The Policy Manager is a separate application used just for policy development. The Policy Server communicates with all agents – both those serving as Enforcers and those not serving in that capacity – to see whether they are in compliance. In addition to the agent software, DNAC has three other major components. This product has the potential to scale efficiently, because the more systems you add to the network, more Enforcers you can designate.

The Enforcers then handle the quarantine measures for noncompliant machines by blocking the endpoint’s network access except for traffic allowed by policy.Įnforcers also can handle guests and other unmanaged devices by redirecting them to a captive portal where they can pick up compliant agent software. With this reconnaissance, the Enforcers identify systems without the appropriate agent in place and respond to directions from the central management server about how to treat endpoints after compliance assessments have been performed. Together, these distributed Enforcers watch network traffic (the company doesn’t disclose its secrete sauce, but our educated guess is that they are looking for address-resolution-protocol requests and broadcasts). Think peer-to-peer NAC where a militia of Enforcers work collectively to protect your LAN. For example, on a network segment of trusted corporate laptops, several of those devices will be acting as enforcers to help manage unauthorized traffic coming from new, unauthorized users or authorized users that happen to be out of compliance with policy. These agents are not special systems, but rather could be any trusted device running the InfoExpress DNAC agent.

Cybergatekeeper agent