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Covalent Technologies, a leader in enterprise solutions for the Apache Web server, announced the general availability of the Covalent Application Server Gateway (ASG), a product designed to reduce operational complexity for enterprise customers deploying a heterogeneous application server environment.

By offering a standard Web server platform, Covalent's ASG addresses a growing need in the enterprise today: a way to deploy best-of-breed application servers without compromising security and management efficiency.

Today, the typical enterprise infrastructure environment contains application servers from a variety of vendors. While this makes business sense at the application level, it does not make operational sense at the Web server level, particularly when each application server has unique Web server requirements. Running multiple versions of Web servers results in security, operational and total cost of ownership challenges. Covalent ASG resolves these issues by providing a consolidated access point and standard technology that can be easily secured, monitored and maintained.

"Our customers demand the functionality contained in ASG," said Randy Terbush, chairman and chief technical officer of Covalent. "Many of our Fortune 500 accounts are asking Covalent to help them reduce the complexity and enhance the security of their Internet infrastructure with Apache. Our enterprise products are becoming a standard Web server solution in the enterprise, and the Application Server Gateway will only increase this success."

Eased Complexity
The Covalent ASG eliminates the complexity of having to add and maintain different version of Web servers on multiple operating systems as application server vendors upgrade their products or new brands are added. Operations groups can monitor the load of their systems through the ASG's consolidated logging and monitoring facilities and add uniform Web server builds as needed.

Enhanced Security
Covalent ASG encrypts traffic between both the client and the Web server and the Web server and the application server. The ASG handles the encryption, offloading the application servers from this CPU-intensive task.

The ASG is able to pass enhanced header information back to the application server. The ASG also includes an easy-to-use graphical interface for easy installation and configuration; configuration is made easy by providing a limited set of custom directives

Fast Start Server
Covalent ASG includes Covalent Fast Start Server, the enterprise-ready version of Apache. Fast Start delivers unsurpassed reliability and flexibility through its easy-to-use graphical interface. Fast Start Server contains a complete Apache Web server framework which includes a Java application server and modules supporting Perl, SSL and DAV. In high volume or enterprise environments, Covalent Fast Start Server is indispensable for distributing uniform Apache builds.

Platforms and Availability
Covalent ASG is a fully compliant plug-in module to Apache, resulting in seamless integration through its support of Dynamic Shared Objects (DSO) in the standard Apache API. This simplifies the creation of custom extensions, if needed.

Supported application servers include BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, ATG Dynamo and Covalent Fast Start which includes Tomcat. Covalent ASG is currently available from Covalent's direct sales force and from its Web site at www.covalent.net.