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WRQ Announces Continued Growth In U.S. Public Sector
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2004-09-07
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WRQ today announced continued growth in the U.S. public sector, validated by successful security, interoperability and legacy projects for federal, state and local government organizations.
The company also outlined a series of guidelines to help government customers with legacy-intensive environments address critical business and IT requirements.
This week, WRQ is showcasing advanced solutions for secure system interoperability and options for legacy transformation at the FOSE/IRMCO Conference in Cambridge, Maryland, Sept. 7-10, 2004.
Government CIOs and IT administrators must overcome many complex pressures, internal and external, to realize the potential of technology and the enterprise value that the Internet continues to offer. Security is the overriding concern, driven by stringent mandates and complex requirements including those established in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). The need to apply established IT security practices to enterprise architecture software and meet multiple standards, such as for authentication and encryption, are a few of the many complicated security requirements government organizations face today. Other challenges include:
-- Building department or agency enterprise architecture, per Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) guidelines and requirements
-- Exchanging information between agencies and vendors with ease
-- Fulfilling citizen demands for real-time online services
-- Leveraging existing investments
-- Managing mixed skill sets among new users and personnel
-- Modernizing large-scale IT infrastructures
-- Complying with government mandates
Public sector entities are overcoming these challenges to leverage information technology and the Web in new and important ways to improve operational effectiveness, business efficiency and customer services.
Advanced technologies, such as web services and Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI), as well as innovative and cost-effective solutions for optimizing existing technologies, such as service oriented architecture (SOA) and legacy extension platforms, are some of the factors contributing to progress in government IT transformation. Increased cooperation among vendors and between the private and public sector is also a propelling factor.
Because of the legacy-intensive nature of most government IT environments and the fact that an estimated 70 percent of business data resides on mainframes, extending the value of legacy applications is a priority for public sector organizations.
Enterprise-wide requirements can be undertaken without uprooting the infrastructure that forms the backbone of daily operations. WRQ advises government customers to consider incremental approaches when building on legacy system assets; focused and specific projects can often be accomplished quickly, help mitigate risk, facilitate fast ROI, and help lay the groundwork for more complex integration initiatives. A practical and accepted starting point across the industry is to provide users in the field, branch offices and mobile workers, with secure, remote access to internal network resources. The following guidelines may be useful for both evaluating and executing legacy enhancement projects:
-- Assess security requirements upfront and evaluate vendors and their offerings against this mission-critical priority
-- Compare functionality of and dependencies on existing applications against new applications in development
-- Determine the needs and practices of users by identifying their skill sets and the frequency with which they connect to and use network resources
-- Ensure that vendors and partners have necessary expertise in host systems and understand compliance requirements
-- Maintain a constant focus on interoperability with other products, systems and applications as well as new ones; aim for seamless transactions
WRQ's Government Sector Expertise
WRQ(R) solutions and expertise serve a variety of public sector customers in the United States and Europe. In the United States, WRQ government customers include: Department of Defense, Defense Information Systems Agency, Internal Revenue Service, Navy Marine Corps, Raytheon, Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services, Government Procurement Office, Veterans Administration, Delaware Division of Revenue, and the Postal Service. In Europe, government customers include, DWP, La Poste, and UWV. Details on select customer successes include:
-- Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) - selected by EDS to provide a standard solution for Windows-based host access and PC/UNIX integration. WRQ is a member of the EDS-led NMCI Information Strike Force (ISF).
-- Raytheon - developed a web service within a .NET development environment that tied its mission-critical host applications to a new web-based material tracking application. Raytheon has saved $8.6 million to date with expected savings of $26 million over the next four years.
-- Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services - helped adapt 25 years of mainframe logic and data to provide web self-support. The solution, delivered in four weeks, helped the agency slash license-processing times by 75 percent and saved $260,000 in programming and legacy storage costs.
-- Delaware Division of Revenue (DOR) - facilitated reduced caller wait times by integrating and "webifying" multiple 3270 screens. The services-oriented approach to host integration provided building blocks for subsequent initiatives.
WRQ Verastream and WRQ Reflection
WRQ Verastream integration server provides a single solution with an adaptable SOA approach for reusing legacy logic and data in web applications, CRM applications or portals. WRQ Reflection software provides a complete range of terminal-emulation and PC X server solutions for local and remote users including advanced migration, administration and automation tools.
About the Author:
SecurityProNews is a daily online and email publication focusing on internet security issues.
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