 Security: Network Access ControlNetwork World's Security: Network Access Control Newsletter, 10/11/07Cisco NAC out, ConSentry switch-based NAC inBy Tim GreeneA recent story in Network World outlines how a college dropped Cisco’s NAC gear for equipment made by ConSentry. The interesting thing about the swap is that Fayetteville State University in North Carolina went for an entirely different NAC architecture. It already had Cisco’s NAC appliance, but reported having trouble getting the NAC agent to download to student laptops, and the box kept going down.
The school could have gone with another appliance from a different vendor including ConSentry, but decided instead to buy ConSentry access switches that have NAC integrated. The upside of the switch-based NAC is that it can enforce NAC policies directly from each device. The downside is that it requires buying as many devices as the network has access switches. The school had money budgeted for a network upgrade and decided to spend $500,000 of it on the ConSentry gear. The school gives up whatever management benefits it reaped from having an all Cisco network in exchange for better NAC. But the school’s IT director thinks that is a good tradeoff. “When you get down to it, a switch is pretty much a switch. So you’re shopping for bells and whistles at that point.” Joseph Vittorelli, director of systems and infrastructure at Fayetville State. That says a lot about the state of switching when access switches are considered a commodity. But Vittorelli’s comment says more about NAC. If it can be considered a bell or a whistle that is added to a no-worries access switch, it becomes a less scary prospect.
|
| Contact the author: Tim Greene is a senior editor at Network World, covering network access control, virtual private networking gear, remote access, WAN acceleration and aspects of VoIP technology. You can reach him at tgreene@nww.com. ARCHIVEArchive of the Security: Network Access Control Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
1 comment:
In my opinion, Riverbed has the best of breed solution for application acceleration. I work, as an engineer, for a Cisco partner and we are also partnered with Riverbed, because they have the best WAN optimization technology out there at this point. I have a lot of comparison data on all the competitors if anyone is interested. Forrester, Gartner, etc...
Justin Lofton
Systems Engineer
justinl@tredent.com
Tredent Data Systems, Inc.
WAN Acceleration Information
Post a Comment