ProximVision ES provides rapid network deployment and greater ease of use in a software-based Network Management System - giving you a complete view of your wireless network. To know more please visit PVES page.

Proxim’s Scan Tool is a convenient easy to use management software utility that allows users to centrally scan and locate all the devices on the network. The scan tool runs on Microsoft's Windows machine that allows administrators to the do the following:

Salient Features:

• Scan devices within the network
• View Description of the devices on the network
• View Uptime or the availability of the devices
• Obtain device’s IP address
• Modify devices IP configuration parameters (IP addresses, address type, gateway, etc)
• Switch the network adapters, if there are multiple network adapters on the computer

For maximum performance of wireless network, Proxim’s radios provide the filter feature that essentially helps a network administrator to control the amount of traffic exchanged between the wired and wireless networks and additionally provides added security by restricting any unauthorized packets from accessing the network.

Both Tsunami and ORiNOCO radios provide a broad range of configurable parameters on basis of which one can filter the packets:

By definition, Packet Forwarding is the process of relaying the data packets, through the participating nodes gateways (routers etc) based on the optimal /shortest path from the source to destination node. However for higher performance, serving (base unit for outdoor applications and APs for indoor applications) stations via the packet forwarding filter can be instructed to relay information over a specific path by defining the MAC address of the gateway device. Once the pathway is defined, the packets are labeled with the destination address, which saves a lot of processing time of the intermediately node as they now have to simply forward the packet instead of the evaluating the optimal/shortest path. This way the packet forwarding filter ensures minimal bandwidth consumption and lower impact on the network performance. The gateway device (configured according to the user requirement) monitors the uplink traffic, for improved security.

The ‘Static MAC Address Filter’ optimizes the performance of a wireless (and wired) network. With this feature, the device can block traffic between wired devices and wireless devices based on the MAC address.

Following are few of the many applications of the Static MAC Address filter

• To prevent entire traffic from a specific wired device (MAC address) from being forwarded to the wireless network.
• To prevent entire traffic from a specific wireless device (MAC address) from being forwarded to the wired network.
• To prevent traffic between a specific wired device and a specific wireless device.
• To prevent traffic between a specific wired group MAC address and a specific wireless group MAC address.

The Storm Threshold Filter restricts the excessive inbound multicast or broadcast traffic. It enables users to set up rules/traps to limit the traffic. Once the inbound traffic reaches the threshold level, the device automatically rejects any additional multicast/broadcast packets. Needles to explain, that the filtering mechanism once enabled ensures a large percentage of the wireless link remains available to the connected nodes.

Port-based filtering enables administrators to control wireless user access to network services by selectively blocking TCP/UDP protocols through the device. A user specifies a Protocol Name, Port Number, Port Type (TCP, UDP, or TCP/UDP), and filtering interfaces (Only Wireless, Only Ethernet or Both).

The Protocol Filter allows network administrators to block or forward specific protocol based packets through both wired and wireless interfaces.

Typically when two connected clients try to communicate, the sender client (client stations such as laptops, tablets, phones etc for indoor applications) broadcasts an ARP (address resolution protocol) request to all other client stations within the network. The various client nodes of the network respond to the sender client to provide the MAC address of the destined client. Quite evident, the numerous responses and requests takes a toll on the network’s throughput.

What is ARP?
ARP (address resolution protocol), is a request and reply protocol used by wired as well as wireless devices within a network to find the address of a client station.

Proxim’s radios reduce the ARP requests and responses by handling the ARP request by itself and looking for the MAC address of the destined client in its Proxy ARP table. On finding the MAC address, the serving (APs for indoor applications) device forwards the MAC address to the client, without disturbing other wireless clients on the network. Wireless client updates its ARP table with the MAC address and initiates communication to the destination client via the Proxim radio.

• Reduces unnecessary flow of broadcast traffic to all the wireless clients, without disturbing every wireless client on the network.
• To power save the wireless clients as they need not wake up for ARP broadcasts.
• The clients to learn the MAC addresses faster

Virtual LAN can be simply defined a logical infrastructure rather than a physical infrastructure. Similar to a physical network the serving radio (base station for outdoor networks and access points for indoor networks) devices or clients client stations such as laptops, tablets for indoor and subscriber units for outdoor environment) participating in a particular VLAN, appear to be on the same physical network no matter with what WAN or LAN they might be connected to physically. The devices are simply not aware that other devices are not literally on the physical segment. Said another way VLAN can be alternatively used to create logical domains on one physical network. Two VLANs act like two different physical LAN that cannot communicate with each other unless they are connected via a router or via VLAN tunnel. VLANs can be configured separately based on the following settings:

• Authentication type
• Number of allowed clients
• Quality of Service

VLAN assignment via RADIUS server feature reduces the cumbersome process of manually configuring VLAN parameters to the numerous wireless clients (subscriber station for outdoor applications and client stations such as laptops, tablets etc) connected to the Base unit (outdoor applications)/APs (indoor applications). This feature assigns every wireless client connected a specific VLAN ID via a pre-configured RADIUS server dashboard.

When a wireless client tries to connect to an authenticator device, the authenticator forwards the request to the RADIUS server. On receiving the request from the authenticator, the RADIUS server authenticates the wireless client. On successful authentication, the RADIUS server sends an acknowledgement back to the authenticator device and also grants a particular VLAN to the client based on the client’s permission level.

Dynamic Host configuration Protocol is a network Protocol that enables users to assign IP address to client devices(indoor: from access points to computers ,laptops etc outdoor: from Base stations to subscriber units) automatically .It allows administrators to distribute IP addresses and simplify the process of configuring the IP addresses from a central point to various devices.

The inbuilt DHCP server allocates network addresses and also delivers configuration parameters dynamically to the clients.