NAC

Network Access Control, switch vendor ConSentry goes out of business

ConSentry Networks has gone out of business, according to Network World. ConSentry was a network access control (NAC) vendor who approached the market by selling NAC and other security and control technology embedded in Ethernet LAN switches, I’ve talked to a few of ConSentry’s customers over the years, who have seemed happy with the company’s switches and NAC products, but in the end I suppose there just weren’t enough customers to sustain ConSentry in this economy.

Network World’s Tim Greene cites an interview with Mario Nemirovsky, the founder and chief scientist at ConSentry, who says that the company closed its offices yesterday and that employees were cleaning out their desks.

ConSentry’s website makes no mention of the company’s failure as of this afternoon… but who knows how long the website will remain active.

Just last month ConSentry was making a modest PR push with its concept of “LAN sprawl,” increased network complexity in enterprises that it claimed was driving the need for smarter network switches. While some enterprises are seeing the need for smarter edge switches, many other enterprises are content with dumb edge switches. In the end, I suppose there just wasn’t enough room in the market for another smart switch vendor.

Is NAC stuck in the mud?

Around this time last year, network access control (NAC) was the be-all, end-all for network security. Performing pre- and post-admission checks on devices before allowing them access to the network and applications was still a relatively fresh concept.

And, as with every new thing, vendors scrambled and clawed to get their solutions to market and offer a new or different form of NAC, adding in one or two new components, but keeping the rest pretty much status quo.

Now, however, it seems it’s all been done. While many key vendors offer some form of NAC — Cisco, Microsoft, Juniper and others — it’s getting increasingly harder to differentiate between them, since NAC has entered the realm of commoditization. There are also still a number of vendors — Vernier, Nevis and many more – offering point-based NAC appliances and tools to fill the gap, but even those solutions vary in only minuscule ways.

I didn’t really see things that way until a recent chat with Current Analysis senior analyst Andrew Braunberg. While we discussed some additions and enhancements to Juniper’s Unified Access Control (UAC) NAC products, Braunberg quickly pointed out that NAC has gotten to the point where there isn’t much that can be added to it that isn’t already there. Sure, vendors can enhance certain elements and integrate NAC with other tools, but the core functionality of a NAC solution is likely not to change much for a while.

“There’s not really going to be anything new under the sun in the NAC market over the next few years,” he said. “Most of it is already available. Vendors will continue fortifying their NAC solutions.”

I have to agree. It seems the time for radical developments in NAC has stopped. That’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It just is. I’m curious, however, what that next big NAC development will be a few years from now. I’d like to ask you. Do you have any predictions on where NAC is heading? Do you agree or disagree that NAC solutions have reached a plateau? How will that affect your NAC purchases moving forward?