Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (Forefront TMG), formerly known as Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server), is a discontinued network router,

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

antivirus program Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

, VPN server and

web cache A web cache (or HTTP cache) is a system for optimizing the World Wide Web. It is implemented both client-side and server-side. The caching of multimedia and other files can result in less overall delay when web browser, browsing the Web. Parts o ...

from

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. It ran on

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a brand name for Server (computing), server-oriented releases of the Windows NT operating system (OS) that have been developed by Microsoft since 1993. The first release under this brand name i ...

and works by inspecting all network traffic that passes through it.

Features

Microsoft Forefront TMG offers a set of features which include: # Routing and remote access features: Microsoft Forefront TMG can act as a router, an Internet gateway, a

virtual private network Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not con ...

(VPN) server, a

network address translation Network address translation (NAT) is a method of mapping an IP address space into another by modifying network address information in the IP header of packets while they are in transit across a traffic Router (computing), routing device. The te ...

(NAT) server and a proxy server. # Security features: Microsoft Forefront TMG is a

which can inspect network traffic (including web content, secure web content and emails) and filter out

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

, attempts to exploit security

vulnerabilities Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." The understanding of social and environmental vulnerability, as a methodological approach, involves ...

and content that does not match a predefined security policy. In technical sense, Microsoft Forefront TMG offers application layer protection, stateful filtering,

content filtering An Internet filter is software that restricts or controls the content an Internet user is capable to access, especially when utilized to restrict material delivered over the Internet via the Web, Email, or other means. Such restrictions can be appl ...

and anti-malware protection. # Network performance features: Microsoft Forefront TMG can also improve network performance: It can compress web traffic to improve communication speed. It also offers

web caching A web cache (or HTTP cache) is a system for optimizing the World Wide Web. It is implemented both client-side and server-side. The caching of multimedia and other files can result in less overall delay when browsing the Web. Parts of the system ...

: It can cache frequently-accessed web content so that users can access them faster from the local network cache. Microsoft Forefront TMG 2010 can also cache data received through

Background Intelligent Transfer Service Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a component of Microsoft Windows XP and later iterations of the operating systems, which facilitates asynchronous, prioritized, and throttled transfer of files between machines using idle network ...

, such as updates of software published on

Microsoft Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of the Microsoft Windows operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers sof ...

website.

History

Microsoft Proxy Server

The Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway product line originated with Microsoft Proxy Server. Developed under the

code-name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espiona ...

"Catapult", Microsoft Proxy Server v1.0 was first launched in January 1997, and was designed to run on

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the data server and personal workstation markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 3 ...

. Microsoft Proxy Server v1.0 was a basic product designed to provide Internet Access for clients in a LAN Environment via

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

. Support was also provided for IPX/SPX networks (primarily used in legacy

Novell NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...

environments), through a

WinSock In computing, the Windows Sockets API (WSA), later shortened to Winsock, is an application programming interface (API) that defines how Windows network application software should access network services, especially TCP/IP. It defines a standar ...

translation/tunnelling client which allowed TCP/IP applications, such as web browsers, to operate transparently without any TCP/IP on the wire. Although well-integrated into Windows NT4, Microsoft Proxy Server v1.0 only had basic functionality, and came in only one edition. Extended support for Microsoft Proxy Server v1.0 ended on 31 March 2002. Microsoft Proxy Server v2.0 was launched in December 1997, and included better NT Account Integration, improved

packet filtering In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on configurable security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted ne ...

support, and support for a wider range of

network protocols A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics, and synchronization of ...

. Microsoft Proxy Server v2.0 exited the extended support phase and reached end of life on 31 December 2004.

ISA Server 2000

On 18 March 2001, Microsoft launched Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 (ISA Server 2000). ISA Server 2000 introduced the ''Standard'' and ''Enterprise'' editions, with Enterprise-grade functionality such as High-Availability

Cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study the magnetosphere * Asteroid cluster, a small ...

ing not included in the Standard Edition. ISA Server 2000 required

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

(any edition), and will also run on

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003, codenamed "Whistler Server", is the sixth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft and the first server version to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is part of the Windows NT ...

. In accordance with Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Policy, ISA Server 2000 was the first ISA Server product to use the 10-year support lifecycle with 5 years of ''Mainstream'' support and five years of ''Extended'' support. ISA Server 2000 reached End of Life on 12 April 2011.

