CORRECTING and REPLACING Actional Unveils New Web Services Management Platform.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers CORRECTION...by Business Wire MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 8, 2003 In BW5272 issued Sept. 29, 2003: Fifth graph, end of second sentence in release dated Sept. 29, 2003 should read: said Bill Robins, an analyst at The Stencil stencil, cutout device of oiled or shellacked tough and resistant paper, thin metal, or other material used in applying paint, dye, or ink to reproduce its design or lettering upon a surface. Group. (sted: said Sandra Rogers, director of web services (1) Loosely, any online service delivered over the Web. Such usage appears in articles from non-technical sources, but not in IT-oriented publications, because definition #2 below describes the correct use of the term. and integration software at IDC). The corrected release reads: ACTIONAL UNVEILS NEW WEB SERVICES MANAGEMENT PLATFORM ADDS XML FIREWALL First brought to market by Forum Systems, an XML firewall is a specialized firewall used to provide security for XML messaging such as Web services. XML firewalls are types of XML appliances that are separated from internal computer systems and frequently reside in an CAPABILITIES, AUTOMATED RESPONSE TO CHANGING WEB SERVICE RUN-TIME CONDITIONS AND A BROWSER-BASED SERVICE MONITORING PORTAL Actional Corporation, the Web services management market-share leader, today announced significant enhancements across its entire Web services management platform. The new release includes Actional SOAPstation(TM) 5.0, Actional Looking Glass Looking Glass - A desktop manager for Unix from Visix. (TM) 5.0, updates to its line of Actional Active Agents(TM) and two new products -- Actional SOAPstation Edge(TM) and the Actional MyServices(TM) Portal. Actional SOAPstation Edge adds full-featured XML firewall capabilities to the Web service brokering facilities of Actional SOAPstation -- providing customers an option for lowering the cost and increasing the security of Web services delivered across organizational boundaries. Actional MyServices Portal is a browser-based dashboard providing highly customizable views for monitoring Web service activity and SLA (1) (StereoLithography Apparatus) See 3D printing. (2) (Service Level Agreement) A contract between the provider and the user that specifies the level of service expected during its term. compliance. Actional is also introducing sophisticated automation technology, dubbed dub 1 tr.v. dubbed, dub·bing, dubs 1. To tap lightly on the shoulder by way of conferring knighthood. 2. To honor with a new title or description. 3. Actional Service Stabilizer stabilizer: see airplane. (TM), to help identify and automatically correct undesirable Web service and service-based application operating conditions before they become problems that ripple through the service network, potentially causing widespread system and application failures. "As Web services move into the mainstream, organizations are increasingly looking to extend those services outside the enterprise for greater leverage and ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). . Companies such as Actional are introducing technology to address specific management and security infrastructure needs to enable these efforts," said Bill Robins, an analyst at The Stencil Group. "By providing visibility and processing at the services layer, this type of technology may allow organizations to move closer toward designing predictive and self-adjusting environments." Equipped with these practical tools and advanced new features, organizations can better implement Web services today, while laying a foundation for end-to-end service-oriented management as their Web services initiatives grow and evolve. Actional SOAPstation Edge Actional's newest addition to its Web services management platform, SOAPstation Edge, provides secure Web services interaction with Web services providers or consumers residing on systems beyond the enterprise boundary. SOAPstation Edge provides Web services brokering at the edge of the network, along with the rich security features of an XML firewall, including verification of message integrity, assurance of message privacy and message-based authentication (1) Verifying the integrity of a transmitted message. See message integrity, e-mail authentication and MAC. (2) Verifying the identity of a user logging into a network. and authorization. As a complete edge-of-network Web services security offering, SOAPstation Edge gives customers a lower-cost, higher-performance alternative to serial deployment of XML firewall and Web service broker offerings. SOAPstation Edge improves service network performance by parsing See parse. parsing - parser an in-flight XML XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML's limitations. document one time and eliminates a hop in the flow of that message. SOAPstation Edge also enables organizations to leverage the synergies that exist between security policy and management policy -- for example, making routing decisions based on the authenticated au·then·ti·cate tr.v. au·then·ti·cat·ed, au·then·ti·cat·ing, au·then·ti·cates To establish the authenticity of; prove genuine: a specialist who authenticated the antique samovar. sender of a Web service request. And as part of the Actional Web Services Management Platform, SOAPstation Edge is an active participant in a complete solution for end-to-end service-oriented security and management. The entire Actional 5.0 platform, including SOAPstation Edge, works hand-in-hand with existing centralized cen·tral·ize v. cen·tral·ized, cen·tral·iz·ing, cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate. 2. security policy and identity management systems such as Microsoft Active Directory(R) or Netegrity SiteMinder(R) enforcing the policy as set forth by those systems. Self-Healing Through Actional Service Stabilizer Technology Version 5.0 of the Actional Web services management platform includes sophisticated automation features designed to define expected operating conditions, know immediately when operating conditions fall outside of the desired range and automatically trigger predefined corrective actions A corrective action is a change implemented to address a weakness identified in a management system. Normally corrective actions are instigated in response to a customer complaint, abnormal levels if internal nonconformity, nonconformities identified during an internal audit or that mend the network before business is disrupted. Specifically, IT defines service performance and availability expectations leveraging a wide variety of statistical and performance data such as average response time, number of concurrent requests, failure rates, service availability and dozens of others. Actions are then configured to predefine the automated "self-healing" steps that must take place when conditions deteriorate beyond desired thresholds. For example, these actions could include a change in message routing rules, provisioning of additional service capacity with updates to a load balancer or changes in security policy. When operating conditions return to normal, an additional set of pre-defined actions can automatically unwind Unwind 1. The closure of an investment position. 2. The reconciliation of an error previously unseen by a brokerage house. Notes: 1. Sometimes referred to as closing out a position. previous measures to resume normal operating procedures. Actional Looking Glass MyServices Portal Also new in Actional 5.0 is Actional Looking Glass MyServices Portal, a browser-based, highly configurable dashboard providing tailored views of Web service activity and SLA compliance. Looking Glass MyServices Portal can be configured to provide any individual within the organization - operations, application owners or business managers -- useful information on specific service activity. Views can be constructed showing specific customers, services, agreements and alert categories of interest allowing an individual to limit the amount of information displayed to that set specifically of interest. "Customers continue to inform our product strategy, validating and in some cases redirecting our efforts to deliver solutions relevant to the varying stages of Web service technology adoption in the enterprise," said James Phillips, chief strategist strat·e·gist n. One who is skilled in strategy. Noun 1. strategist - an expert in strategy (especially in warfare) strategian market strategist - someone skilled in planning marketing campaigns and senior vice president of products and marketing at Actional Corporation. "With Actional 5.0 we are extending our solution leadership and offering the clearest path to end-to-end service-oriented management." Availability Actional 5.0 is currently in beta and will be generally available in November 2003. About Actional Corporation Actional is the Web services management market-share leader, committed to helping organizations avoid the cost and complexity of unmanaged Web services deployments. With proven experience at more than 100 Global 2000 customer sites, the company builds the management foundation required to harness the cost and performance benefits promised by Web services and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA (1) (Start Of Authority) The first record in a DNS zone file. See DNS records. (2) (Service Oriented Architecture) The modularization of business functions for greater flexibility and reusability. ). Actional's solutions provide unmatched visibility, flexibility and active control across an enterprise Web services network -- ensuring uptime while dramatically reducing the costs of ongoing Web services management. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion