Evening all, A copy of the PC World Business directory landed on the desk today and while having a look though, I came across MS ISA, their 'Internet and Security Acceleration' server. It retails at just over £1000 (you need a copy of Win2k Server too).

Just a small bit of the marketing blurb states that:

'ISA Server includes an extensible, multi-layer enterprise firewall featuring dynamic packet filtering, SecureNAT for transparency, "smart" data-aware application filters, system hardening, and built-in intrusion detection.'

it also goes on about:

'...high-performance cache accelerates Web access while saving network bandwidth, and with Windows 2000 Advanced Server, scales for efficient, dynamic load balancing. ISA Server studies data usage patterns and actively caches popular content.

Isn't MS ISA a cobbled together product that features apps that come with a standard Linux distribution? Or is that price tag the result of putting a few point-and-click dialog boxes together?

Nick