McAfee E-Business Server customers received an End-of-Life notice last year. If you are like other customers we hear from, this raised a sense of urgency to find a suitable replacement and you are now faced with looking at the options. As you examine these options, we recommend you explore each one carefully. We find that while many vendors claim to be a direct McAfee E-Business Server replacement, some lack the range of functionality necessary to support secure data exchange in the same way as E-Business Server.

McAfee E-Business Server uses the OpenPGP format to encrypt sensitive data that is shared with business partners. OpenPGP support is a critical requirement for a replacement solution. As you begin to assess your options for this change, we recommend taking a close look at some important considerations for replacing McAfee E-Business Server regardless of platform.

1. To ensure you don’t have to ask your partners to change their endpoints or disrupt their workflows, be certain the McAfee E-Business Server replacement is OpenPGP compliant. The OpenPGP specifications, published by the IETF as RFC 2440 (1998) and RFC 4880 (2007), document this standard.  Products that adhere to these standards are able to provide interoperability.  
2. Make sure your replacement solution supports all the platforms you require, and does not force you into hybrid solutions. Solutions that cover only a few platforms will require you to cobble together capabilities across platforms.  These aren’t really solutions, they are just headaches.
3. Encrypting data is typically done with the best intentions.  Unfortunately, if there isn't proper key management, your organization can lose access to valuable data. You need to make sure your replacement solution has proper key management  and data access features so that when data is encrypted, your organization never loses the ability to decrypt the data.
4. OpenPGP is not the only security format. More than ever, customers want flexibility when exchanging data and you need a solution that provides this flexibility.

Consider the scenario below specific to the open systems server environment (UNIX, Linux, Windows Server).

"I have hundreds if not thousands of scripts invested in McAfee E-Business Server. How am I going to be able to support a new file encryption solution?" The best new solution migrations are the ones where you don’t have to change your existing scripts. You need to focus on a solution that does not require you to make any script changes, but adapts and translates your existing scripts to the new solution.

Consider the scenario below specific to the mainframe environment.

"I want a solution that supports z/OS natively, and not a command line that pretends to support z/OS!" Because System z has evolved to the point where all the specialty engines provide full capability at a fraction of the CPU cost, you want a solution that runs in the native z/OS environment and takes advantage of all the specialty engines, hardware crypto and hardware compression capabilities.

As you prepare to face this change, take a good look at the options that are out there. Transition time and costly downtime can be minimized for you and your partners if you choose a solution that has native OpenPGP support for z/OS.

Watch Webinar:

Understanding the Impact of the McAfee® E-Business Server End-of-life Announcement

Read Success Story:

Migrating from E-Business Server to SecureZIP eBusiness Edition

SecureZIP eBusiness Edition takes full advantage of all the latest hardware innovations System z provides because it runs natively on z/OS. Data is securely exchanged with partners regardless of the transfer process or systems that partners use. Files are secured and exchanged with partners with the flexibility of using X.509 keys and OpenPGP keys. With SecureZIP eBusiness Edition, you can make and manage your OpenPGP keys and keyring files to encrypt, decrypt and digitally sign using the OpenPGP format in the same way that McAfee E-Business Server does while also using existing PGP keys that you already have.