By: Staff Writer
September 6, 2022
A regional Cloud Services provider is urging countries around the region to move full to digital backup of records and away from tape backup.
Scott MacKenzie, Cloud Carib’s chief executive, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that there are a number of countries in the region that still use “tape backup” for information storage when developed countries like the US have dropped tape backup some 20 years ago.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) ICT week being held in The Bahamas, reckoning that tape backup is seen as more secure, Mr MacKenzie noted: “There’s a perception that they may be more secure, but they’re not. They’re much less secure and then actually, from a practical perspective, they’re really hard to manage, maintain securely and operate them.
“So everybody, about 20 years ago moved to digital mediums for records and electronic storage, but there’s still numerous countries in the region that leverage tape drives.”
With data security at a premium in the advent of remote working, tape drives are now the thing of the past. The Caribbean should not be so behind on this when the largest developed nation is at their doorstep and always willing to provide technical support for development in the digital era. “That’s a security risk for nation states and for citizens because of their data being on those tape drives. So that, to me, is something that I see as a policy change, more security awareness. Security has to be something we’re all thinking about,” he said.
Record keeping is not the only thing Caribbean countries are out of sync with regard to developed nation standards. Mr MacKenzie also said: “Another good example will be with bandwidth. From a citizen and a government perspective, why is bandwidth here 1,000 times more expensive in the Caribbean than it is in North America?”
However, this is a question that needs to be asked of policy makers without industry providers like himself at the table during the discussions taking place at ICT week because bandwidth rates is how providers “make money” and it would be unfair to consumers to have someone at the table who makes money off of the very same thing regulators are trying to regulate.
Mr MacKenzie also said that the region needs to move towards a “single ICT space.” He added: “The concept of it is that smaller island developing nation states can help participate without adding the additional cost.
“So all the all the 28 countries within the Caribbean basin area, are all connected by a network, then you’ve basically got the roads, bridges and tunnels interconnecting everything, so why not try to help each other leverage services and technology that sits on top of that, to help drive the cost down for ICT across the entire region, while lifting up the technology skill set and knowledge and awareness across the region.
This is the vision of the single ICT space being able to share knowledge, wisdom, and the practical application of technology across borders in the Caribbean. But the single ICT space would be expensive for financially challenged countries in the region, but it is a worthwhile goal for more connectivity and lowering costs for consumers long term.