Bradford Network is teaming to add NAC to the security technology already offered by Stonesoft.

The two companies have integrated their two platforms to the extent that the Stonesoft gear can notify the Bradford NAC equipment when it detects intrusions.

Stonesoft’s StoneGate gear combines firewall, VPN and intrusion prevention on a single box . Separately, Bradford’s NAC Director appliances check whether the security posture of devices logging in to networks meet policies before granting access.

Depending on how devices fare when interrogated, they can be admitted to the network, quarantined until they comply or be denied access altogether.

This all falls into the category of pre-admission NAC.

The Bradford-Stonesoft combination adds StoneGates’ IPS capabilities to the mix, essentially making the combination both a pre- and post-admission NAC set up.

Once Bradford gear has admitted a device to the network, the IPS capabilities of StoneGate can follow up with later data about apparent intrusions. Based on policies set by customers, these intrusions can trigger the Bradford gear to fire off an e-mail to an administrator as an alert to a problem with particular devices, or it can isolate suspected corrupt machines or bump them from the network entirely.

The vendors say there is very little overlap in what their two systems do, so management of the two platforms remains separate.

Sometimes post-admission NAC is described as adding IPS to NAC endpoint checking, and that is what this partnership literally provides.

The two companies are starting by marketing together and educating their respective resellers about the partnership. So far, the devices are sold separately at current prices, although they companies say they may come up with a package price.

Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.