You are here

Trust your own country’s cloud

By Jean-Claude Elias - Jan 19,2017 - Last updated at Jan 19,2017

“Where on Earth does my data really go once it is stored in the cloud?” This is a common question that those who are not particularly technically minded ask; and surely they cannot be blamed for that.

If some do realise that it simply flies over the network to go to a server computer and then is stored on the machines’ hard disk, the excruciating, the virtually existential question still remains “where is that server located?”

With the profusion of cloud services now available in the world, it is sometime impossible to answer. You could subscribe to the service with, for example, a US-based company with headquarters and management in Arizona, and the very server on which your data will be stored by the said company would be in India, perhaps for economic reasons. Naturally the same goes for website hosting, e-mail contents, social networking profile details and so forth.

Does it really matter where your data is kept, as long as it is well kept and someone is taking good care of it, providing you with a fast, smooth and reliable service, and charging you reasonable rates? Well yes, it could matter!

For many years Jordan has been known and acknowledged as a key IT player in the Middle East, frequently supplying the entire region with highly qualified IT manpower, and with advanced, up-to-date technological know-how. It was, therefore, only natural to see the country now offering cloud services that are hosted by local companies, with data stored and processed on servers computers physically installed here in Jordan — machines that you can see and touch if you really insist.

Orange, Damamax, Zain and other service providers have data centres that are large enough and sophisticated enough to sustain fair comparison with similar set-ups in the USA, South Korea, Canada or Western Europe. The structures standards are very high and the sight of all the server computers sitting in countless rows of floor-standing cabinets is nothing less than impressive, conjuring up vision of science fiction movies. This is real and this is available and operating in Jordan today.

Wishing to build on and to put to good use these structures, Jordanian company STS (Specialised Technical Services), already a major provider of IT technology in the country (of Dell computers, in particular), is now offering cloud services on a par with the best that can be found anywhere in the world. The advantage of being able to deal directly with people you can meet and talk to, in the flesh, for your business, instead of going through a “virtual” communication channel, is priceless and comes with tangible benefits. STS Cloud Services focus on advanced cloud data back up, a product that is in steadily increasingly demand.

The pristine quality of the local data centres, the proven track record of a pioneering company like STS, the comforting feeling of knowing exactly “where on Earth” your data is stored (in Amman for that matter), these are elements that blend and combine to make you trust the cloud more than ever.

 

With such services now available in Jordan, local patrons no longer have to ask “where did my data really go?”

up
68 users have voted.


Newsletter

Get top stories and blog posts emailed to you each day.

PDF