Almost one and a half year after the End of Life announcement of TMG (and other products in the Forefront product line), Microsoft yesterday announced the End of Life of one of the other Forefront products, Unified Access Gateway or UAG as we all know it. To be honest, this announcement didn’t come as a big surprise.

The TMG EOL notice in September 2012 said, “It is important to note that there are no significant changes to the Forefront Identity Manager or Forefront Unified Access Gateway roadmaps”. Apparently Microsoft changed its mind somewhere over the last 15 months. Forefront UAG won’t be available anymore per July 1st, 2014; mainstream support ends April 14th, 2014 and extended support ends April 14th, 2020.

Suggested alternative is Windows Server 2012 R2 with its Web Application Proxy (WAP) role. Though not being on par with UAG or TMG, WAP can provide DirectAccess capabilities and application publishing. Other vendors offer alternative products like KEMP load balancers equipped with their Edge Security Pack (ESP) or F5 with their BIG-IP Local Traffic. Manager (LTM) products.

Customers with Software Assurance utilizing UAG are granted a Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard license. As of December 1st, those customers are also exempt from ordering additional UAG licenses.