Increase efficiency in the configuration, deployment and maintenance of wireless networks
By Gabriel Mendoza, Smart City’s Data Operations Supervisor at the Phoenix Convention Center
Today’s world is an environment in which time is money and businesses are constantly seeking best practice standards. This is certainly no different in the technology industry. The concept of spending hours to manually configure multiple “autonomous” wireless access points with the same information is inefficient, as each individual configuration is susceptible to human error. An increasing demand for robust access points to provide connectivity in physical facilities has promoted many businesses and organizations to embrace Wireless LAN Controllers (WLCs).
WLCs and “light weight” wireless access points are hardware solutions designed to increase efficiency for businesses and enterprise networks with large-scale wireless deployments and configuration. A WLC creates a central point of administration for all access point configuration to increase efficiency and reduce manual input redundancy and human error. Furthermore, WLCs provide network monitoring on a (single) user interface, allowing technicians to proactively monitor network activity and predict potential overloaded areas. This allows technology providers to maintain a seamless end-user experience.
Beyond network management centralization, WLC also has the capability to autonomously adjust signal strength and channels, helping mitigate interference from other wireless devices and networks. This means the WLC has the capability to recover from access point failures. If an access point fails to broadcast, the WLC can shift wireless traffic to another active access point to continue seamless coverage.
As demand and expectations of continuous WiFi coverage grow, organizations from small businesses to large enterprises are embracing WLCs. Technology is an ever-evolving industry and WLCs are viable aids to increase efficiency in the configuration, deployment, and maintenance of wireless networks.
