2.9. Keeping Business Running

You may want to deploy NAC in your network for one (or more) of several rational business reasons.

2.9.1. Continuity

Business continuity — particularly during natural or manmade disasters, or pandemics — can keep a business running and afloat.

For example, say that a city is in the midst of a natural disaster. The city or state government has declared a state of emergency and instructed everyone to stay off the roads. A company's headquarters is located in that city, and they need to keep the company running — otherwise, they risk losing millions of dollars in revenue and productivity.

To enable their employees to remain productive, they may employ a VPN that their employees can use to access the networked corporate resources that they require to do their daily jobs. Or the company may have employees who aren't affected by the natural disaster work remotely from a nearby branch office. But the company still needs to maintain their network security and data protection, ensuring that their users can access only the network resources that they need to effectively do their jobs; the company's NAC solution needs to authenticate the users accessing the network and assure that their devices meet corporate policies. A local emergency or disaster doesn't mean that one has to occur within your corporate network, too.

2.9.2. Telecommuting and remote access

While most NAC solutions and VPNs can ensure that users are authenticated; that their devices adhere to and maintain corporate security and access policies; and that remote users can access only the network resources to which they're authorized, whether they're accessing the corporate network remotely from home via VPN or from a remote office.

2.9.3. Merger or acquisition readiness

Merger or acquisition readiness involves the integration of an existing network and policy set with another existing network and set of policies. For example, say that one company acquires another company. Both companies have operational network security and access policies. But both may be running different antivirus and anti-malware applications. How can the acquiring company enact these policies simultaneously, while ensuring that each company — the acquiring and the acquired company — maintains the same or a higher level of access control, and application and data security? A NAC solution can help bridge the gap between the two company's policy sets. The NAC solution may be able to readily employ both sets of policy via an either/or mechanism, which can ensure that, regardless of which set of policies the acquiring company selects and ultimately invokes, the user (and his or her device) adheres to a combined policy set, is authenticated, and can gain access only to the areas that he or she is approved to access.