For years, many in cybersecurity have declared Network Access Control (NAC) dead, a relic from the LAN era of the early 2000s. But that misses the point. NAC never failed as a concept; it failed as an experience.
Its foundation remains solid: What you can’t see, you can’t control. That single idea defined network security for two decades through visibility and enforcement. In the Zero Trust era, one more truth completes the equation: What you can’t measure, you can’t trust. Together, these principles define what modern NAC must deliver: visibility you can verify and trust you can measure.
NAC’s Core Logic Never Died. It Evolved Into Measurable Trust.
Traditional NAC asked: Who and what is on my network? Modern Zero Trust asks: How do I continuously know what I can trust? These are not separate questions but layers of the same logic.
To make Zero Trust operational, organizations still depend on NAC’s core functions: device discovery, dynamic policy, and continuous validation. What has changed is how visibility becomes measurable. That shift is why enterprises are returning to NAC, not as 802.1X gatekeeping but as a trust engine for modern architectures.
Today, NAC functions as the execution layer of Zero Trust.
It discovers devices, validates posture, enforces identity-aware access, and provides measurable assurance. This is not nostalgia; it is necessity. Zero Trust still depends on visibility and control, but to make trust continuous, organizations need one more dimension: measurement. When visibility, control, and measurement align, trust becomes observable, auditable, and real.
2025 Comparative Analysis of NAC and Zero Trust Readiness
The table compares ten essential capabilities that define modern NAC solutions from device intelligence and policy automation to Zero Trust scalability. It highlights how Genians unifies these functions in a single, vendor-agnostic platform.
| Functional Category | Genians | Forescout | Cisco ISE | Aruba ClearPass | FortiNAC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Manufacturer-Agnostic Architecture | 🟢 Works with any vendor | 🟡 Broad but complex | 🟡 Cisco ecosystem focus | 🟡 Aruba ecosystem focus | 🟡 Fortinet ecosystem focus |
| 2. Device Identification & Intelligence | 🟢 Collects all data through a Network Sensor. Device Platform Intelligence built in. | 🟢 Agentless discovery | 🟡 Collects data from switches, WLCs, and routers | 🟡 Collects data from switches, WLCs, and routers | 🟡 Collects data from switches, WLCs, and routers |
| 3. Node Grouping / Context Awareness | 🟢 Dynamic grouping by compliance, risk, ownership | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟡 | 🟡 |
| 4. Policy Automation | 🟢 Unified policy engine (RADIUS & non-RADIUS) | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 | 🟢 |
| 5. Access Control + Multi-Layered Enforcement | 🟢 Supports ARP, SPAN, 802.1X, DHCP, port-block, inline, agent | 🟡 | 🟡 802.1x | 🟡 | 🟡 SNMP |
| 6. Integration & Ecosystem (NGFW, SIEM, CMDB, etc.) | 🟢 REST, Webhook, Syslog | 💲 eyeExtend plug-ins, REST, syslog | 💲 pxGrid, ERS REST API, syslog, plug-ins | 💲REST, ClearPass Exchange/Extensions, syslog, plug-ins | 💲 Fabric connectors, REST, syslog |
| 7. Out-of-Box Capabilities (IPAM / WLAN / Switch Port / DHCP / RADIUS / Syslog) | 🟢 All inclusive, no extra cost | 💲 External IPAM/DHCP integration | 💲 Add-ons and external modules required | 💲 Core RADIUS only, extras licensed | 💲 Partial features, separate modules |
| 8. Deployment & Operations | 🟢 Onprem, Cloud-managed, Hybrid | 🟡 | 🟡 | 🟡 | 🟡 |
| 9. Cost / Licensing Efficiency | 🟢 Simple license — only counts active devices, no extra cost. | 💲 Tiered by device count and features, premium pricing | 💲 Complex tiered licensing per feature set | 💲 Per-user or per-device with add-on modules | 💲 Appliance-based license, limited scalability |
| 10. NAC to ZTNA Scalability | 🟢 Out-of-the-box vendor-agnostic Universal ZTNA | 💲 Partial ZTNA integration, complex orchestration | 💲ZTNA tied to Cisco ecosystem (ISE + Duo + SD-WAN) | 💲ZTNA via Aruba ESP / ClearPass integration only | 💲ZTNA bound to FortiGate / FortiSASE platform |
Why Genians Excels in Measurable Security
Most NAC solutions stop at visibility, listing devices, enforcing policies, and producing static logs. Genians goes further by turning visibility into measurable intelligence.
