Good Morning:
Kids say the darnedest things. At least mine do. At the beach, we usually trek down to the Boardwalk in the late afternoon for a few carnival rides, some desert and basically to further tire the kids out before bed time. Though I'm not sure how it happened, the Boss let my son out of the house in his Flash costume. Yes, the kid was walking along the boardwalk as the Flash.

And I'll also admit it was very cute. Lots of folks were commenting on his costume, including one jackass who confused him with Shazam! Come on now. Who doesn't know the difference between the Flash and Captain Marvel? Thankfully my older daughter goes up to the guy and says, "That's not Shazam, it's the Flash!" Wallflowers my kids are not.

So the boy actually seemed a little embarrassed by all the attention. He's a bit shy and he didn't like all those folks he didn't know talking to him (yes, it's hard to out run your genetics). I tried to make him feel a bit better by saying that all those folks are talking to him because he's cute in his costume.

He looks up at and the Boss and says, 'I'm not cute." Huh? What do you mean you aren't cute, boy? Crap, do I need to set him up with the therapist right away? Is this a four alarm self-esteem issue? Nope, he then follows that up with: "I'm not cute, I'm handsome!" 

Yes boy, you are handsome. And bold and innocent and all the stuff that we old folks need to remind ourselves to be in the morass that is our daily lives.

Now go have some fun today. I'm certainly going to.

Incite #4: Weaving security into the network fabric

Network security hits the tipping point where it’s no longer considered novel or a “must-have,” but rather it’s just there – truly becoming a feature of the network fabric. Network Access Control remains a proxy for all things network security, and makes minor inroads in 2008 – largely as people stop talking about it. Independent NAC vendors either sell or struggle, as the big networks force their will on locked-in customers. The NAC standards battle turns out to be much ado about nothing.

Read the original Days of Incite post on this topic.

6-month grade: C+

The challenge of making prognostications is that things happen in my mind fairly quickly, and in the real world - a hell of a lot slower. So the idea that we will be getting to this mythical "Secure Network Fabric" is certainly still in the works - though it will be a multi-year evolution to get there. So let's look at the data points that validate this theme.

First is Cisco's TrustSec, which is basically another marketecture from the kings of marketecture - really focusing on how to evolve the current switch infrastructure to something more secure. Yes, it will take a long time and hopefully not involve a wholesale rip and replace of all your current gear (like the C-NAC Framework of old), although your Cisco rep would certainly like it. Basically, it's just a fancy way of saying what has been obvious for a long time. Network security will be in your network, not in a set of overlay boxes meant to protect your status quo switching fabric.

Juniper is also getting into the enterprise switch game and their differentiator? Ah, uh, well, it's basically their operating system and their NAC stuff. And scarily enough, that may be enough for the few that don't want to buy from Cisco and aren't comfortable that the other switch vendors will be around long enough to support their stuff down the road. So the Secure Network Fabric is happening, though at a snail's pace.

It's also been interesting to see how far and how fast the NAC business has fallen out of favor. Evidently all it took was a couple of high profile flame-outs and the rest of the business largely just shutting up and getting back to the business of actually solving some customer problems and selling some gear. 

And an amazing thing is happening, the business is growing. Although modestly, though I'm not sure how modestly since I don't do numbers, and I don't believe what folks like Infonetics say. So I'll just use the term modestly - which is a lot better than not modestly. This is a disappointment to the investors and hype-meisters that have been looking for huge growth (meaning IPOs and high value acquisitions) out of this space, but in reality any kind of market growth is not a bad thing nowadays.

Customers still have problems with visitors and outsourcers and other folks that now are supposed to be on their networks, but without the ability to manage those devices. These problems sometimes bubble to the top of the priority list, especially if an auditor has said to fix it for compliance purposes. My biggest issue with the space was whether a customer could wait to deploy NAC? And the answer has been largely yes, but enough folks feel the pain to keep the business moving forward. 

Who is doing well in this space? Everyone says they are doing great, just like Lockdown. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. My procurement philosophy has to do with solving your problems, not with picking who is doing well. So figure out what problems you are trying to solve and then figure out if NAC is the right solution for you. But the key here is to focus on the longer term and how you want to get there. The reality is, you will be rolling out a secure network over the next 5-7 years. Do you want to evolve slowly or quickly? Do you have an option? Is an overlay the best answer or do you want to start incrementally updating your fabric in crucial areas?

There are lots of questions to ask and that is the most important part of considering a NAC solution. In terms of grading this Incite at the 6 month mark, it's good in some areas and not so much in others. Overall, a mediocre showing, which is about a C+.

Photo credit: leigh.