In the age of connectivity, security relies on a bunch of disconnected technologies: antivirus, firewalls, intrusion detection, systems management, access controls, encryption, etc. The biggest challenge for an application vendor like webMethods is to make these various layers of protection work . . .
In the age of connectivity, security relies on a bunch of disconnected technologies: antivirus, firewalls, intrusion detection, systems management, access controls, encryption, etc. The biggest challenge for an application vendor like webMethods is to make these various layers of protection work together... and then make them work with our own (non-security) products. At the same time, we have to face the fact that many security products are becoming irrelevant because of protocol tunneling.

The other major challenge is the impact of protocol tunneling. For example, our B2B product sends XML documents over HTTP and HTTPS as a means of bypassing controls imposed by firewalls on other protocols. HTTP, which was designed as an application protocol, is becoming the lingua franca of transport protocols. Because HTTP passes through firewalls unimpeded, it is replacing TCP.