SC Magazine Rates Forum Sentry Product Five Stars

What's the difference between a Security Gateway product and a Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)? Security!  You never let users develop and deploy custom code in a gateway.  Custom SOA functionality is better suited for ESBs or application servers.  Deploying such functionality in a SOA/XML gateway is fraught with risk.  It breaks the key paradigm of separating security from application functionality.  Security functionality should never be coded by an enterprise, it should only be configured.

Question: When was the last time you dropped custom code in your firewall?

The SC Magazine Product review of Forum Sentry, the leading security gateway in the industry validates this Security vs. ESB notion by choosing Sentry as the only SOA/XML gateway in the security product review category.  Other gateways are merely application servers or ESBs with prepackaged security functionally that can be readily by-passed by the custom code that they run.

For detailed product review see:  SC Magazine Forum Sentry

SaaS provider hooks frats to Facebook with help from SOA appliances

James Denman's article shows a real-world example of how social media such as Facebook and SOA have converged.  Web Portals now use rich content from a variety of sources and providers.  Users are now not only expecting Web SSO, but also direct integration of their social media content with corporate services.  The Facebook integration used for SSO highlights how SOA, SSO and Social media are now central to corporate IT services.

A Software as a Service (SaaS) provider specializing in financial and information services for Greek fraternal organizations has tapped into Facebook to provide its fraternity and sorority users with easier updates to information. At the same time, it has tapped into a rack-mounted SOA appliance to provide security and federation services. 

OmegaFi is a SaaS specialist that offers a range of services tailored to the Greek crowd. OmegaFi was founded on chapter and alumni management tools but the portfolio has grown to include fundraising tools as well as information management services. 

Forum Systems, a maker of security and identity management appliances for SOA systems, has been a part of OmegaFi's recent growth. According to OmegaFi CIO John Woolbright, Forum's Sentry XML gateway appliance has been instrumental. Woolbright said in a statement, "After collaborating with us to meet the requirements of a three-month proof-of-concept project, we selected Forum Systems as our provider of choice for security and federation."

For full article, see:  SaaS provider hooks frats to Facebook with help from SOA appliances.