Vordel Unveils New SOA Security Product and Releases Latest Version of XML GATEWAY

Business Wire, April 27, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Infosecurity Europe

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 27, 2004

VordelDirector to enable security policy enforcement across

Service Oriented Architectures

VordelSecure 3.0 extends functionality of award winning XML

gateway product

Vordel, the XML Web Services security company, today unveiled its new XML security server, VordelDirector. The company also released the latest version of its award-winning XML gateway product, VordelSecure.

VordelDirector is designed to secure Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs). It allows enterprise architects to design security rules that span the multiple architectural tiers and security domains of an SOA, by centralizing management while distributing security enforcement. Using APIs, pre-built agents, and Web Services, VordelDirector enforces security rules at the transactional level, inserting and then subsequently validating security tokens which are placed inside XML messages. Encryption, time-stamping, and signing services are provided.

VordelSecure, which secures XML traffic at an enterprise perimeter, expands on its long-standing leadership in the XML gateway market by introducing new features to extend its identity and content filtering-based rules functionality and complementing these with enhanced reporting and management features.

Both VordelDirector and VordelSecure 3.0 include full support for the recently standardized OASIS WS-Security specification.

Burton Group's VP and Director of Directory and Security Strategies, Phil Schacter, commented that "organizations rolling out SOAs need to overlay external safeguards while a more comprehensive security framework and standards are defined and implemented by the industry".

"While XML filtering security is clearly relevant, the architecture of an SOA enables and may require the ability to distribute the enforcement of identity-based rules," Schacter continued. "Such identity-based rules should leverage existing identity management infrastructure and federated identity mechanisms.

We are encouraged by Vordel's commitment to industry standards and delivery of a product that integrates with the identity management framework of an enterprise to extend identity-based policies to Web Services," he added.

Empresa Portuguesa de Aguas Livres (EPAL), the largest water supplier in Portugal, selected Vordel to provide security for its XML-based online services. "We are delighted with the way that VordelSecure is able to communicate with all the systems we currently have running," said Dr. Luis Novaes dos Reis, CIO at EPAL. "It can handle existing security methods, talk to the legacy systems, as well as run in tandem with the new application servers. VordelSecure was also fast to implement, and, because of its ability to leverage the existing architecture and reduce security maintenance costs, will deliver significant savings to EPAL."

Entrust's VP for Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Philip Richardson, said, "We welcome this latest product announcement from Vordel. Vordel's products support the Entrust Secure Identity management solution and enable our customers to address their business requirements to extend secure communications across the firewall. With Entrust and Vordel, companies can be confident that they have a trusted framework to protect both internal and external Web Services-based communications."

Vordel CEO, Vic Morris, speaking at the announcement, commented that "companies are using SOAs to extend the reach of their business systems' beyond the corporate boundary, introducing greater economies of scale and reducing costs".

"As a result, sensitive business and customer data, held in legacy applications that were previously protected in a trusted environment, is now exposed via Web Services - with potentially damaging consequences," Morris went on. "Ensuring that only the correct people, with the correct data, can access this information is critical. Our products distinguish themselves by protecting against both malicious and unauthorized traffic to and from Web Services. And as our customers continually remind us, security isn't optional with Web Services."

For further information, please visit http://www.vordel.com/products