Microsoft is on board

Microsoft is now playing heavily in the NAC space (they call it Network Access Protection). It seems that they have not only added the cornerstone services of NAC, but they've also laced in many of the traditional Microsoft services such as AD integration, SMS and antivirus.Microsoft does have a few things that need to be considered.The first is that it runs on Server 2008, which may or may not be in your environment already. You will also need to do some AD configuration and keep an eye on the load limitations on the NAP server.NAC has come a long way in other areas as well. It can now go as far as using the TPM (Trusted Computing Model) chips included on laptops. For those not aware, manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Gateway have integrated the TPM chip that holds security keys and other crypto information. This allows for full disk encryption and pre-boot authentication. Additionally, you can include other hardware solutions such as biometrics, but you will need a third party NAC solution to use in conjunction with TPM.If you sit down and consider what this offers you in the way of effectively managing endpoints, you can see that NAC appears to ready to play in the enterprise, no matter what your requirements may be.