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Why a Local Cloud is the right choice for secure cloud communications

Maybe it’s time to rethink your view of what Cloud architecture means. Cloud use is cost effective, provides huge operational benefits, AND is able to be utilised in a secure way.

As someone who has followed the rise of cloud computing for a decade, it is apparent to me that there are still regional differences in opinion of the safety of cloud infrastructures. The US has a lead over Europe, for example, in cloud adoption (Gartner), and that is likely down to a multitude of factors:

• The tech vendors in the US have heavily promoted the use of their cloud-based products
• Many of the tech giants providing the underlying infrastructure are US companies
• The tech buyer community is more open to try new ideas in the US
• The regulations governing data security and privacy are less onerous in the US
• The US is such a large market that many of the business transactions take place solely in the US; less scope for cross-border activities

Considering each point in turn helps to understand the current situation and provides guidance on the route forwards to remove any concerns and drive European cloud adoption forwards.

Vendor push

The majority of players in the enterprise telecommunications space are US companies, and in their drive to maintain market share and profitability, they have all adopted cloud-based approaches for at least part of their portfolio. In turn, the market for enterprise communications software and services in the US is the largest globally, and they have an appetite for new technologies such as cloud that will improve their bottom line.
In addition, most of the SaaS service offerings that are hosted on public clouds use either Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or IBM Cloud - all of which, as evidenced by Statista, are US corporates who rolled out their platforms in the US first and then the rest of the world.

Openness to new ideas

The tech buyer community is more open to try new ideas in the US. In my opinion, based partly on three years spent earlier in my career living over there, there is a real openness to trying new ideas in the US, compared to a more conservative approach throughout Europe. This tends to lead to the majority of early adopters being in the US region.

Regulatory differences

The regulations governing data security and privacy are less onerous in the US. In addition, the US is such a large market that many of the business transactions take place solely in the US; less scope for cross-border activities.
If you consider the US versus Europe in terms of markets and market regulations, there is certainly more of a single market in the US with Europe being more fragmented, and with varying degrees of concern for data sovereignty; this leads to economies of scale for rollouts to meet a common set of regulations.

Is there a better way?

Yes – in short, what we at Aculab have termed ‘Local Cloud’.

It’s still a cloud infrastructure (not on-premise) thus giving you all the benefits of a cloud solution such as flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency; but you are able to control certain aspects such as locality of the data that is stored on or passed through the system. It’s a cloud that covers one country (or region) rather than being a global cloud where you have no control of where your data is stored or processed.

Data you put on one Cloud stays in that Cloud, we don't copy it around unless you ask us to.

This type of infrastructure is better in many ways for customers

1. Peace of mind regarding data security
2. Ability to maintain and adhere to strict regulations for data privacy such as the GDPR (EU) or PIPEDA (Canada)
3. Ability for cloud suppliers to tailor an architecture to a specific region, not cost effective on a global scale
4. Use of a single cloud from one vendor rather than a solution build from multiple vendors means there is less complexity with regard to data privacy – to meet the GDPR, for example, there is only one data processor to consider

Aculab's Local Cloud approach

Aculab Cloud is a communications platform as a service (CPaaS). It is hosted on Amazon AWS (an Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform), and using Aculab Cloud our clients build their own end-user facing software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings to provide, for example bulk voice call or messaging services to/from their client base.

For Aculab, what Local Cloud means is basically that we replicate our whole cloud infrastructure in multiple locations, with each one being a distinct standalone system able to operate in isolation of the other regions. 

Our current regions:

• 0-2-0 Europe (Dublin, Ireland)
• 1-2-0 US-East
• 2-2-0 US-West

However, due to the way we have created our architecture, we can spin up new clouds in specific country or region in a very short timescale. We are continually evaluating our regions on offer – under consideration at present are:

• Canada
• Australia
• Germany

If you have a need for a secure cloud in a particular region, get in touch using the short form on our Local Cloud page and we can work on a proposal, or it may be that your chosen region is already in our pipeline!