1. Device Platform Intelligence (DPI): Visibility You Can Quantify
Genians’ DPI identifies not just MAC addresses, but complete device identity:
- Manufacturer, model, EoL, EoS, CVE, OS,and even usage context
It generates a verifiable fingerprint for every networked entity, including unmanaged IoT, OT, and shadow devices. Each discovery event is measured, categorized, and correlated to its context. So instead of seeing “a WiFi camera on port 12,” you know exactly what it is:
- TP-Link NC250 WiFi Camera, Open Port 3, assigned to the VLAN 3.
That level of precision is not static visibility, it’s measurable context.
2. Node Grouping: Trust Made Observable
Traditional NAC separates devices by IP, MAC, or VLAN. Genians’ Node Grouping redefines this. It clusters nodes dynamically by behavior, risk, ownership, and compliance posture.
In modern environments, this grouping extends far beyond topology. For example, Genians can automatically organize and assess:
- EoL/EoS assets, such as legacy Windows servers or routers no longer supported by vendors.
- Devices with active CVEs, for example a TP-Link NC250 camera exposed to remote code execution vulnerabilities.
- Vendors with deteriorating business or security reputation, indicating potential supply-chain risk.
- Anomalous behavior clusters, such as printers generating outbound DNS queries or medical IoT devices suddenly shifting traffic patterns.
Each of these groups carries measurable attributes: device count, vulnerability, patch latency, vendor reliability index, and compliance ratio. These indicators come from Device Platform Intelligence (DPI), which applies over 500 classification and behavioral conditions to maintain real-time accuracy.
This means Node Grouping is not just about labeling devices. It continuously quantifies trustworthiness by correlating lifecycle data (EoL/EoS), vulnerability status (CVE), manufacturer health, and behavioral deviation.
With this depth, Genians does not just visualize relationships, it measures and validates them. That is how Genians transforms visibility into measurable trust.
3. From NAC to Universal ZTNA
Genians ZTNA extends NAC capabilities into a fully unified access framework. It operates out of the box and enforces Zero Trust principles consistently across wired, wireless, remote, and cloud networks.
Vendor-agnostic operation allows policies to apply uniformly, whether the infrastructure runs on Cisco, Fortinet, HPE Aruba / Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks, Huawei, Ubiquiti, Palo Alto Networks, Dell, Check Point, TP-Link, NETGEAR, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, D-Link, Zyxel, other major network vendors, or mixed environments. Device posture, identity, and trust score flow seamlessly from NAC into ZTNA, ensuring continuous validation beyond the perimeter.
Genians achieves Universal ZTNA by using the same NAC intelligence engine to manage:
- Identity-aware access at both network and application levels
- Micro-segmentation without hardware or topology changes
- Real-time posture validation for any device type
- Dynamic policy orchestration through REST and webhook APIs
This means Zero Trust can be deployed instantly where NAC already exists, with measurable assurance of visibility, control, and trust all from a single console.
Summary: From Visibility to Measurable Trust
NAC was never just about control. It was about knowing—verifiably—what connects, why it connects, and whether it deserves trust.
While others still observe endpoints, Genians measures trust itself—turning device intelligence and behavior into quantifiable assurance without new hardware or vendor dependence.
Where traditional NAC stops at visibility, Genians advances it into verifiable trust measurement for the Zero Trust era—a continuous model where every connection is seen, validated, and proven trustworthy.
