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Unique New Software Shows Copywriters And Marketers What Their Visitors Do While On Their Pages

A unique new piece of software was recently released by Life Art Marketing that will change the way marketers use their sales pages and web sites forever. Intra Trakker is a one of a kind page tracker. This little script allows any webmaster to see exactly where visitors are spending the most time and what parts they avoid. Virtually all web site owners can benefit from this software but nobody never seen it coming.

Intra Trakker is an easy to use script that can be installed on any web host. Once installed Intra Trakker is installed it can track any web you own. To track a page you just have to add a snippet of code to the page. You can start tracking a new page in about three minutes.

Once the page has been updated Intra Trakker will keep track of what parts of your page visitors focus on and parts they don’t even look at. This information is visible to the page owner only through Intra Trakker’s admin interface. The information is displayed via a bar on the left hand side that rates each part from green to red. Green indicates that the vast majority of visitors have spent a little time on that section. Red indicates that most all visitors did not see that section or simply skipped over it.

Jambhala Rinpo from Joint Venture Network had this to say about Intra Trakker: “IntraTrakker is an ingenious tool that gives you an ability to track your visitors like nothing I’ve seen to date. This is an invaluable feedback tool that will save a lot of time in comparison to traditional trial and error testing. I’m sure all the experienced marketers out there will find this to be an invaluable testing tool for making better sales pages.”

There is no doubt that this tool is cutting edge and one of a kind. Just like with all new and unique products that have been released someone will make something similar with more features in the near future. A new door has been opened to internet marketers and nothing will ever be the same.

This article origonally posted on http://www.guruofinfo.com
For more information and to watch the Intra Trakker video’s visit - http://www.guruofinfo.com/Recommends/intratrakker/

[tags]copywriting, adsense, web, site, page, marketing, internet, IM, intra, trakker[/tags]

Marketing Your WinRunner Team

It won’t matter how effective your WinRunner Team is if no-one outside your immediate organization knows about your accomplishments. For this reason, marketing your WinRunner Team is vital to your success. When times get tough, executives look for cost-cutting measures. The QA group is often the first on the chopping block. If these high level executives don’t fully understand and appreciate the value of your service, they will see the cost of WinRunner licenses and maintenance as well as the highly skilled, but also more expensive WinRunner engineers as a nice place to start trimming the budget. They will not have the time or luxury to launch an investigation to see if these services are really necessary.

The next thing you know, you have a nice library of WinRunner scripts, but no tools to execute them and no one with the skills necessary to modify the scripts as applications are updated. However, if these high level executives have personal knowledge about the benefits of software WinRunner in terms they understand, which are time and cost savings to the business they support, they will be less likely to put it on the chopping block.

High level executives don’t have the time or energy to seek you out and find out what benefits the automated testing has to offer to the organization. Instead, you must make the effort to seek them out. Marketing your WinRunner group is the responsibility of the entire team, but the heaviest burden lies upon upper-management and Vice Presidents because they have daily contact with peers at their level and higher.

Demonstrations for High Level Executives

One of the best ways to market your WinRunner team is to demonstrate to Executives, what you have done with WinRunner tool and how it helps their business. When you know an executive will be in town for a day, arrange for a thirty minute meeting. Executives are busy and everyone wants a piece of their time, so limit the time to thirty minutes. It will be sufficient to demonstrate what you have done with the product as well as how it benefits their business.

When you have confirmed that the executive will be able to attend a demonstration, it’s time to find a suitable conference room. Choose one that has live network connections and a screen to display the laptop image. Schedule the conference room for thirty to sixty minutes before the executive arrives in order to prepare. Use this time to set up the laptop, projector, and perform a dry-run of the script. Verify with the development engineering groups that no loads will be affecting the application you plan to demonstrate. Explain how important it is that nothing impact the environment, which will cause the application to go down during the presentation.

Invite as many members of the WinRunner team as possible so that the executive has the opportunity to meet everyone. However, if this is not possible due to the current work-load, invite only key individuals, preferably the ones who created or currently maintain the script that will be part of the presentation. They know most about it and will be able to troubleshoot any problems that arise more efficiently than someone who is not as familiar with the application or script.

