Network Analysis Unplugged

802.11n Interoperability Jumps to 28 Vendors; Patent FUD?

As anticipated, proponents of 802.11n have something to cheer about.  The Wi-Fi Alliance announced that 95 products have been certified for 802.11n Draft 2.0.  The product mix is from some 28 vendors which is pretty impressive considering the testing program began just three months ago.

Big name chip vendors including Atheros, Intel, and Marvell are in the fray, as well as heavyweights Apple, Cisco, HP, Sony, and Toshiba to name a few.

The Register, a flamboyant UK tech web rag, is the flash point of the latest rumors reported that “…a significant threat to the standard from patents held by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Despite requests from the IEEE, CSIRO has failed to promise not to sue anyone for infringement.” 

As with any IEEE standard, if any technology incorporated into the standard has any patents, they must be waived by the respective patent holders.  Naturally, the various engineers and companies that contribute to the IEEE try to avoid such conflicts in the first place or get a “Letter of Assurance” not to sue from any patent holders.

Not specified by the “exclusive” Register news what the patent actually covers.  A cursory search of the CISRO web site down under did not reveal any ongoing patent issues with the IEEE.  Wi-Fi Planet reported back in 2005 that the patent in question relates to OFDM.

CISRO is certainly not alone in patents pertaining to technologies employed by 802.11n.  In fact, the aforementioned article states that “The IEEE lists 23 companies with patents related to 802.11n. According to the U.S. Patent Office, there are 634 U.S. patent applications and 255 patents granted regarding MIMO.”  More specifically, the article notes that “Of particular interest is a Speedus Corp. patent similar to one definition of MIMO. U.S. Patent 5,949,793 includes a method "relating to simultaneous transmission of digital and analog signals in the same band."

Have all patent concerns been addressed by 802.11n? Is CISRO unique as the last hold out for a Letter of Assurance to the IEEE?  I doubt it.  I do believe however, that all parties will come to terms – eventually.

How potent is NetScout's buyout of Network General?

On the heels of this week's announcment of Cisco buying Cognio, comes the news of NetScout acquiring Network General.  This time the terms were announced - $205 million.  That's $70 million less than when McAfee sold off the "Sniffer Unit" to Silver lake back in '04 and of course, far less value then when Network General merged with Network Associates in '97.  Is there a trend here?

Tim O'Neil over at LoveMyTool, gives us insight on the deal and reminds us that NetScout recently sold $120 million in stock, a sure sign that a deal was cooking.  NetScout's latest quarter came in at around $30 million.

As former CTO over at WildPackets, I kept a close watch on various competitors.  With NetG continuing to recover from the ill-fated NAI merger and subsequent break off as an independent again, two old industry rivals are about to become friends. I think the key to a buyout of this magnitude will be how quickly the two companies can come up with a cohesive, truly integrated product family.

Let's us learn from not only the NAI debacle. Hopefully the painful integration issues and lessons learned when Network General bought NetVigil will also be of value.

Cisco + Cognio = #122

The big news today in the network analysis industry was Cisco's definitive agreement to buyout out Cognio, making it their 122nd acquisition, and the first for Cisco's fiscal 2008.  Cognio went through some $20 million via a few rounds of VC developing their proprietary SAGE chip and software over the years. 

2007 was a break-out year, having a mature card/laptop-based RF Spectrum analysis product for the 802.11 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands, not to mention four OEMs including Cisco.  According to the press release, Cognio will fold into the Ethernet and Wireless Technology Group, part of the Wireless Networking Business Unit.

Cisco is underscoring the importance of premises wireless lately, with their recent 802.11n announcement and today's statement that "Wireless spectrum is a strategic asset for our customers."  Mark these words:  A strategic asset.

As typical when buying a private company, terms were not disclosed.  Sources tell me it is was a public for private stock swap deal with some cash thrown in namely to buy out employees that are bailing.  Sweet.

