Threat Management Gateway Arrives

The next major product in Microsoft’s network edge security offerings is built on Internet Security and Acceleration Server and renamed Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG). It will arrive in 2009 and integrate with the planned Stirling security system. TMG will include scanning for malware and inappropriate content, enabling them to be eliminated before they enter an organization’s network, and it will also incorporate URL filtering technology to help block access to inappropriate or dangerous Web sites. A special edition of TMG, called the Medium Business Edition, is included in Windows Essential Business Server 2008, which was released in Nov. 2008.

Network Edge Protection

Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server is Microsoft’s network edge security and content-caching gateway, which provides firewall, virtual private networking, and caching services to enable organizations to establish secure connections to the Internet.

ISA Server has evolved since 2001, and the latest version, ISA Server 2006 SP1, was released in July 2008. ISA Server 2006 SP1 is not supported on Windows Server 2008 or on 64-bit servers, and Microsoft has said there are no plans to add such support. Instead, customers intending to migrate to 64-bit Windows Server 2008 will have to wait for the next major version, TMG, which is planned for the first half of 2009.