What Does Proprietary Mean in the WLAN Space?

Despite the existence of 802.11 and related standards, confusion still remains over standard versus proprietary equipment in the WLAN space. Some vendors claim their WLAN switches or appliances work with any access point, for example, and suggest that other vendors' products don't, while other vendors tout pre-standard implementations of new radios. The result is confusion for buyers who often must try to evaluate new WLAN systems for deployment in areas where legacy WLAN gear and client access devices must be accommodated.

The discussion of what is "proprietary" and what is "standard" begins with how WLANs have evolved over the last several years.

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WLANs originally were designed with the assumption that they consisted of one access point and a small handful of users (clients). The initial standards were envisioned as a way to bridge from a wired to a wireless network and unwire a few devices around the office. Therefore, the focus was on how those devices access the network in an equitable way. Ethernet was used as a model for access and 802.11 was born. As standardization occurred and prices dropped, primarily due to Intel making 802.11 standard in every laptop, enterprises began to see employees creating ad-hoc WLANs and more unauthorized APs began appearing on their network, presenting major security violations.

Requirements to gain control of and secure the Wi-Fi network within the enterprise, gave rise to the WLAN switch -- an innovative way to deploy Wi-Fi in a large environment while maintaining some modicum of control and security. These Wi-Fi switches were created to give completely standards-compliant wireless access to users while delivering advanced control and security protocols to manage the APs in the network. This form of in-band management greatly simplified the task of creating Wi-Fi in a corporation that was secure and centrally managed.

Standards Rule of Thumb
In a pervasive enterprise WLAN deployment, then, what is proprietary and what is standard? One simple way to answer this is to look at the communication itself. Standard should mean that the communication between the AP and the client complies with industry standards -- in this case, 802.11.

Today, 802.11 covers communication from the access point to the client, the Wi-Fi equivalent of the last mile. While every WLAN switch or appliance uses in-band management to manage APs in some way, shape or form, standards today don't cover how that management communication happens, what is communicated, or how the access points are controlled.

In contrast, for a system to be classified as proprietary, it would have to violate the pre-established standard (802.11) for communicating with the access points and transmitting required traffic. If such a proprietary system existed, it also would require modification of each and every client using the network, otherwise those clients would cause unnecessary interference or not have access to the network at all. At the same time, if a WLAN switch or appliance is able only to communicate and manage certain access points and not others, this does not make the WLAN proprietary because it does not violate the rules set out by IEEE 802.11.

As long as the communication from the AP to the client doesn't violate the 802.11 standard, enhancement and innovation can continue and thrive in a Wi-Fi network.

This is where the importance of Wi-Fi Certification comes in. The Wi-Fi Alliance has a stated mission of "ensuring the interoperability of WLAN products from different manufacturers, with the objective of enhancing the wireless user experience." While not actually a part of the IEEE, the Alliance conducts extensive interoperability testing to make sure equipment complies with the established 802.11 standard. Interestingly enough, the Alliance tests communication from the AP to various clients. If all goes well, the product is certified as "standard-compliant" and is allowed to carry the Wi-Fi brand.

This concept of not violating the 802.11 standard also is important when considering the co-existence of legacy Wi-Fi equipment with newer Wi-Fi equipment. As long as both sets of equipment comply with the 802.11 standard, or more ideally are Wi-Fi certified, then the old and new equipment should be able to co-exist. 802.11 has pre-established methods for handing clients off from one access point to another, and these methods should exist regardless of vendor or product age.

The only remaining issues are those associated with the in-band management capabilities of the newer products, i.e. the proprietary features of the new system. Although performance from the client standpoint won't suffer across equipment, the more advanced features created by the in-band management will not exist in the older equipment.

More often than not, given the cost of replacing the older equipment or leaving it and managing two different sets of APs, enterprises choose a complete upgrade. If an enterprise does choose to keep both sets of APs, it's not uncommon for the older APs to be re-deployed in less critical areas of the organization or campus, with the newer systems handling higher priority buildings.

The ability to innovate using in-band management without violating 802.11 is critical to the evolution of Wi-Fi and how it is deployed in the enterprise as well as in service providers' networks. Enterprises now are looking to Wi-Fi to support VoIP and other mission critical applications throughout the campus. This means that control and quality need to be coordinated across hundreds of APs -- a goal that can be achieved only through sophisticated management and control algorithms. This is even more important when one considers the deployment of Wi-Fi as a revenue-generating service network.

Service providers who depend on uptime or availability of the network for customer satisfaction cannot afford to leave the quality and reliability of the access network to Wi-Fi without some technology that can ensure five-nines availability (99.999% uptime). Without the ability to control APs, coordinate their transmissions to improve quality, or even simply eliminate the disruption caused by handoff delays, the service provider's Wi-Fi network will not deliver high customer satisfaction and the result will be skyrocketing support costs.

Joel Vincent is director of marketing at Meru Networks. He can be reached at jvincent@merunetworks.com.

Meru Networks www.merunetworks.com
The Wi-Fi Alliance www.wi-fi.org

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