Microsoft killing off most of its Forefront range

[Arthur]

Sources: Ars Technica / Microsoft

 

To "align" its security and protection software, Microsoft has announced that it's discontinuing five of its Forefront-branded products.

 

The company will stop selling Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE), Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint (FPSP), Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS), Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG), and Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Protection Services (TMG WPS) as of December 1st, 2012. FPE, FPSP, FSOCS, and TMG WPS subscriptions will be supported until the earlier of December 31st, 2015, or each customer's current subscription date. TMG will receive mainstream support until April 14th, 2015, and extended support until April 14th, 2020.

 

Forefront Identity Manager and Forefront Unified Access Gateway will continue to be developed.

 

Microsoft is also renaming its online protection service, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, to remove the Forefront branding. From now on, it will be named Exchange Online Protection.

 

Some features from the discontinued products are being integrated elsewhere. Exchange 2013, for example, will incorporate some of the anti-malware protection currently provided by FPE (and it will also allow integration with other protection systems such as Exchange Online Protection). Others, it appears, are being terminated with no real replacement.

[jamesfed]

Have known about the end of TMG for a while back now - real shame as for about £600 a year we can have firewall, webfiltering and VPN for an entire school and it just runs on a Hyper-V VM.

 

At least they are sticking with UAG...for now...very useful as a remote access portal for us

[tmcd35]

I'm a little confused (nothing unusual when it comes to M$ products and licensing, etc). I was planning on moving over to EES early next year which include(s/d) Forefront client licenses. My understanding was that this would provide AV protection for the desktop. Has this now stopped? Will still be available? or My understanding was wrong to begin with anyway?

[Theblacksheep]

I'm a little confused (nothing unusual when it comes to M$ products and licensing, etc). I was planning on moving over to EES early next year which include(s/d) Forefront client licenses. My understanding was that this would provide AV protection for the desktop. Has this now stopped? Will still be available? or My understanding was wrong to begin with anyway?

 

Endpoint Protection is bundled with SCCM, not sure if you can use EP (note not listed as FEP) without the SCCM.

[localzuk]

Doh! We run TMG here. Will have to find something to replace it!

 

Forefront Endpoint Protection is now called System Center Endpoint Protection, and the licenses are still included in the EES desktop pack. You can deploy it without SCCM but you won't have any form of management of it - and as the full System Center suite is about £75, not getting SCCM to manage it would be silly.

Edited September 13, 2012 by localzuk

[tmcd35]

Endpoint Protection is bundled with SCCM, not sure if you can use EP (note not listed as FEP) without the SCCM.

 

Thanks, I was aware of SCCM but also the need for client licenses which are a part of the Core/Enterprise CAL packs in EES. I always thought this was part of the Forefront suite thus the confusion. Obviously the discontinuation of these products is going to effect licensing of related products like the CAL packs. Beside I thought SCCM was a requirement to running any part of Forefront? Like I say M$ product naming/licensing/bundling/etc is far far too confusing for me.

[tmcd35]

Forefront Endpoint Protection is now called System Center Endpoint Protection, and the licenses are still included in the EES desktop pack. You can deploy it without SCCM but you won't have any form of management of it - and as the full System Center suite is about £75, not getting SCCM to manage it would be silly.

 

Bingo, thats what I wanted to know! Can't find the "Thank" button so have +1 rep instead

[psydii]

So MS kill the extrememly cost effective tools for edge and locally hosted enterprise services(exchange/sharepoint) protection... suddenly the balance moves unsubtley towards hosting it all in the cloud.

 

Here is my prediction:

The next version of Windows server we'll only be allowed to run Read Only Domian controllers on site. And the version after that, AD will be gone for on premisis installs.

 

I half suspect that SMB2.1+CSC in 7 was so badly broken to encourage the migration to SharePoint/Office 365.