Would I knock open source NAC?
The birthday boy (Rothman) mentions a comment to one of his NAC articles by Sean Boran. Sean left the same comment on one of my NAC articles as well. I wrote to Sean off line and told him I would take a look at the project (http://freenac.net) and let him know what I thought. I also told Sean perhaps we can have him on the SSAATY podcast sometime soon. So the original mouth of the South baits this mouth from the South (how did two Jewish boys from NY become mouths of the South?) to comment. Obviously, there are enough NAC competitors as it is, now I have to compete against an open source one, would be an initial reaction. But Shimel (I love it when I write about me in the 3rd person) loves to be the rebel and take the not so obvious road. I actually wholeheartedly support Sean and this project.
Why do I support open source NAC, that could be competitive to my own product? Good question, let me give you my answers:
- I support open source software whenever I can. I think it is great for the market, it keeps vendors honest and fosters innovation and open standards
- I don't think this product is currently competitive to what we do in Safe Access. Namely, it really does not do any health or posture checking it is more VLAN assignment and is pretty limited right now.
- Having an open source alternative is a great validation that the NAC market is starting to mature. Notice I did not say free, which many people associate with open source. There will be a cost of ownership in rolling this out.
It would be nice if Sean can get this project to support the TCG standard as I think it will speed its adoption. However, I think at this point that is secondary to adding some needed functionality to gain acceptance in the market. I am sure some smart company will look at this and wrap some commercial stuff around it to make a competitive NAC offerring. Could be interesting on where this is going and I will keep my eye on it. In the meantime, I am going to try and line up Sean for a podcast. Will keep you posted.
BTW, Happy Birthday to our favorite grumpy analyst!
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