The folks at Transition Networks keep adding to their huge line of doodads that convert one thing to another. I’ve been using their products for a heck of a long time and we’ve just recently tried out a firewire to single mode fiber optic media converter for an underwater observatory near the fabled Banzai Pipeline.

So while I strongly encourage you to get a full catalog, here’s just a few things that caught my eye here at the Interop NY’06 show at the Javits center.

• WDM that allows a single 100tx copper or gig copper to be transmitted full duplex over a single multimode or single mode fiber
• Duplex fiber media converters that add in 802.3af Power Over Ethernet
• Duplex fiber media converters that do both POE and a pair of two wire serial ports (combined they make a single 3 wire bi-directional serial port)
• If you’re using their chassis solution you can have both near and far side GUI based mgmt in-band to the far end
• USB console so that you no longer have to find your USB to serial dongle to configure smart devices

PowerDsine is expanding their line line of both 802.3af and high power midspan power injectors but what many don’t know is they they have some pre-standard high power injectors that can even power the new tilt-pan-zoom survaillance cameras through the use of special splitters. With plug-and-play ease the InteropNET Team was able to simply drop them into place and power the phones all around the Interop show in New York. Take a hard look, I was VERY surprised at the depth of their product documentation when I found a table that documented various pre-standard devices that could still be accomodated using conversion dongles.

Brian Chee is a researcher at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) and runs the Advanced Network Computing Lab. He is also a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld Magazine. As a 12 year veteran of the InteropNET Team, Brian was the VOICE team lead for the New York 2006 Interop Show.

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