So whats wrong with having it both ways?

People have been telling me that I want my cake and eat it too since I was a little boy, starting with my Mom.  So I take no offense at all when Mike Fratto accuses me of trying to have it both ways when it comes to host assessment in NAC. Hey Mike whats the matter with playing both sides of the aisle? Maybe I should throw my hat into the presidential race?  Seriously, I think Mike may have misconstrued what I was saying in talking about vendors like LANDesk who say they are NAC players versus what I have said about the importance of host assessment being a central piece of the NAC formula.

Let me be really clear here. I think you can't have NAC without host assessment. That is the starting point for NAC as far as I am concerned.  However, I don't think it is the ending point. i think the NAC vendors who will survive in the future will do more than admission control.  They will perform access control.  There are elements of behavior analysis and monitoring involved, as well as identity based access control involved, among other things.  On the other hands vendors who seek to provide "checkbox" NAC by using their on board agents to check configuration, ala LANDesk or Big Fix for that matter, are missing the boat here.  Customers want their NAC solutions to do very different things than their configuration managers.  Lets not even use the G spot.  Yes, thats right guests.  Almost by definition, these host based NAC "products" (and I use that term loosely) have a huge blind spot regarding guests.  With guest access such an important piece of the NAC equation, how can you have a NAC solution without a guest solution.

But Mike don't shoot the messenger here.  I think the words from the fellow from LANDesk are what sinks him. He says NAC vendors who are "strategically centered around NAC" will fail. So does he tell his customer that they don't consider NAC strategic to LANDesk but they will provide them NAC?  No that sounds like a winning sales pitch if I ever heard one.  The fact that we never see LANDesk in any NAC deals is also a clear indication to me of how the NAC buying public views their feature as well.

When it comes to NAC, he who laughs last, will laugh best.