03/29/2004

Inovis, a provider of business commerce automation solutions, launched SecureLink, a new component in the BizManager product family, which the vendor says is “a comprehensive solution for connecting entire trading partner communities.”

With today’s renewed emphasis on protecting sensitive data and infrastructures, more private, public and government organizations are implementing advanced security solutions, INovis notes. “BizManager SecureLink fulfills the strict security requirements of financial institutions, healthcare and government organizations and the most demanding security requirements of suppliers and retailers in the supply chain,” Inovis says.

“Security is arguably one of the most important requirements for data transmitted over the Internet,” said Frank Kenney, research analyst at Gartner, Inc. “With the movement to the Internet for EDI, enterprises are concerned about the security of sensitive information — including, but not limited to, patient identifiable data, sensitive military logistical information and data that may be of interest to competitors.”

Inovis adds, “BizManager has provided the industry-leading Relay Server component, which relays inbound AS2 messages to BizManager in a protected zone behind the firewall, for several years. Like the Relay Server, SecureLink runs on a server in an isolated infrastructure layer, which is separate from the internal network where BizManager is implemented. SecureLink incorporates configurable security rules, services and enhanced file-transfer technology that regulate the inbound and outbound flow of electronic messages exchanged over the Internet via secure transport standards such as EDI-INT AS2, ebXML, HTTP and FTP.”

“The most effective and efficient of today’s electronic trading networks depend on the exchange of highly valuable, often proprietary company and product information,” said Michael Croxton, senior vice president of marketing for Inovis. “SecureLink bolsters collaboration and communication initiatives by ensuring trading partners have the utmost confidence in the integrity and reliability of their business commerce infrastructures.”

According to Inovis, “Some of SecureLink’s advanced features include the ability to pre-screen incoming AS2 messages to protect internal BizManager systems from external threats. SecureLink can also be configured so that messages and documents are not pushed to internal systems. Instead, BizManager checks SecureLink for new messages and pulls the new messages into BizManager. SecureLink and BizManager can also respond to AS2 messages with asynchronous or synchronous message disposition notifications (MDN). SecureLink includes security certificate administration, an integrated FTP server, FTP Proxy, FTP and HTTP reverse and forward proxy services. SecureLink also delivers configurable load balancing and fall-back capabilities for redundancy.”