Reactivity Inc. today upgraded its XML operating system software to provide better XML Web services message and identity processing capabilities and extensibility. Reactivity XOS also supports Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA), Microsoft Office Bridge Framework (IBF) and proven Liberty Alliance-conformant SAML 2.0.

Along with XOS 4.3, Reactivity today also introduced a software development kit (SDK) program designed to help enterprise developers, system integrators, and independent software vendors (ISVs) create secure extensions to Reactivity's XML infrastructure.

Aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins uses Reactivity Gateways to ensure secure transfer of content with customers and suppliers. "We have traditionally taken a very conservative approach to sharing information over the Internet," said Shawn Furgason, manager of Web delivery for Rockwell Collins. "We use our Reactivity Gateway to inspect message content as messages come in, to inspect the integrity of messages and be able to route them into our backend systems."

According to Andrew Nash, CTO of Reactivity, XOS 4.3, in conjunction with Identity Insight, Reactivity's privacy and compliance solution, ensures rapid integration and mediation of identities accessing XML-based Web services by providing greater breadth of authentication tokens and mechanisms.

In addition, IWA enables organizations to use their existing Reactivity Gateways to mediate between the authentication credentials received from Windows-based desktop systems, and the authentication requirements of virtually any backend system offering Web services, eliminating the need for Windows users to re-authenticate themselves.

By supporting the Office IBF, Reactivity Gateways make it easier for in-house developers and IT staff to build solutions that provide information workers with access to data such as sales numbers, inventory figures, customer information, and other business data via Web services from within familiar Microsoft Office programs, according to the company.

Compliance with Liberty Alliance SAML 2.0 allows companies to seamlessly apply and integrate federated identity to their XML Web services initiatives. XOS 4.3 also adds WS-Trust, Kerberos, and RADIUS support to the SAML, X.509, username/password, and basic authentication support Reactivity Gateways already offer as well as compression/decompression capabilities through PKZIP and support for leading anti-virus scanning of XML attachments.

The Reactivity XOS 4.3 is available now for the Reactivity Gateway 2400 Series family including the XML Security Gateway, SOA Gateway, Manager, and Gateway-D.