Sun Poised To Unveil New Security Strategy

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January 08, 1998, TechWeb News

Sun Poised To Unveil New Security Strategy
By Rutrell Yasin

Sun Microsystems will unveil its secure business network strategy at the RSA Conference in San Francisco next week.

As part of the strategy, Sun plans to bundle its firewall, remote access, and server security applications into a single software package called SunScreen Secure Net.

Included in the SunScreen Secure Net package are new versions of SunScreen EFS 2.0, SunScreen SKIP, and Sun Security Manager 4.4 The company will also provide users with a variety of new service options through its Global Security Consulting and Integration Services, according to Walt O'Maley, senior product marketing manager for security at Sun.

SunScreen EFS 2.0 sports new high-availability features and faster performance as well as a Java-based graphical user interface, which makes it easier to manage networked firewalls. The new version of SunScreen SKIP -- Sun's authentication, encryption, and key management application for intranets and extranets -- provides client cryptography for Windows 95 and Windows NT systems. The bundling of Security Manager into Secure Net gives users built-in server protection, according to Sun officials.

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There's a major shift in the way companies perceive security today, said O' Maley. Companies are no longer looking at firewalls as "the traffic cop at the perimeter" of the network. Instead, companies want to secure their entire infrastructure, he said.

To address this demand, Sun plans to embed security software into the Solaris operating environment so security will be a standard feature on all Solaris servers by mid-1998. By the end of the year, Sun will announce the integration of security technology with the Solstice network management system and Sun's Internet directory, O'Maley said.

SunScreen Secure Net will be available in March on Solaris, SPARC, or Intel systems and supports Windows 95 clients and Windows NT network nodes.

SunScreen Secure Net for Workgroups with 100 nodes costs $2,999; SunScreen Secure Net for unlimited nodes costs $9,995.