Network Access Protection (NAP) is a Microsoft technology that determines whether this computer is accessing the network based on computer's "health". NAP works only on computers running Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows XP with Service Pack 3.
NAP can test the health of a computer system using the following information:
A computer can connect to a network in a variety of ways. NAP can test computers that "request" access to a network in the following ways:
For all these access options, the NAP service must be able to communicate. For example, if a computer requests "access" to a network through VPN then the VPN Server must ask the "health status" for the client. The VPN Server plays this status by returning to the NAP Server, which then tells the VPN Server whether the client may be allowed to access the network.
A computer system that is unable to access the network can access a smaller network, depending on its implementation, where it gets the opportunity to become "healthy." This network is called a remediation network.
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