Missed the Boat on Forefront?

[Wirral_Wonderer]

I was contacted to day by our MS EES supplier to remind me that the renewall is due, whilst on the phone he said that Forefront has been discontinued

 

We are still running ISA 2006, mainly for local user control and logging, not much else. We have purchased the Forefront Perpetual License to stay legal, however what are other schools using to monitor and secure their networks from the LA on the cheap?

[twin--turbo]

Securing form the world with an ASA5520, not cheap but we could have done it for free using pfSense or one of the other free linux firewall distros ( enfian, ClearOS, Untangle, etc..)

 

We use Forefront TMG to proxy, not sure where that product is going will have to refresh my memory as we need to look at our filtering solution for Sep 2014 onward.

 

Rob

[timbo343]

We have an ASA5510 as firewawl ith Isa2006 and websense on a 2003 server. The nain purpose of isa is to act as a proxy for websense even though websensevwill integrate with cisco stuff. Since i heard about forefront becoming end of life in 2014/2015 i needed to look a new solution and with our websense contract expiring it has cone at a good time, im moving over to smoothwall, a utm1000 from our LEA. This will tie in nicely with my plans for my wireless project.

[jamesfed]

Forefront TMG 2010 is going end of life but we are ok until 2015 - Important Changes to Forefront Product Roadmaps - Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

We used to use TMG 2010 for VPN but that's now done by RAS in Server 2012 (to get Direct Access as well) now its just our web filter as our LEA deals with firewall.....however....next summer we are going to change from LEA broadband to our own choice of supplier so it is likely that we will ditch TMG for something else.

[localzuk]

I still don't understand this decision. TMG is one of the most widely deployed systems in the Microsoft server world!

 

However, it does mean I will finally be forced to set up a proper edge firewall configuration in our school. I suspect it may mean some more sales for Smoothwall too!

[SYNACK]

I still don't understand this decision. TMG is one of the most widely deployed systems in the Microsoft server world!

 

However, it does mean I will finally be forced to set up a proper edge firewall configuration in our school. I suspect it may mean some more sales for Smoothwall too!

 

To be fair TMG had some massive problems that they never seemed to be able to fix along with a complete lack of IP6 support. I think they may have simply done a value assessment and realised that it would cost too much to fix and they were better off re-architecting a new product or dropping it entirely.

 

They may go back in future and build an advanced client firewall but given their push everything to the cloud, consumer for everything push at the moment giving people the means to host and secure things themselves is actually acting against their corporate direction. It is unfortunate but we'll just have to see how it all turns out and whether the cloud pushers (both companies and deluded fans) end up managing to cripple and lobotomise most networks to the point that they are all entirely at the mercy of external providers for absolutely everything short of changing a power adapter.

Edited December 8, 2012 by SYNACK

[nicholab]

Vyatta core stuff looks good so do their paid for products.

[EduTech]

I am not sure but I am sure i heard somewhere that UAG was going to do alot of what TMG does but obviously UAG is much more expensive.

 

James.

[localzuk]

I am not sure but I am sure i heard somewhere that UAG was going to do alot of what TMG does but obviously UAG is much more expensive.

 

James.

 

UAG will do the publishing stuff, but won't do the caching/proxying stuff that all of us school users rely on.

[EduTech]

UAG will do the publishing stuff, but won't do the caching/proxying stuff that all of us school users rely on.

 

True, I've not had to look for the proxy/caching features just publishing so that's what i missed. always get a smoothwall appliance! ;-)

 

James.