'Stirling' to Unify Forefront Family

The bewildering number of consoles facing customers who use Microsoft’s Forefront family of enterprise security products may be reduced in 2008 when Microsoft releases a product that aims to integrate them. Microsoft says the new product, code-named Stirling, will provide “unified security management and reporting with comprehensive, coordinated protection across clients, server applications, and the network edge.” However, integrating different products can be complex, and it typically takes longer than initially planned.

(For an overview of the Stirling roadmap, see “Forefront ‘Stirling’ Roadmap“.)

Multiple Security Products and Consoles

Microsoft has moved aggressively into security software in recent years, and has placed most of these products-many of them gained through acquisitions-under the Forefront brand. The Forefront family of enterprise security products includes Forefront Client Security, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, and Forefront Security for SharePoint, as well as two products that don’t include “Forefront” in their name but are considered part of the product family: Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA) 2006 and the Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG, a platform for appliance-based firewalls gained in the 2006 acquisition of Whale Communications).