What Does SAS 70 Type II Compliance Really Mean?

​While choosing a hosting provider for your business, you must have noticed that most of the hosting providers highlight the SAS type II data centers in their key feature. A common person will just think that it is some type of certification given by an official party to the data centers if they are able to meet the standards and that’s true to some extent.

But instead of just seeing the SAS type II certification in your hosting provider, it will be more beneficial for you if you know what it really means.

So, in this blog post, we will take a detailed look at what does it really means to have SAS 70 type II certification.

But before we jump into the detailed information, let us first understand what SAS 70 is.

What does it mean by SAS 70 compliance and what is AICPA?
In order to let customers know that they can trust a particular data center in terms of transparency, accountability and standards, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), made a Statement of Auditing Standards which is called as SAS 70 (The state of Auditing Standards no.70). In layman’s language, it is just a simple authoritative auditing standard which has been designed by the AICPA.

The certificate of SAS 70 is awarded to those data centers that adhere to the industry’s strictest criteria. Talking about the AICPA, it is a type of association which comprises of more than 431,000+ CPA members, in almost 137 countries.

The AICPA determines the standards of auditing for non-profit organizations, federal, state and local government and private companies. The AICPA awards the SAS 70 certification to only worthy institutions after ensuring that they are meeting all the standards.

How was the SAS 70 introduced?
The SAS 70 was brought into action in 1992. But at that time, outsourcing was still in its infant stage and most of the companies preferred in-house IT solutions. The SAS 70 was introduced to aid external auditors in assessing the financial statement when a company used third-party service providers for the processing of financial transactions.

What is SAS 70 type II compliance?
When the SAS 70 compliance was introduced, the auditor’s reports were categorized into Type I or Type II. In the Type I report, the auditor analyzed the efforts of a service organization at the time of the audit in order to avoid accounting inconsistencies, mistakes, and misrepresentations.  While in the Type II report, everything is same as Type I beside the auditor trying to determine the effectiveness agreed upon controls by testing them for almost 6 months.

Why SAS 70 type II certification is an important factor for businesses?
If you find a data center that has SAS type II certification, then you can be assured that they do what they say and they say what they do. Such a factor becomes very essential if a business is going to share their important data with a third party in the form of outsourcing. If you have your data stored in a SAS 70 Type II data center then you can have peace of mind and be sure that your data is safe and is being handled on a platform which is following strict guidelines implemented by the government.

Does your hosting provider offer SAS 70 Type II data centers?
It is very necessary to check that whether your hosting provider has data centers, which are SAS 70 type II certified. You should never go with a hosting provider if they have data centers, which are not certified because such data centers can make your important business data vulnerable and can put your business at risk.

Most of the hosting providers mention the certification of their data centers on their website, but if they haven’t mentioned it on their website then you shouldn’t hesitate in asking them.

At Cloudwalks, we have SAS 70 type II data centers, which are located in an earthquake-free zone. We make sure to give maximum security to our clients and that’s why we never compromise on the quality and safety of our cloud servers. In addition to this, our data centers are monitored regularly on both physical and virtual level and only authorized people are allowed to enter into its premises. Our high- class data centers are kept on 24/7 CCTV camera surveillance and they have all the measures to deal with any type of situation in order to keep your data safe, secure and always available for you.
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So by choosing Cloudwalks as your hosting provider, you can be assured about 360 degree safety and bank level security.

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