For one thing, no two offices are alike (though they sure do try their darndest), and for another we’re not going to be truly cable-free for a long, long time: Even the almighty .11n pales in comparison to the demands of a lightweight NAS.

But corporate IT is becoming, like it or not, more and more wireless-driven: Better, faster networks make hopping in and out of meeting spaces a breeze, and with more data being pushed to “The Cloud” (that’s a whole other story), pervasive connectivity is near necessity, and if you don’t provide it they’ll get it from their MiFi device or (cover your eyes) the local Starbucks Hot Spot.

This month, we’ll be taking a look at the promise and progress of the Wireless Workplace, but we’d love to hear your stories. If you have a good wireless success story (or dire warning!), I’d love to hear it at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com. We’ll reprint our favorites and hook up the senders with some great swag, from your choice of training books to the coveted ITKnowledgeExchange T-shirts. Anonymity guaranteed if requested.

So, what’s your wireless war story?

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

As SearchNetworking’s Shamus McGillicuddy reports, this proposed network, which is contingent upon further grant funding, would not only drive networked video but also a host of other potential emergency services:

In that scenario, the Seattle PD would use the group of APs downtown to create a mesh network, so first responders from multiple agencies could access the cameras. The first mission of this expanded network will be to deliver IP video surveillance along the waterfront, but Moss said the network will eventually deliver a variety of wireless services for multiple government agencies.

“We’ll be deploying cameras along the waterfront, and those will have to be accessed with the MSR4000 units because we will have harbor units or fire department or Port of Seattle police accessing those feeds from the water. So we need something with a strong signal on the waterfront,” he said.

It’s important to note that the “two-thirds coverage” is wireless coverage, not video coverage. Currently, Seattle police have to daisy-chain two trucks within wireless hopping distance of each other, making coverage possible at “major events” where there’s some planned coordination involved, particularly when the police can tap into surveillance cameras of nearby parking garages and restaurants. The new network, however, would allow continuous video coverage, keeping a watchful eye on Seattle’s waterfront even when the foot patrol isn’t on the prowl.

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

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But what about Wired Equivalent Privacy, or WEP?

WEP encryption is low-hanging fruit, perhaps the lowest of the bunch. It’s implementation of encryption has had known exploits for nearly a decade. A decade! Yet time and again I see networks “protected” with WEP. Sure, many people with wireless networks aren’t even aware of the issues related to WEP. Home users, small business owners, enterprise employees, whatever – ignorance is no excuse. That is if you want to take reasonable steps to keep things locked down.

Of those who are aware of the weaknesses with WEP, I think the general perception is that only elite hackers with expensive tools can crack it. Not true, there are free tools and there are commercial tools. Both of which are very affordable and simple to use. Beyond that there’s the all-too-common fallacy: Even if the bad guys were to get in, we don’t have anything on our computers that they’d want. An awfully dangerous mindset, to say the least.

Like unencrypted laptops and mobile storage, I suspect we’ll continue to see WEP-based wireless networks for some time to come. What’s it really going to take to get people to buy into the dangers? Probably the passage of time and a few lessons learned the hard way.

Kevin Beaver is an independent information security consultant, keynote speaker, and expert witness with Principle Logic, LLC and a contributor to the IT Watch Blog.

The 802.11n draft has been out, for what, three years now and we’re approaching the one-year anniversary of the “final” amendment. But where is 802.11n? I’ve yet to see any of my clients deploy it. I’ve yet to see it at any Wi-Fi hotspots – including large hotspot deployments such as airports. I’ve yet to see it when driving around town. It’s just not out there. Maybe it’s just me not looking hard enough.

Better yet, maybe 802.11n is the Windows 7 of networking: Not a lot of market penetration just yet, but if we wait and see – it’s coming? Given how the market works, perhaps once existing a/b/g equipment is replaced in the future, 802.11n will be the only viable alternative. Who knows?

I suspect some larger enterprises, universities and businesses with a heavy reliance on Wi-Fi are rolling out 802.11n and loving it. I’m just not seeing it. What about you?

Kevin Beaver is an independent information security consultant, keynote speaker, and expert witness with Principle Logic, LLC and a contributor to the IT Watch Blog.

Determining the Placement of Your Network Access Control

When choosing a method for Network Access Control (NAC), consider the following:

1. Level of security:

• User identity management versus just the computer’s identity.

2. Network infrastructure versus endpoint-based approach (server software on appliance v. network switch):

• Network-based systems boast better centralized control, easily set enterprise standards, and NAC protection for remote users accessing the VPN.

3. Depth of network monitoring:

• For endpoint security: Check PC at login only or continuously monitor the whole time it’s on the network?
• Consider the lesser of two costs: NAC monitoring costs versus fix costs for malware or break-ins.

The most important part about crafting your NAC policy is understanding what your organization needs before shopping for solutions to ensure all needs are met.

4. Vendor-provided solution, in-house API solutions or a mixture of the two:

• Depending on your organization’s needs, scan customization may be the only option if the vendor’s native solution does not suffice.

