Extending its footprint as a developer of open technology platforms for the RF security and management market, Network Chemistry Inc., has launched its Open Agent Initiative. As part of the initiative, Network Chemistry will make its RFprotect wireless intrusion detection and protection (WIDP) system sensor agent available to run on all leading wireless LAN (WLAN) vendor platforms, including Cisco and Symbol, royalty free. The RFprotect centralized system software will be made available directly through Network Chemistry or through partner licensing agreements.

Network Chemistry's Open Agent Initiative allows enterprises the flexibility to choose best-of-breed sensor hardware to work with the WIDP systems that are a critical component of today's enterprise wireless networks. Beyond Cisco and Symbol access point (AP) support, Network Chemistry will soon be announcing support for other leading AP vendor platforms.

“Network Chemistry has been at the forefront of open platforms and technology in the wireless IDP and RF analysis space since day one,” said Rob Markovich, president and chief executive officer for Network Chemistry. “Security can't be second best. Making our agent available to the leading WLAN vendors creates a tightly integrated RF security framework that is second to none and offers a lot of flexibility to our customers and partners. This is the logical next step for us, as we've already provided our sensor agent to vendors in the WLAN test and security space. Our open “Agent Everywhere” strategy will enable us to marry our technology to anything with a radio. This strategy also allows us to extend our RF analysis fabric across a very broad geography while delivering the most integrated and advanced RF protection and management on the market.”

To date, closed architectures have forced enterprises to buy WIDP systems from their WLAN vendors rather than from security experts. In addition, closed environments have made WLAN vendors wary of becoming locked into a single WIDP vendor and thus forced to exclude other potential best-of-breed security solutions.

Now, with its Open Agent Initiative, Network Chemistry is the first wireless security company to deliver seamless WIDP compatibility to the industry's leading WLAN infrastructure vendors. The initiative gives enterprise customers the tools to leverage existing capital investments while incorporating best-of-breed WIDP technology from a focused security software vendor. To achieve this integration, leading AP vendors will provide the hardware to run a WIDP sensor, and Network Chemistry will provide the software agent and conversion utilities necessary to create a highly scalable and cost-effective WIDP system. As a result, AP vendors can now offer WIDP-ready WLANs off-the-shelf, greatly reducing their time-to-market as well as the overall cost and complexity of developing and maintaining their own security capabilities in house.

The first phase of this open initiative includes immediate support for Cisco Aironet 1100/1200 series and Symbol AP-300 series APs, which compose the bulk of enterprise deployments today. The integration and conversion software is available from Network Chemistry.

As part of the Open Agent Initiative, the company is also announcing the availability of a new engineering integration services team to support partners with the integration process. The team will test and port the software onto the AP hardware. The team will also provide detailed assistance in integrating RFprotect system software into AP element management systems, should the AP vendor want to further integrate the two systems.

For more information, visit www.networkchemistry.com