Apani Networks Joins The Open Group and OASIS to Augment Enterprise Network Security Initiatives
BREA. Calif. – December 7, 2005 – Apani Networks, the leading enterprise network security software provider focused on securing inside the network perimeter, today announced that the company has joined two leading industry organizations dedicated to open standards for software and security. Apani has joined both the Security & Identity Management and Jericho Forums within The Open Group (www.opengroup.org), as well as the Web Services Secure Exchange Technical Committee within OASIS (www.oasis-open.org).
Apani will play an active role in helping to frame the technical specifications and priorities for each organization’s security initiatives, lending its technical expertise and customer experience to support the goals of both The Open Group and OASIS. Apani will leverage its active participation in both groups to ensure that Apani’s products will support and interoperate with The Open Group and OASIS standards-compliant products.
Designed for large distributed deployments, Apani EpiForce secures data-in-motion and protects data-at-rest. Supporting the entire environment irrespective of operating platforms, and controlled centrally, EpiForce enforces security relationships, reports on any attempted unauthorized activity, logically segments the network for defense in depth, and provides an effective audit trail to reduce the overall cost of audit.
“Through our participation in these consortiums, we will be able to more closely address the needs of both our enterprise customers and channel and strategic partners,” said Joe Smith, director of product management, Apani Networks. “We intend to make contributions to these organizations through our expertise, experience and our support for their goals and objectives.”
“Apani Networks’ expertise in enterprise network security inside the network perimeter is a welcome addition to The Open Group,” said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group. “The ability to manage risk and ensure safety, dependability and security of all mission critical systems is key for supporting our members’ vision of Boundaryless Information Flowâ„?”.
The Open Group’s Identity Management Forum focuses on promoting effective, open standards-based identity management, which allows the right information to reach the right people, and is a prerequisite for enabling Boundaryless Information Flowâ„?. As a member, Apani Networks will be active in a wide range of areas, from analyzing requirements to promoting best practices and education. The Open Group’s Security Forum works to raise industry confidence levels by defining standards and guidelines to counter the whole range of security risks and vulnerabilities. The Forum looks at both the business and technical perspectives in its Manager’s and Technical Guides. Apani will actively participate in both working groups in The Open Group.
OASIS Web Services Secure Exchange (WS-SX) Technical Committee brings users and vendors together to refine and finalize specifications based on three initial contributions; WS-SecureConversation, WS-SecurityPolicy and WS-Trust towards completing the Web services security framework.
A set of modular specifications that standardizes the concepts, WSDL documents, and XML Schema renderings for trusted brokering of SOAP message exchanges, shared security contexts, and security policies are some of the goals of this OASIS committee. WS-SecurityPolicy defines general security policies that can be associated with a service. WS-Trust provides a description for managing, establishing and assessing trust relationships between parties exchanging information. WS-SecureConversation serves as a building block to create a secure context for organizations to exchange multiple messages without continually reauthenticating.
Apani will work with these organizations with an eye towards ensuring compatibility for EpiForce with these emerging industry-endorsed standards. EpiForce operates at the network layer, so is transparent to both users and applications, therefore requiring no modification to existing software applications, including CRM, ERP and Inventory tracking systems.
About The Open Group
The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, which drives the creation of Boundaryless Information Flowâ„? that will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry’s premier certification service. Further information on The Open Group can be found at http://www.opengroup.org.
About OASIS
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. The consortium produces more Web services standards than any other organization along with standards for security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries
About Apani Networks
Established in 2003, Apani Networks is the leading enterprise network security software provider focused on securing inside the network perimeter. EpiForce, the company’s flagship product, provides a transparent security layer for networked applications by encrypting data in motion, enforcing machine-level access control and centrally managing security policy relationships. Apani enables corporate IT managers to quickly, automatically and cost effectively lock down their networks, while providing the security and audit trail necessary to demonstrate compliance to the wide range of regulations that affect enterprises today. For more information, visit www.apani.com.