IBM launches multi-cloud key management service

IBM has launched a service to help manage digital security keys across multicloud environments.

The Unified Key Orchestrator supports what IBM calls 'bring your own key' functionality by enabling customers to manage their own data encryption keys across cloud environments including IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft's Azure.

It also lets them manage keys on their own premises, the company revealed this week.

The Orchestrator product allows administrators to manage their keys through a single user interface. Customers can also use an API to integrate digital keys into their DevOps process, making it easier to deploy workloads in the cloud, it added.

The service stores digital keys in its own hardware security module, protected by the customer's master key. It transfers those keys to key stores in different cloud services and manages them via an API.

Administrators can also redistribute keys that are lost or corrupted in the field, effectively making the Unified Key Orchestrator a backup service for digital keys, according to the company.

IBM has made the key orchestration system part of its existing IBM Cloud Hyper Crypto Services offering, which is a key management and HSM service. It will offer the new service under a tiered pricing model, it said.

The announcement comes at a time when around 79% of respondents are incorporating multiple public clouds, while 60% said that they're using more than one private cloud, according to a report from Flexera this month.

A third of all organizations said that they were using security tools designed for multiple clouds, making it the front runner for the first time, ahead of multi-cloud cost management and governance tools.