Today's business rely on robust, cost-effective, and, above all, secure
IT services. Security administrators know firsthand that threats from
hackers and criminals continue to increase, forcing them to spend large
amounts of time managing security. The wide variety of threats against
networks, hosts, and, increasingly, applications has led to a security
patchwork in which administrators attempt to assemble disparate
products from multiple vendors into an effective security solution.
The lack of a comprehensive, integrated solution requires that you
develop expertise in a large and expanding number of products. Multiple
user interfaces, increasingly complex configurations, and an inability
to correlate alerts and reports lead to a lack of clarity and control
over the security state of the organization, increasing business risk
as well as total cost
of ownership.
As a result, organizations expend far too much effort as they seek to
deliver an effective, manageable security environment in the face of
current and emerging threats.
The Benefits Of Forefront
The Microsoft Forefront family of security products for businesses
provides greater protection and control over the security of your IT
infrastructure.
Its comprehensive set of security products integrate with each other,
with your organization’s IT infrastructure, and can be supplemented
with interoperable thirdparty solutions, enabling end-to-end,
defense-in-depth security solutions.
Simplified management, reporting, analysis, and deployment enable you
to more efficiently and effectively protect your organization’s
information resources and provide more secure access to applications
and servers.
With highly responsive protection that is supported by Microsoft
technical guidance, Forefront helps you to confidently meet
ever-changing threats and increasing business demands.
A Comprehensive Product Family
Microsoft Forefront provides a complete, integrated family of security
products that offer client, server, and edge protection to help ensure
that your business is secure from ever-changing threats:
- Microsoft Forefront Client Security (formerly called Microsoft ClientProtection)
- Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server (formerly called Microsoft Antigen for Exchange)
- Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint® (formerly called Antigen® for SharePoint)
- Antigen for Instant Messaging
- Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006
- Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) 2007
Protect operating systems
Forefront helps protect Microsoft client and server operating systems.
The highly responsive anti-malware capabilities of Microsoft Forefront
Client Security provide real-time, scheduled, or on-demand detection
and removal of viruses, spyware, rootkits, and other emerging threats.
Protect critical server applications
Forefront helps protect Microsoft-based application servers through a
defense-indepth strategy. ISA 2006 provides robust access control,
application- specific and protocol-specific data inspection. The
Forefront line of anti-malware products is also tuned to protect
specific server
applications, all while utilizing a unique multi-engine architecture that helps provide the highest levels of protection.
Enable more secure, controlled access
Forefront offersa broad array of firewall, VPN, and encryption
technologies, and identity management capabilities that help you ensure
only authorized users can gain access to the appropriate IT resources
and data. ISA 2006 provides strong network access control, while IAG
2007 helps secure access to a full range of network applications from
both managed and
unmanaged devices.
Safeguard sensitive data
Forefront products help safeguard sensitive data and protect
intellectual property. ISA 2006 provides a combination of
application-specific filters throughout the network, as well as
technologies that help ensure the confidentiality and authenticity of
your valuable data.
Integration By Design
Forefront products offer multiple levels of integration so that you can
achieve greater efficiency and control over the security of your
network.
Integrate with applications
Microsoft Forefront anti-malware and secure access products are
specially tuned to integrate with and protect business critical server
application such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook® Web Access
and Microsoft SharePoint. This integration provides critical protection
against the newest generation of application-specific attacks.
Integrate with IT infrastructure
Forefront products work with your existing IT infrastructure, including
Active Directory®, Group Policies, Systems Management Server, and
Windows® Update Services. This unifying infrastructure enables you to
seamlessly manage security service deployment, distribution,
configuration, and enforcement, and do so with a fine level of granular
control.
Integrate across Forefront
Forefront products are designed to work together so they can leverage their capabilities for greater security coverage.
Simplified, Centralized Management
Microsoft Forefront products are designed to simplify deployment,
configuration, management, reporting, and analysis so that you can have
greater confidence that your organization is well-protected.
Simplify deployment
Utilities such as ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool and
configuration wizards help set a solid basis for robust security
installation. Forefront’s Integration with Active Directory and update
systems such as Systems Management Server provide a common foundation
for change and configuration management. Users and administrators both
benefit from the centralized distribution of up-to-date configurations,
policies, and operating system or anti-virus updates for server and
client hosts.
Unify reporting and analysis
Forefront centralizes the collection and analysis of security
management information, because all security information is stored in a
single SQL Server™ repository, which can use SQL Server Reporting and
Analysis Services to identify and interpret security events.
Simplify management
Security management and reporting is centralized in Forefront; its
components integrate fully with existing management systems including
Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft Systems Management Server, and
Windows Server® Update Services. Forefront’s integrated management
consoles offer Microsoft’s familiar interfaces and ease-of-use,
reducing training time and helping to control business costs.
An Emphasis On Securability
By concentrating much of its efforts on the integration and management
aspects of security—the “securability”of the infrastructure—Forefront
helps organizations:
- Centralize security management
- Prevent misconfiguration
- Deploy security pervasively
- Gain a unified view into network security
Addressing these issues makes the network more secure—the
configurations are correct, security is deployed where it needs to be,
instead of where it is easiest to do so, and your security
administration console helps you to see what is happening across your
network.
Unified data collection, reporting, and analytics across the product
line helps administrators ensure that your data protection is compliant
with your organization’s security policies and consistent with strict
regulatory requirements. This also minimizes the need for expensive
training and retraining of administrative staff in a variety of
unrelated management and reporting consoles.
By offering multi-level integration with your existing IT
infrastructure and simplified, centralized management, Microsoft
Forefront business security products provide greater protection and
control so that you can deliver a more secure environment for your
business users.
