Re: IBM i at RSA Security Conference (or Not) -- MIDRANGE-L

I've been to RSA three or four times but have missed the last two years due
to company budget cuts. The expo is indeed huge but the best coverage
you'll find for i has never been from IBM. It's typically from vendors who
offer products that do something like log management or intrusion detection
and have an i solution.

For instance, IBM recently bought Guardium, who does database monitoring &
logging. Guardium does apparently have a product for the i, although at the
moment I'm not sure if it is native or an appliance-based solution.

I've also seen other midrange vendors there like Raz-Lee. And of course,
Patrick Townsend.

I'll add that the times I've been to RSA I've never seen a session dedicated
to i security. It's a shame, really, as getting more folks behind the
platform might just help it make some inroads. Especially since RSA
attracts people with actual influence on global IT decision making at the
corporate and government levels.

http://www.rsaconference.com/index.htm

John, did you stay for Hugh Thompson's show at the end? I always find him
to be entertaining; something that is uncommon among security geeks.

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 2:18 AM, John Earl <john.earl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I spent this last week at the RSA Security Conference in San
Francisco. The expo hall was Huge! 28 aisles each over 120 feet
deep. There was every kind of security solution for every kind of
security problem you ever heard of - and some that you haven't. IBM
had a big booth right by the entrance, and they were showing off all
kinds of IBM security assets - the ISS Strikeforce team, Tivoli EKM,
LDAP, Security for IBM Z, and on and on.

But there wasn't one person in the booth who could talk about IBM i
security. There was one nice gentleman who had worked on whole disk
encryption and knew it had been ported to i, but no-one who could
speak to what was happening on i now. No preview of the coming
version of the OS, no one to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of i
security, the closest conversation about i security was one guy who
said "AS/400 (note old name usage) already has great security".

<sigh>

Trevor, could you remind me why I should be promoting an architecture
that IBM won't even promote? (Sorry - that was a unfair jab - I'll
take it back tomorrow)

jte

--
John Earl
President and CEO
Patrick Townsend Security Solutions
"The Encryption Company"

Olympia, WA | www.patownsend.com
Office: 360-357-8971 Ext 118

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