Let’s get straight to the point; if all you’re doing is sharing your Wi-Fi
connection with your roommates or neighbors, you need to buy a wireless switch
in a business, you probably are going to need to get a wireless switch. And,
the bigger your business is, the more likely it is that a wireless switch will
be a necessity rather than a luxury.
That’s because switches gives network administrators the kind of centralized
control they need to manage and troubleshoot large networks. In wired networks,
switches are vital for network administration. The rise of wireless switching,
there are more than a dozen networking
vendors entering the area is a sure sign that Wi-Fi has arrived in business
networking.
Switch/Router Basics
So what is a switch anyway and what makes it more special than a router? The
technical difference is that switches operate at ISO layer 2, the data link
layer, while Routers operate at ISO layer 3, the network layer. That really
tells you a lot doesn’t it?
Practically speaking, when data comes into a router, whether it’s wired or
unwired, it travels over what amounts to a party-line connection. Before any
device on that line can send data it has to wait for a break in all the other
TCP/IP data calls before it can start chatting. Of course, it’s not only possible,
it’s likely that multiple devices can try to chat at one time. The same thing
happens on a router or a hub when people do this at a party–they can’t communicate.
The solution is the same one that people use: when two or more devices are
trying to talk at once they have what’s called a collision. Then, the devices
stop talking and wait for a variable amount of time before trying to talk again.
Then, whoever speaks first gets to talk. If they, or other devices, collide
again, they again wait a variable amount of time that will be twice as long
as the first attempt, this is known as exponential back off, before trying to
get a word in again. Technically speaking, networks like Wi-Fi and the Internet,
use Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection
As network traffic increases, two problems emerge with the router approach.
The first is the logical one that as the number of devices increases
network demand, each one gets less and less of a share of the total available
bandwidth. At the same time, as network load increases, efficiency begins to
drop as collisions and the delays they cause begin to take their toll.
A switch, on the other hand, doesn’t use the party-line style of networking
where every device shares the network. Instead, switches connect devices directly
with each other at the data link level.
What that means is when a device talks on a switch, its first Ethernet packet
are examined for its destination device’s 48-bit address Media Access Controller
map of MACs and ports, the packet is switched to its proper port and the network
conversation begins. If the switch doesn’t recognize a MAC, it checks all its
ports until it find the right one, updates its MAC address map, and forwards
the message along.
What this means for us is that laptop A can talk to server C while desktop B
is simultaneously talking to laptop D. The end result: overall network performance
increases as each device can now operate at full speed instead of waiting for
the network chatter to quiet down. In addition, switched devices can transmit
and receive at the same time — this is called full-duplex — thus delivering
even higher performance.
Switch and Wi-Fi
Unfortunately, on a Wi-Fi network, switches don’t deliver as much of a performance
benefit as they do on a wired LAN. After all, 802.11a has twelve effective data
channels, and 802.11b only has three, that can be used at a given moment. Thus,
with Wi-Fi, you can’t guarantee that a switched connection will always be available
so you still need to deal with CSMA/CD overhead anyway.
So why bother since switches are much more expensive than routers? The one
word answer is management.
Besides making networks effectively faster, switches also enabled network administrators
to manage their networks. Until now, Wi-Fi networks have been noxiously hard
to administer. With the advent of switches, which give managers a centralized
access point control, now administrators can run, scale and secure their wireless
LANs.
As it is now (unless you have a proprietary solution),
a network administrator has to go to each access point to set up authentication,
encryption, change services set identifiers (SSID)s and so on. With a switch,
you can do those things from one console to multiple access points at once.
Besides saving time, centralized management also makes it less unlikely that
a typing error will lead to a network access mess.
But, a switch isn’t a management solution in and of itself. A switch may come
with the basics above and say Simple Network Management Protocol
but just how much management functionality a specific switch delivers depends
on its software.
Unlike most Wi-Fi routers, though, switches are actually small computers in
their own right. So, for example, Aruba Networks provides
a software suite, AirOS, with different levels so that you can use 802.1x, add
a VPN and firewall or automatically check and stop unauthorized, the so-called
rogue, access points.
Some switches, like those from Legra, will also
support third party management programs like Funk Software’s 802.1x and RADIUS user authentication
suite.
What to Look For
At this point though, even though there are a flood of switch announcements,
few switches have actually been released. So it’s hard to say what buyers will
find in switches.
There are a few basics to consider. SNMP is the lingua franca of network management
software. Any switch you buy should support it.
The switch should also be software upgradeable. Wi-Fi standards change faster
than runway models. You want a switch that can support Wi-Fi Protected
Access (WPA) today and 802.11i tomorrow
without a great deal of fuss.
You’ll also want a switch that uses open standards and an open operating system.
It’s purely practical. You don’t want to be locked into a proprietary switch
where the only software you can use on it comes from the vendor at fat prices.
Or, for example, you have to buy a virtual private network
firewall together when all you want is a VPN because you’re perfectly happy
with the firewall you’ve already got.
You’d better brace yourself for the prices, too. A minimal switch will run
you close to a thousand dollars. Once you add in additional software and the
access points needed, you can expect your corporate card to take several thousands
dollars worth of damage. Buying an enterprise switch isn’t like buying the cheapest
wireless unit at Best Buy or CompUSA.
But then switches aren’t meant for small networks. They’re meant for large
networks where the time and management savings will more than make up for the
initial cost of the switch. Switches are not for everyone, but for those who
need them they’ll be a God-send.
Okay, sounds good right? Except there’s about three different architectures all claiming to be “the one true switch”! How do we find out which is right?
Join us at the 802.11 Planet Conference
& Expo, June 25 – 27, 2003 at the World Trade Center Boston in Boston, MA.We have a panel we think of as the WLAN switch cage-match called
New Architectures: Switched WLANs. It sounds more polite than it is likely to be.
