"SmartPass 7.0 marks an important advancement in access control and how it must be integrated with business applications," said Ahmet Tuncay, vice president of product management and marketing. "SmartPass is now a standards- based platform combining user authentication, device integrity checking, and dynamic access control with open interfaces for third-party development, a first of its kind in the wireless LAN industry."

SmartPass can accept the following plug-ins:

• Advanced Access Control
• Location-Based Authentication
• RADIUS-based Monitoring and Reporting
• Guest Access

Trapeze Networks has published the application programming interfaces for SmartPass so an enterprise can write its own plug-in and control its wireless network with precision.

Advanced Access Control

SmartPass installs quickly and immediately begins to protect the integrity of the production network. With the Advanced Access Control plug-in, the network administrator using SmartPass can set access based on location, time of day, identity of user, SSID, VLAN, and / or accounting data. It is based on the RFC 3576 standard and has the ability to change authorization attributes during active sessions.

One example application of Advanced Access Control is in an education setting where for any given student, after 10 MB of downloads one session, the user is moved down from full access to the lowest priority queue, perhaps 100 Kbps maximum. This way, every student has a chance to benefit from high-speed access.

Location, Location, Location

SmartPass 7.0, with the Location-based Authentication / Access Control plug-in, works hand-in-hand with the Trapeze Networks Location Appliance to provide location-based services and add location information to accounting data. Network managers can set rules to permit or restrict access, allocate bandwidth and allow resources all based on location. This is a feature unique to Trapeze Networks.

In a school, for instance, a professor is giving a test from 2:00p to 3:00p in Classroom 230. She has the ability to change wireless access for students instantly to deny access to the internet during that time and at that location. If the professor chooses, students can still have access to relevant classroom materials on the local area network.

Plays Well With Others

SmartPass works hand-in-glove with Trapeze Networks' LA-200 Location Appliance. SmartPass also works seamlessly with Trapeze Networks' RingMaster, the company's wireless network management suite, its access points and wireless controllers. All these components come together to deliver NonStop Wireless for the Always-on Enterprise.

No man is an island and no network application should be forced to work independently of all the others. That's why when Trapeze Networks engineered SmartPass, it made the platform plug and play with Cisco's NAC (Network Admission Control), Microsoft's NAP (Network Access Protection), and the TCG (Trusted Computing Group).

SmartPass maintains per user statistics, lifetime session counts, traffic details, and total traffic passed for a user session or specific device. All together, this means that SmartPass 7.0 cooperates and complements existing network tools by giving managers unique views and reports on all aspects of wireless usage and traffic patterns relating to time of day and location. This information can be used to make decisions about adjusting the capacity of the network by adding more access points to relieve congested areas.

Be Our Guest

Today, it's expected to allow guests to have wireless access, but too many enterprises give too much away to too many. And the new generation of wireless-enabled sub-notebooks, iPhones, gaming and music devices makes a bad situation worse.

With SmartPass, the guest access operator is completely shielded from the WLAN controllers and network management tools so mistakes can't be made. When guest accounts are created, they are automatically purged after a pre- determined time, such as the end of a work day, and can be changed in mid- session. SmartPass can be used to handle a couple of guests in a conference room or 1,000 people in a convention center. Either way, every guest can do their own work and only their own work.

Easy to Use, Easy to Buy

Through September 30, 2008, Trapeze Networks customers can upgrade to a SmartPass 7.0 base license for $295, a $300 savings. For more information on this promotion, see the Trapeze website or one of its many channel partners.

Keywords: wireless lan industry, wireless networking products, application programming interfaces, authentication device, location traffic, priority queue, dynamic access, high speed access, open interfaces, user authentication, plug ins, Wireless Access Points