Digital Evolution Inc. will on July 28 begin shipping what it calls its identity-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) management platform.
The Digital Evolution Service Manager 2.3.2 is positioned as a Web services and SOA management offering, with Digital Evolution managing the SOA and linking to a third-party identity management system to provide security, the company said. Service Manager secures and manages XML and Web services applications and components across distributed enterprise and extranet environments, according to Digital Evolution.
“We delegate the management of identities to a third-party system like Netegrity SiteMinder or IBM Tivoli Access Manager,” said Ian Goldsmith, vice-president of product marketing at Digital Evolution.
Service Manager tracks service-level agreements (SLAs) while the identity management system verifies identities. A user logging into a Web site, for example, could be tracked for regulatory reasons, Goldsmith said. The consumer of a Web service will be authenticated against the identity management system.
Identity management capabilities are needed in SOAs as users begin exposing Web services outside the company firewall, according to Digital Evolution. Effective identity-based SOA management integrates the concept of identity with management functions including SLAs, auditing and billing, and services provisioning, Digital Evolution said.
Service Manager enables provisioning of access to and performance levels of a service based on the user and application accessing it. Additionally, the company’s approach features the concept of application identity for service provisioning, protection and management.
Digital Evolution’s approach, while not unique, does address a growing need for a single point of management over Web services that combines security and service-level management, said James Kobielus, senior analyst at the Burton Group, in an e-mail response to questions.
“Every user, service, and application has an identity, and every identity has various policies associated with it. It only makes sense to integrate Web services management and Web identity management products, because both types of products enforce policies through ‘agent’ software deployed as intermediary nodes in a SOAP-messaging Web services environment,” Kobielus said.
“Both types of products should be able to leverage a common identity and policy store, and common identity and policy administration tools,” Kobielus said.
Oblix is taking a similar path as Digital Evolution. Oblix on Wednesday is unveiling Coresv 4.0, a new version of the company’s services management platform that features integration with the company’s Coreid identity management system.