AirMagnet Takes Wireless Software Title

For Cherokee Nation IT manager Jon James, the choice of AirMagnet, Inc.’s

Laptop Analyzer 6.0, which won in the wireless software category in

Datamation’s Product of the Year 2006 awards, is a no-brainer.

James, who is based in Tahlequah, Okla. with the tribal nation, has used Laptop Analyzer for three years and is a devout fan. ”It’s very simple to implement. We use it for wireless surveys, detection of problem areas and some rogue access point detection,” he says.

The Cherokee Nation has more than 2,000 employees and a wide-area network

that spans an area of more than 7,000 square miles. Laptop Analyzer helps

James home in on radio frequency interference and troubleshoot solutions

for disruptions in wireless LAN service.

”A typical example of how we use Laptop Analyzer is to see if a desktop

computer that’s been moved inside an enclosed cabinet would have enough

signal strength,” he says. The IT manager also uses the tool to make

sure that if computers are moved around an office, they do not suffer

from interference. ”With Laptop Analyzer, we found one user’s computer

was in the path of several metal door frames, which blocked the signal,

so we had to relocate the antenna for the access point,” he says.

”IT managers used to be left on their own to hunt and peck to find these

types of problems,” says Wade Williamson, product manager at AirMagnet,

which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. ”Now there is enough information and

intelligence in the box so they don’t have to go to wireless school to

learn this stuff. Laptop Analyzer listens to airwaves and digests the

information automatically. It gives IT managers a list of what’s wrong

and here’s what’s causing you pain.”

Craig Mathias, principal at the Farpoint Group consultancy in Ashland,

Mass., says the Laptop Analyzer’s reporting and auditing features are

critical for companies that fall under compliance regulations, such as

the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and

Accountability Act (HIPAA).

”Banks, insurance companies, health care organizations and other

regulated sectors need third-party tools like Laptop Analyzer for

compliance purposes,” he says. ”Large enterprise-class wireless

deployments should use these tools in conjunction with their traditional

network management and monitoring software to provide for checks and

balances.”

Mathias says Laptop Analyzer lets IT managers quickly produce reports

that highlight network anomalies. ”They can find security violations,

measure workloads and see if there are misconfigurations,” he says.

”Wireless LANs will become the default LAN for a lot of enterprises over

the next few years for data and voice. They will need products like

Laptop Analyzer to help them manage this challenge.”

Other wireless software tools that made the grade with Datamation readers

were OptiView OC3/OC12 WAN Analyzer from Fluke Networks, which took

second place, and SpotLock from JiWire, Inc., and Elektron Enterprise

Edition from Corriente Networks LLC, both of which were finalists.

RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS

• Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Driving Greater Equality

  FEATURE |  By James Maguire,
  December 16, 2020

• AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  December 11, 2020

• Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  December 04, 2020

• Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 18, 2020

• Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  November 10, 2020

• Top 10 AIOps Companies

  FEATURE |  By Samuel Greengard,
  November 05, 2020

• What is Text Analysis?

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 02, 2020

• How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 29, 2020

• Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 23, 2020

• The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 16, 2020

• Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  October 07, 2020

• Finding a Career Path in AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  October 05, 2020

• CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  September 25, 2020

• Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 25, 2020

• Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2021

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  September 22, 2020

• NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 18, 2020

• Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 14, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 13, 2020

• IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 11, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

  FEATURE |  By James Maguire,
  September 09, 2020