… And Third-Party Ecosystem to Support It

 SanDisk Corporation announced the inaugural members of its ecosystem of ISVs for security management.

This ecosystem provides SanDisk customers with certified solutions to ease the deployment and management of the newly announced X300s SSD, a self-encrypting SSD based on TCG Opal 2.0 specifications, within their corporate environments.

SanDisk provides compatible solutions from ISV partners including Absolute SecureDrive, Check Point Full Disk Encryption, Microsoft BitLocker for Encrypted HDD, Wave Systems EMBASSY Security Center, and WinMagic SecureDoc.

“Our X300s SSD ISV ecosystem enables a centralized encryption management solution for scalable and cost-effective deployment of self-encrypting drives,” said Tarun Loomba, VP of client storage solutions marketing, SanDisk. “These solution providers will allow administrators to encrypt data, institute policies, and audit the end point for compliance. Our breadth of partners also ensures that the SanDisk X300s SSD can be a scalable solution for companies ranging from SMBs to large enterprises.“

Increasingly mobile workforce and BYOD environment, combined with the elevated security threat landscape, is forcing corporations of all sizes to reassess the value of incorporating encryption at the device level. According to a survey, Data Encryption: Ushering in a New Era, by Michael A. Davis, InformationWeek reports, January 2012, only 38% of corporations had comprehensive data encryption policies in place, yet nearly half have responsibility to protect Private Health Information as mandated by HIPAA.1 The same report says the corporations that are implementing data protection are using slower HDDs with some form of software encryption, which is still susceptible to vulnerabilities and requires a higher overall TCO to deploy and manage.

“For today’s corporate environments, CIO angst over encryption of data on end-point devices and in the cloud hasn’t replaced worries about internal key management and interoperability among encryption products,” said Michael A. Davis, CTO, CounterTack, Inc., and Informationweek contributor. “Combining a self-encrypting SSD with a compatible ecosystem of ISV solutions makes it possible to help IT leaders sustain high productivity, ensure legal compliance, and lower TCO.”

SanDisk’s ISV partner ecosystem delivers easier data protection management in multiplatform environments, as well as cloud-based manageability of self-encrypting SSDs, making them a viable option for businesses with a range of IT requirements and budgets.

This ecosystem also allows corporations to meet many of the regulatory standards for encryption of protected employee data such as those mandated by HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI-DSS, and many state and local privacy laws. Additionally, because the X300s supports TCG Opal 2.0 and Microsoft Encrypted HDD industry security standards and are supported by a broad ISV ecosystem, corporations now can easily deploy Data Loss Prevention methods to protect corporate IP, meet compliance laws, and reduce overall TCO.

X300s SSD also addresses the need for high performance, increased productivity, and a better overall user experience demanded by today’s mobile workforce. The drive provides hardware-level encryption for additional security without the typical detrimental impact on performance associated with software encryption. Additionally, the X300s SSD offers lower latency and greater R/W speeds over traditional HDDs-delivering a noticeable improvement in system responsiveness-and is more reliable than self-encrypting HDDs or HDDs, which can help improve TCO by reducing downtime due to HDD failures.

“We are pleased to be an inaugural member of SanDisk’s ecosystem of ISVs for security management. We have worked with SanDisk to ensure compatibility between Absolute Secure Drive and SanDisk’s X300s self-encrypting drives,” said Tim Williams, director of product management, Absolute Software. “Our ability to manage these SSDs will help our customers as they transition away from software-based encryption to hardware-based solutions.”

“Check Point is excited to support SanDisk’s newest offering of X300s self-encrypting drives, which will improve end-user productivity and protect sensitive corporate data in the age of the mobile workforce,” said Alon Kantor, VP of business development, Check Point Software Technologies. “Check Point’s Full Disk Encryption has been optimized for the X300s, offering trusted and proven security for highly-scalable deployments leveraging our award-winning Software Blade Architecture.”

“We share SanDisk’s goal to help secure the data of businesses, whether large or small, and are happy to support the SanDisk X300s SSD self-encrypting drives,” said Candace Worley, SVP and GM, endpoint security, McAfee, part of Intel Security. “Easily integrated into our McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator environment, the X300s helps prevent exposure of sensitive data commonly found on today’s mobile and desktop PCs.”

“Deploying data at rest protection to devices has always been a challenge for customers. The encryption process can take significant time,” said Dustin Ingalls, partner group program manager, OSs security and identity group, Microsoft. “We’re excited to see SanDisk helping customers overcome this challenge by including encrypted HDD support in SED’s like their new X300s SSD. With this technology, Windows 8.1 customers using BitLocker will be able to achieve data encryption compliance withins rather than hours.“

“Widely adopted standards developed by Trusted Computing Group for self-encrypting drives, used in SSDs and other kinds of drives, offer enterprise IT staff and users the ultimate security and encryption solution – always-on, transparent and effective encryption that users cannot turn off, lose or defeat,” said Lisa Bobbit, co-chair, marketing work group, Trusted Computing Group. “And all self-encrypting drives based on TCG standards can be erased in milliseconds, making them safe for disposal or repurposing, helping prevent a common cause of data breaches.”

“The growing concern over data security, privacy and the business risk of a data breach has escalated the discussion of encryption to the executive level,” said Wave CEO Bill Solms. “We’re pleased to have forged a close partnership with SanDisk, having fully validated Wave’s EMBASSY Security Center and our remote management tools, Wave cloud 2014 and EMBASSY Remote Administration Server, with the X300s. The SanDisk-Wave solution provides superior performance and security features, while providing customers critical features that address compliance.”

“WinMagic is pleased to be able to work with SanDisk to help validate and certify its new X300s SEDs with our market-leading encryption management solution SecureDoc. The X300s is one of the first drives to receive the WinMagic Certified Secure certificate under the newly announced SecureDoc compatibility program,” said Garry McCracken, VP, technology partnerships, WinMagic Inc. “SEDs offer customers the best data encryption option available today and SanDisk’s foray into this market further validates this position. SEDs combined with strong management technology like SecureDoc deliver the best value proposition for customers reducing management costs while increasing overall security.”

Self-encrypting SSDs