5. In case of data loss:

• The best protection happens before data loss, so consider disk encryption to prevent increased mobility from compromising sensitive data.
• Less obvious than the dangers of a misplaced or stolen laptop is data leakage, ward against it with tools such as data fingerprinting and removable media monitoring or blocking.

6. Personal versus professional machines:

• To prevent the hazards of end users mixing work and play on work machines, desktop virtualization allows the creation of two mutually exclusive entities to prevent data leakage or movement.

7. Taking action:

• Just as catching a fish starts with them taking the bait and you reeling them in, NAC is not effective unless endpoint security threats are dealt with properly and in a timely manner. Whether it’s through the vendor-provided NAC solution or an in-house  patch management system, be sure that scanning is followed up with patching.

Now that you’re ready to go shopping, check out what your fellow IT Knowledge Exchange members recommend as great resources for building the ultimate network security and troubleshooting utility belt. From Wireshark to Tasklist to the ever-popular Spiceworks, there are plenty of options for securing your painstakingly planned and built network.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Your Average Wireless Joe

@wifi_guy: He patrols Twitter for Wi-Fi news and is an active participant in #WirelessWednesday.

@sniffwifi: Ben Miller is an independent contractor performing all kinds of wireless-related work in the Los Angeles area.

@bionicrocky: A self-proclaimed geek, wireless guy and cryptonerd, Rocky Gregory tweets about all things wireless and then some.

@KeithRParsons: Keith Parsons founded Wireless LAN Professionals, a community for WLAN pros. He’s worked exclusively with WLAN for the past eight years and has access to myriad resources and contacts.

@joelbarrett: Joel Barrett works as a wireless network architect for Cisco. He also keeps a personal blog ranging in subjects including wireless networking.

@CWNP: The official Twitter of CWNP, Inc., the “IT industry standard for vendor neutral enterprise Wi-FI certification and training.” Get the latest in WiFi news and daily definitions.

@GlennF: Glenn Fleishman is a freelance journalist and blogger who regularly blogs about Wi-Fi technologies at WiFiNetNews.com (@WiFiNetNews)

@jameyk1stner: Jamey Kistner is a Certified Wireless Technology Specialist (CWTS) who tweets about wireless news and takes part in #WirelessWednesday.

@jenniferlucille: Jennifer Huber is a wireless engineer interested in Wi-Fi mesh technology. She’s working toward Wireless CCIE, and blogs about it regularly here.

@MarcusBurton: Marcus Burton writes about Wi-Fi and is a CWNP tech guy.

@joswr1ght: Joshua Wright is a hacker, wireless security analyst, SANS instructor and blogger at Will Hack for Sushi.

Check out vendor(ish) Tweeters after the jump.

Vendor(ish)

@mistermultipath: Tweets from the author of CWNA and CWSP study guides and the founder of AirSpy Training, a company that offers IT professionals training for wireless networking design, deployment and security.

@firetide: The official Twitter for firetide, a provider of multi-service mesh networks.

@Aerohive: The official Twitter for Aerohive Networks, a company that provides cooperative control WLAN architecture.

@BridgeWave: High-performance wireless for enterprise, government, health care and education networks.

@WiFiGirl: She tweets about all things WiFi and Xirrus, the WiFi provider she works for. Also from Xirrus? @RedBullVodtech

@maxwifievents: Run by Richard Hughes, founder of Max WiFi, which provides WiFi, VoIP and Internet solutions.

Don’t see your favorite wireless Twitter star? Let us know! Tweet us their name @ITKE and we’ll add them to the list.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

In what may or may not have been a ploy to break the record for number of props used in an Interop keynote (a microwave, Bluetooth headset, mobile phone [those still exist?] and more all appeared), Cisco’s Brett D. Galloway (above, right) proudly announced the latest prong of Cisco’s Borderless Networks strategy: CleanAir technology (official release). CleanAir-embedded access points (APs) will connect with a WLAN dashboard to give networking professionals a quick overview of where their APs are deployed and, more importantly, what else is laying around in their offices, such as rogue Wi-Fi devices, unsecured wireless routers or even authorized devices that just happen to be knocking out an entire department from being able to sustain a reliable wireless connection to the wireless network.

In short, the new toolset is everything you need to be your own network toxic defender.

The visual dashboard can also overlay an office blueprint so that, for example, you can see who exactly decided it would be a good idea to install that X10 wireless camera to catch who was eating all the popcorn (Cisco’s example, not mine). The dashboard also shows a barometer that indicates, on a scale of 1 to 100, how relatively healthy your wireless network is, a nice feature for proving to your local pointy-haired boss that you’re doing your job.

The tool is also integrated with some smart technology that automatically helps your APs route around problem areas to reduce interference, and since the technology is on a seperate chip, Cisco claims it won’t degrade overall network performance.

Wireless mapping tools are nothing new (Airmagnet is one, for example), but anything officially built into the Cisco fold has a strong market advantage, and it looks like the engineering team there has done a lot of work to make the process as intuitive and friendly as possible.

But really, did they need the bright red barometer?

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

He makes some decent points about wired vs. wireless security, although I’d argue that while .11n brings some marginal security improvements, it really ramps up the security complexity and opportunity for misconfiguration, which even he fingers as the culprit in Ethernet security lapses.

