Concepts of IBM Z cryptographic hardware

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IBM Z® cryptographic hardware provides a variety of advantages for the processing of cryptographic operations. OpenSSL applications and use cases can benefit from these features.

IBM Z systems offer different types of cryptographic hardware with different features to meet a customer's cryptographic requirements.

The available cryptographic capabilities that can be exploited by OpenSSL and IBM Z cryptographic hardware include:

Data encryption and decryption using symmetric and asymmetric algorithms
Message integrity (message authentication, modification detection, non-repudiation)
Digital signature
Random number generation.

There are two cryptographic hardware devices available on the IBM Z processor family: the CP Assist for Cryptographic Functions (CPACF) and the IBM® Crypto Express features (starting with CEX4S through the latest generation), in general also called cryptographic adapters. Learn about the differences between these categories and their suitability for respective purposes.