Implementing NAP and NAC Security Technologies: The Complete Guide to Network Access Control

2.2. Setting Policy for Device Analysis

As with a lot of security software (and quite a bit of software in general, for that matter), it's necessary to set up the configurations for how the technology will work. How this is done with NAC/NAP solutions depends on whether or not you are using agentless or agent-based solutions:

• Policy for an agentless solution can manually be configured on the server or piece of hardware performing the scan and subsequent analysis.

• Agent-based solutions can either be manually configured on each device or centrally configured via a policy server.

The first method is rather self-explanatory. You go to the device and tell it what to look for on devices that are attempting to gain access to the network.

The second method can require a bit more setup to help ease administration. For some NAC/NAP solutions, you can simply go to each device and manually configure the different security criteria that will be analyzed. This is obviously a very tedious and error-prone task, and is why having a centralized server on which to centrally administer policy is so important.

2.2.1. The Need for Different Analysis Policies

There is a distinct possibility that when a NAC/NAP solution is implemented, it will require the need for multiple analysis policies. As with many things, one way of doing something doesn't necessarily fit everybody.

The following are two major reasons why there would be more than one analysis policy for a NAC/NAP solution:

• Users utilizing different ...