Cisco® NAC Appliance Release 4.5 provides enterprise customers with more ways to protect their infrastructure. Release 4.5 increases the scalability and power of the Cisco NAC Appliance by delivering many new functions, including wireless out-of-band support, Mac OS posture assessment, and importing and exporting of NAC policies.
Wireless Out-Of-Band Support
Cisco NAC supports in-band deployment for all use cases and out-of-band deployment for campus LANs. In-band deployment is a simple and effective option for wired, wireless, remote-access (VPN), and branch office applications. Out-of-band deployment is ideal for larger campus deployments. In a typical out-of-band LAN deployment, initial user authentication and device posture assessment are handled by a central NAC Server while policy enforcement is controlled at the switch.
Cisco NAC Appliance Release 4.5 provides additional flexible deployment options with wireless out-of-band support. Similar to an out-of-band LAN deployment, a wireless out-of-band deployment allows a central NAC Server to provide authentication and assessment while a Wireless LAN Controller handles policy enforcement.
This design gives customers more flexibility in terms of deploying the NAC Servers, and supports more use cases. For example, customers can now use the same NAC Server for both switches and Wireless LAN Controllers in an out-of-band deployment. Release 4.5 also supports higher-bandwidth (4G) Wireless LAN Controllers.
Mac OS Posture Assessment
Cisco NAC supports user authentication in several ways, including using a Cisco NAC Agent for Windows- and Mac-OS-based computers, as well as using a web browser for any operating systems.
Previous Cisco NAC Appliance releases supported device posture assessment for Windows-based computers only. Release 4.5 includes Mac OS device posture assessment support. This capability allows customers to posture-check their Mac-OS-based computers before granting them access to the network.
Many customers have a dynamic and heterogeneous environment. Mac OS posture assessment allows customers to extend their network and endpoint security policies (antivirus and antispyware policies, system configurations and patches, and other security requirements) to a broader end-user population.
Import/Export of NAC Policies
The Cisco NAC Manager is the central place to configure and store networkwide NAC policies. In previous Cisco NAC Appliance releases, NAC policies for large environments with multiple Cisco NAC Managers had to be configured and managed separately for each NAC Manager. With Release 4.5, these policies can be imported and exported between Cisco NAC Managers, making the management of the entire NAC solution more efficient and consistent.
Release 4.5 Resources and Documentation
Release 4.5 Release Notes:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/release_notes/45/45rn.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/release_notes/45/45rn.html
Release 4.5 NAC Manager Installation and Configuration Guide:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/configuration_guide/45/cam/45cam-book.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/configuration_guide/45/cam/45cam-book.html
Release 4.5 NAC Server Installation and Configuration Guide:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/configuration_guide/45/cas/45cas-book.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/configuration_guide/45/cas/45cas-book.html
Release 4.5 video datasheet:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps5707/ps8418/ps6128/nac4_5_vds320x240.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps5707/ps8418/ps6128/nac4_5_vds320x240.html
Detailed description of the new Release 4.5 features:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/release_notes/45/45rn.html#wp602664
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/release_notes/45/45rn.html#wp602664
Summary
Cisco NAC Appliance Release 4.5 delivers many new and useful capabilities that provide increased endpoint coverage, flexible deployment options, and a more scalable and manageable solution for enterprise deployments.
For more information about Cisco NAC, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/nac.