Data integrity and privacy

The privacy and integrity of data that is accessed when WebSphere Process Server processes are invoked is critical to your security.

Data privacy and data integrity are closely related concepts.

Privacy

Privacy means that it should not be possible for an unauthorized user to intercept and read data.

Integrity

Integrity means that it should not be possible for an unauthorized user to alter data.

Solutions provided in WebSphere Process Server

WebSphere Process Server supports two widely used solutions for data privacy and integrity:
  • Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. SSL uses a handshake to authenticate the end points and exchange information that is used to generate the session key that will be used by the end points for encryption and decryption. SSL is a synchronous protocol and is suitable for point to point communication. SSL requires that the two end points maintain a connection with each other for the duration of the SSL session.
  • WS-Security. This standard defines Simple Object Access Control (SOAP) extensions for securing SOAP messages. WS-Security adds support for authentication, integrity, and privacy for a single SOAP message. Unlike SSL, there is no handshake to establish a session key. This makes WS-Security suitable for securing messages in an asynchronous environment, such as SOAP over Java Message Service (JMS) or SOAP over Service Integration Bus (SIB).
In a business integration environment with multiple systems interacting with one another, it is likely that some of the communication will be asynchronous. Therefore, in most instances, WS-Security is the superior solution.

Last updated: Tue 24 Oct 2006 22:01:09

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