Is your company still using Vormetric for data encryption? As the upcoming end-of-life of Vormetric approaches, 2023 will be the last full year you have for support. After that, support for Vormetric rapidly ends, and it will no longer be viable for continued use.
Vormetric-users have three options for handling the end-of-life:
- Use another encryption solution
- Migrate to the next generation platform, CipherTrust
- Leverage a managed service to deliver CipherTrust as a service
Let’s look at the pros and cons of each option.
1. Use another encryption solution
Vormetric is going end-of-life, true, so one choice you have is to pivot away from Vormetric and it’s replacement, Ciphertrust, and adopt another solution for encryption. While there are no solutions that match Vormetric’s encryption capabilities one-for-one, some customers migrating to public cloud platforms are finding that native cloud encryption is sufficient to meet their encryption needs. Likewise, if you use Vormetric to encrypt databases like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle, it’s possible (though expensive!) to use native database encryption instead.
The highest level of difficulty is, however, backing out the encryption already in place. Decrypting data is risky and may be a compliance breach in and of itself. If you are migrating data to the cloud, it’s possible to encrypt it, but if you use Vormetric for sophisticated access control policies, or to block privileged user access to encrypted data, your data will again be vulnerable to these threats since cloud encryption can’t address them.
In the end, most customers use Vormetric for a reason – it’s a powerful data protection solution that not only encrypts data but blocks unauthorized user access and delivers reporting capabilities. None of this is easily replaced.
The majority of Vormetric customers will want to consider a migration to the next generation platform, CipherTrust.
2. Migrate to the next generation platform, CipherTrust
CipherTrust is a data protection platform that offers the same functionality as Vormetric, plus loads of extra capabilities. The culmination of merging both Gemalto SafeNet KeySecure with Vormetric Data Security Manager and Transparent Encryption, the CipherTrust product line from Thales is a powerful replacement for Vormetric, and one that many Vormetric customers are finding compelling.
Thales has created a migration path from Vormetric to CipherTrust that preserves all keys, encryption settings, and other configurations for customers that wish to have continuity between their old Vormetric implementation and a new CipherTrust implementation. That said, this migration path is not easy, and most Vormetric customers will need professional services to help them through this.
Also important for Vormetric customers to understand is that CipherTrust is a new product. While the concepts of Vormetric are the same (transparent encryption, policies, encryption rules, etc.) most management functions are new. Nearly all administrative functions are new. The CLI (Command Line Interface) is completely different than the DSM (Data Security Manager). Agent/server communication is different. Customers moving to CipherTrust will need to ensure they have plenty of product training, no matter how comfortable they were with Vormetric.
For many customers, especially those who have been “hands off” of Vormetric, the prospect of deploying and learning a whole new product is daunting.
Many Vormetric customers are adopting a CipherTrust managed service as a simple and cost-effective way to move forward.
3. Use a managed service to deliver CipherTrust–as–a–service
Sidechain is the first managed service provider to offer CipherTrust-as-a-service. The Managed Data Protection service is cloud-based and is run by Vormetric and CipherTrust experts according to years of best practice experience. Since Managed Data Protection is backed by a fleet of CipherTrust managers, Vormetric customers are seamlessly onboarded to the platform, preserving their encryption keys, configurations, and policies.
Leveraging a service provider to deliver encryption capabilities greatly reduces the complexity of migrating to CipherTrust. There are no complicated appliances to deploy and manage. Sidechain also ensures that your keys and configurations are always backed up, highly available, and your encryption is monitored 24×7 while real-time alerts ensure you know about any suspicious behavior.
Most Vormetric customers use less than 15% of the overall functionality available to them. With Managed Data Protection, Sidechain delivers full data protection capability with none of the operational overhead, maximizing the value to you and your business.
Sidechain Security: Vormetric Experts That Value Your Data as Much As You Do
Contact the encryption experts at Sidechain to discuss which choice is right for you. Whether you are looking for a professional services team to support your migration to CipherTrust, or want to explore the managed services offering, we can help.
Sidechain Security’s Managed Data Protection service automates data protection through a cloud-based service that delivers unparalleled data security and compliance reporting. Customers across the globe have leveraged Managed Data Protection to easily secure their data, across a variety of sectors including retail, manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare.
To learn how Sidechain can help your company achieve its data protection goals, try a no-cost 30-minute consultation with one of our data security experts.
