The device features a Gigabit Ethernet port as a WAN interface to any ADSL, SDSL, VDSL or cable modem for Internet access. A new green Gigabit Ethernet switch provides power-saving functions according to 802.3az for energy-efficient networks, and continues to allow for a fanless design of the device. Three user-configurable ports can be used for LAN, WAN (up to 2 x load balancing), DMZ, VLAN, or monitoring.
A high-speed USB 2.0 port powers USB media, so that selected cellular-modem USB sticks can be connected directly to the router to act as a backup for Internet access.

Flexibility through virtualization
The Advanced Routing and Forwarding (ARF) function enables the LANCOM 1631E to provide up to two virtual networks, each with its own settings for DHCP, DNS, routing and firewall. ARF allows logically separate networks to be operated for different groups and applications on a single physical infrastructure.

Security and backup included
The integrated high-security firewall with stateful inspection, intrusion detection, and denial-of-service protection screens the network safely and reliably from attacks from the Internet. The included management tools LANconfig and LANmonitor offer not only convenient remote maintenance of entire installations and useful setup wizards—such as the 1-Click-VPN wizard which allows the simple setup of VPN connections between LANCOM routers—but also real-time monitoring and logging. Comprehensive backup, high-availability functions and the ISDN port guarantee smooth 24-hour operations.

Best camera title was nominated to Mobotix M24 due to excellent image quality and rich details. AXIS P3344-VE came second and Bosch NBC-265-W was placed 3rd. Detailed overview can be read from Arvutimaailm’s February 2012 issue.

In his editorial, magazine editor in chief Kaido Einama says, that while most of cameras had pretty solid hardware, then software quality was not so perfect and suggest to use 3rd party software with most of the cameras.

SCALEWIRELESS was happy to assist magazine staff with the testing, since it also provided a good opportunity to test Synology Surveillance Station compatibility with wide range of IP cameras in real-life situation. Synology Surveillance Station can be that 3rd party software that will overcome shortages camera software has. More than half of the cameras and all very well known brands were found compatible, including Mobotix, Axis, Sony, IQInvision, Panasonic and others.

Read more information about Synology Surveillance Station features at:
http://scalewireless.ee/sw-solutions/home-home-office/video-surveillance/

Experience a different kind of LTE with FRITZ!Box 6842 LTE and 6810 LTE
As the market leader in broadband terminal devices, AVM has incorporated LTE connectivity into its successful FRITZ!Box concept, ensuring that all features remain operational 24/7 in the home network. Both products premiering at the Cebit trade fair, the FRITZ!Box 6842 LTE and the FRITZ!Box 6810 LTE, support the frequency bands 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz, owing to integrated LTE CAT-3. This enables downstream throughput of up to 100 Mbit/s and upstream rates of up to 50 Mbit/s. The new FRITZ!Box 6842 LTE is certain to fulfill any requirements you may have of your home network, thanks to WLAN N, four Ethernet ports and one USB port. It also features an analog port. The smaller FRITZ!Box 6810 LTE is the ideal entry-level product and, with DECT, WLAN N and a LAN port, is ideal for all your basic communications requirements. For LTE telephony, both devices feature integrated DECT for up to six cordless phones.

MyFRITZ! – the cloud you can trust
At the Cebit trade fair, AVM will be presenting a new member of the popular FRITZ!Box family, MyFRITZ!. This service will make it a piece of cake to access personal data such as photos, videos and music securely from anywhere in the world via your FRITZ!Box – from smartphones, tablets or computers. With this personal cloud service, all private data stays safe at home on your own FRITZ!Box on a USB or hard drive. MyFRITZ! will also inform you of phone calls and answering machine messages. Access is encrypted and secure with the free MyFRITZ! service from AVM. For the moment, MyFRITZ! will only be launched in Germany.

All AVM innovations will be presented at Cebit 2012 in hall 13, booth C48.

Technical solution that was used in Mia Jõulumaa is based on LANCOM Systems OAP-321-3G that is an universal device, capable of providing Internet connection or backup solution for any environment, even when outside temperature goes down to -35 or even more. Device can be installed in just a few minutes and it has many built-in features, from 3,5G modem and GPS positioning to WiFi internal and external antennas. Connection to the device can be also established via LAN cable.

