Managed IT security services vendor and distributor Securicom believes it has become the only South African e-mail security and archiving company that has geographically redundant data centres within the borders of South Africa.This follows the splitting of its platform across Gauteng and Cape Town. Securicom now operates two redundant, highly secure data centres in these two major hubs to ensure 100% uptime and secure storage of its customers e-mail data on South African soil.
This means that companies subscribing to its e-mail security and content management service, Securicom e-Purifier, and its business continuity and e-mail archiving solution, MailVault, are assured that their data stays local.
“Offering South African companies the assurance that all of their e-mail communication will be processed by our security solution and archived within South Africa’s border is significant in light of legislation such as the Protection of Public Information (POPI) Act,” says Securicom’s Richard Broeke.
E-mail content management systems have become necessary for South African companies as legislation and issues around confidentiality force them to institute measures to monitor and control the type of information flowing in and out of their networks. Companies are also obliged to archive their electronic communication, such as e-mails, which are considered as legal documents.
“Companies are starting to buckle under the strain of managing and storing ever-burgeoning e-mail volumes. Cloud-based services trump traditional infrastructure because they enables them to accommodate expanding e-mail volumes without buying additional servers,” says Broeke.
However, security of and accessibility to archived messages have always been big concerns for companies. Then there is the issue of where stored e-mails are housed. Broeke says e-mail data should be stored in data centres located in South Africa.
“That way companies don’t run the risk of being tied-in to data ownership legislations of foreign territories. Laws around data ownership differ between different territories and jurisdictions. A lot of companies are led to believe by storage service providers that their data is stored in South Africa. But, that’s not the case. Data is backed-up to data centres around the world without the companies being aware. Problems can arise when they want to move or access their information,” he says.
Securicom’s geographically redundant e-mail content and archiving services, replicates e-mail data between the two geographically distant sites so that customer e-mails and archived messages can be used and accessed at all times, even in the rare instance of a regional system failure.
“We promise 100% redundancy and that no customer e-mail data will be backed-up anywhere other than right here in South Africa,” says Broeke.