Introduction

To manage, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, means to direct or control. Effectively managing ISA Server means taking advantage of the tools Microsoft has provided to allow network administrators granular, fine-tuned control of the product s functionality and performance.

Flexibility, power, and features are important considerations in adopting any piece of software, especially an enterprise-level, mission-critical software package that is a vital part of your organization s security scheme. However, no matter how powerful and feature-rich a program, if its interface is not user friendly and it is difficult to configure and administer, you probably will not get the full benefits that it could offer.

In its efforts to make ISA Server as usable as it is powerful, Microsoft has equipped the product with the familiar Microsoft Management Console (MMC) interface used to give a standardized look and feel to all of Windows 2000 s built-in administrative tools. The ISA management console is installed automatically as the interface to your ISA Server installation. It is also added to the list of standalone snap-in components that can be made part of a custom MMC.

In this chapter, we take a look at the ISA management console used to perform administration of ISA Server, the how to s of some specific management tasks, and ways of using the monitoring, alerting, logging, and reporting functionalities of ISA. We also discuss methods of administering your ISA Server or array from a remote location. Let s start by examining the concept of integrated administration.

Understanding Integrated Administration