User Administration, Security, and Deployment
Omar Sidani, PMP, CEH, CCNA
Oracle Administration and Security Support
Omar Sidani, PMP, CEH, CCNA
Oracle Administration and Security Support
P6 v7 supports Oracle Identity Management and Access Management Suite and provides a new option for user provisioning through Oracle Identity Management (OIM). OIM assists organizations to centrally create and provision users across multiple, disparate systems, reducing the need for the added work of creating users in each system they need access to. Efficiencies can also be gained by single-sign-on capabilities.
P6 v7 supports Oracle Access Manager (OAM), which centrally manages security and access to various systems through single-sign-on that provides one common logon for all applications and removes the need to enter the login credentials for each system. This reduction in login credentials creates a more secure environment. Also supported is Oracle Identity Directory which is a central resource directory repository that helps organizations support single logon and single sign-on, reducing the cost of application management.
The P6 solution will also leverage Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) to assist Oracle Support as they help organizations deploy and maintain their P6 investment. OCM is an automated method to collect valuable configuration information to help Oracle understand customer environments.
Benefit: Cost of user administration and security can be reduced be centrally management across applications.
Activity Field-Level Security
P6 v7 introduces new field-level security for project activities. Each user can be assigned edit privileges to only the activity fields they are required to update, while all others are read only.
Benefit: The activity-level security gives the flexibility to allow individuals to update fields such as actual start and finish, percent completes and remaining effort, while limiting those same individuals to read-only access to other activity-level fields.
Excel Import Security
The security privilege for importing from Excel has been separated from the privilege of importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.
Benefit: This security option enables a user to import from Excel file types only, while also ensuring that global dictionary information is not modified when importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.
Standardized Server Platform
The timesheet Group Server has been moved to the Java platform, removing the requirement
of being a Windows-based service on a Windows server.
Benefit: Common and independent platform support for the timesheet server.
Scalability, Performance, Availability
P6 v7 includes new technologies to help further improve scalability, performance and availability. Support for WebLogic JRockit JVM has been added for improved performance and scalability. Also, improved support for WebLogic clustering has been added to increase availability and scalability of the P6 solution. In addition, the Java server platform has been moved to version 6 of Java, which provides better performance and scalability for P6.
Benefit: Increased performance, scalability and availability.
Increased Standardization for P6 Web Services
P6 v7 Web Services now supports the following Web Services specifications:
WS-Security
WS-Security provides ways to secure your services above and beyond transport level protocols such as HTTPS. Through a number of standards such as XML Encryption, and headers defined in the WS-Security standard, it allows you to:
• Pass authentication tokens between services
• Encrypt messages or parts of messages
• Sign messages
• Timestamp messages
P6 Web Services v.7.0 supports passing authentication tokens using UsernameToken Profile
and timestamping messages. Encrypting and signing of messages may be supported in the future.
WS-Policy
The WS-Policy framework provides a general purpose model and syntax to describe the policies of a Web Service. For example, a company may require transport-level security for protecting web service messages. This requirement can be defined by using a policy. For detailed information on WS-Policy and the syntax for writing policy expressions, please visit http://www.w3.org/Submission/WS-Policy/.
WS-Addressing
WS-Addressing is a standardized way of including message routing data within SOAP
headers. When WS-Addressing is enabled, P6 Web Services will only accept client requests
that contain addressing information in the SOAP headers. One benefit of using WSAddressing
with P6 Web Services would be a case where asynchronous processing of messages is required. In this case, clients will send messages to P6 Web Services and can specify the endpoint where P6 Web Services will send the response. This endpoint can be the original endpoint that sent the request or a different endpoint.
Platform Support
• Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) 8 will be supported browser platforms in addition to existing IE 7 support. IE 6 support will be dropped.
• Oracle HTTP server is now a supported web server (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) – In addition to existing Jackrabbit support for content management, Oracle UCM will be supported.
