The apple of my eye: pervasive encryption with IBM Z

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By Elisabeth Stahl, IBM Distinguished Engineer

One of my absolute favorite things to do this time of year where I live in Ohio (besides raking leaves—just kidding) is to head out east about 20 miles to go apple picking. Apple pie, apple crisp, baked apples, spiced apples, apple butter, applesauce…there are endless possibilities.

Everybody has their favorite apple but mine happens to be a type of apple that’s hard and crunchy and sweet all at the same time, and is great for both eating and cooking. It’s called Melrose, and it can’t be beat. The best part of picking Melrose apples is watching my black lab, who happens to adore apples, wander through the orchard, thinking he’s in heaven … though I’m always hoping he hasn’t eaten too many when we make the 20-mile trip back home.

On the annual excursion, we pick many, many pounds of apples. We do this for some very good reasons: We don’t have the time or want the expense of making the trip more than once. We also don’t want to risk starting a favorite recipe and running out of apples! We are achieving economies of scale with less risk.

Which brings me to pervasive encryption.

IBM Z pervasive encryption is a data-centric approach to information security—a transparent and consumable approach to enable extensive encryption of data “in flight” and “at rest” to substantially simplify and reduce the costs of protecting data and achieving compliance mandates.

With IBM z14 and pervasive encryption, you can:

• Encrypt all of your data that’s associated with an application or database on IBM Z, whether at rest or in flight
• Reduce the cost and complexity associated with implementing and maintaining encryption since no changes to the applications themselves are required
• Transition from unencrypted to encrypted databases without disrupting business operations
• Drastically simplify compliance by quickly demonstrating to auditors that all data is protected

With pervasive encryption, we are moving from selectively encrypting data to encrypting everything, which enables us to both achieve economies of scale and reduce risk. Just like with my apple picking.

Somewhere now there exists my name with the fact that my favorite apple is Melrose. And I want to be really sure that doesn’t go anywhere.

Find out more about IBM Z and pervasive encryption at IBM Z Technical University, November 13-17 in Washington, DC.