Overheard in the tech blogosphere » Networking

Overheard talking about rugged IT

Margaret Rouse — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:56:16 +0000

Cisco says the new smart grid products are “ruggedized” for the electrical network, can tolerate higher and lower temperatures than its traditional network gear, include a high level of security, and can help integrate renewables, detect network outages and migrate older proprietary gear to IP network gear.

Katie Fehrenbacher, The Sleeping Giant Awakes: Cisco Launches First Smart Grid Products

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is rugged IT.

If you’ve been wondering (like we have) what exactly networking giant Cisco planned to sell to utilities for the smart grid, ponder no longer. Cisco announced its first smart grid-specific products on Tuesday, including a router and grid switch, which are based on its traditional networking products but have been built specifically for the utility environment.

Overheard – Regional Internet Registry

Margaret Rouse — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:41:37 +0000

The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced that less than 10% of the remaining IPv4 addresses are unallocated, and that puts IPv4 on the endangered species list. What’s NRO? The group that officially represents the five Regional Internet Registries that oversee Internet number resources.

Kate Gerwig, Move away from IPv4…This is not a test

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Regional Internet Registry (RIR).

Overheard – Wireless Distribution System

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:53:12 +0000

WDS uses standard 802.11 wireless to forward traffic between access points, as an alternative to Ethernet or another wired distribution network. In effect, WDS turns a pair of APs into a pair of wireless bridges or repeaters…WDS is based on the 802.11 standard, but is not fully specified by that standard, so WDS links often work only between same-vendor APs (or APs using the same chipset).

Lisa Phifer, What’s the expected range on a pair of Belkin 54G routers in wireless bridge mode?

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Wireless Distribution System.

Overheard – Wifi range extender

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:34:28 +0000

Range extenders (or wireless repeaters) can be useful, but they come with a downside: lower speeds. In most cases, you will get half of the throughput (or less) than connecting directly to your wireless router, so don’t expect the same type of performance.

Lockergnome, Do Wi-Fi Range Extenders Work?

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Wi-Fi range extender.

Jim Geier has a good tutorial on range extenders. All the experts agree that it’s best to use the same vendor for both your access point and your range extender. Hopefully it won’t be too long before the extender comes built right into your wireless router.

Overheard – chatty protocol

Margaret Rouse — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:20:11 +0000

Even the most widely used protocol on the Internet — namely, HTTP — may be described as both chatty (involving frequent communications) and bursty (involving numerous periods during which tens to hundreds of resource requests may be in flight on the network at any given moment).

Ed Tittel, WAN optimization techniques

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is chatty protocol.

Overheard – WAN accelerator

Margaret Rouse — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:01:13 +0000

It might take one or two hundred round trips to do a transaction. If that’s over a LAN and you have a delay or one or two milliseconds, nobody notices. Take that application and run it over a WAN … you get a delay of 10 to 20 seconds. That’s not acceptable.

Jim Metzler, Collaborate with programmers to deliver WAN application acceleration

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is WAN accelerator.

Overheard – 802.11n

Margaret Rouse — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:23:18 +0000

Now that the final version of 802.11n has been approved and products based on that standard are shipping, many expect rapid adoption of high-speed wireless networks in the enterprise. Access points (APs) that support 802.11n are up to six times faster and can reach up to twice as far as legacy 802.11abg APs.

Lisa Phifer, How to keep networks secure when deploying an 802.11n upgrade

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is single stream 802.11n.

Overheard – WAN clustering

Margaret Rouse — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:00:28 +0000

“It’s going to involve different parts of your organization to really construct a true WAN cluster. You are going to have to involve your data storage team, your software team, your network engineering team and really look holistically at everything.”

Jeff Boles, WAN clustering emerges to provide transparent failover between physical sites

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is WAN clustering.

Overheard – Real-time location system (RTLS)

Margaret Rouse — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:25:42 +0000

“A lot of healthcare equipment is starting to come with Wi-Fi radios already installed. If it’s not there, they add a Wi-Fi tag. It broadcasts and contacts the closest … access points. Such tags retail for about $50 and can last for months, emitting ‘chirps’ to update any listening Wi-Fi access points about their current position and condition.”

Stan Schatt, Wi-Fi-based real-time location systems primed to grow market share

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is real-time location system.

Overheard – Wi-Fi Direct

Margaret Rouse — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:58:42 +0000

“In theory, Wi-Fi Direct takes personal area networks (PANs) from short distances using cables or Bluetooth to full Wi-Fi range and speed.”

Eric Griffith, New ‘Wi-Fi Direct’ Spec Revamps Device Networks

Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is Wi-Fi Direct.