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Fluke Tightens AirMagnet WLAN Protection: Page 2 of 2

Set for availability on Feb. 7, a complete bundle, including sensors, server and console software starts at $10,000. The AirMagnet Enterprise Server base license lists for $5,995, while the AirMagnet Enterprise Sensor, 802.11n and dedicated Spectrum Analysis radio lists for $1,395. The software upgrade is free to existing customers under contract.

Stiennon sees the two biggest strengths of AirMagnet 9.0 as the incremental updates that decouple the WIPS engine from signatures and the enhanced sensing of rogue access points over the wired network. "This (update) avoids downtime as new configurations are loaded to block new attacks, very similar to the way AV and IPS for wired networks work." As for the enhanced sensing of rogue access points, any sensor on a LAN segment can pick up the telltale signatures that an unauthorized Wi-Fi access point exhibits.

The competitive landscape is of course dominated by Cisco, with Air Defense/Motorola being another stand-alone WIPS, says Stiennon. "Airmagnet continues to offer the differentiating spectrum analysis capability in addition to these new features. Spectrum analysis is a great debugging tool for sensor and access point placement, as well as detection of other strange radio-wave activity such as 3G."

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