Once you have your bootable CD with ESXi 5, you’re ready to go. The test environment is my home virtual infrastructure (VI) with 2 Windows 2008 Servers, 4 Windows 7 Enterprise computers and one Ubuntu workstation. The host is an HP Proliant ML150 G6 with 8GB of RAM and 4 separate datastores (3 SATA and 1 SSD).

The upgrade process is simple. Keep in mind that this is an all or nothing campaign. You can’t go backwards once the upgrade is in process. Backing up all the data and VMs is recommended. Shutdown all of your virtual machines and the host, make sure your host’s BIOS is set to boot to CD and away we go. This video shows the steps all the way through.

From my experience, you’ll want to be aware of the following:

1. During the upgrade you may receive a warning that some VIBs (VMware Installation Bundle) cannot be updated. VIB’s are customizations to the host or other third-party software that may have configuration files hooked to the host and/or vMachines. This document answers the question “what are VIBs made of?” (along with sugar and spice and everything nice).  My ESXi 4 host has a custom Intel GB NIC and it had been updated to 4.1. VMware acknowledges that the 4.1 update will cause the migration to throw the warning as the VIB’s did change. During the migration, when using the base installation of ESXi 5 , it will not bring any customizations with it because it is, essentially, a base installation. If you need your VIBs, you’ll need to use the Image Builder CLI to create a customized ISO installer. This will no doubt be part of the vSphere upgrade process. If you feel confident that no customizations made cannot be repeated after the upgrade, you can force the migration to continue. After migration, my host’s custom NIC did function as did the vSwitch attached to it.

2. All VMs will need the VMtools upgraded after the migration. This is easily done through through each machine’s menu in the vSphere Management Client or vCenter.

3. Some vMachines may not go online immediately after the upgrade. I didn’t have to re-add any vNICs, but I did have to reboot a couple of machines after the VMtools were upgraded to get back on the network.

4. The VMtools may not upgrade at all. I had this problem on one Windows 7 machine. if you run into this, the solution is here.

To access the post-migration vSphere Client, you’ll need to navigate to the Host’s website and install the new version.

Once the migration has completed, you’ll see a cleaner, more modern Host interface. I don’t spend a lot of time there, but it’s still cool. So, after the migration and the VMtools upgrade, its time to get ballsy and start migrating your VMs to Virtual Machine Version 8. Upgrading the virtual machine hardware is very easy and gives some significant enhancements. To upgrade, just right click the turned off machine and choose Upgrade Virtual Hardware. It takes a few minutes, depending upon the number of vDisks.

Once everything has been migrated, upgraded, and spit-shined, its time to look at what you’ve gained. I’ll start with what I think is the best part of ESXi 5, moving the Host’s swap cache to SSD. The concept is straight forward, when the host has extreme memory pressure it will write its swap files to SSD instead of a SATA based datastore. This will improve the performance of the VMkernel as it manages the VI.

You can enable this feature in the Configuration tab of the vSphere Client. In the Software section, a new Host Cache Configuration link will appear, thanks to the migration. Of course, you’ll need a SSD physically attached and recognized as a datastore and an SSD drive.

More on SSD Host Caching

I bought a Corsair 98GB SSD and attached it. The Host recognized it immediately after re-scanning for storage devices. I assigned half the datastore to the Host Cache. I’m overtaxing the Host by assigning more virtual RAM than I have physical. That’s one of the advantages of VMware and a feature that works almost too well (notice how VMware has changed they’re pricing strategy to be more resource based), in this case the SSD Host cache, combined with the memory ballooning, should allow me to get more out of less RAM. Since the addition of the SSD, overall performance of the Host has been better.

I wanted to take it a step further and move all my VM’s swap files to the SSD also. By default, the .vswp files for each VM will be kept in the VM folder on the same datastore. With multiple machines living on the same datastore, I figure moving the swap files to the SSD will improve the performance. My logic is the overall SSD IOps improvement over SATA drives will be enough to offset the SATA 2 based motherboard, cables and the consistent SATA datastore calls from the VMkernel.

The VM swap files on SSD may cause some problems in a vSphere environment using HA, vMotion and/or Storage vMotion. For a stand-alone ESXi environment, its worth the risk.

To move the swap files, access the Properties–>Options–>Swapfile Location of the VM. Choose Store in the Host’s Swapfile Datastore. You can move them back at any time.

