What is WebSEAL

IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL overview.
IBM(R)Tivoli(R)Access Manager for e-business (Tivoli Access Manager) is a robust and secure centralized policy management solution for e-business and distributed applications. IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL is a high performance, multi-threaded Web server that applies fine-grained security policy to the Tivoli Access Manager protected Web object space. WebSEAL can provide single sign-on (SSO) solutions and incorporate back-end Web application server resources into its security policy.

IBM Tivoli Access Manager:

IBM Tivoli Access Manager is a complete authorization and network security policy management solution that provides unsurpassed end-to-end protection of resources over geographically dispersed intranets and extranets.
In addition to its state-of-the-art security policy management feature, Tivoli Access Manager provides authentication, authorization, data security, and centralized resource management capabilities. You use Tivoli Access Manager in conjunction with standard Internet-based applications to build highly secure and well-managed intranets.
At its core, Tivoli Access Manager provides:
Authentication framework
Tivoli Access Manager provides a wide range of built-in authenticators and supports external authenticators.
Authorization framework
The Tivoli Access Manager authorization service, accessed through the Tivoli Access Manager authorization API, provides permit and deny decisions on requests for protected resources located in the secure domain.
With Tivoli Access Manager, businesses can securely manage access to private internal network-based resources while leveraging the public Internet's broad connectivity and ease of use. Tivoli Access Manager, in combination with a corporate firewall system, can fully protect the Enterprise intranet from unauthorized access and intrusion.

IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL:

IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL is the resource manager responsible for managing and protecting Web-based information and resources.
WebSEAL is a high performance, multi-threaded Web server that applies fine-grained security policy to the Tivoli Access Manager protected Web object space. WebSEAL can provide single sign-on solutions and incorporate back-end Web application server resources into its security policy.
WebSEAL normally acts as a reverse Web proxy by receiving HTTP/HTTPS requests from a Web browser and delivering content from its own Web server or from junctioned back-end Web application servers. Requests passing through WebSEAL are evaluated by the Tivoli Access Manager authorization service to determine whether the user is authorized to access the requested resource.
WebSEAL provides the following features:
Supports multiple authentication methods
Both built-in and plug-in architectures allow flexibility in supporting a variety of authentication mechanisms.
Accepts HTTP and HTTPS requests
Integrates and protects back-end server resources through WebSEAL junction technology
Manages fine-grained access control for the local and back-end server Web space
Supported resources include URLs, URL-based regular expressions, CGI programs, HTML files, Java servlets, and Java class files.
Performs as a reverse Web proxy
WebSEAL appears as a Web server to clients and appears as a Web browser to the junctioned back-end servers it is protecting.
Provides single sign-on capabilities