Hewlett-Packard Co will this week unveil the second version of its Praesidium Web-based Authorization Server and more complete looking package of service and tools partners. Authorization Server is one part of HP’s Praesidium security strategy, which is derived from its acquisition last year of SecureWare Inc, which helped a B1-level secure version of HP-UX with HP. The whole package comprises Authorization Server, an applications security server, smart card technology, the VirtualVault Trusted Gateway and electronic commerce system (CI No 3,006) and International Cryptography Framework software. The Imagine smart cards, produced along with Gemplus SA and Informix Corp will be rolled out early next year, which will encrypt data using the crytography framework. This part is more political and the encryption involved will obviously need government approval, and at the moment it’s just HP backing it, according to Praesidium product manager Sean Leonard. VirtualVault is already out and being used by numerous banks. The Authorization server works with the applications authentication server to handle applications security, whereas VirtualVault deals only with financial security and e-commerce. The new version introduces so-called secure Web pages and browser-based administration. It secures the pages at the URL level and then at the command level, so that commands within a Web page can be grayed out so the visitor cannot activate them. The browser-based administration is another step on the road to the server being managed through OpenView, and that will happen by the year-end, said Leonard. Netscape Communications Corp has endorsed it for use with its FastTrack servers, and Microsoft also gave its blessing for the Unix-to-NT collaboration. Other partners include Nortel, Texas Instruments, Antares, Passport and Forte and there’s four systems integrators plus HP’s own PSO services arm. The database underneath at the moment is Informix, but HP and Oracle Corp are working on a version of the latter’s WebServer. Authorization Server 2.0 is out December 1 on Windows 3.x, NT 3.51, HP-UX, Solaris, and AIX for between $35,000 and $50,000 per server.
