Enterprise wireless LANs (WLANs) have expanded rapidly over the past few years, moving from small hotspot style deployments in conference rooms and other common areas, to pervasive enterprise-wide deployments that span the campus, branch office, telecommuters and even nomadic remote offices. As these wireless networks grow in size, their scalability is primarily determined by the underlying architecture for of the wireless LAN and its interworking with the wired architecture.
Enterprise WLAN design has evolved from a distributed to a centralized model. It is clear that centralized WLAN architectures are here to stay and will be the dominant method of building enterprise wireless networks. However, not all centralized architectures are created equal. Customers are faced with two architectural options even with centralized architectures. One option is to embed centralized WLAN capabilities into the existing network infrastructure. This requires an upgrade to the fixed, or wired, edge of the network to address the challenges associated with mobility. The other option is to create a new mobile edge that extends beyond the existing fixed edge and allows users to connect from any location, at any time. A mobile edge requires an overlay network model that delivers mobile connectivity across the corporate network and the public Internet.
