Enabling Hardware Encryption on LTO4 Drives

[Jason Crowder]

I know of only one to enable hardware encryption on the HP StorageWorks Ultrium 1840 drives: using some sort of software that does it while reading and riding data. Are there any other ways to do this?

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi Jason,

Have a read through the following doc:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA1-4878ENW.pdf

Cheers,

Rob

[Jason Crowder]

Hey Rob,

Thanks for the reply!

I've looked through that paper and read about some of the ways that encryption could be configured on the Ultrium 1840 drives. As far as I know, and I don't know much, this paper highlights ways that the encryption *could* be implemented. They are not all available as HP solutions.

My original question should have been more clear. I'm looking for a way to enable native mode encryption on the 1840 drives. As of right now, I haven't been able to find any documentation on how to do this. Any way that enables it would work. Has this been implemented by HP?

What native mode encryption is (from the White paper): "This method controls the LTO4 encryption from within the tape drive library. There is one key that is set by way of the library management interface (Web GUO or Operator Control Panel). This method encrypts all tapes with the same key, with the downside of negatively impacting the security level."

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

As far as I'm aware, at the moment, you have to use a software application that can enable the encryption.

According to the Q&A page here:

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/lto4Encryp/qa.html

that appears to be just via Data Protector Express at the moment.

The Enterprise Backup matrix here:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/storageworks/techdoc/ebs/EBSMatrix-0708.pdf
simply states:

"Refer to the backup/restore application vendor for hardware encryption support details."

Cheers,

Rob

[Jason Crowder]

Thanks for the links, Rob.

So, as of now, it looks like HP hasn't implemented a way to do this. However, I did gather information on how to do this in other ways.

The link below points to someone who wanted to find out the same sort of information from HP in January of 2008. HP told him that, at the moment, the only way to configure encryption on the drives was through software.

http://www.redstar-it.de/hp-storageworks-msl2024-and-hp-lto4-ultrium-1840-drive-with-bacula-2-2-5-2-2-6

One person was frustrated with the same exact problem and wrote a program to do it. With the program, you can enable hardware encryption on a HP drive with a single key. It's enabled until either you disable it or power is lost. The program is made for OpenVMS though.

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1214933844933+28353475&threadId=1171171

For my setup, I'm using a Sun SL500 library module. I talked to a Sun rep today who told me an upgrade will be made available soon for their library console program. Among other things, this will allow you to enable hardware encryption within the program. As of today, the current version is 4.00. The following link sends you to the Sun Downloads Page. Any updates will be called StorageTek SLConsole (some vers num).

https://www.sun.com/download/index.jsp?cat=Hardware%20Drivers&tab=3

Jason