NetApp, Brocade Team on Security

SUNNYVALE and SAN JOSE, Calif. -- NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) and Brocade (NASDAQ:BRCD) today announced the general availability of a joint storage security solution that will combine the NetApp® Lifetime Key Management™ solution with fabric-based encryption technology from Brocade.

The joint NetApp and Brocade solution helps enable a whole new level of encryption performance by providing mutual customers with the ability to quickly and easily encrypt corporate data for increased security and compliance with simplified policy management.

Organizations that have employed the use of point encryption products for protecting a single application or type of data in the past are now able to encrypt all their data with the unprecedented levels of performance provided by the new Brocade family of fabric-based encryption platforms. Additionally, the incorporation of NetApp technology will allow NetApp customers to operate the Brocade Encryption Switch in NetApp DataFort compatibility mode, serving as a next-generation NetApp DataFort security appliance.

The new offering further enhances NetApp’s leadership in the storage security market and enables data center customers to meet their growing security needs while protecting their existing investment in NetApp security products. Furthermore, the NetApp Lifetime Key Management system, which provides long-term retention of keys, offers advanced key-sharing policy features that enable customers to define specific encryption appliance sharing groups for added flexibility and disaster recovery capabilities.

For Brocade, these fabric-based encryption solutions deliver on the Brocade Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture vision, which is designed to address the evolving needs of customers to create a more efficient, adaptable, and secure data center. The solution will be easily deployable and manageable and provide customers with improved storage security without compromising or complicating their existing IT environment. The joint encryption solution also offers innovative, low-cost, secure device decommissioning of legacy disk arrays for making data unrecoverable to meet compliance requirements.

“Enterprise customers today are under more pressure than ever to meet strict government compliance regulations and ensure data security from any and all threats,” said Ian Whiting, vice president and general manager of the Brocade Data Center Infrastructure Division. “By partnering with NetApp, we are providing our customers industry-leading encryption key management capabilities that work hand in hand with our scalable family of fabric-based encryption platforms for a complete storage security solution.”

NetApp Inc.