Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[Fullmoon]

Encryption focus shifts to disk drives

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid5_gci1309340,00.html#

There were several technical reasons why early products aimed at storage encryption failed. They were often slow, did not scale well and had rudimentary key management. But perhaps they were just aimed at the wrong media.

The first encryption appliances from vendors, such as Decru (now part of NetApp), Neoscale (now part of nCipher) and Kasten-Chase (now shuttered) were considered tape encryption devices. That made sense at the time because the biggest perceived threat to data at rest was lost tapes.

Now, the future of storage encryption has shifted to disk. EMC unveiled a disk encryption product at SNW, and while Seagate launched its FDE (full-disk encryption) Cheetah drives at the RSA conference, its storage partners IBM and LSI vowed their continued support at SNW.

EMC built encryption from its RSA security company into its PowerPath management software. EMC PowerPath Encryption with RSA encrypts and decrypts data at the host as it is sent to and from the disk array and uses RSA Key Management to manage encryption keys.

Why encrypt disk arrays that reside in the data center and aren't likely to get lost? Doc D'Errico, EMC vice president of infrastructure software, points out that disk leaves the data center more than most people think. When drives are repurposed or decommissioned, sensitive data can be at risk.

IBM first demonstrated disk encryption with Seagate and LSI last fall. IBM also encrypts tape in its TS1120 libraries, and its storage general manager Andy Monshaw told an SNW audience that encryption is a technology that needs to be implemented across the board. "A few years ago, some tapes fell off a truck, and we saw a rush of encryption devices," Monshaw said. "But they were point products. They didn't scale