A data hosting company has opened its second office in The Bahamas and plans to capitalize on a growing market of online entrepreneurs seeking security and offshore tax benefits.
Secure Hosting, boasting around 200 clients, has established a second data center on Grand Bahama. In essence, the firm provides offshore hosting for Internet-based businesses.
By providing the computer memory and hosting services, the innovative firm acts like an offshore financial institution, in the sense that clients benefit from the rules and regulations of The Bahamas.
Secure Hosting, which already has offices in Bermuda and The Bahamas, has become the first hosting company in Latin America and the Caribbean to offer fully redundant hosting solutions,
according to its management.
"It is a rapidly growing industry," said Mark Hammerton, network and virtualization administrator for Secure Hosting. "Right now, a lot of people are moving to this format. Instead of in a house or physical building, they keep it within the cloud. We can sell private, hybrid and public clouds to anyone who wants to be connected on the Internet. It is only going to get bigger. Instead of buying equipment, you can just come to us."
The second location on Grand Bahama expands the firm's capacity, but also serves as an important backup and fail safe operation.
Richard Douglas, a Canadian and the founder of Secure Hosting Limited, said the Bahamian government's e-commerce business initiatives were a key factor in the opening of the second office.
While The Bahamas has been a bit slower adopting online solutions, the government recently hired a company out of Singapore to revamp its e-government website, allowing a host of services to be streamlined in an Internet setting.
Meanwhile, Bank of The Bahamas recently launched a new e-commerce platform for entrepreneurs.
Douglas said Secure Hosting attracts clients that value strong legislation covering electronic transactions, computer misuse and data protection. The new data center offers redundant networks, full uninterruptible power systems, cooling and back-up generators and cutting-edge server technology.
"Our clients can't afford to have downtime for any reason," he said. "Our data centers have backup systems for their backup systems."

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