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The announcement that Evolve IP has received both SAS 70 and PCI-ASV designations may not be traffic-stopping, but they do mark an important little milestone along the road to demonstrating that Cloud-based services can be secure, robust and resilient.

Evolve is in the Communications as a Service business, providing managed telephony, hosted applications, managed networks and security and compliance capabilities to businesses that have a strong dependence on communications services. Into that bracket, of course, fall all of the major financial institutions, and in particular those that provide credit card services.

SAS 70 is an accounting standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that validates the quality and integrity of a company’s internal standards and controls. Designation is achieved following an in-depth audit, conducted by an independent accounting firm.

PCI-ASV is the standard set by the credit card industry’s standards body, the Payments Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), to validate scanning vendors in terms of scanning and recording fidelity.

As Guy Fardone, the company’s COO and General Manager pointed out, both of these designations show that it can deliver secure services that can meet industry-tested and approved standards. It also demonstrates that it is possible to provide Cloud-based services that meet taxing international standards.