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Tape Encryption and Security
January 21st, 2010
Across numerous data centers around the world, CIOs are leaning towards adopting a tape encryption model for backup and recovery and archiving solutions to meet the growing storage needs of their organizations. Ideally, the tape system must be able to handle the daily and weekly demands of the data center, have sufficient speeds to complete its task within the allotted period of time and to ensure reliability in backing up previous transactions without human intervention. To add to the list of the mentioned requirements, a tape system must be able to create encrypted media to protect the enterprise and its employees in case of data loss, fraud or racketeering of valuable customer or employee information.
The impact of data loss or attempts to fraud sensitive information has a damaging impact on smaller businesses. The costs associated with protecting a business after a data loss and racketeering can put it out of business. However, despite the risk of data loss and other security threats, an enterprise simply cannot stop sharing data. Data centers may need to share information with remote offices and external partners. Data in transit should always be encrypted using special software that uses the CPU cycles for encryption.
Issues in Implementing Tape Encryption
According to reviews by GSS America, a leading IT outsourcing and technology offshore development organization, there are several approaches to implementing tape encryption and ensure the security of data. One way is to encrypt the tape from within the backup system. There are, however, a couple of issues with this approach. Firstly, existing backups may not offer this option and even if they do, the pricing may depend on the number of tape drives and media the package is supporting. If the number of drives and media are immense, the pricing becomes exorbitant.
The second issue appears after implementation when the backup system encounters additional overheads in encryption as well as in taking a full backup of the data. Due to the encryption process, the system may require extra processing power to handle this job without impacting other resources. This can significantly alter the SLAs and have a severe impact on an organization’s revenue and client retention rates.
The Future of Tape Encryption
Tape encryption in the coming years would comprise of a services-based model aimed at solving issues related to costs and operational overheads. The solution comprises of two key components:
Outboard Encryption: Advances in cryptology, design and processor packaging are driving a new paradigm of tape encryption that features outboard encryption that plans to address all shortcomings of the existing encryption options. Outboard encryption shifts cryptographic processing from host processing units, extends encryption to all connectors and scales performances across all tape drives.
Enterprise Tape Encryption (ETE) Architecture: ETE is an extension of outboard encryption and will be based on distributed services. ETE mirrors SOA and is a highly scalable and secure architecture. The ETE comprises of layers like:
- Encryption service requester layer
- Encryption services layer
- Cryptographic processing layer
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