Why is Aerohive the Only WLAN Vendor On Twitter?

That's right- I don't see any other WLAN vendors on Twitter.

Like really "on" Twitter.

Sure, I see lot's of other WLAN vendors with a Twitter presence. I follow as many as I can. But it's all so much marketing and promotion of webinars and other droll foofah. Not that these communications don't have a place, but there should be so much more... like what Aerohive does.

No, this isn't an Aeorohive suck-up session. They have innovative product and a fresh story that stands for itself. But what also sets Aerohive apart is how their senior tech folks interact  with us geeks on Twitter, in a way that is not only welcome but also sorely needed in a wireless world that grows ever more hyper-complex.

When folks with titles like Chief Wi-Fi Architect, Senior Wi-Fi Architect, and Director of Product management routinely engage customers and non-customers alike on social media, the information exchange is dynamite. This is what all vendors need to be doing. Aerohive has either purposefully or without realizing it empowered their wireless power people to get the message of their solutions out as vigorously as the marketing team does- but even better, they are providing guidance and facilitating discussion on topics that customers of ALL vendors have a stake in. In other words, Folks like Devin, Andrew, and Matthew are also upstanding citizens in a fairly small wireless community, and we all benefit from it.

As we all march towards 802.11ac, more complicated feature sets, unification of everything under the wireless banner, and an immersion in the Sea of Mobility, we need more Twitter-style interactions from vendors' tech folks. Sure, it's risky letting non-marketing employees talk directly to customers and potential customers. But to those of us that read the whitepapers, do the webinars, and visit the vendor booth at the tech shows yet still want more engagement on topics that shape our thoughts and strategies, the more informal interactions we have with the tech folks are invaluable. Sometimes it's technical nuts and bolts stuff, sometimes it's theoretical or contemplative, and sometimes it's silly. But the mutual shaping of perspectives is valuable on many levels.

Come on, wireless vendors, you all have some amazing minds behind closed doors. That's evidenced by the insanely cool products and features that you put out. At the same time, we can't typically reach them- and they can't reach us. It's not your model. You give us division names for Twitter handles like "xxx mobility" and "yyy solutions"... fine, they have value. But we also want to interact with named people on occasion. Like Devin, Andrew, and Matthew. People who not only represent their employers well, but who are passionate about wireless networking and want to share that passion with others.

To balance the risk of letting your tech folks off the reservation a bit,,, you'd get better reads on what matters to those who use and manage wireless networks, we'd better understand why you chose some of your product decisions and feature sets, and powerful relationships at personal levels would get built among WLAN professionals. Yeah, it might feel weird in the beginning, but if Aerohive can pull it off (and quite nicely, I might add), so can you.

With 11ac, The WLAN Industry Owes Customers A New Kind Of Network Switch

I realize I'm beating the 11ac thing up pretty good lately, but I think I finally hit on what bugs me about the way the new hot technology is being brought to market. What I'm about to describe is more of a BAN issue (BAN=BigAss Network, where APs are counted in the hundreds or thousands) and not so much of concern for smaller environments.

802.11ac is being delivered in rather bizarre (for the customer) "waves".

• Wave 1: Data rates to 1.3 Gbps. You'll do fine (for most new first wave APs) with a single Gig uplink, and many new APs will work on 802.3af POE, not yet requiring .3at. Fine, good. No real squawks.


• Wave 2: You get the joy and cost of recabling your environment to add a second Gig uplink, doubling the number of switchports in use for the WLAN and configuring Etherchannels, and depending on what vintage switches you have- upgrading them for latest POE standard, all to help get to data rates likely to realistically be between 2 and 2.5 Gbps best case.

And this is where I say "time out". I'd like the WLAN makers to bear some of that Wave 2 logistical pain. And I want them to get creative to take the onus off of the customer. Here's what I want:

• In simplest terms- I don't want to use two cable runs. And I don't want the complexity and risk of 4000 more Etherchannels for my APs. But I still want the benefits of 11ac Wave 2.


• I would like the WLAN vendors to put their brilliant minds (and that I do mean sincerely- these guys and gals accomplish amazing, amazing stuff) to work to come up with a new switch or mid-span injector. Here's the requirements:
  
  
  
  • No feature bloat. May not even need to be VLAN aware.
  
