Wireless users still need security, so why has NAC's role declined?
"We don't see any reason to have a wireless network," says an IT administration manager at a financial services company. "It would just add another risk factor." Her sentiments are echoed by other deployers: The people who are most likely to be using NAC are less likely to have wireless networks at all.
In addition, at the same time as NAC adoption is gathering momentum, the IEEE's wireless authentication mechanisms have become more mature. This has decreased the need for a wireless security fix. Wireless initially drove adoption of 802.1X, the protocol used by many NAC systems, but the need for security for wireless devices isn't driving NAC. Because enterprise WLAN gear already uses 802.1X, it's less likely to need upgrading for NAC.
Infrastructure Impact
The issue of network upgrades has dogged NAC from the beginning--this technology is notorious for demanding network upgrades, with some major frameworks requiring new clients, switches or servers. But surprisingly enough, our survey revealed that the upgrade rap may be undeserved. On average, respondents expect NAC to require upgrades to less than one third of their IT gear, and those actually deploying NAC expect to require fewer upgrades than people at the planning stage. This is probably because most current NAC products are standalone appliances, with few vendors yet shipping anything based on frameworks.
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