Government agencies, though, are exceptions. A recent survey by consulting firm International Network Services Inc. indicated that 12% of storage managers believe "better security through storage centralization" is a primary benefit of moving to networked storage, not a liability. In the same survey, no respondents cited security as one of the barriers they see to implementing a networked storage strategy.
Is Everyone Prepared?
Financial-services company MasterCard International Inc. is one company that sees little need to make a concerted effort to shore up storage security. Bill Winter, VP of global information security, says all of MasterCard's SANs are protected, not only in data centers and behind firewalls, but by multiple levels of operating system, application, and database authentication, and security software, processes, and audits.
"With the infrastructure that we've built at multiple levels--the network, database, and host--any threat to storage can be confined," Winter says. "We believe that all the doors are locked."
That may be true at MasterCard, counters Mark Diamond, president and CEO of storage consulting company Contoural, but many other companies are simply imagining that their networked storage is secure.
