NAC Enforcement Becoming Billion Dollar Business

A research firm says network access control (NAC) enforcement will grow over 1100 percent in the next two years.

Infonetics Research says its newest report, “Enforcing Network Access Control,” focuses on just one of three components in a typical NAC solution. Besides enforcement, most approaches to NAC involve client and and backend components. Network integrated devices, appliances, and some SSL VPNs comprise the NAC enforcement market.

In a statement announcing the report, the company said “worldwide manufacturer revenue for NAC enforcement will grow 1,101 percent, from $323 million to $3.9 billion between 2005 and 2008.”

“By far the largest portion of NAC enforcement revenue between now and 2008 comes from network-integrated enforcement devices, but the biggest change is in NAC enforcement appliances, whose share of the market nearly triples between 2005 and 2008,” said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research and author of the report.

According to Infonetics, the three key players in the NAC market include Cisco, Microsoft and the Trusted Computing Group.

“Cisco’s NAC solution is the most recognized brand of the three main NAC solutions, followed by Microsoft’s NAP, and then the Trusted Computing Group’s Trusted Network Connect solution in distant third,” said the company.

In the midst of that market, Infonetics said wireless security will play a big part, with the most common type of network integrated NAC enforcement device being Ethernet switches that support 802.1x while communicating with NAC clients and policy servers.

This article was first published on Enterprisenetworkingplanet.com.