Microsoft NAP Review

Information Week's rolling review of network access control technology sets its sights on Microsoft NAP this week. There's a big market for such technology. Information Week's own research found that 80 percent of respondents are evaluating or deploying network access technology. The big holdup is a concern over interoperability.

...the fact that Microsoft is offering its Network Access Protection technology free with a Windows Server 2008 license can only help drive adoption. In fact, according to our poll, NAP already is pulling equal with Cisco Network Admission Control in terms of framework familiarity.

It's worth noting that they didn't put Microsoft and Cisco head-to-head in testing.

In the end, there was good news and bad news for fans of NAP. The review found the configuration process a bit complicated, and there are still some pieces of the system they'd like to see added. On the bright side:

NAP is a great value for organizations that have yet to invest in NAC. For now, it's all about the price; if you're buying a Windows 2008 license, you're getting the functionality for free. In addition, as more vendors develop the System Health Validators needed to expand on present policy enforcement capabilities, we expect Microsoft NAP to mature to the point where it will pose a significant threat to established NAC players.