Stories about: WildPackets

Enterprise Management Associates is back again after a year of absence, this time on a monthly basis. We've really missed your dialog and comments, and hopefully we've been missed as well. As before, this column will focus on network management trends as they fit into the bigger IT management landscape - focusing from time to time on application performance, or SLM versus BSM, or new approaches to asset management, or trends like CMDB adoption as they may affect the NOC.

VoIP vendors say they deliver scalability and security. InteropLabs (iLabs) testing mostly proved them right in multivendor settings. But testing also revealed some implementation gotchas in both of those areas, and pinpointed a few missing pieces when it comes to key exchange for securing VoIP traffic.

Last April, MySQL's CEO Marten Mickos, kicked off the opening day of the 2007 MySQL Conference and Expo by stating "open source is simply a smarter method to develop and distribute software -- a way to promote software users' freedoms in addition to protecting its creators' rights."

Successful implementations of virtualization in enterprise production networks depend less upon virtual server vendors and more upon management and security technology providers adapting their products to the new paradigm virtual environments represent, according to sessions this week at Interop.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has launched its brand for fast Draft N Wi-Fi products, in advance of the final IEEE 802.11n standard, with the first products including an access point from Cisco that hasn't yet been formally announced.

In 2004 we tested several wireless LAN protocol analyzers and found two distinct characteristics: Those dedicated and built from the ground up for WLANs, and those that were modest add-ons to what were then labeled classic protocol analyzer products.

Cisco Systems is clearing the air around enterprise wireless LANs with a partner that specializes in radio spectrum analysis.

One of the benefits of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) is that it lets enterprises turn their wireless LANs into part of the voice network. But not all wireless LANs are equal to the task.

Most network groups acquire this expertise internally, as IT pros learn on the job. Scan the job postings: IT network job descriptions increasingly cite wireless skills among the requirements. There also has been an influx of training courses in wireless and certification programs aimed at wireless administration and security. These are adding lustre - and pay increases - to a range of wireless network positions.

Faced with competition from Ethereal -- now reborn as Wireshark -- WildPackets has decided that if you can't beat them, then join them, and released a free version of its OmniPeek network analyser.

Network Associates this week announced a tool designed for small and midsize businesses that the company says makes enterprise-level network troubleshooting, security and analysis capabilities available in a low-priced package.