Cisco Identity Based Networking Services (IBNS) is an integrated
solution combining several Cisco products that offer authentication, access
control, and user policies to secure network connectivity and resources
. The Cisco IBNS
solution enables greater security while simultaneously offering cost-effective
management of changes throughout the organization.
By offering a secure
IBNS framework for enterprises to manage user mobility and reduce the overhead
costs associated with granting and managing access to network resources, Cisco
provides enterprises with the ability to increase user productivity and reduce
operating costs.
Features and Benefits
The Cisco IBNS solution
provides the following benefits
:
- Intelligent adaptability for offering greater flexibility and mobility to
stratified users – Creating user or group profiles with policies that define
trust relationships between users and network resources allows organizations to
easily authenticate, authorize, and account for all users of wired or wireless
networks.
- A combination of authentication, access control, and user policies to
secure network connectivity and resources – because policies are associated
with users and not physical ports, users obtain more mobility and freedom, and
IT administration is simplified. Greater scalability and ease of management is
achieved through policy enforcement and dynamic provisioning.
- User productivity gains and reduced operating costs – Providing security
and greater flexibility for wired or wireless network access provides
enterprises with the capability to have cross-functional or new project teams
form more quickly, enables secure access for trusted partners and vendors, and
facilitates secure conference-room connectivity. Enabling flexibility with
secure network access through centralized policy-based administration decreases
the time, complexity, and effort associated with port security techniques at
the Media Access Control level.
IBNS is a solution for increasing the security of physical and logical
access to an enterprise network that is built on the IEEE 802.1x standard. IBNS
and 802.1x are supported on all Cisco Catalyst switches, including Catalyst
6500, 4500, 3550, and 2950 switches, Cisco ACS Server as well as Cisco Aironet
Access Points.
Cisco IBNS allows the network administrator to implement
true identity-based network access control and policy enforcement at the user
and port levels. It provides user and device identification using secure and
reliable strong authentication technologies. This solution associates
identified entities with policies. The policies are created and administered by
management and provide increased granularity of control.
Cisco IBNS is a
standards-based implementation of port security that is centrally managed by a
RADIUS server (Cisco Secure ACS). Additionally, Cisco IBNS offers greater
flexibility and mobility to users by combining access control and user profiles
to secure network connectivity, services, and applications. This allows
enterprises to increase user productivity and reduce operating costs.
The
Cisco IBNS solution will adapt to meet the changing requirements of the
standards and of customers. This phase is an early one in a multiphase
implementation.
Cisco Catalyst Switches Support Microsoft Windows XP,
Linux and HP UNIX, with additional 802.1x client support anticipated in the
future. Cisco Aironet products support all current versions of Microsoft
Windows, Windows CE, MAC OS, Linux, and MS-DOS.
The Cisco IBNS solution
is based on standard RADIUS and 802.1x implementations. It interoperates with
all IETF authentication servers that comply with these two standards. Cisco has
particularly enhanced its Secure ACS to provide a tight integration across all
Cisco switches.