WLAN products undergo facelift

Three wireless LAN vendors are releasing software upgrades that add features for intrusion detection, radio frequency management and wireless VoIP.

The changes are part of the evolution of enterprise WLANs, which includes giving network administrators more sophisticated management tools and better tuning of the WLAN infrastructure to deal with voice traffic.

AirDefense this week plans to introduce AirDefense Enterprise 7.0, which through new technology can be used to collect and store historical data to more accurately distinguish between routine and potentially dangerous activities.

The offering, which combines radio sensors, a rack-mounted security appliance and systems software, has been reworked to incorporate a very fast, custom-built data storage facility, instead of an external SQL database.

The new data store, dubbed Intelli, can collect and manage data on about 250 variables per minute for each wireless client and access point on the WLAN. Variables include signal strength, historical record of typical signal strength, the encryption being used, details on the devices, what clients are associated with a given access point, and so on. For each device, the 7.0 release can store as much as 200 days worth of data.

When a new device is detected on the WLAN, the AirDefense product can now collect a mass of data on the device's behavior and features, and compare that with the patterns of comparable nearby access points or clients. Algorithms use real-time data combined with historical patterns to create a "threat assessment score" for the new device, according to AirDefense executives.

The new data store also makes it possible to boost the number of wireless devices that can be managed by a factor of five, to 10,000 sensors and 300,000 devices.

Also new is a client program that can be downloaded to corporate laptops, where it can enforce a range of WLAN security policies when users are tapping into public wireless hot spots or a home WLAN.

AirDefense Enterprise pricing remains unchanged, with sensors at about $1,000 each, an entry-level security appliance for $5,000 and a high-end version for $12,000.

Bluesocket manages

Bluesocket last week unveiled changes to its BlueSecure Controller line and its BlueView Management software.

BlueSecure 5.1 now enables the twin radios in the company's access points to continuously cycle between data traffic and RF monitoring. From this data, the controller creates a constantly changing picture of what's going on in the radio waves. New algorithms, for example, can detect that activity on channel 6 of a given access point indicates interference from some other radio source. The controller can then change the channel assignment of that access point.

Another algorithm helps the controller balance the number of clients on a given access point, causing some to reassociate with a neighboring access point. Another new feature is support for 802.11i key caching for mobile clients, such as wireless VoIP phone users.

The initial user authentication in effect is stored and reused as the phone moves from one access point to another, instead of a time-consuming re-authentication being needed with each move.