ION-IP has developed a hosted security service designed for companies who are setting up a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This SOA Security Gateway protects both the applications the datacenter and web services that companies use via the internet.
The SOA concept originated from the need to change processes in a flexible way. That same flexibility, however, is threatened because organizations need to protect their new web services - applications. If they have to secure each web service separately, the benefits of the SOA concept is lost. The solution is an XML gateway, where all the security logic comes together at a single point. ION-IP now offers such an XML gateway as a hosted service.
A major challenge in creating an SOA is federated identity management: how do you know for sure whether the person using your Web service is who he says he is? And how do you ensure that partners only have access to that information which they are entitled? The ION-IP Security Gateway Service takes this problem off the hands of its customers. "There is always technical and organizational fuss if companies want to give partners access to their web services. We have years of knowledge and experience in this area and take this hassle off the hands of our clients, "said Alex Heijdenrijk, security consultant at ION-IP.
Companies with this service also save a lot of costs, because the ION-IP SOA Security Gateway Service places the border network - or demilitarized zone (DMZ) - forward, so that not only the datacenter of the customer is protected, but also all web services used in the ‘cloud’. “Normally, companies have to invest in multiple DMZs: in each datacenter and a separate DMZ for web services used over the Internet. We move the DMZ forward, so customers only need one gateway. "