New products make remote links easier and cheaper
About one-third of each audience on our Remote Office Networking Technology Tour works in small companies (less than 100 employees). While the programs focused on big-company issues, two of the sponsors’ products are also suited to small ones.
Adtran is mashing all remote network devices into a single housing. While consumer and home-office product lines from Linksys, Netgear and D-Link put four Ethernet ports on the router/firewall, Adtran’s 1224 NetVanta products put a firewall, router, VPN, WAN connector and management into a 24-port wiring switch. The company also includes Power over Ethernet to power IP telephones and the like.
Enterprise networks tend to configure remote offices with all these functions provided by different hardware boxes, usually from different vendors. Integrated units reduce costs by eliminating extra housings and power supplies, plus they have a single administration interface rather than different software for each device.
Attendees asked if that architecture made the network more or less reliable, thinking if you have five boxes and one dies you still have four. But since every component must work to keep your network connected, fewer parts mean fewer things to go wrong. The Power over Ethernet ports make IP phones easier to install by avoiding the need for a power, plug and provide back-up power to keep the phones running if the power goes out. One battery backup on the router powers all phones, just like the traditional telephone network powers the phones in your home separately from the electric company.
Another smart thing in the Adtran 1224 family is the handling of network connection redundancy. Traditionally, devices like this have a fast network connection (usually to a private data network back to a main office data center) and a modem for dial back-up purposes. Now Adtran offers a broadband network connection back-up option.
One of the things Adtran folks say might put into their box is an Internet phone PBX, but they better hurry. Zultys just announced its MX30 , an IP PBX that also provides routing and firewall services for your data network (see editorial link below).
3Com practically started the LAN market with its network adapters back in 1982. While it’s out of the retail business, 3Com is still widely supported by resellers, and is big on Internet phone support, secure messaging and collaboration, and also sells some handy travel routers and print servers. One of the early companies selling VoIP products, 3Com has two levels of IP telephone switches and various phone models. You can add some 3Com phones to your existing telephone system and sneak into modern telephony rather than replacing everything at once. Its Convergence Applications Suite provides secure IM, collaboration and video conferencing with inexpensive Web cameras. Have a laptop and the software, and you have an office.
When there are several of you at a temporary remote site, such as a meeting room at a conference, 3Com’s OfficeConnect Travel Router (less than $80 online) with VPN and wireless support lets you plug in to the hotel’s Ethernet network and support up to 16 wireless users immediately over a VPN back to the office. Just because it’s portable doesn’t mean you have to take this anywhere, of course. One travel router supporting a field sales office of laptop-toting sales people can turn any remote office into a connected office. Need a printer? Try the 3Com OfficeConnect wireless print server (less than $100 online), another tiny box, and plug in any USB-equipped printer for use by all.
Enterprise companies supporting remote offices need products. Just because the label says Huge Vendor for Galactic Networks doesn’t mean there aren’t some products that fit your network and budget.
