A new software release from network appliance maker DataPower Technology will add support for Web services development environments, including IBM's WebSphere and the IBM-backed open source Eclipse Foundation's integrated development environments (IDEs), the company said.

DataPower plans on Monday to announce Version 3.0 of the software, or "firmware," used by its XS40 XML Security Gateway and XA35 XML Accelerator appliances. The new firmware will make it easier to integrate DataPower's technology with Web services environments developed using WebSphere or Eclipse. Other features will simplify configuration and management of the devices, DataPower said in a statement.

DataPower's products are designed to process network traffic containing information rendered using XML (Extensible Markup Language), a standard used to display, transmit and interpret data that is passed to and from Web pages. The company's XA35 appliance increases the speed with which transactions from Web-based applications can be processed, off-loading that responsibility from application servers. The XS40 gateway appliance filters and validates XML traffic, spotting potential attacks hidden in the XML traffic, encrypting and decrypting XML messages or data elements and validating XML documents.

In addition to better integration with IDEs, Version 3.0 of DataPower's firmware includes other changes and features, many suggested by the company's customers, DataPower said.

It is now easier to configure field level security and improvements to DataPower's XML schema validation feature, the company said. The company also improved the user interface for its new AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Audit) Framework, which lets customers create and enforce access policies for Web services deployments, the company said.

The DataPower Firmware 3.0 release is available Monday.