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FUNK SOFTWARE'S Steel-Belted Radius 2.1 is a great implementation of the RADIUS protocol to ease enterprise remote access. Despite the abundance of free Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) servers on the market, the features found in this product make it a logical choice. It significantly reduces implementation time, offers better manageability of heterogeneous remote access devices on the network, and lowers total cost of ownership by integrating your existing network security with remote-access security.
Both Microsoft and Novell are releasing their own RADIUS servers soon. Microsoft's implementation will be included in Windows NT 5.0,and the Novell solution will be included in the upcoming BorderManager 3.0 release, which I've tested in beta form. (See this week's review of BorderManager 3.0, Enterprise Edition, beta, www.infoworld.com/printlinks.) One notable difference between BorderManager's implementation and this products is that BorderManager leverages NetWare Administrator for integrated management. By contrast, Steel-Belted Radius must be managed from its own console.
Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons to stick with Steel-Belted Radius. Key benefits include Security Dynamics support, attribute support for remote servers of multiple vendors...