Cisco Systems Inc. this week added two Wi-Fi access points that support new security standards and can handle more users than its previous devices. It also announced a partnership for integrating its wireless networking products with AirDefense Inc."s intrusion-detection technology.
The Aironet 1130AG and 1230AG series of access points provide dual-band 802.11a/b/g connectivity and comply with the 802.11i and WPA2 security protocols, said Ron Seide, Cisco"s senior product line manager for wireless networking. The 1130AG is designed for office use and starts at US$699; the 1230AG is a more ruggedized device that costs $999.
Both products can operate on 15 nonoverlapping channels and deliver data rates of up to 108Mbit/sec., Seide said. He said future upgrade plans call for increasing the number of supported channels to 26, which should mean less interference for end users.
AirDefense"s server appliances can read data from Cisco"s access points, and the appliance can be accessed through the CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine with an integrated console that supports both wireless LAN management and intrusion detection, Seide said.
The partnership between Cisco and Atlanta-based AirDefense grew out of informal joint work that the two companies began doing for customers more than year ago, said Jay Chaudhry, AirDefense"s founder and chairman.
One of the early users was Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York. Frederick Nwokobia, a senior engineer at the financial services firm, said AirDefense"s Enterprise 6.0 software for detecting network intruders has been combined with more than 300 Cisco Aironet 1200 series access points at several Manhattan locations.
The AirDefense technology lets IT staffers at Lehman Brothers see if there are any ad hoc or rogue access points connected to the company"s corporate network, Nwokobia said. "We"re trying to be proactive with our WLAN and to operate in a clean environment," he said.
The Wi-Fi connections have been in place less than a year, and Lehman Brothers has not been attacked thus far, according to Nwokobia. He said the AirDefense software has notified IT staffers of suspicious network activity, but it usually involves an end user with a wireless card that isn"t authorized to access the network.
Lehman Brothers has seen the benefits of having Wi-Fi capabilities for office workers who need to carry their laptops to conference rooms that lack wired connections, Nwokobia said. He added that the company has also deployed voice-over-IP products from Cisco for 13,000 workers and is investigating supporting wireless VoIP transmissions over the Wi-Fi network.