Independence, a noble virtue that our forefathers fought and died for, is our reason for celebration this weekend throughout the United States of America. Boldly declaring our freedom from the Brits (no offense, chaps), we proclaimed that every American should be provided fundamental rights, with a core focus on free will.

Unfortunately, it is a concept that tends to frighten Corporate America.

Just think about it… between your iPhone, iTunes, USB-to-whatever-Apple-uses, iPod, and iLife, you’re all but fully committed to Apple, for better or worse.

But what if you wanted to manage your iPhone with something other than iTunes? After all, the interface is clunky, it converts your files into a (shockingly) proprietary audio format, and can take up more RAM than a fully loaded Microsoft Outlook. Well, good luck finding a supported software solution out there.

Apple will never in a million years tell you about an iTunes alternative, even if it means a better user experience for their customers. They are only interested in keeping you locked into their solution for as long as possible (which for them may be quite a while).

Meanwhile, folks in the networking industry are feeling trapped in their own right. With proprietary device management solutions, you need to upgrade or replace any hardware that is not supported by their current offering, or be left with gaping security holes in your network. In other words, you must assimilate!

But what happened to our freedom? It seems to me like it was discontinued a couple revs back.

AirWave Wireless is the alternative to WLAN vendor tyranny.

We give you the freedom to choose the best hardware for your environment, regardless of vendor, architecture, model #, firmware version, number of users, number of devices, whatever. We really don’t care what you have. We just help you secure it and support it.

Without a tool like the AirWave Wireless Management Suite (AWMS), you are handing your decision making power to a single corporation who can’t help but look after what is in the best interest of themselves.

Happy 4th of July!

As mentioned in our newsroom, Wi-Fi Planet reports Microsoft — in all its 800 pound gorilla gloriousness — took a bold stance on one of the more pressing issues in networking today:

To Be, Or Not To Be (All WiFi)

The bold stance at this time, of course, is to truly “cut the cord,” with Bill Gates & Co. having decided that the recent advances in RF distribution (802.11n, anyone?) and the now-80 gigabit capacity of the Aruba 6000 controllers were enough to move forward with a concept that to many is still just an idea being kicked around the heads of their IT department.

As you could probably guess, the WLAN industry is excited to see anyone cut the cord, but we get especially overjoyed to see a company like Microsoft make such an announcement. It is, truly, just a matter of time before others feel this same level of confidence, making the transition to a solution that has long been touted as a productivity enhancing, operational cost reducing, world hunger curing euphoria of a network experience.

All over-dramatization aside, the ROI results are tangible, only becoming increasingly convincing in this “next generation” of WiFi networks.

So, what’s the catch?

Well, as Microsoft can attest, it’s now management:

“The weak link in the WLAN offerings from a lot of vendors is the ability to manage these huge enterprise-wide WLAN deployments centrally, so that you have a centralized view and can drill down from that centralized view to provide information on the number of clients that you have, outages that are affecting your network in multiple client areas, the RF health of the system—all of those things still are lagging behind the Wi-Fi technology,” [Victoria Poncini of Microsoft] says. “That’s an area that, if vendors could provide the most improvement, it would really help towards providing an all-wireless office—and that’s something that we want to do with 802.11n.”

While we have a job securely lined up for Victoria after her ringing endorsement of the necessity for enterprise-grade WLAN management, the reality is she is just being frank about the issues that have arisen as organizations try to make this transition.

And if you have been around us long enough, you know the message of scaling manageability is one we’ve been preaching from our very first release of the AirWave Management Platform (AMP).

Apparently Victoria has heard our sermons:

“The combination of the AirWave platform with [Aruba’s] current offering, and what they’re trying to do to integrate the two of them together, is a really good start towards providing what we would like to see in network management,” she says.

Alas, despite our incessant ranting & raving, it is still the oft-overlooked component of a corporation’s initial WLAN investment. Note my use of the word “initial,” as typically an organization will begin feeling the “hurt” some time shortly after they’ve deployed their nebulous WiFi infrastructure, only to call on AirWave like a shamed friend needing to get picked up from jail.

We’ll bail you out, buddy. But in return, we’d like you to do a case study.

As widely anticipated that Belden’s Trapeze Networks acquisition was to those of us in and around the industry, the official announcement on Friday still produced a flurry of chatter across the wire.

