I will be moderating this panel at IT Expo in Miami on February 2nd at 12:00 pm:
Mobility is taking the enterprise space by storm – everyone is toting a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or one of each. It’s all about what device happens to be the most convenient at the time and the theory behind unified communications – anytime, anywhere, any device. The adoption of mobile devices in the home and their relevance in the business space has helped drive a new standard for enterprise networking, which is rapidly becoming a wireless opportunity, offering not only the convenience and flexibility of in-building mobility, but WiFi networks are much easier and cost effective to deploy than Ethernet. Furthermore, the latest wireless standards largely eliminate the traditional performance gap between wired and wireless and, when properly deployed, WiFi networks are at least as secure as wired. This session will discuss the latest trends in enterprise wireless, the secrets to successful deployments, as well as how to make to most of your existing infrastructure while moving forward with your WiFi installation.
The panelists are:
- Shawn Tsetsilas, Director, WLAN, Cellular Specialties, Inc.
- Perry Correll, Principal Technologists, Xirrus Inc.
- Adam Conway, Vice President of Product Management, Aerohive
Cellular Specialties in this context is a system integrator, and one of their partners is Aerohive. Aerohive’s special claim to fame is that they eliminate the WLAN controller, so each access point controls itself in cooperation with its neighbors. The only remaining centralized function is the management. Aerohive claims that this architecture gives them superior scalability, and a lower system cost (since you only pay for the access points, not the controllers).
Xirrus’s product is unusual in a different way, packing a dozen access points into a single sectorized box, to massively increase the bandwidth available in the coverage areas.
So is it true that Wi-Fi has evolved to the point that you no longer need wired ethernet?