That said, HP admits it's unsure how well the Secure Fabric OS option will actually sell. The company says it's seen initial interest in the financial and government sectors, although it does not have any beta sites testing the security features.
"We think a lot of customers will be interested in this," Archibald says, "but it's another question how quickly they'll adopt it."
To use Secure Fabric OS, a SAN must use only Brocade switches, which all must be upgraded to firmware version 2.6.1 or later. The software uses 1,024-bit digital signatures to authenticate Fibre Channel devices so their World Wide Name (WWN) addresses can't be spoofed, and it provides multiple levels of password protection. (The Secure Fabric OS does not encrypt the data that's traversing the SAN.)
"It takes security to that whole next level of hardening the SAN from not just operator errors but from someone who's trying to penetrate the SAN," says Archibald. Yet he concedes that HP has never once encountered a customer that has had its SAN hacked.
Nevertheless, HP claims enterprises are starting to realize that they need to approach securing their SANs in the same way they protect their LANs today. Whether they're willing to hand over thousands of dollars for that protection, as if they were paying off a local Mafia boss, is still unclear.
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