Virtual Machine Version 8

ESXi5 allows for some seriously huge virtual machines. The ability for 1TB of RAM and up to 32 virtual processors are what you probably won’t use in a non vSphere environment. However, the upgraded video processor to support Windows 7 desktops is nice. Another interesting feature is the ability to boot from the EFI BIOS. One of the advantages to the EFI BIOS is the ablility to use a GPT (GUID Partition Table) disk rather than the size and partition limited limited MBR (Master Boot Record). Now , this becomes a big deal only if the size of the GPT partition won’t go over the 2TB datastore limit of VMware. If you need to go over the 2TB limit, you’ll need to use the extent datastore expansion feature to accommodate your partition needs.

Windows 7 can be built to boot from a EFI BIOS only if its a fresh installation. If you change the BIOS type in the VM properties, the Windows machines will not boot. No worries though, just switch it back and you’re good to go.

Enabling the hotplug for RAM and CPU is a must. While the VM is off, edit the settings, click the Options tab and enable the Memory/CPU Hotplug feature. The new RAM slider is a great visual tool to choose the amount you need. This makes performance testing a breeze.

Overall, this is a needed upgrade if you have an ESXi4 host. For vSphere migration, well, I’ll let you know how that goes. As I like to say, I’ll burn that bridge when i get to it.

Professional Technician. Do Not Attempt.

Every so often I get inundated with ads on radio and TV for an online computer scanner that will detect errors, fix those errors, and thus, speed up my computer system. “Double My Speed and Speed Up My PC” are two of the latest “scanner” products to illuminate me (during the 2 am SportsCenter commercial break) that viruses, malware and system errors are slowing down my computer.

Fine, all of those things would actually do that, so at least I know THEY know that. I decided to give one of these a shot because there are multiple sites that claim to do the exact same thing ( first bad sign) and they change names every year or so (bad sign deux). They have enough money to spend on ads, so I figured there’s something behind these “free” scanners.

I browse to doublemyspeed.com to find there is no online scanner, and it isn’t free. The ‘scanner’ is an executable file to download and install. The installation package is a simple registry cleaner. Of all the utilities I would use to speed up an old Windows XP or Vista machine, a registry cleaner isn’t one of them. The cleaner detects and removes all “orphaned” registry keys. Since Windows reads the registry during the boot process, their logic is that a smaller registry equals a faster PC.

Registry keys change after program installs, uninstalls, updates, etc. The Registry is the one thing you don’t want to stick a virtual screwdriver  into since Windows depends on the registry for everything. One bad move and you can have an non-bootable system. Opinions vary on this, but in my experience you only do surgery on the registry if you have a system that is broken, not slow.

I ran the cleaner anyway. I should probably reveal at this point that the lab rat in this experiment was a virtual Windows 7 PC with 3 GB of memory and is performing very well. The scan found 350 errors in the registry. Seems like a lot. So, when does the virus and malware scan start? Never. To get those extra pieces AND fix the “errors” you need to pay $40 or sign up for 1,467 subscription services. To me, this is just another version of scare-ware with no real value. No wonder they have the scratch for advertisements…and for the “testimonials” on how much faster computers are after the clean up.

You can use the following to keep your Windows PC in good condition for free:

1. Anti-Virus: Microsoft Security Essentials is free to download and install. It updates and scans on its own. There are other free AV applications out there, but I like MSE because it’s actually caught some trojan downloaders.

2. Anti-Malware: MSE will help in this area, but if you’re a suspicious paranoid (not a bad thing to be in the computer world), Malwarebytes is free and does a great job at hunting down and destroying the latest mal and scareware.

3. Disk Defragmenter: This utility moves files closer together on the disk for faster reads. Windows 7 and Vista do this on their own automatically. If you’re still on XP, try MyDefrag .

4. Remove Programs from Startup: If you want to get fancy, you can tell Windows what programs to start when you log on. The fewer the better because every program that starts takes resources. This video will walk you though the process. That’s not me in the video. Not sure why I needed to say that, but I feel better somehow that you know it.

There you go. Take that $40 and go buy something more constructive. I’m using mine for Guinness and pizza. Again.

Getting Mac in the Windows Club can get tricky.