Unfortunately for the parties involved, it wasn’t altogether positive or reassuring:

• Networkworld.com: “…Some might consider it a step toward vendor lock-in. And it’s not yet clear how the acquisition will affect Trapeze’s recently renewed OEM arrangement with Nortel and Belden’s with single-channel WLAN startup Extricom. Remember when Airespace was acquired by Cisco? It was a nightmarish move for Nortel and other Airespace OEMs and their customers to find alternative solutions.”
• Techworld.com: “There’s also a perception that Trapeze has been struggling - at least in terms of reaching customers. “People have been picking other suppliers largely because Trapeze does not have the market access model that someone like Cisco would have,” said the Belden executive.”
• Unstrung.com: “Between 2002 and 2004, Trapeze, along with Airespace and Aruba Wireless Networks , emerged as one of the leading startups set on managing enterprise WiFi. Since then, however, Cisco Systems Inc. bought Airespace and cemented its 60 percent-plus lead in the corporate WiFi market. Aruba and Motorola Inc. have been duking it out for the second-place spot, and other startups such as Meru Networks Inc. have been challenging for Trapeze’s share of the market.”
• Network Computing Blog: “It’s one thing to sell cables and connectors, it’s quite another to sell an enterprise networking solution with moving parts and software bits. Do enterprises typically consider buying their networking equipment from the same guys who sell them 1,000-foot spools of cable?”

While this looks to be a solid move for Belden moving forward, I have to wonder what the impact is for those who have already done business with Trapeze.

As evidenced, questions abound regarding the future of Trapeze, not only for their own customers & VARs, but for their OEM partners‘ (3Com, Nortel, D-Link, Enterasys) customers & VARs as well. What happens to their WLAN roadmap? Will they continue to receive the same support? Will Trapeze end of life (EOL) their pre-existing hardware? Will they cut their OEM relationships altogether?

These are all valid questions, and as we learned from the Airespace acquisition a few years past, it can and does get as bad as companies being stuck with gear that nobody will support.

It is with that in mind that we here at AirWave have offered everyone affected an “Investment Protection Program,” which extends discounted pricing on the AirWave Wireless Management Suite (AWMS) 6. AWMS lends folks the flexibility of a vendor-neutral management console for their legacy Trapeze/Nortel/3Com/D-Link/Enterasys gear, as well as whichever vendor(s) they eventually migrate to.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last, acquisition of its kind. And for those wary of your current hardware provider’s fate… don’t worry.

We’ll be there for you, too.

A few weeks ago while on a flight from Minneapolis to Dallas, I passed the two million frequent flier mile mark on American Airlines. This revelation got me to start thinking about all the time that I’ve spent cooped up in a hollow metal tube and how much nicer it would have been with a decent WiFi connection!So far, it seems that market financial forces and the FAA have been the main sticking points keeping WiFi from making its grand entrance at 30,000 feet. The airlines have been under considerable financial pressure for years now and with the high price of Jet A fuel, the prospect of taking a plane out of service for a few days to install WiFi gear is the making of a nightmare for the airline accountants.

Also, the airlines and the FAA have spent years touting the dangers of wireless devices on planes (whether real or imagined, we don’t really know yet). Sorry folks, but it’s going to take a complete ‘about face’ before WiFi on planes moves into the mainstream.

The other issue with WiFi in the Sky is the backhaul links. Just lighting up the inside of a metal tube with 802.11 signals isn’t really the hard part. How do you get the data off the plane and on to the ‘Net?

The two main methods at this point have been to send it to a satellite or send it down to base stations on the ground. I’ve been on customer networks that have had satellite links between their locations and it’s not fun. Email and slow browsing are the facts of life. Slow bandwidth, coupled with high/variable packet latency kills most advanced media from traversing the link.

Ground based stations seem to have the promise of more bandwidth and more control over the network, but placement of base stations can be problematic, unless an already mature technology is used (i.e. EVDO/GPRS).

Whatever the future holds for Internet access in the sky, I sure hope is comes before I hit the next million mile mark!

If anyone thinks the jury is out on 802.11n, check out last week’s AirWave panel on the pros and cons of 802.11n in higher ed for a different perspective.

It’s not a matter of “if”; now it’s a matter of how.

Click here to view the 802.11n in Higher Education Webcast

Our three panelists – Chris Murphy from MIT, Steve Lee from Virginia Tech, and Dan Eklund from Wayne State – were peppered with a non-stop stream of questions about implementation and deployment – concerning multiple radio frequencies, deployment, spacing, transition, capacity planning and more. Chris and Dan are deploying 802.11n now; Steve is holding off for the moment, which provided an interesting counterpoint to discussions.

And while the discussion was solely focused on the campus environment, I think anyone looking to deploy 802.11n in the near future will find this a useful discussion to listen in on, since most of the issues addressed are the same, whether your network serves a college, a company, a school or a government agency.

Feedback was very positive. Over 300 people attended. More are downloading it daily. Sample feedback: “I found this especially interesting and helpful since you featured multiple universities using different wireless vendors.”

Not for the first time, our panelists came across as three tough and experienced customers, who have high standards for their vendors and suppliers and a clear understanding of how to make technology fit the needs and goals of their employers. We’re grateful for their time and efforts.

And for their willingness to answer the tough ones. To me, toughness peaked towards the end of the event, when they were asked the big “What If” question overlying all discussions of 802.11n today: What if the final 802.11n standard differs so much from the current interim standard that you find you have to change hardware?

