B&S Insider Locks Down

Storage vendors and SAN administrators are behind the times when it comes to extending security beyond LAN, says Byte and Switch Insider

October 21, 2005

2 Min Read

NEW YORK, October 21, 2005 – Since February 2005, more than 50 million Americans have had their personal information compromised due to security breaches – coming in forms as varied as lost tapes, inside theft, hackers, stolen computers, and compromised passwords.

According to the latest report from the subscription research service Byte and Switch Insider, Storage Security: Pay Attention or Pay the Price, storage vendors and SAN administrators are behind the times when it comes to extending security beyond the LAN.

But they're paying close attention now: Executives primarily want storage vendors to keep their names out of the papers, and vendors are happy to cash in on the resulting paranoia.

"Recent security breaches have made CIOs keenly aware of the need to secure data in storage networks," says Dave Raffo, Senior Editor at Byte and Switch and author of the report. "Indeed, the heightened attention on storage security has forced the entire storage community – vendors and customers alike – to play catch-up. While communications networks have addressed the problem for years with an emphasis on firewalls, anti-virus protection, VPNs, and other tools, storage security has often been an afterthought."

In the past year, pure-play storage vendors Veritas, Network Appliance, and EMC have all taken major steps in the direction of security: Veritas was acquired by software security vendor Symantec in a $13 billion deal; NetApp acquired encryption appliance startup Decru for $272 million; and EMC loudly announced an initiative to improve security throughout storage networks.

The report looks at products that encrypt data to make lost tapes unreadable to unauthorized eyes, as well as the best practices required for a complete data security policy, such as "the Four As": authentication, authorization, auditing, and availability.

This report examines products from the following public companies: Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCDE); Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO); Decru Inc. (a NetApp company); EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC); Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ); IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM); Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC); Iron Mountain Inc. (NYSE: IRM); Kasten Chase Applied Research Ltd. (TSX: KCA); McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA); Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT); Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP); Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW); and Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC).

Private companies covered in this report: Disuk Ltd.; Glasshouse Technologies Inc.; NeoScale Systems Inc.; and Vormetric Inc.

Storage Security: Pay Attention or Pay the Price is available as part of an annual subscription (12 monthly issues) to Byte and Switch Insider, priced at $1,350. Individual reports are available for $900.

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.byteandswitch.com/insider.

To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact:

Jeff Claudino
Sales Manager
Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
[email protected]

For review copies, members of the media may contact:

Gabriel Brown
Chief Analyst
Insider Research Services
44-20-7701-9330
[email protected]

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