Macs do a lot of things well: user friendliness, works well with high-end graphics, out-of-the-box simplicity. But, when it comes to accessing network shares in a Windows environment, it can mean disaster: conflicting authentication, slow log on times and sometimes, no access.

Apple has had, for a long time, AD integration built into the Mac OS. Windows uses Kerberos as the default authentication protocol, and Apple has gone along with that. There is even a SSO (Single Sign On) solution in the Mac OS documentation. If setup correctly, a Mac user can sign on to the local machine and have the credentials passed to the Windows domain for network resource access seamlessly. Getting this to work properly depends on many factors.

Joining the Mac to the domain isn’t difficult. The AD plug-in is in Mac OS X 10.3 and later. Navigating to Applications–>Utilities–>Directory Access and entering the Windows Active Directory Server and credentials and initiating the Bind should do it. Centrify is a free utility to also join Macs to Windows domains.

The first problem Windows administrators will come across is the .local domain conflict. It is best practice to avoid naming your internal domain the same as your external. If I use wificastle.com as my internal domain name and it is also registered on the internet (external domain), a split-brain DNS server will be needed to differentiate what is inside the local network and what is on the internet so internal users can access both. Wanting to avoid that, most Windows domain suffixes are .local instead of .com. Microsoft takes it a step further in that it defaults to a .local domain suffix when setting up Small Business Server 2011.

Apple has its own network resource protocol: Bonjour. Bonjour will scan the network for other Macs broadcasting shared resources and present what it has found to the user in the Shared list. Here’s the problem: Every Mac machine considers itself a separate .local domain. So, if a Mac is a member of a Windows domain with a .local suffix, Bonjour will take priority over DNS. This will significantly delay the ability to see Windows Shares. It will also delay connecting to shares via a SMB Network connection via Go–>Network.

One way to fix this problem is to yield to the Mac and use other internal domain suffixes besides .local for your Windows AD Severs. Obviously, this would be a preparatory step knowing you may have Macs in your Windows environment sometime soon. A fix is provided here for existing .local domains: Changing the Search Policies in Mac OS X

The usernames conflict is another annoyance exacerbated by the .local domains. If a Mac user has a machine username that is identical to their Windows domain username, bad things happen. The user will be unable to log on or experience long delays before gaining access.  This occurs because Bonjour forces the Mac to use its local credentials.  The same thing can happen with identical usernames and passwords, most likely because there are no domain differentiators. The easiest fix here is to make sure the Windows usernames and passwords are different than the Mac machine credentials.

Using third-party tools to help Mac users access Windows shares is an option that I have used. ExtremeZ-IP is a utility that wraps SMB (Server Message Block- Windows file sharing protocol) shares in the Mac friendly AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). The Windows shares are presented in the Shared folder as if they belong to a Mac. Logging in with Windows credentials is required, but once added to the keychain, log on should be automatic. It’s a bit pricey, but ExtremeZ-IP sped up the access to Windows shares quite a bit.

In summary, we all have to plan ahead for integrating Macs into Windows networks. Not using a .local domain suffix will probably fix most of the authentication problems. In existing .local networks though, the workarounds above will make life much easier.

We receive a morning call from a client that some Windows 7 systems can’t get online. Not all, some. You have to confirm that kind of thing. A couple phone calls to the offline users revealed that they couldn’t see any network shares or get to the internet. This was the first time this had happened at this site. The SBS environment was about a month old and performing quite well. I never like the first time problems…something changed, now to figure out what.

Luckily, it didn’t take long. After remotely connecting to the server (and exhaling the sigh of relief that I could), the SBS Server Manager showed me the Big Red X. The DHCP Server had stopped. No problem. Click Start, the service state changed to Started (Ah, OK. That was easy), service changed to Stopped (Mothe******.). This is a SBS self-protection feature. It will stop its own DHCP Service if it sees another one on the network.

So I hop in the truck and head out there. Once on-site, I set up the offline users with static IP addresses to get them online and turn the heat down. While doing this, I notice that none of them have IP addresses. All of them had the standard (169.x.x.x) IP address that windows machines give themselves if they can’t find a DHCP server. This worried me a little because I had expected them to be getting an address from somewhere. If there is a rogue DHCP server on the network, it sucked because it won’t even give out addresses. What a tease, and not the good kind. I’m in a race against time now as the other users will drop off the network as their DHCP leases expire.

