Richard Hicks' ISA/TMG Blog

According to an article in the Orange County Register, The NCAA Men’s College Basketball tournament (aka March Madness) will cost businesses an estimated $1.8 billion dollars in lost productivity. This is where the URL filtering capabilities of Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 shine! With integrated URL filtering enabled, security administrators can simply configure an access rule allowing limited access to the Sports category (perhaps during the lunch hour only) or perhaps even block the category completely. The result will be improved productivity and significant network bandwidth savings during the tournament.

Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 runs exclusively on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008R2. This means you will not be able to install the TMG management console included with the installation media on any 32-bit Windows machine. What if you wish to manage your TMG firewalls from a 32-bit Windows operating system? The answer is simple. Download the 32-bit version of the TMG management console. After registering, click the download link and then download the file TMG_ENU_Management_x86.exe. Now you can manage your TMG firewalls from a 32-bit Windows desktop or server operating system!

The Customer Experience Improvement Program was created by Microsoft to allow the collection of information about how customers use their programs. Participating in the program allows you to effectively contribute to the design and development of Microsoft products. The program is purely elective and you can choose to opt out of the program at any time.

After installing Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010, open the management console and you will see a link inviting you to learn more about the program.

Clicking the link will present a dialog box where you can select the option to participate or not.

I would strongly encourage everyone to opt in to this program. Doing so will provide Microsoft with valuable information that will ultimately lead to a better product with more features. Microsoft will not be contacting you, nor will you receive unwanted e-mail or be asked to participating in any surveys. If you are concerned with information disclosure, please read the CEIP privacy statement.

If you haven’t done so already, please join in! Come on, support the team. Everyone will benefit!

I am pleased to announce that Microsoft, along with my employer Celestix Networks, will be hosting a series of ‘Lunch-n-Learn’ meetings at Microsoft offices on the west coast in January 2010. If you are interested in hearing more about Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Unified Access Gateway, and the Celestix hardware appliance platform, you are invited to attend one of the following sessions:

January 20, 2010 – Bellevue, Washington
January 21, 2010 – Irvine, CA
January 26, 2010 – Portland, OR

Click here for more information and to register for an event near you. Hope to see you there!