Slew Of High-Speed Wireless, Web Load-Balancing Products To Debut At ComNet

IT managers are gaining more and more tools for cutting their users loose from the physical confines of their networks.

Proxim, a longtime player in the wireless arena, will disclose at next week's ComNet trade show its plans to branch out from building wireless LANs to deliver products for ISPs, cable providers and telecommunications providers.

Forthcoming products will provide standards-based, wireless distribution of broadband data and voice services to multiple devices with "no new wires," and wireless bridging products with speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

Proxim is teaming with Motorola, Compaq, Cayman, 2Wire, Next Level Communications and Adaptive Broadband to develop and deliver these products, starting this year.

Also in the wireless arena, 3Com Corp. will unveil its 11-Mbps AirConnect line, touting the products' ability to extend wired networks and provide mobile employees with real-time access to information, applications and network services when and where they need it.

Cabletron will demonstrate its most recent wireless product, the RoamAbout Outdoor, which allows IT managers to wirelessly connect buildings in a campus.

Web traffic load balancing will also be in the spotlight at ComNet. HydraWeb Technologies will demonstrate Hydra1500, geared to small e-commerce companies. The Hydra1500 offers application-aware load balancing in a small form factor.

HydraWeb will also announce the sale of load-balancing devices to Monster.com, which anticipates a traffic spike during Monster.com's Super Bowl advertising campaign.

Phobos Corp. will unveil two new stand-alone networking appliances: ipXpress, a local load balancer that directs traffic among servers to eliminate down time; and sslXpress, a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) device that can handle up to 400 secure transactions per second.

Network Engines will announce five new products--from entry-level NT and Linux Web servers, called the Roadster line, to high-end, e-commerce servers also running Linux or NT, called the Viper family.

Another vendor, RAD Data Communications, will launch the ACE-2002 Multiservice access concentrator, which carries IP traffic and ensures end-to-end QoS.

The product features ATM traffic management, ATM monitoring and maintenance capabilities.

The ACE-2002 access concentrator can also consolidate traffic originating from LAN, ATM and time-division multiplexing devices.

RAD Data also plans to demonstrate its newest high-speed media converter, called the AMC-102. The product offers media conversion between a variety of interfaces, including Gigabit Ethernet, at speeds of up to OC-12.