I catch a break by finding out the Avaya phone vendor had made a visit on-site the week before. A-ha. I call Matt, our phone guy. He says by default the Avaya IP Office software DHCP service is on, and if a change had been made recently that could be our culprit. I login to the Avaya IP Office and notice that DHCP is turned on, but for a different subnet. I ensure DHCP is disabled for both subnets, alert the client that the phones will going down and reboot the phone system.

After the Avaya system reboots, the SBS is still angry. The DHCP service still won’t start. Rebooting the SBS doesn’t change anything. Checking the premises for wireless routers, WAPs or anything else that could be a DHCP server came up empty. It had to be the Avaya, and we had to do something soon, before the leases expired. It wasn’t just the leases though; SBS is a control freak. It has to know and be everything on the network. If the DHCP service didn’t start, other errors would appear soon.

Matt looked into the Avaya protocols, while I looked to try and trick SBS into thinking it was the only DHCP server. Turns out, there’s no trick; just a registry entry to tell SBS to ignore anything it detects on the DHCP Ports (UDP 67,68).

To disable rogue DHCP detection on the SBS

To disable rogue DHCP detection on the SBS by creating following registry entry:

1. Open Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcpserver\Parameters

3. Create a new DWORD with the following registry value:
Value name:   DisableRogueDetection
Data type:      REG_DWORD
Radix:            Binary
Value data:    (Hexadecimal) 1, which will be saved as 0×00000001

4. Restart the server.

That worked. DHCP started, and we were in good shape. Matt and I wanted answers, though, as we can’t have Avaya systems hijacking our SBS environments. Avaya has the DHCP and TFTP services bundled into one on/off switch. The DHCP service runs on the standard UDP ports 67,68, while TFTP runs on UDP 69. The problem here is that with DHCP disabled, the BOOTP protocol is still active on the DHCP reserved ports. Disabling BOOTP will clear the UDP ports of traffic that trigger the DHCP Shutdown on the SBS.

If the Avaya BOOTP is disabled, as it is now in our environment, all phones needing configuration information will need the IP address of the DHCP and TFTP servers entered manually.

Whew. Just another day at the office.

When logging on to the Exchange Server and looking at the Outbound queues, we noticed mail for only a particular domain being held with the 451 4.4.0 Error DNS Query Failed error. Other symptoms:

1.  The nslookup command run on the Exchange server could resolve the domain, proving the internal DNS server was normal.
2.  After gaining the MX record from who.is, the nslookup command resolved the mail server’s IPv4 address, proving the receiver’s mail server was resolvable.
3.  A telnet session to the MX record successfully contacted the suspected domain’s mail server on port 25.
4.  Internal email delivery was functioning.
5.  All other external mail delivery was functioning.

Now we’re down to Exchange itself, since everything DNS related on the server is working correctly. This is the current fix we use:

Change the Network properties of the Edge Transport Server. In this case, it’s the same one.

Step 1: Configure and External DNS server

1. Click Server Configuration
2. Right click the server and choose properties
3. Click The External DNS Lookup tab
   1. Choose Use these DNS servers
   2. Add the DNS Server IPv4 address
   3. Click Apply

Configure an External DNS address

Step 2: Configure the Hub Transport to use the External DNS for external domains.

1. Click on the Hub Transport of Organization Configuration
2. Choose Send Connectors
3. Right click the connector and choose properties
4. Click the Network Tab
5. Check the Use External DNS Lookup… box

Configure Exchange to use an External DNS

1. Restart the Transport Service

The queue should empty immediately.

We’re not sure why this is happening. We theorize it has to do with conflicting or corrupt DNS data being sent back on either the IPv4 or IPv6 stack to the internal DNS server. With this fix, we’re just telling Exchange to bypass the internal DNS for an external one for outbound mail that isn’t delivered to its domain.

Other fixes that may help:

1. Flush the DNS caches on the internal DNS servers and the Exchange server.
2. Add a Forwarder to the internal DNS server. I’m not a big fan of this one as the Root Forwarders should be sufficient. It did work at one site, though.

Drobo recently released the latest version of the Drobo Elite. They should have kept it in the oven a little longer. We decided to use this SMB storage device because it is VMware Certified, low-cost and has built in 2-disk redundancy.

