Announcing the availability of TMG Best Practices Analyzer Version 8

I am happy to announce to the community that the next version of Forefront TMG Best Practices Analyzer Tool (TmgBPA version 8) has been released and is now publicly available.

TmgBPA is used by TMG administrators to verify proper configuration, and to help troubleshoot TMG-related issues. TmgBPA is also used for collecting all the relevant data when an administrator requires Microsoft Product Support services. In many cases collecting all the relevant data upfront helps shorten the resolution time quite drastically.

 

The focus of v8 is its adaptation to Forefront TMG 2010, released in late 2009. Compared to ISA Server 2006, TMG supports many new major scenarios, including URL Filtering, ISP Redundancy, HTTPS Inspection, Anti-Malware Protection, Enhanced VoIP support, and much, much more. These new components require new configuration checks, and they also generate new logs that BPA must collect. (A list of TMG features can be found here.) 

 

Please note that we now support two separate tools: IsaBPA (v7), intended to run on ISA Server computers, and TmgBPA (v8), intended to run on TMG computers.

 

I feel obliged to mention the outstanding contribution of Alexey Doctorovich and Idan Plonsky to this release, together with a long list of contributors from the TMG product team and from the TMG Product Support Services team.

 

I encourage every TMG administrator to download the TmgBPA tool and give it a test-drive. The tool is available now online. Note: The tool will require .NET 2.0 framework and above to be installed first.. We are always excited to hear feedback and you can mail your comments, requests, information about bug reports, etc. to isabpafb@microsoft.com alias.

 

Neta Amit

Senior Program Manager