Winter weather and roaming users

Written Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Seattle is not known for its blustery winters. It's a town where folks drive into the mountains for their quota of Winter Wonderland, and drive home to the rain. When there's snow in the forecast, Department of Transport officials send out warnings and strongly suggest we stay safely at home.

At the close of the Thanksgiving weekend here in Seattle, our winter rain turned to snow. I love the first snow of the season, it's so clean and peaceful! Take a look at the Seattle area, our streets and homes in snow.

Meanwhile, the Monday evening commute was a mess. It took 30 minutes just to leave the Microsoft parking lot. Getting home took some members of our team up to 5 hours. With more snow arriving overnight Monday, the campus was pretty empty Tuesday. We all took our laptops and worked from home.

Which brings me to a cool feature in Forefront Client Security.

Wherever I am, I want my laptop to stay protected. One important way to stay protected is to have up-to-date signatures for my antimalware software. At work, my FCS client connects up hourly to the Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) server to check for new signatures. That's great for when I'm at work. What happens when I'm roaming?

As I roam, using the wireless networks at home or in the local coffee shop, my FCS client is configured to check first for the WSUS server, then to connect up directly to Microsoft Update for new signatures. With no input from me, my FCS client keeps my antimalware signatures up to date.

I roam with peace of mind. Now if only FCS could take care of those icy roads out there.

 

Happy driving,

Laurie Litwack

Group Program Manager

Microsoft Forefront Client Security

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Remote updating - What a great idea! This has been an ongoing frustration with Symantec on our network, great to see someone has come up with a solution.