Initially considered a luxury or novelty for providing portable internet or email access, wireless LANs increasingly provide untethered access to business applications and network resources, enabling anywhere, anytime access and serve as a foundation for real-time connectivity for advanced applications such as wireless telephony, location tracking and manufacturing control systems. Wireless networks are no longer a novelty or luxury; they have become a key element of IT backbones everywhere.

As enterprises have attempted to enable more applications for mobility over their WLANs, it has become increasingly apparent that legacy WLANs are often incapable of supporting these applications and lead to sustained problems when user adoption and satisfaction are compromised by the network's failure to provide a reliable user experience.

Almost universally, early and legacy WLANs were designed to provide coverage throughout desired areas while utilizing as few access points as possible, resulting in networks that are not well-suited to supporting applications that require high bandwidth, roaming, low latency and Quality of Service (QoS), such as Voice over WLAN, real time location services and application delivery services like Citrix applications, where session persistence is important, and communications with moving assets, such as automated guided vehicles.

Additionally, applications such as VoIP also requires that the network extend into areas generally neglected when deploying data-only WLANs. Areas such as bathrooms, staircases, and elevators, which are all valid areas for a voice application, usually receive only minimal coverage, if any, in traditional WLAN deployments.  And, it is not sufficient to simply install additional access points to obtain coverage in these areas as doing so only exacerbates the problems because of the limited number of channels available for use.

Having deployed many wireless networks from virtually every manufacturer since the "pre-802.11" era, we have developed a competency that is unparalleled and allows us to assess a network's readiness for additional applications.  Typical readiness assessments include:

• Identify locations with insufficient RF coverage or high levels of interference
• Identify locations and mobile devices experiencing lengthy roam times
• Spectrum analysis
• Documentation of areas with insufficient coverage including areas with insufficient overlap
• Network configuration recommendations
• Suggested access point moves and additions
• Additional network remediation recommendations
• Documentation detailing all observations and recommendations

Through the use of a advanced toolsets, more specialized readiness assessment elements are also available to provide deeper insight into the behavior of live networks.  These elements can analyze the nature and behavior of client devices and applications running on client devices as well as the interaction between those devices and the network infrastructure.  These include:

• Testing of client devices under consideration for deplyment
• Assess TCP-based application performance (web, e-mail, ERP/CRM) at every location
• Assess UDP-based traffic application performance (streaming audio, video, peer-to-peer) at every location
• Generate typical traffic levels for most commonly used application types - data, voice (G.711, G.723, G.729), video (MPEG-2 streaming video)
• Test performance using the NIC, driver and OS the mobile device utilizes in actual operation
• Test performance of actual stateful traffic for measurements –not just PHY rate & Ping
• Utilize numerous mobile devices to evaluate interaction between devices and identify poor performing devices
• Use a "golden client" to test the network to its maximum capabilities and to separate mobile device issues from network issues
• Traffic-generated, large ecosystem of mobile devices to determine network scaling and interaction with real mobile devices

Click here to contact us and learn more about Azure's wireless network assessment services.