What Is ISA Server?

The information technology (IT) world is full of acronyms; insiders refer to this vast maelstrom of initials as alphabet soup. Sometimes it seems that there are so many acronyms representing so many different concepts, products, components and protocols that we ve used up all the possible letter combinations and now we ve started over. As you learn about this world, you ll find many instances in which the same acronym you had previously used in one context is now being used to describe something entirely different.

Hence, in this book, ISA has nothing to do with the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus that long-time PC aficionados know and love (or at least know). Nor does it have anything to do with the Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, an organization devoted to measurement and control technologies. Rather, ISA is yet another new server product from Microsoft (or more accurately, as you ll see, a new name for an improved version of a not-so-new product). This book will acquaint you with ISA Server s features and functionality.

In conjunction with the release of Microsoft s new business-oriented operating system, Windows 2000, the software company announced that it would be developing several new server products that would either provide new functionality in Windows 2000-based networks or provide enhancements to the functionality to add-on server products that were originally designed to run on Windows NT 4.0.

New versions of old standbys, such as Exchange 2000 and SQL Server 2000, were developed, with improved features and the ability...