The evolution of wireless local area networking (WLAN) is facing a new set of requirements, driven by a number of technology and business trends.
One is the imminent arrival of the 802.11n standard, which will increase wireless traffic loads by more than 10 times-far exceeding the throughput capacity of today's wireless switches.
Another trend is the acceleration in enterprise adoption of voice over IP that is dramatically cutting phone costs. Enterprises are eager to extend VoIP over wireless, but current generation WLANs cannot support voice at enterprise-wide scale.
Additional trends include the need to extend wireless service outdoors throughout the campus, quad and warehouse, as well as the need to maintain state- of-the-art wireless security and minimize management and operations costs as wireless networks increase in size, criticality, and pervasive use.
Today's WLAN architectures fall under one of two approaches-distributed or centralized. A distributed architectureplaces all the intelligence in the network access points. This approach is also known as "fat AP." A centralized architecture places all the intelligence in one or more WLAN controllers rather than the AP. This approach is also known as "thin AP." Neither of today's approaches provides the traffic optimization necessary to handle the emerging requirements for next generation WLANs, including cost-effective implementation of 802.11n networks and large-scale voice over WLAN deployments, while retaining centralized control and management.Recognizing the limitations of current approaches,we have developed a new WLAN architecture which introduces an innovative breakthrough called "intelligent switching," which combines the advantages of both centralized and distributed approaches.
As a result, organizations can adopt high-performance 802.1 In networks, deliver high-quality voice for hundreds of users, and scale their WLANs across the enterprise indoors and outdoors, without compromising security or manageability and without having to upgrade their existing switching or WLAN controller infrastructures This paper identifies the requirements for next-generation WLANs, examines the limitations of existing approaches and describes an innovative WLAN architecture, which overcomes those limitations.
