OSBF Interoperability project group realizes secure cloud computing with the Internet Service Bus

Nuremberg/Hanover, 4 March 2009 +++ The Interoperability project group of Open Source Business Foundation e.V. (www.osbf.de), the European business network for the open source sector, presented at CeBIT on March 3, 2009, a jointly developed platform for secure cloud computing. The Internet Service Bus (ISB) demonstrates how different applications can be combined to form platform-neutral services and be used securely. For the first time the Internet Service Bus shows, moreover, how concepts of service-oriented architecture can serve as a basis for cloud computing. It is in this context that the Identity Network Service (INS) offers the necessary security. For the first time ever, the INS permits secure online authentication and authorization by single sign-on – also in cloud environments. For private and B2B users alike, the project not only points out specific application scenarios for cloud computing. It also provides software manufacturers, integrators and hosters with an important technology module that offers the possibility of new, cloud-based business models.
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The development consortium of the OSBF Interoperability project group consists of 1&1, Corisecio, Microsoft, Open-Xchange and Sopera. Andreas Hartl, head of the OSBF Interoperability project group and Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, explains: “Cloud computing is the future. That’s why, when we launched our project group in summer 2008, we defined two projects – ISB and INS – both of which focus squarely on customer requirements. The Internet Service Bus makes it possible, for the first time, for services of different producers in the cloud to communicate with one another. And the Identity Network Service allows users to access a number of combined services with a single sign-on to the cloud. The project group’s work points the way to the future of cloud computing.”

An online demo presented live by the project group at CeBIT shows how one web application is sufficient to administer patient data, securely, from different sources. To ensure that personal data is protected, authorized nursing staff are given specific access to individual datasets. To this end the Internet Service Bus, which is based on the open source platform of German SOA specialist Sopera, creates a bridge between the Java and the .NET world: it integrates the applications Open-Xchange, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Virtual Earth to form one web-browser. All this is completely transparent for users and application developers, making technical know-how unnecessary. Furthermore, the ISB platform is flexible, scalable and competitively priced. At the same time, providers of online applications and services find themselves presented with new sales opportunities in the form, say, of pay-per-use models.

Well-known analysts such as Gartner and IDC forecast massive growth in cloud computing in the years ahead. With the Internet Service Bus as a transparent, open source-based middleware and the Identity Network Service as a secure authentication and authorization solution, the development consortium of the OSBF Interoperability project group has come up with a future-oriented platform for this growth market. The ISB combines the approaches of service-oriented architecture and of cloud computing in a reliable and effective manner.

The Open Source Business Foundation e.V. (OSBF)
Open Source Business Foundation e.V. (OSBF), an association headquartered in Nuremberg, is a European network of companies, institutions and individuals whose shared interests lie in open source development and business models. For business founders and established companies from all over Europe, OSBF is a business platform that not only offers them contacts but also supports and promotes their business ideas. What makes OSFB so special is that it looks at open source literally from the business viewpoint. In its wide-ranging activities, OSFB always has its focus on the commercial use of open source software. Part of the secret of OSFB’s success is that it networks software and service companies, coaches, growth capital providers and universities throughout Europe and involves all OSFB members in concrete projects.

OSBF’s eminent activities include the annual Open Source Business Award (OSBA), which carries a total of EUR 75,000, for open source software and business concepts that are innovative at European level. Other important OSFB activities include Collaborative Open Source Application Development (COSAD) as a best practice consortium for software development; the Embedded Open Source Cluster Initiative (EOSCI), in which scientists of the Embedded Systems Institute ESI of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg cooperate closely with industry; Open Source Meets Business (OSMB), a platform available to OSBF member companies planning events that entail an attendance fee; and the Foundation coaches, almost two dozen highly qualified and specialised managers and consultants who allow member companies to participate in their extensive experience, on a part-time basis and free of charge.

Open Source Business Foundation was established at the end of 2007 as the successor organisation of Linux Business Campus Nürnberg e.V., established in 2006. Today, OSBF already has 150 members from all over Germany, Europe and from the USA. In addition to numerous small and medium-sized enterprises and large caps – ranging from Agnitas to Sopera, from Novell to Red Hat, from Intel to Deutsche Telekom – the membership also includes various institutions such as the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS), the Free University Berlin, the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Nuremberg and Central Franconia, and the City of Nuremberg.