Self-encrypting Storage: Comparing Alternatives

Data security is top of mind for most businesses trying to respond to the constant barrage of news highlighting data theft and security breaches. Combined with litigation risks, compliance issues and pending legislation, companies face a myriad of technology and products that all claim to protect data at rest. The disk drive industry has launched innovative, simple and powerful technology intended to secure data where it lives – in the disk drive. This tutorial will give storage users and managers a look at emerging drive-level encryption technology for laptops, PCs, and data centers that provides a secure storage foundation and compare that technology with alternative storage encryption methods, including: host-based, appliance, network fabric, and controller-based.

Learning Objectives

• High-level understanding of the various methods for encrypting storage, including self-encryption
• Critical and unbiased comparison of the alternative storage encryption methods
• Ability to identify and use business and I.T. requirements to select the appropriate storage encryption method(s)