Fortanix Data Security Manager vs OpenStack Barbican

Fortanix Data Security Manager (DSM) gives DevOps and security teams a way to manage secrets, credentials, certificates, API keys and tokens outside source code. Secrets management can run on-premises, in the cloud, or across hybrid and multicloud environments. DSM provides REST APIs and supports standards and technologies including OAuth, OpenID (SAML), LDAP, JWT, PKI, Kubernetes and Docker.

Documented CI/CD integrations include HashiCorp Vault, Kubernetes Secret Store CSI Driver, Ansible, Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab, CyberArk, Delinea and Azure DevOps. Fortanix says the service stores secrets in a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified HSM and uses Intel SGX and Runtime Encryption technology. Role-based access controls, safeguards against unauthorized password changes, simultaneous-login alerts and audit logs support access oversight. Listed certifications include FIPS 140-2 Level 3, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, CIS and SOC 2 Type 2. The DSM SaaS trial includes the full feature set for 30 days at free, with no credit card required to start. No numeric Enterprise price is listed.

OpenStack Barbican is the OpenStack Key Manager service for storing, provisioning, and managing secrets such as keys, certificates, passwords, and raw binary data. Its barbican-api component provides an OpenStack-native REST API for managing secrets; barbican-worker and barbican-keystone-listener are also part of the service. The listener manages Barbican’s database records for Keystone projects when those projects are deleted. A plugin architecture lets operators connect software secret stores or hardware such as HSMs. Documented options include KMIP, Dogtag, and Vault secret-store plugins, as well as PKCS#11 crypto plugins. With PKCS#11, master encryption and HMAC keys can reside in an HSM. Operators can develop plugins for storage, generation, and event handling, though support status may be stable, experimental, or out-of-tree. The default Simple Crypto plugin stores its single encryption key in plaintext in barbican.conf, so service-node access must be restricted carefully. Container ACL settings do not carry over to associated secrets, and ACL functionality requires Keystone integration. Barbican is free under Apache 2.0; installation guidance assumes a working OpenStack deployment.