14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is at the end of the Beta phase with the development process of Forefront Threat Management Gateway. In this regard, the Redmond company has announced that it has produced and made available for download the Beta 3 build of the security product designed as the evolution of the Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server). Bill Jensen, senior product manager, has confirmed that the current release is the last Beta build of Forefront Threat Management Gateway that will be offered for download and evaluation.
“This marks a big step towards providing a complete Web security solution with the first public preview of our URL filtering capabilities,” Jensen states. Back in February 2009, when it offered the second Beta release of the solution, Microsoft promised that the following development milestone would bring to the table URL blocking capabilities. Customers that will jump aboard the Forefront Threat Management Gateway pre-release testing program will be able to evaluate URL filtering in Beta 3.
“Most companies today have some sort of URL filtering. It may be a standalone product plugged into ISA or into a firewall or come as part of a unified threat management product. These solutions represent a compromise. With the first, you give up simplicity of a single vendor solution. With the second, you give up the richness you get from most standalone URL filtering products,” Jensen explains.
In Microsoft's perspective, Forefront TMG is designed to bridge Web access gateways with URL filtering and AntiMalware capabilities. Essentially, the Redmond company has built Forefront Threat Management Gateway to balance the efficiency and simplicity of a standalone security offering with the functionality and flexibility of a UTM.
“Forefront TMG is leveraging the Microsoft Reputation Services to expand beyond what one company can provide. Instead, MRS aggregates URLs from multiple sources – including but not limited to iFilter, BrightCloud and Marshall8e6 – and determines which is most accurate for categorization. This gives Forefront TMG customers access to URLs from multiple trusted sources, but also gives them confidence that the URLs will be accurate categorized,” Jensen adds.
Forefront Threat Management Gateway Beta 3 is available for download here.