The appliance includes a built-in LOCAL keystore and the ability to connect to the Oracle Key Manager (OKM) system. Each encrypted project or share requires a wrapping key from either the LOCAL or OKM keystores. The data encryption keys are managed by the storage appliance and are stored persistently encrypted by the wrapping key from the LOCAL or OKM keystore.
OKM is a comprehensive key management system (KMS) that addresses the rapidly growing enterprise need for storage-based data encryption. Developed to comply with open standards, this feature provides the capacity, scalability, and interoperability to manage encryption keys centrally over widely distributed and heterogeneous storage infrastructures.
OKM meets the unique challenges of storage key management, including:
Long-term key retention - OKM ensures that archive data is always available, and it securely retains encryption keys for the full data life cycle.
Interoperability - OKM provides the interoperability needed to support a diverse range of storage devices attached to mainframe or open systems under a single storage key management service.
High availability - With active N-node clustering, dynamic load balancing, and automated failover, OKM provides high availability, whether the appliances are sited together or distributed around the world.
High capacity - OKM manages large numbers of storage devices and even more storage keys. A single clustered appliance can provide key management services for thousands of storage devices and millions of storage keys.
Flexible Key Configuration - Per OKM cluster, keys can be generated automatically or created individually for a LOCAL or OKM keystore. Security administrators are responsible for providing the key names which, when combined with the keystore, associate a given wrapping key with a project or share.
Shares and projects that use OKM keys that are in a deactivated state remain accessible. To prevent an OKM key from being used, the OKM administrator must explicitly delete the key.
To ensure encrypted shares and projects are accessible, back up your appliance configurations and LOCAL keystore key values. If a key(s) becomes unavailable, any shares or projects that use that key become inaccessible. If a project key is unavailable, new shares cannot be created in that project.
Keys can become unavailable in the following ways:
Keys are deleted
Rollback to a release that does not support encryption
Rollback to a release where the keys are not configured
Factory reset
The OKM server is not available