NeoScale Announces First Storage VPN Appliance
MILPITAS, Calif. – Nov 4th, 2004 – NeoScale Systems, the leading provider of enterprise storage security solutions, today announced the availability of its new CryptoStor SAN VPN appliance. CryptoStor SAN VPN is the industry’s first security appliance that is designed to support the demanding latency and performance requirements of real time storage applications across a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). SAN VPN utilizes AES-256 to encrypt Fibre Channel links that traverse public fiber networks for high performance, low latency SAN extension.
“We developed CryptoStor SAN VPN because our enterprise customers in financial markets and other industries told us that current solutions were not addressing the security requirements of real time storage applications running across public MANs,” said Barbara Nelson, CEO and president of NeoScale Systems. “The SAN VPN appliance expands our storage security solutions to secure distributed storage communication which enables companies to meet information privacy and regulatory requirements.”
Current secure SAN extension solutions typically require an edge router to encapsulate traffic in IP and a separate device to encrypt the IP traffic across the MAN. These solutions are ineffective for real time applications like synchronous disk mirroring and host to host communication due to the throughput and latency delays. NeoScale CryptoStor SAN VPN eliminates these challenges by securing SAN traffic in a manner which is invisible to the storage applications and the network. It delivers native Fibre Channel performance with minimal latency overhead and optionally compresses traffic to maximize the utilization of lower speed fiber MAN connections. SAN VPN is compatible with optical MAN technologies, such as DWDM or SONET edge devices.
“Enterprises are extending their storage solutions to enable data mirroring, remote office connections, and other demanding applications,” said Stephanie Balaouras, senior enterprise analyst at Yankee Group. “Our customers list storage security as a high priority in our surveys.
The NeoScale CryptoStor SAN VPN appliance offers a cost effective solution for securing real time storage applications across a MAN.” NeoScale is testing interoperability with the leading equipment vendors in the SAN and MAN market to ensure compatibility. The CryptoStor SAN VPN connects to switch or storage devices on the SAN, and connects to edge devices or dark fiber on the MAN.
“We’re committed to protecting the critical telecommunications infrastructure that underlies the effective functioning of today’s society – including mission-critical enterprise applications in areas such as storage networking” said Philippe Morin, Nortel Networks’ vice president and general manager of optical networks. “With NeoScale CryptoStor SAN VPN and Nortel Networks Optical Metro products, enterprises can implement security ‘best practices’ for secure SAN extension with information privacy across the MAN.”
“McDATA’s SANtegrity Security Solution is a real-world security answer to the challenges that customers are facing today around risk mitigation and compliance in datacenter environments. OPENready partners such as NeoScale are an integral part of a end-to-end real-world solution that customers need,” said Brandon Hoff, security business manager of McDATA. “A solution, built from best-in breed products from Nortel, McDATA, and NeoScale enables customers to deploy a secure, high bandwidth, and high availability storage infrastructure for mission-critical business protection initiatives.”
Key Product Features
NeoScale CryptoStor SAN VPN combines the strong security of a VPN solution with the unique performance requirements of a SAN to create a purpose-built appliance for SAN extension security. Key features include:
· Hardware-based encryption – AES-256 encryption with IKE-based dynamic key exchange to ensure data privacy
· Native Fibre Channel throughput -Full-duplex encrypted throughput at 1 or 2 Gbps
· Hardware-based LZSâ„? compression – Optimization of allocated MAN bandwidth
· Low latency delays – Hardware data path for minimal appliance latency delays.
· Secure management – SSL access to a web-based management console
· Secure platform – FIPS Level 3 compliant design
Pricing and Availability
NeoScale CryptoStor SAN VPN has undergone extensive performance, interoperability, and reliability testing with leading software applications and hardware devices. The appliance will be shipping in early November with prices starting at $40,000 per appliance. The product will be made available through select storage and security system integration channels.
About NeoScale
Founded in June 2000, NeoScale Systems Inc. is the leading provider of enterprise storage security solutions for networked and distributed storage. NeoScale offers seamless and reliable security of sensitive information, protecting against information exposure through malicious attacks or inadvertent loss. NeoScale’s products have been certified by leading storage vendors and have been deployed worldwide within government, financial services, managed service, and healthcare organizations. The company is backed by leading venture capital firms Sevin Rosen Funds, Bay Partners and LightSpeed Venture Partners. For more information, visit http://www.neoscale.com