Technology demos outshine gimmicks

Not that videoconferencing, VoIP and storage demonstrations lack for entertainment value.

LAS VEGAS - Rock bands, beer, booth babes - vendors at Interop have used every trick in the book to lure people wandering around the show floor into their booths, but this year the coolness of some of the demos overshadowed the gimmicks (complete Interop coverage).

The Mandalay Bay Convention Center floor was less boisterous, with the lack of blaring music, jugglers and acrobats giving the expo a more serious, businesslike tone, but that doesn't mean a little flash didn't help. For example, one vendor combined the attraction of a libation with a demonstration of its videoconferencing system.

The vendor, LifeSize, demonstrated its LifeSize Room videoconferencing equipment with a virtual wine tasting. Potential customers interacted live with a wine expert on a high-definition screen who guided the group through a tasting of a red and a white wine, glasses of which sat on tables in front of the attendees. The expert on the screen fielded questions about wine from the group.

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LAS VEGAS - Rock bands, beer, booth babes - vendors at Interop have used every trick in the book to lure people wandering around the show floor into their booths, but this year the coolness of some of the demos overshadowed the gimmicks (complete Interop coverage).

The Mandalay Bay Convention Center floor was less boisterous, with the lack of blaring music, jugglers and acrobats giving the expo a more serious, businesslike tone, but that doesn't mean a little flash didn't help. For example, one vendor combined the attraction of a libation with a demonstration of its videoconferencing system.

The vendor, LifeSize, demonstrated its LifeSize Room videoconferencing equipment with a virtual wine tasting. Potential customers interacted live with a wine expert on a high-definition screen who guided the group through a tasting of a red and a white wine, glasses of which sat on tables in front of the attendees. The expert on the screen fielded questions about wine from the group.

Trusted Computing Group managed to keep its tiny booth crowded by virtue of what the gear in its booth was doing: implementing TCG's network access control architecture called Trusted Network Connect (TNC). The devices just sat on tables, but interested IT experts peered into monitors to see that equipment from multiple vendors could assume the standard roles assigned by TNC and work together to ensure only safe machines were able to join the secure demo network.

Meanwhile, network analysis vendor AirMagnet showed off its new product, Vo-Fi Analyzer, which tracks down what's wrong with voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) phone calls so administrators can fix the problem. The software sits on a network-attached workstation monitoring phone calls and evaluating the quality of the calls by assigning them rankings under the mean opinion score (MOS) system.

Users then sort calls based on MOS and drill down into the details of calls that scored low to find out why. The software also displays charts showing the percentage of calls falling into each MOS category. The device keeps track of jitter on calls, number of calls being handled by individual access points and the voice-data mix on a particular access point - all factors that might cause call quality to deteriorate.

Vo-Fi Analyzer works only with Cisco VoWi-Fi gear, but the company says it is working on compatibility with other IP PBX vendors.

InteropLabs drew a steady stream of people who examined an enormous network diagram of tests the labs performed on VoIP security and integration, the sheer scale of which held people rapt. The lab set up five model enterprises using gear from two dozen vendors, then tried to disrupt the traffic using attack generators. The network revealed valuable results, such as the performance of VoIP through VPNs, tricks of connecting VoIP to the public phone network, the problems network address translation poses to VoIP calls and the value of QoS in VoIP over Wi-Fi implementations.

A start-up called Kaidea drew in show-goers with large photos of firefighters battling a sea of flames. It kept their attention by claiming that its network-attached storage device can withstand a 1,700-degree Fahrenheit fire for an hour without losing data. The box also takes the shock of heavy objects falling on it without breaking, and can be submerged in 20 feet of water with no ill effects on the stored data, the company says.