Wireless LAN
...ons of a building. Although most rooms in an office building probably have patch ports, there are times when the patch panel is full or simply non-existent. In these situations, the network administrator would need to run cabling that otherwise wouldn’t be needed. Sometimes only for a half hour meeting. With WLANs, the answer is obvious that network users can be positioned at any location in the office within range of the Wireless Access Point. In a study by Cisco Systems in 2003, the end user perception of benefit was primarily convenience, mobility, flexibility, and time savings. The simple fact is that mobile computing saves time. Work can be done on the fly without the need of traveling to a connected network host. The study found that the main benefits of WLANs were freedom/mobility, no wires, ease of access, and cost effectiveness (Cisco, 2003). WLAN Productivity There is a need to increase productivity that has sparked the growth of wireless local area networks in today’s market. The advantages of a wireless LAN are constantly being analyzed. WLAN provides ‘anytime, anywhere’ network access and helps IT departments cut labor costs and simplify labor-intensive installations. Wireless networking is currently being viewed as one of the technologies promising the greatest impact on productivity. Current economic conditions have made productivity one of the benchmarks for business success. The following information has been gathered to discuss how wireless local area networks boost productivity and to provide a means to measure the benefits of a wireless LAN implementation. Productivity Studies Industry studies have recorded all the ways wireless is saving time and gaining efficiencies for companies everyday. For example, the ability to go through e-mail in the lobby, check your database during an appointment, or present networked data to colleagues in a meeting, all add up. Since the wireless LAN technology is relatively new, studies are being done by software developers such as Microsoft, research companies such as Sage Research, hardware vendors such as Cisco Systems. Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates, challenged Microsoft’s IT Department to install a wireless LAN within a year throughout Microsoft’s Redmond, WA campus. Microsoft began with a pilot program for more than 600 users in three buildings, including a cafeteria. The pilot program was conducted for two months with a huge amount of success. The success of the program was quantified by conducting a survey of the pilot users at the conclusion of the pilot. The return on investment was such that Microsoft rolled out WLAN throughout 70 campus buildings in Washington, 23 international locations, and over 35,000 users. In another productivity study, Cisco Systems hired Sage Research to conduct quantitative surveys with the employees of large companies that have implemented wireless LANs. Through the surveys with the WLAN users, Sage Research discovered the following wireless LAN benefits: a. Time Savings b. Flexibility c. Quality of Work The following section displays a chart showing user productivity gains and the value of the productivity gains per employee. Return on Investment (ROI) Lowering cost or improving revenues through productivity and efficiency achieves a positive ROI. Companies experience a positive ROI with a combination of the following: a. Improved Speed: Employees realize a faster response time to customers, coworkers, and suppliers. Also, workers are able to move from location to location without having to log off or reboot their laptops. b. Enhanced Collaboration: Office workers don’t have to gather around one network connection or compete for the one connection available in the conference room. They can collaborate in any conference room, office, hallway, or even the cafeteria. c. Enhanced Accuracy: WLAN reduces errors and eliminates reworking by replacing paper systems. d. Lower Support Costs: It costs less to establish conference rooms and common areas. Instead of wiring each common area with network jacks a company can install a wireless access points to provide access to the network. Also, employee changes, moves and additions are easier. e. Lower Installation Costs: Companies install wireless access points rather than network wiring in the building. The following table shows the results of studies completed by Microsoft, Sage Research, and Cisco Systems. The studies focused on productivity gains per user (hours per month) and the per user productivity value (dollars per month). Study Sponsor Study Name Productivity Assumption Per User Productivity Gain (Hours/month) Normalized Per User Productivity Value ($/month) 1 Microsoft Microsoft Case Study: 35,000 Employees Go Wireless with WLAN [PDF 27KB] 1/2 hour per week 2.2 hours per month $104 per month Sage Wireless LAN: Improving Productivity and Quality of Life [PDF 45KB] 8 hours per week 30 hours per month $1,420 per month Cisco Cisco Wireless LAN Benefits Study [PDF 105KB] 17 percent time savings or 8 hours a week/td> 30 hours per month $1,420 per month 1 This column takes the productivity gains from various studies and applies a standard salary figure to facilitate comparisons among research studies. Return figures based on $100,000 fully burdened compensation package, and an 8 hour work day with 22 workdays per month. This is $47.35/hr. Individual studies have made their own assumptions about annual compensation so the dollar figures in the studies will differ from this chart. Read the attached studies for methodologies and more details. Numbers in the chart are rounded. http://www.intel.com/business/bss/infrastructure/wireless/roi/productivity_studies.htm In the study performed by Microsoft, the positive return on investment resulted in multi-million dollar savings. The next section outlines how to use a ‘Benefits Calculator” to determine productivity increases and ROI. Benefits Calculator It is important for IT organizations to build a strong business case for wireless deployment. IT departments should