With the World Cup fast approaching, there’s much speculation about which team will triumph in Brazil. Spain has dominated the international stage for many years now but times are changing with an aging team of stars, and people are searching for the next generation to place their bets on.
In theory it’s a simple game. Get the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, then place the ball in the opponent's net. However, with many different routes to choose from for the delivery, there must be planning and strategy pre-game, then speed, accuracy and agility in-play.
Having a winning team also requires strong communication and co-operation. Having a superstar on your team is great, but what if they disappear through injury? You can’t pin all of the hopes of success on one player, otherwise you could quickly face disappointment if they become unavailable.
With the latest generation of stars developing new control, skills and techniques, using enhanced boots, and utilizing improved training regimes, today’s players are faster, stronger and sharper than ever.
Making the Gigabit Wi-Fi play
Much like the beautiful game, technology has to evolve and move on, we can’t get caught up in what worked well in the past, we must look forward for the latest and greatest methods and moving data from one end of a network to another.
When Wi-Fi was first introduced to the enterprise market, there was very little demand placed on the access points (APs), each only having to support a small number of devices. However as organizations began to see the value in mobile technology, and with more devices shipping with Wi-Fi as a standard feature, the network had to start making some smart decisions. We needed control.
At the time, chip sets were pretty expensive, making it financially prohibitive to increase the intelligence of the access points, so the industry created the wireless LAN controller, the Messi, a central box in the network that would become the superstar of your Wi-Fi.
The wireless LAN controller took charge of all the important co-ordination decisions of the access points, whilst they were left to the simple task of moving the data to and from the user’s device.
Which superstar is on your bedroom wall today?
The wireless LAN controller has dominated the architectural landscape of enterprise Wi-Fi for many years. However, we are now seeing a surge in mobile devices requiring always-on connectivity and this is pushing the aging star to its limits. Time to make way for the new generation.
Are they still reliable?
As mentioned above, relying on a single entity for any task can be risky. And just like an injury-prone superstar, a WLAN controller introduces a potential single point of failure. In domestic football (a.k.a. soccer in North America!) it’s easy enough to cover your team by splurging on one or two more big buys, but obviously this will hurt your bottom line. The same can be seen in wireless LAN design by adding another controller into your infrastructure, or maybe two, which will increase your reliability, but reduce your budget for important systems.
Is the pressure too much?
It’s a lot to ask from one person, and with increased pressure comes potential choking. With so many devices connecting, laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearables etc., controllers feel the strain too. They have a limited capacity for connected access points and user’s devices, and eventually you have to accept retirement.
Can’t we just have a team of Ronaldo’s who are fast, coordinated, reliable and inexpensive?
YES! A manager can only do so much from the sidelines. He can prepare his team and provide instructions, but once they step on the pitch, its up to the players to deliver. Aerohive realized that as consumer devices such as tablets and smartphones infiltrated organizations, a single superstar wasn’t enough. We created a special training facility for our access points rising through the academies, promoting speed, awareness, intelligence and teamwork. With groundbreaking methods, we taught our access points to share the load, find the fastest route to data delivery, and adapt to game changing disruptions.
Who should we back this year? Gigabit Wi-Fi!
2014 is the year of Gigabit Wi-Fi, and it truly exposes the need to put your controller back on the bench. With so much data flowing through your network, and increased reliance on wireless connectivity, the idea of a washed-up has-been who you’ve overpaid over the odds for sitting comfortably in your network creating bottlenecks, scalability limitations and single points of failure is simply not an option.
For a fast, scalable, reliable solution, with a robust, omni-present manager, I think controller-less Wi-Fi has to be odds-on-favorite.