Napera

Nothing makes you feel worse than when you forget a friend’s birthday.  So let me start by saying: “Happy belated birthday Google Apps Marketplace!”  For those that don’t know, Google Apps Marketplace offers web-based applications that work seamlessly with Google Apps.

Napera launched PC Security Informer for Google Apps Marketplace back in June of 2010. The primary benefit of offering PC Security Informer as a Marketplace App is that it  Read the full article…

Playing the role of Goliath in the classic biblical tale, yesterday Microsoft finally launched Windows InTune, their cloud-based desktop management service.  The twist in this story, though, is that the protagonist Napera has no intention of trying to slay this Goliath, at least not until they help pave the way to ubiquitous cloud-based IT management.  In fact we welcome InTune to the market!

Why would I not be more concerned that Microsoft has launched a cloud-based service that is nearly identical to Napera Insight?   Read the full article…

Imagine if I walked into a bank and told the teller: “Hi, my name is Bill Gates, and I want to withdraw all the money from my account.”

Knowing that the teller would want proof that I am Bill Gates, I would also hand her an affidavit with a picture of my face stating that I am indeed Bill Gates. The catch is: the affidavit was signed by me, “Bill Gates”.  No bank teller would accept my self-signed affidavit saying that I was Bill Gates; in fact, she would require a notarized version or some other proof of identity validated by a known authority.

But in the world of SSL-managed security appliances, self-signed certificates are commonplace and used by thousands of organizations worldwide. Like the Bill Gates impostor in my fictional story, security products that use self-signed certificates are undermining the security afforded by certificate-based SSL.
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With JJ blogging about 802.1x, I thought it would be timely to talk about why I think small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) do not and probably never will deploy 802.1x for wired networks.

I make a point of meeting with customers whenever I can. Amongst the small and medium enterprise customers I’ve met, none have shown an interest in deploying 802.1x. The reason is simple – the problems solved by 802.1x do not justify the time and pain involved to setup and maintain it. Many of these customers would love to require everyone to identify themselves prior to joining the network, and want to keep risky machines off their network. They know this makes their networks healthier and easier to maintain. But I’ve yet to meet the customer willing to endure the complexity of 802.1x to get there.
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It’s fitting that my first blog post would be about the misfortune of a former employer. Prior to co-founding Napera in 2006, I was at Lockdown Networks for a short time. Since the news broke this week that Lockdown closed their doors, I’ve been asked for my insight. Specifically, people want to know whether Lockdown’s failure is due to their inability to execute or due to a non-existent NAC market.
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