Less than a month ago Actional and Westbridge Technologies merged into a single entity doing business as Actional. Less than 6 months ago Digital Evolution acquired Flamenco networks. Yesterday the converging technologies of Web Services management and security showed itself with the announcement of Actional's SOA Command and Control Platform and Digital Evolution's XML VPN.

While the products from Actional and Westbridge remain separate entities, the Command Control platform provides a unified management console enabling control over the tight integration between the two products as well as centralized operational and policy control.

Following closely on the heels of the Digital Evolution acquisition of Flamenco and its subsequent new product announcement, the Actional announcement follows the trend within the SOAP and XML security space to converge with the management space - in one way or another. While the two entities have taken different approaches, both are heeding the call of enterprise network and security needs by providing better integration and definition of responsibility of the two complementary but sometimes competing technologies.

Digital Evolution has introduced its XML VPN, the first product to bear the moniker of what will likely be a common term in the coming year. The concept is hardly new, but Digital Evolution is the first to use the terminology to clearly describe what its new product is designed to do. The XML VPN Controller provides central policy and rights management and transaction auditing services for an XML VPN Environment. It is available as software for deployment by a VPN provider.