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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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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It’s true – I’m a PC. Searching through my 2006 emails recently reminded me it was two years ago this month when I loaded a beta of Windows Vista on my laptop. At the time we were primarily testing the NAP functionality in Vista while developing the Napera N24, but I was immediately smitten with the Vista interface and the overall experience.  In 2007 I switched to Vista full time on a new Sony Vaio.
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Another milestone for Napera this week as we released version 1.3 of our Napera N24 software. We’ve really raised the bar with this release, and solidified our unique offering of computer health for Windows and Macintosh, remote access, identity enforcement, and guest access in a single solution that works across wired and wireless environments.
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My cofounder ChrisB’s blog post on Lockdown Network’s demise in March received an interesting postscript this week. As reported in Network World, McAfee announced that they will be shipping new NAC products in 2009, including new enforcement and support for unmanaged devices not running the McAfee NAC agent.

Alan at StillSecure blogged his surprise at McAfee building or re-purposing their own ‘stone age’ NAC technology, and I quote:

At best this is a finger in the dike strategy until McAfee realizes that they have to do it the McAfee way. They just can’t build innovation and they have to go out and buy a NAC company.

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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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Yesterday’s well hyped NAC debate over at Network World certainly received some attention. I was only able to check in between meetings but they posted an entire transcript and it makes interesting reading.

In one corner, Joel Snyder, well respected NAC expert and Interop regular. I’m partial towards Joel because he has been a voice of reason in the networking space for many years, and his work on NAC and NAP is second to none.

In the other corner, Richard Stiennon, self-titled ‘ Security Industry Innovator’ who regularly exclaims ‘NAC is dead’ to anyone who reads his column at Network World. I don’t believe I’ve ever met Richard, but he was previously at Gartner (where he exclaimed IDS was dead), worked at Fortinet and Webroot for a brief period and recently joined an Australian startup doing MSS. I was doing MSS in Australia in 1995 as it happens, so I guess I must be a security innovator as well.
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Some very interesting news for the NAC market this week with multiple analysts publishing predictions and market forecasts.

Patrik Bihammar at IDC talked up the threat landscape and says NAC has become a high priority because of the “everything, everywhere” network. IDC expects the NAC market to grow at 43 percent year on year to reach $US3.8 billion by 2011.

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