Cisco® Secure Access Control System (ACS) ties together an enterprise’s network access policy and identity strategy. Cisco Secure ACS is the world’s most trusted enterprise access and policy platform, deployed by 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

A core component of the Cisco TrustSec® solution, Cisco Secure ACS is a highly sophisticated policy platform providing RADIUS and TACACS+ services. It supports the increasingly complex policies needed to meet today's new demands for access control management and compliance. Cisco Secure ACS provides central management of access policies for device administration and wireless, wired 802.1x, and remote (VPN) network access scenarios. Figure 1 shows the Cisco 1121 Access Control System.

With the ever-increasing reliance on enterprise networks to perform daily job routines and the increasing number of methods available to access today’s networks, security breaches and uncontrolled user access are of primary concern among enterprises. Network security officers and administrators need solutions that support flexible authentication and authorization policies that are tied not only to a user’s identity, but also to context such as the network access type, time of day, and the security of the machine used to access the network. Further, there is a need to effectively audit network use, monitor corporate compliance, and gain broad visibility into policies and activities across the network.

Cisco Secure ACS provides the policy control for the Cisco Self Defending Network architecture, an architecture that protects your business by identifying, preventing, and adapting to threats from inside and outside the company. Cisco Secure ACS is a highly scalable, high-performance access policy system that centralizes device administration, authentication, and user access policy and reduces the management and support burden for these functions.

Description:

Cisco CSACS-1121-K9 ACS 1121 Security Appliance

Features:

Cisco Secure ACS 5.3 serves as a Policy Administration Point (PAP) and Policy Decision Point (PDP) for policy-based access control, offering a large set of identity management capabilities, including:

• A powerful, attribute-driven rules-based policy model that addresses complex policy needs in a flexible manner
• A lightweight, web-based graphical user interface (GUI) with intuitive navigation and workflow
• Unique, flexible, and granular device administration with full auditing and reporting capabilities as required for standards compliance
• Integrated advanced monitoring, reporting, and troubleshooting capabilities for maximum control and visibility
• Improved integration with external identity and policy databases, including Windows Active Directory and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-accessible databases, simplifying policy configuration and maintenance
• A distributed deployment model that enables large-scale deployments and provides a highly available solution

The Cisco Secure ACS 5.3 rules-based policy model supports the application of different authorization rules under different conditions; thus, policy is contextual and not limited to authorization determined by a single group membership. New integration capabilities allow information in external databases to be directly referenced in access policy rules, and attributes can be used both in policy conditions and authorization rules.

Cisco Secure ACS 5.3 features centralized collection and reporting of activity and system health information for full manageability of distributed deployments. It supports proactive operations such as monitoring and diagnostics, and reactive operations such as reporting and troubleshooting. Advanced features include a deployment-wide session monitor, threshold-based notifications, entitlement reports, and diagnostic tools.