By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
If you’re looking for speed, simplicity, and even collaborative tools for Wi-Fi troubleshooting, NetAlly’s handheld analysers may be just what the network doctor ordered. NetAlly just released its CyberScope® Air, which adds Wi-Fi security testing to a portfolio that already includes the popular AirCheck™ G3 Pro analyser. NetAlly’s Dan Klimke says handhelds are often the fastest and lowest-cost path to fixing real world Wi-Fi issues.
What percentage of Wi-Fi issues require you to break out the flagship dedicated planning and measurement device, laptop, and sophisticated planning software? It’s probably not that many. Handheld testers are not only lower cost but apply to a wide swath of use cases that require fast WLAN validation and problem resolution by wireless technicians or engineers on the fly and in the field.
“Wi-Fi network problems may in some cases be resolvable from the network side but typically only via network operation center management platforms (NOCs), but technicians often don’t have NOC access,” says Dan Klimke, Director of Marketing at NetAlly. “The sweet spot use case for handheld testers is in fact quite wide, because these devices will deliver fast identification of perhaps more than 90% of the most common Wi-Fi issues on the spot. This now also includes pinpointing Wi-Fi and end point security vulnerabilities,” Dan Klimke says.
It’s a question of using the most effective tool for the purpose, which in turn drives down troubleshooting costs and mean time to resolution (MTTR). Dan Klimke says that a couple of tier-1 telcos in Europe have adopted NetAlly’s handheld analysers widely as an integral part of their validation and fault-finding processes. “In general technicians will be empowered to resolve a ton of problems but our handhelds are also powerful enough to serve as tools for network engineers, when things get more complicated,” he says.
Add to this that NetAlly’s handhelds now feature collaborative tools and reporting. Results can be uploaded to the Cloud by technicians and analysed centrally by Wi-Fi experts. Since bonafide Wi-Fi experts typically are a scarce resource, such tools help drive operational efficiency up and costs down for Wi-Fi service providers and enterprises, Dan Klimke says. NetAlly’s Cloud or on-prem collaborative tool is called Link -Live™ and works with any NetAlly handheld tester.
The Link-Live Cloud-based platform (a licensed containerised version is also available) also lets users generate visual heatmaps and network topology maps, and the results can be integrated with network management systems. “This expands the utility of our devices substantially, and allows our tools to approximate many of the features only found in much more costly planning solutions,” Dan Klimke says. The new CyberScope Air includes all of the features of the AirCheck 3G Pro and adds Wi-Fi vulnerability testing and scanning.
For more information don’t miss Dam Klimke and NetAlly at Wi-Fi World Congress USA in Sarasota, Florida on April 22-24. For plenty of details on how to eliminate Wi-Fi security vulnerabilities, NetAlly is running this webinar on March 27.
/Claus.
