While we're on the subject of wireless deployment, I'm very pleased to bring you an excerpt from today's Mobile Observer newsletter that tackles the non-security side of WLAN management troubles -- that is, technology racing ahead of an organization's ability to support that technology. Enjoy.
Mobile Week in Review: Signs of a Maturing WLAN Market
By Dave Molta
For any new technology to succeed in the enterprise, an adequate service and support infrastructure must be developed. People, policies and procedures must be in place to ensure that the system is optimally used and that, should it break, service is restored as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the underlying technology often races ahead of an organization?s ability to support that technology. Wireless LANs are a great example. The potential benefits of such systems are often compelling, but until recently, deploying, managing and troubleshooting these systems was a monumental headache. No wonder many network managers are saying no to WLAN deployments, despite impassioned pleas from users.
The first challenge is educational. IT managers need to gain a deeper understanding of WLAN technology, including its strengths and limitations. They also need to understand how WLAN services map to organizational goals and what kind of return on investment they might achieve through deployment. While many IT managers are beginning to take advantage of the wealth of available technical information, there?s a lot of misinformation to sift through. This isn?t a conspiracy by any stretch. It?s mostly a matter of vendors trying to spin their own technology in the most favorable light and of well-intended, but uninformed experts expressing their points of view.
The second challenge is to have enterprise-class infrastructure products available. I remember a story about a Novell server that was accidentally sealed in a room by construction workers. During the course of an audit, people started asking questions about this server -- which had been running continuously for over two years -- and nobody could find it. This is not an advertisement for Novell software. Rather, it?s an observation that with maturity comes reliability. It?s true of technology, not to mention people. The one powerful lesson IT managers need to learn is a simple one: You get what you pay for. Companies like Cisco, Agere, Symbol Technologies and Proxim charge more for their technology than Linksys, D-Link and NetGear for a reason. The former are now delivering their third- and fourth-generation WLAN systems, while the latter are still on their first or second.
Finally, there?s the issue of support tools. In my earliest days deploying 10BaseT systems, there was no such thing as a cable scanner. When the network began to slow down, there was no way for me to determine that the problem could be found in an impedance mismatch between horizontal station and cross-connect cables. Today, tools are available to troubleshoot those problems. But back in those days, we didn?t worry so much about managing the underlying network infrastructure because there really wasn?t much to manage, short of turning ports on and off. Today, nobody would even think about deploying Ethernet switches across an enterprise without adequate management tools.
In the WLAN space, we?re beginning to see similar development. Two recent examples are worth noting. Agere introduced its new Wireless LAN Manager product, a significant improvement over the company?s earlier management systems. Some might criticize Agere for delivering a management system that only works with its own products and those of its OEM partners. I don?t buy that. Except for those firms that have grown through mergers and acquisition, most organizations standardize on a single WLAN infrastructure vendor. Thus, in most cases, you don?t really give up anything going with that vendor?s management offering. It?s the same reason Ciscoworks is a better tool for managing Cisco switches than Computer Associates? Unicenter.
While Agere can help you manage its infrastructure equipment, different tools are needed to plan new deployments and troubleshoot problems. Over the past year, several protocol analyzer tools have been released in the market (see http://www.networkcomputing.com/1311/1311f3.html). All are capable, but they are mostly adaptations of wired analyzers and often aren?t well suited to regular monitoring and troubleshooting. However, both startup AirMagnet and Sniffer Technologies have recently released portable Pocket-PC-based analyzers that come much closer to meeting the needs of enterprise IT managers.
So, are we at a point where enterprises can deploy WLAN technology with a high degree of confidence that service levels will approach the standards set by its wired counterpart? Yes, as long as you are willing to make wise investments and you stay away from release 1.0 and low-bid solutions. Plus, the increased availability of solid management tools will help you sleep at night.
