There's a saying that goes, "The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue."  Considering Ruckus's mascot is a dog, I find this fitting for today's blog post.  I received an email from Ruckus's VP of Marketing asking me to review a blog post to make sure it was accurate, with the understanding that it would be changed if I found something that wasn't accurate.  Normally this wouldn't be such a huge deal, but in this case, it was because this particular blog was a comparison between a feature hawked by only Ruckus and Aerohive.  I eagerly read the blog looking for issues, and other than the occassional comma splice, run-on sentence, or reference to 802.1x instead of 802.1X, it was just great.  By "great" I mean, "it was a fair comparison presented in an honorable way."  That's the point of today's blog, in fact.  Ruckus wasn't trying to "flame" Aerohive, but rather to be professionally complimentary.  You can read Ruckus's blog post here.

I'm always hearing folks going on and on about their ‘service after the sale.’  Don't get me wrong.  Post-sale customer service is a wonderful thing as long as you don't lose sight of the need for taking care of potential new customers.  Like most of you, I'm a customer.  I buy Wi-Fi hardware and software all the time, and not just the cheap stuff.  My customers need enterprise-class gear and, as long as someone will be there to help me, I’ll buy it. 

I'm starting to see many companies make inexcusable sales blunders that have taken me to the edge of self control.  Now granted, I'm no superhero and my name, unlike my shoes, doesn't carry enormous weight.  But hey, that shouldn't matter because I have money to spend.  If you can't tell, I'm a bit miffed about this.  I hate to be so negative, but this is important to me.  I’m withholding my frustration by complaining generically in a place where everyone listens, which seems better than blasting vendors by name right off the bat.

The offending vendors need to know who they are, and they need to know that they'll be called out when they tick off customers (like you and me).  This is my warning shot across their collective bows.   A brotha ain't playin'.  I want my Wi-Fi.

Last week I had the chance to attend the 'Sharkfest' conference held on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto. Last year I was busy with other work and missed it… this year I had a gig fall through at the last minute. I'm glad it did!

Today, we at CWNP are proud to announce the availability of our newest certification: CWTS.  CWTS stands for Certified Wireless Technology Specialist, and it is our new entry-level certification for enterprise Wi-Fi professionals.   

I always seem to start my blog articles by saying something about the increasing complexity of Wi-Fi.  It works nicely as a starting point when I'm facing an empty page.  But, it really is true.  There's always something new to pontificate, elucidate, or lucubrate (‘learn’–I had to bust a rhyme); one day it’s a new amendment to the Mother of All Standards (we’ll just call it Momma), and the next day it’s a new technology, architecture, integration, implementation, platform, tool, software, feature, chipset…you get the point.  It surprises me that anyone can peer into the ethereal world of Wi-Fi and make sense of it.  There are enough acronyms to create a limitless labyrinth for a linguist, and despite the crazy and cool technology, Wi-Fi offers a concentrated dose of confusion.  Add to that the verifiable mystery of vendor vocabulary and you have yourself a good old fashioned Charlie Foxtrot (military speak for a ‘mess’) with a vulnerable consumer on top.

I've been playing with some of the coolest things lately.  One of my favorite is hosted WIPS and WNMS.  I've got to tell you that this is some wicked cool stuff right here.  AirTight's SpectraGuard Online (WIPS) and Aerohive's Virtual HiveManager (WNMS) are the two I've been beating on lately.  These two differ slightly in that AirTight offers this as a managed service and Aerohive offers it as a product (meaning that MSPs and partners can deliver a managed service).  In both cases, the product lives in a "cloud" (instead of in your facility), and both work like a champ.  No problems at all with either one.  I hope this trend continues and other vendors follow suit.

What?  What room was that?  Hello?  Did somebody die?  Holy crap.

Given that the Voice-Enterprise group at the Wi-Fi Alliance is stalled at the moment, we currently have to rely on proprietary cipher suites like CCKM in MCA deployments.  Cisco 7921 and 7925 VoWiFi phones only supports fast/secure roaming (FSR) with the CCKM (TKIP) cipher suite, and for some reason, the panic caused by any number of presentations on how "TKIP is broken" is causing administrators to change their client reauthentication interval to 15 minutes or less.  

Let me be clear: TKIP is not broken. 

I was reading about Aruba's new product strategy…in The Book of John, chapter 15.  Perhaps while 'going down that road' they should ask that He fix their user interface too.   Of course, He did send them Tony (GUI Interface Super Genius) who has created some butt-whoopin' wizards in the short time he's been there, so I guess you can't complain too much just yet.  Hey Tony, where are we at with that GUI overhaul anyway?

Anyway, back to that strategy conversation…

You hear all of the time, 'you have to balance the link!'  Hogwash.  Who told you that?  Of course it sounds good, but how practical is it?  Let's start with the simple stuff.  We all know that when you turn an antenna this way or that, your coverage pattern changes.  In fact, you can expect that coverage could easily change by 5 dB for particular clients at specific points in time.  This fact is true of both the client and the AP – on each side of a client/AP link – so you could even surmise that a 10 dB swing is possible just due to antenna orientation (depending on proximity, antenna type, the environment, etc.).

I thought since I posted about golf yesterday, I'd throw you a technical blog today.  Enjoy!

There are four HT Protection modes.  There are at least a dozen protection mechanisms.  Dual CTS, Non-HT Duplicate Mode, PCO Mode, RTS/CTS, CTS-to-Self, L-SIG TXOP, Dual Beacon, 40 MHz Intolerance, 20 MHz BSS Width Requests, and others.  It's ridiculous.  Does an analyst have to learn all of this?  I know you're hoping my answer is a big fat NO, but unfortunately…my answer is a big fat YES.  Manufacturers will tell you that their system magically 'handles' and 'optimizes' all of this stuff.  Well, it might be able to do the right thing according to the standard, but that's where the problem lies to begin with.  When it comes to protection mechanisms, modes, and operating methodologies, the standard is hideously bloated and confusing.