4 Tips for upgrading your wireless network to a 802.11n WLAN

Laptops, smartphones and tablets are mobile devices that each university can choose from. In order to meet the need for Internet access anytime, and to cope with more bandwidth-intensive mobile applications, colleges and universities have started investing in their wireless LANs so that students and faculty can transmit larger files and applications over wireless networks. So today's WLAN can be connected to a wired network through a variety of ports to provide high-performance, powerful, and secure network connectivity for the growing student community.

As for the 802.11n approved by the IEEE standard of Wireless network, the transfer rate is six times times the previous 802.a/b/g standard. Ideally, the 802.11n network can reach 300Mbps, while the peak WLAN based on the old standard is only 54Mbps. As a result, the performance improvement of the new network will enable universities to meet the needs of users and provide the necessary protection for confidential data, such as the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA Act) and the HIPAA Act.

Most institutions in colleges and universities have invested in existing 802.11a/b/g devices and are being plagued by increased mobile devices and applications. As a result, IT departments in universities are upgraded to 802.11n WLANs to provide more users with network support, increase network coverage, and manage bandwidth-intensive applications. Their main goal is to upgrade the level of trust in the WLAN and eventually create a unified wireless + wired integrated network.

The reason to pay attention

Upgrading to a 802.11n WLAN can bring higher performance, wider coverage, and higher bandwidth to the university. In order to upgrade the 802.11n WLAN and achieve these advantages, you need to consider the cost of the new equipment (maintenance and support costs), managing complexity (especially when the upgrade brings multiple vendors ' environments), and the impact of the upgrade on the wired network.

Because the 802.11n WLAN is faster and has a higher transmission rate, existing network devices may not be able to handle the increased amount of data. When your WLAN becomes faster and stronger, the performance of the wired network is compromised because the WAN and Internet gateways cannot effectively cope with the increased traffic.

In addition, the second-generation WLAN has a centralized transport architecture that burdens the flow of traffic between the wired network processing controller and the access point in the 802.11n network. The result is network block, delay, reliability problems, extended restriction and slow speed.

To avoid performance and reliability problems, you need to replace the hardware, and the amount of hardware you replace depends on your environment. Device design is critical to wireless networks because there may be a lot of radio interference in colleges and universities. The structure of the building to do a detailed analysis to avoid the signal blind area.

The radio frequency is also detected when deciding which access point to deploy and where to deploy. In a 802.11a/b/g network, data is transmitted from a user device to an access point through a single direct path. The 802.11N network is operated by MIMO technology, which means that data can be transmitted through multiple paths. MIMO helps improve network speed, but it can also cause problems with existing access points. Without overall planning and simulation, it is difficult to know whether the network can operate optimally. If it is not the optimal state, it may be less performance than the existing network. It can be time-consuming and costly to solve these problems later, because the transformation of the access point has a cascading effect on performance through many network devices.

Perhaps you can avoid a large number of wired architecture upgrades through a small number of directional technologies in colleges and universities. As an example of an adapter access point, it can bridge the data at the edge of the local network without looking for the path to the Network Center controller. In this way, colleges and universities can avoid the upgrade of the core network without affecting the performance of the network (the plan of the university's individual structure depends on the needs and the budget).

To achieve high-performance wireless technology, consider the following four tips. Careful planning will enable the next generation of wireless technology to maximize performance.

Skill One: Achieving savings through professional services

Most colleges have limited staff, so you may want WLAN professional services to upgrade your technical team for device deployment. Such services help to understand network requirements, recommend optimal design and path, and leverage existing hardware wherever possible. Deployment planning timelines help prevent common device oversubscribed subscriptions, and the more ports and switches installed, the greater the likelihood of damage, resulting in increased complexity and cost.

WLAN-focused professional services experts typically return to analyzing a device's CAD drawings and then simulating the environment. The result is an enterprise radio frequency coverage chart based on the expected access point location and user data.

These services also allow users to design according to budget parameters. For example, in order not to exceed the budget, you may have to design some areas of the university special coverage, while ensuring the teaching and administrative building coverage.

Technique two: Centralized management 802.11n

Colleges and universities generally occupy a large area, so we need remote debugging WLAN. There are more mobile student groups in the college environment, so they need to be validated when they walk from the classroom to the library or the restaurant. A key issue to consider during the preparation phase is how best to manage and support the new WLAN.

