I keep hearing a lot of confusion as to what UAG is, where it fits, and what it does, so here is a brief introduction to what it does, and what it’s capabilities are.
Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 is designed as a gateway into your organization, and utilizes a number of other Microsoft components to enable a seamless and integrated experience for both corporate users, and 3rd parties
- UAG is NOT the same as TMG, nor are the two interchangeable
- UAG is geared toward securely allowing inbound access
- TMG is geared toward protecting internal users from external threats
UAG vs TMG
A lot of confusion arises because UAG installs some TMG components and utilizes them, mainly for array management and firewalling, it cannot however operate as a forward or reverse proxy, nor can it do web filtering or use the active protection components that TMG does
The TMG components built into UAG are there to protect the TMG server, as it is generally afforded a global external address and does not sit behind its own firewall due to the NAT restrictions if you wish to utilize DirectAccess
Direct Access
Microsoft DirectAccess technology allows you to bridge the connections of enterprise endpoints to the corporate network whenever they are online, this is accomplished seamlessly and securely with a combination of IPv6, PKI and IPSEC technologies. This allows users to access resources on the corporate infrastructure safely from anywhere they can get online, as well as providing internal support staff access to roaming systems without requiring them to join special support sessions, install special software, or have the user bring the system into an office
DirectAccess is a technology built into Windows 2008 R2, and can operate without UAG, however there are significant benefits to deploying direct access through a UAG system, including DNS64 and NAT64, both of which are required to allow seamless network access to IPv4 only corporate resources (not just IPv6 ready apps)
Remote Access
UAG provides a user web portal to access applications, services and network resources, as well as integrating with an RDS gateway component if you chose to install that, this portal provides access to numerous devices and can detect the type of device, and the type of experience to deliver. These portals can be customized to fit the clients needs, to display client assets and specifics on a case by case basis
UAG is also capable of VPN termination, this can be via integration with RRAS for PPTN and SSTP tunnels, or via native UAG SSL VPN capabilities
While TMG can also do VPNs, it is not afforded the same SSL VPN capabilities that UAG has, this is another UAG plus point
Server Publishing
UAG is the Microsoft recommendation for publishing Microsoft server resources, this is a shift from IAG2007 when MS still pushed ISA2006 as it’s best practice method for securing Exchange and SharePoint web interfaces. If you wish to make services such as outlook web access, outlook anywhere, active sync and SharePoint sites available to your users over the internet, this is the technology to deploy to secure and manage access to those resources.
TMG can still handle this, but many of the upgrades and features that have been added to UAG2010 have not been included in TMGs publishing capabilities, so when publishing SharePoint, Exchange, or even RDS Web Access, UAG is the way to go (reverse proxy requirements are still handled by TMG 2010, this includes OCS and Lync requirements)
Licensing
UAG has client and server CAL requirements, unlike TMG which is licensed as a server (unless you want all the filtering and protection suites), however ECALS have UAG CALs included, this is good to know for ECAL customers as the majority of the cost is already paid for and you can start benefiting from the technology straight away through a pilot, or implementation engagement