New Standards Enable Interoperable, Secure Storage

The approval of two storage security standards by the IEEE opens the door to a new generation of interoperable and highly secure storage solutions. IEEE 1619, "Standard for Cryptographic Protection of Data on Block-Oriented Storage Devices," addresses data storage on disk drives. The second standard, IEEE 1619.1, "Standard for Authenticated Encryption with Length Expansion for Storage Devices," deals with data encryption on enterprise-class tape drives. The new standards provide a high level of interoperability for disk and tape products from different vendors, ensuring that data encrypted on a disk or tape drive from one vendor can be accurately decrypted and read back on devices from other vendors. One of the first commercial products to benefit from the 1619 standards is the new LTO-4 tape technology, which uses encryption mechanisms and encoding models that are recognized by IEEE 1619.1. "Many issues in security and storage result from the lack of standards so the interoperability enabled with the IEEE 1619 developments is a huge value proposition for customers to deploy security across a diverse set of storage solutions from multiple vendors," Russell Dietz, chief technology officer at Hifn, one of the companies that participated in the IEEE Security in Storage Working Group, said in a statement. "These new encryption standards were started by Tier 1 storage OEMs, and driven by Hifn, because standards have become imperative for the market to grow, to deliver simplified, broad, secured storage solutions."