Protect Mainframe Data From Cyber Threats and Ensure Compliance

Defend your mainframe data against ransomware, mass deletion, and other cyber threats to achieve operational resiliency and regulatory compliance.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Enterprises must protect mainframe data against escalating cyber threats, particularly ransomware, which encrypts data and demands payment for its release. Because mainframe data is mission-critical, a single vulnerability can cause severe financial, operational, and reputational damage. BMC AMI Cloud Vault safeguards mainframe data by transferring it to immutable on-premises or public cloud object storage, creating multiple protected copies. Data is secured through end-to-end compression and encryption, with the option to air-gap cloud copies for additional isolation. These protections enable rapid recovery and help ensure compliance with regulatory data-retention requirements.

SECURITY MEASURES AND PROTOCOLS

BMC AMI Cloud Vault integrates seamlessly with standard mainframe security protocols when deploying the BMC AMI Cloud agent. The management server can run in a virtual private cloud (VPC) or a secure on-premises environment. To prevent data loss, the solution leverages object storage versioning, immutability (object locking), and encryption. If data transformation services are required, they are performed in the cloud—without accessing the mainframe—to keep original data shielded from attacks.

SOLUTION BENEFITS

• Immutable protection: Defend against ransomware, deletion events, and other threats.

• Fast recovery: Restore mainframe operations quickly from anywhere to minimize downtime.

• Regulatory compliance: Meet industry requirements with secure, immutable backups.

• Air-gapped resilience: Maintain an isolated third-copy backup for added protection.

• Multi-Factor Authentication: Protects mainframe data from unauthorized access.

• Non-disruptive: Safeguard data without interrupting data center operations.

• Cost savings: Reduce mainframe CPU consumption and eliminate redundant software licenses.

• Efficiency gains: Optimize compute, network, and storage resources across mainframe and cloud

SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE

BMC AMI Cloud Vault consists of two components: a zIIP-eligible agent running on z/OS® and a management server running in a Docker container on Linux® , Linux® on Z, or zCX. The Cloud Agent reads and writes mainframe data from DASD or tape directly to on-premises object storage or public cloud object storage over secure TCP/IP connections, with data encrypted in-flight. In cloud object storage, the data is also encrypted at rest and stored immutably. For additional protection, copies of the data can be placed in an air-gapped environment, isolated from the network to further reduce exposure to cyberattacks.

SOLUTION FEATURES

• Recover from a “clean room” or directly from public cloud storage without relying on compromised systems.

• Perform “surgical recovery” of specific datasets based on predefined rules.

• Run automated recovery tests to verify recoverability.

• Support cyber forensics for legal or investigative needs.

• Enforce compliance with retention rules using object locking and versioning.

• Use native mainframe hardware (zEDC, Crypto Express) for compression and encryption.

• Secure Multi-Factor Authentication for login and high-risk operations (restore, alter, delete).

• Integrate with existing mainframe security.

• (SAF-compliant) for user authorization.

• Offload processing to zIIP engines to cut CPU usage.

• Automatically discover and migrate active and historical data to object storage.

• Speed data transfer with parallel processing, compression, and load balancing.

• Support any DASD or tape system.

• Run on any cloud, including AWS, Azure, GCP, HCP, and IBM®

BMC AMI Cloud Vault solution architecture diagram

To learn more about how BMC can help you protect mainframe data from cyber threats and ensure regulatory compliance, visit us at: BMC AMI Cloud Vault

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