Light Peak: 10-Gbit connectivity at your fingertips

Remember a few years ago when IBM aired commercials for its blade servers? The commercials' tagline was Out With Cables. The theme: Use blade servers, get rid of all those nasty, tangled cables in your data center. Cable: that dreaded, necessary evil.

Now it's Intel's turn. Last week at the Intel Developers Forum the company announced its Light Peak technology. Intel's not claiming that Light Peak will eliminate all cables--just those pesky ones that are subject to electromagnetic interference.

Light Peak is a high-speed (read: 10-Gbit/sec) optical cable, which Intel promises will be available next year, meant to connect devices including consumer-electronic equipment as well as disk drives, printers, and other networked devices.

Light Peak's web page goes into detail explaining the benefits of optical-fiber transmission. The video takes viewers inside Intel's optical lab.

A far cry from IBM's clever swipe at cabling, Intel's Light Peak looks like a promising technology of the near future.

Fluke's AirMagnet acquisition brings back memories

As I wait for word from Fluke Networks about the final details of their AirMagnet acquisition, it brings back memories of the company's acquisition of Microtest back in 2001. We wondered out loud if the acquisition meant the end of the Microtest we had come to know and love. That wondering rubbed the folks from Fluke and Microtest the wrong way, and they let us (and our audience) know about it. We responded pretty much with an Emily Litella, "Never mind."

Not much concern about that happening this time around. AirMagnet's technology is pretty clearly complementary rather than competitive to Fluke Networks' cadre of offerings. Earlier this year we had the opportunity to hear from representatives of both companies about the need for testing 802.11-based networks.

Very soon I expect to have details on what they call the "go-to-market" strategy. I think I know what they mean by that, but what I'm really trying to find out for you is the following: If you really want to buy some of their stuff, how do you do it? Put differently, how will they integrate their sales-channel strategies?

As the ink begins to dry on 802.11n, which the IEEE announced it had ratified on Friday, September 11, 2009 ... we'll try to do our part to make the navigation of 802.11n wireless networks (and all the wires behind them) a successful one for you.