If you've got a Web site, controlling who gets in and out of your company's Web-based resources can quickly become an administrative nightmare. Fortunately for Web administrators, many Web access control packages on the market can help address this problem.

We evaluated six of them: Entrust Technologies Inc.'s getAccess 4.5, Oblix Inc.'s NetPoint 4.0, Netegrity Inc.'s SiteMinder 4.5, Open Network's DirectorySmart 4.5, Securant Technologies Inc.'s ClearTrust SecureContol 4.5 and Symantec Corp.'s Webthority 3.0.

ClearTrust SecureControl tops our list. Its unique features -- including "smart rules" that allow or deny access depending on definable user attributes; a rule-testing feature that lets you select a user account and resource and verify access permissions; and "event actions" features that can trigger another task when a system event occurs -- coupled with its ability to communicate with a Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Firewall-1 to block a potential hacker's IP address and a powerful, intuitive interface earns it the Network World Blue Ribbon award.

We rendered a tie for second place. The features of NetPoint and SiteMinder make each a strong product. NetPoint's Active Automation utility, which provides built-in workflow processes for system events, helped it stand out. SiteMinder's Active Responses feature, which can be fired up when certain events occur within the system, also makes this product a serious contender. NetPoint and SiteMinder contain a test function, which can be used to verify that rules work the way they were intended to before applying them to actual accounts. Both also let you store the entire program logic in Active Directory with the user accounts, which can reduce the amount of hardware and software required.

The remaining three products, while not as full of enterprise features as the top three contenders, performed well in our tests. DirectorySmart can audit system events and includes a menu of services feature, which creates a customized portal page for each user. Webthority is the only product tested that relies completely on a proxy method for handling Web access rights, which requires no software or hardware configuration changes on back-end content servers. GetAccess has a useful feature that generates an individualized portal page for each user, which can reduce help desk calls from users trying to access controlled portions of your Web site. GetAccess also provides wireless access support with its mobile services component, which can provide a "cookie-proxy" where all cookies are cached at the proxy and not sent to the client browsers.

Absolute power or delegation?

All six products we tested can adequately assist in administering a large company Web environment.

It would be a difficult task for any single administrator to stay on top of hundreds of thousands of user accounts. To solve this problem, Web access control vendors use a process called "delegated authority," which simplifies administration by passing certain rights to "sub administrators." Within the delegated authority hierarchy are two basic types of administrators: the more powerful "super administrator," who has administrative rights throughout the entire system; and the lower "sub administrators" with delegate duties and administrative rights to a specific set

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