The Official Vnetek Blog

Quick Tip: DECserver ConX4 and Auto-negotiation

jstanley — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:38:00 +0400

Quick Tip: The ConX4 operates at 10/100 half- and full-duplex. To avoid connection issues, ensure that your Ethernet switch auto-negotiation feature is on when connected to a ConX4.

When a switch port is hard set to 100-Full or any other setting, it is no longer negotiating. If the switch is not negotiating, it is not advertising its speed and duplex, therefore the ConX4 cannot determine the connection possibilities of the switch. If this occurs, the ConX4 will default to 10MB/s half-duplex. Reference Section 3 Troubleshooting, page 33 of 42. DECserver ConX4 Installation and User’s Guide.

Connecting standard RS232 9-pin D-subs to DECconnect MMJ Connectors

kpruitt — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 01:12:00 +0400

Debugging or managing serial connections with a VT420? Here's what you need to connect the terminal to the serial port:

BN24J 6 pin MMP to 8 pin RJ45
VT420 Video Terminal
H8585-AF DB9 to RJ45 Adapter

Easy as 1, 2, 3:

Attach the 6-pin end of the BN24J cable to the 6-pin connector located on the back of the VT420.
Attach the RJ45 end of the BN24J cable to the RJ45 port on the H8585-AF adapter.
Attach the DB9 port of the H8585-AF adapter to the DB9 serial port.

Vnetek Communications Announces New Business Segment: Northeast 3PL

kpruitt — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 19:22:00 +0400

LONDONDERRY, NEW HAMPSHIRE - June 18, 2012 - Vnetek Communications is pleased to announce the launch of a new business segment named Northeast 3PL. Northeast 3PL offers a range of third party logistics services including warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, distribution and value added services to businesses across a variety of industries.

Vic Capozzi, President, says the addition of the new segment is a result of customer inquiries. "Over the years, we've had customers ask us to recommend third party warehouses. We manage our own logistics and have since 1996," he said, "and we realized that with our expertise and supply chain connections, we were the 3PL that could provide the logistics support they sought."

"We began offering 3PL services to other businesses with continued success," said Pat Ensign, Operations, "and that has resulted in our new business segment, Northeast 3PL."

Northeast 3PL currently serves the healthcare, retail HVAC and electronics sectors. The business segment provides logistics services that range from warehousing to distribution and value added services such as pick/pack and ship, packaging, re-packaging, kitting, reverse logistics, small assembly, and testing.

About Vnetek Communications

Established in 1996 and located in Londonderry, NH, Vnetek is a manufacturer and reseller of high quality networking products serving many vertical markets with a worldwide customer base that includes finance, education, healthcare, retail, technology, automotive, and manufacturing. Proud to be a partner of some of the most respected names in the industry, Vnetek offers a wide suite of networking products from which to choose, including network infrastructure, security, optimization and data center management products. For more information on Vnetek, visit http://www.vnetek.com, or call (888) 663-3313.

About Northeast 3PL

Northeast 3PL is a business segment of Vnetek Communications offering third party logistics services to companies large and small across a variety of industries. They offer warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, distribution and value added services to companies worldwide. For more information on Northeast 3PL, visit http://www.3plne.com, or call (855) 348-3757

End of Sale Announcement: DECserver 716 Serial Console Server

kpruitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:03:00 +0400

The DECserver 716 has provided customers with a terminal/console/serial server solution since 2000. Due to reducing demand Vnetek is announcing the End of Sale of all variants of the DECserver 716.

Warranty and Service Life

After End of Sale, Vnetek will continue to support the DECserver 716 as specified below. During the Service Life period beginning on the actual End of Sale (ES) date and ending on the respective End of Service Life (EOSL) date (see Key Dates table below), customers are entitled to the following:

Product Warranty: For units still under warranty, Vnetek will continue to support DECserver products in a manner similar to the support available prior to the ES date.

Service Agreement: Hardware maintenance services as stated in existing agreement. Agreements can be purchased and renewed during the Service-Life period but cannot extend beyond End-of-Service-Life date without prior from Vnetek Services.

Telephone Support: Available during business hours as described in the warranty terms and conditions shipped with product or described in the service agreement.

