Airmagnet Laptop Analyzer 6.0 Connects Engineers, Field Staff
Similar to peer-to-peer technology, Laptop Analyzer 6.0's ability to link together two PCs running the software can enable an engineer to connect directly to a technician in the field to see realtime details of network performance and diagnose problems, according to Rich Mironov, vice president of marketing for AirMagnet, Sunnyvale, Calif.
Solution providers said this feature is a good way to remotely provide on-the-job training for inexperienced technicians. Ben Hollifield, regional sales manager at Network Orange, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based AirMagnet partner, plans to leverage AirMagnet's software to consolidate his operations. "It's always better for us if we can keep the more experienced technicians back at base instead of out in the field," he said.
Issues can be resolved faster if field technicians are guided by more experienced engineers, said Eric Winegar, president of National LAN Exchange, an AirMagnet partner in Orem, Utah. "If you do have a rogue access point present, you can actually engage in some ad hoc triangulation and be able to find it pretty quickly," he said. Laptop Analyzer 6.0 also introduces support for Intel Centrino-based notebooks and adds a report-generation feature that can be used to demonstrate compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a new data security standard pioneered by Visa and MasterCard aimed at securing wireless transactions, according to Mironov.
"A lot of our customers have been getting serious about measuring and monitoring compliance over the past year, [since] no one wants to see their name in the headlines because they lost credit card data," Mironov said. "There are also companies that don't realize they're required to show that they've adopted strong securityif they don't, they'll be out of business." Laptop Analyzer 6.0 is available now for $3,495, which includes one year of support and updates. Yearly support renewals are 18 percent of the list price, or $629.