FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Marshall T. Rose Dover Beach Consulting, Inc. (415) 968-1052 David Preston Epilogue Technology Corporation (505) 271-9933 Tom Woolf Woolf Media Relations, Inc. (415) 508-1554
Leading Vendors Begin Deploying USEC Security, and Leading-Edge End Users Discover USEC Is Ideal Solution To SNMP Security
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (April 2, 1996) -- At Networld+Interop 96 this week, a number of vendors will be announcing shipping or experimental network management products that support the proposed User-based Security Model (USEC or SNMPv2u) for SNMPv2c, the community-based SNMP standard recently approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). In fact, USEC has already found an application at the key interconnection points for the Internet here in the United States.
``The User-based Security Model has already proven itself as a robust, portable, practical security solution for SNMPv2,'' said Marshall Rose, Principal of Dover Beach Consulting and one of the co-authors of USEC. ``In the two months since the USEC technology demonstration at Comnet, two new commercially available USEC products have been developed as well as another public domain solution, and more are on their way. This not only proves that USEC is real technology, but it shows what the marketplace can accomplish with multilateral cooperation. By pulling together, the SNMP community has been able to deliver several independently developed USEC implementations running on multiple computing platforms.''
The following suppliers have committed to develop and/or make available USEC implementations:
``IBM SystemView for AIX chose to implement SNMPv2u since it was simpler to implement, met our current customer requirements for SNMPv2 security, mandated less complexity on the agent side, and took a more staged approach to solving the SNMP Security and Remote Agent configuration,'' said Barry Sheehan, SNMP Lead Developer for IBM SystemView/NetView for AIX Development. ``3We have no plans to implement another experimental technology. Work continues on supplying secure SNMP agent and router products to our customers based on this technology until an IETF standard for SNMP Security is adopted.''
Digital Equipment Corp. is planning to add a new API to its POLYCENTER Manager on NetView for Digital UNIX that incorporates USEC. With the release of V4.1, Digital's network management software will provide transparent support for SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and SNMPv2u, including a MIB compiler and Web browser.
Epilogue has incorporated support for USEC into its portable SNMP source code technology, Envoy, so third-party licensees and OEMs can experiment with their own SNMP security solutions for networking hardware, software, and silicon. ``USEC has come a long way in a very short period of time,'' noted David Preston, President and COO of Epilogue Technology. ``As an SNMP source code provider, we are closely tracking the different security options being proposed for SNMPv2c, and we will certainly embrace whatever security model the market chooses to adopt. However, the fact that there are so many implementations emerging so quickly on so many different computing platforms proves that the USEC is gaining market momentum and is ready to adopt today.''
A European UPS manufacturer, IMC/Victron, has also developed an SNMPv2u implementation which will be accessible via the Internet during Networld+Interop. The UPS will be running in Holland and is manageable in a secure way, via the public insecure Internet, from a management station on the Networld+Interop exhibition in Las Vegas. ``Using SNMPv2u is one of the best ways to make management of mission-critical network devices like a UPS secure,'' said Jacques Vermeiden, Commercial Director of IMV/Victron. ``Finally, our customers can have an open and secure solution that will help keep costs down while bringing network uptime to new standards.''
ACE*COMM, a subsidiary of American Computer & Electronics Corporation, also has announced that it will support SNMPv2u in its WinSNMP API v2.0, which begins shipping later this month. ACE*COMM is including support for SNMPv2u in both the NetPlus WinSNMP Developers Kit, and in end user packages such as the WinSNMP Starter Kit and the WinSNMP Advanced Kit.
According to Bob Natale, Director of Network Management Products at ACE*COMM. ``SNMPv2u (USEC) is very important to us and our customer base because it brings all the required SNMP security features together in an understandable and efficient format, leverages the existing IETF Draft Standard SNMPv2 protocol, and allows us to exploit the protocol transparency of the 'translated' mode of entity addressing in WinSNMP. Above all, the relative simplicity of SNMPv2u--especially when compared with the previous SNMP security proposal--makes it possible to develop, ship, and support SNMPv2u-based products in a profitable and timely manner.''
snmptcl v1.3 is also available as an extensible platform for network management applications that supports SNMPv1. SNMPv2c, and SNMPv2u. This is an X Windows package for UNIX and includes an implementation of USEC authentication and privacy.
The newest public domain solution, Scotty, comes from the Netherlands. Scotty is a network management extension of the Tool Command Language (Tcl), which includes a portable implementation of SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and SNMPv2u. The SNMP implementation supports USEC authentication, but not privacy, and includes both an SNMP manager and an agent API. Scotty is an extension of the Tikned network management platform, which includes a MIB browser, network map editor, and other monitoring and troubleshooting tools. Scotty v2.1.0 runs under UNIX, Windows '95, or Windows NT.
Of course, Norton did consider other security options: ``I read the SNMPv2* specification a couple of times and I had a lot of questions. The User-based Security model was much easier to read, and easier to understand, BE simple is the word that comes to mind.''
Anyone interested in more information about SNMP USEC can get it from The USEC Resource Page on the Internet.