Trade Magazines and Publications Directory

WLAN strategies are now maturing beyond simple guest access networks and departmental pilot projects into enterprise-wide deployments. Looking ahead, Forrester believes that certain technologies will play a major role in making the WLAN a primary network element.

Forrester evaluated leading wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure vendors across 54 criteria and notes Trapeze Networks as one of the pure play leaders in WLAN infrastructure. Since the report Trapeze Networks has redesigned its WLAN infrastructure offering around the Smart Mobile architecture. With a network comprised of traditional thin access points (APs), allowing for a limited amount of intelligence to be delegated to each AP in order that local traffic handling can be relegated to the AP, eliminating the need for round trips to the controller. The Smart Mobile architecture is well-suited for WLAN deployments that will likely face expansion, increasing complexity or the piloting of new technologies such as voice or 802.11n. Other vendor products reviewed in the report include Cisco, Aruba, ProCurve Networking by HP, Nortel Networks, Meru Networks, 3Com, and Colubris Networks.