The POC Lab presents the following technologies:
The next-generation wireless LAN (WLAN) system comprises three main technologies:
802.1x In WLAN, data is broadcast in all directions to Access Points and other listening devices in the vicinity. WLAN includes the use of encryption, called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), to protect the data from eavesdroppers. Unfortunately, WEP uses a static key that is highly insecure and can be easily broken within tens of minutes by hackers.
To overcome this shortcoming, the IEEE created the 802.1x standard to provide a framework that enables centralised authentication and dynamic key distribution. It introduces the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) and the concept of the Authentication Server.
EAP allows wireless client network interface cards (NIC), which may support different authentication types, to communicate with back-end servers such as the Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS). The Authentication Server coordinates with the Access Points to derive a client-specific WEP key to be used by the client. It also manages key rotation, the process of changing WEP keys frequently enough to make hacker attacks on WEP extremely difficult.
802.11A 802.11a is an IEEE Physical Layer Standard that defines the interface between the medium access control (MAC) layer and wireless media. It is based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), a modulation technique capable of transmitting large amounts of digital data over radio waves.
802.11a can attain data rates of up to 54Mbps, five times as fast as the commonly deployed 802.11b WLAN. As such, it is well suited for multimedia applications, such as video streaming over WLAN, and allows more users to access the network concurrently. Operating in the unlicensed 5GHz band, 802.11a suffers less interference than in the 2.4GHz band, where devices such as cordless phones and Bluetooth devices currently congest the airwaves.
| Available Bandwidth |
300MHz |
83.5MHz |
| Frequencies of Operation |
5.15-5.35GHz, 5.725-5.82GHz
6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 |
2.4-2.4835GHz |
| Data Rate Per Channel (Mbps) |
|
1, 2 5.5, 11 |
| Modulation Type |
OFDM |
DSSS |
Mobile IP (MIP) is a standard-based protocol (IETF RFC3220) that enables a mobile node (i.e. client machine) to be reachable at the same IP address at all times, regardless of where it is.
In addition, MIP allows the mobile node to seamlessly move from one network to another while maintaining any connection-oriented applications, such as FTP downloads, Voice-over-IP (VoIP) or video-conferencing. With MIP, these application sessions will even survive roaming across heterogeneous access networks, including LAN, WLAN and GPRS. MIP offers the convenience of true seamless, application-transparent mobility to the mobile workforce.
Grid computing requires the use of software that can divide and farm out pieces of a program to as many as several thousand computers. It can be thought of as distributed and large-scale cluster computing and as a form of network-distributed parallel processing. It can be confined to the network of computer workstations within a corporation, or it can involve public collaboration, in which case it could be regarded as a form of peer-to-peer computing.
Grid computing involves applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time, usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data.
A well-known example of grid computing in the public domain is the ongoing SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @Home project in which thousands of people are sharing the unused processor cycles of their PCs in the vast search for signs of "rational" signals from outer space. A high-profile example of a computational grid is the Tergrid project, which pools computational power from across four sites to total 13.6 teraflops, to be utilised by the U.S. science and research community.
In a Web environment, the Web server, which fronts the Internet, is a common point of attack by the hacker community. To mitigate the threat, an Inbound Application Proxy Server (IAPS) can be deployed to enable secure publishing of Web services and distributed applications.
In this architecture, the IAPS sits on the public network and acts as a proxy for the Web server. The Web server can be placed in a private network where it is not directly accessible to the hacker. When a user makes a http request to the Web server, the IAPS will intercept and process the request. At this point, the IAPS will discard any illegitimate request, and forwards only legitimate ones to the Web server.
The Web server will reply to the IASP with the requested content, which, in turn, forwards the content to the requester. In the event that a user (hacker) tries to compromise the Web server with illegitimate code, such as IIS Unicode Exploit, it will be filtered off at the proxy server. As a result, the Web server will not be compromised.
Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) allows Java applications, known as MIDlets, to be developed for mobile devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDA). This enables new, interactive services - such as games with a graphical interface, or a movie ticketing service that lets the user select seats - to be delivered to and accessed from the device. Users can browse a WAP site for available MIDlets, download and install them onto their handsets, and access the application offline.
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is the next phase in the mobile messaging evolution, superseding the current Short Message Service (SMS). MMS, a new platform that allows pictures, voice and video to be sent to MMS-enabled handsets, will enable a whole new suite of applications. One of the many proposed applications is using a digital camera to send images over the GPRS network, which will be displayed on an MMS-enabled phone for remote monitoring.
Several novel digital pen input technologies have now been launched, converting handwritten notes, doodles and sketches into a digital format suitable for capture and subsequent processing by computers. Unlike earlier pen input devices - which require a special writing tablet to capture the pen's position - these new technologies work without such tablets.
When used with the built-in Bluetooth interface, the pen can transmit its movements wirelessly to target devices such as computers, mobile phones, PDAs, fax machines and information banks. Specific commands or functions can also be assigned to the pen so as to enable the user to retrieve information or place an order directly from a mail-order catalog, newspaper or magazine.