Chapter 10: Network Access Protection

Overview

Before we dig into this feature, let me tell you a brief background story concerning this book. Why write a book about a beta version of a product? Won’t a book like this become obsolete once the final release version of the product appears? Probably, yes. After all, at the time of writing this particular chapter, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 has not quite reached Beta 3, so features are bound to change between now and RTM.

Doesn’t that mean that this is basically a “throwaway” book? I suppose that’s true of many books like this. But why would Microsoft throw away money to have this published? The answer’s simple-to help get customers ready for what’s coming. Whenever Microsoft is in the process of developing a major new platform-a new Microsoft Windows client or server operating system, a new release of Microsoft Visual Studio, the .NET Framework, and so on-they like to produce a book like this describing a prerelease version of the product. And usually these books are throwaways-that is, IT pros read them and learn about the capabilities of the product, and when the final release of the product appears, Microsoft publishes other books on the product such as an Administrator’s Companion, a Pocket Consultant, a Resource Kit, and so on. Usually, after the IT pros buy these additional titles, they toss away the “beta book” because they figure it’s no longer useful.

Well, as you’ve probably noticed by now, this book is different. Why? Because it’s more than just an overview-it’s got real meat in it. That is, it has insights and recommendations from the experts at Microsoft who are actually developing Windows Server 2008 and its different features. For instance, in this chapter alone you’ll find sidebars contributed by eight different members of the Network Access Protection (NAP) team at Microsoft, including program managers, software design engineers, and software development engineers. And these sidebars are deep, they’re technical, and they’re full of meat you can chew on. I mean, how many IT pros are vegans, really?

Dropping the silly metaphors, what I really mean is that even after Windows Server 2008 RTMs and other great books about it are published by Microsoft Press, you’ll still want to keep this particular book on your shelf and refer back to it whenever you need to draw on the insights that the product team has contributed to this and other chapters. Am I tooting my own horn too much? Not really-I’m tooting a “long horn” actually! But even if I am shamelessly promoting myself and my book, what’s wrong with that? How do you think The Donald earned his first billion, anyway? Certainly not by making puns on product names, I guess. Let’s move on to NAP.