BitArmor Systems this week is launching software designed to let IT protect and manage the lifecycle of stored data.

The BitArmor Security Suite encrypts, identifies, classifies and enforces retention and access policies for data in-flight over the network or at rest on any media. The software tracks data throughout its life cycle from its creation to deletion. It protects data residing on direct-attached, network-attached or storage-area network (SAN)-based storage.

When data is created it is classified by the BitArmor Key Server and receives policy notifications regarding how long it will be retained. It is then encrypted and stored by agents residing on the application and file servers and policies applied to it that determine who can access it. The integrity of the data is checked and further policies are applied as to when the data can be deleted and then policies are invoked to destroy the data. An audit log is generated that reports on all actions.

"BitArmor is interesting because it eliminates the need for PKI-based key management through a new proprietary automated approach," says Brad O'Neill, senior analyst with the Taneja Group. "It has enough granularity in a distributed architecture to enable them to then do a lot more than just security – it can do transparent, application-neutral classification and a full range of data management controls, including very fine-grained encryption."

The software runs on an industry standard Linux server and on agents residing on each application, file server or laptop being monitored and managed. The BitArmor Key Server manages key information, authentication and policies, while the agents perform the encryption of data.

BitArmor's software competes with appliances from NeoScale, Decru and Vormetric. Unlike those appliances, which just encrypt data, BitArmor also allows an IT administrator to create policies regarding the storage of that data and its retention, analysts say.

BitArmor's policy management sets it in front of vendors such as NeoScale and Decru, analysts say. "Policy management is going to become more of an issue as people gain more awareness that encryption is more than how many bits of [Advanced Encryption Standard] you do -- encryption also involves key management, multiple key levels and other things [such as authentication] managed via policies," says Greg Schulz, senior analyst for StorageIO.

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