Sun Seeks Secure Collaboration

Sun Microsystems introduced improvements to safeguard

its Java System Communications software suite, trumpeting the company’s

participation in the RSA Conference this week.

The communications package is Sun’s version of an enterprise collaboration

package, providing e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging. The suite already

comes with several security utilities, including authentication,

authorization, session encryption and content filtering.

But officials for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun said in a statement the

suite’s applications feature better user privacy perks to shore up network

defenses and help businesses stay atop compliance rules.

For example, the suite now supports the Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail

Extensions (S/MIME) security protocol in its Communications Express Web client,

allowing users to sign and encrypt messages.

The delegated administrator tool now uses the Java System Access Manager for

policy-based management, which dictates what user has access to what

applications or networks. This makes it possible for IT departments to

decide what users can or can’t do on hosted domains.

Compliance and record retention policies are the main reason protecting

e-mail and other files is top of mind for many businesses. The new rules,

such as Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA, require e-mail files be saved and

unaltered for specific periods of time.

Security and compliance are taking center stage at the RSA Conference in San

Francisco this week, where IBM and Microsoft will join Sun and a slew of

vendors making security-oriented announcements.

To meet compliance standards, Sun’s e-mail server now supports the NFS

protocol, created by Sun to provide access to shared files from

disparate computers. This means the software can now integrate with products

like Network Appliance’s SnapLock software, allowing users to store and

secure e-mail without the threat of deletion or alteration.

Lastly, Sun has enlisted the help of Symantec to provide a software bundle

that combines high-performance message processing with protection. The

software enables Sun’s e-mail server to work with Symantec’s AntiVirus Scan

Engine, so that e-mails that contain viruses can be detected and removed

from the messaging system before infiltrating users’ inboxes.

The upgraded Java System Communications suite is just one piece of a

security puzzle Sun has been trying to solve since the start of 2005,

underscoring the notion that security is the top priority among both e-mail

administrators and CIOs concerned about compliance.

Last month, the company unveiled

the Sun Compliance and Content Management Solution to help companies better

comply with rules, as well as the Identity

Auditor, a software tool that lets customers create an identity trail.