The 5 Key Values of Portnox Cloud

The problem with most traditional on-premise network access control solutions is their complexity across many fronts, including initial setup, configuration, scalability, and on-going maintenance and upgrades. As a truly cloud-delivered NAC service, Portnox Cloud delivers SIMPLICITY across all of these critical areas.

VALUE 1: Setup Simplicity

Unlike traditional on-premise solutions that require hardware appliances, software, and other on-premise elements, with Portnox Cloud, you simply create your dedicated instance in Microsoft Azure using your company email or via SSO (such as Azure AD or GSuite) in a matter of just minutes!

With your dedicated instance of Portnox Cloud created, you simply check the appropriate box(s) to create your RADIUS instance. Dedicated F5 load balancers are spun up as well as auto-scale, so you never have to be concerned with service performance or scalability – it will automatically expand as needed to meet demand.

<img” src=”https://www.portnox.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Standing-up-a-RADIUS-server-in-Portnox-CLEAR.-1-1024×1005.png” alt=”” width=”1024″ height=”1005″ />

Portnox Cloud’s simplicity extends with out-of-box integration and one-click set-up for several common directory services, including:

• On-premise AD
• Azure AD
• G-Suite
• Okta Universal Directory

 

SIEM integration is as simple as providing the IP/port, protocol type (TCP, UDP, HTTPS), and data format (JSON/CEF).

 

VALUE 2: Configuration Simplicity

The complexity of traditional on-premise NAC does not stop at the initial set-up of the local appliance(s), load balancing, RADIUS, and other on-premise components. As shown in the sample policy screenshots below, the complexity of traditional NAC extends to policy configuration that is often layered with multiple and nested interdependencies.

From inception, the focus with Cloud has been to simplify policy configuration, allowing Cloud to be fully deployed and operational in a measure of hours/days vs. traditional NAC, which typically can take weeks, or in many cases, months to roll out. Intuitive, easy-to-configure access control, risk, and remediation policies are at the foundation of Portnox Cloud as reflected in the sample screenshots below.

 

Risk Policies

Easily configure risk-based access controls for all devices or different groups of devices (i.e. accounting, engineering, etc.), by simply assigning a risk value to each group’s relevant compliance checks.

A simple slide bar easily turns risk values into action (allow, alert, block). It’s that SIMPLE! Unlike traditional NAC that monitors a device risk ONLY when it is on or connected to the network, Portnox Cloud will monitor risk all the time regardless of if the device is on or off-network.

 

 

Remediation Policies

While it is important to continuously be aware of the current risk posture of a device and to be able to use that awareness as part of access control. The ability to proactively take action on the endpoint to help assure a minimum level of compliance is always maintained can be equally important. As with all other policy configurations, setting group-specific remediation policies in Cloud is as simple as a few clicks.

Unlike traditional NAC that will take remediation actions ONLY if the device is on the network, Portnox Cloud proactively enforces remediation actions all the time regardless if the device is on or off-network.

 

VALUE 3: On-Demand Auto-Scale

Delivered as a cloud service, Portnox Cloud eliminates the need for the capacity planning of on-premise software or appliances. Eliminates the need to expand capacity or upgrade appliances to meet future growth needs. Portnox Cloud services will automatically expand on-demand to meet any demand spikes and future growth.

Our Azure services are scaling up (and down) automatically based on usage and load. We can automatically control the VM size and the scale-up / down rules.

For the RADIUS component, we use Azure Kubernetes to manage the instances and allow scaling based on demand. We use F5 load balancer to channel the traffic to the right instances and make sure the scaling is transparent to the end-user.

VALUE 4: Ease of Integration

Portnox Cloud continues to expand native integrations and simplified out-of-band integration through and included restAPI.

Current integrations include:

• Active Directory
• Azure AD
• GSuite
• MS Intune
• OKTA
• Palo Alto
• SIEM (any/all leading vendors)

Portnox Cloud also integrates with all leading anti-virus providers to validate and remediate (update) as part of Cloud compliance and remediation capabilities. Portnox Cloud also includes a REST-full API over HTTPS that can be used in any programming language that supports REST calls or invoked directly through any HTTPS client such as cURL.

 

VALUE 5: Zero-Touch Maintenance

As a true SaaS solution, the Portnox Cloud is truly zero-touch!

• No on-going software updates/patching
• No management of scheduled downtime
• No hardware or software end-of-life issues