As products were installed and configured, we noted the ease of this process and the clarity and depth of the documentation provided to assist us. We then examined the ease of integration into our environment and the amount of support for standard protocols (RADIUS, TACACS and TACACS+). For most products, a few lines of code are all that are needed to configure your network-access server to recognize the new authentication server. Unfortunately, most of the vendors only mention Cisco Systems products in their documentation so you may have some do-it-yourself work if you're not a Cisco-only shop. User management and database functionality also were key areas to examine as users are imported, configured and assigned a token. Logging and reporting functionality, when available, was considered for clarity and depth of coverage. We also attempted to gauge the overall performance of the client/server authentication process.

Finally, we looked at the tokens themselves. We felt it was important to identify the ease of use, features and general feel for these devices.

All tests took place in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs®. Each server package was installed on a rack-mounted 300-MHz Pentium II system with 64 MB of RAM running NT Server 4.0 updated with Service Pack 5.