Andrew Nicholson, Senior Product Manager

When will telecom gateways be extinct?

Within Aculab, we’re often discussing the general acceptance of VoIP and whether we’re any closer to the time when traditional TDM voice will disappear and ALL enterprise voice communications needs will be handled via IP connections rather than TDM E1 and T1 circuits.

One thing that is clear is that whilst we are in the midst of a large shift towards IP voice, the general use and acceptance of VoIP is still at a slower pace than we were predicting 1, 2, 5 and certainly 10 years ago. One analogy recently drawn in our discussions was with the continental drift. Plate tectonics theory states that whilst the actual speed is very slow, somewhere between the growth of a fingernail and the growth of human hair, it is relentless and unstoppable leading to the creation of new geographic features along its path, such as mountains and volcanoes – again an analogy we quite liked. Furthermore, with continental drift there is never one single source of energy or momentum, it is movement and change (or indeed growth, or 'progress') as a part of a whole.

Being right on the edge of the VoIP (or plate tectonics!) shift we’re all very aware of this movement but to the majority of people it remains an unseen level of detail that does not concern them.

But why the reluctance? Quality doesn’t get touted as the restricting factor any more. Sure, in the early days there were quality issues, and certainly calls across the public Internet wouldn’t reliably give the same quality as a dedicated PSTN line, but generally people are very happy with the compromise of that quality when taking into account the cost savings in the call. Availability doesn’t seem the reason either, most modern voice solutions use IP at its core, of both equipment and networks.

In today’s economic climate, the traditional method of moving to new technologies by ‘rip and replace’ seems to have outlived its day. For both financial and acceptability reasons, moving to new technology now means a slow, measured approach together with a well thought out solution to integrate existing legacy equipment – without losing any existing legacy functionality. Horror stories abound of where systems have been put in but then taken out due to, for example, the CEO of a company losing a particular feature which they, and perhaps only they, used across their corporate PBXs. Similarly the unavailability or poor quality of a VoIP connection when calling back into the office has forced companies to rethink their telecoms strategies.

It is sudden and rapid changes such as large earthquakes or supervolcanic events that change the global ecosystem forever, and provide the ability for scientists (or Systems Technicians) to differentiate between ineffable gradual change and see the milestones. Once these changes have happened, large scale changes take a while to happen again, so we will have to wait and see when the next big push towards VOIP happens, and the long lasting effect this has.

Gateways, however, are the crucial bridge between the old and new. They provide technological continuity in changing times. We will continue to provide this service with enterprise and telco-grade gateways to those who need them.

Aculab's range of telecommunications gateways

Turning the page in the story of cloud migration

Technology, and especially communications technology, has surely become normalised in new and interesting ways. Take the amusing and gimmicky, where a fridge can text you when your water is cold, to the more usual everyday - where you can seamlessly contact and be contacted by your local authority or social housing agency. Such a service quickly and easily allows you to complete modern life’s admin, such as paying rent, and reporting problems to landlords.

Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) offerings are the technological brain behind these actual processes, and can be deployed in a variety of different settings, to bolster and support a whole range of customer support and software offerings. They are only really limited in the amount of imagination used to apply them.

At the end of the day, it is still a wonder that this all happens under the surface. At the data transfer level, beneath the whirring of the fans in a server room, and the clicking of the myriad LEDs, data zips about at the speed of light, like an orchestra being conducted - greater than the sum of its parts. What’s more, the infrastructure needed to support it is deeply rooted and stable, and the service is self-regulating in that it is highly resilient, often with multiple layers of redundancy.

One of the most exciting, growing markets that Software as a Service (SaaS) Providers are building for is the social housing or housing infrastructure market. Affordable housing is high on the political agenda, and as we move through the biggest geo-political event in recent history, new technologies are being deployed to - quoting somehow both Biden and Johnson - “Build Back Better”.

Taking a much wider view, in the grand scheme of things, we are also moving from “The Internet of Things”, to “The Internet of Everything” - a world in which most processes are mediated through data transfer, where human interaction has a permeable data flow attached to it, and algorithms are deployed to manage the seamlessness of this superstructure.

