The Offshore Cloud Computing Blog

As we begin the hurricane season, it’s never too late to start preparing and ensuring your organization has the necessary infrastructure in place to continue operations in a disaster situation. Reports indicate the 2018 Hurricane season will be an exhausting one, much like what we experienced throughout 2017. Last year’s catastrophic storms left many in The Caribbean without power, food, and shelter for days, weeks, and even months on end.

In our final post for our 3-part blog series on data protection for CARICOM and the public sector, our Director of Public Sector, Eamonn Sheehy, discusses how commercial cloud solutions is the key to unlocking ample opportunities for CARICOM within a single ICT space.  

Caribbean governments play a very significant role in the regional ICT sector. Typically, they are the single biggest employer and are also one of the biggest purchasers of generic ICT equipment, such as desktop computers, servers, and printers.  The government sector is also a major catalyst for the widespread implementation of e-services and provides strategic direction to the development and adoption of new services within the ICT domain.  Therefore, they have a very important role to play in the development and growth of new sectors within ICT.

On Episode 006 from the ICT Pulse Podcast, Cloud Carib CEO, Scott MacKenzie discusses how cloud technology is enabling digital transformation within the Caribbean region. He highlights some of the key cloud trends, how organisations can leverage cloud to improve their businesses, and some key questions to consider when evaluating cloud providers. Listen to the full episode below, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. 

On May 25th, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect, changing the way organisations process, store and protect European Union (EU) citizen’s data. The GDPR will be the first piece of Europe-wide data privacy legislation and is the most significant piece of European data protection legislation in over 20 years. Contrary to popular belief, the GDPR will have sweeping implications for individuals and organisations across the globe, including the Caribbean and Latin America. 

In part 2 of our 3-part blog series on data protection for CARICOM and the public sector, our Director of Public Sector, Eamonn Sheehy, discusses the implications around data sovereignty for government clouds.

Hosting sensitive data on cloud infrastructure located in another country or jurisdiction without a clear understanding of the laws governing both the enterprise contracted to host the data and the storage location of the data, poses a significant risk to government and the adoption of public cloud environments. This is particularly true when dealing with sensitive personal, economic or strategic data, which may be subject to specific data privacy legislation in the country where the data originates from.

Our Director of Public Sector, Eamonn Sheehy, discusses the issues of data sovereignty for government cloud environments, in the first of a 3-part blog series on data protection for the public sector.  

As governments in the CARICOM countries begin to consider deploying applications and storing potentially sensitive data in public cloud infrastructure, they need to be mindful of data sovereignty and privacy, and the potential legal implications of the loss of such sovereignty or privacy. This risk is considerably magnified if they are considering to host applications and data in public clouds outside of their jurisdiction, or with global cloud providers with no presence in the Caribbean or Latin America.

(Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash)

In the Caribbean, the availability of information and communication technology (ICT) services can vary from country to country. In a region susceptible to natural disasters, the need for resilient and strategic information technology infrastructure is enormous and crucial for continuous access to critical IT systems and services. Our Director of Public Sector, Eamonn Sheehy, recently authored an article for CloudTech, highlighting the reasons why the Caribbean’s digital future depends on cloud technology. Below is a summary of his article and more details on how cloud can shape the Caribbean as it moves towards a more digital future.

Many clients come to Cloud Carib looking to save costs on their IT infrastructure. They understand the benefits of cloud computing and how it can greatly reduce capital expenses and investments in on-premise hardware, as well as provide greater security and accessibility. Before consuming cloud services, an organization will typically perform an ROI exercise to measure CAPEX vs. OPEX, as well as illustrate the cost savings that would occur by moving their applications or data to the cloud. It’s a simple exercise that measures the immediate value cloud computing will bring to an organization, and becomes an attractive reason why so many organizations have turned to cloud services to power their business.

Cloud Carib is helping to shape the Bahamian financial services industry as it accelerates digital transformation in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The Bahamas Investor interviewed Cloud Carib CEO, Scott MacKenzie, on how cloud computing is shaping the Bahamian financial services community. According to MacKenzie, financial firms in the region are increasingly turning to cloud services to save on costs, simplify processes and enhance data security as the Caribbean ICT sector gains momentum and catches up with international development.