DataMotion Secures Cloud-Based Workflows

DataMotion is hoping to eliminate the need for multiple point solutions over a wide range of disparate or non-compliant electronic communications channels with the new, broadened version of its platform-as-service (PaaS) product, DataMotion Platform.

According to Bob Janacek, the company's CTO, the new version has been expanded to provide unified, secure and compliant cloud-based services for delivering encrypted email messages, files and forms within virtually any workflow of an organization. He says the system was designed to integrate with DataMotion’s SecureMail enterprise email encryption product, yet also provide the flexibility to incorporate a variety of standard systems and environments. "The need for governed data exchange is growing," he says. "We are expanding messaging outside the boundaries of email. This will offer a unified platform instead of [needing to rely on] several niche services."

Considered a great end goal for the cloud model, PaaS breaks the 1-to-1 relationship between OS and application/service, and provides for more fluid scalability. Additionally, PaaS platforms can remove the requirement for custom OS and server builds on a per-service basis, further reducing administrative overhead. Scalability, flexibility and availability are provided at some level by the PaaS layer itself, with additional options available at the infrastructure layer.

The DataMotion platform offers both automated and ad hoc "frictionless" data exchange in the cloud, on premise or within a hybrid solution, says Janacek. "Communication should always be encrypted, but that is not always easy to do. DataMotion Platform removes the need to share encryption keys. This is the first time a platform is broad enough to handle these data exchanges on one platform, in the cloud."

Target markets include organizations of 100 or more employees, such as financial services, healthcare and government. And because it is based on open standards, it can adapt to a variety of environments to suit individual customer needs. "We are overlaying it with existing systems; we are not reinventing the wheel," says Janacek.

According to one analyst, the most significant aspect of this platform for customers is that it may allow companies to finally do away with cobbled-together, homegrown products and separate systems that they may have been using over the years to answer the growing need to manage, send and store secure messages and forms.

"Customized solutions that send data through different channels and store it in different repositories can lead to a number of problems, including higher costs, because several different services and platforms are used; compliance problems, because organizations cannot find or track data when necessary; and legal problems, if they can't discover all relevant data during legal actions," says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research.For example, Janacek mentions one beta customer had so much custom script running that the customer was "afraid to reboot their file servers because they might not work again. They were really happy to replace that approach."

Another key benefit of the DataMotion offering is that it integrates a variety of separately managed capabilities, including FTP, cloud-based file transfer solutions and customized scripts, Osterman says.

The market is moving toward more secure content transfer capabilities that include the ability to audit and track content for compliance purposes, especially in light of the large number of data breaches that are being discussed in the press, as well as being able to do so within the cloud.

A product like this could be a boon to corporate customers, including government agencies, because of their need to improve the security and auditability of their file and form transfers, while at the same time reducing the cost of these types of content transfers, says Osterman.

"The security of the DataMotion platform is critical, since sensitive and confidential data must be encrypted during transit," he says. "The reporting, auditability and archiving of the transactions is also critical since all organizations have some level of compliance obligation for purposes of e-discovery, FOIA requirements [in the case of government agencies] and regulatory requirements."

Breeching security can be big money, and cybercriminals tend to follow the money, says Steve Durbin, global VP of the Information Security Forum (ISF). According to its new report, "Threat Horizon 2014: Managing Risks When Threats Collide," the range and complexity of information security threats is set to rise significantly during the next two years.

The DataMotion Platform is now available to end-user organizations. It is also available as a pay-as-you-go model.

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