CENTERFOLD

Network Computing's Labs Stay In Growth Mode

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Network Computing tests hundreds of networking products each year forits various reviews, features and other editorials. Our staff evaluatesproducts under real-world situations, rather than isolated ones. The Network Computing technology editors create scenarios similar to those that readersface when using a particular product.

Readers would then have a clearer picture of how well that product wouldwork within their company environment. Our lab partners enable us to accessa much larger and more heterogeneous environment for testing enterprisenetworking products and keep close involvement in how organizations areusing networking technology.

Lab sites, located at Syracuse University, N.Y., University of Wisconsinat Madison, and San Mateo, Calif., serve as evaluation centers for mostarticles appearing in the publication. The Syracuse site focuses mostlyon network management and remote access products. The Wi sconsin locationtests network infrastructure, Internet products and middleware, while SanMateo's lab concentrates on network operating systems, messaging, applicationservices and WAN products and services.

Network Computing labs jointly share product evaluation resources with amajor California ene rgy company. This provides Network Computing editorswith a Fortune 500 outlook on the evaluation process.

Bruce Boardman, Network Computing's strategic lab director and senior technologyeditor, describes this network as "a distributed environment of multipletopologies." Each site uses Ethernet and one other topology, dependingon what equipment will be tested. A nationwide frame relay network, withPermanent Virtual Circuits (PVCs), interconnects the three locations andis hubbed out of San Mateo to each lab, including the Manhasset, N.Y., corporateoffice.

Back-end Internet access over frame relay and both analog and digital multiremoteaccess are available throughout this enterprise network. Editors can communicateacross the country using this access.

This access extends to the Manhasset corporate office. The link into thelab network adds magazine and Web production-oriented traffic, testing thefabric of the distributed labs, according to Boardman.

The greatest challeng e is "being a good guest on the network and notinterrupting the host network," says Boardman. "When coordinatingwork across this wide area, it's difficult to keep people in sync. We needto know what changes have to be made and take the time to build the infrastructureaccordingly for future projects." By tying environments over multipledomains, the network routes lab traffic without violating the Internet spacethe hosts possess.

Most of the network spans across multiple Class B domains using frame relay,ISDN BRI and PRI and switched analog remote access. Access stems from thededicated ISDN BRI to T3 connections. Readers' needs affect how our networkwill grow.

UpdatedJuly 8, 1996