AirWave Extends Enterprise Wi-Fi Network Security and Management




Farpoint Group Confirms the Need for Advanced Management Capabilities to Deliver on the Promise of Wi-Fi

SAN MATEO, CA -/October 10, 2005 - Wi-Fi Technology News/-Providing customers with the most significant features upgrade to date, AirWave Wireless, the leader in Wi-Fi network management and security, today unveiled its new AirWave Management Platform (AMP) 4.0 software. AirWave also announced that California's San Lorenzo Unified School District, has selected the software release to manage, operate and protect its growing Wi-Fi network.

"With high operational costs, major security concerns and complicated management hurdles, many CIOs and senior executives have been questioning whether their Wi-Fi investments are paying off," said Farpoint Group's Craig Mathias. "By addressing these issues and providing clear visibility into wireless network usage and performance, AirWave is helping enterprises to realize the significant return on investment that Wi-Fi can add to their bottom line."

AMP 4.0 software was specifically designed to enable enterprises to further reduce the operational costs associated with running a Wi-Fi network. AirWave's customers complained that vendor-specific wireless management tools are designed only for highly skilled network engineers. As a result, these over-worked employees become a bottleneck in handling wireless issues. Unlike other products, AirWave provides not only the comprehensive management tools required by the network engineer, but is so easy to use, that even the Help-Desk and other IT staff members can resolve most user issues themselves.

New AMP 4.0 product features that simplify wireless management include: A new Help-Desk Dashboard containing real-time information on key aspects of network performance; a 'Search Engine-style' function that can quickly look up user and device location and data; and a 'group-based' permissions feature that allows Help-Desk users to see only the specific network segments for which they are responsible.

"We selected AMP over competitive solutions because of the software's intuitive user interface and unique ability to help our IT staff support our fast-growing network, which currently includes over 600 Cisco access points," said Art Cipriano, Director of Information Technology at San Lorenzo Unified School District. "We chose AMP over Cisco's WLSE because it is easier to use, which allows us to manage our network more efficiently and significantly reduce our costs in the long run."

AMP 4.0's other innovative new features include:

-- VisualRF -- Making the Airwaves Visible: To manage a wireless LAN, the IT staff needs to be able to visualize the network quickly and easily. AirWave's new graphical VisualRF module provides an end-to-end visualization solution, from initial site planning to real-time RF monitoring.

Using AirWave's Visio-based site planning tool, AirWave Wireless Site Plan(TM) (AWSP), wireless LAN professionals can quickly draw a preliminary site plan, specifying where access points will be located and how they should be configured. Unlike other site planning solutions, AWSP enables users to build maps from any existing drawings, including JPEGs, Visio documents, and CAD drawings.

AirWave's VisualRF module automatically updates this map with real-time information, to create a living, color-enhanced graphical view of the entire RF network environment that can be viewed via a web browser. VisualRF gathers and correlates information from existing access points and other network elements to present an accurate and comprehensive view of the network.

-- Complete Protection from Outside Intrusion: Rogue access point detection solutions that rely exclusively on RF data will not detect rogues where they are most likely to be -- far from an existing wireless access point or sensor. With the 4.0 release, AirWave's RAPIDS solution has been upgraded to eliminate 'false positive' results and to enable it to detect the 100 top-selling SOHO market access points through wired network scans alone. When RF data is available to supplement the information from the wired network, the VisualRF software can quickly locate the physical location of the rogue device and provide IT the information required to shut the device down.

-- Extended Multi-Vendor and Multi-architecture Support: The AMP 4.0 upgrade supports hardware from additional vendors, including LANCOM Systems, Nomadix, and Cisco's extended line of Aironet and Airespace access points.

-- Automated RF Channel Management: AMP 4.0 uses a sophisticated algorithm that considers both real-time RF data and historical usage patterns to optimize RF channel assignments. AMP's VisualRF module presents network engineers with 'before' and 'after' RF maps for review before accepting the recommended changes.

"The keys to controlling IT costs have always been automation and an efficient division of labor that allows appropriate resources to be used for each task," said AirWave CEO, Gary Hegna. "Yet, with wireless networks, organizations often have to call a high-level network engineer every time a user has a difficult time connecting to the network. Our goal with AMP 4.0 is simply to restore sanity and an equal division of labor between the engineer and help-desk."

AMP 4.0 is available through AirWave and its distribution partners in October 2005. For more information please visit http://www.airwave.com.

About AirWave

AirWave Wireless, Inc. is the leading developer of network management software solutions that provide administrators a single point of intelligent control to monitor, analyze, and configure their wireless network infrastructure. The privately held company is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and is backed by investors Westbury Equity Partners, Ignition Partners and Idealab. The company's patent-pending AirWave Management Platform(TM) software is sold through a global network of value-added resellers and systems integrators. For more information, visit the company's website at http://www.airwave.com.