NetApp Preps Security Box

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based storage vendor is taking its first steps to add security to its product line with its new NetCache C1300 enterprise Web security appliance, said Thomas Savage, senior manager of NetApp&'s content delivery business unit.

The C1300 lets customers with Internet-enabled solutions distribute security services such as filtering and authentication to their smaller offices, Savage said. “It lets them take the security of their data centers to their remote offices.”

The C1300 is available immediately. Company executives declined to disclose pricing.

“What used to be a data or a virus problem is now a full-fledged data management problem,” said Kevin Brown, vice president of marketing at Decru, a developer of data encryption technology acquired by NetApp earlier this year and now run as a firewalled unit of the storage vendor.

Channel partners praised the strategy of combining security and data storage. Michael Fanelli, western regional manager of SSI hubcity, a Metuchen, N.J.-based solution provider, said that adding security to anything, even if it&'s not the most leading-edge technology, is of great interest to customers.

The potential liability from data exposed on open networks as well as on backup tapes or disks is helping make secure storage a growing priority among customers, said Stacy Gardner, vice president of engineering at Integrated Archive Systems, a solution provider in Palo Alto, Calif.

“By acquiring Decru, NetApp totally positioned itself around storage and security in general,” Gardner said. “The use of storage encryption is in its infancy, but is something a lot of folks will implement going forward.”