Unified Access Control (UAC) from Juniper Networks wins our Product Leadership 2008 silver award for network access control (NAC).

Juniper's UAC combines user identity, device security state and location information to enforce session-specific access policies. Juniper says UAC enforces policy at Layer 2 using any vendor's 802.1X-enabled switches or wireless access points and at Layers 3 through 7 using Juniper's firewalls.

The UAC product comes in two versions: Juniper Networks Infranet Controller 4000 and 6000. The 4000 appliance is aimed at small, medium and large enterprises; the 6000 appliance is aimed at multinational companies. Each appliance comes with the UAC downloadable agent, which Juniper describes as lightweight.

Juniper's UAC earned high marks for its policy-based NAC, with 75% of survey respondents rating it good or excellent. Readers also praised the product for its frequency and speed of signature updates, with nearly 73% rating it good or excellent. Nearly 73% also rated UAC's reporting and alerting features good or excellent.

Compatibility may have cost UAC a gold award: "Juniper Networks Unified Access Control's biggest drawback is compatibility with other brands' products," one reader commented.