This Drobo has 8 bays and can handle any size, speed and type of disk. We filled it with 2TB 10K SATA drives from Western Digital.

The original design consisted of two Dell R510 servers running Vsphere 4.1 with fail-over mode enabled. All VMs will reside on the Drobo.

The first sign of trouble appeared during a tech support all to Drobo. I needed some help configuring the iSCSI connections so I could add the datastores to the VMware hosts. The tech I spoke to didn’t know how yet as the model was brand new. Uh-oh.

I figured it out on my own. The Drobo Dashboard software needs to be installed on a physical machine on the same network as the iSCSI connections. From there, you can create partitions and set the RAID level. I chose the 2-disk redundancy level. I would regret that decision later. I created several 2TB partitions

Once the partitions were made, I was able to add the datastores to both Vsphere hosts and all looked good. I copied the ISO files up and installed Small Business Server 2011 without a hitch.

The virtual SBS Server had a dedicated GB NIC on its own vSwitch. The vNIC was the Intel 1000 emulator. During troubleshooting I did try the VMXNET3 vNIC and it made no real difference in throughput. The physical NIC was connected to a Juniper EX2200 switch with the MTU size set to 1500 on the switch and vNIC.

So, we get onsite and install the infrastructure. All is fine until we actually start copying files from physical machines on the network to the SBS server. The throughput was very poor. Just using RDP to get into the server was agonizingly slow. I got that rock in my stomach feeling that we may be in trouble.

Symptoms included:

- 16kbps to 1 MB/ sec throughput on the vNIC.
- Latency in the 800 ms range for Reads and Writes to the datastore.
- Timeouts were likely but unconfirmed. We had some file copy resets and errors.

Troubleshooting:

1. Tried Jumbo Frames on the vNIC and Juniper switch. It helped a little at first, but the latency in reads/writes continued
2. Added the VMXNET3 adapter and ran the Fix My Network wizard in SBS to establish the new vNIC.
3. Swapped the ethernet cables with new CAT6
4. Moved the iSCSI connections off the switch. Configured crossover cables and connected directly to the vHost

All of those made no difference. We figured at that point that it was probably the overhead of the 2-disk redundancy of the Drobo. It’s a software based RAID and most likely resource intensive.

Now we were neck deep in trouble. The client had been in the office the day after the installation. Mail Services, Internet Access, BES and File Access were all very slow and had disconnects.

Finally, we said hell with it. We had to move the virtual SBS off of the Drobo. The problem was the vHosts weren’t designed with enough disk space to house the SBS as is. I used the VMware Converter to run a V2V conversion. In the process I shrunk the disks to fit in the vHost.

A 120 GB disk took 8 hours to get from the Drobo to the vHost over the cross connected iSCSI connections.

Once on the vHost, the network throughput increased to 20MBps. Latency dropped to 16 ms from 800 ms. No network drops and all services responded quickly.

We plan on dismissing the Drobo- Office Space Style. I’ll be the one with the bat.

The Drobo is next.

“Apple has issued a recall on several models of Mac laptops because the battery can overheat and catch fire. Experts say a Mac fire is just like a PC fire, except it’s more hip and condescending.” – Conan O’Brien, 2006

“Go ahead, bite the big apple, don’t mind the maggots.” – Mick Jagger, 1978

In the recent past one of the main arguments for buying a Mac over a PC was its invulnerability to viruses, malware and more recently, scareware. What was once just for high-end graphics users was now for everyone. It was simple to use, had cooler graphics and was much more expensive then a PC because, you know, it was better.  The marketing of the iPhone and iPad  led me to iHate anything Apple.

The main reason the Mac stayed under the radar for hackers and malware writers is 92% of computers run some version of Windows. Every system has vulnerabilities; what matters is does anyone give a damn?

Now Macs are having more success than ever. We recently got one at my workplace so we could learn to use them and have them interact on a Windows Network. Macs are wedging their way into the Business Enterprise.

Hackers and malware writers are taking notice. The post below notes the first malware program written for the Mac and its browser, Safari.

http://blog.intego.com/2011/05/02/intego-security-memo-macdefender-fake-antivirus/

Turns out the malware injects itself just as it would on a Windows machine. When the user visits a compromised website using Safari, the malware runs a java based program and tricks the user to installing fake anti-virus software.

