Will Juniper Deliver on Access Control Promises - Page 2

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Broad threat response

In the UAC 2.2 solution, Juniper aimed to create a coordinated threat response mechanism that spans the Juniper product portfolio.

"With coordinated threat control when an attack comes in the IPS senses it and it sends a signal to the Infranet controller and identifies what user launched the attack and then actions can be taken against the user," Campagna commented.

Juniper had also offered a degree of coordinated threat control with its UAC 2.1 solution that debuted in October 2007. Campagna noted that with UAC 2.2 the solution is more comprehensive in that it can co-ordinate with a broader set of security appliances and modules.

UAC 2.2 will also mark the first time that Juniper is fully supporting Microsoft's NAP. Juniper has been a NAP partner for several years. NAP (Network Access Protection) debuted with Microsoft's Window Server 2008 release and provides an approach for end point health check and pre-admission control. Microsoft's NAP end point health check is also part of the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Network Connect (TNC) standards.

Juniper's full embrace of NAP follows its competitors by several months. Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve, for example, has supported NAP since April of this year.

As to why Juniper is just now providing support for NAP, Campagna brushed it off as timing.

"It's just about fitting things into releases and doing the quality assurance, and that does sometimes take time," Campagna said.

The key for Juniper, though, is that overall the timing is now right for network access control.

"People are now moving beyond the hype and the pilots and moving into deployments," Campagna said. "I think that the rest of 2008 and 2009 will be an interesting time to be in this space and we'll see adoption. The budgets are there -- it's just a matter of making a purchasing decision."

Article courtesy of InternetNews.com