An all-in-one solution: IT-in-a-Box provides flawless support for small offices.EmergeCore Networks' IT-100 (IT-in-a-Box) is the latest Internet appliance Also called "information appliance," "smart appliance," and "Web appliance," it is a device specialized for accessing the Web and/or e-mail. Designed for ease of use, it plugs into a telephone jack or LAN connection for Internet hookup. available for small home or office networks. What separates EmergeCore's IT-in-a-Box from the competition is the functionality it integrates into one unit, which, if priced separately, far exceeds the price of EmergeCore's product. It's a router, firewall, four port switch, a wireless access point and has the ability to be either an FTP FTP in full file transfer protocol Internet protocol that allows a computer to send files to or receive files from another computer. Like many Internet resources, FTP works by means of a client-server architecture; the user runs client software to connect to , e-mail, or Web server. The device also includes a DHCP server A server in the network or a service within a server that assigns IP addresses. See DHCP. that can provide IP addresses just to the wireless nodes, the wired nodes, or both, while at the same time keeping these address pools totally separate. It can function as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks. (virtual private network) appliance supporting both fixed and dynamic clients. It supports IPsec VPN tunneling and 3DES encryption. Although the IT-100 has a printer port, it does not come with any software or documentation to support it. A quick call to the company's customer service center informed us that the parallel port is not yet programmed to handle printing. That will occur in future upgrades. It is recommended that you use IP printing on the LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. for printing needs. As a wireless access point, IT-in-a-Box has a surprisingly large wireless footprint, especially when compared with Linksys' access point, for example. The Web server function provides tools for fast implementation of fairly complex Websites through its built-in templates that work together seamlessly. Overall, setup was relatively easy; the supplied documentation provided little more than snapshots of the different graphical user interfaces the device comes with. The unit is equipped with a 20GB hard drive that allows it to be used as a file sharing Copying files from one computer to another. See peer-to-peer network, file sharing protocol and file and printer sharing. server with access through Windows' Network Neighborhood. The system includes management tools that provide a graphical summary of WAN, LAN, wireless traffic, CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. load, and disk space. Overall, the IT-100 is impressive. Similar products from other companies offer an all-in-one solution for small businesses, but none at the relatively low cost that EmergeCore's product does. (www.emergecore .com; $1,395) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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Printer friendly
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