Features - Storage Innovations:

BROADCOM INTROS ENHANCED SECURITY WITHIN XelCore RAID SOFTWARE

Broadcom Corp, a provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions enabling broadband communications, announced that it has enhanced the IT security and virus/worm protection capabilities of its XelCore RAID software. The XelCore RAID software stack features highly effective techniques to significantly enhance enterprise data security through a combination of data redundancy, secure backup, and the ability to hide a copy of customer data from malicious attacks against the enterprise and the network on which the data resides. This combination of data integrity and enterprise-class storage features is built within an easy-to-use format that enables businesses, regardless of IT expertise, to protect their data completely and affordably.

The demand for effective data security products continues to grow with the proliferation of computer viruses and worms like MyDoom, Witty, Bagle and Sasser, some of which damage operating systems, corrupt data and crash disk drives. It has been variously estimated that the productivity lost as a result of attacks by these types of viruses and worms, as well as the extensive IT system cleanup required following such attacks, range in cost from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars per attack. According to an FBI/Computer Security Institute survey conducted in 2003, responding companies that were able to quantify their virus damage estimated that each incident cost them approximately $200,000 on average. With the rapid spread of these computer viruses, data integrity and security is being sought for all parts of the IT network.

The Broadcom XelCore RAID software stack is based on Broadcom's proprietary Fulcrum architecture, a highly integrated storage subsystem with integrated cache management that provides virtualization at any of the popular RAID levels, operating system independence, and hardware implementation flexibility for Broadcom's RAID products. The XelCore stack is the only RAID solution available that provides comprehensive data integrity and security to fend off these attacks through the implementation of N-way mirroring, array splitting and array hiding. Broadcom is at the forefront of this data integrity technology, which allows customers to create several copies (or mirrors) of their data with N-way mirroring and then protects the data by splitting off a mirror and hiding it from the operating system. This hidden copy of data, available for use by trusted IT personnel only, is kept secure from these types of virus and worm attacks and is, therefore, a protected backup of business-critical data that can easily be retrieved in case of a disaster or attack.

"N-way mirroring and array hiding are features that businesses will be scrambling to put into practice as a means to enhance enterprise data security," said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst with Enterprise Storage Group. "It is our opinion that data storage and data integrity need to go hand in hand, but developing that combination of capabilities without sacrificing usability and affordability has typically been difficult to engineer. With the feature set incorporated within the XelCore software stack, Broadcom is well ahead of the technological curve and at the leading edge of this trend."

"When planning to defend an IT infrastructure, there is certainty that a company's data will be subject to a variety of threats. That means that organizations have to prepare beyond simply defending the enterprise perimeter and need to protect their data as deeply as possible," said Tom Marmen, vice president and general manager of Broadcom's storage line of business. "By creating a safe haven for corporate data that is out of the reach of attacks and is only accessible to trusted IT personnel, we enable our customers to have both enterprise-class storage and security from a single RAID software solution. That solution, XelCore, delivers the same, scalable RAID support across a spectrum of Broadcom RAID solutions."

The XelCore RAID software provides support for all popular RAID levels, online capacity expansion, online RAID-level migration, controller spanning, and the ability to create arrays that span multiple controllers without having to bring the system down. It is deployed within Broadcom's RAIDCore serial ATA RAID controllers that lower the overall total cost of ownership and enable customers to implement enterprise-class storage technology at costs affordable to small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs). The XelCore software is part of Broadcom's overall storage family product line, which includes a full enterprise-class RAID software stack, Fibre Channel SAN switches, home and SMB NASoC (network attached storage system-on-a-chip) solutions, Serial ATA storage I/O chipsets and RAIDCore host bus adapters.

Broadcom acquired the XelCore software stack and Fulcrum architecture in January as part of its acquisition of RAIDCore Inc, enabling Broadcom to offer a unique and complete set of RAID solutions to the server storage market. Broadcom is one of few semiconductor providers that can offer enterprise-class storage and data integrity to all levels of businesses, including SMBs, who can now implement enterprise-level RAID features without the cost and IT-intensive processes that have kept RAID from more widespread use. In addition, the combination of Broadcom silicon, Fulcrum architecture and XelCore software brings to market a set of enterprise-class RAID storage solutions to existing customers in the high volume server and storage markets.