Event	Description	Date
Announcement Date	The first day which product End of Sale is announced	February 10, 2012
Final Order Date	The last day on which order can be placed	August 31, 2012 or “While Supplies Last”
Final Shipment	The last day on which the product will be shipped	September 15, 2012 or “While Supplies Last”
End of Sale Date	The last day the product will be available	September 16, 2012 or “While Supplies Last”
End of Service Life	The day all Service Obligations will end	September 15, 2013 or 1 year after the respective End of Sale Date.

For a list of Recommended Replacement Products, download the End of Sale Announcement.

716 End of Sale Announcement.pdf (456.97 kb)

How Do I? Article 13: configure the DECserver 90M+ to store its settings permanently?

jstanley — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:36:00 +0400

"I am experiencing a weird loss of configuration data on one of the DECserver 90M+ units we have. I have properly set up the unit, and left it on the table powered on, during a time period of approximately a month, the unit lost power several times (which I guess should NOT be a problem), and after checking it today, it lost its PORT related settings, but not settings related to INTERNET ADRESS / NAME etc. only PORT settings (for all ports, not just #1, which could be explained in other ways). Therefore I have 2 questions:

Does the unit contain a battery that powers its memory? If it does, how can I make sure it is "dead"?

Is there a command that "stores" the settings permanently and if so, which one is it?

If you have any other ideas which could help explain why some (PORT related) settings get "lost", I would be most grateful. Thanks in advance."

The DECserver does not contain a battery.

The command used to configure a DECserver 90M+ will determine whether your configuration is STORED (permanent) or WORKING (temporary).

Note:

The SHOW command will show you the current contents of the working configuration in VRAM.

The LIST command will show you the current contents of the stored configuration in NVRAM.

DECserver Stored Configuration

All stored configuration parameters are entered using the DEFINE command. The DECserver stored configuration resides in NVRAM and is read and implemented at every boot. You must perform a re-boot to activate the new configuration that was entered using the DEFINE command.

DECserver Working Configuration

All working configuration parameters are entered using the SET command. The working configuration is the VRAM memory for all running operations. The DECserver working configuration is a combination of the current NVRAM configuration PLUS any changes made as a "temporary" parameter.

If you configured the DECserver 90M+ using the SET command, then by definition, upon re-boot the configuration will use the settings stored in NVRAM, which will override your working configuration. If this happens, you need to re-enter your configuration using the DEFINE command and perform a re-boot to activate the new configuration.

For more details on the SET/DEFINE commands, please refer to page 4-1 of the Command Reference Guide and beginning on page 2-3 of the Management Guide.

How Do I? Article 12: Configure the DECserver 732 in a Fail-over Scenario

jstanley — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:08:00 +0400

"We have several identical DECserver 732's that we would like to configure in a fail over scenario. We would like to configure one server via memory card and transfer the card and the connections in case of a failure. Can the memory cards be used to failover to another identical DECserver regardless of mac address? Simply pull the card out, transfer the connections and power up. If so is this a recommended strategy, is there documentation covering the best way to set this up in DNAS? If not is there another strategy to consider?"

The DECserver is not designed to support failover. The DECserver supports a single configuration and operation. That said, you can configure a second DECserver to have the same configuration and enable the second DECserver should the installed DECserver fail. There are two methods that are available to you to copy one DECserver's configuration to one or many other DECservers:

1. Use ASM's (Access Server Manager) Save & Restore Feature

The ASM utility program runs on any Windows box and lets you quickly save & restore each of your DECserver's configuration data. If the first DECserver fails, then the backed up configuration, saved in ASM, can be restored onto a new replacement DECserver. Selecting the option to use the complete backup, including the IP address of the original DECserver, restores a complete replacement of the operation of the original DECserver. (Note: the replacement DECserver will not restore the original MAC address). For detailed instructions on how save and restore your DECserver configuration, click here.

2. Backup DECserver Configuration to PCMCIA Flash Card

This option is only available if your DECservers are running V3.6. The complete DECserver configuration can be backed up onto a removable Flash Card, making it convenient to simply move the flash card to one or more DECservers to restore the original DECserver configuration. Note: The original IP address will not be restored and must be updated to complete the restore operation.

To save a known good configuration to a PCMCIA flash card, insert flash card and at the Local> prompt type HELP save. The DECserver will provide help details when connected as a console:

Local> HELP save

The help screen will show:

SAVE SERVER CONFIGURATION

Saves the server's configuration to a removable PCMCIA flash card.

