Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 03 | Page 48

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud Bring Your Own Encryption’ for securing cloud-based data While cloud computing, virtualisation, and other enabling technologies are integral to the Always-On business, it should not detract from the importance of security; Bring your own encryption (BYOE) could reprioritise this for decision-makers, writes Gregg Petersen, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC at Veeam Software. B ring your own encryption, or BYOE, is a relatively new cloud computing security model that is providing companies with a new way to address data storage security concerns in a cloud-based environment. Above all, this new trend is encouraging decision makers to put security as high on the agenda for the Always-on business as other business-critical technologies such as cloud computing and virtualisation. 48 INTELLIGENTCIO The BYOE security model gives cloud customers complete control over the encryption of their data. In essence, this enables them to use a virtualised example of their own encryption software together with the applications they are hosting in the cloud, to encrypt their data. At the same time, cloud providers are finding innovative ways to let users manage their encryption keys. Data sovereignty Up to now, questions around data sovereignty drove the majority of decisions around moving to the cloud. After all, having corporate data being subjected to the laws of the country in which it is located has created additional challenges for CIOs the globe over. With BYOE, it does not matter where organisational data resides as the company has its own encryption key. www.intelligentcio.com