Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Getting Started:
Core Business Services

OpenEdge usage

Symmetric-key cryptography is used in OpenEdge in two basic ways:

To provide data privacy on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections. SSL is an implementation of a Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI). For more information on:
PKI — See Chapter 5, " Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)."
SSL — See Chapter 5, " Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)."
OpenEdge support for SSL — See Chapter 6, " Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)."
To enable Progress 4GL applications to provide their own data privacy and integrity functionality, OpenEdge provides symmetric-key cryptography features directly in the 4GL. In the 4GL, these features are supported by the:
GENERATE-PBE-KEY function (see the "Password-based encryption (PBE)" section).
GENERATE-PBE-SALT function (see the "Password-based encryption (PBE)" section).
GENERATE-RANDOM-KEY function.
ENCRYPT and DECRYPT functions.
SECURITY-POLICY system handle to provide a consistent cryptography policy for specifying keys and encryption algorithms for the above functions.

For more information on the cryptographic features of the 4GL, see the sections on cryptography in OpenEdge Development: Programming Interfaces .

Caution: Progress Software Corporation recommends that you use the cryptographic features of the 4GL only if you have a well-grounded understanding of cryptography and its usage. Use of cryptography without the necessary preparation can result in permanent data loss. In general, cryptography can have significant negative impact on application performance and decrease effective data compression for data stored in a database. For more information on managing data encryption and decryption, see the “Security” white paper prepared by the Progress Software Corporation Marketing Department, which can be found on the PSDN Web site.