  
  • Provides lots of PoE
  
  
  • Somehow puts 2 Gbps of uplink to an AP on a single UTP run without requiring me to configure a port channel
  
  
  • Cost effective (by customer standards), no licensing BS, and ultra-reliable
  
  
  
  

Spare me the lecture that there is no such thing as 2 Gig Ethernet, and that what I'm asking for would be based in no existing standard. The WLAN industry has long since turned it's back on standards and interoperability, which is why vendor lock prevails. Other than PoE and what comes out of the antenna (and even that can be a dubious discussion), the mention of standards is a joke in the WLAN industry as each vendor authors their own technical magic. So be it- I just want new magic and don't care that it's not exactly Ethernet in the middle.

I'm OK feeding this new component a 10 GB uplink that it then divvies up into auto-configured 2 Gbps AP uplinks of some proprietary protocol. Or feeding it 2 single-gig ports on my wireless management VLAN that it then magically muxes into a 2 Gbps, big powered uplink that connects via a single wiring run (of excellent quality, of course) to each AP. At that point, all of MY work was done in the closet, and I didn't run a slew of new wires for my wireless network.

If we don't get something disruptively creative on the wired side to go along with 11ac, pretty much any TCO discussion on new 11ac ownership presented by WLAN vendors will be incomplete at best, and poppycock at worst. I've seen both announced and unannounced 11ac products- and the prices are pretty steep (well, except for Ubiquity). But we're supposed to believe that 11ac lets us draw down the wired network considerably, and so be willing to buy into a higher premium for wireless. But... adding lots of new switchports and cabling runs (not trivial in many environments,  can add hundreds of dollars in cost to real TCO for each AP) has to be considered.

As a customer, I feel OK asking- because the customer is always right (well, except when they're wrong). So... when will my new non-standards-based 2 Gbps mega-PoE switches arrive?

Could Cabling For 802.11ac Revolutionize The Low Voltage Industry?

Caution- at first read, the following may seem a bit nutty. I'm OK with that. Let it sink in...

As I wrap another interview with a major wireless vendor, once again I hear that 11ac access points will require two Gigabit uplinks bonded as an Ether Channel to handle all of that high-rate data traffic goodness that comes with the pending WLAN standard. Let's pause for a minute- think about the wiring now in place for your APs. Most of us have a single Gigabit (or Fast Ethernet) run to each of our APs. Which means 11ac is going to MINIMALLY force us to add another wiring run per location, or redesign the whole pricey cable thing from scratch (maybe not so big of a deal in small, modern spaces- but an absolute nightmare in large environments, historic buildings, etc.).

Bottom line- UTP (that's 4-pair network wiring for the uninitiated) will be added for 11ac. Yes, you will be runnin' some wire, Jack. Here's where I want you to wander into the Land of Imagination with me.

Why just run two wires to each AP? Why not run three? If you're running wire anyways, what the heck? I'll bet you're wondering what that third wire is for, huh? It's for emergency LED lighting. Or small Crystal Eye-style CCTV cameras. Or paging/muzak speakers. Or heat detectors. Or femtocells. Or a bunch of other distributed devices that are already part of the Low Voltage landscape- except in my vision, they are now somehow integrated into the access points that are all over the place. So when you device-out a new space, you have a common cable plant and decidedly less pathway and location complexity.

How does this get done, like from the component build perspective? I don't know- I'm not that kind of engineer, So it's easy for me to simply envision it and let someone else say the words that poo poo the notion. In my mind, I take my new 11ac AP out of the box, I attach one of a dozen different low-voltage device modules, connect three wires,and I hang it. Back in the closet, two wires go to my Ethernet switch, and one patches off to an emergency lighting system. Or the third wire also patches into the switch on another VLAN for CCTV. Or for the fire system. Or whatever.

Yes, WLAN makers would have to get cozy with folks in other industries pretty darn quick to come up with this sort of model as 11ac rolls out and we all start planning for the new wiring runs needed for it. Heck, I'll even give 'em until Wave 2 to get it done.

If I'm paying through the nose for new access points AND new wiring, why not get something truly practical, innovative, and cool out of it? Architects/space designers would love it- they tend to hate all of the devices that are mandatory on the walls and ceilings of business environments.

OK, maybe it is a bit nutty. At the same time... maybe there's something to this idea.

