Many organizations use MOSS 2007 as a basis for their intranet solutions. With remote working models becoming more common and an increased collaboration required with external business partners, organizations are extending their intranet into extranet. However, this extension into extranet has increased security concerns. In addition, administrators need to ensure that the links to internal resources are rendered correctly.
The integration of MOSS 2007 with ISA Server 2006 addresses the concerns related to securing extranet and linking translations to internal resources.
When integrating MOSS 2007 with ISA Server 2007, you need to manage how links will be accessible in users’ Web browsers. Links in SharePoint sites refer internal Web sites and other resources by using computer names or internal IP addresses. However, internal URLs are not the same as URLs on the Internet. Servers have both internal and external IP addresses and different paths to access them. To counter this limitation, ISA Server 2006 translates URLs between the network and the Internet environment and ensures that the referenced hyperlinks with fully qualified addresses are accessible in the extranet solutions.
You can use ISA Server 2006 to publish MOSS 2007 solutions over the Internet. You can also use this server to implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for all communication on a SharePoint-based extranet.
In addition, ISA Server 2006 acts as a firewall and an authentication point to help secure the extranet from malicious users. It also provides authentication and security management features. Examples of these features are forms authentication and delegation that helps you identify users and ensure that they have limited access to resources on the extranet.