Olicom has announced plans to support the complete range of emerging industry standards for "Power Management" in all of its future network interface cards (NICs) for desktops and notebooks. The Company also introduced its first such NIC, the RapidFire 2327 Ethernet 10/100 PCI Adapter. Olicom`s new Power Management-compliant network adapters will be an essential component in the emergence of the "Managed PC," designed to reduce the "total-cost-of-ownership" of PCs in the enterprise network. "Olicom`s Power Management strategy comes in response to the pressing need among organisations of all sizes to reduce the cost and complexity of managing PCs in a networked environment," says Olicom Africa country manager, Nick Muller. "Minimising the customer`s total cost of ownership has always been a key part of the Olicom value proposition, and we have moved quickly to support this important industry initiative with our new network adapters. Olicom`s support for the full range of Power Management initiatives not only delivers an immediate benefit for our customers, but also ensures that their LAN hardware investments today will be ready when the standard is widely supported in the PC industry," he says. The Power Management initiative, through the convergence of a number of emerging industry standards for PC design, is designed to enable what has become known as the "Managed PC," with the following end-user benefits: * Reduce the corporate power usage * Extended operating life (and value) of PCs; * Minimise the complexity involved in configuring and operating PCs; * Enable the centralised management and administration of networked PCs; * Reduce disruption to network users by enabling the remote, off-hours maintenance and upgrading of networked PCs; The ultimate goal of the Managed PC is to lower the total lifetime cost of owning and operating a PC in a networked environment. According to industry research firm Gartner Group, the actual hardware cost of a PC represents less than 25 percent of the total lifetime cost of owning and operating the PC. Other factors, such as maintenance and administration, configuration upgrades, software upgrades, and technical support figure heavily in the total cost of owning the PC through its operational lifetime. The combined Power Management specifications are aimed at reducing these ancillary costs of PC and LAN ownership. Olicom`s new RapidFire 2327, as well as all forthcoming desktop and notebook network adapters from Olicom, will feature full support for all of the following components of the Power Management initiative: ACPI - the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, a specification put forth by Microsoft, Intel, and Toshiba (with support from a host of participating PC and networking industry vendors), is designed to extend and standardise the power management and Plug-and-Play capabilities on the PC platform. ACPI is intended to provide a standards-based platform that will enable network managers to remotely administer and manage PCs through the network connection from a single network management console; Wake-on-LAN is IBM`s initial strategy for remotely powering on and configuring a PC through a network management application. Whereas ACPI`s remote wake-up capability utilises the PCI bus to send the wake-up signal from the LAN connection to the PC system, Wake-on-LAN requires a cable connection inside the PC from the network adapter to the motherboard. Olicom is one of the few network adapter vendors to support both the Wake-on-LAN and ACPI remote wake-up strategy on the same NIC; OnNow is a Microsoft initiative designed to enable the instant availability of the PC, regardless of its current power state. ACPI-compliance in the PC is a requisite capability for OnNow. In order to achieve this functionality in a networked environment, the PC`s network interface card must also be ACPI-compliant; Magic Packet - Magic Packet is a protocol originally devised by Advanced Micro Devices to trigger the remote wake-up of the PC via the network connection. Wake-on-LAN`s remote wake-up function relies on the Magic Packet being transmitted over the network connection to initiate the system wake-up sequence; ACPI can also utilise the Magic Packet, as well as other Power Management techniques, such as Cable Wake and Virtually Connected Frames. The ACPI objectives will only be achieved when all of the following PC components and subsystems support the standard: the system motherboard; the BIOS; the operating system; and peripheral devices (such as Olicom`s network interface cards). ACPI-compliant network adapters are critical to enabling Power Management functionality in a networked environment. While the industry awaits complete support for the ACPI specification throughout the PC system and relevant sub-systems in order to realise the full benefit intended by the specification, providing support in Olicom`s current generation of network adapters ensures customers of a future-proof purchase that will enable full Power Management functionality when the rest of the PC system supports the standard. In conjunction with ACPI-enabled LAN management software, ACPI functionality in networked PCs will result in a dramatic improvement in efficiency of enterprise network management. RapidFire 2327 Ethernet 10/100 PCI adapter In addition to full compliance with the Power Management initiatives, Olicom`s new RapidFire 2327 is a next-generation 10/100 network adapter that features automatic, on-the-fly performance optimisation and high-performance parallel processing drivers. Full auto-negotiation feature enables the automatic selection of 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps and between full or half duplex operation, depending on the hub or switch connection. The RapidFire 2327 ships with Olicom`s LANscout Desktop Management application for simplified monitoring of the adapters network performance and related statistics. To further facilitate the remote management of networked PCs, Olicom`s RapidFire 2327 also supports DMI (Desktop Management Interface) 2.0, which enables networked PCs to report details about their configuration and peripherals across the network connection to a DMI-enabled management application. This gives the network manager important information to remotely assist in fixing, upgrading, or troubleshooting networked PCs.
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