New NAC Devices Unveiled At Interop Las Vegas

NAC technology ensures that all devices are free of malware and comply with corporate security policies before they’re allowed to connect to the network.

To that end, Enterasys rolled out Sentinel, a new NAC offering within the Andover, Mass.-based vendor’s Secure Networks portfolio. It can screen both corporate and guest devices since it works without installing agents on clients.

Sentinel includes the Trusted Access Gateway, an appliance that monitors the health of devices trying to get on the network, as well as the Trusted Access Manager, a tool for configuring and monitoring the gateway.

Available now, Sentinel is priced from $28,000 to $57,000 for a 500-node network and $76,000 to $122,000 for a 2,000-node network, according to Enterasys.

Also at Interop, Vernier introduced its EdgeWall 8800, an NAC solution that authenticates end-point devices and scans traffic using an intrusion-detection and -prevention engine. When an infected device is discovered, the EdgeWall 8800 quarantines and remediates the device, said Rod Murchison, vice president of marketing for Vernier, Mountain View, Calif.

“The future of NAC is going into this realtime inspection capability,” Murchison said.

The EdgeWall 8800’s ability to screen and remediate infected devices helps companies sharpen their security policies and demonstrate compliance, said Dan Riekes, executive vice president at Affidia Systems, an Encino, Calif.-based solution provider and Vernier partner.

Riekes said he plans to leverage the EdgeWall 8800’s high throughput so he can offer customers more robust NAC solutions. “The fact that it’s a clientless solution also allows people to work without a lot of disruption,” he added.