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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

SonicWall buy could bolster NAC options

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Network Access Control




Network World's Network Access Control Newsletter, 06/19/07

SonicWall buy could bolster NAC options

By Tim Greene

SonicWall buys up Aventail, bringing together two SSL VPN vendors whose mix of experience may result in a new NAC product line

While neither company sells NAC gear now, aspects of their SSL VPN equipment and security services lend themselves to reducing the risk that a device joining a network will harm the network - the cornerstone of NAC.

The two companies bring together endpoint security, access control engines and intrusion prevention, all of which can be massaged into a NAC offering.

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SonicWall hopes to apply some of its basic product principles to NAC, such as making complex technologies easier to deploy and manage.

Aventail brings with it endpoint control technology that lets customers grant separate access rights based on the trust they have in the machine being used to make the connection as well as other factors. The company also partners with Sygate and WholeSecurity to interrogate endpoints for security compliance before admitting them to networks, key NAC functions.

After the $25 million purchase of Aventail goes through sometime next month, SonicWall will have the means to check endpoint security posture and to determine whether the posture meets admission policies. It will also be able to check whether devices are behaving within limits set by policy once they are on the network.

SonicWall will also have devices that could enforce the decision made by the policy engine, but long-term it will have to devise a way to integrate its NAC equipment with network infrastructure. The long-term direction of NAC is using switches for enforcement.

Or the company could do what some others have done and come up with an alternative access control scheme and call it NAC.


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Contact the author:

Tim Greene is a senior editor at Network World, covering network access control, virtual private networking gear, remote access, WAN acceleration and aspects of VoIP technology. You can reach him at tgreene@nww.com.



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