Securing Web Services

Recent surveys by Hurwitz Group and ZapThink show that security is the No. 1 obstacle to adoption of corporate Web services.

Read more at: Network World

“Security Lurks on Web Services Horizon”

The biggest obstacle to Web services adoption is security, according to a report from ZapThink, an analyst group focusing on XML and Web services. Aggravating the problem, says ZapThink, is the confusion caused by various overlapping standards, vendor solutions, and approaches.

Read more at: Advisor Magazine

XML Security Technology Landscape

Security is the immediate roadblock facing widespread implementation of Web Services technologies across the enterprise. As a result, many software vendors are throwing their hat into the XML and Web Services security ring, offering a broad and confusing number of solutions to a variety of real and perceived problems. However, much of this effort amounts to jostling for defensible market positioning ahead of a solid demand for enterprise-class XML and Web Security products and services. As a result, ZapThink believes that the emerging market for XML and Web Services security solutions will be characterized by a period of turbulence, as companies struggle to clarify their messages and shake the kinks out of their product offerings.

XML and Web Services Security

Security is the immediate roadblock facing widespread implementation of Web Services technologies across the enterprise. As a result, many software vendors are throwing their hat into the XML and Web Services security ring, offering a broad and confusing number of solutions to a variety of real and perceived problems. However, much of this effort amounts to jostling for defensible market positioning ahead of a solid demand for enterprise-class XML and Web Security products and services. As a result, ZapThink believes that the emerging market for XML and Web Services security solutions will be characterized by a period of turbulence, as companies struggle to clarify their messages and shake the kinks out of their product offerings.

XML & Web Services Security

Security is the immediate roadblock facing widespread implementation of Web Services technologies across the enterprise. As a result, many software vendors are throwing their hat into the XML and Web Services security ring, offering a broad and confusing number of solutions to a variety of real and perceived problems. However, much of this effort amounts to jostling for defensible market positioning ahead of a solid demand for enterprise-class XML and Web Security products and services. As a result, ZapThink believes that the emerging market for XML and Web Services security solutions will be characterized by a period of turbulence, as companies struggle to clarify their messages and shake the kinks out of their product offerings.

ZapNote: Schemantix

What has hampered explosive growth in marketplaces is that a number of value-added services beyond simple cataloging and order presentment are needed. In effect, the e-marketplace needs to offer the same features as a real-world marketplace, including complete sourcing to payment. The Schemantix Business Service Suite provides a set of interoperable turnkey applications for Billing, Payment, Logistics, Reporting, Factoring, and Request for Quotes (RFQ). These solutions are based on the Schemantix Business Service Platform that provides a customizable and localized solution for e-Marketplace participants and is tightly integrated with Commerce One and SAP marketplace systems.

Service-Oriented Management

Web Services management applications provide software that helps companies manage the systems and applications that underlie their Web Services implementations. The Web Services management products on the market today offer functionality in five basic categories: system management, lifecycle management, business management, security management, and the most important, Service-Oriented Architecture enablement.

The latter category is especially important because many Web Services management products provide the critical infrastructure necessary for companies to take their fine-grained, atomic Web Services and other data sources and encapsulate and compose them into coarse-grained business Services that make up a Service-Oriented Architecture. Such architectures offer far more long-term business value than the point-to-point applications of Web Services common today.

ZapNote: Flamenco Networks

While a lot of effort and emphasis has been placed on the development of Web Services standards and specifications, there are a number of cross-platform and cross-organization implementation issues associated with actually putting Web Services technologies to use. Flamenco Networks has unveiled a three-layered approach to Web Services connection provisioning, optimized SOAP communications, and value-added network services. The system provides a means to automate Web Service roll out, synchronize infrastructure configuration, and provide value-added services in the form of third-party non-repudiation, service level agreements, secure and reliable delivery, and ongoing management of the Web Services network.

“Wacky World of Web Services”

Current revenues from Web services are puny – just $380 million for all of 2001, according to estimates from ZapThink LLC, a Waltham, Mass.-based market research group. But ZapThink expects that to balloon to more than $15.5 billion once software services over the Internet become prevalent.

Read more at: TheDeal.com

Web Services Technologies & Trends

From its inception through 2002, the primary application for Web Services in the enterprise was to simplify point-to-point integration between systems, thereby reducing the cost of integration. This application of Web Services, however, only scratches the surface of the true potential of Web Services — enabling companies to build agile business processes and IT systems that can respond to change through the use of loosely coupled, standards-based Service-oriented architectures.

The business value of such architectures in terms of the business agility they provide is substantial, but as of early 2003, only a few early adopter enterprises have built such architectures, partly because few tools for building Service-oriented architectures are available on the market, and furthermore, there is little understanding of the best practices companies should follow to build such architectures. This report seeks to clarify the requirements for realizing the value of Web Services by providing a set of emerging best pra