The start of 2010 marked the availability of UAG 2010

Jan 6, 2010 09:05 GMT  ·  By

Customers looking to adopt the latest remote access solution from Microsoft, can already integrate additional products designed to optimize the Redmond company’s offering. F5’s Application Ready Solution is designed to take Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 to the next level in terms of high availability, improved performance and scalability.

"Microsoft is pleased that F5 is committed to and has invested in the Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 solution to help customers realize Business Ready Security," revealed John Chirapurath, senior director in the Identity and Security Business Group at Microsoft.

Microsoft released Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 2010 to manufacturing in December 2009. However, UAG 2010 general availability started only in January 2010. The new solution from F5 Networks comes on the heels of UAG GA, and is set up to optimize the gateway solution offered by Microsoft. In fact, F5 labored to have the Application Ready Solution ready at the same time as UAG 2010. Of course, both offerings are aimed at companies which need to ensure that their workers can benefit from seamless access to the corporate network and assets.

"As the mobile workforce grows, so does the need for organizations to deploy highly available and scalable remote access technologies to deliver business-critical applications to those users. With this addition to F5's extensive Application Ready Solution portfolio, we continue to demonstrate our deep and ongoing commitment to early solution design and qualification with Microsoft, ensuring that F5 solutions are available to customers at the same time that Microsoft products are delivered," explained Calvin Rowland, VP of Application Partner Programs at F5.

The F5 Application Ready Solution for Microsoft Forefront UAG 2010 is capable of kicking up a notch availability and performance for UAG 2010 via F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). In addition, the offering also comes with F5 iRules commands to allow companies to control custom client connections and to make sure that servers-to-clients traffic is handled via the same UAG server which dealt with the original connection. Companies that decide to embrace F5 Application Ready Solution for Microsoft Forefront UAG 2010 will also benefit from F5's DevCentral portal, an online IT community designed to offer custom iRule tailored to Windows Server 2008 R2 Direct Access.

“We anticipate strong customer demand for this solution in the coming months as customers look to unify and better secure their remote access infrastructure. The long-time technology collaboration between Microsoft and F5 continues to bring significant advantages for our mutual customers," Chirapurath said.

Unified Access Gateway 2010 is available for download here.