Are hardware-based tools or software-based tools the best way to encrypt and decrypt databases?
Ulf Mattson: I think that might be the wrong question to ask. The right question would be about the topology. What is the right topology to use for database encryption? Remote encryption or local encryption? The topology is crucial. It will dictate performance, scalability, availability, and other very important factors. So I think the topic is important but the question is usually not well understood. Usually, hardware-based encryption is remote and software-based encryption is local but it doesn’t have anything to do with the form factor itself. Instead, it is about where the encryption is happening relative to your servers processing the database information. GS Mag: Why do you think people are asking the wrong question? Ulf Mattson:It is because they are trying to apply what they’ve learned from other areas of IT. For example, from network encryption they’ve seen that software doesn’t perform as well and that hardware is the best way to accelerate encryption. So they say, “Oh, hard