SAVE {SERVER} CONFIGURATION

This command is valid on those servers which support the removable PCMCIA Flash Card. This command may be used to store the Server's configuration on to the Flash Card.

To copy the configuration to a backup DECserver, insert the flash card containing the known good configuration into an operational V3.6 DECserver and at the Local> prompt type HELP restore. Review the help file output before issuing the restore command:

Local> HELP restore

The help screen will show:

RESTORE SERVER CONFIGURATION

Restores the Server's configuration from a removable PCMCIA Flash Card.

RESTORE {SERVER} CONFIGURATION

This command is valid on those servers which support the removable PCMCIA Flash Card. This command may be used to restore the Server's configuration from a Flash Card.

Please note:

This command will fail if the configuration stored on the PCMCIA Flash Card was not stored by an identical platform type to the server that is being restored.
This command will fail if the configuration stored on the PCMCIA Flash Card was not stored using an identical version of DNAS Software as the version running on the server being restored.
A restore will not change the IP address and subnet mask.
After being restored the server will need to be initialized before some of the configuration settings will be used.

Other DECserver and DNAS documentation can be found here.

Secure DECserver Management

jstanley — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:01:00 +0400

The Raritan Dominion SX serial switch enables IT professionals to access, monitor and control all their serial devices securely, anytime, from anywhere. Easy to install, simple to use, secure and scalable, this remote management solution provides one point of control to manage a wide range of servers and IT devices, including:

Networking equipment -- routers, Ethernet switches, firewalls
WAN equipment -- ISDN terminal adapters, channel banks, CSU/DSUs, PBX/PABXs and WDM
Servers and headless servers -- Sun® Cobalt™, Solaris™, HP-UX, UNIX®, Linux®,IBM® AIX® and Windows Server™ 2003
Raritan PDUs like the RPC Series and Dominion PX series.

...and DECservers!

Many companies still use DECservers for serial-over-IP in every day solutions. Their DECservers, servers and application are typically in a secured network environment, but for added security, the Raritan Dominion SX can manage DECservers using SSH, eliminating the need for local personnel or VPN management. Utilizing a serial-to-serial connection from a Raritan Dominion SX to a DECserver, all management can be performed with a serial command line on the DECserver. The Telnet protocol can be completely disabled from the outside network, while network protocols such as Telnet can still be used in the secure network environment.

IT managers can control Telnet usage and provide provisioned network configurations where required to support the DECserver environment. Firewalls can be provisioned to allow for SSH to the Raritan Dominion SX, configured for DPA (Direct Port Access) service. A Dominion SX can be connected to a DECserver through a simple serial cable providing secure DNAS configuration and management.

Questions?

Vnetek Now Offering New and Refurbished AWAN Controller Products

kpruitt — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:45:00 +0400

PRESS RELEASE

In Cooperation with Gemini Communications, Inc., Vnetek Communications, LLC Now Offering New and Refurbished AWAN Controller Products

Londonderry, NH – August 19, 2011 – In cooperation with Gemini Communications, Inc., who specializes in networking software for HP NonStop™ systems, Vnetek now offers new and refurbished AWAN controller products with 1, 2, and 3 year hardware support contracts for those seeking discontinued Asynchronous Wide-Area Network (AWAN) controllers for HP NonStop systems. Gemini Communications will continue to provide GAP software support.

“We are pleased to work with Vnetek to provide the AWAN software on the DECserver. Although discontinued by HP, through this cooperation, users of AWAN Terminal Servers / Remote Access Servers can purchase hardware and support from Vnetek, while continuing to receive GAP software support from Gemini” said Gemini's Rich Pope, Founder and President.

Patricia Ensign, Operations Manager for Vnetek said, "As the manufacturer of the DECserver, with the AWAN code from Gemini, we can easily provide Asynchronous Wide-Area Network (AWAN) controllers for HP NonStop systems. We are now offering new, refurbished and hardware support of the 3886-8A, 3886-16, and 3886-32, together with the latest version 240 of AWAN software."

For product information, please visit Vnetek.

About Gemini Communications, Inc.
Gemini has provided networking and terminal emulation software products for NonStop™ systems since 1984, including GAP. While the standard AWAN product provides support for legacy 6530 terminals and serial printers, GAP is used to add support for other devices. Gemini will continue to sell and support GAP software for new and existing AWAN users. For more information, visit Geminic.com

About Vnetek Communications, LLC
Established in 1996 and located in Londonderry, NH, Vnetek is a manufacturer and reseller of high quality networking products serving many vertical markets with a worldwide customer base that includes finance, education, healthcare, retail, technology, automotive, and manufacturing. Proud to be a partner of some of the most respected names in the industry, Vnetek offers a wide suite of networking products from which to choose, including network infrastructure, security, optimization and data center management products. For more information, visit Vnetek.com.

