Microsoft NAP Leading the NAC Pack

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.

As Tim Greene pointed out in his NAC newsletter, “the result is interesting because it’s not based on how many units were sold or performance tests but rather on evaluation of how well the products would meet the challenges of a set of real-world deployment situations.”

Tim hit the nail on the head, as NAP works in the real world, not just in a complex architectural diagram that only exists in a 30-page white paper. I think NAP’s success is twofold: One, NAP is built into the operating system on the client and server, making it easier for customers to use and deploy; and, two, NAP is one of those rare examples of Microsoft truly achieving interoperability and playing nice with others.

Here at Napera, we believed early on that Microsoft NAP was a technology to invest in, which is why we license Microsoft’s protocols to create a highly integrated solution around NAP. While there are over a hundred NAP partners, Napera is one of the few partner solutions that integrate directly with NAP versus just interoperating with it. Our product communicates with the NAP Agent service in Windows Vista and XP, allowing our customers in the small and medium enterprise space to leverage their existing investment in Windows. Napera then builds on the NAP platform to provide a single solution that combines health enforcement for both Windows and Macintosh computers with identity enforcement and guest access.

More about our NAP integration and partnership is highlighted on the Microsoft NAP blog this week, as Napera is the first partner to be featured in Joe Davies’ Spotlight on NAP Partners.