Cisco's wireless unit shifts emphasis to 'mobility' - Backlit Film Manufacturer - Bus Shelter Adver

Instead of agrab bag of separate products, the new approach sees mobility, ineffect, as a whole that's greater than the sum of its many parts,including devices, operating systems, apps, Wi-Fi access points,VPNs, authentication and security . The overarching enterprise benefit, according to Cisco, is summedup in a new term, "Cisco Unified Workspace." BACKGROUND: Cisco mobility bundles target BYOD, mobile virtual desktop SLIDESHOW: 15 more useful Cisco websites "Enterprises are looking at the next generation of users cominginto their ranks," says Tim Zimmerman, principal analyst fornetwork services and infrastructure with market watcher Gartner."Most of them don't even know what an RJ-45 plug is. The iPad doesn't even have one. There's a presumption of wirelessconnectivity [being available anywhere, anytime].

That puts moreresponsibility on IT organizations to manage that." Cisco's main challenge in the enterprise market, he says, isexecution and optimization - in effect, turning PowerPoint slidesof talking points into concrete capabilities that enterprises buyinto and then buy to mobilize business. Cisco still dominates the enterprise wireless LAN landscape, butits dominance is less complete than it was a few years ago. Byrevenues, Cisco's share of the total worldwide market forenterprise WLAN equipment is now about 50%, down from the more than60% it commanded for years, according to IDC. Its nearest rival,publicly held Aruba Networks, finally broke into a double-digitshare of global revenues only last year, capturing 11.5% accordingto IDC. Cisco continues to invest heavily in radio frequency technologies,leveraging its own Wi-Fi chip designs with Cisco-developed, on-chipcode to boost signal reliability and consistency, and throughput.The focus is less on raw chip-level data rates, though that'simportant, and more on optimizing the connection to provide thereliability, security and throughput of a wired Ethernet link.

Cisco's Hajela, who formerly ran Motorola's WLAN group and cameover to his current job at Cisco in August 2011, sometimes soundslike a network version of Dr. Phil. "More and more of our messagingis about customer 'care-abouts,'" he says at one point. And atanother point, "The end user is looking for an uncompromisedexperience, regardless of the network" connectivity. These bromides actually mean something, and Hajela becomes specificand insistent when pressed.

"The network doesn't matter to theuser," he says. "What he wants is to be able to use his appwherever he is." And that use must be optimal. "If my device and my networkconnection supports high-def video, then I should get high-defvideo," he says. "And if I'm using a smartphone, I should getoptimal battery life. These things should be handled byintelligence placed in the network." Cisco's job is to cram more and more intelligence into the networksand applications and infrastructure that supports the enterprise's mobile users andmobile business.

"What's really resonating with enterprise IT is this: the systemlooks at who the user is, and what he's trying to do, rather thanhow he's connecting" by wire or wireless, Hajela says. Cisco's Identity Services Engine (ISE) is a key part of thisapproach, identifying and authenticating users regardless of howthey connect, and adjusting their access and security privilegesbased on variables such as their location, connectivity, and timeof day. [See " Cisco enterprise management tools take on new network realities ".] Tightly integrated with ISE is Cisco Prime Network Control System (NCS), which replaced the standalone Wireless Control Systemmanagement application for Cisco WLANs, and creates single consolefor managing both wired and wireless. The need for such an approach "just plain makes sense," commentedNetwork World wireless blogger Craig Mathias in a post about NCS."Along with [unified]security and integrity comes a fundamentalneed to handle the ever-increasing capacity demanded by anever-growing population of wireless users with equally-demandingapplications," he wrote. "A single-pane management console addsconvenience, lowers cost (Cisco points out that generalists withthe right tools can be just as productive as more-expensivespecialists), and just plain makes sense...." Cisco isn't the only WLAN supplier taking this unifying orconverging approach, as Gartner's Zimmerman points out.

"We seethis in HP, in Aruba, which is now offering a [LAN] switch [ introduced a year ago ] along with end-to-end, multivendor support," he says. "Vendorsare addressing the multiple elements within this infrastructurelayer." The reality is that Cisco faces a rapidly changing enterprisemobile environment, and enterprise customers have plenty ofoptions. Earlier this month, Aruba announced that Texas A&M University, a major Cisco shop, is replacingits existing Cisco WLAN with Aruba's products, after extensivetesting. The school will eventually install 6,000 to 7,000 Aruba802.11n access points, along with Aruba's AirWave wired/wireless network management application.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing forNetwork World. Twitter : twitter.com/johnwcoxnww Blog RSS feed: community/blog/2989/feed Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

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