StoneFly introduced SAN-based encryption capabilities that give enterprise customers another layer of protection in combating damaging internal and external security breaches while also simplifying compliance initiatives. Now available as an integrated part of the StoneFly Integrated Storage Concentrator (ISC) line of high-availability IP SANs, the new SAN-based encryption will also be offered with other StoneFly IP SANs later this year.

"There is a widely-held belief that the internal network is safe, and that additional disk protection is unnecessary to protect SANs residing on the corporate intranet. The reality is that the internal network isn't as secure as we once thought, and protecting all disks in an organization -- from desktops, to notebooks and server data -- simply makes good business sense," said Bahman Jalali, Director of Product Management for StoneFly.

According to a recently published Verizon Business study of hundreds of corporate data breach incidents, most security intrusions were perpetrated by external sources, but breaches attributed to insiders showed far greater consequences.

"It is essential today that organizations ensure that information vulnerabilities are eliminated across all facets of the enterprise. SAN encryption adds another level of protection to prevent compromises against internal systems, and it does this much more cost-effectively than host-based encryption solutions," said Jalali.

The encrypted StoneFly ISC is ideal for organizations with multiple servers using host-based encryption or multiple database servers holding sensitive data that can be consolidated on the SAN. IP SAN-based encryption can also simplify efforts to support compliance regulations for HIPAA and the SEC. In addition, it is recommended for protecting video surveillance footage in high-security locations for financial institutions, research and development labs, manufacturing facilities, power plants and utility operations, datacenters and government facilities.

Service providers, software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors, outsourced accounting or financial service firms and collection agencies are also target customers.

Offering support for both encrypted and non-encrypted volumes simultaneously, StoneFly's new capabilities deliver Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 as well as iSCSI volume-based encryption to consolidate key management to the IP SAN. Additional features include secure, unique key generation and removable key storage.

StoneFly's encryption capabilities combine with the advanced storage management functionalities inherent in StoneFusion, the company's Intelligent Network Storage Platform. StoneFusion offers comprehensive storage services, including support for the VMware iSCSI initiator; StoneFly Snapshot; and StoneFly Reflection, for synchronous and asynchronous mirroring. Providing block-level virtualization, StoneFusion also features centralized storage management, storage consolidation, access control, volume management and provisioning to present SAN storage to hosts as a local disk.

StoneFly's ISC is a cost-effective IP SAN designed for small offices, remote sites, branch offices and first-time IP SAN deployments. With RAID protection and redundant components, the ISC offers an ideal platform for storage consolidation, virtual server storage, disaster recovery, and disk-based backups. ISCs are available in four configurations with 4, 8, 16, or 24 SATA drives or Transaction Edition Disk (TED) disk drives for up to 24TB in one system.