Strengthening data security

Earlier this week, Integrity Systems Company (ISC) conducted a successful migration of data infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS), strengthening data security and improving systems performance for the Australian red meat and livestock industry.

Here, ISC CEO Dr Jane Weatherley discusses the move.

Q: Why is this important?

A: ISC and MLA are custodians of a large amount of data which is crucial to guaranteeing the integrity of Australia’s red meat industry.

This includes data for the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS), Livestock Production Assurance (LPA), electronic National Vendor Declarations (eNVDs) Livestock Data Link (LDL) and animal health data.

The NLIS alone contains data on 325 million livestock movements from over 15 years and 267 million activated livestock ID tags owned by producers.

Moving data infrastructure to AWS not only improves our data safety but ensures our systems perform more effectively, providing a better service to producers and industry stakeholders.

It also ensures there is the necessary capacity to meet future data storage requirements.

Q: What are the benefits of moving this data?

A: The key benefit is increased data security.

The NLIS database is now housed within AWS across three secure Sydney data centres, this guarantees that the data will be kept physically in Australia and ISC has no current or future plans to move any data overseas.

The data centres now being used for NLIS are also used by Australian banks as well as many ASX listed enterprises and have passed all of their controls and regulations.

Moving ISC data to AWS was carefully considered and communicated with key stakeholders including all State Departments of Agriculture which agreed to the migration of NLIS to AWS.

Q: What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

A: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon and provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and data storage to individuals, companies, and governments.

AWS is used by the Australian Federal Government and is certified to carry protected government data by the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

Due to Amazon’s scale, it has far more advanced security and backup systems than smaller players, hence the majority of the market is moving to these few major providers to reduce risk and increase the protection of their users’ data.