Australian organisations’ growing comfort with the security of hosted cloud services is paving the way for increased investment in local data centre space and new approaches to cloud-related infrastructure models as Verizon, Rackspace and others push new facilities into an ever-busier market.

The ‘cloud’ is has been growing rapidly. Data centres have an increasingly critical role in the supply of effective and efficient cloud-related services, but adoption can be hindered by concerns over data centre security. Having the correct data centre security in place is vital.

Preparing to really push the virtualization envelope? Check! Readying an aggressive cloud strategy? Check! Gearing up to embrace mobility and consumerization of IT? Check! Having a datacenter network capable of securely supporting all this? Maybe not.

The hack of Sony's PlayStation Network in April this year was launched from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform. But Amazon is keen to emphasise that it has procedures in place to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

Information security company Bridge Point Communications will take over the assets and staff of data centre specialist, Server Central, on 30 June once due diligence is completed.

As Hurricane Ike bore down on Houston one Friday last September, the Continental Airlines' flight operations center, located on the 14th floor of a glass-sided downtown high rise, suddenly went dark. For the airline's pilots and flight crews, however, business proceeded as usual.