Rivals integrate security ID tools

Cisco and Microsoft make efforts to ensure NAC and NAP work together.

Cisco and Microsoft have announced improved interoperability to enable Cisco’s Network Admission Control (NAC) security architecture to work alongside Microsoft’s Network Access Protection (NAP) system.

Both technologies are designed to help firms boost network security by allowing them to track and verify specific details of individual devices and end-users who attempt to access corporate systems. But problems with using the two systems simultaneously left many IT managers fearing that they would be forced to abandon one of the technologies in favour of the other.

Modifications to NAC and NAP mean that customers can now piece together various individual components and infrastructure templates within both systems to help address specific needs in a single, interoperable network, said Cisco and Microsoft at the Security Standard Conference this month.

“Firms that are already deploying NAC infrastructure from Cisco will be able to use those products as part of this interoperability without changing anything,” said Bob Gleichauf of Cisco’s Security Technology Group.

The companies plan to release a beta version of the interoperability package by the end of this year, but the tools will not officially appear until Microsoft releases its Windows Server Longhorn software at the end of 2007.

Cisco and Microsoft have also launched an effort to simplify the development of third-party software for firms running Windows Vista, through which the NAP client’s APIs will serve as the single programmatic interface for reporting the performance of both NAC and NAP systems.

Mark Blowers of analyst Butler Group welcomed interoperability between the two product lines but added that the technology is still fairly immature. “People need to see this working in the real world. If it’s too complicated, firms might not deploy it,” he said.