Storage Security Industry Forum
In the past, Storage Security has never been a big topic. Storage ecosystems have emerged in isolation with a focus on data availability and resiliency. Still today organizational IT governance rarely extends to storage ecosystems. Even auditors and security professionals from external consultancies frequently treat storage ecosystems as nothing more than direct-attached storage, assuming that they are secure by design.
With the emergence of Storage Networking the whole picture should have changed completely. Data is no longer safely tucked away behind servers; it may be accessed from everywhere over the variety of storage networking protocols in Fibre Channel or Ethernet based networks. Security in Storage Networks today is a must.
Storage Security represents the convergence of storage, networking and security disciplines, technologies and methodologies for the purpose of protecting and securing digital assets. Storage Security is simply a part of information assurance, which includes measures that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring their confidentiality, integrity, availability (CIA), access control and non-repudiation.
The ‘storage access from everywhere’ approach with storage networking recently has entered into a completely new dimension with the introduction of Cloud Storage. Cloud Storage – the new paradigm to access Storage as a Service over the Internet - has got the attention of many IT professionals, developers, marketers, press and analysts. Not surprisingly, besides all the benefits, always one topic is in the focus in discussions about the barriers of adoption: data privacy concerns. Storage Security therefore must be rock solid for enterprise customers to overcome their concerns and make cloud storage a success.
To address all these challenges, the SNIA has established the Storage Security Industry Forum (SSIF) and most recently a technical working group TWG regarding Cloud Storage.
Visit the SNIA Storage Security Industry Forum to learn more about these initiatives.