• Oracle Enterprise Linux – Oracle Enterprise Linux will replace Red Hat Linux support (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle XE – Oracle Express will replace Microsoft SQL Server Express for standalone desktop installations.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 will be added as a supported RDBMS for P6 v7.0. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will continue to be supported and SQL 2000 will be dropped.
P6 v7 supports Oracle Access Manager (OAM), which centrally manages security and access to various systems through single-sign-on that provides one common logon for all applications and removes the need to enter the login credentials for each system. This reduction in login credentials creates a more secure environment. Also supported is Oracle Identity Directory which is a central resource directory repository that helps organizations support single logon and single sign-on, reducing the cost of application management.
The P6 solution will also leverage Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) to assist Oracle Support as they help organizations deploy and maintain their P6 investment. OCM is an automated method to collect valuable configuration information to help Oracle understand customer environments.
Benefit: Cost of user administration and security can be reduced be centrally management across applications.
Activity Field-Level Security
P6 v7 introduces new field-level security for project activities. Each user can be assigned edit privileges to only the activity fields they are required to update, while all others are read only.
Benefit: The activity-level security gives the flexibility to allow individuals to update fields such as actual start and finish, percent completes and remaining effort, while limiting those same individuals to read-only access to other activity-level fields.
Excel Import Security
The security privilege for importing from Excel has been separated from the privilege of importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.
Benefit: This security option enables a user to import from Excel file types only, while also ensuring that global dictionary information is not modified when importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.
Standardized Server Platform
The timesheet Group Server has been moved to the Java platform, removing the requirement
of being a Windows-based service on a Windows server.
Benefit: Common and independent platform support for the timesheet server.
Scalability, Performance, Availability
P6 v7 includes new technologies to help further improve scalability, performance and availability. Support for WebLogic JRockit JVM has been added for improved performance and scalability. Also, improved support for WebLogic clustering has been added to increase availability and scalability of the P6 solution. In addition, the Java server platform has been moved to version 6 of Java, which provides better performance and scalability for P6.
Benefit: Increased performance, scalability and availability.
Increased Standardization for P6 Web Services
P6 v7 Web Services now supports the following Web Services specifications:
WS-Security
WS-Security provides ways to secure your services above and beyond transport level protocols such as HTTPS. Through a number of standards such as XML Encryption, and headers defined in the WS-Security standard, it allows you to:
• Pass authentication tokens between services
• Encrypt messages or parts of messages
• Sign messages
• Timestamp messages
P6 Web Services v.7.0 supports passing authentication tokens using UsernameToken Profile
and timestamping messages. Encrypting and signing of messages may be supported in the future.
WS-Policy
The WS-Policy framework provides a general purpose model and syntax to describe the policies of a Web Service. For example, a company may require transport-level security for protecting web service messages. This requirement can be defined by using a policy. For detailed information on WS-Policy and the syntax for writing policy expressions, please visit http://www.w3.org/Submission/WS-Policy/.
WS-Addressing
WS-Addressing is a standardized way of including message routing data within SOAP
headers. When WS-Addressing is enabled, P6 Web Services will only accept client requests
that contain addressing information in the SOAP headers. One benefit of using WSAddressing
with P6 Web Services would be a case where asynchronous processing of messages is required. In this case, clients will send messages to P6 Web Services and can specify the endpoint where P6 Web Services will send the response. This endpoint can be the original endpoint that sent the request or a different endpoint.
Platform Support
• Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) 8 will be supported browser platforms in addition to existing IE 7 support. IE 6 support will be dropped.
• Oracle HTTP server is now a supported web server (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) – In addition to existing Jackrabbit support for content management, Oracle UCM will be supported.
• Oracle Enterprise Linux – Oracle Enterprise Linux will replace Red Hat Linux support (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle XE – Oracle Express will replace Microsoft SQL Server Express for standalone desktop installations.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 will be added as a supported RDBMS for P6 v7.0. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will continue to be supported and SQL 2000 will be dropped.
