WLAN Management - and Beyond

The two articles on wireless-LAN management I previously mentioned are out in this week's Network World. The first is a general overview of functionality along with a wish list of features that I think you'll see as this space evolves, and the second is a review of the AirWave Management Platform (AMP), a multi-vendor WLAN management system. There is also a sidebar that notes I'm still knee-deep (or deeper) in this topic, and I'm just starting a comprehensive review of ad-hoc WLAN management tools that will appear in a monthly series of five articles starting in November.

Too much on this subject? I don't think so. As I've said before, I think management will become the differentiator in WLAN systems going forward. If we divide (as is commonly done) WLAN system functionality into three planes (data, control, and management), a simple analysis reveals the following: first, everybody today seems to focus on the data plane (the part that, duh, moves data around within a given implementation), and we find that two key elements are at work here. The first is the radio itself, which is largely the responsibility of a Wi-Fi chip vendor (Atheros, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, etc.), and the overall architecture of the system (thick APs, thin APs with controllers, direct forwarding, adaptive APs, etc.). And, secondly, given the vagaries and artifacts inherent in radio transmission, and varying skill on the part of chip builders, board designers, and driver writers, there will always be a high degree of variability in performance at the physical layer. You can in general think of the control plane as the OS of the WLAN system, scheduling traffic flow with ever-more intelligence. The control plane is of increasing interest here in that it can at least partially compensate for the data-plane issues, as I'll discuss next week. But it's the management plane that gives visibility and system control to those responsible for minimizing operating expense (OpEx) and generally keeping everything working by allowing them to tweak elements of the other two planes. There is, as the first article discusses, a lot going on here - but there will be a lot more in the future as the WLAN becomes the primary and default access for most users in most enterprises, and as unified wired/wireless networking becomes a core strategy. Guess where future network management systems come from?

I really, really like the Airwave product. I've seen it in operation at a number of sites and seen demos at various points in its evolution. But I'd not really sat down and used it myself, which I finally got to do last month. AirWave specializes in the monitoring and control of multi-vendor WLAN environments, a difficult task given the broad set of differences between the many current and legacy products on the market. While I had issues with initial network configuration (AMP is much better at running an already-operational network than out-of-the-box setup) and documentation, overall the product is more than valuable when it comes to monitoring and system control. Check out the sidebar on AMP in use in a really large installation, the Fairfax County Public Schools.

And since Airwave is already managing multiple WLAN networks, it would seem the platform just might be well-suited to unified wired/wireless operations as well - but I'm just speculating here.

Anyway, Network World is sponsoring a chat session this Friday at 2:00 PM eastern on this topic, and I'm looking forward to joining in the discussion. WLAN management is a topic that too few enterprise buyers pay much attention to, but I think it'll rise to near the top of the list in future purchasing decisions. Yes, it's that important.

• AirWave Management Platform
• unified networking
• Wireless LAN management