A new White Paper, Securing Your Business, has been published by The Open Group, Cambridge, MA., and is available electronically at www.rdg.opengroup.org/public/tech/security/backgrnd.htm. Issues relating to security in the enterprise are of significant interest to The Open Group and represent one of the most active areas of research and publishing at the organization. "Security and Electronic Commerce" is one of The Open Group's Technical Focus Areas, and is directed by Dean Adams, the author of the White Paper (d.adams@opengroup.org).
White Paper Overview
The White Paper's Overview states: "Organizations worldwide have increasingly come to depend on open systems based computing systems to help manage their operations and to transact business with trading partners. With this dependence comes the growing concern over security."Solutions for dealing with security issues have been fragmented and inconsistent, resulting in higher costs to both end user organizations and to hardware and software vendors. Lengthy and expensive evaluations, a plethora of incompatible security products and the lack of clearly defined standards have led to wasted duplication of effort and have slowed the globalization of electronic trade.
"This document discusses the security challenges posed by standalone, distributed and public network-based computing environments and the opportunities offered to end users and vendors by the evolving standards-based solutions developed by The Open Group.
"Customers are a vital force in the development of these new solutions. Together with the leading systems and software suppliers, over 150 of the world's largest enterprises form an effective working partnership to ensure that the right combination of features are provided, and that both standard specifications and technology are fit for purpose."
White Paper Contents
Separate chapters form the contents of the White Paper as below:
- Security and Open Systems Computing
- Security at the System Level
- Operating Securely in a Distributed Environment
- Trading on an Open Public Network
- Open Technology
- Summary
Anyone dealing with enterprise security and electronic commerce should avail themselves of this White Paper. For more information about the other documents and activities of the Security and Electronic Commerce Focus Area at The Open Group, go on-line to www.opengroup.org, and click on the Technical Focus Areas icon.