Speed and security will make data location even more important; and the Internet of Things is a new data protection headache waiting to happen; these are two predictions for 2015 by Len Padilla, pictured, VP Product Strategy, NTT Europe.
Though almost two years have passed since Edward Snowden’s revelations of cyber-surveillance on a global scale, data sovereignty will remain a key concern for organisations in 2015 for two reasons. Firstly, the allegations have spurred many governments to insist that customer data is physically hosted within their national borders. We have already seen this in Germany and expect Russia’s Duma to implement similar measures in 2016. What is more, many countries have tightened their data protection rules: it is simply easier from a compliance perspective for organisations – especially those in highly regulated sectors like financial services – to dictate the physical location of their key data.
Secondly, the speed of light remains a key determinant for many firms: the closer a server is to where its data is actually needed, the faster the service will be. In areas like low-latency trading, which already accounts for over 60% of daily trading volumes on the New York Stock Exchange, every millisecond counts. Data centres close to major stock exchanges will be highly prized by many organisations.
Both of these explain why we’re seeing even more demand for data centres located near to London, Singapore and Hong Kong – we’re opening our third campus just outside London in 2015. It is a trend that isn’t going away anytime soon.
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The ‘internet of things’ (IoT) is gradually reaching the masses as consumer electronic brands such as Belkin, Logitech, Samsung, Apple and Hive, branch more and more into home automation. There is no doubt that IoT has exciting benefits for consumers such as saving on energy or monitoring fitness.
On the flip side, however, lies an intensifying debate on data protection and privacy. Most consumer IoT services rely on the public cloud as a key enabling technology, where the security of the data cannot be guaranteed. And for many brands (and regulators) it will become increasingly important to prove that sensitive consumer data is kept safe. Not many people will be happy with health insurers looking at data on their diet or fitness regime, for example.
I think that owing to the sensitive nature of the data and information from the IoT, vendors will be required – by regulation or by public outcry – to move it to more secure environments such as ‘private clouds’. So, consumers get the on-the-move visibility and control they enjoy at the moment, while addressing concerns over data protection.
