Canadian Cloud Computing - a great tool for SMBs

For an update on an earlier post about Canadian Cloud Computing, this Hub startup  received some great press recently in IT in Canada. Great article about how the Small to mid size businesses can really benefit from a cloud solution.

I love this quote from Wally Kowal, President and Founder of Canadian Cloud Computing: “We consider ourselves a cloud provider with a face. A lot of small and mid-sized companies are not comfortable with global operations and corporations. It’s okay if you’re a consumer and you don’t care where your data is – Google is great. But if it’s your company infrastructure that you are looking to put on the cloud, you want to know who you are dealing with. We’re not going to compete with Google – we are going to have a face. We have a phone number and you can get help from us anytime. We can do that on a smaller scale because we’re a smaller operator and we can offer that level of service.”

Building the Canadian Cloud at the Hub

One of the early stage technology companies at the Hub is Canadian Cloud Computing. When I do hub tours I sometimes get that quizzical look that says "what is the cloud."

My simplistic explanation to non-tech people, and you will see that I am by no means a cloud expert, is that the cloud has been around for a long time, it is basically just servers hosting data, nothing to be nervous about. Canadian Cloud Computing offers companies a cost effective alternative to buying and building their own server infrastructure.

I do add a consumer advantage from the cloud -- as digital technology becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, I expect that we will all be interacting more and more with a cloud and not even know it. Such as when we log in at the office to check that we did indeed turn off the iron this morning. If you want to learn more about how you can do that you should check out this Kitchener company - SafePlug.
 
Another example is Gmail and how within my account I have endless space to store email on their server. And this is a segue into the unique value  that Canadian Cloud is offering -- The Trusted Canadian Cloud - a fine balance between building a world-class cloud platform in Canada that is uniquely Canadian while still remaining a part of the global Internet infrastructure.

Basically it is about providing Canadian companies all the benefits of cloud computing without the global entanglements. In other words, because my Gmail account is hosted by an American Company, Google, all of my emails are open to scrutiny under the Homeland Securities Act. As Canadian Cloud Computing is obviously a Canadian company, the data they are hosting for Canadian companies would not be open to that type of exposure. And this is another good segue - data security.

Canadian Cloud Computing puts a GREAT deal of effort into data security. Their servers are located within a data fortress. Their secure networking systems provide encrypted VLAN access to content that is hosted on their Cloud Cloud Server with firewalled public IP addresses so customers can securely access servers through the Internet.

A philosophy of the team at Canadian Cloud Computing is that one size does not fit all when it comes to the Cloud. Some cloud providers focus on their own technology and expect you to adapt your business to their cloud platform. But at Canadian Cloud Computing they want to deliver all the benefits of cloud computing no matter what hardware or software platform you may use today - they want to offer the best platform to meet  unique Cloud needs.

It is kind of funny, Clouds and Fortresses... for storing data. It is a different age than what I grew up in and everyday is a new adventure in technology.