Rackspace opens Australian Data Centre
At a lunch held for selected customers and friends of Rackspace in Melbourne today Jim Fagan, Managing Director Asia Pacific and Mark Randall, Country Manager Australia introduced the new data centre.
The Australian IT Investment Opens Doors to Enterprise, Financial Markets and Government and Strengthens Commitment To Local IT Industry
Rackspace has its own global benchmark for tailored customer support levels. Its hallmark customer service experience called Fanatical Support®, provides personalised service 24x7x365 and has won the company numerous customer service awards. “Australian customers love our support. It really has set us apart in an industry otherwise dominated by telcos, with support models that leave a lot to be desired,” Randall continued.The Australian data centre adds to its international data centre footprint, which includes existing facilities in Dallas, Chicago, Virginia, London, and Hong Kong. Since the company launched in 1998 Rackspace has grown its global base to over 190,000 customers and currently hosts more than 60 per cent of the Fortune 100 companies.
In response to customer requests, Rackspace has recently begun offering customers agreements under New South Wales law, which are compliant with Australia’s National Privacy Principals. This arrangement will be extended to customers hosting at the Sydney data centre.
The Australian data centre is built according to Rackspace’s high global standards and the local agreement was negotiated with global partner Digital Realty. It’s currently in the late stages of construction and the first customers are expected to go live in late 2012. To ensure it’s operated in the same manner as other Rackspace data centres, it includes security certifications upon launch for UTI Tier III Design and Construction, with certifications planned for SSAE16, ISO 27001, ISO 14001, PCI, and ASIO Intruder Resistant once fully operational.
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As for the Patriot Act the simple fact is we do not have "command, custody and control" of our customers data as defined in the Act - they do. We do not know what data they keep where, they can block us from access, or encrypt it.
So whilst a Patriot Act request could in theory be used to request Rackspace's own internal data held here, the US government would have to invoke a mutual legal assistance treaty with Australia to get a local court order in order to request customer owned and controlled data. If you host with a local provider they would still have to comply if a request was made under such a treaty.
We believe customers should be able to make a choice of provider based on product, service and price, and not out of fear which is driven primarily by providers who have been providing poor service levels at inflated prices for too long.
Regards
Mark Randall
Country Manager - Rackspace Australia
If a cloud vendor tells you that it’s OK now because they’ve opened a datacentre in your backyard, watch out. The mere fact of locating a datacentre in Australia will not remove the possibility of that company (say US owned) from being required to divulge your data under any one of a number of measures, most notably the USA Patriot Act. It’s true, governments do have bi lateral treaties for handling these sorts of requests normally, but those routes involve serious checks and balances. The sort of friction that tends to be overlooked in the name of expediency.
The real issues are in fact symbolised by the iceberg problem. The legislation and application of the Patriot “toolbox” are the known unknowns, visible above the surface. Lurking underneath and mostly unfathomable are the costs of not complying and the business disruption caused by duelling in an overseas jurisdiction, the unknown unknowns. No amount of risk management and business continuity can prepare a business for this sort of upheaval.
No smart business would enter into such an uncontrolled experiment, as that is exactly what using an overseas owned hosting vendor would become. US legal firms are advising clients in Australia to “consider the security and confidentiality risks posed by the Patriot Act and to store their data with providers which do not have any US connections.”
The truth is, an unpleasant situation has yet to arise, therefore no one knows exactly how this might play out. Do you want to be the guinea pig? Prudent decision making dictates that this should be left for others. Why would you go there?
Ask the vendor to provide and indemnity clause in their SLA with you that specifies they will cover your expenses etc for challenging disputed collection of data.