Comet Becomes Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000

Beta 3 of the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000, a Windows 2000 Server application that insulates corporate networks from the Internet and speeds viewing of Internet content, was released in May. ISA Server offers small and medium-size businesses an economical all-in-one Internet firewall and caching solution, but it faces serious challenges in markets demanding high-end firewalls and caching services. Formerly code-named Comet, ISA Server is an upgrade to Microsoft’s Proxy Server 2.0 and is expected to ship by the end of summer. It will be available as a stand-alone product and as a component of the BackOffice and Small Business Server suites.

This article provides background information on Proxy Server and ISA Server, details on ISA Server’s improvements, and information on how ISA Server compares with competitive offerings.

Background and Product Positioning

Today, nearly all organizations must connect their LANs to the Internet to perform business tasks ranging from simple inter-organizational e-mail to sophisticated e-commerce, business-to-business data exchanges, and streaming of multimedia content. These organizations clearly need to protect their LANs while optimizing their connection to the Internet. In some cases, larger organizations face similar internal security and performance issues when interconnecting autonomous divisions.