## About Key Management Settings

When creating a tape volume group, you need to determine whether to enable or disable the key management settings.

Table 1-11 provides a description of the key settings, considerations, and the type of keys that can be purged if a particular setting is chosen. All key settings are configured at the cluster level.

Note The Key Management Settings table shown below is applicable only for SME tapes.

Table 1-11 Key Management Settings

| Description | Considerations
Shared | In shared key mode, only tape volume group keys are generated. All tape volumes that are part of a tape volume group share the same key. | Cisco KMC key database—Is smaller storing only the tape volume group keys. Security—Medium. A compromise to one tape volume group key will compromise the data in all tapes that are part of that tape volume group. Purging—Available only at the volume group level.
Unique Key | In unique key mode, each individual tape has it’s own unique key. The default value is enabled. | Cisco KMC key database—Is larger storing the tape volume group keys and every unique tape volume key. Security—High. A compromise to a tape volume key will not compromise the integrity of data on other tape volumes. Purging—Available at the volume group and volume level.
Unique Key with Key-On-Tape | In the key-on-tape mode, each unique tape volume key is stored on the individual tape. You can select key-on-tape (when you select unique key mode) to configure the most secure and scalable key management system. The default value is disabled. Note When key-on-tape mode is enabled, the keys stored on the tape media are encrypted by the tape volume group wrap key. | Cisco KMC key database— Increases scalability to support a large number of tape volumes by reducing the size of the Cisco KMC key database. Only the tape volume group keys are stored on the Cisco KMC. Security—High. A compromise to a tape volume key will not compromise the integrity of data on other tape volumes. Purging—Available at the volume group level.