Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange and SharePoint

Despite the vast sums poured into security, it is still the number one challenge for IT departments and vendors today. It seems that every week another security product is launched with the promise that it can transform the security landscape. On top of that, every day anti-malware software warns of new attacks while analysts are constantly quoted over the risks to corporate data.

About the only thing that the security vendors can agree on is that no single product or approach is enough to keep data secure. The current phrase is "blended security" where you deploy a range of tools including anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware, encryption and others. These do not just come from one vendor nor do they sit in one place in your network.

Security at the edge using firewalls to stop unauthorised access. Stateful packet inspection of all inbound and outbound traffic to spot suspect traffic. Anti-virus and other products on local machines as well as on each server and even each segment on the network.

All of this is supposed to make the network and data secure. Just installing these solutions is not enough, however, to guarantee security. They need to be maintained, configured, managed and integrated. The two biggest challenges are management and integration.

This is where Microsoft believes that it has a significant play. To beef up its existing security products it purchased anti-virus vendor Sybari, two years ago. Since then, it has been using those products as the basis of a new set of tools under the Forefront name.

The first two Forefront tools, Forefront Server for Exchange and Forefront Server for SharePoint shipped for Microsoft Volume Licensing customers. We have had them both running on servers to see how they work, how reliable they are and what issues they might have.

Obtaining the Forefront Server products can be done in one of two ways. You can purchase via a Microsoft Volume Licence agreement and then have the software sent via a distributor. Alternatively purchase the licence and then download the software from the Forefront website. This is a 120-day licence but once you put the key into the software it becomes the full version.

All documentation, guides and configuration materials can be downloaded from the Forefront website. If you have access to the TechEd website there are a number of good videos and presentations that you should watch.

Forefront Server for SharePoint (FSSP) installation is simple. Run the setup program and choose local or remote installation. You then have the choice of client Admin console or full installation. For the servers that you want to protect, you need the full installation.

We wanted to put Forefront on a single server that currently has both Exchange and SharePoint server installed. We started by installing Forefront Server for SharePoint (FSSP) which completed normally. But as soon as we started the Forefront Server for Exchange (FSE) it told us there was a previous version and wanted to upgrade it. Then it told us there was a problem and wouldn't install at all.

This made no real sense so we settled for two different installations. This raises an interesting issue for those using Small Business Server (SBS) who may well use just a single server for Exchange and SharePoint Services. If they have to choose between one version of Forefront then they will always worry about how well they are protected.