30 January 2014

The eVDC provides Castle Trust with synchronously replicated storage that transfers data in real-time between two data centre sites.

Launched in October 2012, Castle Trust aims to provide a safer way to invest in the housing market or to buy a home. It offers investments that provide returns based on the performance of the housing market, as well as ‘Partnership Mortgages’, a new type of shared equity mortgage for homeowners where the cost is linked to the homeowner’s ability to pay.

As a financial services company, security and data protection are critical considerations for Castle Trust. Following a thorough selection process, it contracted Adapt to host, support and secure its business-critical software. The IT managed services provide is now hosting the software on its enterprise Virtual Data Centre (eVDC) platform, and providing built-in backup and disaster recovery capabilities as well as applying rigorous security policies to meet industry regulations.

Adapt says it was also chosen due to its highly secure, available and robust infrastructure that is fully compliant with FSA regulations. Furthermore, it came with some good references – some of it existing customers include Moneycorp and LCH.Clearnet.

The eVDC provides Castle Trust with synchronously replicated storage that transfers data in real-time between two data centre sites, ensuring maximum availability and resilience. As with the data itself, each data centre is subject to stringent physical security processes such as multi-factor access controls, video surveillance and full audit trails.

According to Adapt, a layer of a physical hardware underpinning its eVDC provides additional security for Castle Trust’s software, as it allows the isolation of sensitive data to ensure any information stored is subject to the highest possible levels of protection.

Castle Trust MD Tony Pauley says: “We needed to be incredibly careful when choosing a service provider and, due to the nature of our business, we had to be 100 per cent certain that the partner afforded the same level of security and protection to the data as we would have applied if we stored it internally. With Adapt’s eVDC we get complete assurance that strict security protocols are followed, both at the infrastructure layer and the data layer itself.”

Pauley adds that as a start-up company, hosting onsite was “out of the question financially” for Castle Trust, and a public cloud solution was also not feasible. “With Adapt we get the best of both worlds, with the added benefit of a flexible solution that will scale with our business,” he concludes.