UAG

When DirectAccess was first introduced as a feature of Windows Server 2008 R2, many considered the concept of always-on, secure remote access a natural evolution of traditional Virtual Private Networking (VPN) technologies. VPN had gone from being something that only IT administrators needed to provide remote support for their systems to an essential productivity tool for the modern, mobile workforce. Unfortunately, DirectAccess in Windows Server 2008 R2 was a bit ahead of its time. The idea was an excellent one, but in practice it was difficult to implement and carried steep infrastructure requirements, the most challenging of those being the requirement to deploy IPv6 on the internal network.

Many of our customers wonder if it is better to use TMG or UAG for Sharepoint publishing, or whether either should be used at all. The answer, while not complex, involves some consideration of the relative capabilities and benefits of both pieces of software. In this post we will try to outline the key differences which will answer these questions. This post will give you a high level overview of the basic differences between the two.

As we have described in a previous blog post, Microsoft DirectAccess has many benefits over traditional VPN: http://www.nappliance.com/blog/nappliance-nuag-and-directaccess-better-together.

Microsoft Threat Management Gateway 2010 brings a lot of new and enhanced features to edge network security. Ever since Microsoft started with Proxy Server 2.0, and then ISA Server, URL filtering has always been something which administrators have wanted. Every company has their own IT policies and most companies want to restrict their users from visiting inappropriate or unsafe websites during their office hours from company-owned machines.

Problem:

When trying to activate the configuration on a UAG server, you might find that the activation failed and you can see the following error messages in the status window:

Error: Applying Network Access Protection configuration failed.