Industry's First Independent Wi-Fi Interference and Capacity Testing by Tom's Hardware Reveals Ruckus Consistently Outperforms Others

kpruitt — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:16:00 +0400

Comprehensive “Over the Air” Wi-Fi Tests Show the Impact of RF Interference and High Client Densities on the Wireless Performance of Leading Products from Cisco, Aruba, HP and Others

SUNNYVALE, CA – July 18, 2011 – Ruckus Wireless today announced that its ZoneFlex midrange Smart Wi-Fi system performed up to 10 times faster than higher end competitive wireless products from Cisco, Aruba, HP and others, in the industry’s first independent Wi-Fi interference and capacity tests released by Tom’s Hardware, one of the Internet’s premiere resources for unbiased reviews, news and information on technology.

According to Tom’s Hardware, the wireless LAN testing was developed to determine how advanced Wi-Fi capabilities affect real-world wireless performance at different distances and within high-density environments when wireless interference is introduced. In nearly every Wi-Fi test, Ruckus delivered demonstrably faster and more consistent performance over competitive products. Ruckus did not pay for the Tom’s Hardware testing or influence the results.

“Given the insane number of wireless-only smart phones, tablets and laptops hitting networks today, our readers must now deal with new Wi-Fi issues such as interference and higher client capacities,” said Chris Angelini, worldwide editor-in-chief of Tom’s Hardware. “We were unable to find any definitive or comprehensive testing in this area, so we decided to give give readers a first-hand view of how the best Wi-Fi products we could find would actually perform in a real world environment when lots of users try to connect and interference is present. We knew this would be a difficult to get done but, after months of work, we were able to build a reliable test bed that let us clearly determine if advanced Wi-Fi capabilities really have an impact on performance. They do.”

The Tom’s Hardware Wi-Fi testing is the first exhaustive industry evaluation of the impact of RF interference and high client capacities on new leading 802.11n products.

“The RF spectrum within the unlicensed band is becoming increasingly noisy and crowded,” said Steve Martin, vice president of engineering at Ruckus Wireless. “These types of tests are extremely useful to enterprises that often don’t have the time or resources to properly test Wi-Fi systems and every new capability introduced. Tom’s testing clearly demonstrates how important RF optimizations are to the performance and reliability of Wi-Fi - an area where few vendors have focused attention but where the greatest gains are achieved. These results substantiate this.”

Because many enterprises cannot perform comprehensive wireless testing, they are forced to compare Wi-Fi systems at close range under ideal conditions that don’t typically reflect the challenging environments within which the products will actually be used. Subsequently, after spending time and money deploying Wi-Fi, they find little difference between wireless products and after deployment begin to see performance and coverage problems that become difficult and costly to repair.

Test Methodology and Tools

For the comparative WLAN interference and capacity testing, Tom’s Hardware reviewed the following wireless devices and related software under their default configurations:

Aruba AP125
Dual-band 802.11n (3x3:2) with Aruba 3200 controller running ArubaOS (ver. 6.0.0.1)
Cisco Aironet 3502i
Dual-band 802.11n (2x3:2) with Cisco 4402 controller (ver. 7.0.98.0)
HP E-MSM460
Dual-band 802.11n (3x3:3) standalone (ver. 5.5.0.0-01-9514)
Meraki MR24
Dual-band 802.11n (3x3:3) running Meraki Enterprise Cloud Controller
Apple AirPort Extreme
Dual-band 802.11n, standalone (ver. 7.5.1)
Ruckus ZoneFlex 7363
Dual-band 802.11n (2x2:2) with Ruckus ZoneDirector 1106 (ver. 9.1.0.0.38)

Tom’s Hardware focused on two Wi-Fi test types: single-client and multi-client performance. To mimic the typical Wi-Fi experience, Tom’s Hardware measured TCP uplink and downlink performance of a single, dual-band (three stream capable) Centrino-based 802.11n laptop operating in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums. The Wi-Fi testing was performed at 10, 70 and 100 feet in clear line-of-sight and non-line-of-site channel conditions with and without RF interference present.

