The growing interest among enterprises for encryption services is behind the formation of a new partnership between Toronto-based hosted infrastructure provider Hostway Corp. and a vendor of encryption technology.
Hostway, which recently started offering hosted Microsoft Exchange 2010, is addressing the information security concerns of those enterprises increasingly affected by the strict requirements of regulatory compliance.
“So, we felt we really needed to meet those needs of customers with an encryption service that can work seamlessly with our hosted Exchange product,” said Andrew Kemp, vice-president of product management with Hostway. The State of Cloud Computing in Canada: Enter to win a pair of tickets to Toronto FC by taking our survey
For the encryption technology, Hostway is partnering with Echoworx Corp., a Chicago-based OEM that sells encryption technology through the likes of Symantec Corp., A&T, McAfee and British Telecom.
Echoworx’s CEO Michael Ginsberg said the arena in which providers of hosted Exchange and storage infrastructure, for instance, is changing in that they must respond to customers’ obligation to maintain information secure and compliant.
“Whether the cloud is their e-mail provider or the cloud is their data storage provider, they’re looking for them to provide first-class security,” said Ginsberg. “That’s where we come in.”
Besides the need to inject encryption technology in its hosted Exchange 2010 service, Kemp said the partnership was in part motivated by a need to provide IT administrators with a seamless way to encrypt information, whether moving or at rest.
“And the fact that it made it very easy for administrators to apply encryption rules centrally rather than put all the work on end users’ shoulders … We felt it was a compelling offering,” said Kemp.
Kemp expects the addition of encryption capability will grow Hostway’s customer base, specifically by at least 50 per cent of Exchange mailboxes across North America. Currently, the company services customers needing anywhere from a handful to several thousand mailboxes.
“This already will add additional growth potential for Hostway,” said Kemp.
Besides getting involved in the changing infrastructure provider business, Ginsberg said Echoworx is addressing the “biggest challenge” that is mobility in the enterprise.
With employees increasingly bringing their personal mobile devices to work, upon which confidential data is often exchanged with other mobile device users, Ginsberg said organizations are having difficulty governing that.
“That’s probably the No. 1 security risk being discussed at the enterprise level today: Mobility,” said Ginsberg.
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