Meetinghouse Licenses 802.1X API

Why build your own 802.1X authentication client? Meetinghouse Data Communications of Portsmouth, NH, makers of the AEGIS client/server products, is licensing the AEGIS API suite for those who want to integrate 802.1X themselves.

The AEGIS API (application programming interface) Suite is really a “productized” software development kit (SDK) version of the company’s $39.95 AEGIS client, according to Anthony Delli Colli, Meetinghouse’s vice president of sales and marketing. Putting this out in the market is part of the company’s overall plan for wide dissemination of the 802.1X authentication standard.

“We see two diverging worlds,” says Delli Colli. “We pursue the OEM places with the API and the retail play with the AEGIS client/server, where we go head to head with Funk Software for the small to enterprise market. It compliments what we’re doing, and it opens up many channel opportunities.”

The Suite consists of the binary Windows DLLs and documentation for developers to use as a basis for creating their own 802.1X client software for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP. More operating systems are expected to be supported in the future. It contains separate APIs for authentication to accept credentials from an server, network configuration for setting IP network and Internet proxies, and wireless configuration to enable the user’s 802.11-based network card and find nearby Wi-Fi networks.

AEGIS supports most 802.11 RADIUS servers including Funk’s Steel-Belted Radius, as well as those from Microsoft, Cisco, Interlink and FreeRadius. It supports most of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) types, including TLS, TTLS, MD5, PEAP, and LEAP. For pricing, the company asks people to contact sales@mtghouse.com. They’ll provide an evaluation version.

Meetinghouse’s main competition, Funk Software, is also getting its Odyssey Client software out into the world. This week they announced that Odyssey Client will ship on Hewlett-Packard notebooks, as part of HP’s Enterprise Wireless Software Package. It will come with HP’s Compact Evo laptops equipped with the Wireless LAN MultiPort W200 kit, and is also available for download.