Audit Helps Customers to Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Financial Modernization Act Requirements HOUSTON - December 6, 2005 - VeriCenter, Inc., a leading managed services and enterprise infrastructure company, announced today that it has successfully completed its SAS 70 Type II audit through the global accounting firm of Ernst & Young. The audit covers all of the company's nationwide Data Centers and each location received an "unqualified" audit opinion, the highest level attainable. The audit provides assurance that VeriCenter follows policies, procedures, and business processes recognized as best practices for providing a secure, stable data center environment. Publicly traded companies use SAS 70 Type II audits as proof of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley's Section 404 requirements for outsourced services. "When our customers entrust their critical data and business applications to VeriCenter, they expect our managed hosting services to be exceptional in every way, from security to availability to regulatory compliance," said Gray Hall, CEO and president of VeriCenter. "The SAS-70 Type II process allows us to validate that our services meet best-practice standards in each of our seven data centers around the United States." The audit is also important to VeriCenter's healthcare, insurance and financial services industry customers. Those companies must comply with regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, which ensures patients' privacy; and the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, which addresses the protection of consumers' personal financial information held by financial institutions. The SAS 70 Type II examination helps VeriCenter's customers to ensure that they also meet those regulatory requirements. SAS 70 is an international auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA). It is recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an acceptable method for management at publicly-traded companies to obtain assertions about service organization controls without conducting separate audits. Under Sarbanes-Oxley's Section 404, management of publicly traded companies must take personal responsibility for the effectiveness of their internal control over financial reporting, and it includes controls at companies to which they outsource their IT operations. To gain SAS 70 compliance, an independent Certified Public Accountant evaluates the data center controls that are relevant to a customer's internal audit controls for its financial statements. The audit evaluated VeriCenter's controls in security monitoring, change management, problem management, back-up and environmental controls, and logical and physical access to its data centers. "Without this audit, many of our clients would have to expend a tremendous amount of resources in order to document their compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at our facilities," said Tom Veronie, senior vice president of Data Center Operations at VeriCenter. "The SAS 70 Type II audit provides our customers with significant cost savings while also reinforcing the value of the people, processes and technology that are at the heart of VeriCenter's business model." VeriCenter currently operates data centers certified by the SAS 70 Type II audit in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, and St. Paul, Minn. About VeriCenter, Inc.
VeriCenter is the IT infrastructure and managed services company that provides a comprehensive range of secure, reliable, enterprise-level IT operations. These inclusive enterprise services are centrally delivered through automated systems to our nationwide data centers or customer locations. VeriCenter's solutions help maintain and improve all levels of enterprise service and support while extending IT departments' in-house capabilities. VeriCenter customers rely on the company's expertise for hosting, security, monitoring, OS & database administration, and storage & tape backup requirements. Customers benefit from scalable, cost controlled, high-quality IT services and infrastructure all from one source. For additional information on VeriCenter and the scalable solutions, visit: http://www.vericenter.com/ or call 866.411.8287.
VeriCenter, Inc.
Headquarters
757 N. Eldridge, Suite 200
Houston, TX 77079
Media Contact:
Jennifer Z. Lozier
Director of Marketing
Direct: 281-584-4506
jlozier@VeriCenter.com
VeriCenter and the corporate logo are registered trademarks of VeriCenter, Inc.
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