You could hear a pin drop at that moment. Or at least, I could. Their answers were great, but I don’t have space to report it, so you’re going to have to listen to the recording to hear them.

Recently, while getting some bids for a home construction project, one of them came back with a dollar figure coupled with this caveat: ‘Bigger than a bread box, smaller than a submarine.’ I see this same kind of concept practiced with wireless capacity planning at a lot of the companies that see on a day to day basis.

Why do so many IT departments follow this planning philosophy?

Well, it boils down to not having the reporting and visibility required to make good business decisions to maximize the IT budget.

Over the last year, I have done several webcasts around capacity planning and wireless best practices. Most of these have focused around the wireless side of the equation, but as wireless becomes more ubiquitous, there is now the requirement to look at other pieces of the puzzle as well. Take for example the wireless hotspot marketplace. Many of these locations are served with DSL or cable modem access. Remote office locations are also typically served by these types of links as well. In this case, what component is the weak link in the chain? Of course, the WAN link is the limiting factor!

In the latest version of the AirWave Management Platform, there is now the ability to monitor and report on switches, routers, and other gear in the network that can impact the wireless network. In addition, there is a new Capacity Planning report that not only shows the capacity of the wireless APs and controllers, but can also show capacity available on other network components as well.

In case you missed it, industry expert Craig Mathias was featured on Network World’s podcast series to discuss his selection for the WLAN industry’s “Category-Breaker,” defined as “products that go above and beyond to solve IT issues.”

We here at AirWave were absolutely smitten when we found out that the AirWave Wireless Management Suite Version 5.3 was chosen; in addition, Craig did an excellent job providing those unfamiliar with our solution an excellent synopsis of the features and benefits of our solution. If you’ve not yet heard it, click here to listen to Network World’s Category Buster: AWMS 5.3.

Summary from the Network World site:

As part of the Best Products 2008 coverage, we present a special podcast with Network World blogger and IT Roadmap presenter Craig Mathias, who talks about the distinguishing features and functionality of the latest Air[W]ave Wireless Management suite (12:01).

I encourage all of you to give it a listen and/or pass it on to anyone who you feel could benefit from understanding the features and functionalities of AWMS.

It’s great to finally see the industry recognizing WLAN management as a criticial component of an organization’s infrastructure.

For more Craig Mathias, click here.

In case you missed it, we hosted our 2nd-highest attended webcast ever on Tuesday, “Troubleshooting the Wireless LAN.”

Beyond the large attendance, the demand for a recording of the webcast post-event has been overwhelming!

So, without further ado, we present to you our newest addition to AirWaves:

Click to view “Troubleshooting the Wireless LAN” Webcast

If you have any questions or comments regarding the show, please direct them to the forum!

Here are a couple of slides that we went over, giving you an idea of the show:

Enjoy!

In the ‘Troubleshooting the WLAN’ webcast that I did earlier this week, I talked about the technical items that the helpdesk really needs to know to move from a ‘Production Metric’ helpdesk to a ‘Customer Service’ helpdesk. The helpdesk industry over the last decade has really moved from being an organization that is geared around hold times, abandonment rates, tickets opened, calls received, and other production metrics to an organization that starts to value the ‘softer’ side of the call center.

These ‘softer’ customer service metrics are geared around first call resolution, reopened ticket percentage, and other items that revolve around how the caller feels about the experience, rather than just how fast the helpdesk can pick up the phone. If we look out at the IT industry as a whole, there have been several recent examples of large IT companies who forgot that customer satisfaction is just as important as how fast you answer the phone! Now, those companies are paying for it with reduced sales, a falling stock price, and erosion of their corporate brand value.

So, to take this down from an overall corporate view and apply it to the wireless helpdesk, what do we need to give to our front line employees to improve their customer service metrics? Well, it boils down to giving them the applications to solve problems immediately, and if they can’t be solved at their level, the ability to escalate to the proper team for a quick resolution.

In the wireless space, it’s all about letting the helpdesk view real time user information, visually displaying RF information in an easy to read format (remember, the helpdesk is not staffed with RF engineers), trending information (see my earlier blog on ‘Troubleshooting Deltas’), and other troubleshooting dashboards. This way, the helpdesk can accurately diagnose the problem and either fix the issue, or get the trouble ticket to the correct place in the least amount of time.

Once the helpdesk is able to start focusing on the ‘softer’ side of their business, the user satisfaction rates will go up and the ROI of the wireless network starts to really take hold.

 

 AirWaves Podcast with Manatee Schools [20:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this latest installment of AirWaves, I spoke with Ron Jones who is one of the Network Systems Managers for Manatee County School District, one of the largest in the country with over 49,000 students and 7,000 employees.

Like most school districts, the wireless network at Manatee has grown over time. Manatee CSD now has about 2,000 wireless access points from Cisco and ProCurve by HP and serves up wireless access to just about every campus in the district.

As you can imagine, Ron has his hands full and has found ways to use his AirWave Management Platform to streamline many of the manual processes.