Three years ago, when we launched the Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL) for wireless connectivity, there were no architecture choices. The intelligent AP (access point) was all that was available, so that's what we used in our own facility. In fact, up until 24 months ago, AP vendors such as Cisco and Enterasys were the only proven choices for the enterprise.

For those with big budgets, the intelligent AP was a viable alternative, but it incurred high costs beyond the hefty initial hardware investment. In this deployment model, every AP manages security and authentication locally, making each AP not only a management requirement but a potential security hole as well. Considering the world lacked centralized AP-management tools, this meant quite a bit work for administrators managing WLANs of more than 50 access points.

By Brian Chee and Oliver Rist at Info World.

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