These rules, known as policies, sound simple. In practice, they are difficult to define and enforce. Any attempt to establish policies means that some users will disagree, which introduces politics to the equation. Enforcement, especially at the workstation level, is difficult and time consuming, and each policy change requires a reconfiguration of each network device, an expensive process.
As a result, policy management represents a new breed of products. But the array of products marketed as policy managers can be as confusing as the task of establishing, implementing, and maintaining policies.
At the low end, policy management products consist of templates designed to help managers define and publish policies. Other products configure network devices remotely to simplify the implementation and maintenance of policies. Still others offer enforcement checks. A few products try to integrate all these features, but even these tend to concentrate on security, network traffic, or workstation policies.
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