Sun Microsystems has announced the release of its implementation of the new XACML OASIS Open Standard for security under an open source licence. XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) contributes to the simplification and cost reduction of developing secure Web services -- or any application that requires secure access control.
The announcement demonstrates Sun's leadership role in the development of open standards and underscores its continuing investment in the security space.
"The advancement of Web services opens significant challenges in terms of security. With its XACML implementation, Sun provides a necessary improvement to Web services security and, notably, security interoperability," says Tarun Pranjivan, security ambassador for Sun Microsystems SA.
The XACML language is anticipated to be pivotal in creating an open source community around Web services technology and, says Pranjivan, will play an important part in the development of future Sun products.
Sun's XACML implementation was developed by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) within Sun Microsystems Laboratories and could have a far-reaching impact on enterprise security as well as developer productivity.
"As XACML replaces the current patchwork of proprietary access control policy languages, administrators will no longer need to learn many security languages and translate policies between them. Neither will software developers have to invent their own languages and write custom code to support them as they do today. This will result in time and cost savings," explains Pranjivan.
"Sun's decision to release an Open Source implementation of XACML 1.0 is both important and timely, and will certainly encourage rapid adoption of this standard," says Carlisle Adams, principal architect, advanced security, at Entrust, Inc.
"Governments and businesses will benefit from the availability of this code because they will immediately be able to incorporate fully-compliant XACML 1.0 implementations into the comprehensive authorisation architectures they deploy," adds Adams.
Sun's release of this code under an open source (modified BSD) licence coincides with the approval of the XACML standard by OASIS, the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. It is aimed at jump-starting the adoption of this standard throughout the open source and commercial software development communities. To download this code, go to http://sunxacml.sourceforge.net.
Share
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.
XACML
XACML, eXtensible Access Control Markup Language is a specification for expressing policies in XML for information access over the Internet. The XACML specification was developed by OASIS, which announced today that XACML has been approved as an OASIS Open Standard, the highest level of ratification. This language is expected to simplify and streamline enterprise access control. For more information about OASIS, go to http://www.oasis-open.org.
Editorial contacts