TCG TNC Clientless Endpoint Support Profile

The Trusted Network Communications Work Group (TNC) defines an open solution architecture that enables network operators to enforce policies regarding endpoint integrity when granting access to a network infrastructure. Today’s networks contain many “clientless endpoints”, legacy devices that do not have a functional TNC client and therefore do not support integrity checking. In the absence of standards addressing clientless endpoints, every vendor may handle them in a different manner, negating the interoperability provided by TNC and causing situations where one vendor’s Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) only works with that vendor’s Policy Decision Point (PDP) because of different ways in which clientless endpoints are handled.