Time to push for improvements

While many network managers are embracing wireless -- a Forrester Research survey of 1,000 IT decision makers showed that more than 50 per cent of North American and European enterprises have Wi-Fi technology in-house -- management shortcomings are keeping the technology in a secondary role.

Until management capabilities catch up with wireless technology, industry watchers say enterprise IT shops will continue to rely primarily on their wired network for critical services and overlay wireless technology to offer a variety of applications and device support.

"For wireless to become the standard, costs would have to be driven way down, wireless performance would have to be equal to or greater than the wired net, and some sort of event or natural disaster would have to wipe out the previous network to justify not pulling cable again," Yankee Group's Kerravala says. "That said, managing wireless should be in every aspect consistent with the wired approach, from security policies to user access privileges, all the way to the expectations of reliability and availability."

On the flip side, the same experts say third-party management software makers won't step up to take on WLAN management until end-users demand the capabilities in their primary network management console.

"Users have seen the benefits of working unwired. It simply makes business sense to give users the capability to compute, collaborate, and create from wherever they are," Forrester's Silva says. "But the WLAN is not considered a primary network or even a mission-critical network, and until it becomes a top priority for end users, third-party management vendors like HP or CA aren't going to see the need to provide tighter integration between their products and those from wireless equipment vendors."

Most network managers balk at the idea of unplugging the wired network and relying on a WLAN because they know firsthand how difficult it is to manage availability, connectivity and performance with the technology available today.

John Turner, director of networks and systems at Brandeis University in the US, deployed about 200 Aruba AP-70 dual-radio multi-purpose 802.11 a/b/g access points across 100 buildings. The wireless environment is expected to serve some 7,000 students, faculty and other staff, but with the difficulty of locating access points in dorms and other buildings, users are advised that wired is the primary network.

"We need more diagnostic tools and more expert analysis built into the products to really troubleshoot access point and client performance issues so that we can push these types of connectivity and availability problems down to our first-line response people," Turner says. "I set expectations for our end users. The WLAN is an auxiliary network to the wired net. If you are in your office or dorm room, wired is the premier network. The notion of the wireless office is coming, but I am going to hold off on it until I can say with certainty it will be as available or more than the wired net."