* Tips for successful NAC deployment
As NAC is considered more seriously by businesses, they have to decide who among their various IT staffers are going to be in charge of it.
Traditionally, the state of the endpoint has been the domain of the desktop team that is charged with making sure these devices are kept in compliance with whatever the company standard desktop configuration is. NAC can change that model.
As risk-mitigation technology, NAC also falls into the sphere of the security staff whose task is to protect both the functionality of the network and sensitive corporate data.
And with the use of network infrastructure as possible enforcement points for NAC, corporate networking groups can also come into play because some NAC schemes call for potentially expensive upgrades.
As with any technology that cuts across fields of expertise (VoIP comes to mind), part of a successful deployment is getting separate and independent groups to cooperate. This calls for high-level commitment and coordination.
Successful NAC deployment requires careful advanced planning that should include:
* A budgeting plan that may extend over more than one fiscal year.
* Defining roles of the various teams involved in the deployment.
* Training and cross-training staff to administer NAC.
* A technology plan that takes into account that NAC is a young and evolving technology that won’t be fully cooked for several years.
* Involve business units because NAC requires a balance between the work a corporation has to get done to earn revenue and the need to protect the network and data.
