* The most common reason for using NAC has been to keep visiting guests corralled
In practice, the most common reason for using NAC has been to keep guest visitors corralled when they log in to corporate networks.
These visitors range from people who have appointments onsite and who want to check their e-mails via laptop to consultants who are hired to perform vital business functions.
The main thing these two groups have in common is they both use unmanaged machines, at least unmanaged by the host network. There is no trust between them and the network security staff, so access is restricted, often to nothing more than Internet access.
The unmanaged-machine problem is also why NAC is popular on college campuses. Students represent the largest single group of users on most campuses and virtually none of them owns a machine managed by the college IT staff.
NAC frees up short-staffed colleges at the start of semesters by automating basic scans of these computers for operating system patches and updated virus signatures and that seems enough for many schools. The alternative is a manual check of each student machine, a process that some colleges say took weeks at the start of each semester.
According to NAC experts at the recent Interop Las Vegas show, though, a growing number of NAC users are looking to meet regulations imposed on them by the government or industry groups. They need to restrict access to key data and to prove that they did so
In this case, businesses must prove that only legitimate users of data access it and that when they do they do so in accordance with set regulatory policies.
NAC can help fill at least part of the bill by restricting authorization to key assets. But the biggest hurdle NAC vendors have to clear right now is making their gear work within existing networks without forcing major network upgrades, the experts say.
Over time, as businesses upgrade their network infrastructure on their standard replacement schedules they will be more likely to buy NAC-compatible gear, which will help lift the problem. In the meantime, experts say, vendors need to work on compatibility with each other’s NAC equipment so when that day comes, customers will have choices.
