Forefront Suite

[gshaw]

A bit of an open-ended thread really, for those people who are currently running Forefront products on their networks I'd be interested to hear your feedback and experiences.

 

Looking at the new Endpoint Protection release that seems to be coming pretty soon and Protection for Exchange that would be replacing Kaspersky AV and MessageLabs respectively. I like the sound of Endpoint Protection integrating with SCCM as I've always been a big fan of it so having everything in one place seems ideal

 

KAV and ML have been doing the job fine but I think we have the MS stuff on the Campus License and now it's gone through a few versions I reckon it's settled enough to see as an equal competitor.

 

Can't argue with the cost savings so if they do what they say on the tin could be time to move?

[zag]

Yep waiting here as well for the 2010 release.

 

But I warn you, I did try the 2007 release and it was pretty bad. Didn't even work on 2008 R2 server so I'm not holding out much hope.

[Digressive]

I use the Forefront suite for proxy/filtering/spam/e-mail AV at the moment but I'll be evaluating the Endpoint Protection 2010 very soon. I tried the 2007 and agree with @zag it was pretty bad.

[gshaw]

Yep waiting here as well for the 2010 release.

 

But I warn you, I did try the 2007 release and it was pretty bad. Didn't even work on 2008 R2 server so I'm not holding out much hope.

 

Yup I saw your blog post, hoping MS have sorted it out somewhat. Our Kaspersky license expires in Jan so might have to renew for another year then evaluate in the summer when the machines get rebuilt...

 

@Digressive how's it performing for blocking spam and has the software been reliable? The main reason I sent the filtering out to MessageLabs was because Sophos was so unreliable and kept crashing out taking email flow with it, can't be doing with that again if we bring it back in-house...

[Digressive]

To be clear I use Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) which is hosted and maintained by Microsoft offsite and it's pretty fantastic at spam and virus blocking. I used to use the Sophos solution but stopped for the very same reasons you mentioned.

[gshaw]

Didn't know Microsoft did a hosted solution, I remember reading some options for hosted services on our Campus license a while back, is your service included with it or are you paying standard licensing fees for it?

[Digressive]

I'm not sure about the licensing - the IT Manager deals with that. I would ask him, but I'm on leave today. Sorry!