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Cisco and Microsoft NAC/NAP Announcement at Security Standard Conference

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This week I’m at the inaugural Security Standard conference in Boston Massachusetts. Security Standard is a new executive-level security conference designed for CISOs, CSOs, CIOs, VPs and Directors of IT. The principal sponsors for the event this year were Cisco Systems and Microsoft.

Today at the conference Microsoft and Cisco unveiled a joint architecture for Microsoft Network Access Protection (NAP) and Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) interoperability. Microsoft NAP is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista  and Windows Server "Longhorn" and Cisco NAC is a set of solutions and technologies built into Cisco’s networking infrastructure.  The joint architecture allows communication and policy enforcement across NAC and NAP, enabling a multi-vendor, end-to-end solution.

Whenever I talk to customers about NAP, the most common question I get is on how it will work with Cisco NAC. So I know many of you will be happy to hear about this collaboration.

We also released a joint white paper, "Cisco Network Admission Control and Microsoft Network Access Protection Interoperability Architecture" that I encourage you to read if you want to learn more on how the NAC and NAP Interoperability Architecture Works.  I also included a link to the NAP Team Blog, so you can stay up to date with their developments.

- Alex Heaton

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