Private Cloud vs Dedicated: Selecting HIPAA Hosting

While selecting the form of hosting your organization needs is complicated enough by itself, if what you are promoting requires HIPAA compliance, the query becomes much more complex. 

Using dedicated servers has been the default option for corporations that must make sure that all HIPAA regulations are followed for a very long time. But with the increasing popularity of the cloud, especially its flexibility and scalability, more businesses began to wonder if the cloud environment could possibly be used with the identical level of safety and HIPAA compliance as traditional dedicated servers. 

The reply is yes. But as there are just a few specifics to contemplate, we should always first review what HIPAA compliance is and the way it pertains to each dedicated and cloud servers.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a law that regulates using PHI (protected health information) in america. PHI refers to any identifiable details about a patient, from their name and date of birth to their social security number, address, phone number, etc. 

Any company that handles PHI must follow HIPAA regulations, including healthcare providers, insurance firms, and other businesses within the healthcare supply chain. It’s also required that corporations make sure that their business associates (e.g., hosting providers) follow HIPAA regulations as well. 

Basically, HIPAA regulations relate to the privacy of knowledge and the safety against breaches. Businesses have strict limits on how PHI data will be used and should safeguard it against reasonably anticipated threats. 

So what does it mean for dedicated and cloud servers? 

HIPAA doesn’t specify which particular server setup corporations should use. Nonetheless, using a dedicated server is the best approach to satisfy HIPAA security requirements. 

A dedicated server provides an isolated environment. Because of this, your infrastructure shouldn’t be shared with anyone, reducing attack surfaces, making it easier to configure a secure firewall, and helping control authentication points. 

When selecting a dedicated server, you will have probably the most freedom in choosing hardware, software, and an operating system. It’s also possible to add cloud functionality for increased scalability without sharing.

Once you host your website or application within the cloud, a set of distant servers is pooled together for computing and storage. With a public cloud, that set of resources is shared; in a non-public cloud, they aren’t. 

HIPAA compliance is far easier to realize on a private cloud because it allows for more granular control over the infrastructure and security measures. As well as, physically isolating the environment from other tenants makes HIPAA audits easier. 

That said, not every little thing throughout the private cloud environment is the hosting provider’s responsibility. For instance, they could handle the hardware, hypervisor, and operating system updates, but every little thing in the appliance layer is probably going as much as the client. 

Normally, the private cloud provider would handle management and secure support systems: 

• Physical access to the info center.
• Infrastructure against external threats and cyber attacks.
• Software against malicious actors, viruses, spyware, ransomware, etc.

Potential customers can request HIPAA audits from the cloud provider, which might prove that PHI is protected throughout all of the business functions. 

• A valid business associate agreement (BAA) that outlines how PHI is being protected.
• Annual HIPAA staff training.
• Tier III data center with SSAE certifications that specifies physical security measures and uptime guarantees.
• Software security practices reminiscent of firewalls, log management, intrusion detection, antiviruses, etc.
• Policies against internal threats include background checks, access audits, and onboarding/off-boarding processes.
• Data protection, reminiscent of encryption at rest, offsite backups, and disaster recovery with regular testing.

So with the HIPAA regulation in hand, do you have to go for a dedicated or private cloud server? 

As mentioned above, HIPAA doesn’t explicitly prohibit any particular server setup. You possibly can be HIPAA-compliant even on a public cloud, but proving and ensuring such compliance can be rather more difficult and hence shouldn’t be really helpful. 

Thus, the query narrows all the way down to finding a terrific hosting provider that’s fully compliant with HIPAA, reminiscent of Liquid Web, after which selecting between private cloud or dedicated hosting based on what you are promoting needs. 

One of the best use cases for a dedicated server are: 

• More granular security and configurability for businesses which have very specific infrastructure requirements.
• Traditional applications profit from fast performance but don’t require any cloud features.

Unlike private clouds, dedicated servers are less scalable and require more investment for hardware updates. 

At Liquid Web, private cloud is served through VMware, distributing resources across virtual machines and has management tools to manage, move, and expand them from a centralized interface. One of the best use cases for a non-public cloud are: 

• Testing software in multiple environments.
• eCommerce applications that require high scalability and redundancy.
• Consolidation of hosting/vendors.
• Secure and scalable environments for healthcare businesses.

Private clouds are somewhat complicated to deploy initially and price greater than a single dedicated server. Nonetheless, a multi-tenant environment on Liquid Web’s Private Cloud provides full management in your deployments while keeping you on budget. 

Comparing dedicated servers and private cloud servers, we will see that they’ll easily satisfy HIPAA requirements with a reliable hosting provider. Nonetheless, when you require isolation in your data and the flexibleness and scalability of the cloud, private cloud is the best selection. There are various private cloud plans for businesses of any size, and you may adjust your scale on the fly at any time without compromising availability. 

Reach out to us at Liquid Web today. Our technicians can be glad to reply any questions regarding HIPAA Compliant Private Clouds and provide help to select probably the most suitable VMware Private Cloud plan for what you are promoting needs.