RF Spectrum analysis of 802.11 has caught my attention over past couple of years.  See RF Spectrum Analysis, RF Vision, $25 and Device Decimates Your WiFi.  I have fond memories during my tenure at WIldPackets of working with Cognio at their humble Germantown Maryland headquarters, a facility which will be shut down.  Employees staying on will be moving to beautiful rural Richfield Ohio, a village of some 3,500 residents just off Interstate 77 and home to Cisco's wireless group (the Aironet Systems facilities acquired by Cisco back in 1999 for a cool $800 million).

What does all this mean for the three remaining re-branders:  AirMagnet, Fluke Networks, and WildPackets?  For the short term, business as usual.  Longer term, it's hard to say.  Most have developer's agreements in place with Cisco for other projects. What really raised my eyebrows in today's release was was the quote from Cisco VP Brett Galloway: "Cisco continues to differentiate our ability to deliver our customers rich and dependable end-user mobility experiences."

The key word is differentiate.  Right now, there is virtually no differentiation between the OEMs, save for a little custom API work by AirMagnet and some minor WildPackets SNMP trap processing.  Thus, how will Cisco pull apart from the crowd?  My guess is that they will pursue the distributed angle as part of their unified wireless strategy.  Look for new stuff in 2008, perhaps as early as Interop.

802.11n to Impact Ethernet?

In my previous blog, I looked at some of the controversy surrounding a report entitled “802.11n: The End of Ethernet?”   There is no doubt that wireless is already having an impact on Ethernet.  Is 802.11n any more special?

According to the press release for the report, 802.11n is “an appropriate LAN access substitute for wired Ethernet” when:

• The number of laptop users is growing
• The enterprise uses mobile applications
• Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) throughput is good enough
• The enterprise deploys Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
• Moves/adds/changes are frequently made
• The risk of deliberate denial of service attack is low to moderate
• Ethernet cable installation is difficult

After looking at this list, I’m thinking to myself: Which of these are existing enterprise 802.11 wireless installs failing to satisfy? It seems to boil down to the promise of a faster channel rate offered by 802.11n enabling support for a larger number of mobile and VoIP users.

Sure, Fast Ethernet is adequate for the majority of workstation and laptop users.  The problem is that we’ve migrated to a dedicated 100 Mbps switch port for every user.  With single channel 802.11n MIMO operation we’re looking at a raw bandwidth of 150 Mbps.  In single user lab tests, a file transfer can crack 100 Mbps.  Single user lab tests are not real-world.

The real problem is that if we move away from our established one-port per user switched model, we’re going back to the days of shared Ethernet, only worse. With 802.11n,  not only is bandwidth contention a factor, but other issues affect performance as well:

• Slower data rates at distances farther away from the access point
• Environmental interference (not necessarily other RF sources, but physical obstructions and attenuators)
• Having to manage QoS policies to support VoIP over wireless
• Being subject to RF jamming, and so on.

In other words, many of the same issues we’ve faced with any WiFi technology to date.

Going to 300 Mbps dual channel operation will help, but has many additional issues including less spectrum to deploy multiple non-overlapping access points (a requirement to afford more coverage area as well as drop the number of users sharing channels).   Utilizing the 5 GHz “a” band will certainly help with the spectrum requirements but, unfortunately, reduces distances.  And how about laptop support for 5 GHz dual channel’s additional  power requirements, the more complex antenna systems, complete interoperability at the high end, etc.?  The jury is still out.

There is no question that wireless will continue to impact Ethernet by way of eroding the Ethernet component market which appears to be the crux of the report.  The title was merely a grabber.  The real answer is much more complex.  For instance, how do laptops really come into play?  What happened to the prediction from a couple of years ago that laptops would replace desktops?  But I digress.

Are we ready to go back to shared Ethernet?

802.11n: The End of Ethernet? Not!