Basically, WLAN policy and secure management are challenging tasks, especially when the user interface is not consistent across different vendors. And the wireless signal will be disturbed and will weaken the characteristics of the WLAN debugging and increase the difficulty. You don't want to replace the original device for cost or contract reasons, but you may find that the best 802.11n device is not produced by a cooperating supplier.

The way to simplify the process is to install a centralized management system that can help you create a network and security policy, and then the system to complete the transformation, configuration and connectivity with different WLAN. The system also allows administrators to remotely debug the entire network through individual tools and interfaces. This means that the network management does not need to log on to multiple vendor systems to correlate information about all of the networks configuration, thus saving a lot of time. In addition, these systems have functional layers, including the ability to identify and classify potential disturbances, the ability to deploy sensors to monitor signals, and the historical/real-time analysis of events.

The goal of a centralized network management system is to simplify network management on a single dashboard while protecting the network and reducing the cost of calling support. This leads to better security, performance, reliability, and lower overall costs. Centralized network management systems provide interoperability, an open system architecture, and multi-platform support for a smooth transition to a 802.11n WLAN. Because such a system is easy to use, first-class technical support staff can solve the problem without paying a large price to the experts, so it greatly reduces the reliance on senior technical experts.

Tip Three: Upgrade your wired network to Gigabit Ethernet

Budgets have always been tight, but many colleges and universities are starting to use high-end technology. In evaluating a university, students, parents and faculty members give priority to technical types. When we can extend the WLAN to meet the growing mobile applications, online collaboration requirements and virtual learning environments, administrators can use the technology to attract more students and retain staff.

Smart investments in wired networks can get the best wireless network performance. Wireless networks have the potential to outperform 100-baset networks for the first time due to a significant increase in data transmission rates for the 802.11n standard. That's why before you upgrade to WLAN, you need to understand how the 802.11n rate increase can have an impact on end-to-end network performance.

The wired network architecture needs to be upgraded to support the backhaul connections of Gigabit Ethernet and 10G 802.11n WLAN. To eliminate the potential slowdown, make sure your wired network is fast enough to support the new wireless transmission speed. This avoids network connections and bottlenecks in uploading access points.

In addition, because WLAN can adapt to the requirements of students, faculty and new mobile devices and applications, investment protection will be realized. With powerful smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices on the market, scalable 802.11n WLANs can provide network support for these devices both inside and outside teachers.

Tip Four: Network security add layer

Higher education institutions are the primary goal of cyber-sabotage behavior. Colleges and universities control a lot of personal information. Unfortunately, hackers often think that this is precisely the goal that can be easily scored. If a mobile device can access the network from anywhere in the campus, a WLAN without multiple layers of security is open to disruptive behavior. In the past, WLAN security mechanisms were inadequate to meet the privacy needs of colleges and universities. But as the speed of wireless transmission increases, wireless security has improved.

Now, there are several security mechanisms to help the WLAN achieve the same level of security as the wired network. For example, WPA2 based on the IEEE 802.11i Security Standard, uses the rules above AES to provide advanced encryption. In addition, modern wireless intrusion Prevention system (WIPS) can let administrators detect and locate unknown devices, prevent others intrusion WLAN, protect the network from Dos attacks. Some of these systems can automatically block intruders without human intervention. Other techniques, such as geofencing, enable administrators to provide network access based on the location of the wireless device, thus increasing the physical security of wireless access.

The use of intrusion prevention tools while setting up multi-layer security protection can not only reduce the annoyance of network management, ease the task of Internet administration, but also prevent confidential data stolen from universities.

Creating a future Network

The number of mobile people supported is more complex and more certain to operate. Sophisticated online applications such as video streaming, distance learning and digital instructional materials will soon become standards, and a high-end wireless network that can provide these features will be a prerequisite for colleges and universities.

Success ultimately depends on cost-effective design and management, and the ability to optimize new networks to support high-bandwidth applications. The reliability, performance and security of wireless networks will reach the level of the wired network. The 802.11n network is worth the money as long as it is properly planned.

Network experts also agree that replacing 802.11a/b/g wireless access points and clients with 802.11n access points and clients can bring a higher quality Internet experience for students and faculty, especially when using audio and video learning applications.

Are you enchanted?

While these four tips can help you transition to a 802.11n WLAN, planning and switching is also a time-consuming task. Therefore, you need to think carefully and look for a tool that can provide ancillary services to your network deployer.

Finally, keep in mind that once you plan to use the more advanced 802.11n wireless technology, you must verify that each part of the WLAN is compatible with the other parts. The best way to determine compatibility is to find a suitable device vendor that can provide a wide range of wired and wireless networking equipment.