Management Strategies

How should the enterprise manage its WLAN? What tools should be used? What strategy should be adopted? These are the challenging questions that you should answer before the wireless network is being deployed.

No single product offers a complete solution. Some recommendations can be made safely, however, as follows:

• Use vendor-specific wireless management tools were possible.

• Integrate wireless management into the existing network management framework.

• Use fault management, configuration management, accounting management, performance management, and security management (FCAPS) methodologies as a pointer to the standard areas that your wireless management system should address.

• Define a client management process. This is overlooked by FCAPS. (You learn more about FCAPS later in this chapter in the "FCAPS" section.)

• Develop in-house tools to plug any gaps not addressed by the vendor-specific wireless management tools and to satisfy any unique reporting or management requirements that you might have.

Another fundamental decision that you must make is whether to handle wireless network management in-house or to outsource this activity to a trusted partner. Most enterprises will likely manage their own networks, but outsourcing this activity is no longer uncommon.

In-House WLAN Management

Managing the WLAN in-house is perhaps the most common approach. Most enterprises will have their own dedicated IT support staff. In these circumstances, it makes sense for your IT organization to treat the wireless network no differently from the rest of your IT infrastructure. It is simply considered another transport medium, similar to the wired network but with some unique characteristics.

Some enterprises choose to outsource the implementation and deployment of their WLAN but choose to retain management responsibilities. This choice is common in sensitive industries or areas, such as finance, government, or military organizations, but it is by no means limited to these. Providing native access to your network is often considered a security and business risk. This reasoning is especially understandable when you consider that WLAN management entails the ability to capture and analyze all traffic, which is not something that every enterprise is comfortable with a third-party undertaking.

The disadvantages of retaining responsibility for WLAN management are also worth noting. Although WLANs are just another network, the fact remains that they require wireless-specific skills. Your existing IT support staff will need to familiarize themselves with this new technology and the unique management and security challenges it presents. This familiarity can often be achieved through on-the-job training, but this training typically entails a steep learning curve, increased risk of poor management performance. Staff in training can sometimes be a risk because they can be unaware of errors or can cause security breaches, and so on. A more prudent approach is to engage in professional training that is supplied either by the WLAN equipment vendor or by one of the many independent IT training organizations.

When your IT staff are suitably trained or familiar with the WLAN technologies, you still must define, develop, and adopt an appropriate WLAN management strategy. This process entails selecting the appropriate tools, ensuring proper integration, and developing systems and procedures to automate as much activity as possible. On-the-fly, reactive management is not a safe or prudent approach for an enterprise-class wireless network.

Outsource WLAN Management

Outsourcing wireless network management is an attractive option for many enterprises that do not have the resources and skills in-house. This option avoids the need to train your IT staff in wireless technologies. Indeed, many enterprises outsource their network management entirely. In such a situation, wireless network management is just another service that is provided by your trusted third party. Both tangible and intangible, costs are involved in this approach, such as the monetary cost of engaging the vendor and the administrative cost of managing their activity. In the end, the expense might be lower than employing or training staff yourself. In the outsourced model, the responsibilities that remain with you are to monitor the key performance indictors (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that you have set with the external vendor and to ensure user satisfaction. Careful economic (strategic, tactical and financial) consideration is required to determine what is most beneficial for your specific environment.

Before choosing the outsourcing option, you must be comfortable with the fact that your network traffic will be visible to the third party, that access to your network infrastructure will be required, and that due diligence is undertaken to ensure that security and business processes are not compromised. Outsourcing removes some of the headaches of WLAN management from you and your enterprise, but it should only be undertaken after a prudent risk and business case review.