Finally - an enterprise-class WLAN system with built-in spectral analysis (and a lot more) ships
I’ve been using the term spectral assurance to describe WLAN assurance functionality related to monitoring the physical layer – in other words, looking at energy in the unlicensed bands used by WLANs and so many other devices as well. This is an important issue, because problems related to interference can also result from other non-PHY challenges, like congestion and misconfigurations. It’s becoming a necessity, then, to be able to identify interference, whether Wi-Fi or not, that can affect throughput, reliability, capacity, and QoS. There are a number of hand-held, PC-based spectrum analyzers on the market today and I urge any installation of any size to have one of these. They’re also great for pre-installation site surveys, and quick troubleshooting. You can check out my (now somewhat dated) review in Network World, and also my comments on Fluke’s new product from last month.
But imagine what benefits might accrue if we were to move spectral-assurance functionality into the infrastructure of a WLAN – yes, putting sensors in the APs and adding functionality to the management console to enhance radio resource management by automatically considering the impact of interference. This capability has been at the top of my wish list for spectral-assurance tools since I first started using WLAN-oriented spectrum analyzers about five years ago. The potential benefits in performance, reliability, security, integrity, and risk management (regulatory and related) are enormous.
So Cisco is the first to actually ship this capability, with their CleanAir product line, announced today. Cisco has a long history of innovation in the spectral-assurance space, with their industry-leading Spectrum Expert, a product I’ve used for years and wouldn’t be without, although my wish list now includes a Ubuntu version of the application. I spent a good deal of time going through the product’s technology, features, and benefits with Cisco, and you can read my analysis, which focuses on the cost benefits of a centralized/infrastructure spectral-assurance deployment, in our latest White Paper on the topic. I’m also updating two of our earlier White Papers on the subject, one outlining the challenges of interference at a high level, and the other, a Technical Note, presenting our recommend practice for dealing with interference. Both will be available shortly.
This is a topic that I urge you to stay up-to-date on. Aruba has announced similar concept for delivery in the third quarter, and AirDefense also has an interesting product (although not as integrated as Cisco’s) that I’ve previously reviewed. Cisco’s use of a dedicated spectrum analysis chip should yield some real benefits in terms of frequency and temporal resolution, but you can expect the field to evolve rapidly regardless. To be fair, I’ve not seen too many situations where interference became a threat to operations and no wireless DoS attacks in the wild (yet!), but you can bet that, as WLANs become more mission-critical and as more and more wireless systems of many forms operate in close proximity, having the ability to automatically deal with the spectral-assurance challenge is going to have big benefits in operational cost reduction and beyond.
