Entrust Technologies Inc, the Canadian public key infrastructure software supplier will today announce a suite of products designed to provide encryption for SAP and PeopleSoft ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications. The products, Entrust Security for SAP and Entrust Security for PeopleSoft, rely on the company’s PKI technologies to provide users with authentication, encryption, digital signatures, single log on across all applications, and smart card integration using digital certificates. The software provides encryption at various levels. It secures transactions between the client and the backend SAP R/3 or PeopleSoft application, between one ERP system and another, between an ERP system and an external system, and between a web interface and an ERP system. For example, a financial controller compiling a purchase order can only access SAP R/3 via PKI authentication. All the data he or she sends to the system is encrypted and anything that passes from R/3 to an outside, third party system, such as a bank, is also encrypted. Also, says Michel Ranger, director of ERP development for Entrust, being able to encrypt transactional data reduces costs since it can then be sent over the internet rather than having to use expensive, private, leased lines. Entrust said its ERP product portfolio will be packaged for a number of vertical markets including financial services, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, public sector, federal government, manufacturing and oil and gas. The company will also work with its existing partners, Deloitte and Touche, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to train them to deploy the solutions. Entrust for PeopleSoft is shipping today, and Entrust for SAP is currently in beta and is scheduled to be commercially available in the fourth quarter 1998. These products will be included with the Entrust/PKI application software license at no additional charge. The application software comes in two flavors, client (Entrust Enterprise Desktop) and server (Entrust Authority), and both cost $99.