By making a quick change to Safari, a user can help stop this vulnerability. Sound familiar IE users?

The good news is, the malware itself is the same as Windows based malware, just more hip and condescending.

Basic Wireless Network

In this diagram you can see the physical and wireless connections of a basic network. A network cable connects the Internet to the cable modem or the DSL router (this is the equipment your Internet Service Provider installs). Another cable connects the ISP router to the wireless router. From this point, the wireless router connects to the Internet, allowing all computers connected to it to also access the Internet and each other. Once this basic infrastructure is in place, adding to the network is very easy.

Equipment needed for this setup:
Wireless router
Network cable (to connect the ISP equipment to the wireless router)
Other Network Cables to physically connect other computers to the wireless router (optional)

Wireless Network Setup

Equipment needed: Computer, Network Cable, Wireless Router

Setting up the wireless network isn’t difficult; securing it properly is the most important function. A non-secure wireless network can be dangerous because of the following:

1. Anybody can jump on the network and use your Internet connection.
2. Anybody can login to your router and change settings
3. Your data can be seen by others in plain text, exposing your surfing habits and passwords.

Follow the instructions that came with your router for the physical setup. The only two connections needed are:
1. Network cable from the INTERNET port on the router to the ISP modem.
2. Network cable from any other port on the router to your computer.

Basic Wireless Security:
-Change the Administrator login
-Choose an encryption level from None or WEP to WPA Personal or greater
-Change the SSID. The SSID is the identifyer your router broadcasts when hosting a wireless network. When your wireless network application lists all the networks in your area it is actually showing the SSIDs of those networks.

Instructional Videos
Linksys Routers D-Link Routers Netgear Routers

Advanced Wireless Security:
-Allow only the computers on your network to connect to the router.

Although setting an encryption passphrase (as shown in the Basic Wireless Security videos) is effective, telling the router specifically who to allow to connect is another level of security. This is done by finding the hardware code (MAC address) of your wireless network card and adding that value to the router’s “allow” list. This setting will override the encryption passphrase meaning that if a computer has the correct passphrase for the router but is not on the “allow” list it will NOT connect to the router.This works best when the wireless computers on your network rarely change.

Instructional Videos
Linksys Routers D-Link Routers Netgear Routers

Equipment Needed:
1. Broadband Internet Service- This can be through a cable provider, high-speed DSL, satellite provider or Verizon’s FiOS (Fiber Optic internet Service).

2. A VOIP Provider- Vonage, Comcast, AT&T and others provide this service.

3. VOIP Modem (ATA)- This is provided to you by the provider or you can purchase separately. The modem allows the signals to be converted from analog to digital for travel across the Internet. This allows you to plug in regular phones (not Internet only phones). In the truest sense this isn’t pure VOIP, but it is the cheapest and most quickly installed structure. If your broadband connection is good enough, your voice data will have high quality.

4. 5.8 G Hz Cordless phones- This is an important distinction because your wireless data network uses the 2.5 GHz frequency. Older model cordless phones also use the 2.5GHz so phone conversations will have an effect on your data network and vice versa. The newer 5.8 G Hz phones will not interfere with your wireless network performance. (See lower picture)

The VOIP Modem attaches directly to your wireless router. The Controller phone of a cordless phone set communicates with the satellite phones.

Connect the following with a bridge:
Game Consoles
Computers
Printers
Storage
DirecTV DVR
(anything with a wired network adapter.)

THIS IS NOT A WIRELESS ACCESS POINT. This is strictly for connecting wired connections on the wireless network. Wireless clients must still connect directly to the main router.

The bridge connects  to the wireless  network. Use network cables (Ethernet CAT 6) to attach the machines to the bridge. If you have more devices than the bridge has Ethernet ports you can purchase a 5-8 port network switch to complement the bridge. You would then connect all the devices to the switch, then connect the switch to the bridge.

Setting Up The Bridge:
When you get your bridge you’ll need to configure it to connect to your wireless network. You will need the following:
1. The SSID of the wireless router
2. The Encryption Level
3. The Passphrase
All of these were covered in the Basic Security videos above. Remember, the bridge is just another wireless client.

Once this is set up you now have wired connections attached to to your wireless network!

D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, Cisco and Belkin all make Ethernet to wireless bridges. They can be also known as Gaming routers since some use them to connect gaming consoles.