Microsoft claims that ISA 2004 outperforms other firewalls by a considerable margin. It can filter at 1.59 Gbps, while its closest performance competitor Check Point clocks in at 350 Mbps, according to Microsoft’s own competitive analysis.
ISA 2004 really shines when it runs in conjunction with?surprise, surprise?other Microsoft applications, including SharePoint Portal Server, Exchange and IIS. ISA uses Active Directory for authentication and is compatible with Group Policy.
Finally, ISA can be used in place of a dedicated virtual private network (VPN) application or appliance, and takes advantage of the free VPN client already built into Windows. The VPN also works with Outlook Web Access (OWA) and can protect remote OWA users’ mail.
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