Announcing IAG Service Pack 2

I’m Uri Lichtenfeld, product manager for the Intelligent Application Gateway and today I’m very excited to announce the upcoming release of IAG Service Pack 2!  This news is one of the announcements being made in Barcelona this week at the Microsoft TechEd:  IT Pro conference.

As you may know, IAG is a remote access gateway that boosts productivity by giving mobile and remote workers, partners and customers easy, flexible and secure access to virtually any application from a broad range of devices and locations. IAG includes a variety of features, pre-configured policies and tunnels that allow access to virtually any application from any location – securely!  It is a good example of our ongoing focus on integrated identity and security solutions that help customers protect their assets and manage costs.  (As you recall, Microsoft combined its identity and security groups in June.)

Service Pack 2 extends our key investments in application intelligence, end point security and interoperability as well overall performance, stability and ease of use. In the next few weeks, existing IAG customers will be able to obtain SP2 through our OEM hardware partners or on the Microsoft download center.

So let’s take a quick walk through some of the changes in SP2:

·         Ability to run as a virtual machine on Hyper-V: Using Hyper-V Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V you can now run IAG virtually! This can help lower costs and basically increases flexibility. Furthermore, customers can chose to virtualize their disaster recovery systems for easier roll-out.

·         Enhanced interoperability with non-Windows environments (such as Firefox, Linux and Mac): We’ve added end-point detection and Attachment Wiper capabilities for users coming from non Windows+IE environments, increasing the security and productivity from these platforms.

·         New application optimizers for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and OCS Web client: You could always publish these applications generically, but you now have the wizards and configurations in place.

·         New Getting Started Wizard: To help walk you through the first steps of setting up your IAG environment

Also on the list:

·         Improved Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) administrative experience.

·         Improved stability and performance

·         Incorporates all current updates such as:

§  SharePoint Fix

§  WMI-based detection leveraging the Detection Center

§  IP based logging of Network Connector

I’d like to invite you all to learn more about IAG at www.microsoft.com\iag and register and be first to download the new, virtual trial of IAG.

Watch this space – more to come! ;-)

Uri