Changes in the spring: When Cloud computing encounters a WLAN

WLAN is not a new technology, since the launch has been tepid, but at present ushered in the "second spring."

The advent of spring is by no means accidental, it first satisfies the user's mobility preference, in the increasingly intelligent and diverse access terminals today, access to the broadband network anytime and anywhere secure is a demand of many users; second, it is becoming more and more obvious trend of consumption, enterprise, park-level and even telecom operators have given a great deal of warmth to the WLAN , making WLANs no longer just the lowest-end product for home or personal users.

Of course, the advent of the spring and WLAN itself technology evolution and industry maturity also has a close relationship. From the network control and structure point of view, although WLAN and cellular communication network still exist some differences, but its own available controllable tube security has been greatly improved, in the transmission peak rate has reached 450M, can fully meet user needs. From the industrial chain point of view, WLAN is also relatively healthy.

Speaking of which, some readers may ask, how long can the WLAN spring last? Can the existing technology evolution route of WLAN industry achieve the wind? With these questions, C114, a Chinese communications network editor, interviewed Mr. Mads of Adtran. Adtran Company is established in 1985 in the United States Huntsville Senior Communications Equipment manufacturers, which provide more than 1700 kinds of end-to-end access products for operators and enterprise network use. In order to better expand overseas markets, Adtran in August 2011 and December for WiFi manufacturers Bluesocket and NSN broadband sector BBA strategic mergers and acquisitions. Bluesocket was established in Boston in 1999, and has a reputation in the industry for WLAN vendors that have TCO and strategic control as their core competencies. In the Magic quadrant of the wireless network company listed in Gartner, Bluesocket is a "visionary" category.

Changes in the spring

In Mads's view, the WLAN industry is indeed ushered in the spring. "Now, both telecom operators and enterprise-class users have WLAN as the focus of investment construction." For operators, they want to be able to offload 3g/4g network traffic pressure at a low cost, and for enterprise users, they want to be able to adapt to the trend of it consumption and BYOD. ”

Both enterprise users and telecom operators are facing similar characteristics. "First of all, WLAN is growing larger, multiple nodes in wide area distribution exist at the same time, the second is to network policy control and security more attention; third, users want to be able to quickly and effectively deploy, as far as possible to reduce TCO and complexity. ”

However, the existing products and networking models do not meet these requirements: Now the industry is more popular is the thin ap+ central controller model (that is, intelligent ac+ thin AP), it is difficult to meet the requirements of multiple-node unified control, but users are expected to be consistent with the network security strategy; It also makes it difficult to meet the reliability and availability of large scale deployments, where wireless controllers are complex and expensive. Back to the next step, the FAT AP model is difficult to achieve for multi-user access and policy control, but more suitable for small and medium-sized users.

"The key to the problem is the price, availability and reliability of the central processing node (AC), which cannot be sustained by existing technical solutions." It is because of these phenomena that we have introduced Vwlan solutions that introduce virtualization and it technologies into wireless networks to help users achieve requirements at the lowest TCO by innovating their existing technology systems. ”

Virtualization Encounters WLAN

Unlike many rivals, Bluesocket a very different route.

In order to facilitate the deployment and management of the network, many manufacturers are using AC+AP network model, AP Just do access, AC function more complex, reliability is reduced, and in order to help reliable usability, but also to learn from the cellular communication network technology characteristics, resulting in high costs. In the Vwlan solution, Bluesocket uses the Intelligent ap+ Virtualization AC network model.

The AP itself has strong management capabilities, providing flexible client authentication, resilient systems, and extensible architecture. AC, then, is a soft system that is architected on the VMware Virtualization component vsphere. Of course, for companies that do not have VMware products deployed, they can choose Bluesocket or IBM's embedded Vwlan servers, and smooth porting after the enterprise IT infrastructure is upgraded to VMware.

AC as a key component of the entire system, how can users ensure their availability? "First of all, we really believe in the reliability and availability of VMware management platforms, and second, users can build multiple virtual machines to run." Mads replied. "Once you have configured the SSID, security policy, and other important parameters, it will be set to the wireless controller, and the AP function is to quickly assign users to the available local network connection resources." Our packet-forwarding function is handled by AP, which frees up the centralized management of the wireless controller, and the secret is the unique distributed processing technology, which enables the large wireless area network environment to be detached from the expensive, complex wireless controller. ”

According to its introduction, Bluesocket's virtualization software AC can support 1500 802.11n Ap,ap, which will automatically connect back to Central wireless network control regardless of the network segment installed. From the point of view of administrator and client, Vwlan environment is convenient and easy to use. As long as the PLUG-IN,AP detects the local network or VLAN automatically, the authenticated person is required to return to the main controller through authentication via TLS encryption. Only AP-managed traffic flows through the Internet back to the wireless controller, and all other client wireless LAN job traffic still stays on the local network.

"In this kind of networking model, AP prices are flat with rivals, but more intelligent features such as local forwarding, illegal traffic management, wired port support, and so on, while users save a high level of investment in AC while gaining a low-cost flexibility to expand, and in the user identification, Policy control and network security are not compromised at all. "It simplifies the hierarchy of WLAN networks, saves overall investment (CAPEX,OPEX), and improves the reliability and availability of wireless networks," Tang Weijun, the Adtran company's Greater China sales representative, told the authors. ”

According to Tang Weijun revealed that at present, many users have shown a strong interest in the country. "A few key users are testing and it takes time for users to accept a new idea, but only systemic innovation can solve the problem in the current network." ”

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)