ISA Server 2004

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 (ISA Server 2004) was released on 8 September 2004. ISA Server 2004 introduced multi-networking support, integrated virtual private networking configuration, extensible user and authentication models,

application layer firewall An application firewall is a form of firewall that controls input/output or system calls of an application or service. It operates by monitoring and blocking communications based on a configured policy, generally with predefined rule sets to ch ...

support,

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. Windows Server operating systems include it as a set of processes and services. Originally, only centralized domain management used Active Direct ...

integration, SecureNAT, and improved reporting and management features. The rules based configuration was also considerably simplified over ISA Server 2000 version. ISA Server 2004 Enterprise Edition included array support, integrated Network Load Balancing (NLB), and Cache Array Routing Protocol (CARP). One of the core capabilities of ISA Server 2004, dubbed Secure Server Publishing, was its ability to securely expose their internal servers to Internet. For example, some organizations use ISA Server 2004 to publish their

Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the relat ...

services such as Outlook Web Access (OWA),

Outlook Mobile Access Outlook or The Outlook may refer to: Computing * Microsoft Outlook, also referred to as ''the classic Outlook'' an e-mail client and personal information management software product from Microsoft * Outlook for Windows, also referred to as ''the ...

(OMA) or

ActiveSync ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization app developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. It synchronizes data with handheld devices and desktop computers. Overview ActiveSync allows a mobile device to be synchronized with either a d ...

. Using the ''Forms-based Authentication'' (''FBA'') authentication type, ISA Server can be used to pre-authenticate web clients so that traffic from unauthenticated clients to published servers is not allowed. ISA Server 2004 is available in two editions, Standard and Enterprise. Enterprise Edition contains features enabling policies to be configured on an array level, rather than on individual ISA Servers, and load-balancing across multiple ISA Servers. Each edition of ISA Server is licensed per processor. (The version included in Windows Small Business Server 2000/2003 Premium includes licensing for 2 processors.) ISA Server 2004 runs on

Standard or Enterprise Edition. Appliance hardware containing Windows Server 2003 Appliance Edition and ISA Server Standard Edition is available from a variety of Microsoft Partners.

ISA Server 2006

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 (ISA Server 2006) was released on 17 October 2006. It is an updated version of ISA Server 2004, and retains all features from ISA Server 2004 except Message Screener. ISA Server 2006 introduced new features including: * Support for Exchange Server 2007 (referred to as "Exchange 12" in the Microsoft ISA Server 2006 Evaluation Guide) * New configuration wizards for various tasks such as setting up a "site-to-site VPN connection", publishing SharePoint services, publishing websites, creating firewall rules. * Introduction of single sign-on for groups of published web sites. * Improvements to user authentication including the addition of LDAP Authentication support * Resistance to

flood attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...

s, to protect the ISA server from being "unavailable, compromised, or unmanageable during a flooding attack." * Performance features such as BITS Caching, Web Publishing Load Balancing and

HTTP compression HTTP compression is a capability that can be built into web servers and web clients to improve transfer speed and bandwidth utilization. HTTP data is compressed before it is sent from the server: compliant browsers will announce what methods ar ...

. ISA Server Appliance Edition Microsoft also offered ISA Server 2006 Appliance Edition. It was designed to be pre-installed onto OEM hardware (

server appliance A computer appliance is a computer system with a combination of Computer hardware, hardware, software, or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a particular computing resource. Such devices became known as ''appliances'' because of ...

s) that are sold by hardware manufacturers as a stand-alone firewall type device. Along with Appliance Edition, ISA server 2006 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition were available in preconfigured hardware.

Microsoft Forefront TMG MBE

Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway Medium Business Edition (Forefront TMG MBE) is the next version of ISA Server which is also included with

Windows Essential Business Server Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (code named ''Centro'') was Microsoft's Server (computing), server offering for mid-size businesses (up to a maximum of 300 Users and/or Devices). It was released to manufacturing on 15 September 2008 and wa ...

. This version only runs on the 64-bit edition of

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...

and does not support Enterprise edition features such as array support or Enterprise policy. Mainstream support for Forefront TMG MBE ended on 12 November 2013.

Microsoft Forefront TMG 2010

Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (Forefront TMG 2010) was released on 17 November 2009. It is built on the foundation of ISA Server 2006 and provides enhanced web protection, native 64-bit support, support for

and

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 7" or "Windows Server 2008 Release 2", is the eighth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was release ...

, malware protection and BITS caching.

Service Pack In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...

1 for this product was released on 23 June 2010. It includes several new features to support

and

SharePoint 2010 SharePoint is a collection of enterprise content management and knowledge management tools developed by Microsoft. Launched in 2001, it was initially bundled with Windows Server as Windows SharePoint Server, then renamed to Microsoft Office Sh ...

lines of products. Service Pack 2 for this product was released on 10 October 2011. On 9 September 2012 Microsoft announced no further development will take place on Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 and the product will no longer be available for purchase as of 1 December 2012. Mainstream support ceased on 14 April 2015 and extended support has ended on 14 April 2020.

References

External links

*
TMG TechCenter

Forefront TMG (ISA Server) Product Team Blog

Richard Hicks' Forefront TMG Blog
{{Firewall software Forefront Threat Management Gateway Firewall software Computer security software Proxy servers 1997 software Content-control software