DMS gets mail guard, firewall
The initial release of Gauntlet Firewall for DMS, funded by the National Security Agency under a contract awarded last spring, is a Fortezza-enabled X.400 mail guard and firewall. Trusted Information Systems of Glenwood, Md., will augment it with software upgrades for X.500 directory services next year. A Defense Information Systems Agency official said X.500 support is a requirement for DMS firewalls.
The initial release of Gauntlet Firewall for DMS, funded by the National Security
Agency under a contract awarded last spring, is a Fortezza-enabled X.400 mail guard and
firewall. Trusted Information Systems of Glenwood, Md., will augment it with software
upgrades for X.500 directory services next year.
A Defense Information Systems Agency official said X.500 support is a requirement for
DMS firewalls.
But "the X.500 infrastructure is not out there yet," said John Adams, a
senior consultant for Trusted Information Systems. So the first release focuses only on
X.400 messaging.
The global, secure DMS will replace a mix of e-mail products used by the Defense
Department. Operational testing of the first DMS-specific mail products, developed for
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s DMS contract, ended in August.
The turnkey Gauntlet bundle combines an off-the-shelf server with Government Open
Systems Interconnection Profile-compliant software, plus installation and one year of
maintenance. Adams said the package price would be set shortly before shipping.
DOD's interest in firewalls is great, he said. "We've had calls from military
installations around the world, asking when they can get this," he said. "We are
looking for enough sales in the first release to more than pay for development
costs."
The DMS product is based on the commercial Gauntlet Internet Firewall 3.2, which
resides on a Hewlett-Packard Co. 712/80 server running the HP-UX 10.01 operating system.
The DMS components include a message filter and administrator, an X.400 mail proxy, and a
Messageware message transfer agent from Nexor Ltd. of Nottingham, England.
The DMS firewall lets through only X.400 traffic--other network services such as
Telnet, File Transfer Protocol and remote execution services are disabled. Trusted
Information Systems may later release the firewall commercially, minus its Fortezza
authentication features.
Although Gauntlet 4.0 is available and has a Java interface, the 3.2 release had to
serve as the basis of the DMS firewall. "Unfortunately, as we were making the
decision to make our DMS prototype a commercial offering, we were not ready to release
4.0," Adams said.
Within the next year, the company expects to offer a DMS upgrade path for users who
already have purchased Gauntlet 4.0, as well as the software upgrade for X.500 services.
Other vendors including V-One Corp. of Rockville, Md., also are working on DMS-specific
firewalls for NSA.
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