Article Round-Up: 01/21/2011

Here are a collection of articles from the past week that I have found useful, interesting, or enlightening. As always, for a complete list of articles check out my shared article feed from Google Reader.


General Wi-Fi Related Articles
Aruba Networks and SOTI Partner to Enable Advanced Mobile Device Management (MDM): 

"SOTI MobiControl will be integrated with Aruba’s AirWave Wireless Management Suite for mobile device management."

This strategic partnership by Aruba Networks underscores the growing importance of proper management of your corporate mobile device fleet, as well as the need for IT departments to wrap their arms around supporting and securing personal / consumer class devices like tablets and smartphones.


Troubleshooting Checklist for 802.1X on Your WLAN: 

"Though 802.1X isn't the easiest protocol to implement, it should be a must for all organizations with more than a couple of employees using the wireless network. In this tutorial, we'll discuss how to troubleshoot 802.1X client issues."

Surveying with a 3502 (followup post): 

"Cisco 3502i Access Points have different radios in them than then 1142 Access Point making the 1142 an unsuitable substitute for a site survey... "

WLC: Generate Third Party Web Authentication Certificate for a WLC: 

"This is a step by step “how to” creating a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) with OPENSSL, processing a third-party certificate that is CHAINED and download it to the Cisco WLC."

Efficient enterprise Wi-Fi coverage requires hybrid approach: 

"The growing need for enterprise Wi-Fi coverage will prompt other new hybrid approaches to emerge, combining aspects of DAS, femtocell and FMC... By making your indoor network infrastructure investments do more, you may well be able to improve indoor coverage for many wireless services at a reduced total cost."

Organizations are increasingly looking to leverage a common infrastructure for both cellular and Wi-Fi solutions. However, converging these networks is not a simple task and market solutions need more time to mature.


Cloudy, With A Chance Of Networking - Network Computing: 

"Wireless providers are venturing into wired networking, a major acquisition has taken place, and one vendor makes commodity-class hardware compete with enterprise-grade components... The cloud is heating up, and the lines between wireless and wired networking are blurring."

Wi-Fi and wireline technologies continue to merge as evidenced by these three announcements. Aerohive expands into wired networking with it's acquisition of Pareto Networks as a strategic play for cloud network management, Meraki does the same with their new MX series routers with cloud control and management, and PowerCloud Systems turns commodity D-Link consumer routers into cloud-enabled enterprise devices.


Wi-Fi Direct Still Finding Its Stride - PCWorld: 

"About 20 products have been approved, but there were few new Wi-Fi Direct gadgets at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show... ''One of the challenges for Wi-Fi Direct was launching in October,' Broadcom's Brown said. 'It's really not timed very well for the fall selling season.' "

The poorly timed release of Wi-Fi Direct is a plausible conclusion. Given product development cycles, I would have expected product announcement to lag behind the feature certification availability. At this point, I wouldn't read too much into the lack of Wi-Fi Direct capable devices, they will come.


Videoconferencing to hit critical mass on mobile: 

"One of the most exciting areas in videoconferencing today is the integration of mobile devices and video, especially as end users grow increasingly comfortable with the form factor of smart phones and tablets"

Wi-Fi will be required for video for a while until 4G networks are built that can handle the traffic load. Even then, Wi-Fi will be the preferred delivery method to carry most of the load. Prepare your networks for video now!


Retail Wi-Fi / Mobile Articles
I posted two articles on the new PCI DSS v2.0 standard and what it means for Wi-Fi network administrators, Cisco announced the results of a recent PCI survey, and also announced a new PCI security solution for retail:


Best Practices to Achieve PCI Compliance for Wireless Networks - CWNP: 

"The recent release of PCI DSS version 2.0 provides a good opportunity to review these “minimum” industry guidelines for wireless networks and provide advice for retail organizations to achieve a successful audit."

Wireless PCI Compliance Resources - Revolution Wi-Fi: 

"it's important to understand the capabilities, limitations, and design choices available in your own environment. This can vary depending on the infrastructure vendor chosen."

