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

Chapter 10. Understanding NAC and NAP in Other Products

As you saw in Chapter 9, NAC functionality can exist in technologies that aren't officially described as NAC or NAP solutions. That was clear in 802.1x. It can keep unauthorized users off of the network, which is a NAC/NAP function. It isn't, however, officially called or marketed as a NAC/NAP solution in and of itself. There are a number of different technologies that also perform NAC-type functionality, and those are discussed in this chapter. The point you should understand is that if specific NAC-like functions are needed, a full-blown NAC solution may not be necessary to implement those specific functions. Those functions may very well exist in some of your existing technologies.

There are also quite a few more NAC/NAP technologies available in the marketplace than what have been covered in this book. Cisco, Microsoft, and Fiberlink are the big buzz technologies, but that doesn't mean there aren't other quality solutions available. Covering every single NAC/NAP solution in detail is simply impractical for this book. That notwithstanding, this chapter briefly mentions other solutions that are available. These technologies can be researched and compared in the same manner as the solutions in this book, so that you can come as close as possible to apples-to-apples comparisons.