So... When Do You Jump In On 11ac? Like Really?

The blogosphere is awash with speculation on how 802.11ac is going to transform the way we use wireless, and what the new WLAN will do for productivity. It's great stuff, and needs to be talked up. We see early releases of actual 11ac draft product, great whitepapers from the Big Guns, and even better blogs on 11ac from some of the best wireless minds in the industry. If you're not getting a working knowledge of 11ac by now, it's not for lack of available information.

Never has WiFi been more complex, more promising, and more confusing. I don't mean technically confusing; if you're a wireless professional, you'll wrap  your head around the technical side of 802.11ac. Some of my own frequent talking points on 11ac:

• yeah, the standard promises up to 6.9 Gbps data rates. But 11n also promises up to 600, and we'll never see it. Real initial 11ac offerings are still going to be measured at speeds slightly better or even the same as 11n's best


• the 5 GHz-only thing is great for everyone, and will help de-congest the ugly 2.4 GHz band


• early client devices have to be watched- a 3x3 11ac Macbook pro will run circles around a TP-Link 1x1 USB adapter, but they both "are" 11ac. Real client throughputs on 11ac are going to be all over the place


• the Wave 1/Wave 2 thing is really gonna be a weird one for people who have to plan when to jump in, and killer features like Multi-User-MIMO don't materialize until the second wave


• Regardless of how 11ac plays out in the trenches, Ethernet needs to start being more aggressively marginalized. Limited budgets can't support competing access technologies, and mobility will become more of  trump factor when dollars get spent

This brings me back to my question- When do different organizations start migrating to 11ac? This is the part that is confusing.

Talking with Cisco and Aerohive back a few months, the topic of life-cycle came up in relation to 11ac. If you have old gear and have to upgrade, first-wave 11ac might make sense in that you can skip right past 11n. But if you are like me, and have a fairly recent 11n build-out and no real performance pain points, it's just not as easy of a paradigm. Stop-gaps like Cisco's 3600 AP 11ac radio module help bridge the technological generation gap between 11n and 11ac deployments, but at an estimated $500 a pop list price, may not be worth the cost. Upgrading twice to 11ac for the first and second waves is a thorny proposition.

For small environments, lesser AP counts do remove some of the complication. But when you have hundreds or thousands of access points, you can't help but scratch your head when it comes to thoughts of moving to 11ac.

Personally, I am hoping to see a first-wave AP emerge that is somehow upgradeable to a full-fledged second-waver. But I'm also aware of the complexity of putting these things together, and building a 4x4 AP that can "expand" to the likes of 8 streams isn't likely. Also, close monitoring of client device types in use (we're a huge BYOD environment) will be a must while we watch how new 11ac devices trickle in.

For now then, I guess it's still a game of watching and waiting. Hopefully soon we'll see announcements from the WLAN makers that somehow help those of us driving really big WLANs to see a sensible path forward that doesn't include a "buy THIS 11ac AP today, then buy THAT 11ac next year" recommendation.

Code Bugs as Value Adds

Oh baby, oh baby 
Then it fell apart, it fell apart 
Oh baby, oh baby 
Like it always does, always does.
                            - "Extreme Ways"- Moby

Reliable code on network equipment is stodgy, unadventurous, even "lame". What is life without surprises?

So you read the white papers, got hooked on impressive reports of blazing performance, and snagged a great discount on that new solution you're about to get into. You're getting features out the wazoo, but are you getting the right framework for code bugs? Where many organizations never give the notion of bugs and poor QA practices even a fleeting thought, you really should slow it down and put some time into making sure that you are getting your fair share of bugs.

Though it may be counter-intuitive, problem-ridden operating systems and code versions are actually gems in disguise. When the right bug hits at just the worst time, it's like no other experience in the IT realm. What you should be considering:

• Nerdy IT Folks Aren't The Most Social Creatures. But get a few people all pulling their hair out over some issue that never should have made it into the release version of code, and the same introverts now have reason to come out of their shells and intermingle on social media and in support forums. Vendors supplying crappy code could legitimately charge for this service.


