* Users lack confidence in security implementation
The results of the second-annual Webtorials “Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market Report” have just been published, revealing a mélange of enterprise trends, some expected, others not.
The report, sponsored this year by Colubris Networks, analyzes responses from 419 subscribers to Webtorials, an educational Web site for the computer networking industry. Of those responding, over one-third were network managers learning to manage a business Wi-Fi environment (as opposed to classifying themselves as wireless experts or home users/hobbyists), and more than one-third worked for companies with 2,000 or more employees. About half worked in North America and half worked in other parts of the world.
The survey indicates good news and bad news about the state of WLAN security. First, the good news: More than one-third of the survey-takers stated they believe that most WLAN security problems have been solved with technology, such as the 802.11i suite of security extensions and vendor-proprietary solutions.
The not-so-good news is that “security concerns” remain the top-ranking challenge to deploying WLANs in the enterprise. Accounting for this seeming discrepancy is that about 24% of the survey base also stated they don’t feel confident about properly implementing the security measures available to them for optimum benefit.
In other words, it would seem that while implementers believe the technology and solutions have been created to keep Wi-Fi networks secure, their confidence levels in deploying and maintaining those solutions properly to keep the bad guys out haven’t caught up yet.
As mentioned last time in my “sneak peek,” results indicate that from an architecture perspective, the enterprise trend appears to be toward use of intelligent access points with some centralized management (55%); though one-third of the response base said they’d use thin access points with WLAN switches, and another third said they’d use stand-alone intelligent access points. Survey-takers were allowed to check all infrastructures that would apply to their environment. Note, too, that mesh Wi-Fi hit the radar screen with a respectable 16%.