Begin the meeting by making introductions and pass out an agenda so that everyone knows where the meeting is going and what will be covered. Give a brief overview of the application that will be demonstrated. The application should be one that the executive is familiar with and the script should run the length of the meeting (or longer). Ideally the application will have a lot of fields, making hand-typed data entry tedious. WinRunnerl will whiz through the application at an impressive speed.

While the script is running, explain how long it takes to manually run one test case verses how long it take WinRunner to execute one test case. Translate this into one test iteration so everyone can see how much time WinRunner saves on a weekly or monthly basis. Mention that the manual testers, who used to perform this testing, are now free to work on other projects, while this one is testing it’s self. At the end of the meeting, bring up the report to show how easy it is to identify which test cases passed and which, failed.

Executives are usually in back-to-back meetings, some of which run over their time limits. Less-important meetings, such as your presentation, may get rescheduled at the last minute. Don’t be discouraged. Simply reschedule the meeting for a later date. These presentations are not a waste of time. Executives who see the benefits of WinRunner and the cost savings will not only hesitate to cut your program out of the budget, but they will also inform their peers, who are struggling with long testing cycles, of your success. Ultimately, your success is their success.

Take Advantage of Status Reports

Status reports are one of the best ways to demonstrate to the business, on a weekly basis, how much time and money they are currently saving by automating the software testing. Status reports should contain the following figures:

Weekly hours saved per application
Year to date hours saved
Number of application automated
Number of scripts
Cumulative hours saved this week for all applications
Cumulative hours saved to date for all applications
Database or Spreadsheet of Project Statistics

Once the business and upper management gets wind of your WinRunner team’s abilities, be prepared for a windfall of questions. You will be asked over and over about the number of applications that have been scripted, time saved through automation, and a host of related questions. The best way to be prepared is to have a database or spreadsheet with your current project statistics on hand. Not only will you appear organized and efficient, but you will not have to drop your current activities to scramble for statistics. Your project database or spreadsheet should show general and application specific statistics.

Let Others Toot Your Horn

Executives who have had positive experiences with you in the past will spread the word when their peers complain about manual testing or show an interest in automating their software testing.

Beef Up Your QA Website

Most organizations have an internal website with sections dedicated to each group within the organization. If your QA organization doesn’t already have a website, it’s time to create one. A QA website can help you streamline activities such as a project queue that prioritized new projects, and conduct customer satisfaction survey’s, and announce your successes to the rest of the company.

Your QA website will do nothing for your PR unless other groups and organizations have to access it in order to interact with your team. You can begin forcing other groups to access your website by creating a project work queue, where they must complete a form in order to have their project entered into the QA work queue. This is your opportunity to lay down the rules rather than be forced to abide by their rules. There are specific facts that need to be clear before QA can prioritize and -assign resources to a new project.

Departmental home pages generally consist of the group mission statement and basic information. Once people have seen it a few times, they will skim right over it and with out a second thought. What a waste of space! Home Page real estate is the most valuable area of your website because it’s the one page that everyone sees. You best real estate should be reserved for facts that demonstrate your team’s success. It’s not that the team mission statement isn’t important, but rather that the mission statement belongs on another page or at the bottom of your home page, after the statistics. These statistics can be arranged in such a way that they display a running total of the cumulative time saved to date for each application and as a whole.

Town Hall Meetings

Take advantage of Executive Town Hall meetings, which are often used to update employees on the success of the business and visions Executives have for the future. They usually include many top level executives, who have connections in other business units who may be in need of automated testing. It’s not unusual for each Vice President to be asked to stand up and say a few words about their team’s current activities. This is a good opportunity to repeat some of your automated testing statistics or, in some cases, a quick presentation.

Don’t be afraid to contact executives, explaining your success with WinRunner and that you would like to share this with the organization during the Town Hall meeting. Executives rarely have the opportunity to see what is really happening in the “trenches” and will be pleased to hear about your success, especially when it is clearly a cost-cutting measure.

About the Author
Danna Henderson has helped many oranizations automate their software testing with complex, data driven scripts. For more information about successful automated testing with WinRunner, contact WinRunner and Software Test Automation Tools.

