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By Will Sturgeon, 25 May 2004 09:05

NEWS Computer Associates today unveiled two new customers trialling its latest foray into wireless product offerings.

Wireless Site Management enables users to offer secure and managed 802.11 Wi-Fi access and is already proving popular in academic circles and the healthcare industry, where flexibility, mobility and security are paramount.

Yogesh Gupta, CTO of CA, said the product removes the "headache" of managing and rotating wireless encryption keys - a task Gupta says has become a "nightmare" for IT departments.

The product also enables enterprises or organisations to define physical boundaries for their network as well as the more traditional 'virtual boundaries' of encryption-based security.

Linda Reino, CIO of Universal Health Services, which has 35,000 employees across 105 facilities in 24 states, believes patient data is even more sensitive than bank account details but that cannot be allowed to limit the mobility of staff.

"Wireless is the only option for working from the patient's bedside," said Reino. "Our staff may be spread all over the map but we don't want our doctors and nurses to feel that way when it comes to accessing patient data. However, we have to ensure we have the very best security in place."

Reino said it is important that UHS was able to define a physical perimeter as well as a virtual one.

"We had to be sure that when we set a perimeter it really was a perimeter," she said, referring to the temptation posed by a wireless network which can be detected by curious passers-by.

Maurice Ficklin, CIO at the University of Arkansas, which is also trialling the beta version of Wireless Site Management, said it gives the university a competitive edge, as institutions vie to attract the best students. Ficklin believes secure wireless access "whether it's in the stadium or the dorm" is now a must for schools hoping to bring in the cream of academia.