We’re just back from TechEd in Berlin where Brad Anderson announced the release candidate for Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 during his keynote. During the session, Brad highlighted one of the key focus areas in this release - the convergence of security and management. FEP 2010 is deployed, configured, managed, updated, and reported on through System Center Configuration Manager 2007, allowing customers to streamline their client management and security operations. Using FEP to merge these disciplines, organizations can improve desktop protection and lower operational costs.

Since we’ve posted the release candidate, I’ve heard a lot of great feedback from trial customers (check out the Customer Evaluation Program), TechEd attendees, and TAP participants on the impact this convergence is already having on their businesses. Customers like Riga Stradins University tell us that the consolidated tools, processes, and infrastructure help them enable new efficiencies:

“The integration of management and security makes our IT organization more agile.  We’re more efficient in the way that we use our personnel. We’ve increased the number of people available to respond to security incidents by 20% with no increase in headcount” – Kristaps Cudars, Principle Information Systems Architect

This use of FEP to drive new efficiencies is a persistent theme among the early adopters. With security as part of the console that in many cases they are already using, customers say that their dedicated management personnel can expand their efforts – easily, to help watch over security.

Another interesting comment on efficiency came from Telekom Slovenije. Like many organizations globally, Telekom Solvenije has a single team responsible for desktop management and endpoint security, but the tools they used required completely separate efforts.  Already a Configuration Manager customer, and with a long-term contract for their existing anti-virus solution ending, they applied to join the FEP TAP program:  

"We had separate silos for managing and securing the infrastructure, even though the same team was responsible for both… The integration of FEP with System Center Configuration Manager lets us break down the silos with our organization and increase efficiency” – Dragoslav Radin, Head of the Division for IT Infrastructure Services

These efficiencies, driven by convergence of security and management, not only allow administrators to do their jobs better and more quickly, as we’ve discussed here, but they also lower hardware, maintenance, and training costs through the use of a single, multi-purpose infrastructure.  I hope you will download and try FEP in your environment.  

The Release Candidate of Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 shipped today and is now available for download here.  FEP was built on Configuration Manager 2007 (R2 and R3 supported), so anyone with Configuration Manager deployed now has the unique ability to deliver desktop security on your existing infrastructure. Find out more on the System Center team blog.

-        Forefront Team

Today in Berlin at TechEd Europe Microsoft vice president Brad Anderson announced that the Release Candidate of Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 is now available for download and we are on track to release to manufacturing by the end of 2010! Built on System Center Configuration Manager R2 and R3, FEP gives customers the ability to manage and secure their systems on the exact same infrastructure –  converging the disciplines of client security and management. 

With FEP, desktop antimalware is no longer a discrete set of tools and processes – it is an extension of your existing Configuration Manager deployment, making your endpoint protection:

1. Easier to use.  You view your configuration information (what has/hasn’t been updated, what patches have/haven’t been applied) in the same place as your security information – which makes it easier to identify issues and make smarter decisions to resolve them.
2. Less costly. No more maintaining two sets of hardware, implementing two sets of policies, or training staff on two separate technologies.
3. Extremely effective.  The new detection engine in FEP– with its behavioral detection technologies – has been proven in third-party testing (AV-comparatives, VirusBulletin) to rank among the industry’s best – particularly when detection unknown threats.

In addition to our infrastructure and detection updates, FEP includes some great new features like:

• Windows Firewall management.  Now easier to ensure Windows Firewall is active and working properly on all endpoints across the enterprise.
• Automated agent replacement.  For the most common antimalware solutions, automatically detects and removes existing security agents to streamline deployment.

We encourage you to take a look at the new RC – and if you happen to be at TechEd EMEA, make sure to stop by our booth!