Inter@ctive WeekJanuary 20, 1998
Ariel To Unveil NT-Based Remote Access Gear
By Joe McGarvey
11:00 AM EST
Hoping to leverage Windows NT's rising stature as a reliable operating system environment, Ariel Corp. next week will unveil a 24-port remote access server that is based on the popular Microsoft Corp. operating system.
The Rascal RS2000 offers enterprises all the ingredients necessary to host up to two dozen remote access sessions, over 56-kilobit-per-second or 128-Kbps Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connections, on a single computer circuit board.
The Rascal RS2000, which includes a connection to a 1.5-megabit-per-second T1 or ISDN telecommunications link, is designed to be inserted into an existing personal computer, transforming that PC, according to Steve Curin, marketing manager at Ariel, into a remote access server.
In addition to letting enterprises add a remote access server to their infrastructure without purchasing extra equipment, such as a stand-alone server from remote access veterans 3Com Corp., Ascend Communications Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. or Shiva Corp., Ariel's equipment offers further savings by not requiring network administrators to tackle a proprietary operating environment in order to manage their remote access system, Curin said.
Instead, he added, the Rascal RS2000 lets enterprises leverage existing technical expertise. "If you have an NT server in-house, then you have NT management expertise in-house," Curin said. "NT is enabling us to make remote access management brainless."
In addition to Ariel, several other companies, including Digi International Inc. and RasCom Inc., offer remote access systems based on Windows NT. Maribel Lopez, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said that enterprise managers may be more willing to consider trusting their remote access needs to Windows NT as the operating system continues to gain momentum as an enterprise-class operating system.
The Rascal RS2000 is scheduled to be available later this quarter and will ship for $9,995.
Ariel can be reached at www.ariel.com
|
