Last friday, I had the privilege of meeting 2 members of the Windows Insiders Group. Teck Sin and Yong Teck, at their nice office off the sunny West Coast of Singapore. Just a short walk away from West Coast park. Yup, nice place to work right? Just minutes to the sea side. Imagine you are so frustrated with work, you could just walk to the seaside and jump in. Just kidding.. 😉
Teck Sin works for a Process Control company (cannot be named to ensure privacy. Hey !! Respect that.) He is in a team of 5 which provides IT Infrastructure support to about 1000 users. I’ve just visited his office on Friday afternoon. Wow, awesome work the company does. His company does process control for customers and produces precision control equipment and stuff like that. That wide variety of IT infrastructure support is just awesome and looks like a lot of fun.
Anyway, I was meeting Teck Sin to see the good work he has done around Network Access Protection. Teck Sin has implemented a pilot of Windows Server 2008’s Network Access protection through 802.1x. He implemented that with CISCO Catalyst 3560.
He found that NAP is able to enforce a base level of protection for clients when network access is required. That protects the clients from virus and worm issues that mobile workforce may bring along back to office and spreads around. NAP is able to enforce that you have Firewall turn on (if its not, NAP can be set to turn it on), Antivirus installed and up to date, and the clients have up-to-date software updates.
Teck Sin finds that NAP is a very compelling technology that should seriously be given some thoughts. It can tremendously elevate and ensure the level of health before clients participate in network access. However, in Teck Sin’s pilot, he wasn’t able to get hold of System Health Validators from his Antivirus vendor and thus, couldn’t put a full testing to it. But he is definitely going to try and get his hands on them and test it again. Meanwhile, he is having fun with his NAP setup.
He also learns how to handle non-802.1x and non-nap clients (print servers and like), and they need to be addressed before general rollout. I encouraged Teck Sin to go further and push the pockets of NAP and exchanged a few ideas. Yong Teck was there too. I learnt quite a bit from the ground. Thanks to Teck Sin and Yong Teck for hosting me.
I think staying ahead of competition and peers is important for the IT Profession. NAP may not hit you right now, but if it hits you, are you ready and confident to implement and handle them? The very difference in being a competent IT Pro is the ability to move ahead and stay abreast of the pack. Teck Sin and Yong Teck displayed that and kudos for staying ahead.
I am here in Microsoft to help IT Pros in Singapore stay ahead and updated with our latest offering (to be released in H1 2008), Windows Server 2008. If you are interested to find out more on how to learn more and get invited into the IT Pro Momentum program (which Teck Sin and Yong Teck are in), drop me an email at i-dchung@microsoft.com For his efforts, Teck Sin is given a 1 year TechNet+ Subscription.
Join the IT Pro Momentum (BTW, its free), or lag behind… Your choice.. May the force be with you!! (Sounds familiar?)
/Dennis
Navigating the Technology Highway 