Editors' choice awards: Networld+Intertop, Atlanta, fall 2001.The normally bustling Fall 2001 Networld+Interop conference in Atlanta was interrupted by world events in September, with exhibit floor hours reduced to allow companies to ensure safe travel for their employees. Nevertheless, plenty of opportunities were available to examine new products and services, and to speak with companies that focus on the still actively spending enterprise market. Of those products viewed by Communications News editors, the six below were selected to receive the magazine's Editors' Choice Awards. Optical tap FAULT-TOLERANT FIBER TAP supports eight full-duplex Gigabit Ethernet An Ethernet standard that transmits at 1 Gbps. Used mostly to connect high-end workstations and servers as well as for network backbones, Gigabit Ethernet transmits full duplex from point to point using switches and half duplex in a shared environment (CSMA/CD) using a hub. and Fibre Channel links. The Fiber Tap IL/8 is an eight-port, fault-tolerant, passive in-line tap that gives simultaneous access to all ethernet and Fibre Channel SAN network traffic, including monitoring and analysis of physical errors. Up to three units can be cascaded together to enable the monitoring of up to 24 full-duplex segments. Passive and nonintrusive to link traffic, the IL/8 enables dynamic insertion of monitoring, analysis or security devices. The product supports single-mode and multimode Gigabit Ethernet and 1- and 2-gigabit Fibre Channel links.--Finisar Systems www.finisar.com Circle 312 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Layer 4-7 switching INTELLIGENT APPLICATION SWITCHING DEVICE eliminates slow application performance and limited scalability by migrating networking functions from software to hardware, delivering a 10x increase in Layer 7 performance. The SummitPx1 switch performs wire-speed switching, TCP (1) (Transmission Control Protocol) The reliable transport protocol within the TCP/IP protocol suite. TCP ensures that all data arrive accurately and 100% intact at the other end. session analysis, termination, origination and modification, all within silicon. This allows network managers to create and implement rules to streamline access and speed up applications. The application switch encompasses a TCP/IP stack An implementation of the TCP/IP communications protocol. Network architectures designed in layers, such as TCP/IP, OSI and SNA, are called "stacks." See TCP/IP, OSI model and protocol stack. , a real-time content-analysis engine and a policy engine. For load balancing The fine tuning of a computer system, network or disk subsystem in order to more evenly distribute the data and/or processing across available resources. For example, in clustering, load balancing might distribute the incoming transactions evenly to all servers, or it might redirect them , a content-analysis engine locates cookies and URLs in packets, while the policy engine tracks users, their cookies and connection loads for servers. The switch delivers more than 120,000 Layer 7 new-user connections, and supports 235,000 new-user connections for Layer 4 applications.--Extreme Networks www.extremenetworks.com Circle 313 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Secure wireless connectivity MAKE WIRELESS NETWORKS OPERATE AS EFFECTIVELY AS WIRED NETWORKS, without interruption and with secure access to the same data and applications that are on office PCs. NetMotion Mobility 3.0 infrastructure software is designed to manage connectivity and security on wireless networks, providing a continuous and secure connection between wired and wireless data networks. Mobile workers can freely move from wired to wireless, or network to network, and still keep a continuous data connection. Key enhancements in version 3.0 include new security features for wide-area clients running industry-standard L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) A protocol from the IETF that allows a PPP session to travel over multiple links and networks. L2TP is used to allow remote users access to the corporate network. over IPsec, enhanced security on Wi-Fi networks, expanded 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. services and support for the Microsoft Windows See Windows. (operating system) Microsoft Windows - Microsoft's proprietary window system and user interface software released in 1985 to run on top of MS-DOS. Widely criticised for being too slow (hence "Windoze", "Microsloth Windows") on the machines available then. 2000 operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. . --NetMotion Wireless www.netmotionwireless.com Circle 314 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Network monitoring COMPREHENSIVE NETWORK PERFORMANCE MONITORING SYSTEM for next-generation networks. The IXIA 100 is a performance-monitoring probe that is deployed across a network. Interface modules connect the IXIA 100 to the network, and centralized reporting and management software tools allow detailed network analysis. The system can be used for performance verification at several critical stages, including verification at circuit turn-up, constant monitoring of SLAs, measurements to validate service enhancements and troubleshooting. The system is capable of per-packet traffic characterization at up to 10-Gbps line speed, and has multiuser Two or more users. remote control, secure access, user-defined event logging and alerting with definable thresholds, Web-based reporting, and BERT (Bit Error Rate Test) An analysis of network transmission efficiency that computes the percentage of bits received in error from the total number sent. capabilities. GPS-based global time synchronization delivers the capability to perform highly precise, one-way performance measurements to spot asymmetry in traffic patterns that can cause asymmetry in performance.--IXIA www.ixiacom.com Circle 315 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Security appliance WTLS/SSL ACCELERATION IN ONE APPLIANCE for m-commerce and e-commerce networks. The NetSwift 2012 is a security appliance for wireless and wired Internet applications. The unit incorporates both the WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) The security services in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). WTLS is based on TLS, the landline version that is widely used on the Internet. protocol for WAP gateways, and high-speed SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) The leading security protocol on the Internet. Developed by Netscape, SSL is widely used to do two things: to validate the identity of a Web site and to create an encrypted connection for sending credit card and other personal data. for Web servers in a single, plug-and-play solution. The appliance is installed between the firewall and server, providing a performance boost of 1,000 transactions per second In a very generic sense, the term Transactions Per Second refers to the number of atomic actions performed by certain entity per second. In a more restrictied view, the term is usually used by DBMS vendor and user community to refer to the number of database transactions performed and 10,000 concurrent sessions, without the need for additional servers. The product has a hardware bypass switch, and provides static load balancing via round robin or least connections. Multiple units can be used for redundancy and failover. Remote management is achieved through SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) A widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc. and a browser-based interface. --Rainbow Technologies www.rainbow.com Circle 316 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] VoIP network portal DISTRIBUTE VoIP CALLS WITH REDUCED LATENCY and higher voice quality. The Tenor Call Relay provides a single VoIP portal between IP networks, allowing for end-to-end VoIP communications across multiple networks. All calls are switched through multiple IP networks with just one single compression and decompression of the voice. The device allows VoIP end points behind NAT (Network Address Translation) An IETF standard that allows an organization to present itself to the Internet with far fewer IP addresses than there are nodes on its internal network. devices and firewalls to communicate with external networks. The product also provides a single point for call management, administration and security at the edge of a VoIP network. The base unit supports 16 simultaneous VoIP calls, and can be software upgraded to handle up to 64 at one time. --Quintum Technologies www.quintum.com Circle 317 for more information [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion