Designing a Functional Proxy Server Solution

To design an Internet-connectivity solution using Proxy Server, you must establish the essential requirements for Internet connectivity.
There are a few essential decisions that you need to make for an Internet-connectivity solution so that you can derive the specifications for the Proxy Server design. After these essential decisions are established, you can optimize the Internet-connectivity solution by adding security, availability, and performance enhancements to your design. The three essential decisions for your Proxy Server design are as follows:

1. First, you must decide where to place Proxy Server in the network so that network traffic is localized without compromising security
2. Second, you must decide which IP address, persistence, data rate, and security on the router-interface characteristics affect the integration of the router into the existing network
3. Third, you must decide how the private network clients will access the proxy server

In the next lesson, you will learn how to place Proxy Server within a network.

Most have more than one PC but with only one Internet connection. How to make all of the computers connected to the Internet? Many households are facing same problem too. Proxy server can help you sharing Internet connection with your colleagues and home members even if you have only one modem. There are many proxy server softwares for you to build your own proxy server for sharing an Internet connection. CCProxy is such a proxy server software, it's easy-to-use, powerful and efficient. With CCProxy you can implement Internet connection share solution in minutes.
As a Windows proxy server software, CCProxy can be installed on various Windows OS versions, it's compatible with Windowsd XP, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 etc, both 32 bit and 64 bit. CCProxy is mostly used for Windows Internet sharing. The point is CCProxy server is also available for clients with other OS such as Linux, Apple, Mobile OS etc. For personal users and family users, CCProxy is a free proxy server software, the 3 user free version works the same as registered version. The only limitation is it can support only 3 clients, but for most uncommercial user it's enough.

Designing a functional proxy server solution using Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) involves several steps, including:

1. Determine the requirements: The first step is to determine the requirements for the proxy server solution, such as the number of users, network bandwidth, and security features required. This will help determine the appropriate hardware and software requirements for the proxy server.
2. Install and configure the TMG server: Once the hardware and software requirements have been determined, the TMG server should be installed and configured according to best practices. This includes setting up network interfaces, configuring IP addresses and DNS settings, and enabling necessary services such as DHCP, NTP, and SNMP.
3. Configure network routing and filtering: The TMG server should be configured to route traffic between internal and external networks, and to filter traffic according to defined policies. This may include configuring access rules, URL filtering, and web publishing rules.
4. Configure firewall and intrusion prevention features: The TMG server should be configured to provide firewall and intrusion prevention features, including configuring firewall rules, intrusion prevention rules, and network inspection rules.
5. Implement secure web publishing: If the proxy server solution is being used to publish internal web servers to the public internet, secure web publishing should be implemented using SSL certificates and other security features.
6. Test and optimize the solution: Once the proxy server solution has been implemented, it should be tested to ensure that it is functioning correctly and meeting the requirements. The solution should be optimized for performance and security by adjusting settings such as caching, compression, and connection limits.

By following these steps, you can design and implement a functional proxy server solution using Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway. However, it's important to note that Microsoft has discontinued development of TMG, and that organizations are advised to consider other products and technologies for network security and web publishing.