During its Worldwide Partner Conference on Tuesday, Microsoft announced general availability of Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004. After many months of development in the skunk works at Redmond, Microsoft has drastically overhauled the server's architecture to circumvent worms and other Internet attacks, which have plagued the company within the past several years.

ISA Server 2004, once known only by the code-name Stringray, is designed to augment existing security infrastructure and provides an extra layer of protection with an enterprise firewall, reworked virtual private networking and a Web cache solution. Microsoft's firewall includes packet filtering and stateful inspection with the option of application-layer security. In addition, the server also incorporates new tools to easily deploy and secure Virtual Private Networks.

Commenting on the release, Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Security Business and Technology Unit said, "Our customers have asked us to work together to make it easier for them to protect their networks against malicious attacks. Although we've seen progress in addressing some of our top customer concerns, we remain focused on the evolving security challenges and are committed to working with industry partners to improve the security of PCs and networks around the world."

ISA 2004 is directed toward businesses of all shapes and sizes and is an essential element of Microsoft's plan to "secure the perimeter" around Windows boxes.

In his statement Nash also outlined Microsoft's new Network Access Protection technologies (NAP). Network Access Protection is a standards complaint solution designed to provide customers with access to their corporate networks without the worry through policy validation, restriction, policy compliance.

NAP will be made available as part of an update release to Windows Server 2003 known as "R2."