Service Pack 1 for the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 will be made available to customers in the summer of 2008. According to Jim Harrison (Forefront Edge; ISA Sustained Engineering), ISA Server 2006 SP1 brings to the table a plethora of new features, while also improving the areas of the integrated edge security gateway. In addition to providing the heads up on the future release of ISA Server 2006 SP1, Harrison has also managed to deliver a detailed description of the new items the service pack will feature, as well as the enhancements which will be introduced.

"This Service Pack introduces new features and improved functionality for ISA Server 2006 Enterprise and Standard Editions. The new features focus primarily on enhanced troubleshooting mechanisms designed to help you identify and resolve ISA Server configuration issues. Also included in this package are the updates we've promised for so long, such as SAN certificate support," Harrison stated.

As far as the evolution of current features goes, ISA Server 2006 SP1 will no longer be limited to unicast mode with the support for Network Load Balancing, providing support for unicast, multicast, and multicast with IGMP modes, according to Harrison. Service Pack 1 will also bring new performance counter, enhancements in the area of alerting, UUID rule traffic filtering RPC access, and will play well with server certificates with multiple Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries. Additionally, Harrison enumerated four new features such as the Configuration Change Tracking, the Web Publishing Rule Test Button, the Traffic Simulator and the Diagnostic Logging Query.

"CCT- logs all configuration changes applied to ISA Server configuration to help you backtrack through your change history. Web Publishing Rule Test Button - helps you verify that the rule configuration agrees with what is set at the published web server and provides specific suggestions when they disagree. Traffic Simulator - simulates network traffic as it would be seen by the ISA rules engine and gives you specific information about traffic processing along the way. Diagnostic Logging Query - an extension to the Diagnostic Logging feature provided in the Supportability Pack, this feature makes it much easier to see only the data that is relevant to the current troubleshooting effort," Harrison added.