Infonetics study.

Leading worldwide research firm Infonetics has issued a study titled User Platas for Network Access Control: North America 2007 that confirms organizations surveyed for the report have an overwhelming preference for enforcing Network Access Control (NAC) solutions from within the network.

"We conducted this study to understand the trends, drivers, barriers and implementation plans of large organizations deploying NAC infrastructure," said Infonetics Research. "As the NAC market continues to mature, the majority of customers are choosing to deploy identity-based policy enforcement solutions to protect resources from within the network."

The executive summary of the Infonetics report, which can be downloaded at www.info.infonetics.com, notes the following:

* 55 percent plan to buy in-line NAC solutions, and another 11% aren't sure if they'll buy in-line or out of band

* 80 percent of large organizations interviewed plan to enforce NAC in the network, and 51 percent plan to enforce at the client (some do both).

* Of the respondents interviewed who plan to deploy NAC by 2008, 32 percent have already deployed NAC

* The #1 driver for deploying NAC is protecting corporate resources from unauthorized users; tied for 1st is the desire to limit the impact of threats

* The need to demonstrate policy of regulatory compliance (64 percent and 54 percent respectively) is up as a driver for deploying NAC compared to last year