* NAC Director from Bradford Networks
Bradford Networks is revamping its access-control software, originally customized for college campuses, so it is more suitable for corporations.
Called NAC Director, the new appliances come loaded with Bradford software that is functionally very similar to the company’s original product Campus Director.
In its initial release, NAC Director attaches to the monitoring port on a network switch where it profiles the network by interrogating switches, access points and databases.
Once it has familiarized itself with the network, it can manage identities of individuals by associating them with MAC addresses; the users’ roles in the company; IP addresses; how the device is attached to the network; and time of day.
It can then check the endpoint to see whether it complies with security policies such as updated operating systems, registry settings, application patches and whether certain applications such as antivirus scanning are running. Based on the results, the device can admit the machine trying to gain access or quarantine it to a virtual LAN (VLAN) where the user can fix whatever shortcoming was found.
NAC Director also can enforce usage policies set for each user. So it can limit bandwidth available to each user, for example. The policies are enforced via other network devices such as switches and traffic shapers. These receive instructions from NAC director via a variety of means including SNMP commands and command-line interface commands that Bradford Networks has customized for a variety of individual network devices sold by multiple vendors.
The NAC Director appliances can be centrally located and can support from 100 users per device, to 6,000 users via multiple devices. It comes in three models starting at $6,500. If multiple appliances are linked to boost capacity, a separate device called Access Manager is required as well.
