Shaun Hummel

This article discusses how to improve video over wireless performance. Many companies are using various new video content technologies today such as live video streaming, webcasting, video conferencing and web conferencing. YouTube services continue to be popular and are using increasingly more bandwidth as companies use video for training and marketing purposes. Google language translation service can now convert text, making the English text based videos available to other countries as well.

The popularity of cloud computing deserves some discussion of what comprises the services and the value proposition to companies today wanting to become more cost effective. Cloud computing takes the concept of managed services and adds newer web-based applications called Software as a Service (SaaS) and virtualized infrastructure services such as SAN storage and Data Center services.

The work from home option often called telecommuting is not an easy sell to employers who have used a work model that has consisted of employees commuting daily during the work week. The fears that employees wont do the assigned tasks and not continue communicating with co-workers is a concern. The work goals should be defined as specifically as possible whether your working from home part-time or at the office each day.

The wireless access points operate as bridges with no routing defined anywhere on the wireless network segment. All VLANs are defined on the wired switches and mapped with specific SSIDs at each access point. The maximum number of VLANs and SSIDs per access point that can be mapped is 16. The wireless client attaches or associates with a specific SSID which in turn will map client with membership in a specific VLAN.

The network switch is the most common network device with most network infrastructure and as such selection of new switches or upgrading is a key part of most network design projects. Wireless designs will have switches interfacing with access points. That will in some cases have an affect on the switch such as increased utilization, assigned switch ports, access lists, trunking, Power over Ethernet (PoE) wattage draw or spanning tree protocol. The decision to buy new switches or upgrade will be

Web conferencing is available FREE of charge allowing recruiters to interview candidates from their office and setting up video interviews between their distant clients and candidates at the recruiter office. Some recruiters often have to interview candidates for 10 minutes at their office before approving resume submittal and clients of course want to do personal interviews unless it is a contract. Having the option to offer personal interviews is a selling point.

This article discusses how to secure your home and business wireless network. The process of a client associating and authenticating to an access point is standard. The security requirements vary from a home network, standard small businesses to government departments requiring stringent network security.

Enterprise companies today employ firewalls that do stateful inspection of sessions between external and internal hosts and devices. Cisco employs a patented ASA algorithm that utilizes source IP address, destination IP address, TCP sequence numbers, port numbers and TCP flags to examine and prevent unauthorized sessions.

802.11a standard was approved in 1999 with the IEEE committee. It specifies a maximum data rate of 54 Mbps using 5.15 GHz - 5.35 GHz and 5.725 GHz - 5.825 GHz unlicensed bands in the United States. The advantage of 802.11a is higher throughput however the cell coverage is smaller and additional access points will be needed. There is much less interference from devices such as cell phones, microwaves and commercial devices using the 2.4 GHz band.

The process of troubleshooting your network involves a methodology that starts with cabling and works through the OSI model to the application layer. The network devices have a network cable that terminates at a wired switch. Cabling is a source of a lot of network problems. The key with troubleshooting is to determine what has changed. Sometimes it is hardware that isn't working or some change was made such as new software, configured equipment or additional employees stressing the network.