Cryptography

 

IBM^® offers i5/OS^® cryptography solutions for customers who require a high level of security. A comprehensive cryptography solution is an important part of a successful security strategy. IBM offers a family of cryptographic hardware options for protecting data and for securing transaction processing, as well as a set of cryptographic services APIs that customers can use to customize their programs.

You can make cryptography an integral part of your security solution by installing cryptographic hardware in your system. To ensure that you understand how cryptographic hardware works and how you can implement it in your system, review these topics:

This information includes programming examples. Read the Code license and disclaimer information for important legal information.

• What’s new for V5R4 highlights the new features or functions available for this release of the system.

• Printable PDF provides a link to the PDF version of this information and explains the printing options that are available to you.

• Cryptography concepts provides a basic understanding of cryptographic functions, as well as an overview of the system's cryptographic services.

• Cryptographic hardware:

  • Cryptographic hardware concepts explain some basic concepts regarding the cryptographic hardware available for your system, enabling you to better understand how to maximize your usage of cryptography and cryptographic hardware options with your system.

• Usage scenarios offer some example configurations or uses of cryptographic hardware:

  • Cryptographic hardware scenario: Protect private keys with cryptographic hardware

  • Cryptographic hardware scenario: Write an i5/OS application to use the IBM Cryptographic Coprocessors

• Choosing the best cryptographic hardware for your system:

  • Cryptographic Coprocessors includes planning and configuration information for the IBM 4764 and 4758 Cryptographic Coprocessors.

  • 2058 Cryptographic Accelerator includes planning and configuration information for the 2058 Cryptographic Accelerator.

• Related information points to other sources of cryptographic information, as well as related product information sites.

• What's new for V5R4
  This topic provides the latest information regarding new cryptographic software and hardware, and added features to the existing cryptographic hardware options for your system running the i5/OS operating system.

• Printable PDF
  Use this information to view and print the entire topic of cryptography in i5/OS as a PDF file.

• Cryptography concepts
  This topic provides a basic understanding of cryptographic function and an overview of the cryptographic services for the systems running the i5/OS operating system.

• 4764 and 4758 Cryptographic Coprocessors
  IBM offers two Cryptographic Coprocessors, which are available on a variety of system models. Cryptographic Coprocessors contain hardware engines, which perform cryptographic operations used by i5/OS application programs and i5/OS SSL transactions.

• Troubleshooting the Cryptographic Coprocessor
  Use these troubleshooting methods to tackle some of the basic problems that may occur with the Cryptographic Coprocessor on your system running the i5/OS operating system. If the troubleshooting information does not address your problem, contact your service representative.

• 2058 Cryptographic Accelerator
  The 2058 Cryptographic Accelerator provides a competitive option to customers who do not require the high security of a Cryptographic Coprocessor, but do need the high cryptographic performance that hardware acceleration provides to offload a host processor. The 2058 Cryptographic Accelerator is available for customers to use with a V5R2 (or later) system running the i5/OS operating system.

• Related information for cryptographic hardware
  This topic provides information about product manuals and IBM Redbooks™ (in PDF format), Web sites, and information center topics that relate to the i5/OS cryptographic hardware topic. You can view or print any of the PDFs.