Web services security vendors focus on access control, XML firewalls

That hasn’t changed much, as customers wait for vendors to finalize standards such as XML Key Management Specification (XKMS is for managing the keys needed to encrypt and decrypt Web services messages), says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink, an analysis and consulting firm in Waltham, Mass.

Single-point authentication and access control are important because Web services can’t make users more efficient if those users have to enter a new user ID and password each time their request hits another application. “Larger entities might have [10,000, 20,000] or 30,000 users,” says Bloomberg, each of whom might have different access rights on dozens of different systems — access rights that need to be changed, or even withdrawn, as the employee’s responsibilities change or they leave the company.

Major vendors such as Microsoft, IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. are building Web services security into their broader product platforms. Sun “has leadership in the directory space with their Directory Server,” says Bloomberg, which is the foundation for the Sun ONE Identity Server. Microsoft has also announced plans for a technology code-named “TrustBridge,” which would allow secure authentication of users, and sharing of their user identities across business and security boundaries.

Read more at: SearchWin2000

Overview of Web Services Security

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Overview of Web Services Management

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XML firewall appliance on tap from Reactivity

“Companies need to have this kind of security for business-to-business Web services,” says Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink. “But it is also needed for inside the enterprise because most security issues facing companies are internal.” Bloomberg says it makes sense for Reactivity to offer a hardware/software combination of its technology. “Hardware goes in the data center where it is much easier to manage, and it provides additional speed benefits. These proxies have to work at wire speed,” he says.

Read more at: Network World

Vers une harmonisation des politiques d’accès

Pour Ronald Schmelzer du cabinet Zapthink, spécialisé dans XML et les services web, « XACML fournit les moyens de définir et d’échanger les règles de sécurité de façon standardisée »

Read more at: 01Net.fr (French)

Web services security vendors focus on access control, XML firewalls

That hasn’t changed much, as customers wait for vendors to finalize standards such as XML Key Management Specification (XKMS is for managing the keys needed to encrypt and decrypt Web services messages), says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink, an analysis and consulting firm in Waltham, Mass.

Single-point authentication and access control are important because Web services can’t make users more efficient if those users have to enter a new user ID and password each time their request hits another application. “Larger entities might have [10,000, 20,000] or 30,000 users,” says Bloomberg, each of whom might have different access rights on dozens of different systems — access rights that need to be changed, or even withdrawn, as the employee’s responsibilities change or they leave the company.

Read more at: SearchSecurity

Les produits de sécurisation des services web arrivent

Il encapsule tout type d’information structurée et représente 2 % du trafic internet à l’heure actuelle, mais devrait monter à 25 % en 2006, selon le cabinet d’analystes ZapThink.

Read more at: 01 Informatique (French)

Service-Oriented Management Technology Landscape

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.

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.

Safe SOAP

According to Zapthink (http://www.zapthink.com/), a consulting and analysis company, this will create a market for XML and Web services security gear worth $4.4 billion in 2006, compared to just $40 million in 2001.

Read more at: NetworkWorld