IBM and Sun have introduced hardware encryption systems
for their high-end tape drives that work with mainframes and open
systems.
The technology could offer a cost-effective way for users to
secure data and meet compliance and data protection
requirements.
Hardware-based encryption generally has a lower impact on the
performance of back-up servers than software-based encryption, and
it can perform encryption after data is compressed and written to
tape.
“Encryption is one of the lowest-cost risk mitigation tools
available and, if aggressively deployed, will greatly reduce the
number of data breaches due to lost or stolen equipment,” said Cal
Braunstein, executive director of research at analyst firm Robert
Frances Group.
IBM’s System Storage TS1120 integrates encryption and encryption
management facilities. It has three different encryption management
methods. Two of them (library, and system encryption management),
use the Java-based IBM Encryption Key Manager, which generates and
distributes encryption keys for the tape drives.
For the third method (application-managed encryption), IBM’s
Tivoli Storage Manager back-up and recovery software is used to
automatically generate and communicate encryption keys for the
drives.
Sun has introduced device-level tape encryption and key
management for its Storagetek Crypto Ready T10000 tape drives. It
supports multiple operating systems and the AES-256 encryption
algorithm.
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