That market is currently dispersed, with large companies making individual arrangements to secure backup sensitive customer and proprietory information off base.

C&WJ is already in the business, hosting the information of at least one of Jamaica's largest corporations at its data centre built one year ago to provide disaster recovery and business continuity management services.

But ICS is claiming that it is the first firm in the information technology field to offer software programming and technical support that transports data to a secure site.

Chief Executive Officer Christopher Reckord says his company has invested $3.5 million in software and equipment as part of the deal with C&WJ. The latter company will market the broadband service, called 'OFFSite', which will be sold at a one time hook up fee of US$155 to US$270 payable to ICS, and a monthly subscription fee.

ICS, which is run by partners Reckord and chief operating and financial officer Neil Abrahams, is a four-year-old company offering technical and corporate services that was spun off from computer business Innovative Systems in 2003.

Target companies

Reckord says the new data protection service will be targeted initially at small and medium companies, but eventually will be offered to a wider market, including schools and households.

"As more businesses increasingly adopt electronic means of making transactions and establishing communications, the requirement of electronically storing such data becomes increasingly important," said the joint partners in an initial plug of the service.

The Jamaica Computer Society says there is no data on the size of the market for data protection services, nor the existing demand. However, president Nigel Henry points out that internet penetration has reached 40 per cent, seemingly to indicate that there is scope for businesses offering products like OFFSite.

Subscribers will get continuous online back-up, off-site electronic vaulting, and recovery of business server data. The technology can run on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OSX platforms.

All backups are performed automatically over network connections, and are retrievable only by authorised users in possession of assigned codes.

C&WJ would not divulge its share of investment in OFFSite, but says it will provide product development support, data centre/hosting services, marketing and billing support.

Technology support

ICS will provide servers, storage area network, backup application software, installation services and all other technology support.

The year-old data fortress, located on Constant Spring Road in Kingston, is equipped with diesel generators and UPS systems that can generate up to one month of electricity if the public power supplies go down, redundant air conditioning systems, fire suppression systems and 24-hour monitoring system.

Storage capacity currently goes up to six terabytes, said Reckord, but does not represent a maximum limit for the system as it is built to expand capability when necessary.

A key feature of the service is a secure software application, which uses 448 bits military strength encryption technology to protect customers' personal data during delivery and storage to remote locations.

Once the information is stored on the providers' redundant servers, it can only be retrieved with a selected encryption key provided at sign-up.

The system is a first for Jamaica, Reckord said, but is a normal offering in places like Europe and the United States.

Reckord noted that the market for such a service is potentially quite large, as everyone who operates a computer has lost data at some time or the other, but anticipates a clientele of about 680 in the initial stages.

Monthly subscription fees range from US$30 per month for one to two gigabytes of storage space; two to four gigabytes for US$51 and five to eight gigabytes for US$72.

The companies are prepared to negotiate pricing for customers wishing to backup more than eight gigabytes of information.

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