Cranite Systems of
Jose
certified security software for WLANs, is releasing a version of WirelessWall
for small-to-medium businesses (SMB), both standalone and on a Linux box from
partner Westcon, a channel provider
located in
Previously the company only focused on the enterprise and government customers,
including such big names as West Point Military academy, which require strong
security. Earlier this year Cranite partnered with Westcon. According to Andy
Maisel, executive vice president of corporate and business development at Cranite,
"[Westcon] said they love our stuff, but they wanted to package something
for small businesses. We worked through our architecture with them and they
wanted something easier to deploy, that would use fewer boxes, and was an all
around easier solution."
That easier solution is a version of WirelessWall that Westcon can sell as
is or preinstalled on any Linux box. It targets businesses with less than 250
users.
WirelessWall generally comes with three pieces: the policy server, an access
controller for each subnet of the network, and client software for each PC.
The companies decided that most SMBs don’t need the policy server on a separate
box, no do they usually have multiple subnets, so Cranite combined the policy
server and access controller in one.
"It’s not stripped down," Maisel pointed about the combined aspects
of the software. "There are new things added, in fact, that will be also
in the impending enterprise release" of a new version of WirelessWall.
That will include new WLAN monitoring tools, and items like an ‘idle time out’
to kick off inactive users, something very handy under the needs healthcare
is finding under
the HIPAA rules.
"It’s not ‘lite,’ it’s just tailored to the market," says Maisel.
WirelessWall carries a FIPS 140-2 rating. FIPS is short for Federal
Information Processing Standards; the 140 cryptographic standard was created
by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The standard has
four levels of security – Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 — that increase
in quality as they go up. FIPS 140-1, the first level, only supports DES and
3DES encryption. The various levels are suitable for a wide array of areas in
which cryptographic modules could be used.
Cranite’s implementation of FIPS 140-2 features Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP-TTLS) for authentication and
tunneling. The software provides the security in Symbol’s Mobius
Wireless Switching System.
The SMB version of WirelessWall is available now, with the software piece starting
at around $1500 for a ten user starter pack. The license agreement covers simultaneous
users instead of the entire install base of PCs. Pricing of the unit on a Linux
box from Westcon was unavailable.
