The term compliance is seemingly a confusing for most businesses. Before they can even finish explaining it, eyes are glazing over. Data center compliance standards are not merely guidelines and aids. Not following them is enough to break a company from fines and reputation damage.

Usually, third-party compliance certifications are obtained by data center providers to assure tenants that they are complying with standards they must stick to. But, data center providers stand often responsible for physical security aspects of the most compliance requirements. If the data center is not also managing your data through managed services, such as network management or web application firewalls, those centers are not responsible for what happens to your data.

So, keep in mind while searching for a data center provider, make sure you have understood what aspects of certain data center compliance standards are your responsibility and which are the responsibility of the data center.

After all, companies trust their mission-critical data to be contained within the facility. Data center compliance standards help enforce data protection best practices.

By understanding their essential scope and value, you are understood as choosing the data center facility which has the right data center authority and that can play the best roles to develop a long-term IT strategy that may involve extensive outsourcing.

To help you make more informed decision about data center services, take an overview of the concepts that you should understand.

Data Center Compliance: the SSAE 18 Audit Standard & Certification

SAS 70 was officially withdrawn at the end of 2010 and it was a long-time standard throughout the data center industry. Soon after its discontinuation, many data center facilities chose to shift to SSAE 16.

But, it is vital to get to know that there is no certification for SSAE 16. It is a standard developed by Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts.

It is an attestation standard used to give credibility to organizational processes. It required service providers to provide a written assertion regarding the effectiveness of controls. It means it is a more effective standard and has more control over a company’s processes and systems, while SAS 70 was mostly an auditing practice.

With SSAE 16 updated, it has got several better standards. Those are as follows:

The guidance on risk assessment - This part helps enforce organizations to assess and review potential technology risks regularly.

Complementary Subservice Organization Controls - A new section in the standard aims to give more clarity to the activities of a specific third-party vendor.

There is additional data center compliance standard. That is HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This regulates data, Cloud storage security, and management best practices in the healthcare industry.

For More Information Visit : https://www.idc-a.org/