Google Apps offer communication, collaboration, and productivity tools through your browser. This is the latest in a line of productivity suites from Google aimed at the enterprise market. While much of an enterprise’s data is stored behind a firewall – and probably inaccessible to your users – Google’s Secure Data Connector (SDC) lets you build applications so that Google Apps users can access to this data.

Google’s Secure Data Connector let you:

1. Access corporate data via the browser

SDC lets you access data from within Google Gadgets, Google App Engine, and Google Spreadsheets. It provides an agent to connect your Google Apps domain to your behind-the-firewall data sources.

2. Control the use of data

Use SDC to restrict which users and applications can make requests to internal services. You can use Google’s partners or your own internal authentication systems to validate and authorize those requests.

3. Build custom software for your business

Use SDC to extend enterprise systems into Google Apps. You can easily build gadgets or Google App Engine applications that make use of both private and public data.

SDC provides the following functionality:

Secure link – SDC encrypts connectivity between Google Apps and your network.

Filters –Configure filters to limit which gadgets, spreadsheets, and App Engine applications can access which internal systems. Use filters to control which users can access data from your internal systems within Google Apps and setup user-level filters to support the security provided by your internal systems.

OAuth Signed Fetch – this is an OpenSocial standard that adds authentication information to requests that are made through SDC. Use OAuth to validate requests from Google and provide an additional layer of security to SDC filters.

Related posts:

1. Oracle Gadget Wizard for Google Apps Oracle Gadget Wizard for Google Apps...
2. Business Process Automation for Google Apps Google Apps users can now add structured workflow to existing...
3. Using Google Reader to share data, trends, and visual info I’ve started a small experiment. I use RSS to monitor...
4. Customize your Google Search Results You can create your own customized Google search engine by...
5. Alipay select Trustwave to provide Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance validation services Alipay, the leading Chinese payment platform, has enrolled in Trustwave's...