German IT security provider Utimaco is collaborating with Digital Realty to offer certified cloud environments for mission critical cyber-security services.

Texas-based Digital Realty provides cloud- and carrier-neutral data centre, colocation and interconnection offerings.

Utimaco and Digital Realty have been working together for the past year to create a blueprint for how colocation environments in Digital Realty’s data centres can be payment card industry (PCI) PIN certified to provide the highest security requirements for the payment and financial services industry. Additional sectors, such as automotive, pharma and health, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), and manufacturing, are also being explored.

In a first step, joint environments in two of Digital Realty’s data centres in North America (Santa Clara, California, and Ashburn, Virginia) were certified and operated in accordance with PCI PIN. The blueprint was developed for global application to support customers as they scale. Utimaco and Digital Realty are also exploring the opportunity to certify additional data centres in Europe.

In addition to implementation support, the companies continue to offer access to already established services for the payment and financial services industry, such as: PCI PIN certified key generation and exchange service; PCI PIN certified remote key loading service; synchronised digital identity management with high availability and failover; and certified key custodians.

The certified environment is also used to provide a hardware security module (HSM) as a service to facilitate the infrastructure migration of traditional on-premise customers to cloud service providers and colocation environments by continuing to use auditable and certifiable HSMs from Utimaco.

As part of the collaboration, Utimaco says it will offer the highest cloud availability for mission critical cyber-security services at Digital Realty’s more than 300 data centres around the globe, a key element of Utimaco’s trust-as-a-service strategy.

“This collaboration secures current and future security demands for Utimaco as a service provider, as well for future customer demands,” said Håcan Tiwemark, chief operating officer at Utimaco. “It also gives us a global footprint with the globally recognised data centre provider, Digital Realty. Having the first data centres in North America certified for PCI PIN is inspiring, and we look forward to the further expansion.”

Philip Barnett, senior vice president at Digital Realty, added: “Data have swiftly become one of the most valuable commodities in the world and a critical area of focus for businesses everywhere. As the meeting place for the world’s data, we have a unique role to play in working alongside our customers and partners to maintain the security and compliance of those data in the face of an ever-evolving cyber-security landscape. With the needs of our customers front of mind, we’re excited to be collaborating with Utimaco and offering new, innovative security and connectivity services through our global data centre platform, PlatformDigital.”

PlatformDigital provides a secure data meeting place and a PDx pervasive data-centre architecture methodology for powering innovation and managing data gravity problems.

Utimaco is headquartered in Aachen, Germany, and Campbell, California, and develops on-premises and cloud-based hardware security modules, key management, data protection and identity management as well as data intelligence for regulated critical infrastructures and public warning systems. It has more than 500 employees.