This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Summary
Use NAC to police your information highway by enforcing admission control rules for hosts and users that traverse your network.
Begin by laying the framework to use learned information about a host, user, or user’s location on the network to control network access based on the user’s compliance to the admission policy. Use posture + identity = best access control.
NAC can leverage existing network infrastructure, security software services, and security policies to provide enforcement points to disperse locations.
For those network-attached devices that are not NAC capable, use other methods, such as an audit server, which can scan hosts and determine software compliance and then communicate the result to the policy server to determine their admission rights.
Don’t limit NAC to just enforcing software compliance; NAC can do much more. It is simply the conduit to allow your infrastructure to police your information highway with the requirements of your choice. Integrate other applications, available from Cisco NAC partners, as part of the compliance checking and enforcement process. In addition, create applications using the API to detect and enforce any type of identity characteristic that is important for your business.
No two NAC Framework implementations will be alike. NAC Framework provides the most flexible and feature-rich network admission control solution, adaptable to your needs for today and in the future.