Companies considering rolling out network access control
systems may want to wait until a joint Cisco/Microsoft system comes
to fruition, analyst firm Gartner has advised.
Earlier this month, Cisco Systems and Microsoft outlined how
their network access control frameworks – Cisco Network Admission
Control (CNac) and Microsoft Network Access Protection (MNap) –
would interoperate.
Gartner said organisations must decide whether to continue with
their current network access control plans or wait for the
integrated system.
Later this year, the companies will release a beta with CNac and
MNap interoperability, ready for use with Microsoft’s forthcoming
Longhorn server operating system.
This integration promises to provide an interoperable network
access control system using network equipment from Cisco and
Microsoft’s Windows Vista desktop operating system.
Gartner said this infrastructure could offer enterprises more
architectural and product choices than are available through either
supplier’s current frameworks.
The tie-up between Microsoft and Cisco will not require software
agents, policy servers or other access control-related
infrastructure from third parties. It will, however, require an
updated version of Cisco Access Control Server, Microsoft Active
Directory and Microsoft Network Policy Server (formerly Windows
Internet Authentication Server).
With these in place, enterprises can integrate their third-party
systems with the application programming interfaces jointly
developed by Cisco and Microsoft.
Longhorn is expected to be released in the second half of next
year. Gartner expects that both suppliers will continue to deliver
their individual network access control systems when the integrated
product is available.
Since enterprises must wait until Longhorn is rolled out to
deploy the integrated CNac/MNap approach, Gartner said the success
of large-scale implementations of the joint framework (those using
10,000 or more nodes) cannot be assessed until the first quarter of
2008, or later.
For users running both Cisco and Microsoft infrastructure,
Gartner said firms planning to deploy Windows Vista to their
desktops in 2007, and preparing to implement Longhorn on select
servers, should evaluate the integrated CNac/MNap framework along
with independent network access control systems for deployment in
early 2008.
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