Cisco Issues PCI Compliance Pulse Survey Findings – Results Reveal Changing Views on Data Security Compliance - Cisco News: 

"This survey demonstrates that the PCI Council is being successful in communicating and getting the active participation and increased adoption of the PCI standards among stakeholders. The findings also suggest that organizations are increasingly aware of the benefits of compliance."

Cisco Extends Wireless Security Beyond PCI Compliance - Cisco Blog

"Cisco is announcing significant improvements to its wireless network solutions that allow retailers to secure their wireless networks from attacks and improve security where point-of-sale data is transmitted wirelessly... new 'Enhanced Local Mode' (ELM) feature"

Cisco brings an integrated wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS) to market to improve retail security, reduce CAPEX and OPEX expenses, and maintain market share leadership in the retail industry. If their solution proves capable enough to compete with overlay WIPS vendors, they'll have a compelling solution that cannot be ignored. This comes on the heels of Aruba Network's ArubaOS 6.0 release which enabled similar security functionality.

New mobile blueprint provides fresh insights: 

"retailers don’t want to share the space,” says David Dorf, Director of Technology for Oracle. “Retailers want to control their customer experience and they want to brand it to themselves."

It's important to understanding the "how's" and "why's" of retail mobile use cases to build effective mobile commerce and marketing solutions. Simply web-enabling current applications and consumer-facing services will lead to a poor user experience. Watch for retailers to innovate in mobile service delivery over the next year in order to differentiate from the crowd.


Surveys Highlight Sales Clerks' Problems: 

"Two surveys conducted for Motorola Solutions Inc. in December indicate that shoppers are becoming more informed than sales clerks, and sales clerks are sometimes frustrated by a dearth of store information."

A key component of retail e-commerce and m-commerce initiatives will be to outfit the sales clerks and customer representatives with enough information to enhance the customer experience in-store, driving greater foot traffic, providing a positive customer experience, and preventing customers from using brick-and-mortar stores as showroom floors for subsequent Internet purchases.


The Web's Chipping Away at Brick 'n' Mortar: 

"Shifting consumer buying patterns will drive changes in retail business models, fueling more e-commerce and hybrid approaches (order on the Web, pick up at your local store in an hour)."

I like the title of this article, as it does a pretty good job summing up the state of retail right now!


What will drive Mobile Marketing & Advertising in 2011?: 

"1. Relevance will be the key revenue driver for new mobile based services: With advanced trends such as Location-Based Services (LBS)... 

5. Rise of mobile based coupons, loyalty programs & deals..."

Starbucks Launches Mobile Barcode Payments: 

"Could this be the service that, finally, popularizes mobile payments and/or barcodes with mainstream US consumers?"

Mobile payments will come into their own in 2011, just as mobile coupons did in 2010. Look for both features to expand dramatically.


Expansion At Hand As M-Commerce Plans Gain: 

"M-commerce is also high on retailers' radar, with 69% of the executives surveyed saying mobile is an important strategic initiative -- up from 28% a year ago."

1% of shoppers say mobile is their primary online buying channel - Internet Retailer: 

"though mobile may not be most consumers’ primary buying channel, shoppers do turn to their web-enabled mobile devices to help them shop."

Evidence surfacing that mobile payments catching on in the U.S.: 

"communications service providers, financial institutions and retailers all seem to be ready to push ahead to allow consumers to make payments with mobile devices."

Christmas 2010 saw spike in mobile shopping: study - Mobile Commerce Daily - Research: 

"the spike in page views for Amazon on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday shows a clear trend towards consumers using the mobile Web as a tool for comparison-shopping or actual mobile commerce, or both."

Miscellaneous Articles
Top 10 Data Breaches of 2010 - www.esecurityplanet.com: 

"Surprisingly few of these big breaches are associated with trendy new technologies. Instead, many can be attributed to either old fashioned hacks, basic omissions in security best practices, or errors in security policies and processes."

Although Wi-Fi security tends to grab headlines, Lisa Phifer explains the real threats are more old fashioned.

IPv6: Smartphones compromise users' privacy - The H Security: News and Features: 

"operating systems transfer an ID that discloses information about their users... The problem is currently only affecting a small number of users because IPv6 is not yet in widespread use. However, German Telekom and several other IPs plan to offer IPv6 in addition to the old IPv4 during this year."

