Compliance isn't easy.

With a wide variety of regulatory bodies to report to, a growing group of businesses that need to be follow the rules, tricky lingo, staying compliant can be a complicated and costly headache.

Hefty fines tend to motivate companies to stay up-to-date with compliance, Compass Datacenters, a third party data center provider based in Dallas, Texas, said in its latest blog post.

To avoid goint that route, businesses can simply get their facts straight on compliance regulations, according to Rebecca Brese, the blog's author. There are two major types of compliance, statutory and standards. Statutory includes regulations like HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, and is something that businesses must stay up-to-date with in order to withstand periodic audits. The second type, standards, includes PCI compliance, and refers to performance standards created by industry groups.

It is up to the business to make sure that the data center provider they choose is the right environment for their data requirements, Brese writes. That means checking out the company's ability to supply compliance needs, develop compliance plan, and understand compliance rules in the business's specific market.

The bottom line, Brese says, is making sure both your own business and your data center provider are fully informed.

You can read the full Compass Datacenter blog here.