Strategy: Building a wireless infrastructure

by Kevin Railsback

May 8, 2001 —

THE ADOPTION OF any new technology can be a nerve-wracking experience, both for the IT staff charged with doing the rollout and for executives writing the checks.

The key to making the right technology decisions and to making these projects go smoothly is to have a strong strategy and a detailed plan in place before implementing a solution. Preparation is even more important when building a wireless infrastructure. Because wireless products must, by design, touch many different parts of your enterprise environment, extra diligence is necessary to make sure all goes as planned. For example, if your enterprise network is built on Cisco routers and switches, you must make sure that the wireless base stations will interoperate correctly with them.

You don't necessarily have to use the same vendor for wireless as you do for your existing infrastructure, but if the components don't work together properly, you're setting yourself up for trouble down the road. Thinking about these interactions ahead of time can save time and money during the implementation and ongoing maintenance phases. Probably the most important factor to consider is whether the products you choose are supported by your network management framework, whether it be CA Unicenter, Tivoli, HP OpenView, or whatever your company's network management tool may be.

Technology step-by-step

1. Evaluate your needs. Talk to users to find what benefits a wireless network would provide. Take a hard look at the impact of adding wireless networking to your environment.

2. Plan for your wireless needs. Examine what wireless technologies best suit your particular needs. Planning ahead will help you avoid headaches and added costs in the long run.

3. Trial rollout. Once you've determined what hardware and software is right for you, do a trial rollout to check for problems that may seriously affect your long-term plans.

4. Testing. Have a team dedicated to evaluating your trial rollout. Take nodes offline, disconnect base stations, and give your new wireless network a test for problems you anticipate.

5. Training. When you're confident that all of the bugs and incompatibilities are worked out, it's time for training. The IT staff that must support this new infrastructure will need it.

6. Production rollout. All systems go! Phase in your new wireless solution throughout the company. Your IT staff can then dedicate time and resources to solving problems as they crop up.

7. Ongoing maintenance. Ongoing network monitoring and maintenance is as much a part of the equation as the original acquisition costs. Make sure your network management platform is monitoring the wireless network fully.

Before you begin planning your company's wireless strategy, take a close look at the wireless options available. Does your company need to provide employees with some type of wireless Internet access to corporate information while they're on the road? Do customers need access to that information as well? Access to information via a wireless network can be the perfect solution for your road warriors, but it can be expensive to implement.

Are you looking to build up your campus infrastructure by adding wireless LAN access so that users can roam from office to office without losing their connection? This can greatly increase collaboration and productivity. Adding a wireless LAN infrastructure can eliminate the need for running expensive cabling all over the building if you're moving offices or building a facility. It also eliminates the need to upgrade cabling as standards and technologies evolve. No need to upgrade the air, after all.

Of course, enterprise networks aren't just about cabling. For large-scale campus networks, the way that the entire network is managed must be the first consideration. If you just drop in unmanaged 802.11 wireless base stations and let your users loose on the network, you will be adding a world of confusion, and you will waste time when managing the network. Over the long haul, because those unmanaged base stations can't be tied to your company's network management tools, you will be forced to dedicate IT staff for baby-sitting your wireless network.

The first step in planning a wireless strategy is to evaluate your existing environment and determine your user's needs. Talk to users from various departments to figure out how and why they would want to use a wireless network solution. Catalog the resources and people that will be affected by the changes you're considering. This will involve much more than just your networking technicians. Network management software will have to be checked for compatibility; wireless range will need to be taken into account for the placement of base stations; andd the upgrade of laptop and desktop systems that will get wireless network cards must be considered.

The next step is to plan for the actual wireless implementation. For wireless Internet access for mobile workers, does it make more sense to go with a third-party provider for your services? Should you house the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) /WML (Wireless Markup Language) translation servers in-house, or should you outsource that as well? For wireless LAN scenarios, which vendor should you adopt? Is 802.11b the best choice for your environment, or should you consider other options such as RadioLAN?

Once you've gone through the evaluation and selection process for the products you want to implement, the next step is to do a trial rollout. Borrow the hardware and software from the vendor, or make a small initial purchase for your testing. Identify a group to make a trial run with, making sure to include both IT staff and normal users in your environment.

When your trial rollout is up and running, have a team of IT staff and possibly some users test the wireless applications and network connections. Now is the time to find problems with the solution you've chosen and any possible incompatibilities with your existing network. This testing should involve normal use as well as intentional failures. Be sure to find out what happens when a base station goes offline and how users deal with areas where they don't have wireless access.

When you're sure that this is the solution you'll be implementing, get your IT support staff up to speed with training. That should include supporting users with these new devices and any changes and additional programs needed for your network management solution.

The most-efficient way to do a widespread rollout of a networking solution is to do it in phases. If you're dealing with a campus environment, start with one department. Your IT staff can deal with problems along the way much more easily if they only have to deal with one department at a time.

Networking infrastructure is never a fire-and-forget endeavor. The most important aspect of your rollout should be planning for maintenance and monitoring. This segment is where the true cost of the networking project will creep up if adequate training and planning hasn't been put in place. Your network management platform should support your new resources, and keeping track of performance and problems should be well integrated into your procedures.

Planning your company's wireless strategy doesn't have to be a difficult ordeal. Purchasing wireless resources and then deploying them can be done without too much headache as long as you have a good plan and proper project management. The key to success is to test everything before rolling it out, just as you would with any large networking infrastructure change.

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