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Wireless LAN Management

Wireless LAN Management
By Dean Au
Article Rating:
November 25, 2003 01:18 PM EST
Reads:
 10,522

In cellular we have carriers, manufacturers, and third-party developers, but in the Wi-Fi space things are a little more complex.

There's a new set of smart WLAN "switch" players emerging in the Wi-Fi space, bringing out new architectures for configuring and managing wireless networks. Recently, I've been hearing some confusion on a question that reminds me of the early days of wired networks: "Can our Wi-Fi infrastructure completely manage itself, or is a separate network management solution required?" Or, put another way, "Is this new product designed for connectivity, for management, or both?" Rather than comparing data sheets, I've been encouraging customers to remember their experience with choosing wired network products.

Over the last two decades, I've seen wired networking and management companies sort themselves into three different categories. For our purposes, we'll call them the Gear Makers, the Umbrella Consoles, and the Security and Performance Specialists. If we take a closer look at the categories, we may learn a little more about why networking vendors tend to specialize, and find a precedent for how things may evolve in Wi-Fi.

  • The Gear Makers: This group creates each new generation of wired switches and connectivity. Names that leap to mind include Cisco, Nortel, Lucent, 3COM, Foundry, and Extreme. They work tremendously hard to bring down the cost of network connections, sweating the economics of "cost per port." 10Base-T became 100Base-T, and then 1000Base-T, as prices kept falling. When you compare these products, you're also looking at configuration and access security. (In the Gear Maker's lexicon, "management" usually means configuring devices and delivering firmware updates.)
  • The Umbrella Consoles: These give you a single view of your enterprise network. They are huge software applications from Tivoli (IBM), OpenView (HP), orUniCenter (CA). With million-dollar price tags, they can give your network operations team real-time status on every switch, router, WAN link, disk farm, and ERP application around the world. How do you pick the right one? First, you'll need an umbrella console that can oversee equipment from every gear vendor that you've installed. In other words, your network management console can't play favorites among the connectivity vendors. Universal coverage has driven them to adoption of SNMP, RMON, and other management standards. (In the Umbrella-maker's vocabulary, management means visibility, trouble ticketing, and dispatch.)
  • The Security and Performance Specialists: These are the experts in narrower fields, who build deep products to handle complex problems on your wired network. You may have your favorite set of products for virus protection, IDS, troubleshooting, and authentication that might start with Symantec, NAI, Agilent, NetIQ, NetScout, or another of a long list of products designed to perform specific analytical or management functions. When it's time to pick some of these products, you should be asking an entirely different set of questions: (1) "Are they smarter than the folks attacking my network?" (2) "Can they help me understand the complicated things that can go wrong with my network?" and (3) "Can their products operate within and support a multivendor environment?" You may need to know how a product works before determining if it can solve your problem. (In the Specialist's world, management means smart and fast analysis of the situation, with recommendations about how to fix things.)

    Categorizing products and vendors is nothing new, but it's clear that as the wired network world has evolved and matured, no major vendor has succeeded in more than one category. Gear makers have not taken over management software, and umbrella products are not best-of-breed security analyzers. This is no accident. The skills that vendors need to win in one category work against them elsewhere. Gear vendors will always put their next engineer on perport cost improvement (or faster data rates, better MTBF, or improved configuration utilities) instead of multivendor troubleshooting utilities.

    So what can we extrapolate from our brief walk through wired network history? Can we reapply the laws of market gravity to a young and still growing wireless space? Wi-Fi is crowded with new companies and products, making it hard to sort companies into categories that we understand. However, a few themes are consistently emerging in the enterprise:
    1.  Buy Wi-Fi connectivity now if you can show ROI: Even though standards keep evolving, enterprises can save money now while improving productivity. You should expect to replace this gear as standards change. Organizations from sectors as diverse as manufacturing, health care, government/military, higher education, and retail have all found ways to use Wi-Fi networks to save ample time and money.
    2.  Fit Wi-Fi under your existing management umbrella: Network operations needs one view of your enterprise's worldwide network that covers LAN, WAN, and wireless. Since you've already invested in a console solution, make sure your new Wi-Fi gear can participate. Don't encourage islands of network management.
    3.  Pick the smartest tools: Wi-Fi has unique challenges such as site surveys, new kinds of security attacks, and complex performance problems. These problems will never be completely solved by the gear makers. You'll need troubleshooting and security products that work with any mix of gear vendors and can pinpoint problems quickly. To deliver your projected savings, your wireless network must always be available, with users getting the connectivity they expect. Wi-Fi expertise matters.

    Like previous generations of technology, we're seeing new products that promise "all things to all people." The latest Wi-Fi announcements promise a complete solution with gear, console management, and specialized analysis wrapped in a single, inexpensive package. Customers are showing a little more caution, though. Looking beyond the data sheets, they are asking for live references and operational demo units. They see that hard-nosed product evaluations are the best way to uncover what a product actually does.

    • Published November 25, 2003 – Reads 10,522
    Copyright © 2003 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
    Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

    More Stories By Dean Au

    Dean Au is AirMagnet's CEO. Prior to founding AirMagnet, he was Senior
    Vice President of Network Associates' Sniffer Technology Division. Mr.
    Au founded Cinco Networks, the developer of NetXRay, the first
    Windows-based analyzer product. He was Cinco's President/CEO until its
    acquisition by Network General Corporation (later acquired by Network
    Associates.) Mr. Au had earlier roles at Hughes LAN Systems, 3COM
    Corporation, and Information Technologies Corporation.

    Mr. Au earned an MSEE from Ohio State University, and a BSEE from Cheng
    Kung University.

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    Most Recent Comments
    Douglas Smith 12/18/03 08:40:28 AM EST

    Unless Dean was around to develop LANalyzer, he was not, and Cinco was not part of the development of the first Windows packet analyzer.

    I think his point about needing about needing gear, unbrella and security products is a good one. Keep in mind not all companies need, nor can afford Tivoli, OpenView or Unicenter.