Abstract: To decrease a load on a network and a storage system, encryption operations can be offloaded to a server locally connected to the storage system. The server receives requests to perform encryption operations, such as LUN encryption or file encryption, for a host. The server obtains an encryption key unique to the host and performs the encryption operation using the encryption key. The server then notifies the host that an encrypted LUN or encrypted file is available for use. The host is able to utilize the encrypted data because the encryption was performed with the host's unique key. Since the server is locally connected to the storage system, offloading encryption requests to the server reduces the load on a network by reducing the amount of traffic transmitted between a host and the storage system.