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Home » About Norwich » SGS Today »
News Article
Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics, Brocade Communications, April 2009
MSIA program is the catalyst for information security publication
by Dirk Van Susteren, correspondent
© May 29, 2009 Norwich University Office of Communications
Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics: SAN Protection for Storage and Security Professionals probably won't make great summer beach reading, and Hollywood won't be turning it into a movie.
Still, one should judge a book by what it covers, and if you are interested in storage area networks, it may be the text for you.
Roger Bouchard, a 2008 graduate of Norwich University's Masters of Science in Information Assurance (MSIA) program, wrote the book primarily for customers doing business with his employer, Brocade Communications, a leading developer of technologies for data center networking located in San Jose, Calif. But his 216-page book, launched at the RSA Conference 2009 in San Francisco in April, is likely to interest most storage network or security administrators.
While Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics (available for download here) won't be on a best-seller list, it does represent a significant academic and professional achievement — one for which the MSIA program was an important catalyst, said Bouchard. The author gives special credit to one of his instructors, Adjunct Professor John Mason of Manhattan Beach, Calif., for letting him tie his book research in with normal course work.
In a phone interview from his home in Hawkesbury, Ontario, Bouchard, 47, explained that Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics explores ways to safeguard data on storage area networks (SANs), systems of storage devices that can handle tremendous amounts of readily accessible information.
Information in the corporate world must be obtainable. It must also be protected from abuses of privacy, sabotage, carelessness and other forms of misuse.
"This book is meant to bridge the gap between the people charged with the storage of information and those charged with securing that information," Bouchard said, explaining that the two interests don't always mesh. Storage and security people often don't work together as well as they should.
As one might expect, Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics also provides basic information on security. For example, it covers the use of role-based access controls (RBAC), the criteria that determines who has access to what information, and methods for determining whether certain devices should be connected to the fabric.
"It's an attempt to educate people on the best way to protect SAN," Bouchard said.
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“This book is meant to bridge the gap between the people charged with the storage of information and those charged with securing that information.” |
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Bouchard said his involvement in the MSIA program was serendipitous. Two years ago, while researching a network security project for Brocade, he stumbled across the name of Mich Kabay, who 20 years earlier had been one of his teachers and, later, a fellow instructor at John Abbott College near Montreal.
"I sent him an email. We chatted, and I learned he was director of the program at Norwich involving information security," said Bouchard.
Kabay encouraged him to enroll in the MSIA program.
Bouchard said one MSIA course in particular, Security Audits, interested him because at the time he was refining a SAN assessment process; one to assure that established security procedures would be available for people using the network.
Bouchard described Mason, who works for a California firm as a consulting manager in enterprise risk management, as an instructor "with lots of real-world experience." Mason allowed Bouchard to dovetail his SAN research with the online class.
"John Mason provided me with really good feedback — tips that helped gel [aspects of] the work I was doing." The course was a "springboard" for his book, he said.
Bouchard said Brocade helped him to write the book by providing editing and fact-checking aid. His employer also allowed him to work on Brocade projects from home during much of the book project, further helping the process.
Bouchard described his rural home as an ideal place to step outside the mainstream to write. "I live in a country setting … far from the hustle and bustle," he said. But his home is only an hour from Montreal's airport, so he was able to conveniently hop on a plane when he needed to travel for work.
Mason said allowing Bouchard to focus on his SAN project was an easy decision.
"He told me what he was doing, and it was later, probably after his first essay, that he mentioned the book and asked if he could structure his [future] essays around SANs, so he could get more mileage out of the course and test his theories," said Mason.
"I approved it as long as he stayed on topic. He did, and his papers were very interesting and always fun to read."
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