“It is rather common in Estonian countryside, that 3G reception is worse in indoors than outdoors. In some cases, it is not even possible to establish Internet connection from inside the house,” explained device usage scenario IT specialist and Mia Jõulumaa volunteer, Ando Urbas. “That was exactly the case at Mia Jõulumaa, where Internet connection with the regular 3G USB-stick was impossible to establish – signal was too weak. But with SCALEWIRELESS outdoor device tied up to a tree, we got fast Internet connection in no time.”

LANCOM Systems OAP-321-3G is also equipped with a WiFi directional antenna, that can be used to establish connection with a client up to 25 km away. That allows to install the device in a location, where 3G signal is strong and beam Internet connection virtually anywhere nearby, where it is needed – for example, on top of a mast, hilltop or chimney and use LAN cable or WiFi signal for Internet connection to your house or office.

More information about SCALEWIRELESS outdoor solutions can be found at
http://scalewireless.ee/product/lancom/outdoor-m2m-routers .

As in previous years LANCOM Systems will be presenting their solutions and innovations in wireless LAN and VPN, which this year are dedicated to being future proof and offering speed/performance.

When: 6-10 March 2012
Where: Hanover, Germany, Hall 13 – Stand C28

Order your free CeBIT-Ticket
(Offer only applies to companies and institutions, and only while supplies last.)

Like the black FRITZ!WLAN Repeater N/G, the white FRITZ!WLAN Repeater 300E is ideal for extending the reach of existing WLAN networks. As a result, you can now enjoy WLAN where architectural structures for instance may have once obstructed coverage.

High-speed WLAN N – simple installation at the push of a button

The compact design allows you to use the Repeater in any socket. In addition to offering fast WLAN N, both FRITZ!WLAN Repeater models can be used in WLAN networks based on the 802.11g, b and a standards. The data is securely encrypted and transferred via 2.4 or 5 GHz bands.

The FRITZ!WLAN Repeaters are perfect for use with the FRITZ!Box WLAN models and are extremely easy to install using WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup). The Repeaters are also compatible with all other standard WLAN routers. A browser-based assistant is also available to help you install the Repeater without WPS.

“We are excited to reveal the company’s most ambitious release to date,” said Derren Lu, CEO of Synology Inc. “DSM 4.0 is evolved with the latest technologies and provides DiskStation and RackStation users with ultra performance and reliability,” Lu added.

The new Cloud Station synchronizes users’ files automatically across their DiskStation and RackStation, desktops, and laptops, assuring a secured private cloud dedicated to its owner. The files stay intact for retrieval offline. In addition, QuickConnect frees users from complicated port forwarding while DDNS service powered by Synology offers users free domain names. To make system monitoring even more effortless, DSM 4.0 pushes notifications triggered by users’ self-defined events to Skype™, Microsoft Messenger^®, and DS finder.

Users can now perform iSCSI LUN backup on DiskStation or RackStation locally or across network. With point-in-time copy technology, incremental backup, and space reclaim, Synology’s backup solutions are solid and efficient. IT administrators can edit Windows^® ACL directly on DSM, which is more intuitive. Synology’s VPN support is now complete. Businesses can use a DiskStation as a VPN client to build a secure private network at no additional cost. Moreover, DSM 4.0 is compliant with industry standards to extend productivity, including the latest VMware^® vSphere 5.

Most applications such as Photo Station, Download Station, and Surveillance Station are now packages, which not only make installation and upgrades easier, but also allow user to adapt their DiskStation and RackStation according to their needs in a business or home environment. DSM 4.0 empowers users with a panorama of all running applications at one click on Pilot View. A new Desktop Widget displaying server status, grouping of desktop shortcuts, and the instant preview of applications on DSM taskbar promote smarter server management.

Surveillance Station extends its compatibility to support over 1,000 IP camera models and fisheye IP camera de-warping which helps users view multiple video angles from a single camera and reduces the cost of camera deployment. Image analysis in Live View helps users spot critical movements in multiple channels.

The new OS additionally brings DS file and DS photo+ to Android™ tablets. Synology also takes the lead to support Amazon^® Kindle Fire. Other features include application portal, proactive virus scan, hotspot support, configuration backup, plus Picasa™ and Twitter^® support on Photo Station and many more.

