Excerpt from the eBook "2016 Encryption Key Management: Industry Perspectives and Trends." 

Virtualization Will Continue to Dominate IT Strategy & Infrastructure

Large and small enterprises will continue to grow their virtualization footprints at the same time that they are looking to migrate applications to the cloud. The cost reductions provided by the market leader VMware will ensure that the VMware customer base will continue to consolidate applications and servers on their virtualization technology and that they will continue to be a powerful player in the IT infrastructure space for many years.

While VMware is the dominant technology provider for virtualization, we will see Microsoft attempt to increase their footprint with Hyper-V, and OpenStack solutions will also expand. We expect that all of the virtualization solution providers will attempt to de ne a clear path to the cloud based on their technologies. VMware is already moving in this direction with their vCloud Air initiative, and Microsoft uses Hyper-V as the foundation for the Azure cloud.

Encryption key management solutions that only run in hardware, or that only run on cloud platforms, present substantial obstacles for businesses with virtualized data centers. The rich set of management and security tools are not able to work effectively with solutions that are outside the virtualization boundary. Customers are looking to reduce their hardware footprint, not increase it. And solutions that can’t be managed or secured in the usual way represent additional risk and cost. Encryption key management solutions should be able to run within the virtualization boundary as an approved security application. Key management vendors vary greatly in their ability to support the range of deployments from traditional IT data center, to virtualized plat- forms, to the cloud. Organizations will continue to struggle with key management across these environments.

Take Aways

• Encryption key management solutions should be able to run as fully native virtual machines in a VMware or Hyper-V environment.
• Encryption key management solutions should be compatible with security and management functions of the virtual platform.
• To maintain maximum business flexibility, deploy a key management solution that works well in virtual, cloud, and traditional hardware platforms.
• Look for key management solutions that carry industry security certifications such as PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), etc.

Key Management Vendor Stability Loses Ground

Organizations can work to minimize the potential impact of key management vendor consolidation by understanding the vendor’s organizational structure, corporate history, and financial basis. Venture backed organizations can be expected to experience an exit through a merger, acquisition, or public offering. Vendors with solutions that are not strategically important to their product mix can also experience change and disruption. Using care in key management vendor selection may be one of the most important efforts you can make. This will be a continuing challenge in the years ahead.

Take Aways

• Understand your key management vendor’s equity foundation and the likelihood of a merger or acquisition. If the key management vendor is largely funded by venture capital it is almost certain that the company will experience a merger or acquisition event.
• Understand your key management vendor’s management team. Have key employees been with the company for a longer period of time? This is one good indicator of organizational stability.

Vendor Customer Support is a Growing Concern

As mentioned previously, encryption key management vendors continue to be absorbed into larger organizations and this trend will likely continue. Unfortunately, as can happen with any merger, key management vendors may experience disruption in their organizations as a result of a merger or acquisition. This can directly a effect the customer support organization and your ability to get timely and reliable technical support for your encryption key management solution. Deteriorating customer support can put your organization at risk. Key management solutions are a part of your critical infrastructure and proper customer support is crucial to operational resilience.

Another side affect of reduced or under-funded customer support is the inability of your organization to expand and invest in new applications and systems. These impacts on customer support may not present short-term problems, but can impair long-term resilience and growth flexibility. Many organizations will continue to experience inadequate customer support from key management vendors.

Take Aways

• Understand the customer support organization of your key management vendor. Does the vendor demonstrate a strong investment in customer support? Is there adequate management of the customer support team? 
• Review the Service Level Agreement (SLA) provided by your key management vendor. Be sure you understand the expected response times provided by the vendor customer support team. 
• How do other organizations experience customer support from your key management vendor? Be sure to talk to reference accounts who use the key management product and who have interact- ed with the vendor’s customer support team.