Management Tools

You have many options for adopting a toolset for WLAN management. A robust WLAN management strategy is just as important as the actual tools used. So far in the chapter, you have learned about the various areas and topics that such a strategy should encompass. Now let us consider the actual tools that can help implement such a strategy.

Vendor-Specific WLAN Management Tools

Most enterprise-class wireless network solutions provide some native management features. These are often a combination of support for open management standards and dedicated network management products or appliances.

Dedicated, vendor-specific management systems are an important part of any robust WLAN management framework. Such tools are typically worth the price. The added functionality and management capabilities they provide not only help decrease the support burden on your IT staff (and thus decrease the cost), but they also assist in providing dedicated and specific management and reporting capabilities that are closely tied to the vendor's equipment. In effect, they are tailor-made to monitor, manage, and report upon the particular vendor's equipment.

Such tools typically come with canned reports that will reduce the need for your team to define their own. In some circumstances, they can be fully or partly integrated with existing management frameworks, avoiding isolation and the use of standalone management tools for the WLAN. Vendor-specific management systems provide such features as

• RF management

• Rogue AP detection

• Host management

• Configuration management

• Image management

• Interference detection

• Wireless intrusion detection

• Wireless planning and optimization

Examples of vendor-specific management systems include the following:

• Cisco Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE)

• Cisco Wireless Control Software (WCS)

• Aruba RF Director

• Symbol Mobility Services Platform (MSP)

• Trapeze Networks RingMaster

Third-Party WLAN Management Tools

Several independent, nonvendor-specific tools are available that provide enterprises with dedicated wireless tools. Typically these concentrate on WLAN network analysis, reporting, and sniffing. They are used to monitor the WLAN, capture and analyze traffic, and provide detailed information about the RF environment. Rather, they can be used for rogue AP detection, interference detection, traffic analysis, security analysis, site surveying and planning and troubleshooting activities. They do not manage the infrastructure and cannot be used to configure WLAN controllers or switches.

Examples of third-party WLAN management tools include the following:

• AirMagnet

• AiroPeek

• Sniffer Pro Wireless

• Thales Air Defence

• Wireless Valley LANPlanner

• Helium Networks SiteScout and SiteSense

• Fluke Networks EtherScope and OptiView network analyzers

Common Network Management Platforms

Most large enterprise customers will already have an existing network management system in place, usually for their wired network and associated services and applications. In many circumstances, these can be extended to provide a modicum of wireless management, such as host monitoring and reporting of device status. They tend to not provide wireless-specific reporting and usually only monitor up to the access point. In effect, they are blind to the wireless side of the access point.

However, in some circumstances, these tools sufficient to address many of your basic needs. These tools will certainly provide reporting and alerting on the status of the access points and various WLAN controllers and management appliances (if you have deployed these). Finally, most vendor-specific tools can be integrated with common network management platforms. This capability allows the enterprise to continue to use the common network management platform as its primary toolset; the vendor-specific WLAN management tools can be launched directly from the common network management application.

Examples of network management platforms include the following:

• CA Unicenter

• Cabletron Spectrum

• Tivoli TME 10

• IBM NetView

• SunNet Manager/Solstice

• CiscoWorks

• HP Network Node Manager

• BMC Software Inc. PATROL Visualis

Common Network Management Protocols

Many cross-technology, network-based management tools and standards can be used or leveraged in managing WLANs. You will perhaps find that some of these, such as SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), are already in use within your enterprise. Others, such as syslog or NetFlow, can depend upon your environment. These protocols are often leveraged by existing network management systems and in-house developed tools and scripts.

SNMP

SNMP is the open Internet standard for collecting network management information on TCP/IP networks and is defined by the IETF 1157 RFC. It can also be used to configure certain settings.

Note

You can find all RFCs online at http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html, where you can search by RFC number. If you do not know the RFC number, you can find it at the IETF RFC index at http://www.ietf.org/iesg/1rfc_index.txt.

SNMP uses Management Information Bases (MIB) that define what information is available and what settings can be made. Each device will have a MIB that provides this data. The network management tool can then use SNMP to collect the information or make the changes that the MIB allows.

SNMP is very rarely used manually. It is a protocol for other tools and scripts. You will find that almost all network management tools and applications use SNMP in some way, even if it is hidden from the IT support professional.

SNMP is useful because it can also be used by custom-written tools and scripts that your IT support staff can develop. If these skills do not exist in-house, then it is advised not to manually manipulate SNMP settings on your network hardware.

Syslog

Syslog is a distributed logging service. Originally written for the UNIX operating system, it is now common on many network infrastructure devices and systems. Unlike SNMP, which can be used to change settings or configure systems, syslog is a "one-way" protocol. It simply sends logging information to a syslog recorder. This recorder can then be used to review and analyze the logs. Syslog is a useful tool for collecting information, but it is not as robust as SNMP and could be considered an alternative if no SNMP skills exist within your organization but your staff is familiar with this protocol instead.

NetFlow

NetFlow is a Cisco standard for capturing and analyzing network traffic. It is typically used in large enterprises for accounting, network planning and analysis, monitoring (including application monitoring), and user traffic analysis. It does not normally form part of an everyday wireless network management toolset, but it is useful if your IT support staff need to review traffic patterns or troubleshoot esoteric or hard-to-define problems. NetFlow also forms the basis of the upcoming IETF IPFIX standard, which you can learn more about at http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ipfix-charter.html.

RADIUS Accounting

AAA servers, by their very nature, provide accounting information on users being authenticated on the network. Most enterprise WLANs will require users to provide credentials and passwords before gaining access; the user must log on before using the network. Accounting information and AAA server reports can therefore be useful in helping your IT support staff optimize the network.

By analyzing AAA and RADIUS reports, you can sometimes identify problems that might have otherwise been difficult to discover. For example, multiple logon failures can point to a problem with a user's credentials, timeouts for all users at a particular location can point to a WAN congestion, and so on. So although RADIUS accounting and AAA reporting are not management tools in themselves, the visibility they offer into the "backend" processes can often help in troubleshooting and fine-tuning your network.

IP Traffic and Analysis Features in Network Equipment

Most network equipment provides varying degrees of "built-in" traffic analysis and reporting tools. Network routers and switches can be configured to collect data on traffic they handle. Statistics on IP packets and interface utilization can be generated. Each equipment vendor provides different methods of enabling these features.

This additional data can help in many ways, including capacity planning, fault identification, and resolution or simple troubleshooting.

Internally Developed Tools

Internally developed tools are those that are created by your IT support staff, usually using scripting and programming languages, that are specific to your enterprise. Because these tools are unique to each environment, there are few guidelines that can be offered. Some enterprises develop tools internally to plug gaps in their management framework. These tools could be automated access point configuration utilities that leverage a scripting language and the AP command-line interface to log on to the device and update settings, up to customized utilities that update or reconfigure client devices. They are often developed to leverage common network management tools and standards such as SNMP or syslog (for reporting).