Wi-Fi: Life Beyond Data

W LAN networks based on 802.11 are becoming a crucial part of corporate
networks. They are also throwing up new challenges that enterprises and vendors,
who ship WLAN equipment, must address. Till now, WLAN was mostly used for
wireless Internet, e-mail access, simple file transfers, and multimedia. Now,
advanced applications over them would become more popular as these networks
start offering more throughput.

The three key challenges these networks are going to throw up are: achieving
quality of service (QoS), ensuring security, and interoperability with other
wireless networks and hassle-free network management. Some recent developments
with regard to these auger well for the future growth of WLAN networks.

Today,
there is no built-in QoS in 802.11 networks, so quality is only best effort. As
far as plain data applications like e-mail are concerned, the best-effort
services are enough. However, QoS would be very important for multimedia
applications (which everybody is talking about now) on 802.11 networks. Also,
applications like VoIP over WLAN are delay-sensitive and throughput-sensitive
and therefore would require better traffic management and bandwidth assignment.
Today, there is no prioritization of traffic on Wi-Fi networks.

However, IEEE's 802.11e standard, which is likely to be ratified by early
2005, is expected to take care of these QoS issues. Working on the standard,
Wi-Fi Alliance has come up with Wi-Fi for multimedia (WMM) and started a program
called Wi-Fi Certified for WMM, which will certify Wi-Fi products in terms of
their QoS capabilities. According to a Wi-Fi Alliance paper, WMM will add
prioritized QoS capabilities to Wi-Fi networks and optimize their performance
when multiple concurring applications, each with different latency and
throughput requirements, compete for network resources.

The other thing is that, as wireless networks grow both in terms of numbers
and types, there would be issues related to seamless connectivity between
different WLANs and also between WLANs and wired LANs.

There would definitely be issues related to management and interoperability
between different protocols. In this scenario, enterprises could have a tough
time managing the wireless networks. As Devendra Kamtekar, principal consultant
with Cisco Systems points out, for many enterprises, managing a wireless network
is like riding a runaway horse without a bridle. This is the reason many
organizations have been reluctant to deploy extensive WLANs because management
tools were weak or nonexistent, and WLAN management was labor intensive, he
observes, "Although the capital cost of a wireless network is low, without
proper management framework the operational costs of large WLANs, in terms of
man-hours required, can get very high."

Therefore the challenges that organizations face is of deploying, operating,
and managing hundreds to thousands of access points in a network infrastructure.
As with wired LANs, network managers need a mature solution to troubleshoot and
manage a wireless LAN. "This solution must provide fault configuration,
accounting, performance and security-management functionality, and security
controls that include the ability to detect and remove rogue access
points," Kamtekar points out.

Security remains a key concern of enterprises since the day they began
deploying WLAN. Users have good news though on this front. The Wi-Fi Alliance
had, in September 2004, announced the first round of products that are Wi-Fi
Certified for the WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) capability. WPA2 is based upon
IEEE's 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard. Wi-Fi Alliance has said that
products that are Wi-Fi Certified for WPA remain technically sound and secure.
However, according to the alliance, many enterprises have been seeking an
interoperable, Wi-Fi Certified technology based on the full IEEE 802.11i
standard. "Products that are certified for WPA2 give IT managers the
assurance that the technology meets interoperability standards and, in turn,
helps them manage support and deployment costs," says Frank Hanzlik,
managing director, Wi-Fi Alliance. However, with security needs being a moving
target and environment dependent, security would remain a key challenge for some
time.

Ravi Shekhar Pandey