Patent attributes
A policy device grants access to a client device, without authenticating the client device, when the client device provides a session identifier to the policy device that was previously granted to the client device by a second policy device upon authenticating the client device by the second policy device. In one example, a policy device includes a network interface that receives a session identifier from a client device, wherein the policy device comprises an individually administered autonomous policy server, and an authorization module that grants the client device access to a network protected by the policy device based on the session identifier without authenticating the client device by the policy device. In this manner, the client device need not provide authentication information multiple times within a short time span, and the policy device can deallocate resources when a session migrates to a second policy device.
