AirMagnet's Laptop Analyzer

Price: $3,495 MSRP

Similar to their popular Handheld Analyzer, AirMagnet's newly-released Laptop Analyzer offers functions such as WLAN administration, installation surveying, security assessment, connection troubleshooting, performance management, and operational support -- all from your notebook (as the product's name implies). This Laptop version, however, has some enhancements worth noting, such as larger screens, new alarms, larger buffer, printing, and better import/export capability.

The entire package includes software and a Cisco Aironet AIR-PCM352 802.11b PC Card with a fixed omni-directional antenna. In order to support higher gain antennas for directional link testing and rogue access point hunting, you need AirMagnet's Laptop Pro ($3,795). A combo version is also available that includes both the Handheld and Laptop software ($4,495).

Pros:

• Intuitive screen layout and excellent usability.
• Rich security auditing features
• Comprehensive protocol capturing and analysis functions.

Cons:

• Limited RF spectrum analysis.
• No support for 802.11a.

Installation and Setup

Installation of the Laptop Analyzer was very easy. You simply insert the CD and radio NIC and follow straight-forward installation instructions. AirMagnet Laptop Analyzer runs on Windows XP or Windows 2000. You need 128MB minimum (256MB recommended) of memory, along with 10 MB of free disk space. Of course you also need an open PCMCIA card slot.

What's New

Laptop Analyzer adds the following enhancements over the handheld version:

• Larger screen. The larger screen offered by a laptop makes the Laptop Analyzer idea for back-office analysis. If you want mobile usage, consider using the AirMagnet Handheld to collect data and the Laptop version to view and manipulate the data.
  
  
• New alarms. AirMagnet has added a lot more alarms. For example, you can now detect hidden nodes, which aids in determining request-to-send / clear-to-send (RTS/CTS) thresholds. Another example is an alarm indicating that an access point that has been rebooted. The Handheld Analyzer only keeps track of the sequence numbers of beacon frames coming from the access point. If the sequence numbers skip a beat, then the laptop version triggers an alarm.
  
  
• Larger buffer. The AirMagnet Laptop takes advantage of the larger memory space available in a laptop by offering a maximum of 64MB of capture buffer space. This equates to approximately 500,000 truncated packets.
  
  
• Printing. This is a handy feature. You can print various screen views for inclusion in reports and presentations. A print preview function lets you view the format before printing. Having only a hardcopy printout of the formatted data is better than nothing, but it would be nice if the product would also produce a GIF or JPEG image file for better integration into reports.
  
  
• Improved import/export. You can now import/export 802.11b packet trace files in both Ethereal and Sniffer Wireless formats. This enables you to take advantage of the Laptop Analyzer's ability to analyze data captured by other devices. In addition, you can import capture trace files from the Handheld Analyzer for easier viewing and printing.

Performance

AirMagnet did a great job with very little space on the Handheld Analyzer that runs on a Pocket PC, and they've expanded the functions nicely to fit the larger screen area of a laptop. With the Laptop Analyzer, users can customize displayed information, making it easier to focus on what's important. For example when viewing a particular channel, there's plenty of room to display any combination of displays indicating signal strength, noise, CRC errors , retries, etc.

The Laptop Analyzer is packed full of security auditing features and alarms. You can easily detect rogue access points and users after adding the MAC address of each valid device to a list. Any detected MAC not in the list sets off an alarm. This helps you quickly spot whether an employee has setup an un-authorized WLAN or a hacker is compromising your network. You can also record transient information and play it back later, enabling you to see a variety of parameters that triggered an alarm.

The software focuses more on protocol analysis rather than RF spectrum analysis. There is at least some indication of spectral content, though, when viewing signal and noise levels on all channels simultaneously. This provides a "poor man's" spectrum analyzer. In most cases, this is enough to determine whether there is significant RF interference potential from other devices. If you see an abnormal indication on the Laptop Analyzer, then you can use a full-blown spectrum analyzer for more details.

The Laptop Analyzer doesn't support the 5GHz 802.11a, which is a drawback since 802.11a networks are starting to proliferate. AirMagnet claims, however, that they will release an 802.11a version by the end of 2002.

Jim Geier provides independent consulting services to companies developing and deploying wireless network solutions. He is the author of the book, Wireless LANs (SAMs, 2001) and offers computer-based training (CBT) courses on wireless LANs.

Join Jim for discussions as he answers questions in the 802.11 Planet Forums.