The Family is the Network: Pure Networks' Network Magic wants to make things simple

Engadget special correspondent Patrick Karle, who may recall from the amazing piece he wrote for us last summer about the timing and scoring system used in the Tour de France, has written another in-depth feature for us, this one about Pure Networks' Network Magic:

I spent some time at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a few weeks ago watching demos and talking with the players at Pure Networks about Network Magic. I'm not saying it's the Holy Grail, but Network Magic presents a well-designed tool set for the home area network-it's a scaled down corporate network management program written specifically for the Home-Area Network (HAN). Network Magic supports PCs running Win 98 and above, and one license covers all.

You load the software on all the PCs on your network and Network Magic automatically creates a management layer that bridges the interoperability gaps between disparate network devices. Designed to manage anything that has an IP address, the program automatically configures the settings on all devices. You don't have to worry about cloning MAC addresses on each PC, or dealing with TCP/IP, DHCP or WEP to get the network up and running the first time.

Network Magic provides users with an easily interpreted topology map that creates a diagram like a family tree of devices on the network. You can drill down for in-depth information on each device. Tools and wizards gives you the ability to keep the network running, add a device without breaking it, share a printer, and documents and photos with other users on the network with a single click.

The product has a repair agent which gives you the ability to diagnose and fix problems. Network Magic can detect a network outage and mark it with a big red "X" on the topology diagram showing you where the outage occurred, and gives you some indication of how to fix it.

The remote access feature is most impressive. Network Magic provides easy remote access to important, shared files when away from home by creating your own home network URL on the Internet. You type your URL and password into any browser, and Network Magic provides a secure VPN to the home network. (Although repair agents and features are not fully supported in Network Magic 1.0, the remote access application is a good first step toward being able to repair the HAN from work.)

Pure Networks' CEO Tim Dowling, a 14-year Intel veteran, said Network Magic is architected as a platform much like a corporate IT product. It consists of a network management layer. There is an agent that runs on each one of the PCs,
and the features—sharing folders, sharing printers and remote access—are actually applications running on top of the management layer.

Dowling said later versions of Network Magic will offer other compelling applications that can be plugged into the management layer. He said they may include the ability to update antivirus programs on every PC with single click, to add guest users to the HAN, to print a file from home at a remote location, and the ability to actually fix the network from a remote location.

Dowling said Pure Networks is also talking with vendors to develop agents that will run on various hand-held devices.
"It may soon be possible for the technical head of household to access the home network with a cell phone," he said.
Given how much of a pain it is for the average person to set up and maintain a home network, network management can never be too good; this maxim grows in importance when your customers are the members of your own family, and you want to peacefully co-exist in the same house with your spouse and children, while sharing digital music and photo folders across the HAN.

Whether you are setting up a network that supports 20 devices in two independent home offices under one roof, or just trying to coax two PCs into sharing a printer, building and managing a HAN is not easy. By plugging a router into a cable modem, ordinary people are stepping into a complex world, where they need to understand some highly specialized technology, according to Michael Gartenberg, VP and Research Director, Jupiter Research.

Gartenberg said research shows there are two main problems with managing today's HAN. The first problem is that one person, usually the most technically savvy person, in the family inevitably becomes the Technical Head of Household
(THH).

He said the THH becomes the family's network administrator, solely responsible for walking around and explaining to everyone how everything works, and for maintaining the network, troubleshooting and fixing it when it breaks.

The THH also uploads all the photos and downloads all the music onto their PC, then distributes it to everyone else's PC. Not to mention, they have to spend a lot of time sorting out family issues arising from home network failure, plus shouldering all the grief from relatives and friends.

The second problem is interoperability—getting PCs and other network devices from multiple vendors to work together.
Though Microsoft, Intel and other vendors have greatly improved universal plug 'n' play compatibility, it's still not easy to sync the diverse combination of elements. In fact, recent research shows consumers return almost 30 percent of the home-networking hardware they buy because they can't make it work right, said Van Baker, Vice President &
Research Area Director, Consumer Electronics, Gartner G2.

Corporate IT managers have had network management software (NMS) packages for managing the corporate IT network infrastructure for years—everything from IBM's Tivoli and Computer Associates' Unicenter TNG to Microsoft's SMS or Micromuse's Netcool solution. These products create a management layer to help corporate network administrators make diverse network devices interoperate smoothly and reliably. But when they get home, they face a similar challenge without similar tools.

That's why it's so promising that someone has developed an NMS product for the digital home, and Pure Networks has some big partners. AOL, Inc., the world's largest Internet services provider, and D-Link, one of the leading manufacturers of HAN hardware and software, announced agreements to develop and distribute Network Magic. AOL will release a customized version of Network Magic to its 28.5 million members worldwide at no charge later this spring.
D-Link said it will distribute a customized version of Network Magic with selected routers this spring.

Their adoption of Network Magic is a big plus for privately held Pure Networks, which has already authored Port Magic,
a product that enables gamers to play multi-player games over the Internet by automatically opening and closing ports on their Internet gateways. Available as part of the latest version of AOL® 9.0 Optimized, Port Magic has reportedly sold over 1 million licenses in the last six months.

Dowling said Pure Networks is sharing its APIs with partners like AOL and D-Link so they can write both agents and applications that leverage the Network Magic platform to the enhance the value of their hardware and software offerings. Resulting products are then tested and certified by Pure Networks, and then become eligible to display the Network Magic Optimized logo, he said.

Neil Smith, General Manager, Media Services, AOL, told me the ISP has leveraged the Network Magic platform to help reduce AOL's enormous call volume. He said 36 percent of AOL broadband customers have more than one device on the network, and when the Internet goes down, the customer usually calls the ISP, even though the problem is usually on the HAN.

"We think Pure Networks has done a fantastic job creating a product that can help even the least technical person in the family understand and manage the HAN without having to call anyone," Smith said.

Rocky Rosas, technical marketing engineer at D-Link, said he has fully tested Network Magic for D-Link routers, and found it to be easily integrated with the PC software that comes with D-Link's hardware. Rosas said Pure Networks brought together network OS development expertise and end user ease-of-use expertise into a product that adds a lot of value for D-Link customers.

Though D-Link is the first Network Optimized router vendor, others also seem to be considering Network Magic.

David Henry, NetGear Product Line Manager for consumer routers, told me Network Magic as the only product he's seen so far that attempts to manage the entire home network. "Other software packages in this space, like Orb and Single-Click,
are focused on streaming digital content to various devices on the network, or are utilities that only attempt to deal with one kind of hardware device," he said.

Dowling said Pure Networks' marketing strategy is to roll Network Magic out through as many channels as possible, so,
in addition to the AOL and D-Link partnerships, the company plans to distribute its own version in the $59-$99 price range in a few months. Until then, a beta version is available for downloading at
http://www.networkmagic.com/.