Fluke Networks has added wireless analysis to the EtherScope Network Assistant, the portable analyzer designed to aid in the rapid installation, maintenance and troubleshooting of 10/100/gigabit and now wireless enterprise networks.
Fluke did this to address what it sees as the growing use of wireless networking in IT organizations worldwide.
Enterprise-class wireless networks are growing 12% per year, and total wireless spending is expected to reach $3.5 billion by 2008. The portable analyzer is now one tool that works for both wired and wireless networks, at speeds up to gigabit and across all 802.11 bands, allowing the technician to solve more problems on growing, increasingly complex networks.
"Since its introduction it has been clear that EtherScope has a well-defined constituency," says Jeffrey Nudler, senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates. "The addition of a/b/g wireless testing to its full-duplex gigabit capabilities plus its proficiency at device discovery make this a truly versatile troubleshooting tool for the network technician."
Wireless EtherScope scans 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency ranges, providing the visibility to identify, locate and disable rogue access points and unauthorized ad-hoc networks across all bands and channels. EtherScope displays the security settings of all discovered wireless devices and alerts the user to potential problems with security configurations. Users can use EtherScope to quickly test, verify and modify wireless encryption and authorization configurations, supervise wireless client EAP authentication processes and pinpoint where and when the process breaks down.
EtherScope can automatically detect problems by monitoring the network and alerting the user to potential problems related to RF performance, improper security settings or security threats. It can be used to sort problem logs by severity to ensure that the highest priority issues are located quickly.
EtherScope offers site survey capabilities to record snapshots of the RF environment at points within a facility. It enables real-time signal strength measurements to be compared to historical records, letting the technician see changes in the RF environment.
The device's findings can be documented with comprehensive Web-viewable, XML-coded reports, making it easy to review and document network attributes, baseline performance, device inventory, problem logs and switch-port statistics.
Fluke Networks is based in Everett, WA. For more information visit www.flukenetworks.com.
