Symantec Adds Encryption To NetBackup

The move comes after a rash of cases in the past couple years where private data on backup tapes was lost or stolen, said Mike Adams, senior group manager for NetBackup product marketing at Symantec.

"Backup providers like Iron Mountain actually lose tapes of the back of the truck," Adams said. "It's not only embarrassing but also expensive to handle the data breaches."

The new option, NetBackup Media Server Encryption, applies 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption to data as it is being streamed from the backup staging server to a backup storage device, such as a tape library, Adams said. During the backup process, the option compresses the data, feeds all the backup streams into the backup staging server and centrally manages the encryption keys.

"It also integrates with the NetBackup policy and becomes a checkbox for the user," Adams said.

Symantec previously had a client-based encryption option for NetBackup that protected "on-the-fly" data from desktop or notebook PCs as it moves across a LAN. However, Adams said, that was a manual process.

In March, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company also unveiled PureDisk technology, aimed at encrypting data that's passed from remote offices to a central data center.

Adams admitted that there's a slight performance hit when encrypting backup data with a software technology like NetBackup Media Server Encryption compared with using hardware encryption appliances such as those from Decru (part of Network Appliance), NeoScale or Siafu.

"We will publish best practices to show what the hit will be and how to handle it," he said.

The new technology is slated to become available as an option for NetBackup versions 5.1 and 6.0 in January, Adams said.

There's a onetime charge of $10,000 to set up the encryption key management interface, plus a charge of $5,000 for each Windows or Linux server or $10,000 for each Unix server for which encryption is needed. Adams said it's about half the cost of a hardware encryption solution.