Remote connections: New Motorola architecture enables central management of wireless LANs
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/25/2008 11:05:00 AM
The Enterprise Mobility business of Motorola, Inc., has unveiled new access points that allow for extending wireless LAN (WLAN) coverage to branch offices and other remote sites without adding new networking equipment or IT staff at those locations.
Motorola’s new adaptive access point architecture allows a wireless switch in a central location—corporate headquarters or a data center—to manage access points installed at multiple locations over a WAN connection. This gives companies the benefits of centralized management and local networking, according to Sujai Hajela, VP and general manager of Enterprise WLAN, Motorola Enterprise Mobility business.
Hajela says Motorola’s new WLAN architecture deploys like a thin access point, but offers advanced capabilities usually found in smart access points—such as local termination of 802.11 traffic, encryption/decryption coding on the access point, and the ability to bridge traffic locally. In the event that the connection to the Motorola wireless switch is lost, it can still operate, providing remote site survivability to enterprises. Additionally, it can restore the connection to the wireless switch seamlessly without rebooting or disassociating any client devices, which makes the access point extremely robust and IT staff friendly.
This type of reliability is becoming essential with WLANs increasingly being deployed as the primary means for remote users to access critical business applications, says Craig Mathias, principal analyst for Farpoint Group, an IT advisory firm that specializes in wireless communications and mobile computing.
