Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
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Mobilesys EtherPage We tend to think of telephony integration applications more
on Windows platforms than UNIX, but there are quite a few talented CTI
(computer-telephony integration) packages designed for our favorite operating
system. MobileSys Inc has a good example of this CTI with EtherPage, a UNIX and
Windows package that allows a computer to send messages to alphanumeric pagers
or any other wireless devices, including telephones and Palm-type units.
EtherPage allows messages to be generated and output from a wide variety of
applications automatically, instead of requiring a human to type messages into a
window prior to sending. (EtherPage has been available since 1996, but the
latest release of the product adds many new features and extends the support
platforms dramatically. The company
changed its name from Personal Productivity Tools to Mobilesys to reflect its
focus on EtherPage.) EtherPage uses a Web interface to make the software look
similar under many different operating systems. The interface design also makes
it relatively easy for a developer to link EtherPage into applications like a
database, spreadsheet, or network management system. The easiest way to obtain the EtherPage software is from
their Web page although you can buy a CD-ROM distribution. EtherPage can be downloaded in a variety of targeted platform
files, including both OpenServer and UnixWare versions. A license key must be
purchased to enable the server, although demonstration codes with a limited time
span are available for evaluation of the EtherPage software. One machine on a
network is designated as the EtherPage server and requires a free serial port.
All other machines (including the server) can act as clients.
There are no separate client licenses necessary. A TCP port is designated
as a receiver for the EtherPage server package (the default value of 4002 should
work for all systems that do not have TCP ports locked by firewall software).
After extracting the files and running an installation script,
then setting an environment variable, EtherPage is available to clients.
The installation process takes only a few minutes, and you can mix client types
(have the server on a UnixWare box, for example, and access it through clients
on Windows, UNIX, and Linux machines). The last step in configuring EtherPage is
to configure the modem used to dial out, and this proceeds easily.
EtherPage recommends a directly connect modem but we used a
network-attached RAS modem pool without any problem. While EtherPage’s immediate audience might seem to be for
those who want to keep up with stock prices, e-mail priority messages, and
similar routine high-priority tasks, EtherPage offers administrators a great
tool for monitoring systems. Integrating EtherPage into a network management
reporting tool such as OpenView, for example, allows a message to be broadcast
to an administrator as soon as network problems occur. Tying SNMP alerts or
similar messages from critical devices like gateways and routers can be as
simple as a little shell programming or a C API (included with the product), and
provides administrators immediate notification of problems.
For large networks or off-site management, this immediate notification
can be extremely important. The audience for EtherPage may seem limited, but once you’ve used the software you will find many uses for it. For example, it takes only a few minutes to program a client to broadcast regular updates on server loads, device failures, stock price changes, and forward selected e-mails to a pager or other wireless device. The alternative to using a package like EtherPage is to manually code a large CTI application, which doesn’t make sense when EtherPage works well and is affordable. EtherPage $595 (server and 3 wireless devices) Summary: A flexible wireless messaging system that is remarkably easy to install and configure, as well as sensibly priced. |
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