CHICAGO, Nov. 05, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UCX, the Universal Compute Exchange, ‘Where the Universe Trades the Cloud’, and Plante Moran, one of the nation’s largest public accounting and business advisory firms, announced a strategic alliance and service agreement. Most notably, Plante Moran will be conducting third party audits for cloud service providers selling WAC (Workload Allocation Cube) financial contracts on UCX.
Plante Moran will review existing SOC reports, perform security reviews with those organizations not having a SOC, verify the financial stability of the service providers, and certify locations of the providers. This will allow sellers to earn a Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) STAR Level II certification. All service providers will go through a rigorous due diligence process in order for transactions to take place on the UCX platform. No provider will be able to offer compute resource power on the exchange unless they have a STAR Level II certification.
The CSA Security, Trust & Assurance Registry (STAR) is the industry’s leading program for security assurance in the cloud. STAR encompasses key principles of transparency, rigorous auditing and harmonization of standards. STAR certification provides multiple benefits, including indications of best practices and validation of security posture of cloud offerings.
“Providing secure hosting provider options is critical not only to protect sensitive data but also a requirement in today’s highly regulated environment. By having an independent CPA firm review each cloud provider, leveraging the STAR framework, UCX can demonstrate to their customers that adequate safeguards are in place and cloud providers are being held to the highest standards,” said Raj Patel, Partner leading Plante Moran’s Cybersecurity practice.
“As the future of trading compute power becomes a reality, it becomes imperative that UCX find the correct strategic relationships to take us down the path of success. With Plante Moran we have found the perfect partner,” said Adam Zeck, CEO of UCX. He added, “Both buyers and sellers on the UCX platform must be absolutely sure that everything which is transacted and delivered is quality, simple and secure. With Plante Moran we can rest assured that the process is being handled by the best in the business.”
About Plante Moran
Plante Moran is among the nation's largest accounting, tax and consulting firms and provides a full line of services to organizations in the following industries: manufacturing and distribution, financial institutions, service, health care, private equity, public sector and real estate and construction. Plante Moran has a staff of more than 2,000 professionals in 23 offices throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois with international offices in Shanghai, China; Monterrey, Mexico; and Mumbai, India. Plante Moran has been recognized by a number of organizations, including FORTUNE magazine, as one of the country's best places to work.
About UCX:
UCX has created an electronic spot exchange, with the support and assistance of the CME Group, to help Start-ups, SMB’s, Enterprises and Cloud Service Providers manage their financial IT Infrastructure risk exposure by trading the cloud as a commodity. UCX is the first centralized, transparent exchange that enables organizations to engage in price discovery, trade execution and the physical delivery of compute resources using one standard unit of measure, providing “apples to apples” comparisons, operational agility, and market and capital efficiencies. UCX was named an ‘AlwaysOn Top 100 Global Company to Watch for 2015.’ To learn more about the executive team visit: http://ucxchange.com/about-us/
Follow UCX on Twitter: @UCXchange