Where Josh really goes off the rail, however, is cost:

Next let’s debunk my buddy Michael’s point about cost. With 802.11n you can run 30-40 users per radio which means fewer expensive cable runs and fewer wireless switches. Combine that with mesh technology and you may not even need to run cable to all of the APs. This cost calculator from Aruba Wireless shows some great examples of how much you save. Mike, buddy, have you priced the costs of having an office wired with cat-6 lately? Even if you go all redneck, like I’m known to do, and run, terminate, and patch the cabling yourself it’s still incredibly expensive. In what universe is this not signicantly cheaper than a wired environment?

This is where he swallows the wireless vendors’ bait hook, line and sinker. A calculator, put out by a wireless vendor, shows that their products are cheaper than a competitive technology? Shocker! The problem is that, once you dive into the real numbers, you’re not going to stick 30 to 40 users on an AP, as Josh suggests. Sure, you could, and you could also use .11n to blanket a huge range, and provide throughput of 200 MBits/second, but it can’t do all those things as once, which a lot of calculators conveniently forget.

Another fact they conveniently forget: Even with .11n now an official standard, compatibility between sanctioned .11n devices is very imperfect when you’re talking about enterprise equipment. This means that no, you’re probably not going to save on all those pricey wiring costs because something, somewhere will need Ethernet.

But don’t take it from me: I tracked down Osaka Gas, hailed in 2007 by ComputerWorld’s Matt Hamblen as the largest “all-wireless” office, to get an update on what they’d learned and accomplished since becoming a poster child for cutting the cord.

There were some surprises:

1. This case study for the all-wireless office wasn’t then, and isn’t now, “all-wireless”!

Osaka Gas’ Toyoshi Matsumoto wrote to me:

We are using WAN for phones and PCs. Is that your definition of 100%? In fact we have NOT removed all LAN cables. Some fixed IP phones,  mainly used for receiving calls from customers or business partners are wired because the calls should be answered as the company not as an employee. Desktop PCs are also wired because they do not need mobility. Another use of wired LAN is the emergency use when WLAN gets unstable.

Three years as an all-wireless office, and a) It still makes more sense for some tethered IP phones b) Desktops are still wired and c) their WLAN still becomes unstable!

2. Toyoshi goes further, and says forget saving money simply by cutting the chord:

It’s not necessarily appropriate to suggest that wireless itself contributes to cost saving or improving efficiency. In many cases of  introducing wireless LAN as a replacement of wired LAN, you cannot expect cost savings.

Corner any wireless vendor for long enough on the cost savings issue, and they’ll invariably agree with this assessment. Sure, they have those nifty calculators Josh likes, but when you actually start computing the real totals, you’re maybe breaking even, but just as likely paying more for the Wi-Fi privilege.

3. Compatibility problems persist. Toyoshi puts a gentle spin on this one:

We have been using Meru since the project started. We have also other products from vendors such as Cisco, Aluba (sic), etc., to identify similarities and differences among them to determine their compatibility to our environment, because wireless technologies and standards continue to advance.

But the fact is, any major wireless deployment that’s dealing with more than students and their iPods has found the same compatibility issues. How often do you run into an Ethernet cord that isn’t compatibility with your laptop, projector, or other device (except those devices, naturally, that don’t have a port).

In the end, wireless is a great tool but it’s not the panacea that the industry makes it out to be. As Toyoshi put it, “‘Wireless’ is a means, but not a destination.” Don’t believe the hype otherwise.

We are using WAN for phones and PCs. Is that your definition of 100%? In fact we have NOT removed all LAN cables. Some fixed IP phones,  mainly used for receiving calls from customers or business partners are wired because the calls should be answered as the company not as an employee. Desktop PCs are also wired because they do not need mobility. Another use of wired LAN is the emergency use when WLAN gets unstable.

4) Have you upgraded to .11n, and have you run into any challenges with that?

Not yet, but as stated above, we are trying various products and will try .11n in the near future because we are planning to replace the current wireless system in 2011 that is our Meru products’ economical end-of-life.

5) If you’ve moved to 100% wireless, why did you and what benefits did you see in terms of cost savings or efficiency?

6) If you’re not, what was behind the decision not to go 100% wireless?

It’s not necessarily appropriate to suggest that wireless itself contributes to cost saving or improving efficiency. In many cases of  introducing wireless LAN as a replacement of wired LAN, you cannot expect cost savings.

Our project started from the replacement of conventional PBXs. PBXs were so expensive that we could achieved 50% reduction of facility cost in terms of depreciation cost.

In terms of efficiency improvement, we not only introduced wireless LAN but also promoted to change our workstyle from paper-based one to full-digital one. Wireless environment and full-digital workstyle allow us to access, transmit and share real-time information anywhere, which leads to efficiency improvement.

7) Any other advice for companies considering going all wireless?

We believe that the use of wired and wireless systems and 3G and VoIP phones in optimal combinations is important for us to improve our work efficiency and thereby reducing operation costs.

“Wireless” is a means, but not a destination.