

Another example of where the cloud is headed is the launch of Verizon’s managed and professional security services in Terremark’s Sao Paulo, Brazil facility. These services fill a critical need for security services for multinational corporations and government agencies in Latin America. This uses what Verizon calls its “ground to ground” strategy for the region, which has always been a growth market for Verizon Terremark. The goal is to bring in the best of both worlds – seasoned security expertise and a full set of managed services from on-premise managed security, application vulnerability scanning, and vulnerability management to a comprehensive security management program. One of my favorite things about this offering is that Latin American customers can now tap the Verizon Research Intelligence Solutions Knowledge (RISK) team’s insight into the threat intelligence synthesized from monitoring and managing one of the largest IP networks in the world.

In the last few months, I’ve started to notice chatter about the commoditization of the cloud. The thing is, if a data center and cloud are properly designed to deliver enterprise grade services, the cloud becomes a place where we can constantly innovate and evolve. On the other hand, if you built just a big building or offer a cloud from someone else’s big building, well, you might just be playing catch up.