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Single sign-on, Reflection Deploy aimed at simplifying desktop management

The 7.0 version of Reflection adds Reflection Deploy, a new way to install and configure the product using a Web server. Managers install Reflection once on an intranet server, then deploy it on a Web page which users access to get the correctly configured version of the product. Clicking on an icon on the page installs the product with connection or 3000-specific shortcuts, as well as login macros such as UDCs.

“Hands-free administration is what we’re calling it,” said product marketing manager Jeff Pogue. The concept wraps around the newest business in the WRQ stable, Reflection Express for desktop asset management. “This umbrella is going to cover Deploy, Profiler, Event Manager and some of the other features that are new.”

The 7.0 version of the product also adds Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). It’s an evolution of the scripting capability that has been a tool for Reflection power users for years. VBA integrates Reflection more tightly with the Windows desktop environment to connect it with other desktop applications.

Customers who have scripts written in Reflection Basic, the VBA predecessor, can use them with Reflection’s VBA. “There’s really very few differences in macros written for Reflection Basic and VBA,” said product manager John Goulden. WRQ will offer a converter, “but the real difference is in the development environment.” The company says there are more programmers for VBA than any other language, so skills developed in writing macros for Microsoft’s Office products will transfer easily.

Using VBA, Reflection customers can design forms graphically with custom control support for creating dialog boxes and front-ends to HP 3000 applications. It includes color coding to improve macro readability and a debugging environment.

WRQ’s offerings also addressed the growing complexity in companies with multiple hosts. For example, WRQ’s own File Transfer Protocol (FTP) not only simplifies FTP transfers to 3000s, it can be combined with Reflection Signature to make secure, encrypted transfers to other hosts.

Reflection Signature is one of the first products to address the multiple password problem that’s beginning to plague HP 3000 shops. As each system demands a separate and secure password and login, security concerns struggle with ease of use — and passwords get written on terminals, stuck in drawers or become too easy to guess.

The 3000 environment gets an Admit One environment with Reflection Signature, a way to log in only once for applications through Reflection, regardless of which host the application runs on. “It uses both protocol-based, with a private interface, OLE automation and application starter shortcuts and VBA as a scripting language,” said Bruce Thompson, Reflection Signature product manager. Extensions to the scripting remove the sensitive login information, and connection scripts can be linked to administrative scripts to synchronize with host passwords, he explained.

“The key piece of this is that it will fit into existing infrastructure, whatever that infrastructure is,” Thompson said. “If you’re using the Security/3000, you can leave that alone. We’re not asking you to replace your infrastructure, but provide a unified environment.” Reflection Signature can be deployed on a standalone workstation, or a software layer can reside on an individual workstation and the Admit One database can be deployed on a file server — including an HP 3000 equipped with NFS services.

“This gives you the ability to use better passwords, because your users only have to remember a few instead of a lot of them,” Thompson said. “They can now store their passwords in a safe place: the AdmitOne database.” Users need know only one password to get into the AdmitOne database, which can take care of host access passwords the users don’t even have to know.

The product ships this month at $99 through the end of the year for a single copy with volume discounts. “In the first release, most of the value is related to Reflection access to multiple host environments,” Thompson said. Users of other connectivity products can make use of Reflection Signature, although ease of configuring automated logins is reduced.