Hopping About Campus
By Dan Ragle
December 1, 2006
An Achilles heal of wireless networking--or perhaps the
Achilles heal of wireless networking--is range. While distance from
the access point may not be of paramount importance when it comes to
deploying wireless connections in your living room, if you've ever
tried to blanket an entire airport or campus with wireless connections
you know that the range of your wireless access points, and how to
get backhaul communications to each of them, is a critical determining
factor in the successful deployment of your wireless infrastructure.
The MeshAP line from ArrowSpan is targeted to exactly those
types of extended-reach wireless implementations, and enables the wireless
network administrator to create a meshed infrastructure within which
backhaul communications can hop from MeshAP to MeshAP en route to their
ultimate destination. If a specific MeshAP goes down, the data can
just hop to the next closest AP and continue through the chain.
Key to the MeshAP line in particular is a dual radio design in which
both radios can service both backhaul and client communication requests.
According to the vendor, their mesh deployments can successfully maintain
a 14 Mb/sec throughput connection over five MeshAP hops. The initial
offering in the MeshAP line is expected to make its debut today, with
two more offerings to appear in Mid-December and early 2007.
Other highlighted picks from among our recently added or updated
Enterprise IT Planet Product Guide
briefings include an image-based backup utility for Windows 2000/XP
machines from O&O Software; CAS support in EMC's Rainfinity; and
new Iomega StorCenter boxes based on Windows Storage Server 2003 R2.
And finally, in our featured online resource: Oracle and company
wants to standardize the way organizations protect your credit card
numbers (among other personally identifiable information).
Jump to:
- Security
- SRM 3000
E-mail Integrity Suite (EIS)
Cyberoam
Webwasher
CyberGatekeeper
Blue Coat SG/AV
CyberDefenderFREE
- Networking:
- MeshAP
Aperture VISTA
FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN
- Storage
- Rainfinity Global File Virtualization
O&O DiskImage
StorCenter
Aleri Streaming Platform
QiNetix
- Online Resource
- Identity Governance Framework
Featured Security Products:
SRM 3000
RedSeal Systems, Inc.
Targeted to security administrators and their personnel, allows for the analysis and visual identification of security risks within your infrastructure.
E-mail Integrity Suite (EIS)
Privacy Networks.
Suite of E-mail components provides capabilities including E-mail archiving, anti-virus and anti-spam controls, encryption, and forwarding to mobile devices. New release includes Import module.
Cyberoam
Elitecore Technologies Ltd.
Gateway security appliance combines multiple functions, including anti-spam, anti-virus, content filtering, firewall, and VPN. Now with support for HA (active/passive) deployments.
Webwasher
Secure Computing Corp.
Gateway-based protection platform provides anti-spam, anti-virus, and content filtering for Web, E-mail, FTP, and IM traffic. New version includes anti-malware engine and "TrustedSource" based URL and connection filtering.
CyberGatekeeper
InfoExpress, Inc.
Network access control platform for end point machines can check for required files, registry settings, operating systems, more. Now with "Dynamic NAC" technology.
Blue Coat SG/AV
Blue Coat Systems, Inc.
Appliances provide policy-based Web traffic control (content filtering, IM/P2P control, bandwidth management, etc.), anti-virus, and anti-spyware scanning. New client component to offer security/acceleration capabilities to mobile end points.
CyberDefenderFREE
CyberDefender Corp.
Free security suite is based on a client-to-client signature reporting and distribution backbone. Includes anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-spyware components.
Featured Networking Products:
MeshAP
ArrowSpan, Inc.
Mesh-based products support both backhaul and client communications and enable the extension of the wireless network. Both indoor and outdoor models are available.
Aperture VISTA
Aperture Technologies, Inc.
Visual documentation, workflow, and reporting platform specifically for data center equipment provisioning and management. Now with support for three-phase power connectivity modeling and blade server provisioning.
FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN
AVM GmbH.
Home office gear combines Internet access capabilities with VoIP calling; users can directly attach--and place Internet or landline calls through--analog phones. Now includes 4-port switch and USB host capabilities.
Featured Storage Products:
Rainfinity Global File Virtualization
EMC Corp.
Enables the creation and access of files in heterogeneous NAS, File Servers, and now CAS systems through a virtual file system representation without disrupting active user access.
O&O DiskImage
O&O Software GmbH.
Program provides image-based backup and recovery capabilities for Windows 2000 Pro and XP. Bare-metal recovery available in CD-version.
StorCenter
Iomega Corp.
Line of network hard drives and NAS storage gear in desktop and rackmount flavors for SMBs. New 250D series is based on Windows Storage Server 2003 R2.
Aleri Streaming Platform
Aleri Inc.
Allows for the processing and continuous analysis of streaming data to the tune of 100,000 incoming messages per second. Now with clustering support.
QiNetix
CommVault Systems, Inc.
Integrated data management platform consists of multiple CommVault products and provides capabilities including backup and recovery, replication, migration, and archiving. New add-in supports cross-mailbox searches from within the Outlook client.
Featured Online Resource:
Identity Governance Framework
Oracle Corp.
Spearheaded by Oracle, the Identity Governance Framework (IGF) seeks to protect
the things that make you... well... you.
Oracle bills the open initiative as having the potential ability to make
the lives of both security administrators and developers easier by defining
a standardized platform upon which applications and systems can be developed
that properly safeguard identity related information--including those things
you keep hearing about in the news like addresses, social security numbers,
credit card numbers, and so forth. In official speak, the IGF provides "...a
common framework for defining usage policies, attribute requirements, and
developer APIs pertaining to the use of identity related information. These
enable businesses to ensure full documentation, control, and auditing regarding
the use, storage, and propagation of identity-related data across systems and
applications." Oracle, and initial partners CA, Novell, Ping Identity, Securent
and Sun have released the initial draft specifications of the framework and
invite all vendors to contribute to its development; with the ultimate goal of
submitting the specs "...through an established standards governing body."
In the IGF vision, a developer no longer needs to worry about the best way
to handle and store personal information within their applications. Instead,
they would build their applications around a standardized API, which would
enable it to then interoperate with any storage platform conforming to the
specification. The key components of the initial framework specification include
the Client Attribute Requirement Markup Language (CARML), the CARML API, the
Attribute Authority Policy Markup Language (AAPML), and the Identity Attribute
Service, a policy-enforced driver that accesses identity information from
multiple identity sources.
The initial draft specification and more IGF information can be found at
Oracle's mini-site:
Identity Governance Framework
More Security, Networking, and Storage products and downloads at http://products.enterpriseitplanet.com.