Non-802.11 interference in the 2.4 GHz band was generated using an interference generator. In the 5 GHz band, 802.11n co-channel interference was introduced using 60 laptops contending for access to the same channel as the device under test.

Tom’s Hardware testing was conducted in 20,000 square feet of office space surrounded by glass, metal, drywall and numerous obstacles.

Tom’s multi-client testing included measuring the aggregate throughput of leading Wi-Fi systems when 60 high-performance laptops simultaneously streamed volumes of data, as well as each system’s implementation of airtime fairness, when these laptops were used in combination with iPad tablets.

For the testing, Tom’s Hardware used the industry-standard IxChariot test tool to simulate typical TCP data traffic. A server running IxChariot (version 7.10) software generated upstream and downstream data and reported the results to the console while each wireless client ran an IxChariot endpoint. The IxChariot traffic profile used for the testing was the WLAN High Throughput TCP Test using a continuous 1MB file transfer. For the single client performance tests a Dell Latitude E6410 equipped with a three-stream capable 802.11n was used. For the multi-client performance tests 60 Dell Vostro laptops were used.

Over the course of the testing, more than 300 individual test runs were performed. Each single client wireless test was run four times with the laptop turned 90 degrees for each instance. Throughput results represent an average of these four test runs per client.

Highlights of Tom’s Hardware Competitive Wireless LAN Testing

Except for close range single-client testing at 10 feet, the mid-range Ruckus 7363 (2x2:2) consistently outperformed higher end competitive products in virtually all test runs.

High Density Client Capacity Wireless Testing

According to Tom’s Hardware, in high-capacity wireless testing performed within the 5GHz band, the midrange ZoneFlex 7363 delivered 111 Mbps of aggregate downlink throughput among 60 clients while its nearest competitor, the new HP E-MSM460 (3x3:3) product posted throughput of 88 Mbps. Aruba (76 Mbps), Cisco (38 Mbps), Meraki (47 Mbps) and Apple (3.8 Mbps) delivered markedly slower speeds.

In high-capacity uplink testing, the ZoneFlex 7363 delivered 97 Mbps of aggregate through performance over the nearest competitor, HP’s new E-MSM460 product that delivered 77 Mbps of throughput. Aruba (69 Mbps), Cisco (62 Mbps), Meraki (42 Mbps) and Apple (54 Mbps) delivered slower speeds.

And in high-capacity bidirectional testing, the ZoneFlex 7363 delivered 104 Mbps of aggregate throughput compared to the nearest competitor, the HP E-MSM460, which posted 85 Mbps of throughput. Aruba (83 Mbps) and Cisco (54 Mbps) delivered much slower speeds while the Meraki and Apple APs were unable to complete the testing.

Single Client Interference Testing

With 802.11 interference present, the Ruckus ZoneFlex 7363 delivered 89 Mbps of TCP downlink performance and 79 Mbps of uplink performance (5GHz, 70 feet). Its nearest competitors in this testing were the Aruba 125 that posted 68 Mbps of downlink throughput and the Cisco 3501i that posted 48 Mbps of uplink performance.

According to Tom’s Hardware: “Ruckus puts forth the best effort in the largest number of tests, but it does so with a mere 2x2:2 design through engineering and deep attention to the factors necessary to provide a high-quality wireless experience in increasingly hostile RF conditions.”

To view all the competitive results of the new Wi-Fi testing, visit: http://www.tomshardware.com.

On Tuesday, July 26th, at 10 a.m. PDT, Ruckus Wireless will hold a free Webinar regarding the Tom’s Hardware test results. Register today at: http://ruckus.adobeconnect.com/toms/event/registration.html

The World’s First and Largest “Instant On” Wi-Fi Access and Mobile Data Offload Service

kpruitt — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:35:00 +0400

As a reseller of Ruckus Wireless, we’re always happy to hear when a small, medium or large business, school or organization feels the same way we do about their quality Wi-Fi solutions. It’s especially pleasing when we heard that Japan’s principle telecommunications provider KDDI chose these products “… because they not only outperformed competitive alternatives but were specifically designed to be easily managed…” and delivers “… much better coverage, interference mitigation and deployment flexibility that we couldn’t find in any other supplier and at a cost point that enables nationwide deployment.”

Looking for great wireless networking product for your corner of the world? Need we say more?