Forefront Security for Servers

A line of security products for application servers—Forefront for Exchange and SharePoint, and Antigen for Instant Messaging (for Live Communications Server)—allows customers and partners to implement a Microsoft server security solution with an integrated console for ease of management and multiple scanning engines for better protection. These security offerings complement the Forefront products for client PCs and edge servers, giving Microsoft solutions that could displace other vendors. However, support for Communications Server 2007 will lag until late 2008.

Server Threats

Protecting application servers is critical because their resources are shared among clients and malware can spread throughout an organization very quickly as users on client devices send and receive e-mail, copy or upload files, and browse Web sites. However, protection for servers should not severely impact their performance, so sharing the workload among servers, clients, and perimeter gateways can be an effective way to implement multiple-level security against threats.