This week’s Interop conference in Las Vegas will feature more than 450 exhibitors, 200+ educational sessions, speakers and live demos of practical business solutions. Some of the biggest players in the enterprise networking and wireless industries will be there.
A Wireless & Mobility track overviews wireless technologies, device platform and operating environment to future-proof your investment, a Muni Wireless track explores the technological and business model hurdles of deploying a successful municipal wireless broadband network and the Broadband Wireless track on Tuesday and Wednesday (May 22-23) will cover interoperability in wireless networks.
Enterprise 802.11n products were announced by numerous vendors. Colubris, Trapeze and Ruckus Wireless announcing 802.11n access points and controllers designed specifically for small to midsize enterprises, although two market leaders, Cisco and Aruba Networks, have not announced 802.11n plans, or products.
The Colubris MAP-625, the first product in their 600 Series access point family, features 3×3 MIMO technology with 100+ Mbps throughput. Trapeze says their Mobility Point 432, a dual-radio device, uses 3×3 MIMO, frame aggregation, and 40 Mhz channels to simultaneously operate in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, at 300 Mbps per band, for a total data rate of 600Mbps.
Other announcements include:
- Aruba Networks announced two new software products for on-the-go employees. Its Mobile Access Point software connects employees to the office when they’re working remotely with “follow-me” security and user access controls. In addition, it comes with a HotelConnect feature for employees that want to access a hotel’s Internet service with their mobile devices that would otherwise be blocked by the hotel’s billing system. Aruba’s Mobile Voice Continuity software automatically hands off data and phone calls between a WLAN network and a cellular network. IP PBX upgrades or partnerships with cellular carriers are not required, the company said.
- Startup vendor Aerohive has a new controller-less architecture for mobile-enterprise deployments. Aerohive’s competitors will get a chance to confront Aerohive in a panel session at the event.
- Meru Networks announced the E(z)RF Location Manager application, which provides precise location tracking and device management capabilities for enterprise customers. Additionally, Meru announced partnerships with AeroScout and Ekahau, two of the industry’s leading providers of Wi-Fi tags and real-time asset tracking solutions.
- Avaya’s Distributed Office, a new Internet Protocol telephony communications system for branch offices. With the system, employees get features like “click to conference” and integrated instant messaging. They also can forward incoming office calls to their mobile phone and not be tethered to a desk while waiting for important calls.
- Citrix Systems announced the WANScaler, a software-based wide-area network optimization client for mobile employees working outside branch offices. Employees can access business applications from any location and get good performance even when they’re working remotely, according to the company.
- Netgear is entering the WLAN controller market with the unveiling of its ProSafe Smart Wireless Switch, targeted SMBs deploying five or more access points. It includes enterprise-class features such as centralized management, built-in RF planning tools and integrated location-based services. New access points include the WGL 102 and dual-radio WAGL 102. Netgear’s existing standalone access points can also be upgraded to work with the controller.
- Nortel unveiled three new branch office products for Business Optimized Networking. The Application Accelerator, to be available in May 2007, is designed for businesses that want to accelerate their web-based applications. The Secure Router 4134 integrated WAN routing, Ethernet switching, IP telephony, and Microsoft Mediation technology for businesses that want to deploy unified voice, video, and multimedia apps at remote branch offices.
- The newly announced OpenSEA Alliance, a multi-vendor, open source effort to build out an open source 802.1x supplicant will strut its stuff. Many consider 802.1x to be the best approach for implementing NAC.
- Atheros launched its second generation 802.11n product line featuring their long-range XSPAN technology. The new AR9001 family features enhanced performance, higher integration, smaller form factors and lower overall cost. It targets the second wave of broader 802.11n adoption in the mainstream consumer market and the first wave of deployments in the high-performance SMB and Enterprise markets. The new Atheros 11n family includes the AR9001AP-2NG: a single-band with 2×2 MIMO, , AR9001AP-2NX: a dual-band configurable with 2×2 MIMO, AR9001AP-3NG: a single-band, 3×3 MIMO with Gigabit Ethernet and the AR9001AP-3NX: a dual-band configurable with 3×3 MIMO and Gigabit Ethernet.
- Fujitsu Microelectronics introduced its Mobile WiMax System-on-Chip, which is participating in WiMax Forum’s Wave 2 certification. Samples of the chip will be available in August. Fujitsu is offering Full System Design Kit hardware and the PC Card Reference Platform Delivery Kit to equipment markers to speed up mass production.
- CommScope and Solarflare demonstrated 9.0 Gb/s payload over unshielded twisted pair (UTP) Ethernet cabling. It’s a full 100-meter UTP solution that guarantees compliance with the draft IEEE 802.3an taskforce guidelines for 10GBASE-T and the new Category 6A/ Class EA cabling standards and may pave the way for simple and cost-effective 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Switches for 10G Ethernet are coming down in price and 10GBase-T copper links are at least on the distant horizon as affordable, says EE Times.
Additional coverage is available on the InterOp Blog and from C/Net, Network World, InternetNews and Information Week.
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