Do you know who has access to your physical network? In the lobby or after hours? Do you have laptop users that access non-secure networks and then return to your network with whatever they may have been exposed to elsewhere? Should every employee be capable of accessing EVERY resource within your infrastructure from anywhere on the network? Who is REALLY connected to your wireless network? Do you have developers that run non-standard applications that cannot be patched with the rest of the system? Do you want to run a guest network for consultants, contractors, and vendors? These are all questions that lead to the need for Network Admission Control.

Network Admission Control (NAC), a set of technologies and solutions built on an industry initiative led by Cisco, uses the network infrastructure to enforce security policy compliance on all devices seeking to access network computing resources, thereby limiting damage from emerging security threats. Customers using NAC can allow network access only to compliant and trusted endpoint devices (PCs, servers, and PDAs, for example) and can restrict the access of noncompliant devices.


Business Benefits

Dramatically improves security
• Ensures endpoints (laptops, PCs, PDAs, servers, etc.) conform to security policy for patch-level,    anti- virus, and other settings
• Proactively protects against worms, viruses, spyware, and malware; focuses operations on prevention,   not reaction

Extends existing investment
•  Enables broad integration with multi-vendor security and management software • Enhances    investment in network infrastructure and vendor software
• Combines with other applications to enable "trusted QoS" capabilities that classify mission-critical     traffic at the endpoint and prioritize it in the network

Increases enterprise resilience
• Comprehensive admission control across all access methods
• Prevents non-compliant and rogue endpoints from impacting network
• Reduces operating expenses related to identifying and repairing non-compliant, rogue, and infected    systems

Comprehensive span of control
• Assess all endpoints across all access methods, including LAN, wireless connectivity, remote access,   and WAN