Security Products Overview

A security product code-named Stirling will deliver capabilities similar to a combination of today’s Forefront products. As currently planned, Stirling will integrate Forefront Client Security, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, Forefront Security for SharePoint, and the Threat Management Gateway, providing a unified console and reporting and analysis components. The Forefront products will continue to be available separately, but the separate products will be based on the Stirling technology. Stirling was planned for the first half of 2009, but in Apr. 2009 Microsoft announced that it will now be released in the first half of 2010.

Before Stirling, Microsoft will have delivered service packs for most Forefront-branded products to enable them to run on Windows Server 2008; some, but not all, of the products have that support today. Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server) will get Windows Server 2008 compatibility in a new release, named Forefront Threat Management Gateway, that will also deliver integrated scanning for malware and inappropriate content, among other features. Originally, the Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) software was sold only to manufacturers that build security appliances, but with the release of IAG SP2 in Dec. 2008, it now has Windows Server 2008 compatibility and support for installation of the software on customer-supplied hardware or as a virtual machine on Hyper-V. IAG will be updated in the second half of 2009 and the name will be changed to Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG), but the extent to which UAG will be integrated with Stirling has not been decided.