CUPERTINO, Calif., Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent survey of senior IT managers, consultants and architects has revealed that deployments of external-facing Web services are keeping pace with internal deployments and are prompting organizations to consider a broader approach to service-oriented architecture (SOA) security. Sponsored by Oblix, a leading developer of identity-based security solutions, the survey found that 43 percent of respondents believe that applying the principles of identity management to Web services will help meet their Web services security requirements. Furthermore, 72 percent believe that it is mission-critical or important to integrate their Web services security solution with their Web access management solution.

Organizations are using Web services extensively in production environments today and are exposing services to internal consumers and external constituents at a similar rate of deployment. But security concerns around deploying Web services externally are prevalent and are preventing 42 percent of survey respondents from deploying an even larger number of external-facing Web services. While most respondents felt that XML perimeter security was an important component of the security equation for Web services, more than twice as many considered access control security mechanisms important for Web services security.

Other key findings from the survey include:

-- Securing Web services traffic is considered the most important aspect of Web services management (58 percent), while monitoring follows second at 21 percent.

-- 82 percent of respondents believe Web services security needs to be the same or greater in complexity for what was implemented when securing Web applications.

-- Among Web services related technologies, Web services management tools are the most likely to be evaluated within the next year.

-- More than 75 percent of organizations define and manage security policies for Web services centrally.

The research was based on a survey of more than 260 IT professionals and was conducted in December 2004 and January 2005. Respondents represented more than 22 industries, and the majority of the respondents were from companies that had at least 5,000 employees with annual revenue of more than $500 million.

"The survey clearly shows that Web services security is not a hypothesized problem for the future, but, in fact, a real-world problem today," said Ken Sims, vice president of business development and marketing, Oblix. "What respondents to this survey are clearly telling us is that they want the same level of control and security provided by traditional identity and access control solutions for Web services too. By implementing a comprehensive Web services management and security solution across the enterprise, companies will be better equipped to help meet regulatory compliance requirements and maintain high levels of visibility and control."

The complete survey results are available from the Oblix Web site at: http://www.oblix.com/reply/wsmsurvey/ .

About Oblix

Oblix powers many of the world's largest Web portals and extranets. As a leading provider of identity-based security solutions, Oblix offers policy-driven identity and Web services management along with federated access control and single sign-on to both enterprise and partner applications. By providing a central means to securely connect users to applications, and applications to one another, Oblix reduces the cost, complexity, and risk of managing identities helping companies meet today's regulatory compliance and security requirements. Corporations around the world rely on Oblix to meet their identity needs, including American Airlines, AXA Financial, British Airways, Carlson Companies, CEMEX, the Chicago Board of Trade, Cisco Systems, General Motors, Hitachi, Kaiser Permanente, Norsk Hydro, Northern Trust, Tellabs, US Bank, the United States Postal Service, Washington Mutual and many more. To learn more, visit http://www.oblix.com/.

Contact Information: Courtney Hohne Wynn White OutCast Communications Oblix, Inc. 415-392-8282 408-861-6883 courtney@outcastpr.comhite@oblix.com

CONTACT: Wynn White of Oblix, Inc., +1-408-861-6883, or
wwhite@oblix.com; or Courtney Hohne of OutCast Communications,
+1-415-392-8282, or courtney@outcastpr.com, for Oblix, Inc.

Web site: http://www.oblix.com/