IBM Offers S/390 Customers Wider Safety Net to Conduct e-business
Fishkill, N.Y (February 23, 1998) – IBM today announced the industry’s premier system security for conducting business over the Internet. This leading security comes from a one-two punch of a software/hardware solution integrated with IBM’s flagship enterprise operating system, OS/390, and IBM S/390 Parallel Enterprise servers – Generation 3 and Generation 4.
IBM also announced enhancements to OS/390 that will provide customers with higher levels of performance for UNIX, Web serving and traditional applications, a server consolidation solution for enhanced print server management and improved application development. At the heart of today’s announcement is OS/390 Version 2 Release 5, available in March.
“IBM is now providing enterprise customers with a significantly enhanced secure Web server with the latest release of OS/390,” said David Carlucci, general manager, IBM S/390 Division. “No other platform offers such a wide safety net for intranet, extranet and Internet transactions. By extending our security support to provide extra value to our customers, we have integrated S/390’s existing strengths with new and improved technologies.”
S/390 and the OS/390 operating environment can provide customers with three critical levels of security — network, system and transaction-level security — for e-business applications. S/390’s set of system integrity, resource control, cryptographic and network security features, combined with existing S/390 classic strengths, bring customers a Web-ready server solution with no need to reinvest in a totally new infrastructure to launch e-business applications.
This OS/390 release highlights significant enhancements to the OS/390 security services with the integration of Triple DES (Data Encryption Standard), a high-level data encryption cryptographic standard. IBM’s offering of Triple DES, like standard DES, exploits the
previously announced IBM S/390 cryptographic coprocessor, a hardware-embedded chip standard with the S/390 G4 Server. Triple DES integration is unique within IBM to the S/390 G4 servers. Triple DES is available in accordance with applicable country export regulations.
IBM Offers High Level Data Protection
Triple DES, with the hardware cryptographic coprocessor, is designed to provide customers with exponentially stronger encryption protection than what standard DES or software alone currently offers. Triple DES, critical for financial institutions, is based on DES, a reliable standard for network and information security for the past 20 years.
In addition to Triple DES, IBM today announced extensions to its industry-leading security beyond the OS/390 Security Server, formerly known as Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) and Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), to make it easier for customers to extend their rock-solid security model to e-business and server consolidation. These security enhancements, integrated with OS/390 V. 2 Rel. 5, include the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, digital certificates, hardware cryptography support for the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol and Firewall Technologies.
“IBM has merged the best of what was RACF with the modern security services needed for Web and network computing — all in the standard release of OS/390,” said Jim Hurley, director of information security with Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based consulting group.
“These integrated security services make it possible for users to reuse critical CICS, DB2, IMS and TSO-based applications for critical networked application deployments,” Hurley continued. “By providing an integrated set of security services with the release of OS/390, including firewalls, Web servers, a wide variety of authentication credentials, high speed and high-strength cryptographic services and modern user management tools and interfaces, IBM is defining a new cost-effective envelope for decision makers.”
Source: IBM