Canada Moves Closer to Private Cloud Computing Standard

Grazed from MSPAlliance.  Author: Editorial Staff.

In a move I have predicted long ago, Canada is one of many countries making moves to establish cloud computing guidelines to protect end-user data. While some countries are making very superficial steps, Canada is actually following the path of Germany, Brazil, and other nations, by wanting to establish transparency guidelines to know precisely where Canadian cloud data resides and who is accessing that data.

Oh, Cloud Canada!

The proposed guidelines seem to deal only with cloud computing as it relates to Canadian government projects involving the cloud. However, if the government adopts such a framework, it could be likely that private industry within Canada could also adopt such a stance, at least regarding certain types of data…

According to an article in IT World Canada, part of the proposed requirements include:

• Require that all domestic data traffic be routed exclusively through Canada;
• Require that all databases in which data is stored be running on servers located in Canada;
• Ensure that there are no connections from the Canadian database(s)/servers to any supplier database located outside Canada, with no way (short of hacking) of accessing the Canadian database(s) from a location outside of Canada;
• Encrypt the data (in transit and at rest) and ensure that encryption keys are held only by Canada;
• Require physical segregation of Canada’s data as part of the design of the solution…

Read more from the source @ http://www.mspalliance.com/blog/canada-moves-closer-private-cloud-computing-standard/