Security and Storage: The perfect pair

Getting NetSmart By SANDRA GITTLEN

Security and Storage: The perfect pair
Network World's Technology Tour examines the crossover between security and storage

Network World, 05/28/03

For the past few weeks, I've been immersed in preparing our Technology Tours and custom road shows on the topics of security and storage. The deeper we delve into these topics, the more apparent it becomes that the two have become intensely intertwined.

At the apex of the crossover is the increasing amount of regulations being put on data handling and storage. The Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act, the Patriot Act, and other compliance and liability rules are forcing security and storage professionals to put their heads together and come up with a network that is by the books.

On our Security Technology Tour, which picks up again in July, Opus One senior partner Joel Snyder and the panel of vendors talked at length about the impact these compliance factors are going to have on securing networks. Security managers are going to be on the hook to prove that have built networks that protect patient records, financial transactions and corporate intellectual property - no matter what application this data is being accessed from.

As we get set to embark on the Storage Technology Tour, the issues are the same. As a storage manager, how are you going to protect the integrity of the data that is being stored and retrieved across your network?

If the storage and security gurus in your company have not sat down to discuss this challenge yet, they should schedule a meeting soon. Going off in different directions will prove disastrous.

Instead, the storage and security teams should be pooling their resources to create as many defenses throughout the network as possible.

For instance, if you are going to put patient data in a silo somewhere, you should also be thinking about how to authorize and authenticate access to that data. What is your overall policy going to be for how that data is managed?

These are questions that can be solved between the two teams rather than waste time having each develop their own plans that might be at odds with the other. Are you going to use tokens to access the stored data? Are you going to rely on perimeter security or delve into defense-in-depth? Once a person is inside the firewall, do they have unfettered access to the network or are their certain silos of data that need stricter access controls?

In all of this, there is the added benefit of more people power. After all, if you put both teams on this project, you have double the resources. And in the end, stockholders and customers alike will praise you for keeping their information and the corporate jewels under lock and key.

If you're charged with managing and protecting the data that lies within your network, make sure you check these upcoming tours.

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