Controversial reports are designed to generate lots of media attention.   A report from Paul DeBeasi at the Burton Group is no exception.  There’s been continued buzz surrounding a report entitled “802.11n: The End of Ethernet?”  With all the blogs I’ve been writing about 802.11n, I wish I had thought of it.

In my case, I would have used the attention grabbing title to state why it would not be the case.  I figured with all the publicity surrounding the report, why not provide some counterpoints?

The report claims that 802.11n marks the beginning a rapid shift away from LAN deployments.  It does not state when this beginning is or was.  802.11n is still in draft stage.  If anything, the recent Cisco 802.11n product announcement just this month marks the beginning, but the report was released back in June.  So where’s the mark?

DeBeasi is quoted as saying “802.11n will put pervasive mobility on the fast track.”  Wait a second.  I thought WiFi period but pervasive mobility on the fast track. Remember when laptops required PCMCIA cards to connect to Ethernet and now every laptop has Ethernet built-in?   The same thing has already happened to with wireless.  Virtually every laptop built in the past year or so has built-in 802.11 b/g.  Thus, they are already enjoying pervasive mobility today.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m bullish on 802.11n.  So what is it about 802.11n that spells doom for Ethernet, according to the report?

Tomorrow, I’ll provide you with some additional insight and counterpoints.

Pocket Hub to the Rescue

A recent quote I provided for a paper by industry veteran Tim O'Neil published on lovemytool.com, reminded me that sometimes the hardest problems can figured out with the simplest tools.  Take a recent experience I had resolving a performance issue with a particular server in a server farm.  It’s somewhat ironic that I actually solved the problem by inserting a hub as an analyzer tap (SPAN was not an option in this particular situation) in an otherwise 100 Mbps full duplex connection.

The server did about 4 Mbps per second connected directly to a switch port and nearly 80 Mbps when we inserted the hub.  The problem was recognized immediately - an auto negotiate mismatch between the switch and server and we didn’t even need to look at the packets.

It's also a good idea to keep a constant check on switch port collision and CRC statistics via your SNMP monitoring tool.  High values are one such indication of a duplex mismatch.  Yes, even today, we still see such problems from time to time.  Mike Pennacchi over at Protocol Specialists LLC, keeps reminding me of such.

BTW, real hubs are hard to find these days.  Everything has gone to a "switch on on chip" and that's what you find inside today's purported hubs.  My recommendation is to grab a few pocket-sized hubs for your team before it's too late.  The NetGear Dual-Speed (DS) 10/100 Mbps hub models, are my favorite and you can still find some on eBay.

Cisco Does 802.11n – For Real

Cisco has dropped the 802.11n shoe by announcing their first enterprise level wireless gear meeting the 802.11n Draft 2.0 specification (their consumer division, Linksys, has been shipping draft n gear for some time now).

The WiFi Draft n certified access point has been dubbed the Aironet 1250 Series.  This AP can run in unified (LWAP) or autonomous (stand alone) mode. It looks like unified operation requires the new Cisco Wireless Service Module (WiSM) which pops into a Catalyst 6500 as well as Cisco Unified Wireless Network 4.2 software.

Wisely, Cisco is not immediately offering their own client card.  Let’s face it – there are simply too many notebook options out there (PC Card, ExpressCard, USB, built-in, and so on.)  Instead, they have been working with Intel to pre-test, certify, and offer new Client 5.0 software that will work with the Centrino 4965agn chipset.

Another point of interest is that running the power hungry 1250 AP on Power over Ethernet (PoE) will require a blade upgrade in existing 3750, 4500 and 6500 Catalyst switches.

My friend Frank Bulk over at Network Computing Online, says this about performance: "Sites <with Cisco> have seen rates of 120, 130, and even has high as 138 Mbps per radio. While this is likely in a greenfield environment without the debilitating effects of legacy clients, these claims did exceed by a large margin those privately demonstrated by both Meru and Trapeze at Interop Las Vegas."

