TECHNOLOGY: FUSING THE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF E-BUSINESS

IBM SecureWay Software provides an integrated, comprehensive infrastructure for conducting secure business over the Internet

As a growing number of companies position themselves for the e-business arena, many are quickly realizing that successful e-business requires more than just a variety of support elements and a centralized point of control. Because the various support elements that make up an e-business are so interrelated and interdependent, their ability to integrate can determine just how successful an e-business will be. At the very least, all e-businesses rely on the ability of their elements to:

• Locate people, information, and applications in the network
• Connect customers, partners, and employees to resources located across multiple systems
• Secure communication of data and transactions

Although many different vendors currently offer useful elements for building successful e-business solutions, no single vendor can match the integrated, comprehensive e-business solution provided by IBM SecureWay Software. By integrating the fundamental elements of e-business—directory, connectivity, and security—SecureWay Software helps reduce the cost, complexity, and risk of running an e-business. Within the context of the IBM application framework for e-business, SecureWay Software controls the e-business environment in a way that can help your company reap the rewards of participating in a globally connected economy.

Logically Related e-business Requirements
As you prepare your host applications for e-business, you need to consider a wide range of issues that affect each other—host integration, access control, authentication, and the directory. Firstly, an e-business must be able to connect customers, suppliers, partners, and employees across a variety of computing systems. Then, because today’s Internet technology provides the best way to connect all the different platforms these people use, the next logical step is to transfer existing applications to the Web. Any person with a Web browser can then access and leverage your company data and services from anywhere. As this happens, however, your company exposes its valuable assets to a much wider audience—at which point network security becomes an increasingly important requirement.

Because ineffective security measures can expose your company to unwanted intrusion, data theft, lost productivity, downtime, and a variety of other problems, network security is paramount. As important as security is, however, implementing an adequate security infrastructure can quickly become expensive and complex.

As a result, this e-business infrastructure—where each necessary element is built upon the prior element—creates a hierarchy of interconnected requirements. If any one of these requirements is not met, the overall infrastructure can become unwieldy or unstable.

Simplified e-business with SecureWay Software
The dependent nature of interrelated e-business requirements—such as advanced security, reduced costs, network simplicity, and rapid application deployment—calls for integrated solutions. Satisfying each requirement independent of the others simply creates unnecessary complexity. In turn, such complexity increases workloads and costs while introducing a greater chance for error—all of which affects the affordability and integrity of the overall system. Unfortunately, the failure of any one product within the overall solution can compromise the entire e-business support structure.

Through several points of integration, SecureWay Software provides the capabilities that can greatly simplify the e-business environment, lower costs, and reduce risk.

• Open Standards
  Because SecureWay Software is based on open, cross-platform standards (such as Public Key Infrastructure) for locate, connect, and secure, it is designed to support a flexible e-business environment and allow for continued growth.

• Locate: Centralized Enterprise Directory
  Without a single, central repository, administrators need to keep all the network directories synchronized. For example, if a user changes her name when she gets married, an administrator needs to update the directories for each application she uses. An integrated directory scheme eliminates this administrative quagmire and consequently reduces network operating costs.

• Connect: Host Integration
  One of the fastest ways to start benefitting from Internet technology is to integrate host systems with an intranet, extranet, or the Internet. SecureWay Software Host Integration products can protect and extend your investment in existing applications by enabling Web browser access. SecureWay Software moves existing applications to the Web at a justifiable cost and in an aggressive time frame.

• Secure: Policy Integration
  Another high leverage point of integration is policy. Through a common administrative console and repository scheme for policy information, SecureWay Software provides both security and network policy integration. As a result, SecureWay Software can help your company define more consistent and secure business practices throughout the enterprise.

  For example, consistency combined with intrusion detection makes it easier to detect potential threats by identifying users who repeatedly try to gain access to resources for which they are not authorized. SecureWay Software Virtual Private Network (VPN) policy integration can also protect your company’s integrity as an e-business by defining secure tunnels through the unsecured Internet. In general, when policies can be established and managed with relative ease, there is a much greater chance that the entire enterprise will adhere to them. In this way, SecureWay Software facilitates a more secure and efficient e-business environment.

• Secure: Single Sign-On
  Although it is not an actual standard, single sign-on technology greatly simplifies user access. Users can access any secure resource in the network by entering their credentials—in most cases, just a User ID and password—only once. In addition to the productivity gain, implementing single sign-on technology can significantly reduce maintenance and administrative costs.

A Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
In addition to significantly reducing the cost and complexity of developing and maintaining an e-business, SecureWay Software can help protect it from the elements that can impact your company’s ability to locate, connect, and secure your data, people, and enterprise.

By creating an environment where directory, connectivity, and security work in concert, SecureWay Software provides reliable host integration, access control, and authentication. Although many of the individual functions in SecureWay Software are available from other vendors, these vendors tend to focus on only one or two requirements. In contrast, SecureWay Software provides an overarching scheme that reduces complexity, cost, and risk—helping to create an e-business that can flourish.

For More Information
Visit http://www.ibm.com/software/secureway/