News
On this page you will find product update information and support discussion that's arisen from working with our clients.
August 2010: XML Gateway 3.4.4
The XML Gateway has now been re-licensed - the community edition is free to use and is limited only by up to 100 transactions per hour, and the enterprise edition is available to purchase in an unlimited form. Both editions are available with a reasonably priced support package. The latest release includes a number of new features and functions for integrating the BMC AR System with third party sources, and features a re-written installation and usage manual.
June 2010: SSO Plugin version 3.1
A beta release of the next SSO Plugin (version 3.1) is on our website and ready for evaluation. A high level summary of changes follows:
- Support for Open ID, a commonly used web based SSO system used by Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Wordpress, Verisign, Facebook and other high profile organisations. You can now integrate the same technology into the BMC AR System Midtier. Please see our SSO Plugin and Open ID video walk through.
- Full support for built-in Windows Authentication using the Kerberos and NTLMv2 protocols. This allows Windows 7, 2008, Vista, etc., clients to authenticate without an IIS front end.
- Improvements to the SSO Administration Console including a range of Flashboards providing a graphical view of SSO activity. This can be seen at the end of the new installation video.
April 2010: SSO Plugin version 3
The third major release of the SSO Plugin provides a range of improvements to both usability and the integration with third party systems. A high level summary of changes follows:
- Full support for IIS as a front end to SSO Plugin. This includes the ability to delegate Windows Authentication to IIS.
- Improvements to built-in authentication (formally known as internal Windows Authentication), which provides Kerberos and NTLMv1.
- A new UI for the Midtier SSO Plugin component, fully integrated into the existing BMC Midtier configuration. Users can not access the SSO Plugin configuration without entering the Midtier configuration password.
- Improvements to the Midtier 'test SSO' page in order to more accurately resolve SSO problems - most commonly, where users do not have a blank password or no entry in the User form.
- Automated integration with BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, allowing users direct SSO access to RKM without first logging into ITSM.
- Improvments to the Windows User Tool SSO module in order to work around a range of BMC issues that stopped some components functioning (such as Flashboards).
- Improvements to the SSO Administrator Console, that sits neatly beside existing AR System Administration Consoles. The SSO AREA Plugin is fully configurable through this interface.
- In version 2.4, the SSO AREA Plugin configuration was moved to the AR System, allowing a simplified deployment across multiple AR System servers. In version 3, the Midtier SSO Plugin configuration is stored in the AR System, so users need only configure the Midtier once, allowing other Midtiers to automatically pick up the configuration from the AR System.
- Authentication logging within AR System allowing administrators to create user authentication management reports.
April 2010: SSO Plugin version 2.4 update 4
Full support for IIS as a front end to the Midtier, fixes to AREA Plugin (with respect to server groups and timeouts reading configuration) and Siteminder integration fix.
Feb 2010: XML Gateway version 3.3
The XML Gateway has been updated with various bug fixes reported and new features, including:
- Checksums: Updating thousands of records generates a huge load on your AR System. By defining a checksum, update operations will only occur when the input data has changed.
- Throttling: Restrict the number of operations, such as ten per minute, one hundred per hour, etc.
Jan 2010: SSO Plugin version 2.4
This major release of the SSO Plugin aims to further simplify the installation process and provide new functionality. Improvements include:
- Removing the jss-sso.cfg configuration file from the JSS AREA Plugin.: AREA Plugins have no ability to read data from an AR System form so the configuration had to be held in a file. In the 2.3 release, the product provided a form in which users could configure the jss-sso.cfg file, however this could lead to confusion with effectively two sources of data for the AREA Plugin configuration. The new release removes the configuration file after extensive re-coding of the AREA Plugin to allow it to read the configuration directly from the AR System form.
- SSO Administration Console: The AREA Plugin is now configured through an SSO Administration Console, installed alongside the AR System administration consoles and linked from the Homepage.
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Single Sign On for Remedy Knowledge Management:
The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management product has a limited integration with BMC ITSM driven through workflow, which means users have to log in to ITSM in order to access RKM without logging in. While this may be suitable for service users, a larger group of end users may wish to search RKM without being required to login to RKM.
BMC provide no SSO interface to RKM, so we've examined the product and implemented our own interface. This version of the SSO Plugin solves the problem by providing a plugin to RKM that provides end users with SSO access without first logging in to ITSM.
This is the first release and is considered beta. It requires a few manual installation steps, and while trivial, a future version of the SSO Plugin will remove these steps.
Jan 2010: SSO Plugin version 2.3 update 8
Update to the WUT SSO Plugin to remove dependency on the registry and allow multiple servers to be configured.
Jan 2010: SSO Plugin and BMC Remedy Knowledge Management
We have verified that the SSO Plugin is compatible with the BMC ITSM RKM integration.
Dec 2009: SSO Plugin version 2.3 update 6
Provides instructons on how to configure Kerberos AES 256 bit encryption for Windows Visa IE clients.
Nov 2009: SSO Plugin version 2.3 update 4
New functionality to allow non-SSO enabled users (i.e. no valid entry in the AR System User form) to be redirected to the Midtier login page instead of to the standard BMC ARERR 623 error page. Essentially, non-SSO enabled users should be able to use an SSO enabled Midtier and not see any difference in behaviour from a non-SSO enabled Midtier.
Nov 2009: Crystal and Business Objects
We've worked with a client to troubleshoot and diagnose issues in the AR System SSO interface to Crystal Reports and Business Objects. These issues were raised with BMC and a hot fix for AR System 7.1 patch 007 is available from BMC support (it involves installing three patched jar files to the Midtier). We've been informed that the fixed in version 7.1 patch 009, and are awaiting confirmation on when it will be resolved in AR System 7.5.
Nov 2009: SSO Plugin version 2.3 update 3
The third update to version 2.3 of the SSO Plugin is available on our downloads page. This resolves a number of issues and improves upo the support documentation following customer feedback. The Midtier SSO diagnostics page has been improved to provide troubleshooting information for users who's SSO fails.
Oct 2009: SSO Plugin version 2.3 update 2
The second update to version 2.3 of the SSO Plugin is available on our downloads page. This resolves a number of issues and includes new documentation on configuring the plugin for server groups and proxies.
Sep 2009: SSO Plugin version 2.3
A new version of the SSO Plugin is available with many new features, including:
- Improved AR System installer for AREA plugin.
- Windows User Tool SSO support.
- Midtier configuration validation for Kerberos and/or NTLM settings.
- No more patching of the Midtier web.xml file! This is done by the installer when Windows Authentication is enabled.