After Microsoft discontinued Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 2010, Server 2012 bundled with UAG Capabilities and released with feature name called Application Request Routing(ARR) and which is again renamed as Web Application proxy in Server 2012 R2.
Web Application Proxy(WAP) in Server 2012 R2 had new features and allowed to publish Applications as well as ADFSProxy Services. Web Application Proxy(WAP) in Server 2016 buckled with many new features and changes those are really required to Publish Applications like Exchange, SharePoint, Remote Desktop Gateway and ADFSProxy Services.
In this Article, Will walk you through the New features theoretically and will publish upcoming articles how to do it practically. Okay.. Let’s get in to the topic now..
New Features of Web Application Proxy(WAP) in Server 2016:
1. Preauthentication for HTTP Basic application
Rich Clients and Smartphones uses ActiveSync Protocal to connect to the Exchange Mailboxes. ActiveSync Protocal uses HTTP Basic Authentication.. Many other Protocals also uses HTTP Basic as the Authorization Protocal. But Web Application Proxy traditionally interacts with AD FS using redirections which is not supported on ActiveSync clients. This new version of Web Application Proxy provides support to publish an app using HTTP basic by enabling the HTTP app to receive a non-claims relying party trust for the application to the Federation Service.
Please refer Preauthentication for HTTP Basic application for more details
2. Wildcard domain publishing of applications
The external URL for the application can now include a wildcard to enable you to publish multiple applications from within a specific domain, for example, https://*.apps.windowstechpro.com. This will simply works perfect for SharePoint Application publishing.
3. HTTP to HTTPS redirection
In order to make sure your users can access your app, even if they neglect to type HTTPS in the URL, Web Application Proxy now supports HTTP to HTTPS redirection.
4. HTTP Publishing
It is now possible to publish HTTP applications using pass-through preauthentication
5. Publishing of Remote Desktop Gateway apps
Please refer Publishing Applications with SharePoint, Exchange and RDG for more details.
And also it has below few improvements
New debug log for better troubleshooting and improved service log for complete audit trail and improved error handling, Please refer the article for more details
Administrator Console UI improvements
Propagation of client IP address to backend applications