DataPower Technology Inc. last week announced an XML security appliance and a major customer for it. DataPowers XS40 appliance combines XML processing performance enhancements with security features.
DataPower, based in Cambridge, Mass., also announced a deal with RouteOne LLC, a joint venture of DaimlerChrysler Services, Ford Motor Credit Co., GMAC and Toyota Financial Services. RouteOne, in Southfield, Mich., will use the XS40 XML Security Gateway to secure its credit application management system.
Eugene Kuznetsov, who is the founder, president and chief technology officer at DataPower, said that the XS40 is the second member of the companys XML-aware networking appliance family. The gateway follows the XS35 XML Accelerator, which addresses the performance of XML applications.
“Were now getting into the security space,” Kuznetsov said. The company plans to address XML “performance, security and management,” he said.
Kuznetsov said XML security specifications require extra processing—specifications such as Web Services-Security, Security Assertion Markup Language, XML Encryption, XML Signature and others—and could force some enterprises to choose between performance and security.
While enhancing performance, Kuznetsov said, the XS40 features XML/SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) encryption, filtering, digital signatures and data validation at the message or XML field levels. The appliance also features service virtualization, Secure Sockets Layer acceleration, XML Web services access control, XML/SOAP routing and centralized policy management.
To help test the capabilities of the XS40, DataPower contracted with a digital security consultancy, @Stake Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass. Christopher Darby, CEO of @Stake, said the XS40 passed the test for providing XML Web services security.
RouteOne, which built its online loan application on XML and Web services, needed a security solution and chose the XS40 after looking at other options, said Joel Gruber, CIO at RouteOne.
T.N. Subramaniam, IT chief architect at RouteOne, said the company looked at several XML security software solutions and at least one other appliance. But “the software solutions were too slow for the volumes we were talking about,” Subramaniam said. The other appliance didnt cut it, either, he said.
RouteOne selected XS40 for its scalability, strong Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations support and the tools use of “standard technology, which allowed us to make a number of tweaks without relying on DataPower,” Subramaniam said.