Intelligent Application Gateway Service Pack 2 is on the agenda at the Microsoft TechEd: IT Pro conference scheduled this week in Barcelona, Spain. Uri Lichtenfeld, product manager for the Intelligent Application Gateway, failed to deliver a specific date when Microsoft plans to make available the SP2 bits for IAG, and just announced that the release is coming to customers.

“Service Pack 2 extends our key investments in application intelligence, end point security and interoperability as well overall performance, stability and ease of use. In the next few weeks, existing IAG customers will be able to obtain SP2 through our OEM hardware partners or on the Microsoft download center,” Lichtenfeld stated.

Microsoft's remote access gateway will get a boost with Service Pack 2, including an evolution in terms of virtualization and interoperability. IAG is set up to permit companies to bridge mobile and remote workers with the applications they need independent of location or device through a collection of features, pre-configured policies and tunnels.

With SP2, Microsoft has added for IAG the “ability to run as a virtual machine on Hyper-V: Using Hyper-V Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V you can now run IAG virtually! This can help lower costs and basically increases flexibility. Furthermore, customers can choose to virtualize their disaster recovery systems for easier roll-out. [But also] enhanced interoperability with non-Windows environments (such as Firefox, Linux and Mac): We’ve added end-point detection and Attachment Wiper capabilities for users coming from non Windows+IE environments, increasing the security and productivity from these platforms”.

At the same time, customers will be able to take advantage of a new getting Started Wizard, which will provide guidance to get an IAG environment up and running. In addition, the Redmond company will also be offering application optimizers tailored to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and OCS Web client.