ISA 2006 or Forefront

[Gatt]

Whats the difference between the 2 of these?

Am I best sticking with ISA 2006 or should I start using Forefront (TMG?)

[ZeroHour]

Good question, we are ISA 2004 but been wondering about upgrading to 2006/forefront

[Gatt]

Having to re-install the server as you cannot change domain membership whilst ISA is installed

 

Gonna whack it up to Win 2008 whilst I'm at it...

 

Think I might stick with ISA 2006 until I find out what the deal is with Forefront..

[azrael78]

From what little I know of TMG, it's still a beta - so you may well be worth sticking to ISA 2006 and perhaps throwing TMG in between your ISA and a protected network or something so you can play with it and see it work - but if it stops working, you can easily pull it out of the chain.

 

I've got a TMG VM running - it looks alot different to 2006 but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to hook it into the main network to see if the whole 'threat gateway' bit worked. Wanted to deliberately infect some PCs with malware on a seperate net to see if TMG picked it up or not.

 

Not quite sure what the deal with that will be - it looks like an ISA + Anti-Malware.

 

Az

[SYNACK]

Here is the comparision table:

Forefront Threat Management Gateway: Features

 

The stuff on the rest of the page gives a goog overview, they are up to beta 3 at the moment.

 

It looks like it adds support for 64bit, malware filtering and better filtering of downloaded files - ie for viruses. It also inclueds a http filtering component and uses the MS trusted list as a source to block fishing/spam but it may be able to be tweaked to use other DBs as well possibly allowing for content filtering for schools.

 

It also seems to support load balancing between ISPs and better VoIP and NAT handleing along with scanning traffic for MS vunrability exploit traffic.

 

Here is their list of why people should upgrade to ISA 2006 if they are not already there:

Internet Security and Acceleration Server: Why Upgrade

[john]

The TMG is the replacement for ISA as ISA has ended on 2006 so you will need to move to it in the future if you wish to replace / upgrade your ISA box.

[EduTech]

Yeah TMG is still in Beta at the moment, so i would recommend you stay with ISA 2006. i believe with ISA 2006 you have to stay with Server 2003 as it dont work on 2008 which is why Forefront has been developed. (cant remember the exact reasons for this now, something to do with security in 2008 i think)

 

If you want to know about TMG from a users point of view, speak to Stuart Wilkie on the forums, he is running the BETA at the moment at his school!

 

James.