The New Age of Mobility
In a world of information-driven organisations, networks are
crucial enablersof business success. As organisation become
increasingly mobile to compete, Wireless LAN (WLAN) have become an
important component. Wireless is now used not only in areas such as
conference rooms or for accessing e-mail, but also for VoIP, asset
tracking, collaboration among remote and mobile workers, secure guest
network access, business intelligence, video surveillance cameras and
much more.
Mobility drives the efficiency and effectiveness of
organisations. But running business-critical applications wirelessly
also brings new challenges, especially for areas such as security,
reliability, performance and quality of service (QoS). Both business
needs and technology advances have caused wireless capabilities to
increase significantly - especially with the new 802.11n standards.
Four generations of WLAN
Introduced nearly a decade ago, WLANs have made significant strides,
pushing to new performance limits in which user experience and quality
of service are reflective of a wired connection. Asthe network
continues to adapt, it is important to understand the evolution of the
WLAN and organisations can adapt to these changes.
Stand-alone access point architecture.
When WLANs were introduced about a decade ago, the
architecture was based on standalone access points. In this
architecture, intelligent access points - typically located in a few
areas throughout a facility - are used to deliver basic wireless
connectivity between laptops or other mobile devices and a wired
Ethernet network.The key advantage of the standalone access point
architecture is that it delivers open-standards connectivity,
leveraging IEEE standards for mobile device interoperability and
enabling organisations to begin benefiting from wireless networking. A
key disadvantage is that this architecture cannot scale to support
large networking environments.
Centralised WLAN architecture.
The second generation of WLAN introduced a new approach called
centralised wireless LAN architecture, which addressed the scalability
issue of the earlier generation. Instead of managing access points
individually, a centralised WLAN architecture provides a central switch
or controller that coordinates the operation of large numbers of access
points. In this way, the controller works together with the access
points to create a complete and easily scalable wireless network.The
centralised WLAN architecture also has limitations, however. The
controller has to process 100 percent of the network traffic, and it is
designed to handle the throughput associated with IEEE 802.11a/g
standards. As a result, this approach cannot easily address the
increased performance of newer standards such as 802.11n - a potential
issue for organisations looking to migrate.
Optimised WLAN architecture.
To address the increased capabilities of the new 802.11n
standard, the optimised wireless LAN architecture (also known as a
distributed forwarding architecture) arose. The optimised WLAN
architecture encompasses the benefits of the second-generation
architecture - centralised management and control - with the addition
of intelligent access points at the edge of the network. This
non-blocking architecture delivers full throughput with 802.11n access
points that forward network traffic independently, supporting speed and
full performance benefits. The benefits include optimal application
delivery, low impact on the wired core, no single point of failure or
performance bottlenecks, cost-effective scalability and strong
investment protection.
Colubris Networks pioneered the optimised WLAN architecture.
With the integration of Colubris' products and solutions, HP ProCurve
has become a primary provider of this third-generation of WLAN
architecture.
Unified WLAN architecture.
Like the first two WLAN generations, the optimised WLAN
architecture is delivered as an overlay - using the wired LAN for
connectivity between the access points and the wireless controller. As
a result, the wired and wireless networks are still configured and
managed separately. However, the fourth and emerging generation truly
unifies wired and wireless LANs. This unified approach integrates wired
and wireless architecture through a WLAN controller installed in the
LAN switch chassis, enabling central management through a common
network management system. This allows network managers to define and
apply a single set of security and QoS policies across both wired and
wireless media, resulting in consistent service regardless of the
connection.
The new age of mobility is now
HP ProCurve's acquisition of Colubris advances this evolution
toward a unified WLAN architecture. With 802.11n capabilities and
solutions,HP ProCurve's expanded product portfolio provides
yourcustomers a choice of solutions that support current a/b/g
standards and the speed and security of 802.11n.
We invite you to take a closer look at the latest wireless networking
products and solutions from HP ProCurve, including the industry's first
optimised architecture for 802.11n scalability and HP ProCurve's first
access point based on the 802.11n standard (the new MSM410). For more
information, see www.procurve.com/mobility.
Useful Links
http://www.hp.com/rnd/products/wireless/index.htm
HP ProCurve Multiservice Access Point Series
