US Forest Service Engages Leading Technology Integrator to Implement Its 1st Ever Network Admission Control Solution
Force 3, delivering the best in federal security, unified communications, networks, data center, and medical imaging solutions, today announced that it has been awarded a contract with the US Forest Service(USFS) to design, test, implement and support its first Network Access Control solution.
The Network Access Control solution will allow up to 100,000 USFS users to securely and seamlessly access their internal network while adhering to the agency’s security policies, regardless if workers are using wired or wireless connections.
Per the contract, Force 3 will design the solution using Cisco’s TrustSec enabled architecture. As part of the TrustSec architecture, Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE) will function as the context aware identity-based platform that gathers real-time information from the network, users and devices. ISE then uses this information to make proactive governance decisions by enforcing policy across the network infrastructure utilizing built in standard based controls. This added visibility will also be utilized to support other USFS initiatives such as BYOD by enabling the agency to more effectively support increasing demands for mobile connectivity.
“USFS looked to Force 3 to improve upon their existing network enforcement policies from unauthorized users gaining access,” said Mike Greaney, Vice President of Sales at Force 3. “With our solution, the agency will now have an enterprise wide system that will provide secure identity based network access to authorized users only.”
The project will be completed in two phases. The first phase is scheduled to be complete by September 2013 and includes full deployment to strategic locations in the USFS network. The remainder of the network will be part of the next phase, which is anticipated to be complete by September 2015.
Nick Pappas the project lead from USFS said, “The capabilities we expect from this solution are in high demand. The ability to securely offer guest network services while at the same time enable full accountability for connected devices is a powerful combination. We are excited to have Force 3 engaged with this project.”
For more information on Force 3’s security offerings, please visit: http://www.force3.com/solutions/cyber-security/
