Data encryption

IBM offers a portfolio of information security solutions based on its innovative self-encrypting disk and tape drives. These drives are designed to encrypt data automatically as it enters the drive to be stored, and then automatically decrypt it as it moves out of the drive. The embedded encryption engine helps to ensure that there is no performance degradation compared to the non-encrypting drives. This drive-level encryption approach reduces the risk that information could be compromised when storage media are physically removed from the storage systems.

Data Encryption benefits

Using these IBM self-encrypting drives to encrypt data at the storage end point provides the ability to store data in an encrypted form with minimal operational complexity and minimal impact on performance. Encrypting at the storage end point can help organizations:

• Minimize the need for host-based encryption, which can drain host performance
• Minimize the need to use specialized encryption appliances that can add to infrastructure complexity
• Accommodate a system’s data compression and deduplication, which help increase storage capacity utilization
• Address the high performance requirements of enterprise applications that need to scale linearly with no performance degradation

Featured solution areas