Getting Started

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Peter Bybee, president and CEO at Network Vigilance, a San Diego-based solution provider, gives insight into the startup costs for integrators looking to add NAC to their portfolios.

KNOW YOUR STUFF: You need to have a pretty good security story if you want to sell NAC. If you're not a security solution provider, it's going to be hard to do because you have to tell a story around NAC—it's not a technology that sells itself, it's an educational sale. You need to explain what it's designed to provide. Tell a story around NAC to help clients figure out where it fits into their architecture.

There's a definite crossover between NAC and switching and routing, and it's easier for a solution provider to get in if they understand these areas, because most NAC solutions require some integration with the core switch. That's a good starting place, but you don't necessarily need to be a switch provider or have specific vendor alliances in order to sell NAC.

I think once you explain what NAC can do, customers look at it as aspirin. But people who are uneducated about what it is think it's a vitamin or a luxury that they can afford not to have.

TEST THINGS OUT: I think NAC is a technology for which buying and owning demo units is essential. It's important to obtain demo units through vendors, and owning or using NAC solutions as seed units is a second component, because NAC is a technology that people are going to want to try before they buy.

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Most of all, NAC is a complex sale, with lots of switch integration, so having an internal lab where you can learn and have NAC test deployments available to show to prospective customers is a must. This represents one of the biggest costs when starting up, but it's also an investment that pays for itself fairly quickly.

BE SELECTIVE: One of the toughest parts for solution providers getting into NAC is going out and choosing one vendor, because you'll go broke trying to implement multiple solutions. So there's an investigative phase, and there's also some R&D time that you have to do to find a vendor that's right for you and make sure they have what it takes. This is a soft cost, but a cost nonetheless. It's important to understand the nature of what NAC solutions are designed to do. The primary thing is endpoint risk mitigation from notebook PCs, flash drives, wireless devices and endpoints in an open environment have a much bigger risk footprint than environments that are more closed and locked down and restricted.