Forefront Products Protect the Network Edge

The next two parts of the much delayed Forefront Protection (“Stirling”) wave of security products have been released with Threat Management Gateway (TMG, released Dec. 2009) and Unified Access Gateway (released Jan. 2010). They join Forefront Protection for Exchange Server (released Nov. 2009) and Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (updated Nov. 2009). Customers can plan a complete Microsoft protection solution and prepare for the centralized management of security products, including antimalware protection and identity management. However, implementing these gateway products may require infrastructure upgrades: both products are 64-bit (x64) only and require recent editions of Windows Server.

The complete Forefront line, particularly Endpoint Protection (for protection servers and workstations) and Protection Manager (the central Forefront management application), won’t be available until the second half of 2010.

Threat Management Gateway

The next version of Microsoft’s principal network access security product, formerly known as Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, is Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, and was released in Nov. 2009.