Overview

If a "7 11" is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the door?

Nick Featherman

Security, scalability, synchrony, and speed are the vital "four Ss" for maintaining a successful corporate portal with synchrony in this context referring to the art and science of keeping portal content up-to-date, accurate, coordinated, and linked. The need for robust, fail-safe security measures to safeguard portal resources and the other IT systems accessible from the portal is obvious and inescapable. Despite the billions of dollars spent to bolster Internet security during the past few years, nobody as yet feels safe or invincible. The widespread denial-of-service attacks in 2000, instigated through various packet-flooding schemes, are still vivid in the minds of all those who were impacted. Reports of new e-mail borne viruses and worms are unceasing and always disquieting. IT departments are now in a constant state of high alert, nervously awaiting news of the next attack.

Though security is paramount, corporations can no longer afford to be totally cut off and isolated from the Internet because of fears of potential attacks. For a start, there is too much to lose. The advantages of the Internet information access, near zero-cost bandwidth, unprecedented global reach, universal e-mail are unique, manifold, and far-reaching. Furthermore, the currently ongoing development of Web services is going to make the business-related functionality available on the Web even greater and more incisive.

Ten years ago companies could not function without fax machines. Business partners and customers always wanted to...