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Consulting Firm Adds Strong Data Security, Conserves Valuable Data Center Resources

Industry

  • Consulting Services

Customer Profile

  • Provides consulting services in the areas of security, data center transformation and outsourcing, enduser outsourcing, and application modernization outsourcing

Challenges

  • Protecting sensitive information sent from z/OS mainframe to various destination platforms
  • Protecting sensitive information placed on removable media, including CD
  • Ensuring data remains protected during all steps of the transfer process, including on originating and destination platforms
  • Meeting FIPS 140-2 compliance requirements

PKWARE® Solution

  • SecureZIP® for z/OS®

Results

  • Protected sensitive data by using strong encryption before transfer, ensuring it remains protected in transit and on the destination platform
  • Increased operational efficiencies by using ZIP compression to save wall clock time and CPU resources
  • Met FIPS 140-2 compliance requirements

Company Background

Our client is an IT services consulting firm and leading provider of solutions that enable companies to maximize their use of advanced technology. The firm assisted a government agency in selecting software and oversaw their ability to process information more quickly and easily, in an effort to increase operational efficiencies.

Challenges and Requirements

The firm’s z/OS mainframe (260 MIPS) is located at their data center in New Jersey; each night the company needs to put several files, each over 10 GB in size, on CD so they can be transferred to various Federal agencies. When the company first contacted PKWARE, they had two immediate needs: 1) to compress large files stored on CD that are sent each night to various Federal agencies; and 2) encrypt the information being transferred in compliance with FIPS 140-2 requirements.

In addition to their immediate needs, they were also hoping to benefit from a data security solution that would encrypt data at the source on the mainframe and be able to transfer it securely to end points such as Windows® desktops. They wanted to ensure the data remained protected during all steps of the transfer process, at rest on originating and destination platforms, as well as in transit.

The Solution - SecureZIP for z/OS

Our client’s data center managers and system programmers agreed that SecureZIP for z/OS would meet their immediate requirements, as well as provide a stable and easy-to-use solution to meet other organizational needs.

Using SecureZIP for z/OS, the firm was able to meet their immediate needs of large file support and complying with FIPS 140-2 requirements; but they were able to leverage the solution even further. Using SecureZIP for z/OS, our client has now streamlined their process for compression and sending large files, mitigating risks associated with client data breaches.

The data-centric security approach allows them to stream sensitive data freely within the organization as it is protected from the originating source, in transit, and remains protected when it reaches its destination. For example, information is now encrypted on the z/OS mainframe and can be sent to any destination platform (servers, desktop, etc.) where it remains encrypted until it is ready to be placed on CD. That information can also be easily transferred in an encrypted format to CD when needed, meaning at no time is data left vulnerable and unprotected. In addition, the use of efficient ZIP compression has increased the efficiency of daily processing, requiring less wall clock time and CPU utilization.