Thomas,
I just finished testing encryption of VM:Backup tapes, and we'll be
implementing it for some of our DR backups tomorrow. It works, but
takes quite a bit of CPU time. We run our backups during off-hours, as
I'm sure most shops do, so we have the cycles to spare. We only require
encryption if media leaves the premises, so we don't have to encrypt the
backups for our larger system, which electronically vaults its backups
at the DR site.
If you want to encrypt DDR tapes, you'll probably have to do the
encryption off of the host. Luminex (www.luminex.com) called me the
other day to pitch an outboard tape encryption product. It emulates a
mainframe tape drive, connects to another vendor's encryption appliance,
which then writes the data to open systems tape drives. If you do this
for DR, you'll have to buy a second set of equipment to decrypt the
tapes at the DR site. I have no experience with Luminex as a vendor, or
with their products.
Dennis O'Brien
"Thank God, we've won the war". -- Winston Churchill, on hearing of the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
-----Original Message-----
From: VM/ESA and z/VM Discussions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Thomas Kern
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 08:00
To: [email protected]
Subject: Encryption of DDR backup tapes
In planning for our next Disaster Recovery Exercise, I am researching
the
idea of encrypting some subset of our backup tapes. I am running z/VM
5.1 in
a z890 IFL. Has anyone tried to add tape encryption to DDR? Are there
any
vendor products for z/VM that support encryption of the backup tapes?
/Thomas Kern
/U.S. Dept of Energy
/301-903-2211