Pre-Review of Earl- The Ambitious Tablet (from a radio geek's perspective)

I don't quite recall where I first got wind of the Earl Back-country Adventure Tablet, and it doesn't really matter. Being into a variety of radio technologies, Earl called me.. nay- Earl YELLED at me- to consider all sorts of unique features for a tablet. And Earl is pretty darned unique- but can it make a go of what it's trying to be?

Here's my early take.

If you are an Android fan, Earl is interesting. If you are the outdoorsy type, Earl is interesting. And if you are a radio hobbyist- like really into the technology of radio, Earl is interesting. Being all of these, I'm jazzed about the premise and promise behind an environmentally ruggedized tablet that's loaded with radio technology. But I also have real concerns.

Here's what Earl has under the hood that fascinates me:

• Tuners for AM/FM, Shortwave and Longwave
• Weather radio (NOAA, with local alerts)
• 802.11 b/g/n WiFi
• GPS
• FRS, GMRS, MURS "walkie-talkie" capabilities
• Solar charging (built-in panel)

There are plenty of other tablet-related things to talk about, but I'll let someone else do that. From the above list, I can talk about all of these first hand. First and foremost- just reading the list thrills me. I'm a licensed ham radio guy (KI2K, Extra Class- yes there are still many of us out there). I have a number of shortwave receivers. I actively listen to Longwave, which is just a weird band. I'm a broadcast radio junkie. I do Geocaching. I'm a trained Storm Spotter and seldom don't have access to a NOAA wether radio. I've taken solar power classes and play with the technology every chance I get. And yes, I have a pile of FRS radios... add that to my WiFi-ness, and Earl should be a match made by Marconi himself in Radio Heaven.

But here's why I'm also a bit jaded (in no specific order).

• Earl's specs say it will fully charge in 5 hours in direct sunlight. Not bad- but multiple radios in use (say GPS and FRS) along with the display and normal tablet battery-sucks all sucking on the battery teet at the same time can really drain batteries quick. And full sun in many places isn't a given. I'd probably pack an external USB-power source and not rely on the solar panel (though again, I love having it as an option.)
• Earl's specs also say you can "communicate up to 20 miles away" with the FRS/GMRS/MURS radio capabilities. To this I say "yeah, right". Exaggerated claims of range on these walkie-talkie style, stubby-antenna'd radios are legendary, and this space may actually have marketing even more outrageous than the WLAN industry. Given that Earl appears to have no external antennas, plan on pretty short range in this regard, measured more in hundreds of feet than miles. And remember- GMRS still needs a license, though FRS and MURS do not.
• Speaking of no external antennas (at least not that I see or read about provisions for),  Earl is going to be hard-pressed to do well afield, well away from broadcast towers, for AM. Usually AM radio needs an internal ferrite-core antenna or something external to get the job done. FM (and Weather radio) should work better, but could still be disappointing without provisions for an external length of wire to bring signals in when you are remote (especially in hilly terrain).
• Longwave is a bit of a no-man's land for radio, especially in the US. And those of us who do get off on odd hobies like listening to navigation beacons from far-off airports know that receiver sensitivity and proper antennas (usually hundreds of feet long) are the key to success here. Shortwave is more forgiving of antenna compromises than longwave, but sadly there is getting to be less and less to listen to as many long-running shortwave giants close up shop and take their programming to the Internet. Shortwave isn't dead, but it's a far cry from what it used to be.
•   With all of these receivers plus GPS and WiFi on board in a tiny space (Earl has a 6" screen), I hope isolation between them can be achieved. Where performance is already iffy, "birdies" (radio noise spurs) from other receivers can really suck.

All of that aside, I'm sure I'll buy an Earl if it makes it to prod. My skepticism on the radio features aside, the sunlight-taming display, glove-friendly touchscreen, Micro-SD slot, and weather-proof build alone would be wins for me, personally. I hope that Jon and Sqigle, Inc. can make a go of it, and that my low expectations of the radio feature set are proven wrong. I love the concept, and applaud the innovation.

We Might Be In The Business of Technology, But It's The People That Make It Great

For many of us, the journey to working in IT has been guided by a love of technology. Some people dig routers and interconnecting big LANs, others get jazzed by application development or wireless technology. Then there are those like myself, with wide-ranging interests and multiple specialties that we are happiest working in. I personally lay claim to the best jobs in the world, (prime wireless functionary for a large university, adjunct faculty member, and professional writer), but technology is only half the story.

