Availability of components

 

As a general rule, in a distributed environment, a security service requires a component on at least two systems. For example, a message might be encrypted on one system and decrypted on another. This applies to both link level security and application level security.

In a heterogeneous environment, with different platforms in use, each with different levels of security function, the required components of a security service might not be available for every platform on which they are needed and in a form that is easy to use. This is probably more of an issue for application level security than for link level security, particularly if you intend to provide your own application level security by buying in components from various sources.

 

Parent topic:

Comparing link level security and application level security

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