> Because Squid is open source while ISA is not? Certainly an advantage if you have the resources to do something with that source or someone has already done it.
> Because Squid does not make you further dependent on Microsoft than you already are? Eh, I don't know that this is a real advantage. More opinion, and not very subjective. > Because Squid probably has better support channels where you actually get a solution if you have a problem and not simply asked to reboot the server? Believe it or not, MS does not always answer with this. We deal with MS for ISA issues on a daily basis and are not simply told to reboot the server. >Because by using Squid you are free to build the proxy solution you want to have rather than what Microsoft thinks you should have? Can you elaborate about what proxy solutions can be achieved with squid that cannot be achieved with ISA? ISA supports hierarchys, peering and every other configuration that Squid supports that I am aware of. >Because you can get Squid for free no matter the size of your organisation while ISA requires a license with a cost dependent on the number of users you have? Anyplace with a large MS presence can easily get site licensing for it, only very small buyers go to cdw or such to buy it. Actaully, we don't pay for ISA due to the size of our organization. >Because Squid is more fun? I'll agree with that one. But still not very subjective. >Because you are interested in what Squid can provide? What does it provide that ISA cannot? >You can always start by trying Squid and if it is not what you was looking for look into ISA. The only cost in trying is time as any hardware invests etc can be reused for ISA if you should change your mind. Except that with ISA you can use a SMP box. The 2 products have vastly different hardware requirements, if you buy/build a box for squid it will be a 1 CPU box, which would not be a good choice for ISA. The truth of the matter as I see it is that there are a few questions to ask yourself. 1)If you need NTLM authentication and are not a *nix person you almost certainly pull your hair out trying to get it to work on Squid. It suffers from the same documentation vacuum that many open source projects have. Squid itself is very well documented, but the NTLM piece is woefully lacking. You have to decide if you are willing to undertake this, and if you can maintain it. 2) ISA is more scalable in the sense that you can do more with one big box. With a 4 CPU 900mhz 2GB ProLiant we get over 100gig of throughput a day and tens of thousands of users and millions of requests. I have not seen any recent stats on what Squid can do with a large single CPU box, but I don't think it can approach that. 3) Do you require the accountability of real support channels or can you use mailing-lists and Google? This is for both the OS and Squid. There is commercial support available but I do not know what the costs are compared to ISA. 4) There are no promises that Squid will be supported in the future. As much as some may not like it, MS will be around for a while. ********************************************************** This message was virus scanned at mail.siliconjunkie.net and any known viruses were removed. For a current virus list see http://www.siliconjunkie.net/antivirus/list.html
