InterSystems Corporation yesterday introduced technology additions to its InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database. Available now in CACHÉ 2009, the new features provide enhanced web services security, reporting, and system management and monitoring.

In the area of web services security, CACHÉ 2009 extends its support for the WS-Security 1.1 standard. Standards in this area are evolving quickly, observes Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems vice president of Strategic Planning. "Web services and the security capabilities are a really hot topic for us right now. We see a lot of activity in that area and the technology is hard for people to understand," he tells 5 Minute Briefing. InterSystems' implementation of WS-Security 1.1 enables development of pragmatic, easy-to-create, highly secure web services that can be rapidly completed while ensuring standard adherence. As a result, critical security features including digital signatures, key encryption, creation of X.509 certificates and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) assertion tokens are easily and quickly implemented.

Providing enhanced reporting, new Zen reports built into CACHÉ are intended to eliminate reliance on expensive external reporting tools. With the new release, developers have easy access to advanced reporting capabilities and IT departments can achieve cost savings. Reports can be generated in HTML, .PDF and PostScript formats and can be viewed in a browser or printed in hardcopy form. Changes can be developed rapidly to ensure fast response to user requests for new reports. "This is really a key feature. A lot of the people who are producing applications with our technology in the past might have used third-party reporting tools," notes Grabscheid, stating that those have become increasingly expensive and complex. According to Grabscheid, they are looking for something that is easy to use, powerful and affordable "and our technology fits the bill there."

In the third major segment of enhancements, CACHÉ 2009 provides new features to make system management more comprehensive as well as easier to implement. "What we are seeing is larger and larger deployments of our products-often multiple servers, and multiple geographic locations-and customers are looking for easier ways to monitor and manage a large number of systems with, unfortunately, often fewer people," Grabscheid observes. New levels of validation, increased documentation, and more extensive system information are now available to ensure that system configuration is valid and that integrity is maintained. The IPv6 standard has been implemented and database truncation to enable recapturing needed space, an embeddable installation process to simplify system provisioning and user interface improvements for the system management portal are also included.

For more information about InterSystems CACHÉ, go here.