WiFi importance _
It is projected that in 2021, more than 20 billion devices worldwide are going to be connected via WiFi. With the evolution of WiFi development from legacy standards IEEE 802.11a/802.11b/802.11g to 802.11n, 802.11ac to the latest dual band 802.11ax (or named as WiFi 6), WiFi 6 is capable of maximum throughput of 9.6Gbps across multiple channels.
The demand of network speed has been tremendous, factors that drive the trend include Work-From-Home, web/video conference, video streaming, widely adoption of cloud technologies, virtual reality VR applications and more.
To quote an example on VR, for resolutions comparable to HD TV the requirement is 80-100Mbit/s. However, if you want the best “retinal” 360° video experience (similar for you to watching a 4K TV), as much as 600Mbit/s is required.
With today's WiFi technology, proper network design and IT equipment and WiFi devices upgrade, it is possible to achieve giga-bit performance. To quote an example to download a file size of 1GB, it only takes 8 seconds when using 1Gbps download speed versus 85 seconds with 100Mbps. It save you 10 times of your time spending on waiting. Moreover, it applies to every use cases in daily work. It is significantly enhance the work efficiency or it may save your up to 30 minutes in a day's work and it means 6.25% of lesser time spending on working in a single day.
According to our hands-on work with customer projects, there are three key elements in consideration to upgrade the WiFi infrastructure, namely Security, High Performance & High Availability.
Security _
Security is one of the key factor in designing the WiFi network for enterprises since there is no physical boundary for the WiFi coverage. Anyone can breaching your network outside your office building if you do not have highly secure policies in place.
The common scenario of security breaches include stolen of passwords threat, rogue APs and more. It's always security versus convenience. Cloudterrain understand the challenges, so it is vital to have highly secure WiFi network with enhanced user connection experience for non tech-savvy.
One of the best options is to implementing EAP-TLS Certificate Drive Wi-Fi access control. PKI allows organizations to eliminate password-related issues and is a significant step towards a highly secure wireless network. Historically, passwords were favored over certificates, but with the ever-growing threat of credential theft combined with advancements in PKI technology, certificates are now widely used to replace passwords. More importantly, the solution is able to integrate with most MDM providers that allow users to access to the WiFi network securely.
An example for Role Base Access Control RBAC - Ruckus Cloudpath
Cloudpath secures every connection with WPA2/WPA3-Enterprise, protecting data in transit between the device and the access point with powerful encryption. You gain visibility and control over which devices are on the network, and can define and manage policies so every user sees only the network resources they should see. Cloudpath software checks the security posture of devices during onboarding to ensure they comply with your organization’s security policies. The system redirects users with noncompliant devices to remediate them before granting access. It associates every device with a user, and you can easily revoke access at any time—for example, when a BYOD user leaves the organization.
Intuitive self-service workflows streamline network onboarding—users gain network access simply and securely without IT intervention. The software lets you deliver a great onboarding experience while dramatically reducing helpdesk tickets related to network access. Internal users can easily self-provision any device for network access using their existing login credentials. Cloudpath installs a digital certificate for network authentication so that, after the initial connection, users don’t need to re-enter credentials when they connect again. Guest users access a self-service login portal and receive credentials for internet access via email or SMS.
Key Benefits include :
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Increases security for the network, devices, users and data
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Streamlines network onboarding for BYOD users, guests and IT-owned devices
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Gives you the power to define and manage policies for role-based access
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Delivers visibility and control over what devices are on the network
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Dramatically reduces helpdesk tickets related to network access
For more information, please refer to the Ruckus Cloudpath Datasheet
High Performance _
It is crucial to design and implement the WiFi network with LAN like speed and is achieved by carefully selecting network equipment with capacity design with proper site planning. It is more important to understand the performance of the WiFi depends on WiFI network and the receiving device capability.
Since the introduction of 802.11n to support MIMO, Multiple-Input Multiple Output, the WiFi performance has been upgraded to 9.6 Gbps with WiFi 6 network.
It is paramount to weight between your investment versus the objectives of upgrading the WiFi performance. Cloudterrain has proven experiences in designing, proposing and implementing WiFi network equipment to suit your business needs. Any business may consider a phased approach or join our WiFi-As-a-Service (WAAS) monthly plan to experience the latest WiFi technologies with minimum CapEx.
High Availability _
Every business users are expecting always-on network, be it wired or wireless. So, it is critical to design and implement a network infrastructure to achieve the necessary SLA with how many "9" uptime guarantee. It is very different to have 99.99% (~ 52.6 minutes downtime in 1-year) versus 99.9% (~ 8.76 hours downtime in 1-year).
In order to achieve 99.99% or higher uptime SLA, many factors need to be considered that include redundancy network design; redundancy power supply; WiFi coverage, service support response with proactive maintenance.
