Choosing the right XML security appliance

As companies embark on efforts to build loosely coupled service-oriented architectures they inevitably have to tackle the issue of securing their SOA service infrastructure, and many turn to XML security appliances to get the job done.

Why choose an XML appliance to protect and safely expose your SOA data services to customers, partners and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors? Without dedicated hardware support it is nearly impossible to withstand denial-of-service attacks and to provide the high availability necessary to ensure data confidentiality, integrity and nonrepudiation.

XML security appliances are typically positioned in the demilitarized zone between two firewalls and become the only device visible to outside clients. The appliance acts as a proxy and performs all necessary security operations, including SSL socket termination, credential validation and data verification.