Wi-Fi guest-access strategies

Supporting Wi-Fi guests: Ease vs. security

Industry analysis by expert Joanie Wexler, plus links to the day's wireless news headlines

I mentioned last time some of the Wi-Fi mobility woes I experienced on a recent weeklong business trip. One in a series of snafus was the impossibility of getting on-the-fly guest Internet access at a client company I was visiting.

The issue at hand is getting the temporary guest – be it a contractor, business partner or customer – sanctioned in the user database and issued a username and password. Generally, this requires planning ahead and involvement of the IT staff. Because IT staffers already have plenty to do, this takes time and certainly tempers a company’s flexibility to accommodate drop-in colleagues.

Some progress is being made. Wi-Fi systems maker Trapeze Networks recently launched server software called SmartPass to ease and hasten getting a guest signed up for wireless Internet access. The system has two levels of access: one for non-IT personnel, which is limited to creating a guest pass for someone that lasts a number of hours, days, or weeks. The other is for IT personnel, who have more granular control over user access, data, and records.

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I mentioned last time some of the Wi-Fi mobility woes I experienced on a recent weeklong business trip. One in a series of snafus was the impossibility of getting on-the-fly guest Internet access at a client company I was visiting.

The issue at hand is getting the temporary guest – be it a contractor, business partner or customer – sanctioned in the user database and issued a username and password. Generally, this requires planning ahead and involvement of the IT staff. Because IT staffers already have plenty to do, this takes time and certainly tempers a company’s flexibility to accommodate drop-in colleagues.

Some progress is being made. Wi-Fi systems maker Trapeze Networks recently launched server software called SmartPass to ease and hasten getting a guest signed up for wireless Internet access. The system has two levels of access: one for non-IT personnel, which is limited to creating a guest pass for someone that lasts a number of hours, days, or weeks. The other is for IT personnel, who have more granular control over user access, data, and records.

The centralized Trapeze application offloads the work of creating and maintaining guest access from multiple WLAN controllers to a server that communicates with the controllers. In other words, personnel do not muck with WLAN controller settings to set up guest access, which is probably a good thing from a reliability standpoint.

The good news for the guest is that they can quickly get a username and password and be up and running on site. Trickier is the job the hosting company has in figuring out the associated guest policies. For example, should everyone in the company be able to sign up anyone they want for guest access? Balancing usability with security is an ongoing business challenge faced by all companies.

Trapeze said its SmartPass system works with third-party WLAN access points but that they have to be managed by Trapeze WLAN controllers. What would be interesting would be if someone could develop a “drop-in” guest access server that was independent of the Wi-Fi infrastructure/controller vendor. This way, you could choose best-of-breed components for the various aspects of your WLAN configuration.

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Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.