Wireless security, MPLS and iSCSI on tap at iLabs

Network World, 05/06/02

Every year since 1986, engineers have taken off their vendor hats and come together at NetWorld+Interop to create a multivendor, interoperability test bed focusing on the hottest emerging technologies. This year, Network World is sponsoring the InteropNet Labs and we sent two of our Global Test Alliance partners to the pre-stage event last month in California to participate in the testing and to report on their findings.

In this exclusive package of stories, Joel Snyder reports on the first public interoperability testing of the 802.1x wireless security standard and on the world's largest MPLS interoperability test. In addition, Kenneth Percy reports on the coming-out party for a new category of products - storage devices based on iSCSI, the new standard that enables storage over IP.

Down and dirty with Wireless LAN security
The 3-year-old Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol has been discredited so thoroughly that its authentication and encryption capabilities are not considered sufficient for use in enterprise networks. In response to the WEP fiasco, many wireless LAN vendors have latched onto IEEE 802.1x standard to help authenticate and secure both wireless and wired LANs. The wildcard with 802.1x protocol is interoperability.

What is 802.1x?

The skinny on iSCSI SANs
In what was a coming-out party for the Internet Small Computer System Interface protocol, these debuting products tested by the iLabs IP storage team showed a high level of interoperability and a surprising level of functionality.

MPLS: more interesting than you think
With more MPLS vendors in one room then ever before, more tests at the bleeding edge of MPLS standardization and the most sophisticated test plan for MPLS interoperability ever written, this was a one-of-a-kind event.

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