It’s early days for Conversational AI integrated into everyday life, (“hello fridge, how cold is my water?”) but it’s certainly headed that way. What’s interesting is that this process can be historically tied to the migration of telecoms systems to the Cloud - which is surely a great turning point in the story of telecoms history. From buildings that house literal switchboard operators, to VOIP in data centres, data flows and the interconnections are growing ever more complex, pushing tech to become, seemingly paradoxically, both highly adaptable and specialised. On the world stage for technological systems, no more “one-size-fits-all”, no more “jack-of-all-trades”, more like the term used in the theatre world - a “triple threat”: one who can sing, dance, and act.

So, where are we now? CPaaS systems are one of the main characters in this story. And the next step for CPaaS systems - which will set some CPaaS apart from the rest - is a move from the general to the specific: whether or not they are tailored to satisfy the particular and specific needs of some markets, and by proxy, bolster the offerings that SaaS providers have to those markets. It’s like with any piece of equipment: the difference is noted in whether the tool has been designed by people who have experience using it in a variety of settings, and therefore has both the weight of experience, and the nuance of expertise behind it.

Using a reliable and intuitive CPaaS system such as Aculab Cloud means that the engine behind the telecoms is highly attuned to the market itself. And, whichever market it is that needs it, it’s important that it bolsters the supply chain process as a whole by being tailored towards the end result. In this way, the whole system works in joint orchestration. There’s no need to wrench in a piece of technology to somehow fit the process, because the tool being used is already adapted with the end-market in mind, through being inherently adaptable, moldable and plastic, having been developed by engineers who know their stuff. This is how that paradox unknots itself, and what makes for a seriously good CPaaS. So that’s the theory - but how does it work in practice?

Aculab Cloud has a whole load of features that make it highly functional and adaptable, let alone the fact that our engineers can work with you to adapt Aculab Cloud into your system architecture.
Some features are with the end-user (the tenant) in mind, some are for corporate entities such as housing organisations or landlords, and some are with SaaS providers in mind - the important thing to note is that whatever the position in the chain, the functionality of Aculab Cloud is passed along, creating a win-win for everyone. These features have been included because, at the end of the day, the social housing market needs technology that can build a sense of community, and of local governance, and this is one of the best things that a Communications Platform can do. Not reflective of some big overarching bureaucratic machine, a sense of something more devolved and at-hand. And, after all, this is people’s homes we are talking about, the technology is speaking directly to the end user’s private life. So with that, here are some features within Aculab Cloud that we think are all highly attuned towards the Social Housing market supply chain:

• Local Presentation: Numbers that end-users can see are customisable, allowing for national, local, mobile, geographically specific, and toll free Caller ID. Giving landlords the ability to have a localised/professional impression.
• Dedicated Local phone numbers: Can be set up per tenant to streamline message flow and keep messages for multiple tenants secure, whilst using a common architecture.
• Local Cloud: Because our servers are operated regionally, SaaS providers have full transparency over where their data is stored and how it is used. This is perfect for easy management of data protection (e.g. GDPR) requirements, especially when handling sensitive legal and personal information within tenancy information. Aculab is an ISO9001 and ISO27001 company, meaning we are subscribed to the highest international standards of both customer service and security within our company policy.
• Operates on “Loose-Association” channels: Phone calls and SMSs, as a medium, provide customers a way to reach out to people with whom they have only a loose association, such as housing authorities and councils. So, the end users don't need to install apps, follow Facebook pages - all the information needed to make contact is there, at hand. When you think about it, SMS and Voice operate with a high level of trust and authority, creating a positive, dynamic relationship between speaker and listener that other channels simply do not have. This allows for Voice and SMS messages to carry with them an expected level of sincerity and authority - one of the central benefits of using a CPaaS for SMS and Voice!
• Security and Privacy: Aculab Cloud is a service managed and maintained by our dedicated and experienced staff 24x7 offering a personable experience for our customers. We manage service uptime, power outages and telco carrier issues so you don’t have to.