Wireless

In general wireless is more convenient and does not require additional wiring. This is a blessing for older building and homes that do not have the infrastructure to allow a wired connection. Wireless also allows users with laptops to connect outside of their office area. It allows the laptop to be used in the conference room as well as the desktop. In cases where a wireless connection is used to create a connection where wiring would be difficult or impossible it can be much less expensive to implement.

Despite the convenience and lower cost of wireless, it is not always a viable solution for connections to your network. The success of wireless in a particular environment depends on a number of issues. The first is the distance to the access point and the materials between the device and the access point and the amount of interference from local devices in the area such as 2.4 GHz wireless phones and other devices that omit radiation in the 2.4 GHz band. These factors determine the speed and reliability of the connections. The second is the sensitivity of an application to temporary loss of connection between the client and the server. If the application cannot tolerate any loss of connection then wireless will not work and in most cases the software vendor will not recommend or support their application on this environment. I have seen cases where a wireless connection was the cause of data loss because the connection between the device and the server was broken during a database transaction and the database was corrupted and had to be restored from the latest backup.

Notice I have not talked about security and wireless. This is a different and much more complicated issues that I will cover in a future blog.

So here is a general recommendation for wireless.

1. Use wired connections for your network whenever possible. Only use wireless when a wired connection cannot be created or in a temporary situation where a wired connection is not available.
2. If you are using wireless for your practice software and you are sharing the data with other computers check with the software vendor to determine the support it provides for a wireless environment. If the practice software vendor does not support a wireless environment then you should not use wireless to run your practice software. If you decide to go ahead with it anyway then beware of possible problems and less than enthusiastic support from the vendor.
3. Wireless networking works well for general computing tasks such as web browsing, general file sharing, downloading files and downloading email. In cases like these a lost connection will not cause data loss and once a lost connection is restored you can pick up where you left off and continue to work.
4. Never use a wireless connection to connect a server to your network.

If you need to use wireless here are some suggestions for help to improve the chances of a successful implementation.

1. Have a plan in place for your wireless implementation. Determine where you will be using wireless and ensure that your plan takes that into account.
2. Remove all 2.4 GHz phone and non-network wireless devices from your environment. The phones can be replaced with 5.8 GHz phones if you require this type of service.
3. Have a network technician or engineer perform a site survey to look for interference and determine the best channel for your wireless access point. Also note that Microwave Ovens can radiate in these bands and are a possible source of interference for wireless network devices.
   

Happy Computing
Thomas Clark, CTO Elk Creek Technology Partners, Colorado Springs, CO

http://www.elkcreektechpartners.com/