* HP's ProCurve offering promises unified management
ProCurve by HP, mentioned in the last newsletter, doesn’t plan to offer anything outside of NAC architectures pieced together by others.
They call for checking devices before they are admitted to networks, authorizing them to use specific resources as they are granted admission and monitoring them after they are on networks to make sure their behavior falls within allowable limits. If they behave badly, the scheme provides for curtailing their activity.
This covers the range of NAC protection that is called for in the most ambitious NAC architectures that are being worked on by vendors including Cisco, Nortel, Enterasys and other networking companies. The Trusted Computing Group has a similar architecture that is being developed by a broad range of vendors.
A separate group of NAC businesses make elements that fit into broader NAC schemes but don’t offer the full range themselves. Some of these are forging alliances with each other so they can offer more fully featured NAC.
Perhaps the biggest upside for ProCurve is that it seems to be waiting until later this year when it will have management of its NAC 800 device blended in with its PCM-Plus platform, making it simpler to set policies across all the elements that make up the NAC architecture.
According to one analyst, management is a key element for ProCurve. It not only makes NAC easier to handle, it opens the door for future functionality, says Rob Whitely, an analyst for Forrester Research. The single platform that manages NAC as well as ProCurve switches could lead to interesting features such as tying QoS in with NAC policies.
ProCurve’s gear won’t be ready until later this year so stay tuned.
