In the past week, Microsoft has unleashed five service packs for its enterprise class security software. These service packs include the beta 2 of its identity management framework "Geneva," the SP3 of Forefront Security for SharePoint, the SP2 of Forefront Security for Exchange Server and trial versions of Antigen Spam Manager for Exchange and Antigen for SMTP Gateways. Read more
Network World writer Tim Greene has a good piece on Juniper's announcement that it can now use the Microsoft NAP client in place of Juniper's own UAC client. That makes installations using Juniper's UAC for NAC easier to deploy since they don't have to use the UAC client on machines running Windows Vista and XP SP3. But this is a one-way announcement when it comes to Microsoft NAP as it's what enables NAC client machines to participate in Juniper's UAC solution (and Trusted Computing Group's TNC architecture), not the Microsoft-based NAC product solution. Microsoft has a dual NAC strategy; expose the NAP client for 3rd party NAC solutions, and deliver its own Microsoft-centric NAC solution. Read more
Recently Network World reporter Tim Greene wrote about the longer-term view of Network Access Control (NAC), the broader market that Microsoft NAP fits into. Half the 17 companies Gartner considers NAC vendors are legitimate start-ups, and obviously the market won't support 17 NAC vendors, so we'll continue to see a shakeout, such as the recent closing of Lockdown Networks. Having formerly been part of the NAC market as CTO at StillSecure, one of the vendors that has risen as a NAC market leader, I still enjoy the competitive battles between NAC vendors. Read more
Microsoft took nearly five years to build a new version of Windows Server but apparently that wasn't enough time to make sure its management and security software supported the new OS. A slew of applications in the Systems Center and Forefront families still don't work with WS2008, according to a recent report from research firm Directions on Microsoft.
The report lists the following System Center applications or features that don't jive with WS2008: Read more
I had an opportunity to spend some quality time at the Microsoft RSA booth today and take a good look at the Forefront "Sterling" beta, released at the RSA show. One of my first goals was understanding just how the Forefront brand fit into Microsoft's product mix and clear up some confusion I've had. Personally, I've long found the Forefront branding by Microsoft to be confusing between Microsoft Forefront, Windows Live OneCare and Microsoft NAP. It think I've got it now, but no promises.
Forefront today consists of three primary product areas; Forefront Client Security (the enterprise AV/AS product), Forefront for SharePoint and Exchange, and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA). Read more
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