Overview
With offices in 13 states and nearly $30 billion under management, the top 15 provider of personal trusts in the United States stores its clients’ sensitive personal information on more than 200 Windows-based PC servers and two mainframe systems. As more states pass regulations governing the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer data, the bank has recognized its need to ensure the safety and security of personal data for its thousands of customers, not only within the bank’s computer systems, but also during transfer to and storage at one of the bank’s third-party storage facilities. To ensure compliance with state and federal government regulations and maintain the security of this information at all times, the bank has deployed NeoScale’s CryptoStor Tape appliances to help accomplish its objectives, specifically:
-Comply with regulations by securing customer information
-Maintain all encryption keys in a single, coordinated key management structure to restore data from any authorized location
-Create encrypted backup tapes without impacting day-to-day business operations
-Reduce backup window by as much as 11 percent
The Challenge
Founded more than 100 years ago, this top 15 U.S. provider of personal trusts delivers banking, wealth management, and corporate client services to thousands of individuals and companies across the country and around the world. The bank stores confidential, personal data about each of its high net-worth clients – including contact information, Social Security numbers, credit history, and personal wealth data – within its corporate network. Comprising more than 200 Windows-based personal computers in 12 regional offices and the Delaware headquarters, the bank’s network processes a significant number of client transactions everyday. Each of these transactions is then recorded in the bank’s mainframe systems and stored on a backup tape for disaster recovery purposes.
“Beginning in June of 2005, when one of the states in which we operate passed legislation concerning the security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information, we had a singular focus: to ensure that no customer data could be compromised at any time,” said the bank’s IT project manager. “That meant securing data stored offsite for disaster recovery purposes as well as within the bank’s facilities. While some of our competitors had experienced high profile security breaches that led to damaging press coverage, our senior management determined that this would never happen to us.”
The Solution
With this mandate from senior management, the bank’s IT team began a comprehensive review of open systems encryption devices to secure the more than 6 terabytes of the bank’s data backed up on tape. Based on pricing and technical features, including the unique key management structure and encryption speed, it was a straightforward decision to go with NeoScale.
The bank implemented two NeoScale CryptoStor Tape appliances in its Delaware headquarters. These devices encrypted data from the bank’s corporate network of 200 Windows-based PCs onto six LTO2 tape devices and an ADIC i2000 tape drive. In addition, the bank had positioned a third NeoScale CryptoStor Tape appliance at its third-party tape vault vendor’s location for disaster recovery purposes.
“Because NeoScale’s unique key management allows information recovery from any authorized location, we can backup data using one NeoScale appliance and restore the data with another,” said the bank’s IT project manager. “We conducted a full disaster recovery test using this coordinated key management approach and were able to restore all of our data from the third-party vault without any complications.”
With the in-line NeoScale appliances, the bank encrypted and decrypted data at wire-speed, a function that competing open systems software-based encryption products could not match. The integration process was seamless, and with virtually no impact on day-to-day business. Instead of delaying backup processes (common among many software-based encryption products), the NeoScale appliance actually accelerated them in some cases.
One such case was the company’s recent implementation of two NeoScale CryptoStor Tape appliances to encrypt its weekly IBM mainframe backups. Deployed in conjunction with the Luminex™ Channel Gateway and StorageTek (Sun Microsystems) 9840C Fibre- Channel tape drives, the NeoScale solution helped the bank to reduce its backup window by 11 percent. The performance of the NeoScale product – on both the open and mainframe systems – had exceeded the bank’s expectations.
The Result
Having deployed NeoScale CryptoStor appliances, the bank had been able to meet the ever-increasing government requirements concerning the security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information, as well as the mandate set by executive management to never have the company’s name tarnished by a breach in security.
NeoScale At A Glance
-Founded in 2000, NeoScale is the trusted leader in enterprise storage security and a recognized authority in Global Key Management
-Headquartered in the Silicon Valley, CA, NeoScale solutions are globally deployed in more than 35 countries
-Tamper proof appliance-based solutions with true wire-speed encryption of data on disk, virtual tape, or tape media
-Award-winning global key management to ensure customers’ business continuity and productivity in sharing sensitive information across the extended enterprise
-Successfully driving partnerships with vendors of encryption devices and software applications that are deployed throughout the enterprise IT infrastructure, from mainframes to open systems.
-Nearly 300 customers worldwide, including a fifth of the Global 50 companies, Fortune 500 financial institutions, healthcare organizations, domestic and foreign government agencies, as well as small-medium enterprises
-For more information, visit www.neoscale.com.