It's the people that make working in technology great. The people I work for and with (a wonderful team), the students I meet in the classroom or on projects I advise on, the customers I serve as a networker, or the wide range of technology-focused people I have the pleasure of interfacing with as a free-lance media type.

Take Jeff Pulver, whose technology journey could be the subject of a kick-ass graduate class. Jeff is a VoIP pioneer and multi-dimensioned technologist, and you have to catch one of his #140 "State of Now" conferences if you have the chance. Jeff lives at the intersection of Technology Road and Human Street, and how he sees the world and social media- enabled by technology- is awesome. I saw his event in Syracuse, and recommend it.

Then there are the young men and women that I run across at a vendor's site or on LinkedIn that were once students of mine or involved with projects that I also touched. The smiles and the words spoken not only say "it's good to see you again" but they also convey an unspoken pride that sends the clear message: "I MADE IT! I'm sitting at the same big table that you are! How do you like me now?" It's great running into people in this group, and is wild just to watch the IT talent pool refresh itself with each graduating class.

Then there are the customers. Like clients that curse you because "the network sucks" that become your friends and allies when you solve whatever it was that they had going on with their device that made it feel like the network sucked. Or the sales engineer that you beat up  for licensing costs or some such, but also can't wait to hear how his kids are doing with some cool thing they are involved with. And the vendors- especially the ones that employ experts that not only shape technology, but that don't mind sharing what they know about their realms, for the greater good. 

And folks like Stephen Foskett, an accomplished tech professional in his own right, who also runs the Tech Field Day events with his army of "delegates". I'm proud to be counted as part of this family, as Foskett has a way of assembling people that are both incredibly technically-minded, but also an absolute blast just to be around. To become one of Foskett's delegates is to meet the kind of people that become "old friends" in a matter of hours, and to gain inside access to industry giants that many geeks would give their right arms for.

In my tech world, there is my editor at Network Computing Magazine, Andrew Conry-Murray. Drew is one of those rare editors that is good at what he does (like taking my stuff and polishing it up nicely before publication or making me work at being a better writer), but he also has his own IT experiences and perspectives and frequently makes compelling cases out of them in his articles. And he's a darn nice guy, to boot.

I'm sure you have your list of people that come to mind, those that really make whatever it is that you do in IT enjoyable even beyond just getting your hands dirty with the latest gear. The folks I mention are by far not the end the story for me, but just examples of those that take work that I already enjoy and really make it a pleasure. I can't end this piece without mentioning the power of social media in this regard. I have found that higher ed tech discussion lists, Twitter (mostly) and other social media frameworks have provided access to the absolute most incredible mix of experts, fellow users, smart-asses, knowledge-seekers, and sharers on all topics (sometimes all rolled into one). You know  who you are, and I thank you for the running value you bring to my own body of knowledge as well as the frequent smiles you provide. Not everybody can swiftly adapt the conversation from lofty topics like antenna technology and modulation to bacon and silly slogans, but these groups can. And I'm glad for it.

It's the people that make technology work fun.

Is It Time For A New Licensing Paradigm For WLAN Features?

Not all wireless networks serve the same types of clients, or have the same operational goals in mind. So why do WLAN vendors see all customers as the same when it comes to licensing?

I know that we all have the freedom to negotiate the deepest discounts that we can with our WLAN vendors, and in this regard large customers tend to get better discounts because they buy more stuff. But whether you are talking large or smaller customers, even "within tier" there are significant differences among environments that perhaps ought to bear on licensing costs and strategies offered by vendors for advanced features.

Here's what I mean- if I have an environment of hundreds or thousands of APs and want to do something like advanced location analytics to "monetize" my WLAN or gain workflow efficiencies to increase profits, I would expect to pay a premium for the magic that that makes that happen in the form of hardware and features from my WLAN vendor.  After all, that's an obvious investment. But if I'm a hospital or not-for-profit, or even a University or college, and my use for that same magic is more altruistic and not attached to obvious profit, should my costs for the magic be the same? Asked another way, is it reasonable to want the WLAN vendor to charge a fraction of the cost of the same magic if all I want to use it for is simple handicap-routing and no-profit mapping just to help visitors get around?