[tags]winrunner, computers, software, consulting, work, business, testing, qa, quality assurance[/tags]

Eight Key Tips for CD Duplication Preparation

The master of your CD or DVD disk, is of the utmost importance for replication or duplication. Here are some tips which may help you create a high quality master disc:

1. Always use the highest quality discs that you can obtain. Do your research, take your time, then choose a brand that will produce a high quality disc each and every time you duplicate or replicate.

2. Avoid copying from a network source if at all possible. If the source files for your disk are on a network drive then copy the files to your computer before you burn a disc. If you can’t, try using the copy to hard drive first feature. When doing this, your
burning software will create a temporary image file during the burning process. Once the burning has been completed, it will delete the temporary file.

3. Avoid burning on a laptop computer that is low on battery power. The fluctuations that will occur in the available battery power may cause poor results.

4. Ensure that you finalise your disc. If you fail to finalise, the disc may not play back. Finalising will also help increase the reading compability in other CD-ROM drives.

5. Never use the packet writing method to burn a master disc.

6. Avoid any type of impact or movement of the drive when burning. Movement can cause the laser to skip or jump tracks which in turn may lead to errors or a bad disc.

7. Use the “burn-proof” feature if possible. This will allow the drive to slow down the burn speed if your computer can’t supply data fast enough. It may increase the burn time but the quality of the disc will be enhanced.

8. Avoid having multiple applications open when burning. This can adversely affect your computer’s ability to supply data to the burner.

For further information on CD Duplication Visit http://www.cdduplicationweb.com
right now!

[tags]cd duplication, cd duplication preparation, master disc[/tags]

I Know What You Did Last Session Basic Applied Cryptography

While Janet was sitting in a cyber caf

Routing, Routed, and Non-Routable Protocols

ROUTING PROTOCOLS

A generic term that refers to a formula, or protocol, used by a router to determine the appropriate path over which data is transmitted. The routing protocol also specifies how routers in a network share information with each other and report changes. The routing protocol enables a network to make dynamic adjustments to its conditions, so routing decisions do not have to be predetermined and static.

Routing, Routed and Non-Routable Protocols

ROUTING | ROUTED | NON-ROUTABLE

ROUTING PROTOCOLS

ROUTING PROTOCOLS are the software that allow routers to dynamically advertise and learn routes, determine which routes are available and which are the most efficient routes to a destination. Routing protocols used by the Internet Protocol suite include:

How to Choose a Data Center

When evaluating a data center to support your business much of your focus is on bandwidth, reliability, QoS, and so forth. But there’s much more to consider in order to make a smart decision. Over look it…and you’re liable to make a big mistake.

The Building Security….

You want to see a building that has quality security systems and staff. I want to see some form of man trap with some type of biometric or scanned ID card system at any entrance to the building. This prevents just anyone from walking in any door. After the man traps I want to see a 24/7 security guard and some type of video camera system. In the better facilities, when you get on the elevator you have to do another swipe of your card again just to get to your floor. This is good security, it stops someone who is not authorized to be on your floor or area from getting off where they have no business. Once you are on your floor you should look to see if it has video cameras that cover the entire floor. You may need to have your card scanned once more or have another form of checked access. After that you want to make sure your racks or caged area has a secure lock. In one of our data centers you have to go through 6 security scans of one kind or another plus a guard an then a lock on the cage space and the cabinets to get to your servers. You will be also covered by cameras from the second you enter the building to the time you leave. Is this to much? No not at all. When you are dealing with either customer data or customer equipment you must show that you are providing the best possible security. One of our largest clients is a medical facility. We were told we got the contract to host 30 servers for them because we had the best physical security. I don’t care what data center you are in they should have a minimum of 2 security/ID scans, 24 hour video and at least one 24/7 security person, A tech is not a security person.

Power System….

