Do you Know Where Your Company Data Resides?

We know what companies manage our data: Quicken, Microsoft and a hosting provider. We actually don't care where our data resides physically as long as it resides in a country, like the US, where intellectual property laws help prevent someone from gratuitously accessing our data.

What we do care about is the controls that are in place for safeguarding our data - we trust Microsoft and Quicken to do a good job here. For us, the convenience of cloud-based data outweighs the security issues for two reasons: (1) cloud vendors generally have greater security controls than we could afford to implement in our company (for example, creating a separate, secure data center) and (2) cloud vendors generally provide better continuity management than we can provide ourselves - they back up our systems daily and can recover systems faster than we can internally.

Donald,

I think you missed the point.

The question is not the exact location of the server which holds your Quicken data; it is the fact that your Quicken data is held my the Microsoft Cloud.

Your CRM system is held by XYZ company. That Bob has his own database (although it is Company data) and it's sitting in his Dropbox.

Years ago, all data sat somewhere at the company (it we've all lost or misplaced files, both real or virtual). Today, they can be anywhere and if you don't have a system to track the data, it can and will be lost as well.

Regads,

Wayne

Wayne is discussing a point which is critical, supported by some of Donald's statements - "we trust," "...generally have greater security controls." Not trying to beat you up. Sorry. Your answers are in line with most Executives.

Depending on your business - your data is sitting in multiple forms, in multiple locations...accessed by multiple individuals.