Can licensing ever be based on "what are you actually gonna do with that magic?" I know that I priced up a big, fancy locations-based analytic service for my own environment with the intention of providing it essentially for the public good- not for turning a profit off of it. But my costs come in in the hundreds of thousands of dollars- just the same way it would if I was going to make lots of money on those same services.

I know the notion of use case-based licensing is a bit weird and complicates life for the vendors, but from the customer perspective it is an idea with appeal.

So- How Much Interference And How Many Wires Would You Like With Your 802.11ac?

Like many other wireless architects and admins are probably doing right now, I spend a fair amount of thinking time these days on matters surrounding the fast-coming 802.11ac wireless standard. To the WLAN Industry's credit, I don't think the 11ac hype machine has been quite as foolish as was 11n's a few years back, but there is still a lot to sort out here. I recently wrote about the challenge of knowing when to get into the 11ac game, depending on your budget and sense of adventure, but recent conversations with a few industry bigwigs have me scratching my head even more.

Two points to consider beyond just when you move to the next great thing in WLAN:

-  Many of us have invested hundreds or thousands of cable runs in our current wireless networks, each supporting up to 1 Gbps. Where asbestos abatement, new conduit and cable tray, and building permits are required, running cable for an AP can often cost more than the AP itself did- even for market leading Cadillac-grade access points. How drastic does our "investment" in our installed cable change with 11ac? Surely, a single 1 Gig uplink won't be enough for an 11ac AP.


-  There is no free lunch for any technology. To get to the promised data rates of 6.9 Gbps for the second-wave of 11ac, we'll need to use crazy wide channels and reduce the 5 GHz spectrum to potentially the same state of overuse as 2.4 GHz suffers now (even if the FCC burps up more spectrum). And if your ultra-wide 11ac channels happen to be physically near my legacy 11a/n deployment, you'll probably get booted from my list of fake friends on Facebook.

Let's talk about each a bit more.

On the cable thing, if you are familiar with the likes of the TIA-568 cable standards and know folks that run cable for a living, you know that an installed UTP run is a "component". It's the bedrock of the OSI or 5-layer model, and it gets installed methodically and to exacting standards (and often at great expense).

If you had the foresight to provision a robust cable design as part of your 11a/g dense deployment back in the day, you likely didn't have to do much with cable when it came time for 11n. You were able to leverage your investment, and replace an old AP with a new one for the most part, because both a/g and 11n do well on Cat 5E, 6, and 6a cable and Gig uplinks.

Alas, unless we're all being sold snake-oil by the WLAN industry, dual band-11ac APs will need more than 1 Gbps of connectivity (we'll save the related PoE discussion for another time). But how much will we need? A 2 Gbps Ether-channel? A 10 Gbps uplink? Either way, we should be concerned. Most of us can't afford to rebuild our wireless cable plants from scratch. To me, the lofty claims of what 11ac will be able to deliver point to 10 Gbps uplinks, but I'm hearing from a growing cadre of industry voices that the expectation is two 1 Gbps will do OK. Please, someone explain the math behind this, if what we're hearing from 11ac marketers isn't a recipe made of 2 parts truth and 3 parts pure county horse manure.

Regardless of whether we have to run an additional cable and burn an extra switch port per 11ac access point, or get into some sort of 10 Gig PHY that likely doesn't yet exist, the physical layer aspects of second-wave 11ac need to be watched as closely as anything.

On the wide-channel thing: again, we're being told to expect to use 160 MHz channels to get to data rates of 6.9 GHz. Yes, we don't HAVE to use them, and can settle on 80 or 40 MHz channels and lesser data rates. But if we buy into the promise of 11ac, we need to be ready to pull the trigger on 160 at some point. And where we do, each one of our wide channels will be quite unfriendly to any of our 5 GHz neighbors' APs that run in 5 GHz using 20 or 40 MHz channels from 11a or 11n deployments. In multi-tenant environments where lots of companies can see each others' signals strongly, there is a lot to contemplate here. Will we be good neighbors?

Takeaways: I don't have answers. But I do know these issues have to be considered along with all of the huge promises of performance gain that 11ac is supposed to provide that are being bandied about. Between the Wave 1 versus Wave 2 quandaries, and the conversational recklessness of the highest-end claims of 11ac's capabilities that are being spit out by marketers, never have we had to be more on our guards about what a new wireless technology will REALLY mean for large WLANs.