Broadcom Launches New Unified WLAN Solution

Irvine, California-based Broadcom Corporation has announced the launch of a new end-to-end unified WLAN solution for 802.11n enterprise networks.

Broadcom’s solution is a combination of a unified wireless switch called BCM56520, an access point (AP) SoC called codenamed BCM4748, and special software called FASTPATH Unified Wireless Switching (UWS) version 6.0.

The BCM56520 switch is part of the company’s StrataXGS Ethernet switch family, and is a true unified wireless / wireline switch that works with high-end wireless controllers. The switch incorporates up to 28 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports and six HiGig2 ports.

The BCM4748 AP SoC combines an 802.11n medium access controller (MAC), a baseband processor, a dual-band radio, a MIPS74K CPU, a GbE MAC, power amplifiers and other WLAN components on a single die.

The FASTPATH UWS software incorporates wireless virtualization software that enables centralized management for unified edge switching, which is preferred for wireless LAN solutions over controller-based switching. Version 6.0 of the software has the capability to drive wireless voice in the enterprise and supports additional features required for enterprise-grade voice over WLAN (VoWLAN).

According to market research sources, the access point market for 802.11n is expected to explode by more than 1,400% over the next five years.

Read about the latest development in 802.11n networks brought by Broadcom, here.

Microsoft Introduces Entry-Level Version Of Windows Server

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corporation has gone back to the basics. Remember the local area networks of yore, where a benign Server machine used to manage and monitor networking requirements of user workstations, without the need to connect to the outside world through email or internet? Microsoft has harked back to those days for the benefit of small enterprises, with the introduction of “Windows Server 2008 Foundation”.

The latest server is especially attractive to small businesses with 15 workstations or less, and whose computing requirements do not require the powerful features that the more advanced versions of Windows Server OS offers. These user environments typically have simple needs such as file sharing, print sharing, networking, Terminal services, remote connections and other common server roles. The OS can be used as an Active Directory server or domain controller, and can also join a domain as a member server or domain controller.

The new OS will be available in 40 countries to begin with. The product will be sold pre-installed on servers from manufacturers such as Dell, HP and IBM. The OEM manufacturers have been allowed to set their own price. Each license of the product is limited to a maximum of 15 user accounts. There are no CALs required.

Read about the latest addition to the Windows Server family, here.

Iomega Launches New NAS

San Diego, California-based Iomega Corporation has launched a new NAS christened “Stor Center Pro ix4-100″, targeted at small business and remote office requirements.

The StorCenter Pro ix4-100 comes in two capacities – 2TB and 4TB built using four drives that are hot-swap SATA II-based. The system can be operated by a web interface with a dashboard that gives a snapshot of its status. The interface frontends an EMC LifeLine software that runs and manages the system. LifeLine is a Linux-based software developed by EMC, the parent company of Iomega. Computers running OSs such as Windows, Linux or Macintosh can access and back-up their files on the ix4-100 NAS, and the product is equally at ease with formats such as FAT32, NTFS, or ext2/ext3.

The ix4-100 comes pre-configured for RAID 5 and can be configured for RAID 10 and JBOD. There are four USB 2.0 ports which can be used to connect printers (for print-sharing jobs) as well as additional storage. The ix4-100 fits in well within the Windows Active Directory structure, so users in the AD get to access it just like any other resource. Read more

Sprint Creates Single-Wavelength 40Gbps Circuit Over Old 10Gbps System

Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel Corporation deployed products and technology sourced from StrataLight Communications and Cisco to successfully create the world’s first single-wavelength 40Gbps transatlantic circuit, using fiber cable infrastructure set up by TAT-14. The achievement assumes importance considering that the hardware (cabling infrastructure) was not disturbed or changed, and at the same time a 40Gbps signal was transmitted over an old, DWDM system that was designed to carry signals not exceeding 10Gbps.

TAT-14 is a consortium of approximately 40 international telecommunications carriers, whose mandate is the laying of fiber optic cables using EDFA repeaters across the Atlantic Ocean. The total length of the cabling is 15,428 km, with a self-healing ring topology and design capacity of 640Gbps. The cable system has six landing points – four of which are in mainland Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Germany), one in UK and one in the US. The configuration has the capacity to transport approx. 9,700K circuits across the ocean.

Sprint succeeded in transmitting a single-wavelength OC768 40Gbps signal between New York and LuleA, Sweden, over the cable already laid down by TAT-14. The signal traveled a distance of 9,000km. Sprint used Cisco’s Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) and StrataLight’s IPoDWDM system and technology to feed the existing DWDM hardware with signals.

Read more about the technology trial by Sprint Nextel here.

Bay Microsystems Demonstrates Extension To InfiniBand

San Jose, California-based Bay Microsystems demonstrated its new extension to InfiniBand technology at the recently concluded SC08, the premier international conference for high performance computing (HPC).

Christened “ABEx 2020″, the product is part of their family of multiservice transport gateways, and is capable of extending InfiniBand fabrics over an IP network through the Pseudowire (PW) technology. The PW technology emulates the operation of a “transparent wire” carrying the native service over a Packet Switched Network (PSN), and while it is generally realized that the emulation will not be perfect, the company claims to have achieved a perfect emulation through traffic engineering breakthroughs over very long distances.

The ABEx 2020 is claimed to be the right solution for applications involving high performance computing, such as cloud, wide area virtualization, clustered databases and real-time financial services; and is said to enable administrators to go beyond the data center and offer their network and storage services to external users. ABEx 2020 has the capability, according to the company, to extend InfiniBand to any point on the globe, using either optical transport or packet switched networks reliably, and that too at full line rate performance.

The product is built around the company’s proprietary network processor and traffic management IC technology.

Read more about Bay Microsystems’ ABEx 2020 product here.

Next Page »