• Bugs Let You Test Your Moxy. So your management system craps out for weeks and the vendor is stumped. Or network switch ports arbitrarily stop passing traffic. Or access points reboot whenever someone on another continent takes a sip of Red Bull. These are opportunities for you to show your managers that you can carve endless hours out of your already-busy schedule, relay with creative expression that even the vendor is stumped, and exercise great patience as someone you can barely understand guides you through days of debug to finally declare "oh that is a known bug." Have you got what it takes? Again, this character-building could legitimately be billed as a service.


• You Can Be Part of the QA "Matrix". Although Keanu Reeves and that rather attractive young lady raged against The Man in the famous movie The Matrix, you'll want to be part of the "crowd-sourced quality assurance" experience provided by the right vendor. More simple-minded customers might bitch about catastrophic bugs that should have been caught before code release, but many of us are thrilled to be able to donate countless hours to being part of our vendor's Quality Army. Let 'em push whatever half-baked nonsense the developers can burp out, We'll find the problems, and our clients trying to use the network can just shut up about it. Everybody wins.

But the notion doesn't end with sub-par code. You also want to find a framework that provides for confusing, time-consuming upgrades as well. This is important if you are looking for "the complete experience". Ideally, your upgrades to things like management servers or security appliances should fail or bring a whole new crop of problems, regardless of how methodical you are in your procedures. (Remember, the goal here is to really get quality time with the vendor's support wing while minimizing uptime). As a minimum, you want to have to have to rebuild databases multiple times and ride the Licensing Merry-Go-Round until you almost get sick- that's when you know you're recognizing the full value of your investment.

So how do you know you're going to get properly served the right allotment of bugs? Unfortunately, there are no guaranties. But you want to stick with vendors that prolifically churn out lots of new features before really fixing old bugs- that way the effect is additive and unpredictable. Search release notes for lots of problem conditions that look like they could impact you, and make sure there are a lot of "no workaround" and "don't use the feature that you paid good money for" as suggested fixes.

These are exciting times in networking, and there are a slew of bugs to be had. Choose your vendor wisely, and make sure that you are getting your share of these exciting little bonuses.

Off the WLAN Beaten Path- Edgewater Wireless and TP-Link

The US wireless networking industry generates a lot of media buzz- usually centered around industry leaders and second-tier vendors hoping to catch up. But there is WLAN life beyond the Magic Quadrant, and the mainstream media isn't the end of the story when it comes to who'd doing what in wireless.  Here's a quick look at two "other" wireless players; Edgewater Wireless and TP-Link.

Based in Ottawa, Edgewater Wireless has a product set based on what they call WiFi3 (it's actually WiFI "cubed") technology, that by their press releases, should compete nicely with mainstream wireless vendors. Edgewater has offerings for pretty much all customer niches, including:

• Enterprise


• Wireless ISPs


• Muni WiFI


• Stadiums


• Service Providers

Outside of Canada, Edgewater does well in Mexico, Latin America, South America, and Africa. I find them interesting because they appear to have a proven, mature product set with lots of customers, yet we in the US seldom hear about them. News releases here.
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From California's City of Industry, TP-Link's US division provides a domestic presence for the global WLAN market leader of 2012, according to TP-Link's own press. But who is TP-Link, and what do they do?

Yes, TP-Link pushes out a lot of WLAN products- in the home and SMB spaces. Under their wireless product line, you'll find everything from consumer-grade APs and routers to outside wireless products and high-gain antennas to CPE equipment used by wireless ISPs. There is a big story here, based on volume of units moved alone.

Beyond wireless, TP-Link also has these product lines:

• 3G/4G Routers


• ADSL gear (I had to learn quick how to configure TP-Link ADSL gear at a location I support in London)


• Switches


• Powerline Ethernet


• IP Print Servers


• IP Cameras

And more... It's also pretty obvious as you run through TP-Link's offerings that much of what they produce is re-badged by other SOHO vendors, which contributes to their claims of wireless world domination.

Should you get bored following the goings on of the wireless big guys, have a look at Edgewater and TP-Link. Both companies are moving and shaking, just not at the dances that most of us usually go to.