Tape backup product adds encryption NeoScale Systems Inc. on Monday announced its CryptoStor for Tape 700, a new family of tape media security appliances that help organizations achieve information privacy and regulatory compliance by dynamically compressing, encrypting, and digitally signing data as it is written to tape libraries or virtual tape systems.
The new CryptoStor for Tape appliances are designed to meet the performance demands of emerging tape libraries while integrating with backup applications to support an organization"s existing media management practices.
CryptoStor for Tape includes high performance hardware-based encryption and compression, integration with most backup management software and hardware solutions, flexible policy management, and global key management support.
"The challenge many organizations face is finding a solution that secures tape content without impacting backup windows and operational practices," said Dore Rosenblum, vice president of marketing at NeoScale.
"NeoScale"s CryptoStor for Tape appliance addresses these challenges by offloading the security processing and key management from the servers while requiring no changes to an organization"s backup storage applications and policies," he said.
Because tape libraries are evolving to higher performance backups, such as the LTO-3 tape technology that supports 80MBps throughput, the migration toward these newer, higher performance backup solutions has caused some companies to consider new tape security solutions that can scale to support the throughput of emerging tape drives while utilizing encryption to secure the content, said Rosenblum. CryptoStor for Tape satisfies this need by aggregating compression and security processing across all physical and logical ports to ensure maximum performance for current and emerging tape drives and the system"s AES-256 encryption ensures privacy of the tape content, he said.
According to recent Enterprise Strategy Group estimates, more than 72 percent of all backed up enterprise data resides on storage media in unprotected plain text, exposing this sensitive information to theft, unauthorized access, accidental misplacement, or loss.
"Unencrypted backups tapes are a big security threat that could easily lead to intellectual property theft, compliance issues, and legal liabilities," said Jon Oltsik, an analyst at ESG.
"Conventional encryption approaches, such as software-based and host-based encryption solutions, have failed because they lengthen backup windows, create burdensome management complexity, and provide insufficient data protection," he said.
NeoScale has been tested for interoperability with leading backup applications, including Veritas, Tivoli, HP, SyncSort, Computer Associates, and EMC Legato. Tape libraries supported by NeoScale include ADIC, EMC, Fujitsu, Quantum, StorageTek, Sony, and Overland Storage.
Other features of the new product include hardware-based encryptions, hardware-based LZS compression, digital signatures, secure management, role-based security, clustering, and redundancy.
The CryptoStor for Tape 700 family includes the CryptoStor for Tape FC702/704, a two-/four-port Fibre Channel version and the CryptoStor for Tape SC702, a two-port SCSI version. Pricing for the CryptoStor for Tape starts at US$25,000 for the FC702. It is available now