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Chapter 4. WLAN Applications and Services

This chapter covers the following topics:

Typical WLAN Environments

Defining WLAN Requirements

Defining Your Technology Requirements

Selecting Necessary WLAN Services

Building-to-Building Connectivity

Because you are planning on installing a WLAN, you no doubt realize that a WLAN can provide your business with overall productivity improvements, based on user mobility and resulting improvements in organizational and individual efficiency. Accomplishing an improvement in productivity, however, is based on selecting the proper architecture and hardware to support the desired and needed applications and provide the mobility ranges, level of security, and other features you need for your network. As IT managers rush to integrate WLANs across their networks, they often underestimate and oversimplify the technology.

This chapter first discusses the various common WLAN applications and then details the issues surrounding these applications that you need to consider when selecting and installing a WLAN. You may not require many of these features and functions today, but you should consider future expansion so that you are able to build and scale the network and accommodate technological migrations such as 802.11i and 802.11e, voice, video, and other emerging applications. You have to be prepared for expansion and continued growth, because after users experience a well-deployed WLAN, they will demand nothing less and want it for all applications they use.

Finally, the chapter discusses selecting the proper technology for the application and determining what WLAN services will fit the needs of the users.