There are some gold nuggets on the ISAserver.org Web site that a lot of ISAserver.org members could really benefit from but might not be aware of them. These are the Deployment Kits. There are a number of deployment kits on this site that apply to ISA 2000 and ISA 2004 and they covered a tremendous number of scenarios for SharePoint, Exchange, and VPN configurations, including detailed coverage for both client and server configuration. In fact, I think it wouldn’t be going to far to say that these deployment kits are the most impressive and most comprehensive documentation projects ever carried out for a single software product (how’s that for modest?).

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the information in some of these kits:

ISA Server 2000 VPN Deployment Kit http://www.isaserver.org/articles/isa2000vpndeploy...t.html

ISA Server 2000 Exchange Deployment Kit http://www.isaserver.org/news/exchangekit.html

ISA Server 2000 Branch Office Kit http://www.isaserver.org/articles/bokit.html

ISA Server 2000 SharePoint Portal Server Deployment Kit http://www.isaserver.org/articles/sharepointkit.html

ISA Server 2000 Application Layer Filtering Kit http://www.isaserver.org/articles/spamalfkit.html

ISA Server 2000 in Education Kit http://www.isaserver.org/tutorials/isaedukit.html

The legacy of these kits carried on to ISA 2004, but aren’t webified and unfortunately are set forth as single doc’s on the ms.com site. For ISA 2004 kits, check out:

ISA Server 2004 Exchange Kit http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/8/8/188ab...05.doc

ISA Server 2004 VPN Kit http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/7/b/37b0c...04.doc

ISA Server 2004 Branch Office Kit http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/8/8/188ab...03.doc

I’m sorry to say that we weren’t able to get underwriting for any ISA 2006 kits. This is indeed unfortunate, as there are many new and valuable features included with the new ISA Firewall that aren’t currently documented and it makes it very difficult for non-ISA Firewall experts to full leverage these features without the aid of the deployment kits.

Thomas W Shinder, M.D.
Site: www.isaserver.org
Blog: http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/
Book: http://tinyurl.com/3xqb7
Email: tshinder@isaserver.org
MVP — Microsoft Firewalls (ISA)