Fave raves

In their own words, four readers tell us about the network products they love best - from the decades-old to the brand new.

By Beth Schultz, Network World, 02/23/04

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Grady Meeks , director of information systems and services (ISS), city of Daytona Beach, Fla.
Years in networking: 14
His favorite: 802.11b-based wireless LAN access points
Vendor:  Airespace

Police officers already have wireless access to applications [over a General Packet Radio Service network] they use to provide public safety services, but we wanted to give them even better tools. Public safety is a huge concern for Daytona Beach, especially during major events such as the Daytona 500, Bike Week and Spring Break. Wireless networks are great, but they have security issues.

Security was the nice thing about the Airespace system. Airespace allows separation between the access point and the server appliance, providing wireless intelligence while minimizing maintenance costs due to inclement weather and lightening strikes. It provides separate and secure networks (virtual LANs) with priority controls, and it has built-in security that is compatible with the city's Windows 2003 domain and provides single-point logon for seamless connectivity.

We will equip 120 traffic cabinets, which have fiber, with Airespace wireless access points. An existing NetMotion server will determine the fastest available route back to the city's network. This will allow public safety officers to benefit from the current 45K bit/sec GPRS network available citywide and the new 802.11b wireless network, which will give them access speeds up to 11M bit/sec within a half-mile radius of the access points.

This tool not only will take care of the main focus on public safety, but also will ultimately serve every other department in the city.

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Stephen Ralston , manager of ISS, city of Daytona Beach
Years in networking: 6-plus
His favorite: ArcIMS
Vendor: ESRI

This tool provides a way of bringing a geographical information system [GIS] to a Web server and spatially presenting the information. For example, if you wanted to know where all the traffic cabinets are in the city, we could give you a list of them, or we could plot them geographically and place them on a map. This is a great integrator of data.

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