Full list of changes and download links can be find at http://www.synology.com/dsm/dsm4.0_beta.php

This tool can cut down the guess work and deliver accurate recommendation, both about the hard disk space requirements and DiskStation needed. It also estimates network bandwidth needed for the project, exact values will depend heavily on motion in front of the cameras.

Synology NVR Selector can be found at the following address: http://www.synology.com/products/nvr.php?lang=enu

Understand the Building Blocks
Like computers, to build a NAS server, you need components including CPU, memory, circuit board, I/O controller and ports. HDD are connected to I/O controller hub, where SATA controller is located. Depending on the SATA controller in the I/O controller hub, the bus speed, i.e. the bandwidth, could be 3.0 Gb/s (SATA rev. 2) or 6.0 Gb/s (SATA rev. 3). You can think of it as highway speed limit.

SATA 3.0 Gb/s & SATA 6.0 Gb/s on Atom Platform
If you are looking for performance, then a NAS server with Atom platform will be a likely candidate. Usually an Atom powered device comes with a chipset, namely ICH9R (I/O Controller Hub), which includes the SATA controller controlling the I/O of hard disks. However, its internal disk data transfer rate is up to 3.0 Gb/s (300 MB/s) only. If you would like to have SATA 6.0 Gb/s support, you have to install an external SATA controller on ICH9R via PCIe interface.

Our experimental devices are based on Atom platform and ICH9R chipset. One equips SATA 3.0 Gb/s support with built-in chipset ICH9R. On the other device, we integrated 88SE9125 SATA controller to provide SATA 6.0 Gb/s bandwidth. All other equipment and configurations are the same – same CPU and same RAM size. Each device carries 4 powerful WD Caviar Black HDDs with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The HDDs are configured to RAID 0 to bring out the best performance.

Test Units & Environment
The specifications of two experimental devices based on Atom platform are listed below:

Test #1 – Windows Upload/Download Performance
Once the two devices are ready, I tested the performance between the two using Robocopy to measure writing & reading speed with Windows File Sharing (SMB) protocol. The test is done on Windows 7. A single 5GB file transfer is done to squeeze out the max transfer speed.

In reality, the files we transfer on a daily basis are usually a lot of small files, so we did another test of copying many files of small sizes (1MB x 5000 files) in two-way direction – (1) from NAS to PC, and (2) from PC to NAS, to simulate scenario in the real world. The result is as follows:

Test #2 – Direct Disk I/O Performance
In our NAS performance test, it seems the bottleneck blocking the transfer speed is the 1Gbps LAN limit and the overhead of file sharing protocol. Therefore we should look for scenarios that doesn’t involve these two factors. For example, you might do daily backup of your data from one volume to another, or move the shared folders among different volumes – all of which involves file copy operations between volumes.

Therefore, I did a test on the two devices: (1) Build two RAID 0 volumes, each of which consists two drives. (2) Copy a single file of 50 GB from a RAID 0 volume to another.

Summary
In theory, SATA 6.0 Gb/s solution should provide better performance than SATA 3.0 Gb/s. However, the result suggests that, substantial performance gain is yet to be observed from using an add-on SATA 6.0 Gb/s controller. We are still considering to adopting SATA 6.0 Gb/s interface in the future, but only when the technology matures and when it show appreciable performance gains. Once the moment arrives, I’m sure we’ll have a product that has SATA 6.0 Gb/s support.

The DSM 3.2-1955 update also improves data transfer stability of USB 3.0 storage devices and the compatibility of iSCSI targets with ESXi servers. Users are thus empowered to manage more data in less time and achieve greater productivity.

Availability
The DSM 3.2-1955 update applies to the following models: DS712+, DS212, DS212+, DS212j, RS212, RS812, DS3611xs, RS3411xs, RS3411RPxs, DS2411+, RS2211+, RS2211RP+, DS1511+, RS411, DS411, DS411+II, DS411+, DS411j, DS411slim, DS211+, DS211, DS211j, DS111, DS1010+, RS810+, RS810RP+, DS410, DS410j, DS710+, DS210+, DS210j, DS110+, DS110j, DS509+, RS409+, RS409RP+, RS409, DS409+, DS409, DS209+II, DS209+, DS209, DS209j, DS109+, DS109, DS109j, DS409slim, DS508, DS408, RS408, RS408-RP, DS108j

It is available for free download at http://www.synology.com/support/download.php and in the DSM Update of DiskStation Manager.