Last, ISA now also supports QoS rules using DiffServ. By manipulating the DiffServ portion of a TCP/IP packet, ISA can lay down QoS rules that can be enforced over most of the router and switch firmware out in the wild. You still can't manage QoS rules entirely across your network infrastructure, but at least ISA can understand and propagate QoS rules enumerated in your network management software -- as long as it's done via DiffServ, that is.

There are a few other tweaks in ISA 2004 SP2, but these are the major new feature implementations. For those using ISA Server 2004 as an internal security gateway, it's a pretty solid feature set, especially for WAN-centric networks.

On the personal front, Microsoft finally released pricing and packaging information for its OneCare Live offering. The OneCare package is a combination of Microsoft anti-virus (which still isn't true AV, by the way), anti-spyware, updated firewall features, and some new back-up features as well as some general tune-up tools for XP. This whole package gets updated constantly as long as you dish out the US$50 annual subscription fee.

The only reason to mention it here is that it's possible to configure a much more secure corporate desktop by subscribing to OneCare on a corporate basis and then making sure the right features are enabled and configured as part of your OS images. The only question is cost: Does this make sense from a bottom line bucks perspective?

For many businesses, most likely not -- as they'll already have made investments in existing desktop security software. Additionally, it's Version 1 of OneCare Live, so I'd have some reservations about deploying it across an entire company's desktop portfolio at this stage. But if personal security is on your radar, I'd highly recommend configuring at least one machine using OneCare and see how it does when compared with your existing configuration in the next six months.