“Canada’s Cloud,” cloud.ca is now an independent business after CloudOps, its parent company, teamed up with TekSavvy to spin-off the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).

Cloud Ops and Tek Savvy will combine cloud, network, and data centres to power the new Cloud.ca for businesses that want their data staying within Canadian borders

“Effectively, this ensures that data avoids coming under foreign control, helping meet security, compliance, or privacy requirements,” said CloudOps CEO Ian Rae.

Cloud.ca is a Montreal cloud infrastructure services company that offers Canadian businesses Canadian ownership and governance, or “end-to-end data sovereignty.” It was previously developed and operated by CloudOps.

According to the newly-independent company, data governance is often overlooked by people, who tend to focus on cost and availability concerns when selecting a cloud provider. But as businesses become more dependent on moving critical workloads to the cloud, “they are taking a closer look at who has access to end-users’ personal information, making privacy laws and procurement policies a primary concern.”

“Data sovereignty is something that’s always been pretty critical part of cloud.ca,” said Julia Simon, marketing manager at CloudOps. “We really wanted to make sure that it was owned and operated in Canada so businesses could take advantage of a regional cloud. It’s a really important piece for certain verticals like healthcare and governments where jurisdiction and data residency matter because of the sensitivity of the data.”

Most pubic cloud are either US or foreign-owned. Global players, say cloud.ca, have begun to respond by ramping up their Canadian presence - but few can claim Canadian ownership and control to fully satisfy data sovereignty requirements. With this news, cloud.ca is is saying it’s ready for business.

The joint venture between Cloud Ops and TekSavvy offers application-centric and end-user cloud computing to companies making the transition to the cloud.

“Our real point of differentiation isn’t just cloud servers in Canada,” said Mike Gero, VP of product at cloud.ca. “It’s the ownership, control and personalized service that are Canadian, too. Canada can innovate with the best of them — and cloud.ca can provide that platform.”

“I think CloudOps and TekSavvy are both really excited. It’s a great opportunity for cloud.ca,” added Simon. “It’s such an exciting time for cloud in general, especially in Canada. We’re usually slower to adopt than the US, so I think the timing is right.”

Cloud.ca is looking to grow its team, and Simon said the talent pool is relatively small since they deal with fairly advanced cloud technology. “We’re always interested to hear from people.”