Business Wireless

Manufacturing Case Study Business Model The company's adoption of WLANs as a technology was based on the initiative to help increase user ... [full story]

What the Future Holds Hemendinger reiterated that the reason Lifespan is so successful is that its approach has always been pragmatic and futuristic: "Healthcare IT people typically aren't engineering solutions for the healthcare environment; most are focused on specific projects and ... [full story]

Project Management and Process Lifespan chose to handle all project management and implementation in-house. The deployment included all facilities managed through a central office. The technical portion of the deployment was also centrally managed through its NOC for provisioning. All needs ... [full story]

Business Model As part of a well-thought-out strategic plan developed within Lifespan in 1996, wireless technology was part of a strategic and tactical element to support the delivery of high-quality healthcare. This goal is achieved by enabling mobility to clinical systems ... [full story]

What the Future Holds Cisco IT is currently undertaking a major upgrade of the global WLAN. As the business has come to realize the benefit of wireless connectivity, the WLAN is being redesigned from the bottom up, adopting a proactive business ... [full story]

Business Benefits of the Solution Cisco IT believes that the global WLAN solution provides positive productivity benefits in excess of US$50M per annum. Internal Cisco IT studies show average productive time savings of over 30 minutes per day. However, to ensure ... [full story]

Ongoing Project Management and Process Cisco maintains a full-time global solutions program manager for enterprise wireless strategy and architecture. This individual is responsible for leading the IT WLAN architecture team (which also provides Tier 3 support where necessary). The team meets ... [full story]

Deployment and Implementation To facilitate the deployment, Cisco IT assembled a global program management team under the direction of a global program manager. Representatives were selected from each of the four regions worldwide: Americas, APAC (Asia Pacific), EMEA (Europe, Middle East, ... [full story]

Security In 2000, during the initial deployment, the Cisco security architecture was based upon a combination of Cisco LEAP, for authentication, and Cisco Key Integrity Protocol (CKIP), for data integrity (encryption). However, as the industry, solutions, and threats evolved, Cisco further ... [full story]

Technology Considerations The selection of a suitable WLAN technology was an easy one. As the world's leader in the manufacture of enterprise-class WLAN equipment, Cisco did not have difficulty in choosing the products to deploy. Cisco did, however, need to define, ... [full story]

Enhanced Services Several enhanced services are available today, including support for wireless voice services and global guest networking. The enhanced services are facilitated by the use of several SSIDs and wireless VLANs, with differing security settings based upon the target devices. ... [full story]

Business Model The business model for deploying enterprise-class WLANs in the Cisco internal environment was based upon two underlying fundamentals: The desire to embrace and showcase new technology where Cisco Systems led the industry The realization of the real and measurable benefits that ... [full story]

Management Tools You have many options for adopting a toolset for WLAN management. A robust WLAN management strategy is just as important as the actual tools used. So far in the chapter, you have learned about the various areas and topics ... [full story]

WLAN Reporting and Alerting To successfully manage any network, timely and accurate information is required. Not only is current and up-to-date information necessary (that is, "snapshots" of the WLAN in its current state), but also historical reporting capabilities are required to ... [full story]

Security Settings Management Enterprise-class wireless networks should always have a robust security framework. This is discussed in detail in Chapter 7. The typical security posture will detail not only the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) mechanism used for authentication and the encryption ... [full story]

Challenges Unique to WLAN Management WLANs present several unique management challenges. Many relate to the physical aspects of the wireless environment, whereas some are the result of the dynamic nature of the wireless network and its mobile users and devices. Knowledge ... [full story]

WLAN Management This section describes the particulars of wireless network management. You learn about the unique, particular areas that you must address in your enterprise WLAN management strategy. As mentioned previously, wireless networks are in some ways just another transport medium ... [full story]

Comparing Centralized and Distributed Management Historically, WLANs have been approached in a manner similar to wired networks. Because the access points were deemed access layer devices, or edge devices, they were considered no differently from a typical Layer 2 switch. Both ... [full story]

FCAPS FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security), the ISO model for network management, is a functional approach that segments management areas into discrete categories, which allows the network manager or management framework to address each in turn and ensure that ... [full story]

Management Strategies How should the enterprise manage its WLAN? What tools should be used? What strategy should be adopted? These are the challenging questions that you should answer before the wireless network is being deployed. No single product offers a complete solution. ... [full story]

Solutions Lifecycle Managing the WLAN can be considered part of two phases of the PPDIOO solutions lifecycle: operating and optimizing. Unlike previous phases, operating and optimizing your WLAN can have a long duration because they are ongoing even while you begin ... [full story]

Building a Secure WLAN This section provides guidelines for building a secure WLAN. These recommended practices are offered as tried and tested methodologies for addressing this challenging topic. Every enterprise comes with its own unique environment, infrastructure, and security challenges, but ... [full story]

Wireless Security Mitigation Techniques WLANs employ specific methods for encryption, hashing, and authentication. Figure 7-1 illustrates the general elements that make up the embedded WLAN security. Figure 7-1. Embedded WLAN Security Encryption Encryption is the action taken to mask the elements in a ... [full story]

WLAN Security Threats The nature of wireless communications makes defending against attacks very difficult but extremely necessary. Threats come in many forms. The vulnerability and exposure of your network comes from inside and outside your network. Arguably, the internal troubles typically ... [full story]

Wireless Security in Your Enterprise The fundamental premise of security in networked environments is that no network is truly secure. Even a network that is not connected to the Internet can be compromised if physical access can somehow be obtained. This ... [full story]

Deployment Checklist This section includes proposed checklists of minimum activities and considerations recommended during the design, deployment, and implementation of a wireless LAN solution. The aim of this checklist is to prompt you to consider all aspects of the deployment, and not ... [full story]

WLAN Controller Installation In centralized WLAN solutions, the WLAN controller should now be physically installed. This is important because it is this device that actually configures, manages, and "controls" the access points themselves. Without the controller present and operating, the access ... [full story]

WLAN Controller Configuration In centralized WLAN solutions, the WLAN controllers themselves need to be configured. This is often undertaken around this stage, typically before the physical installation of the access points. The WLAN Controllers are configured with appropriate settings for each ... [full story]

Deploying the WLAN Deploying your WLAN will likely be a complex process-driven effort. It will require careful project management and scheduling to ensure smooth transitions between each set of tasks. In this, it is not unlike any other technology implementation once ... [full story]

Support By their very nature, wireless networks are complex and susceptible to interference and potential service-impacting factors that wired networks avoid. A carefully designed WLAN, and the use of the latest intelligent WLAN equipment, will help avoid these problems. However, you ... [full story]

Management Ensuring that you have a robust management system in place is as important as its design and implementation. After you have installed the infrastructure, distributed the clients, and enabled the solution, you will have ongoing management to consider. This is ... [full story]

Deployment Dependencies Before the first access point is turned on, the first cable laid, or the first client device enabled, you need to be aware of some fundamental deployment dependencies. Your team may have finalized the architecture and technical design, but ... [full story]