PMC-Sierra: Tachyon SPCve 6GB SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Controller

PMC-Sierra, Inc. announced the Tachyon SPCve 6Gb/s SAS/SATA protocol controllers with integrated StorClad encryption technology.

The virtualized nature of cloud data centers make securing corporate, financial and sensitive data paramount. Until now, data security was a network add-on, which made scalability, data encryption and key management difficult and expensive. PMC’s SPCve controllers integrate line-rate data encryption into the existing data flow, providing a central, scalable and cost-effective means to secure and manage stored data. In addition, the controller-based encryption architecture is agnostic to drive type or vendor, allowing OEMs and cloud providers to mix and match HDDs and SSDs, and to encrypt their deployed storage infrastructure.

"As 6Gb/s SAS/SATA controllers are broadly deployed in both server and external storage architectures, adding encryption to the SAS/SATA I/O path is a practical and cost-effective approach to securing data," said Benjamin S. Woo, program vice president, worldwide storage systems research, IDC. "Regardless of whether it’s regulation or shared storage models driving the need for data security, it’s becoming essential to protect sensitive content from security breaches."

PMC’s SPCve controller family includes the eight-port PM8009 8x6G and the 16-port PM8019 16x6G. The SPCve architecture is scalable to support thousands of HDDs or SSDs and can flexibly encrypt at the LUN, application or I/O level. A single controller can support more than one million encryption keys, enabling a broad range of deployment models. The SPCve controllers incorporate in-line encryption engines, PCI Express 3.0 and an architecture to achieve up to 6GB/s of encrypted data throughput.

"Legacy solutions for securing data-at-rest with encryption, including expensive appliances, performance-limited software and premium-priced self-encrypting HDDs, are complex and expensive," said Derek Dicker, vice president of marketing for PMC’s Enterprise Storage Division. "Integrating StorClad technology into PMC’s SAS/SATA controller family builds on our field-proven Fibre Channel encryption solutions, and gives OEMs and cloud storage providers a path to deliver high-performance data security in next-generation storage systems, while maintaining their existing SAS software drivers and infrastructure."

The SPCve controllers are IEEE 1619 standards compliant, combining data encryption engines and 256-bit AES-XTS keys to meet the application needs for securing data in enterprise and cloud computing environments. Server providers can utilize Tachyon’s StorClad architecture API to enable key management support. PMC’s solution is compliant with the FIPS 140-2 standard, an United States government computer security standard used to accredit cryptographic modules.

Security features include:

• FIPS/NIST-certifiable ECB-AES encryption mode;
• NIST recommended AES Key Wrap engines for each port;
• Data parity protection across cryptographic boundaries;
• Internal Data Encryption Key (DEK) cache;
• 256-bit encryption keys; and
• External key management interface and API.

Tachyon SAS Compatibility
The SPCve architecture is compatible with prior generations of Tachyon SAS controllers, providing a common API that preserves existing software drivers and test infrastructure.

The SPCve controllers are available to select partners.