|
Wireless network trends: Overlay networks all the rage in most cases
Special Focus By Phil Hochmuth, Network World, 04/04/07
Ethernet switch vendors who offer combined or unified LAN and WLAN gear say the ultimate goal is to get wired and wireless network technologies to appear as a single network access layer. However, switch vendors and industry experts say this is still a ways off - both in terms of the technology, and the demand for unified gear from users.
"We're still in the early days of unified LAN/WLAN networks," says Craig Mathias, principal of the Farpoint Group, a Massachusetts-based WLAN consultancy. "I wouldn't say any offering is really complete at this point. It's an enormous technological and marketing challenge to get everything integrated together" - where switches, access points, management software are all unified with a single security architecture.
"It's going to take a while until we get to that point."
Many analysts and industry observers said that corporate WLAN technology - particularly, WLAN switch technology - would be absorbed by LAN switch vendors in the long run. The thinking goes that business IT administrators would prefer wireless and management of the WLAN integrated into a wired infrastructure.
|