Back in May I pointed out the optimism with 802.11n Draft 2.0 – the first version with real hope for interoperability - as well as various caveats and why it will resurrect interest in the almost forgotten 802.11a 5 GHz band.   In fact, Intel has previously stated that the aforementioned Centrino chip will only support 40 MHz (two 20 MHz channels) operation in the 5 GHz band.

It certainly seems though Intel provided the catalyst this time around.

Cisco 250 AP, 802.11n whitepaper, more
All about the Intel 4965agn
Network Analysis Unplugged:  802.11n Going Enterprise?

802.11 RF Survey Patents Heat Up

Motorola has acquired some interesting RF management software – and apparently some patents – with its acquisition of Wireless Valley back in December of 2005.  Add the acquisition of Symbol Technology in January of this year and you’ve got some serious clout in the burgeoning 802.11 market.

So what’s next?  Protect that IP.  Moto has launched a lawsuit against Aruba to stop them from using certain technologies pertaining to 3D site surveying and predictive design along with a pair of related patents from Symbol dealing with wireless LAN switching. To add insult to injury, Moto is adding damages for past use.  It seems that that some prior licensing attempt must have fallen through.

Aruba turned an IPO earlier this year and is apparently doing quite well financially as of the last quarter.  Aruba’s stock had jumped 48% since the IPO, but after Moto's Press Release (apparently after the market closed last Friday) Aruba's stock fell when the market reopened following Labor Day.  There was some some nervousness later in the day with a weak attempt at a rebound (I'm starting to talk like a stock analyst).  The net affect on the first trading day after the announcement was a 6% drop, so I guess the news wasn't TOO bad as yet.

The lawsuit will be interesting to keep an eye on as there are numerous other vendors in the RF site survey space including AirMagnet, AirTight, Cisco, and Ekahau.  Motorola holds a ton of patents.  One can’t help but wonder how much licensing adds to it's bottom line.

The Original Press Release
Motorola’s Wireless Valley Technology
Some nice 802.11 site survey white papers from Motorola (with no registration to boot)

A New Beginning

Yesterday was the first Monday in September, a day set aside since the 1880s as Labor Day. As the unofficial last day of summer before kids go back to school, it’s a day of rest, and a time to reflect. With the recent closing of WildPackets’ Minnesota office, I felt that need to reflect.

WildPackets was formed back in 2000 after AG Group acquired a training company, Optimized Engineering, and my former company, Net3 Group. Net3 Group was the genesis of the wonderful expert system and the incredible peer map (have you tried it lately?) that you see in today’s OmniPeek. They debuted in NetSense--the first post-capture expert system of its kind that analyzed packet captures from some eighteen different protocol analyzers.

Yikes, how many of those eighteen analyzers remain today? Indeed, much has changed in just seven short years. Wireshark has captured (no pun intended) the fundamental packet capture and decode market. The surviving major value-add players are the likes of Fluke Networks, Network General, Network Instruments, Agilent, and of course, WildPackets.  We're down to five from eighteen.  Perhaps throw in AirMagnet or Niksun for six.  However, these and other players seem to focus more on niche markets like wireless security or forensics.  But I digress.

A major milestone for WildPackets after the acquistion was the release of EtherPeek NX and AiroPeek NX, bringing NetSense technology into real-time packet analysis and propelling WildPackets to the next growth level.  I’m really proud of that accomplishment because I was able to conceive, design, and actually write the code.

As I moved from VP to CTO within WildPackets, my role shifted to competitive analysis, speaking, writing, customer facing, tradeshows, on-site training, etc.  In spite of all that, I continued doing what I loved best--driving the expert system in emerging areas of application performance, VoIP, and wireless.

Meanwhile, I’m taking a short leave of absence to reflect, listen, and see what’s out there.  This blog will continue with comments, opinions, and tips pertaining to all things network analysis and troubleshooting – my passion for the past 25 years.

Stay tuned.