Siafu Unveils Sypher

POWAY, Calif. -- Siafu Software, the leader in IP encrypted SAN Storage, today announced that its Siafu Sypher Series of tape encryption appliances offer heterogeneous tape library support, including support for newly released LTO-4 tape drives. Featuring built-in data encryption and compression technology, the Siafu Sypher is backup software agnostic with automatic encryption key management for the secure storage of data destined for offsite locations.

With today’s increasingly stringent compliance and governance initiatives, companies of every size need to consider the security of tape encryption for their offsite data storage,” said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst, Taneja Group. “Even though not every enterprise requires the performance and capacity of LTO-4 devices, every enterprise should consider the security of encrypting offsite data before it is stored. It is important, however, to select an encryption solution that won’t lock you into a specific backup software solution. Products that offer universal hardware and backup software support can simplify the encryption process with automated key management that can transfer easily when backup software choices change.”

Siafu Sypher reduces the overall cost of storage management by combining compression and encryption technology into a single appliance-based solution with automated key management that is software independent. Most tape backup vendors supply encryption with their software solution, however many do not yet support LTO-4 devices and they can potentially limit a company’s long term backup choices by locking the retrieval of encrypted data into a specific backup software brand. Backup software encryption also causes high CPU utilization which can shorten valuable backup windows. Furthermore, tape drive compression is lost when utilizing backup software encryption, because encryption causes data to be in a random format that cannot be compressed. The loss of tape encryption may require the additional cost of purchasing and managing many more backup tapes.

Siafu Software LLC