Fergie's Tech Blog

Patented: Network Access Control Technology

Sean Michael Kerner writes on internetnews.com:

Network Access Control (commonly referred to as NAC) is one of the hottest trends in networking. Although Cisco helped popularize the term (or at least an implementation of NAC), another company just snapped up a patent for it.

Mirage Networks has been awarded US Patent #7,124,197 for its NAC technology.

The official title, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, is "Security apparatus and method for local area networks." The invention "includes a method and apparatus for controlling data link layer access to protected servers on a computer network by a client device."

Grant Hartline, CTO for Mirage Networks, told internetnews.com that the patent embraces a peer-based model, but does not dictate one. "In the world of IPv4, this would cover approaches like ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), which is used in the example shown in the patent," Hartline said. "The methodology in the patent could also include the use of DHCP."

posted by Fergie @ 12/07/2006 03:01:00 PM