CA's data loss prevention (DLP) vendor acquisition today clinches it: DLP vendors must either forge partnerships or be acquired to survive.Today, CA publicized its intention to acquire DLP vendor Orchestria. Orchestria (other than having a rather silly name that I hope CA fades with the acquisition) makes software that helps stop information from seeping through e-mails, instant messaging, and Web forms, as well as lock down the printing of sensitive files and the use of USB drives.

In its announcement, CA said it will integrate Orchestria's line with its identity and access management solutions, which the company said will help companies improve security within the process of managing users and their level of access privileges based on their roles.

This strikes me as an interesting approach -- rather than tying access and system usage rights to the machine, they could follow the user. I'll have to see more details on how such a tactic would be put into practice.

While blocking protected or regulated data from slippage through e-mail or inappropriate storage on USB devices is interesting, I'm much more intrigued by the concept of embedding security into the data itself so that no matter where a file travels, its security and access privileges go with it -- as in who can print, forward, or even view the file. I covered recent trends in the enterprise DRM space in this story in our sister Web site Byte and Switch.