Mobility and new business models such as outsourcing and collaboration are forcing enterprises to open up the network to achieve greater business efficiencies. An increase in ‘visitors’ accessing the network such as guests, partners, suppliers and contractors using unmanaged devices creates a headache for Network Managers, who must provide a flexible and open network, yet maintain tight security controls.

By deploying Network Access Control only authorised users may be admitted onto the network and using post admission controls by role or policy allocation can determine what the users can access and allowed to do once on the LAN to protect enterprise assets.

Once on the network, accurate information on user activities to ensure traffic is moving legitimately is needed. Devices that aren’t compliant with security policy and may contaminate or disrupt the network must be prevented from accessing.