Initial Power: In the ideal situation the data center should be connected to 2 city power grids with multiple entry points from each grid to the building. This usually only happens in major cities in downtown districts where there is the normal power distributed to the area plus an additional power grid that is meant to support emergency services such as government or medical facilities. Even if the data center is only on a single power grid, which is most common, you want to make sure it has multiple entry points for power. I’ve seen several data centers that if a truck ran in to the wrong pole, or a fire started or a construction accident occurred in the underground pipes, the entire datacenter would be without power for a number of days because it was only routed one way.

The power distribution panel(s) need to be clearly marked and ID’d. Ideally the data centers network equipment will be separate from the client’s equipment. Each rack should have 1 or 2 breakers that are exclusive to that rack. General electrical outlets or public outlets should not be on the same distribution panels as networks or servers.

Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS)….

The transfer switch senses when utility power is interrupted, and starts up the generator if the utility power remains absent. In about five to ten seconds, when the generator is producing full power, the transfer switch disconnects the load from the utility and connects it to the generator, restoring electricity to the load. The transfer switch continues to monitor utility power, and when it is restored, switches the load from the generator back to the utility. Once the generator is disconnected, it goes through a cool-down routine and is automatically shut down.

Transfer switch types include open transition, momentary closed transition, and bypass isolation

Open transition transfer switches are the simplest kind, and are mechanically interlocked. They disconnect the load from one power source before making the connection to the other.

Closed transition transfer switches (CTTS) eliminate momentary power interruption when both sources are present and synchronized, by transferring the loads with an overlapping contact arrangement. The momentary closed transition switch transfers the power within one hundred milliseconds, which does not require utility protective relaying.

The soft load closed transition switch extends the overlap time to multiple seconds, for a smoother transition of load to the generator. These switches are available in 100 to 2600 amp configurations.

The better brands are Caterpillar, ASCO, MGE and Hubble

Generators….

If a datacenter doesn’t have its own generators and fuel storage don’t host there. It’s that simple. The generator should be able to handle at least 125% of the load for a minimum of 24 hours without being refueled. A really great data center will have multiple generators. One of our data centers has an individual generator for each floor and two backups. The building can route power from any generator to any location in the building and they can transfer fuel from any generator to another.

One thing you want to do and see for yourself is that they test the generator system. I’m not talking about just starting it on but that they actually put part of the data center load on the generator. I’ve asked about a dozen of the data centers we’ve looked at to allow me to be there when they did their “weekly” test of the system. It was funny how they hemmed and hawed and came up with excuses why I couldn’t be there to see the system tested. If they won’t let you watch them go through their testing it should tell you they are probably not doing more than just starting the generator and hoping the rest works in an emergency. That’s just not good enough to tell you if the generator system is really working or not.

PDU/UPS….

Every cabinet should have its own PDU. It should run a minimum of 10 minutes with a full load. It can often take generators or other systems a full 10 minutes to come on line. Ask to see the batteries of the PDU. The terminals or poles should be clean and without any corrosion or other stuff on them. Most batteries these days have dates stamped on them. Make sure they are no older than 2 years old. Ask the data center how often the replace or update their battery farm. PDUs should also provide on-line power conditioning, with a wide input supply range that reduces battery over-usage, surge protection, EMI/RFI filtering, and harmonics attenuation The better brands are Liebert, MGE and Powerlink.

Power Monitoring….

A good data center has some form of dedicated power monitoring system. The system should monitor the status of an SNMP-equipped UPS system over a standard Ethernet network. Additionally, the software should be programmed to automatically shut down network loads upon power failure, and even send alerts to notify personnel of power problems. It should also be possible to remotely control specific UPS output receptacles on single-phase UPS systems. The better systems will provide audio alerts, emails and SMS messaging

Remember to include the above factors in your data center evaluation checklist…and you’re more likely to make a choice that makes good business sense.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire
Communications….including Business-VoIP-Solution and
DS3-Bandwidth.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you’re always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and insights.

[tags]data center, bandwidth, computer technology, ISP, computer support[/tags]

10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP

I’ve just finished setting up a new PC for a friend and I think some of you will be interested in some of the tweaks I make to all of my PCs to make them just a little bit quicker. I’ve focused here on the ones which are simple to do and won’t cause problems if you get it wrong, rather than listing registry tweaks etc.

1. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

1. Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs

5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components

6. Uncheck the Indexing services

7. Click Next

2. Optimise Display Settings

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimise:

1.Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Click System

5. Click Advanced tab

6. In the Performance tab click Settings

7. Leave only the following ticked:

- Show shadows under menus

- Show shadows under mouse pointer

- Show translucent selection rectangle

- Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop

- Use visual styles on windows and buttons

3. Disable Performance Counters

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

To disable:

1. download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/exctrlst-o.asp

2.Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom.button below.

4. Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

1. Open My Computer

2. Click on Tools menu

3. Click on Folder Options

4. Click on the View tab.

5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box

6. Click Apply

7. Click Ok

8. Reboot your computer

5. Improve Memory Usage

Cacheman http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Cacheman/982371189/1 Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.

Once Installed:

1. Go to Show Wizard and select All

2. Run all the wizards by selecting Next or Finished until you are back to the main menu. Use the defaults unless you know exactly what you are doing.

3.Exit and Save Cacheman

4.Restart Windows

6. Optimise your internet connection

There are lots of ways to do this but by far the easiest is to run TCP/IP Optimizer. http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe

1. Download and install

2. Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed (Kbps)

3. Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to connect to the Internet

4. Check Optimal Settings then Apply

5. Reboot

7. Optimise Your Pagefile

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.

1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties

2. Select the Advanced tab

3. Under Performance choose the Settings button

4. Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change

5. Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

8. Run BootVis - Improve Boot Times

BootVis will significantly improve boot times

1. Download and Run http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

2. Select Trace

3. Select Next Boot and Driver Trace

4. A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot

5. Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your system’s boot process. When it’s done, in the menu go to Trace and select Optimize System

6. Reboot.

7. When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing System box appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete

9. Remove the Desktop Picture

Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.

1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties

2. Select the Desktop tab

3. In the Background window select None

4. Click Ok

10. Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

1. Open Control Panel

2. Open Fonts folder

3. Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

Hope you find these 10 tips useful. Let me know if you did below, or if you have any other simple tips you want to share with other readers.

The author runs a blog following developments in the internet and mobile internet sectors. With over 10 years experience in strategy consulting and business development, and has seen and lived through the highs, and the lows of the industry.

Based in London, the author can be contacted on admin@connectedinternet.co.uk and his blog can be found at http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk

[tags]WindowsXP, optimisation, utilities[/tags]

Data Integration Guide

Customer data integration can be defined as the process of collecting or assimilating and managing customer information from all the resources that are available. The data so consolidated includes the details of the customer, customer valuation data (the process in which a company evaluates its past data and on its basis selects quite a few customers to augment its profits) as well as information garnered via direct marketing or interaction (for instance through advertising campaign that seeks to obtain an action from specified group of consumers in response to an interaction from the marketer).

Adequately performed customer data integration results in important sections of the company to have constant access to the most current and complete view of customer information available. So customer data integration forms a significant element of customer relationship management. Customer relationship management stands for methodologies; software and often Internet capabilities that enable an enterprise manage customer relationships in a systematic way.

While poor integration of data can endanger ERP, CRM, data warehousing and business intelligence initiatives for the data at the foundation of these efforts does not provide a correct picture of your business.

In order to minimize risk and ensure the delivery of project on time and within budget, it is important to have a proper data integration strategy. Data integration is not confined to matching and linking of data but is also about having an access to right data sources at the right time. Data integration is all about working within a current application atmosphere that leads to good quality information received at new data targets during data migration or combination efforts.

Data integration helps public and private sector organizations in UK to get the most out of their communications infrastructure. There are five major levels of integration that most businesses try to deal with-

1. User interfaces or enterprise portals

2. People or collaboration tools

3. Business processes or business process management systems

4. Enterprise applications integration

5. Data and metadata or extract, transformation and loading, enterprise information integration and enterprise content management tools.

Data integration tools and techniques are important because operational systems have come up everywhere. In recent years various organizations have employed EAI and asynchronous message queuing products from IBM, Sonic Software, Tibco Software and others to maintain operational data.

