Napera

Following on the heels of our Google Apps Marketplace launch yesterday for PC Security Informer, there was one item of news that got overlooked in the excitement.

A new 2.0 release of the Napera ActiveAgent for Windows and Mac is now available online. Our ActiveAgent is a lightweight installer that helps you configure Microsoft’s  NAP technology that is part of Windows, a task usually only achieved by the bravest of mortals with the appropriate degrees in rocket science. On Macintosh, the Napera ActiveAgent provides reporting capabilities for OS X overlooked by our friends in Cupertino.

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Network Access Control makes Network World’s list of Nine hot technologies for 2009, along with virtualization, Green IT and cloud computing. The following quote about Microsoft NAP after the shakeout of the NAC standards battle caught my eye.

“Because Network Access Protection … comes with Vista and Windows Server 2008, deciding to go with Microsoft has become a no-brainer for many customers.

NAP represents a clear choice, rather than a technology that requires extensive research, RFPs, product tests and evaluations, and so forth.”

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2008 has been a malware roller coaster ride, and as the end of the year approaches, the bad guys appear to be picking up speed. Microsoft released six critical patches this morning, fixing remote code execution flaws in Windows, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and Visual Basic. No news yet of exploits in the wild but they usually aren’t far behind.

These latest fixes come on the heels of a New York Times article which claims malicious software is spreading faster than ever and that the industry cannot get ahead of the onslaught, and many folks are saying we are losing the war.

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I thought I’d give my own two cents following Todd’s post on why he loves Vista. I, too, have been using Vista for two years now, and since I switched to a new Sony Vaio, Vista is great.

However, some of Vista’s most powerful features for businesses are not receiving the attention they deserve, as Microsoft focuses most of its energy on consumer and “I’m a PC” campaigns. One feature that I believe is truly the unsung hero of Vista is Microsoft Network Access Protection (NAP).
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One of the advantages that Napera enjoys by leveraging Microsoft’s NAP architecture is immediate compatibility with a wide range of Windows antivirus, antispyware and firewall solutions. Microsoft maintains a list of Vista compatible security software and today we published a detailed Napera support document (PDF) listing all of the solutions we’ve tested here (thanks to Tony for his hard work on QA). In general, any Windows XP or Vista compatible security application that supports Windows Security Center (introduced in 2004 with Windows XP SP2) will work great with NAP. We’ve only found a couple of obscure AV applications that don’t support Windows Security Center.
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It didn’t surprise us when Forrester Research put Microsoft NAP as the frontrunner in the Network Access Control market (The Forrester Wave: Network Access Control, Q3 2008). “Microsoft’s NAP technology is a relative newcomer but has become the de facto standard…,” said Rob Whiteley in his report. While Cisco and others might be able to claim more direct revenue from NAC products as of now, I believe Microsoft has the technology and framework that positions it for success.
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Fresh from TechEd, Chris Boscolo spoke on TechNet Radio with Kevin Remde and Jeff Sigman from Microsoft about Network Access Protection. Chris talks about the Napera product line, how we enable NAP for small and medium enterprises and how you can deploy NAP in 10 minutes.

Napera’s CTO Chris Boscolo is attending a panel discussion on Network Acccess Protection at Microsoft’s annual TechEd conference for IT professionals in Orlando today. Join Chris and experts from Microsoft and other NAP partners to see product demonstrations and talk NAP at 1:15pm today Tuesday, June 10^th in room N310 E.
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With the news today that Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released to manufacturing, the last piece of the network health puzzle falls into place for Windows users.

Why is XP SP3 so important? Because it includes the Microsoft Network Access Protection health agent first available in Windows Vista. In turn, the NAP agent enables Windows XP systems to report health over the network. Napera products leverage Microsoft’s NAP architecture for health information, and we can provide health diagnosis of Windows Vista, Mac OS X and now Windows XP systems on customer networks.
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Networking behemoth Cisco has finally made good on its 2006 commitment to integrate their proprietary NAC products with Microsoft’s NAP architecture, and the result should be shipping any month now.
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