Wireless security is evolving.

Analysts are touting the need for wireless LANs (WLANs) across the many verticals of today's enterprises. One research firm estimates that there will be more than 25 million WLAN users globally by 2008, while other firms predict that enterprises could expect a 22% productivity improvement by introducing WLANs.

The first generation of WLAN products answered immediate customer needs: enterprises deployed wireless solutions to solve specific problems, such as deploying WLAN in small areas and running a unique application over the WLAN. The WLAN network would be managed separately, like a small additional network deployed for separate use.

In a retail stores, for instance, a WLAN network could be deployed in the storage room so the staff could use wireless devices to update the inventory. The deployment would be limited to this room and would consist of two or three access points directly connected to the LAN in a distributed architecture. The management would be separated and the information exchanged wirelessly would not contain confidential information.

The WLAN equipment sold five years ago, however, offered weak security. The products were also poor in terms of such features as additional filters or quality of service (QoS), which limited their appeal beyond carrying simple data traffic. Moreover, the first enterprises that deployed WLAN experienced difficulty expanding these capabilities to their existing network in order to fully take advantage of this new freedom. Mixing vendors within the same network was not possible, as few products were Wi-Fi certified and could offer interoperability with each other.

Recently, several vendors have introduced centralized architectures based on WLAN access points and a WLAN security switch. The centralized architecture is designed for large WLAN deployments. The management is centralized and scalable. One command can change the configuration of the whole WLAN network. Moreover, with the recent progress made in standardization, the Wi-Fi protected access (WPA) and 802.11i security standards make the WLAN as safe as using a wired LAN.

Second-generation WLAN security switches remove the engineering constraints of managing separate networks. Since roaming across access points within the same subnet and across access technologies (802.1la, 802.11g, 802.11b) only are defined in the standard, customers are forced to deploy their WLAN network as one IP subnet. A second-generation WLAN security switch offers inter-IP subnet roaming, thus allowing enterprises to see their WLAN network as an extension of their LAN and not as an additional network to manage separately.

A second-generation WLAN security switch also offers a feature set that enables tight integration with the existing LAN infrastructure and does not require sacrificing access to any critical applications. It provides an integrated solution for WLAN, as it acts as a VPN gateway, providing several mechanisms of VPN encryption to wireless users, and runs powerful firewalls that allow a la carte access. Users can be organized into groups and subgroups and have associated access rights not only at the network or folder level, but even at the file level.

Enterprises should make sure they consider second-generation access points that are Wi-Fi certified, and that the WLAN security switch can interoperate with any access points, making the centralized architecture open and flexible for enhanced customer freedom.

To provide the best end-user experience, the WLAN should offer not only true mobility across IP subnets but also QoS flexible enough to handle different types of traffic, devices and user categories. In second-generation WLAN systems, QoS should be implemented at every stage of the network so no network bottleneck will degrade the performance.

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MARKET PULSE

Q: Which of the following technologies has most
over-promised/under delivered for your company?

Wireless LANS  18%
Remote Access  15%
PDAs           14%
IP Telephony   13%
IP VPNs        12%
Storage        11%
CRM             9%
ERP             8%

Population: 104 C-level professionals from U.S. businesses
with over 100 employees.

Sage Research Inc.

Note: Table made from bar graph.