Much of the talk at this year's Information On Demand conference in Las Vegas has centered on IBM's belief in optimizing data in real time to add business value. But <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2202305,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594">underlying IBM's strategy is a focus on security,</A> illustrated by the acquisition of Princeton Softech and now the deepening of a partnership with encryption specialist Vormetric.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vormetric has joined with IBM to deliver database encryption across Windows, Linux and Unix platforms through IBM Database Encryption Expert, a stand-alone product that works with DB2 versions 9 and above and protects data in both online and offline storage DB2 accesses. The product will also work with Informix in a future release slated for the first half of 2008, Vormetric officials said. The partnership between the two companies began more than 18 months ago when IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., selected Vormetric technology to be the core encryption component for DB2 on Linux, Unix and Windows.