Access controls advance

Juniper yields fruit

Juniper Networks has added new hardware and software to its Enterprise Infranet Architecture, which gives firms a unified access-control system.

It added two models of a new hardware device called an Infranet Controller, allowing IT staff to centrally control and enforce access policies. Juniper also released a downloadable Enterprise Infranet Agent for clients. This is auditing software that can be used to identify which patches are installed on a client and whether the antivirus signatures on that client are up to date, for instance.

The vendor also updated software for its Infranet Enforcer firewall platforms. These firewalls police company policy – for example, users could be denied access to network resources if they do not have up-to-date patches, or users failing to comply with policy might be isolated on an intrusion-prevention system (IPS) subnet.

Juniper spokesman Andrew Harding said that the vendor has delivered on its commitment to Microsoft’s network access control system, Network Access Protection (NAP).

“[The latest releases] provide coordinated endpoint and host enforcement,” he said. “[The system] can govern firewall policies and control dynamic IPSec enforcement. And we can encrypt or authenticate using Microsoft single sign-on. That’s a significant part of NAP.”

Juniper’s new IC4000 and IC6000 Infranet Controllers can handle 3,000 and 25,000 concurrent connections respectively, and are available with prices starting from £14,300 + VAT and £34,300 + VAT.

Two IC4000s can be clustered together to give extra performance, and up to four IC6000s can be clustered, according to Juniper.