Unified enterprise networks are the future

The rapid increase in the number of users who want wireless access and the need to integrate wireless and wired networks mandates a unified network, says Shrikant Sathe

Wireless LANs (WLANs) have created quite a buzz in the networking industry. Many companies have jumped into this space with silicon and system-level solutions for WLANs. However, if you think strategically about it, the real challenge is not in building the best WLAN but in building the best network that provides access to both wired and wireless clients. Ultimately, the deployment of new networking gear must result in a single, secure, seamless and scalable network edge that is robust, cost effective, easy to operate and simple to manage.

The evolving edge of the network

WLAN deployments in the enterprise started off on a small scale through the use of intelligent Access Points (APs) that connect directly to the edge of the enterprise network. These intelligent APs had to be configured and managed individually. This was a low-risk approach as it required only a incremental investment. This seemed reasonable when wireless access was limited to a few users or small coverage areas that required only a handful of APs.

As an increasing number of users demand wireless access, the number of intelligent APs increases rapidly. It becomes expensive to add hundreds of intelligent (and therefore expensive) APs and difficult to manage them. A reasonable solution, proposed by many vendors, is to create islands within the enterprise where wireless access is available. These islands could be based on functional, organisational or physical requirements. Each island contains simple, inexpensive APs that are connected to an intelligent aggregation device called an Access Point Concentrator (APC), which in turn connects to the traditional enterprise network. The APCs, which have also been called Edge Controllers (ECs) or Wireless Switches, have the “smarts” necessary to provide security, mobility and QoS features required for wireless access and are managed separately from traditional switches residing at the network’s edge.

‘One’ Network—one port

Enterprise-wide wireless access is gaining currency even as enterprises evaluate productivity and other benefits of these systems. Covering the entire enterprise using the above approach requires thousands of simple APs connected to hundreds of smart APCs. This will result in a completely parallel wireless network that will have to be managed separately from the traditional wired one. The cost and complexity of operating and managing two separate, disparate networks will be prohibitive. This is clearly not a desirable solution. The only viable solution for large wireless deployments is a unified network edge where every port is capable of connecting to a wired or wireless client (AP to be more precise). This ‘one’ Network Edge will be managed as a single network domain and provide the necessary security, mobility, and user experience required for all clients – wired and wireless.

The deployment of enterprise-wide, wireless ready networks is an evolutionary process. The pace of deployment at different enterprises will vary depending on factors such as need and budgets. Some will experiment with isolated networks of Intelligent APs while others may be ready for larger deployments using APCs. Still others will enable the entire enterprise edge for wireless access.

The four pillars of future Enterprise access Security, switching, mobility and traffic engineering and performance and scalability are going to be the four pillars of

enterprise access in the future. Robust security through strong encryption, authentication, Virtual Private Network (VPN) support, flexible access control, and intrusion detection, all performed at high speed, will be key as will wire-speed L2 and L3 switching with support for the latest standards such as virtual LANs (VLANs), traffic prioritisation, link aggregation and port mirroring. Mobility and Traffic Engineering for wireless clients will ensure seamless mobility and equitable bandwidth allocation. The ability to support a large number of wired and wireless clients and hundreds of Access Points without performance bottlenecks will be the final cornerstone of the enterprise network of the future.

The author is co-founder and VP(Marketing & Operations), SiNett Semiconductors. He can be reached at shrikant@sinett.com