NIC, NAP Paddy NAC

Microsoft, TCG and Juniper today agreed to work together to ensure customers have interoperable Network Access Control protection for securing network machines. This is another major step forward for security, ensuring that enterprise machines, many of them mobile, accessing the Internet for coffee shops and airports, comply with enterprise security guidelines and do not contain viruses once they re-connect to the enterprise once more ( the ultimate Trojan horse scenario). 

At Interop in Las Vegas, Microsoft and the Trusted Computing Group said that they would provide the architecture to mesh many of the standards together. TCG's TNC (Trusted Network Connect) NAC architecture will adopt Microsoft's NAP (Network Access Protection) protocol, which is primarily a client/server NAC spec. Juniper Networks is also working with Microsoft on interoperability between Juniper's UAC (Unified Access Control) NAC standard and Microsoft's NAP.

Until now, interested organizations would have faced at least three standards: NAP, TNC and Cisco's NAC (Network Admission Control). The TCG is an industry consortium—of which Microsoft is a member—that develops open standards for computing security.

Another great day for IT Professionals..... The hope is that Cisco will interoperate too, making it an awesome day!!!