SafeNet teams up with NetApp to secure NAS

Vendors collaborate on StorageSecure appliance for enterprise and service providers

By Simon Eskow, Auckland | Friday, 31 August 2012
Enterprise data protection specialists NetApp and SafeNet have introduced a jointly developed technology aimed at making NAS more secure.

The StorageSecure solution, debuted on August 21, is said to encrypt data “granularly” over networks to improve governance and data security.

“The major value proposition is around consolidation, in not having to maintain isolated silos of secure storage,” says Vince Lee, ANZ regional manager for SafeNet. “StorageSecure is a lot more manageable than current solutions and that equates to better efficiency, less cost and better security.”

The solution is aimed at two customers: enterprise clients with high information security requirements and organisations, such as service providers, that want to protect information on behalf of their clients.

Lee says the target organisations include those in government, law enforcement, healthcare and financial verticals.

"Our customers are demanding a scalable solution to manage the security of their data in NAS and SAN environments,” says Tim Russell, a VP with NetApp, in a statement. “StorageSecure, especially when combined with SafeNet KeySecure, provides customers with the level of control, management and visibility necessary to enable compliance and overall data security.”

The solution provides encryption of CIFS and NFS data at the folder level, on a hardened appliance with centralised high-assurance auditing and security management that stores and manages the encryption keys. It is said to integrate with existing architectures via Active Directory, LDAP, or NIS policies and client authentication. And it integrates with SafeNet's Enterprise Key Management solution, KeySecure for central, uniform management of keys across a wide variety of encryption platforms.

“Many organisations are struggling to manage disparate secure storage systems, to understand how to apply security controls, keeping the separation of duties, and managing encryption keys,” says Lee. “This allows them to consolidate their systems and standardise on a single solution where they can build up a good level of skills and specialisation in applying those controls.”

Lee says there is also an opportunity for service providers to offer this to organisations that “may not have the skills internally to set up as secure an offering.”

“They are often better placed to deliver that service and provide the levels of assurance the customer requires,” Lee says. “The service provider may be better able to manage this sort of technology, for example, and invest in the appropriate security skills.”

SafeNet and NetApp are aligning to support channel customers.

Lee says that SafeNet sees StorageSecure as an opportunity to address a broader range of existing and future projects.

“SafeNet's channel partners are also supporting our work in non-NetApp environments,” Lee says. “While NetApp is the biggest storage player in our space, there is still more non-NetApp storage out there than NetApp storage and many of NetApp's resellers also sell and support other storage environments.”