In his article, "6 Hot Technologies for 2006: Microsoft's Group Policy," John Fontana wrote, "Group policy is one of the rewards given to IT execs for their hard work in cracking the complex deployment of Active Directory." Microsoft's product Group Policy provides more than 1200 settings that allow an administrator to manage and customize servers and desktop computers from a central location.

The greatest benefit of Group Policy is that enterprises don’t need to purchase and maintain a separate policy management system for endpoint security and regulatory compliance. However, deploying and configuring Active Directory, which requires an instance of SQL Server, is no easy feat.

What if you want all the benefits of Group Policy, but you don't have or are unable to deploy Active Directory? Or, perhaps you do use Active Directory, but there are devices in the field that are rarely connected to your directory long enough to receive the necessary management updates. Now there is FullArmor PolicyPortal, which allows administrators to secure and configure all endpoints via the Internet, with or without Active Directory. PolicyPortal also monitors and provides easy-to-understand reports on whether policy standards are in force on individual machines.

Roaming users present the biggest threat to a network, according to FullArmor CTO Danny Kim. "These users are often disconnected for long periods of time, and they miss getting vital security updates on their devices. You wouldn't want them connecting to your network if they don't comply with your corporate security and configuration standards," Kim says.

PolicyPortal leverages the Internet to deliver policies to all sorts of disconnected or remote devices, including kiosks, automated teller machines, laptops, and home PCs. PolicyPortal provides support for devices running Windows 2000 or higher operating systems. Support for Windows mobile, Palm OS, RIM devices, as well as Linux and UNIX based devices is reportedly in development.

In addition, PolicyPortal can secure and configure devices on networks that aren't running Active Directory, or for that matter, aren't even running the Windows 2000 server operating system or Windows Server 2003, including Novell NetWare environments.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.