* RFID moves onto the network
I first discussed in April that network-based radio-frequency identification architectures were right around the corner to fulfill a looming need to accommodate RFID deployments on a larger scale.
In fact, last week, the first fruit of Cisco’s ambitious Application-Oriented Networking (AON) initiative, which aims to tightly couple applications with network infrastructure to deliver network-wide application interoperability, bloomed. And it happens to be a network-centric RFID endeavor.
The first goal of AON for RFID, to ship next month, is to scale RFID deployments farther, more easily and less expensively than the traditional approach of connecting RFID to host computers via serial ports to support dedicated applications. In the Cisco RFID architecture, RFID readers, which pull identifying information from tags affixed to assets over the air so they can ultimately be viewed by upstream applications, become Ethernet-attached. They communicate with RFID-aware blades, or modules, in Cisco Integrated Services Routers (ISR) and data center Catalyst 6500 switches.
The blades contain Cisco-developed AON software and RFID middleware software from Cisco partner ConnecTerra. ConnecTerra makes software that complies with the EPCglobal industry-standard Application Level Events (ALE) interface, a software standard through which an application can indicate exactly what information it wants from a raw stream of RFID data.
Combined, the companies’ software performs the following functions, among others, says Chris Wiborg, solutions product manager in Cisco’s AON business unit:
* Filters RFID traffic exiting readers so that each tag is read just once.
* Helps prevent readers from interfering with one another to make sure the right tags are being read.
* Checks to ensure that items shipping are the items being requested.
* Virtualizes requests using load balancing to ensure high availability of fulfilling RFID requests.
Cisco also seems to be bundling some simple applications into the AON blades. At the EPCglobal Global U.S. Global Conference last week, it demonstrated a tag reading indicating a piece of merchandise not having been paid for, which triggered an IP telephony application within the blade to place an IP video phone call to a security guard.
Readers from Intermec and ThingMagic and tags from PanGo have been certified for interoperability with the AON blades, Wiborg says, though they must be procured from their respective vendors.
