Summary

This chapter has taken you through the concepts and practices involved in managing an ISA server—from the most basic use of the ISA MMC and wizards to remote administration, using either the ISA administrative tools on a non-ISA computer or running Windows 2000 Terminal Services on the ISA server and connecting to it using Terminal Services client software on a remote machine.

You learned that Microsoft's integrated management concept allows you to administer both of ISA Server's functions—caching and firewall—from a common interface and to manage an entire array of servers as one entity. You can even administer multiple arrays in an enterprise, from one centralized location.

We explored the ISA Management Console, and you learned to create a custom MMC and add the ISA Management snap-in for more convenient administration and easier delegation of selected administrative duties.

We examined each component of the ISA MMC, staring with the menu bar and main toolbar, describing the function of each icon or button and then looking at the console root and tree. You learned about each object in the left console pane and how to use the information in the right detail pane when various left-pane objects are selected.

Next, we looked at the many wizards provided with ISA Server to make configuration and creation of new objects simpler. Specifically, we addressed the Getting Started Wizard that helps you with the initial setup of your ISA server; the Rules wizards that walk you through the process of creating new routing, protocol, or site and content rules); and the three VPN wizards that assist you in performing tasks related to setting up virtual private networking connections.

You learned to perform some common management tasks such as configuring permissions on an ISA object and managing array membership. Then, we delved into the intricacies of using the monitoring, alerting, logging, and reporting functions of ISA. You learned to set up trigger events and conditions for issuing an alert and how to monitor and disconnect user sessions. We discussed logging of information relating to three ISA Server components: packet filters, the firewall service, and the Web proxy service. You learned that you can save log information to a file or to an ODBC database, and we showed you how to enable and configure logging. Next, you learned about generating reports from the data collected in the log files, how to create a report job, and how to view and save the reports that are generated.

Finally, we discussed remote administration of an ISA server or array, and you learned that you can manage either a stand-alone ISA server or an array or enterprise in one of two ways: by installing the ISA Management tools on a non-ISA Server computer and using the ISA MMC to connect, or by installing Windows 2000 Terminal Services on your ISA server, making it a Terminal server and connecting to it from another computer on the network that is running the Terminal Services Client software.