work hand-in-hand with the finance department to calculate an accurate ROI. The following diagram is an example of a benefits calculator that can be used to determine an accurate return on investment. This calculator will allow an IT department to work with finance using accurate company data, not industry averages or analysts calculations that don’t represent the company. The primary benefit calculations are: a. Payback: A calculation that determines the number of months to pay off the initial WLAN investment. b. Employee Productivity: A calculation in terms of dollar value a company can gain in per day, month, year, and life of the PC. There are a number of studies that show increased productivity after the implementation of a wireless LAN. Studies show that end users are able to stay connected to the network, on average, over 3.5 hours more per day. Some of the savings result from ‘dead time’, such as waiting for a meeting. Wireless LANs are increasing employee productivity by enabling users to work when and where it is convenient for them – whether at work, at home, or on the road. WLAN Security Issues While there are many advantages to WLANs there are some security issues that one should be concerned with if they are planning on implementing a WLAN for their business. The number one security issue with a WLAN is hacking. “In most wired LANs the cables are contained inside the building, so a would-be hacker must defeat physical security measures (e.g. security personnel, identity cards and door locks). However, the radio waves used in wireless networking typically penetrate outside the building, creating a real risk that the network can be hacked from the parking lot or the street.” (Janszen, 2002). Security Measures Attempts have been made to correct this problem. One such attempt was the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). This was basically a user authentication and data encryption system. Unfortunately this system turned out not to be nearly as secure as hoped for; in fact there is a free program on the internet that would allow a hacker with the most basic knowledge to break into a WEP enabled network in a matter of hours. It is recommended that additional security measures be taken. This brings up another problem, if too many different security systems get put in place the WLAN can become very cumbersome and no longer worth the companies effort to implement. The best solution would be to make sure that each part of the network has the necessary security measures to protect it based on how important the information is. For instance, information that can be found in public records is not very sensitive and would need only minimal security measures to be in place. Information such as chemical formulas for a product that the company makes would be very sensitive and would need further security measures to be taken. Similar to hacking is another security issue known as sniffing. Sniffing is where a hacker, instead of directly hacking into a companies WLAN “sniffs” around for a password to make it easier to get in. “There are easy ways to "sniff" the WLAN and therefore obtain the SSID (secure set identifier), which is the "password" to the WLAN.” (Bolvin, 2002). An easy solution to this problem is to close the system by turning off broadcasting of SSIDs. Another security issues is WLAN interference. This may not seem like a real security issue but in some instances it can be. “Interference from unlicensed radio devices is one of the most debilitating and least understood problems with wireless LANs. Typically, the interference causes poor WLAN performance, but in rare cases, it can render a wireless LAN inoperable.” (Blandford, 2005). When looked at from this prospective WLAN interference is a major security issue. In today’s world rendering a company’s network inoperable is pretty much the same as rendering the company inoperable for a time. This problem occurs when two wireless devices operate in the same frequency range. WLANs have a spread spectrum technology that basically varies the frequency along a given spectrum. Even with this sometimes other office equipment interferes with the WLAN. The easiest way to prevent this is to check any wireless equipment such as phones or other equipment and make sure it does not operate in the same frequency spectrum as the companies WLAN. Another problem is that WLANs operate right “out of the box” in other words a company does not have to do any configuring to get a WLAN to work, they can use the default. The problem is the default settings are common and well known. The solution is obvious; a company should set custom security settings and not operate right out of the box. As can be seen all these security issues have the potential to be very serious. As can also be seen, all these security issues have solutions. A WLAN can be a great tool for a company but the security issues cannot be ignored. That being said, the security issues surrounding WLAN should not deter a company from using WLANs. What a company should do is be aware of the security issues surrounding WLANs as well as being aware and implementing the solutions to these problems. By implementing a few simple solutions to WLAN security a company can get all the benefits of WLAN while minimizing the risk often associated with it. WLAN Reliability Wireless LAN reliability is a key factor in whether this type of network will prevail in the future of information technology. When talking about reliability of WLANs (Wireless Local Area Networks), multiple factors determine the reliability. We will cover some of the dominant factors can determine whether WLANs can be considered reliable. Reliability-Security The first factor that needs to be covered is security. Even though security has been spoken about topic in this paper, it must be mentioned again to determine reliability of a wireless network. After all, if a network is not secure, it cannot be considered reliable. Wireless data transmission does not have any true physical barriers that protect it. ...