9/20/2005 -- Cisco Systems Inc. last week announced a new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) initiative -- which the networking giant described as an "Intelligent Foundation" for RFID -- designed to help enterprises introduce RF technologies into their supply chains.

RFID devices can be used to augment IT activities such as supply chain management, inventory management, asset management and even maintenance management.

Key components of Cisco’s RFID Solution include the Cisco Application Oriented Network (AON) for RFID; Cisco Services for RFID; Cisco Wireless Location Service; supporting products from vendor partners ConnecTerra, Intermec Technologies Corp., PanGo Networks and ThingMagic.

Cisco says it has embedded RFID middleware functions into its data center switches and branch office routers. The RFID support is delivered via AON modules that can be installed throughout an enterprise's internal network; at the network edge to support RFID event capture and filtering; and in the data center for data authentication, additional filtering and aggregation.

On top of this, Cisco says, its new AON modules can perform tasks like outbound encryption, digital signature and content-based routing in conjunction with external business partners. "Our customers told us that scaling from a pilot program to a production scale deployment was their primary concern followed by improving business processes and productivity," said Mohsen Moazami, vice president of the Retail-Consumer Products Distribution at Cisco, in a statement. "The promise of networked RFID and distributed intelligence has led us to design the Cisco RFID Solution to give customers what they need to maintain a single, integrated and intelligent RFID network built on open standards that allows interoperability with multi-vendor devices."

There’s a services component, too, in the form of Cisco’s RFID Network Readiness Assessment; Pilot Service Offering; and Production Implementation Support. Together, these services create an architectural methodology for RFID deployments that does not impact a customer’s existing network or applications.

The partner aspect, for what it’s worth, purports to ensure interoperability with multi-vendor RFID devices. For the AON for RFID Solution, for example, Cisco has partnered with ConnecTerra, a provider of enterprise infrastructure software for RFID and device computing. Intermec and ThingMagic, on the other hand, provide RFID readers and reader technology, while partner PanGo Networks delivers Wi-Fi-enabled real-time tracking applications. -Stephen Swoyer