Friday, February 15, 2008

Wi-Fi Definition Wireless Fidelity

The following paragraphs summarize the work of Wi-Fi experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of Wi-Fi. Heed their advice to avoid any Wi-Fi surprises.

The best time to learn about Wi-Fi is before you're in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable Wi-Fi experience while it's still free.

Wi-Fi is the short for wireless fidelity and is meant to be used generically when referring of any type of 802.11 network, whether 802.11b, 802.11a, dual-band, etc. The term is promulgated by the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Any products tested and approved as "Wi-Fi Certified" (a registered trademark) by the Wi-Fi Alliance are certified as interoperable with each other, even if they are from different manufacturers. A user with a "Wi-Fi Certified" product can use any brand of access point with any other brand of client hardware that also is certified. Typically, however, any Wi-Fi product using the same radio frequency (for example, 2.4GHz for 802.11b or 11g, 5GHz for 802.11a) will work with any other, even if not "Wi-Fi Certified."

Formerly, the term "Wi-Fi" was used only in place of the 2.4GHz 802.11b standard, in the same way that "Ethernet" is used in place of IEEE 802.3. The Alliance expanded the generic use of the term in an attempt to stop confusion about wireless LAN interoperability.

There's no doubt that the topic of Wi-Fi can be fascinating. If you still have unanswered questions about Wi-Fi, you may find what you're looking for in the next article.

Friday, February 8, 2008

What is Round Robin DNS?-Definition

Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about Round robin DNS? The information in the article below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about Round robin DNS.

A load balancing technique in which balance power is placed in the DNS server instead of a strictly dedicated machine as other load techniques do.

Round robin works on a rotating basis in that one server IP address is handed out, then moves to the back of the list; the next server IP address is handed out, and then it moves to the end of the list; and so on, depending on the number of servers being used. This works in a looping fashion.

Round robin DNS is usually used for balancing the load of geographically distributed Web servers. For example, a company has one domain name and three identical home pages residing on three servers with three different IP addresses. When one user accesses the home page it will be sent to the first IP address. The second user who accesses the home page will be sent to the next IP address, and the third user will be sent to the third IP address. In each case, once the IP address is given out, it goes to the end of the list. The fourth user, therefore, will be sent to the first IP address, and so forth.

Although very easy to implement, round robin DNS has important drawbacks, such as those inherited from the DNS hierarchy itself and TTL times, which causes undesired address caching to be very difficult to manage. Moreover, its simplicity makes that remote servers that go unpredictably down inconsistent in the DNS tables. However, this technique, together with other load balancing and clustering methods, can produce good solutions for some situations.

Now you can be a confident expert on Round robin DNS. OK, maybe not an expert. But you should have something to bring to the table next time you join a discussion on Round robin DNS.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

SaaS Definition from Webopedia

What is SaaS?
Short for Software as a Service, SaaS is a software delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service. SaaS allows organizations to access business functionality at a cost typically less than paying for licensed applications since SaaS pricing is based on a monthly fee. Also, because the software is hosted remotely, users don't need to invest in additional hardware. SaaS removes the need for organizations to handle the installation, set-up and often daily upkeep and maintenance. Software as a Service may also be referred to as simply hosted applications.