7signal Site Miner Simplifies Wireless Network Troubleshooting and Verification by Streamlining Time-Consuming Data Collection and Analysis

Helsinki, Finland – November 17, 2009 – 7signal, a pioneering provider of Wireless Quality Advancement (WQA) solutions, today announced the commercial availability of 7signal Site Miner, a new rapidly deployable tool designed to help wireless network designers, system integrators and network administrators troubleshoot WLAN networks faster and ensure the end-to-end quality of WLAN deployments.

 

The 7signal Site Miner quickly analyzes WLAN environments, reports on application usability and points to ways for improving network performance. The objective third-party measurement of network quality verifies meeting the requirements set in service-level agreements (SLA) at the time of measurement. The new solution complements 7signal Sapphire, the company’s flagship product for continuous WLAN quality assurance.

 

“Wireless business critical applications require consistently high performing networks”, said Veli-Pekka Ketonen, CEO, 7signal. “Having helped organizations improve the quality of their WLAN networks through continuous monitoring and management, we have also found increasing need for a locally deployed verification and troubleshooting tool. The automated data collection and analysis speeds up the troubleshooting process and saves a significant part of the previously manual work.”

 

The 7signal Site Miner is based on a WLAN monitoring agent with a powerful antenna array. The system monitors end-to-end network performance across multiple access points, alerts to any problems and reports on application usability in the network.

 

The reports cover the needs of different applications, ranging from traditional data transfer to VoWLAN voice solutions. With the recent ratification of the new high-speed 802.11n network standard, WLAN is turning from a convenience network to a critical part of IT infrastructure. With more reliance on wireless networking, cost-efficient tools to ensure network quality become an important prerequisite to productivity.

 

“Maximizing business benefits and minimizing customer complaints should be the key objectives of all WLAN deployments”, added Veli-Pekka Ketonen. “With the 7signal Site Miner, our aim is to make it easier for network designers and system integrators to build the best possible networks in all environments, and ease the tasks of network administrators in solving performance issues as quickly as possible. The 7signal Site Miner fills the gap between currently available site survey tools and continuous network performance management solutions.”

 

In addition to passive monitoring, the 7signal Site Miner actively runs application test traffic to chosen access points. To locate potential external problems, the Site Miner scans the radio environment to find interference sources and their effect on the network through a spectrum analysis, and can even pinpoint where the source of interference is located. The system also analyses peak traffic loads and radio channel quality, and identifies any problematic devices.

 

Network performance data can be measured and analyzed concurrently for immediate results. Alternatively, the 7signal Site Miner may be left onsite in stand-alone mode for several days or weeks for automated collection of measurement data for later analysis. This allows the network experts to concentrate on finding the root causes of interference instead of waiting for the disturbance to reoccur. The reporting user interface features an intuitive graphic overview and easy drill-down to detailed measurements and analyses, a new source of revenue to 7signal Site Miner customers performing network verification and troubleshooting.

 

7signal’s current customers and partners include Finnlines, Fujitsu Services, Optiscan, Qicomm, Setera, Signal Networks, Technopolis and Vintor. 7signal was awarded as one of the Red Herring Top 100 Global companies in January 2009.

 

Additional information:

Ville Ilves, VP, Marketing and Sales, Northern Europe and Americas, 7signal Ltd

ville.ilves(at)7signal.com

Tel. +358 45 123 4026

 

Sibel Tunali, VP, Marketing and Sales, Central Europe and APAC, 7signal Ltd

sibel.tunali(at)7signal.com

Tel. +358 45 123 4027