Cleversafe Responds to Cloud Security Challenges with Cleversafe 2.0 Software Release

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March 30, 2010
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Cleversafe Responds to Cloud Security Challenges with Cleversafe 2.0 Software Release

Addresses information security core principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability within virtualized and cloud storage infrastructures

CHICAGO, March 29 -- Cleversafe Inc., the leader in resilient storage solutions ideally suited for storage clouds and massive digital archives, announced its Cleversafe 2.0 software to address the cloud security challenges existing with legacy storage approaches. With this new release, Cleversafe addresses the core principles of information security - confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA).

Given that security vulnerabilities for data most often occur when multiple copies of data are retained and replicated, according to a 2009 Verizon Business Data Breach Report, the best defense against such breaches is to avoid retaining the data in the first place. The report also recommends minimizing the retention and replication of data. Users leveraging Cleversafe's approach to storing data eliminates this threat, while also preventing disclosure of information to unauthorized individuals or systems.

Cleversafe's Dispersed Storage(TM) technology, which has been in the market for more than two years, seamlessly and securely divides data into slices, and then disperses them to multiple storage nodes typically across three or four data centers. Each individual slice is unrecognizable as data and therefore inherently secure, whereas a defined threshold of slices can be used to bit-perfectly recreate the original data. This approach replaces costly replication with only a 30-60 percent storage expansion and yet has even higher availability than four replicated copies.

Cleversafe's approach solves the problems of traditional perimeter security - which does not work in a virtualized or cloud infrastructure.  Customers value the approach of how securing the confidentiality of data shifts from securing the perimeter to transforming data to be inherently secure.

Key functionality enhancements within Cleversafe 2.0 align with the CIA principles of information security:

  Confidentiality
  --  Securing data in a multi-tenancy environment is possible with
      Cleversafe's 2.0 SecureSlice(TM) confidentiality, which virtualizes
      data using keyless encryption and advanced secret sharing techniques,
      making slices unrecognizable and inherently secure. Although common
      advice is to encrypt data in the cloud; key management, bulk
      encryption, and re-encryption after compromise present serious
      challenges to cloud storage. Cleversafe solves all these problems with
      a keyless encryption approach. Customers are in control of
      reconstructing their data, with the confidence that their data is
      inherently secure in motion or at rest because the original data can't
      be recognized without access to a threshold number of slices.

  Integrity:
  --  PerfectBits(TM) integrity, included in Cleversafe 2.0, guarantees
      bit-perfect data storage and delivery. With both slice level integrity
      checking and data level integrity checking, data is verified as
      bit-perfect each and every time before being delivered. This ensures
      data cannot be modified without authorization, and detects malicious
      threats. PerfectBits integrity also proactively monitors and corrects
      data integrity through an intelligent background process on storage
      nodes. Proactive error correction is crucial for long-term archives
      and massive digital stores where information isn't frequently
      accessed.

  Availability:
  --  Cleversafe 2.0 includes features to enable upgrade, expansion, and
      migration with an always-on architecture. Zero downtime upgrades, hot
      swap disk replacement, storage and performance expansion without
      interruption, and an architecture that tolerates six or more
      simultaneous failures, helps cloud storage providers deliver on their
      SLAs. SmartWrite(TM) assurance guarantees availability for writing
      data by ranking Slicestor nodes, whereas SmartRead(TM) optimizes
      content distribution, even under failure conditions of storage nodes,
      or an unbalanced network. These features are table stakes for
      dispersed storage platforms.

This new release follows on the recent expansions to the Cleversafe hardware platform.  Last month, Cleversafe expanded its hardware platform with 8 and 24TB storage capacities for storage nodes and an all-in-one storage cabinet for enterprise-class data centers. This allows customers to scale from terabytes to petabytes of storage for large digital content files, such as videos, audio files and images. These hardware progressions also provide the foundation for Cleversafe 2.0 improved resiliency enhancements.

"A number of vendors are now vying for leadership in the race to create a secure data abstraction layer," said John Webster, Senior Partner of Evaluator Group. "With the release of Cleversafe 2.0, Cleversafe demonstrates a clear lead."

"The landscape of storage is changing as data continues to proliferate exponentially," said Chris Gladwin, CEO of Cleversafe. "Typical cloud security approaches include replication to increase availability, which incurs tremendous overhead expenses and compromises confidentiality. Encryption alone isn't gaining momentum for the cloud as additional challenges, such as key management, are introduced. Cleversafe has committed its research and resources to ensure information resiliency by architecting it into the DNA of our storage platform, thereby decreasing costs and complexity for organizations deploying cloud storage."

  Resources:

  Cleversafe Blog: http://dev.cleversafe.org/weblog

  Cleversafe SecureSlice confidentiality:

http://www.cleversafe.com/products/resilient-architecture/secureslice-conf identiality

Cleversafe PerfectBits integrity:

http://www.cleversafe.com/products/resilient-architecture/perfectbits-inte grity

Cleversafe Limitless availability:

http://www.cleversafe.com/products/resilient-architecture/limitless-availa bility

  Cleversafe Products:
  http://www.cleversafe.com/products/cleversafe-products/products-overview

  About Cleversafe

Cleversafe is the leader in resilient storage solutions, ideally suited for storage clouds and massive digital archives. For organizations who value assurance in confidentiality, data integrity, and limitless availability, Cleversafe provides information resiliency built directly into the storage system DNA. To learn more about Cleversafe and its solutions, please visit http://www.cleversafe.com, call 312-423-6640 or email us at sales@cleversafe.com.

Source: Cleversafe
   

CONTACT:  Greg Funaro, Lois Paul & Partners, for Cleversafe,
+1-781-782-5896, Cleversafe@lpp.com

Web Site:  http://www.cleversafe.com/

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