Reactivity Firewall Targets XML, Web Services

Reactivity, Inc. on Monday announced a firewall intended to provide security between applications in XML and Web services environments.

The Reactivity Service Firewall obviates the need to include security functions such as authentication and authorization in individual applications. Instead, the functions are performed by the Service Firewall, which is a Linux-based server that sits at the edge of a corporate network behind a traditional firewall.

Reactivity's firewall works with a number of different transport protocols including HTTP, HTTP/S and those specific to various enterprise application integration middleware platforms such as IBM MQSeries and Tibco, says Glenn Osaka, president and CEO of Reactivity, based in Belmont, Calif.

The firewall converts messages into a normalized format, enabling it to apply predefined policies. It can then push the message along using the same or a different transport protocol.

The idea is that companies that want to conduct business with each other electronically can point their applications at the firewall, which will handle authentication, authorization and routing chores. That makes it easier to scale applications to handle multiple partners, obviating the need to modify all applications each time a new application or partner is added. The product works with multiple authentication mechanisms, from simple username and password to digital certificates.

Each Service Firewall can handle about 200 messages per second, Osaka says, and multiple firewalls can be grouped together behind a load balancer for added capacity, up to thousands of messages per second.

In announcing a firewall intended to address users employing Web services, Reactivity joins companies including Forum Systems, which last month announced a similar offering.