NAC Not Just a Buzzword

Is the time for NAC now or later? An Infonetics Research study suggests the security protocol’s time has arrived.

NAC (Network Access Control) is already deployed across half of all large enterprises in North America, Infonetics’ study concluded.

The study said 50 percent of North American large enterprises have NAC deployments.

By 2008, Infonetics expects that number to rise to 60 percent of large enterprises. Among small and medium sized businesses, NAC penetration is expected to hit 50 percent by 2008.

The reason the 40 percent are not yet deploying the network security feature? Infonetics survey they just don’t have all the information about what NAC can provide.

“There is massive potential for NAC,” Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at
Infonetics Research, said in a statement. “The number one driver for
deploying NAC is protecting corporate resources from unauthorized users.
This is really the strong point of NAC, and the most commonly listed benefit
of rolling out NAC solutions.”

Seventy six percent of the survey respondents said the desire to stop or limit the
impact of security problems drove their decision on NAC. Only 39 percent said regulatory requirements pushed the decision.

It’s a stat NAC vendors will love. At the Interop NYC show this past September, NAC vendors including Cisco and Juniper argued that the time for NAC was now, even though there isn’t a
single unifying NAC standard yet. All of the vendors agreed that within the
next five years NAC will be deployed within most organizations.