SafeConnect Supports Apple iPad Press Release

SafeConnect™ NAC Supports Applie iPad

Impulse Point’s Managed Service Support for Network Access Control Solution Provides New Product Updates within 48 Hours

TAMPA, FL – April 05, 2010 – Impulse Point, provider of the most scalable network access control (NAC) solution for large enterprise networks, announced today that SafeConnect™ supports the Apple iPad and that updates were pushed to all customers within 48 hours of release of the new endpoint device.

As the NAC Industry’s first and only NAC-as-a-Service (NaaS) provider, Impulse Point is responsible for updating the SafeConnect product for all its customers on a timely basis. Our industry leading Service Level Agreement (SLA) for new devices, operating systems and endpoint security software is 24 to 48 hours, as compared to other NAC providers who struggle with maintaining 24-48+ “day” update cycles.

“We profiled and tested the new iPad within hours of its actual release on Saturday,” states Max Garcia, Chief Technology Officer for Impulse Point. “The update was pushed out to a number of selected customers over the weekend and to the remainder of our customer base through normal change management procedures by end of the day on Monday, April 5.”

“Our ability to support new devices and security software quickly is a competitive advantage for Impulse Point,” explained Dennis Muley, President. “Education, our main industry sector, typically is at the forefront of adopting new devices and diverse user environments. It’s important that a NAC solution can keep up with recognizing and supporting new releases. Unlike other NAC providers, asking our customers to jeopardize the security of their organization by exempting non-supported devices, operating systems, and software from security policy control is simply not an option that we would expect our valued clients to endure.”

SafeConnect NAC is delivered as an operationally managed support service. In addition to turnkey installation and training, Impulse Point provides proactive 24/7 monitoring, problem determination and resolution, software and appliance hardware maintenance, and future software enhancement protection.

Implemented as a true “out-of-line” network device, the SafeConnect Policy Enforcer Appliance sits out-of-line with the core network and fails open—presenting no single point of failure, performance bottle-necks or maintenance-related or scheduled network outages. In the event of a failure all existing and new users to the network are unaffected and have uninterrupted access to network resources. Impulse Point’s Managed Support Service also includes daily policy configuration backups and 24-48 hours policy appliance restoration recovery services, in the unlikely event of a system failure.

SafeConnect™ offers an easy to implement and support endpoint policy management solution that allows organizations to control access to their networks based on an end user’s compliance with security policies, while seamlessly connecting to their existing multi-vendor infrastructure. Although not required, SafeConnect is also compatible with 802.1x, providing the flexibility to quarantine users at the router, switch, or endpoint device.

The SafeConnect™ network access control solution provides the following capabilities:

• Prevents unauthorized user access to wired, wireless, and VPN networks.
• Ensures users maintain compliance with anti-virus, anti-spyware, Microsoft security patches, P2P file sharing software, power management, and custom endpoint security policies through real-time continuous security posture validation and enforcement (pre- and post-admission control).
• Automates the isolation of non-compliant devices at Layer2 and provides individualized remediation guidance independent of network switch hardware.
• Enables flexible identity-based policy management for students, employees, vendors, and guests.
• Allows the organization to send on-demand broadcast messages for emergency or informational communications by network location or policy group.

SafeConnect™ is supported by the NAC industry’s only Managed Support Service offering. Impulse Point provides continuous proactive monitoring and support that includes hardware server and software problem determination and resolution, as well as upgrade protection to future software functional releases.