Take a Pragmatic Approach

 < Day Day Up > 



Despite the groundswell toward wireless networking, in the big picture, Wi-Fi is just a blip on the LAN screen. Only a minority (albeit a growing minority) of organizations fully embrace WLANs, although more and more tolerate Wi-Fi within their networking ecosystem. Over the next few years, however, the rate of adoption will accelerate and in doing so, profoundly affect organizations and their IT departments.

When adopting Wi-Fi, however, the business community will need to face the problems of dealing with the changes that wireless networking not only requires, but creates. Despite the apparent simplicity of wireless networking, if not handled correctly, those problems can be significant.

First, there are the issues of security and quality of service. As has been discussed throughout this book, out-of-the-box wireless security leaves much to be desired. As noted in Chapter 17, a multi-layer security plan will need to be devised and implemented to meet the stringent security requirements of many organizations.

Managing and monitoring the network to maintain a certain level of Quality of Service also can be challenging. But unless your wireless network is expected to host bandwidth gobbling applications such as voice, streaming media, or CAD (computer assisted design), those tasks shouldn't be too onerous.

Next, most IT departments will need to either hire or train people who understand radio technology, since implementing a wireless infrastructure is fundamentally different from installing wires. As the networking infrastructure moves from wired to wireless devices that use radio frequencies, the IT department will find itself dealing with unfamiliar interference and propagation characteristics.

Furthermore, in most organizations, the WLAN will be an extension of an existing wired network. Since that may be quite complex, it's vital that prior to a WLAN deployment, an external audit of the wired network is performed to ensure the wired network can hold up its end of the new networking ecosystem. A WLAN project can fail if its wired counterpart doesn't provide a solid, stable, well-designed foundation.

Finally, integrating a WLAN into an organization's network ecosystem will require more infrastructure, i.e. more software, servers, and possibly staff. After all, the software that makes the aforementioned virtual offices and workspaces possible has to run somewhere, and someone has to manage it.



 < Day Day Up > 



Going Wi-Fi. A Practical Guide to Planning and Building an 802.11 Network
Going Wi-Fi: A Practical Guide to Planning and Building an 802.11 Network
ISBN: 1578203015
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 273

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net