NetMotion Wireless Server Is Just What Doctor Ordered

Seattle-based NetMotion's mobile middleware software provides "session persistence," or seamless roaming across subnets, and a variety of security options,features solution providers say are critical in a hospital environment where employees frequently move from building to building in the course of a workday.

"The benefit for hospitals is that as users move about the campus, walking in and out of wireless coverage, the session still remains open," said Brian Hunt, president of Anyware Network Solutions, a solution provider based in Englewood, Colo.

In hospitals, staff members are not only traversing a large area; they're also walking in areas where wireless networks can't penetrate, such as elevators and X-ray rooms, said Shelly Julien, vice president of marketing at NetMotion, which was spun off from WRQ in March 2001, employs 42 people and received $8.6 million in financing from several venture capital firms.

While users will be unable to access the network in those areas, the network sessions will remain open, and users can pick up where they left off once they come back within network range, Julien said.

NetMotion's software tricks the network by making it appear as if mobile devices are still active even when they aren't on the network, Julien said. "We have server-side software that manages the IP addresses so that all the mobile devices look to the network as if they don't move," she said.

In addition, the NetMotion setup ensures that employees don't lose any of their work, Julien said. If a doctor enters an elevator while writing a prescription, for example, the physician can pick up exactly where he or she left off after exiting the elevator.

Network persistence is all well and good, but for wireless networks, security is an equally important requisite, said Hunt, adding that NetMotion's Mobility Server offers session authentication and a high level of encryption.

The product, in fact, offers several authentication schemes. In version 4, released earlier this year, the company added support for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) security servers, as well as Active Directory, Windows NT LAN Manager version 2 (NTLMv2), Kerberos and PKI.

The software also secures communications with VPN-level encryption using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Twofish block cipher, Data Encryption Standard (DES) or 3DES.

Anyware Network Solutions is working on its first hospital implementation of Mobility Server, and NetMotion's Julien said the software has already been successfully rolled out in several hospitals across the country, including Owensboro-Mercy Health System in Kentucky, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Texas, Washington Hospital Center in Washington D.C., and Oregon's Willamette Valley Medical Center.

"Mobility [Server has enhanced our caregivers' productivity and increased the security of patient information," said Gary Noland, network administrator at Willamette Valley Medical Center, McMinnville, Ore.

And version 4 of NetMotion's product offers additional features that are helpful to IT administrators, such as Web-based remote management, which allows them to manage the network by accessing the server from any secure Web browser. The software also provides improved data compression and Windows CE .Net support.

Mobility Server is priced at $3,750, and there is an additional per-user charge based on volume, Julien said. A 100-user installation would be priced at $200 per person, she said.