Introduction

Now that you have been provided with an overview of ISA Server s functionality and features in the previous chapter, let s step back and take a look at the network environment Microsoft is targeting in its marketing of the product. Although ISA can provide many benefits to small and medium-sized businesses, it is in the enterprise that its superiority to Proxy Server 2.0 and competitors products really shines.

This chapter examines the characteristics of the typical enterprise network that present special challenges and opportunities as well as the ISA features that make it appropriate for this type of large-scale networking.

Enterprise-Friendly Features

What makes the enterprise network different from networks of smaller organizations? At first glance, the difference might seem to be merely a matter of size, but it s really much more than that.

Traditionally, Microsoft s products were geared toward medium-sized and somewhat large business networks, but they did not scale as well to large, multilocation enterprise-level organizations (such as Microsoft itself has become). Over the past several years, however, the company has made a conscious effort to penetrate the enterprise market, and we have begun to see the Windows server operating systems replace or at least take their place beside the UNIX machines and mainframes that have served this market in the past.

What is an enterprise network? Generally, when we think of the term, we think of a large company network. An enterprise network is not just big; it s also diversified. Enterprise technologies provide ways to integrate the...