RE: Is ISA a good fit?
- From: "Mark Hippenstiel" <M.Hippenstiel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "[ISAserver.org Discussion List]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 21:40:37 +0100
Ray,
I do remember that you wanted to part with ISA not too long ago. I am
glad to see you sort of changed your mind - or at least you changed your
perspective :)
While I agree that the ISA log files are not a real bummer when it comes
to unauthenticated access (boy I do miss the IPs sometimes), I never
encountered problems with protocol passing that were not caused either
implicitly by protocol design or by insufficient knowledge on the side
of the operator.
IMO, you are going to have the very same problems with any other product
out there, unless it has built-in support for your special needs. But
then it's only a matter of time that you'll be facing another problem
that this product will not be able to address. The big pluses of ISA are
scalability, expandability and flexibilty, as well as the many third
party products which add extra functionality. Of course, some of the
great features ISA offers are MS centric, but this wouldn't disqualify
it's suitability for mixed environments.
The upcoming ISA 2004 will change a lot of things; you might want to
check out the ISA 2004 public beta, which is due in early 2004, see
http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/beta/default.asp
As has been said already, the question for fitness can not be answered
in general. For the problems you outline, it depends on how much weight
you put on certain aspects of functionality to determine the fitness of
a particular product. If you really need to answer this question, why
don't you put up a decision chart, evaluate some other products and make
a decision based on your findings?
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Dzek [mailto:rdzek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Posted At: Thursday, December 11, 2003 7:54 PM
Posted To: www.isaserver.org
Conversation: [isalist] Is ISA a good fit?
Subject: [isalist] Is ISA a good fit?
http://www.ISAserver.org
Request For Information...
It appears that lately I seem to be finding all the things that
ISA cannot do. Is ISA supposed to be an "Enterprise" level application
that can truly support Enterprise level needs? Or am I simply just
asking too much of ISA. I am asking this sincerely. I have used MS
Proxy and ISA for several years now. Frankly, I have not really looked
at other products. But now that our business has grown, so has the
complexity of our network. I keep running into issues where ISA is a
roadblock and not a asset. Are the problems with authentication, not
passing protocols (even when defined), VOIP, etc ISA centric, or am I
going to have these same issues with any firewall product we purchase?
In our mixed environment of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris, is ISA
really a good fit? Will there be a release of ISA that will address
these issues in the immediate future?
Thanks to all with more insight into this than I have.
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