The ability to integrate data through data integration eradicates a lot of droning, time-intensive processes such as data entry, printing of reports, and manual consolidation and use of data produced by different software applications or other data accumulating or producing technologies.

Point of sales systems, payment processing solutions and bookkeeping systems can also be interfaced via the use of data integration techniques meant to eradicate the need for duplicate entry saving you loads of time and money. Planning for automation and data integration will enable you to enhance your business.

At present data integration solutions provider Informatics has collaborated with the European IT company Bull to establish a reseller, support and integration network spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Mansi aggarwal recommends that you visit Data Integration for more information.

[tags]Data Integration, Data Integration guide[/tags]

The Many Advantages of VOIP

A rapidly increasing number of businesses of all sizes are jumping into the VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) bandwagon. This is hardly surprising when you consider the numerous revolutionary advantages and benefits that VOIP has brought to the business scene.

Probably the most obvious is cheaper phone calls. By utilizing their existing data networks, businesses can now talk all over the world to field offices, clients, potential clients and anybody they need to talk to.
Actually most of the focus has been on the costs savings that VOIP has brought to businesses all over the world. And while those costs savings are no doubt enormous the business improvements and new revenue opportunities that have suddenly and dramatically been opened up far outweigh the savings that this wonderful new technology has brought about.

The fact that VOIP has made it extremely easy to communicate with remote or home workers has opened up an amazing number of brand new business and revenue generating possibilities. The fact that workers and consultants are no longer hindered by geographical reach or obstacles related to their location has forever changed the way business is done.

VOIP has suddenly made businesses that were previously not viable, extremely viable. Just to give one example, the Internet has created a huge new market for translation services. However the main problem has been the fact that low cost translation services were an impossible dream. The regular telephone contact with your translators based all over the world, on its’ own meant a very high regular telephone bill. The VOIP technology has not only opened up the market for more translators and therefore more competitive rates, but it has also swiftly and powerfully wiped out the telephone charges while allowing for more frequent and regular telephone contact and consultation.

This is but one instance, there are numerous other examples.

Andrew McNaught runs the website http://www.first-voip.com which aims to provide a knowledgebase for this emerging technology.

[tags]technology, telecommunications, computers, internet[/tags]

Wireless Access Points Thin vs Fat

Wireless LAN Switches: The Best Solution

There are two types of wireless access points Intelligent (Fat) and Thin wireless Access points. A fat wireless access point has everything it needs to handle wireless clients. A Thin wireless access point is basically a radio and antenna that is controlled by a wireless switch. If you deploy several Fat wireless access points they need to be configured individually. With thin wireless access points the entire configuration takes place at the switch saving you time and money.

Wireless LAN Switches provide many benefits:

Wireless Mobility - Intelligent access aren’t managed in a central location which means there is no third party monitoring the movement of a user. If a user moves to another work area traditional wireless access points have a hard time passing off the user to the new access point. Thin wireless access points are controlled be the wireless LAN switch who will manage the users movement.

Security- Using the wireless LAN switch the administrator can check logs, configure is security settings, make group polices for wireless users all in one spot. Also built in to many wireless LAN switches are RADIUS servers which will give another layer of security on top of your encryption policies. In enterprise wireless networks the administrators biggest fear is rogue wireless access points. Wireless LAN switches can detect when a new wireless access point comes into the area and decide if it is a trusted or non-trusted device.

Placement - Power over Ethernet is another great feature of wireless LAN Switches. Power over Ethernet eliminates the need for an power outlet to be near the wireless access point. This saves your company money by not having to install new power outlets. Also this improves security by not having the wireless access points within easy reach of passerby’s.

If you are deploying a wireless LAN for a company I would be scared if you don’t utilize wireless LAN switches and wireless thin access points. The upfront costs of these products are more but your total cost of ownership will be less than having to administer each wireless access point separately. To sum it up home owners should stick with Fat access points and businesses should use thin.

Simple and secure wireless networking is the name of the game an http://www.wirelessninja.com We will save you money and prevent you from getting a wireless administrator’s headache.

[tags]wireless access point, wireless antenna, wireless, wep, wpa,ssid, radius, wireless range[/tags]

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