Endpoint Discovery

Great Bay Software’s Beacon Endpoint Profiler provides a comprehensive list of all network attached endpoints and includes contextual descriptions of the endpoint’s type and location. This data can be leveraged for the deployment of network-based authentication or NAC, but it is also very useful for network and security administrators who lack this information and want to leverage it for tasks such as managing adds, moves, and changes, rapidly location network attached endpoints, and augment capacity planning. Beacon’s real time and historical views are a critical component in processes such as incident response and change control and can dramatically reduce the complexity and time involved in each.

802.1X Deployment and Management

The preparation for the deployment of 802.1X is unlike any technology previously undertaken by the IT department. Many disparate technologies and functional groups within the IT department must work in harmony if the deployment is to succeed. Included in this list are the network endpoint (PCs, Laptops, PDAs, etc), the network infrastructure (switches, routers, and wireless access points), RADIUS server(s), Directory server(s), and credentials systems such as Certificate Authority and biometrics systems. In addition, several day-to-day functions and processes may need to be modified in order to accommodate the deployment including schedule, adds, moves, and changes, vulnerability scanning, and account and password management. Beacon alleviates the most acute challenge in deploying and managing 802.1X; that is discovering, provisioning, and securing the non-EAP endpoints (those that will not run the 802.1X client). Beacon leverages its database of endpoints to perform all of these functions which drastically reduces the administrative costs of deploying and administering the 802.1X enabled network.