5. Enterprise Products

The second big N+I buzz generator was the pantload (yes, that's a technical term) of "wireless switching" companies jostling for media and customer mind-share. Although doing some research on this emerging product category was on my to-do list, as time grew short it just didn't make the cut. This may be a good thing, however, since I can't believe the market will ultimately support every company that's decided to jump in. So next time around my job may be easier as some of the contestants get voted off the WLAN switching island.

One company that doesn't look in danger of losing the vote at the tribal council meeting is Vivato, whose Wi-Fi System is aimed at eliminating multiple APs vs. dumbing them down and centrally controlling them as other "wireless switching" products do. I think Vivato's move to calling their product a Wi-Fi System is a good step toward not getting their product and message confused with the rest of the WLAN switching crowd. Now all they need to do is start calling their switches BeamBoxes (PacketPorts?, Wi-Fi Phasers?) and at least I'll stop being confused!

Vivato's show news was the addition of a Bridge/Router box. It's a dual-radio, dual-Ethernet port wireless router and intended to simultaneously provide close-in "gap-filler" Wi-Fi client coverage while maintaining a WDS-based backhaul connection to other Vivato BeamBoxes (see, isn't that catchier?) - err, switches. Availability is Q3 2003, with pricing estimated under $500.

Another company that looked like they were havin' fun was AirMagnet, who were demoing a live 10 sensor deployment of their new AirMagnet Distributed WLAN Integrity Management system, which won the N+I Best in Show for Wireless Technologies. The new product takes the same AirWise core technology used in AirMagnet's Handheld and Laptop portable products and embeds it into an intelligent tri-mode, dual-band (a/b/g) sensor that looks like a typical access point.

These sensors can be located anywhere on an IP-based Ethernet network and send their scan results (not raw packet data) via SSL and TLS to an SQL-based management server. Aggregated scan results can then be viewed on stationary PC or mobile PocketPC based management consoles, or on HP OpenView or CA UniCenter systems via SNMP traps. Full drill-down on any individual sensor is supported, too, right down to packet-level decodes. I won't go into everything that AirMagnet keeps an eye on, but if AirMagnet doesn't catch it, you probably don't have to worry about it.

AirMagnet Distributed starts shipments in June with pricing starting at $7000 for a package of four sensors, one management console and one management server.