As the Internet migration to IPv6 accelerates with the now complete exhaustion of IPv4 addresses by the IANA, IPv6 security gaps will be exposed with increasing regularity.

Phone Home - Your Fridge Just Tweeted: 

"The most surprising revelations at CES, however, came on the household appliance front. Manufacturers presented a world where the Internet of Things is gradually realized"

Simplicity to Stimulate Innovation -Freedom to Think and Dream Big: 

"The best ideas are the simplest ones, and after you hear them they’re totally obvious, yet they evade us for years and years and years. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking to have great ideas. You just have to think and keep your eyes open.” ~ Steve Levitt"

Comic for the week!
Doghouse Diaries - To Fi or Not to Fi
I suppose you could always leave it unlocked but make the network name something like, I’M A HACKER AND I’LL SNIFF YOUR PACKETS.

Cheers (and happy reading),
Andrew

The Mobile Retail Initiative

In my last post, I challenged Wi-Fi architects in the retail industry to consider the short-term and long-term requirements to support evolving mobile commerce and marketing initiatives in their organizations. I received a few questions regarding the use-cases for Wi-Fi specifically relating to customer interaction in-store.

The use cases for Wi-Fi as it relates to retail mobile initiatives are well highlighted in the National Retail Federation's Mobile Retail Initiative. This initiative offers best practices and recommendations for retailers entering the mobile space (even retailers offering solutions now can benefit). In this initiative, the NRF has developed the Mobile Retailing Blueprint, with release of version 2 of the document occurring last week at the NRF conference.

Several use-cases are directly related to Wi-Fi networking in retail environments. Let's focus on the consumer facing applications, rather than the well-established corporate use-cases which include inventory control, price verification, stocking, voice over Wi-Fi, push-to-talk (walki-talkies), warehouse management, etc.

Examples of consumer oriented services that can be delivered over Wi-Fi networks, driven either by store associates or directly by the customer, include the following:

• Basic Network Connectivity (especially in weak cellular areas which are common even in urban areas)
• Network Reliability (better than 3G/4G data services)
• Product Lookup
• Product Availability (in-store or on-line, cross-channel)
• In-Store Navigation
• Location Based Services
• Advertisement at point of product interaction (in-aisle, coupons, promotions, etc.)
• Business Analytics for the retailer (paths, dwell times, signage effectiveness, etc.)
• Associate Tracking for Customer Support
• Push Notifications (coupons, specials, weekly flyer, etc.)
• Mobile application data refresh (background or active)
• Mobile Commerce (mCommerce) / E-Commerce (by customer)
• Self-Inventory and Self-Checkout of Cart / Basket (by customer)
• Remote Transaction Suspend / Resume (by associates)
• Mobile Point-of-Sale (mPOS) (by associates)

Pay attention to sections 6 and 7 of the blueprint that specifically relate to Wi-Fi technology scenarios. In additions, table 22 does a good job of mapping mobile retail scenarios to a broader set of technologies.

The fear of competitive consumer shopping is real, which will force retailers to offering compelling advantages to customers while in-store at the point of product interaction (standing in-front of the product). Today, consumers are increasingly pulling out their mobile phones and researching competitor pricing of the same / similar products already. Offering mobile services, initially through cellular networks but expanding to Wi-Fi networks to increase reliable access and delivery, with highly integrated mobile marketing and commerce services allows the retailer to engage the customer directly and offer compelling reasons for them to purchase at their establishment. Failure to do so will leave retailers at a competitive dis-advantage.

I highly recommend that Wi-Fi architects in retail organizations read the Mobile Retail Blueprint and begin formulating solutions to the use-cases presented. Begin engaging marketing and guest experience teams to identify requirements early in the design and development process of these mobile initiatives.

In addition, evaluate whether an in-house built Wi-Fi guest solution or an externally managed solution is appropriate for your organization. AT&T is the pre-dominant managed service provider in the U.S., with Wi-Fi hotspot usage growing 300% year-over-year.

Cheers,
Andrew

A Look Ahead to Possible Wi-Fi Industry Trends in 2011

Many of the trends from the past year will carry over into 2011 and continue to impact the industry, while a few new developments are poised to radically alter the landscape. Here are my projections for some of the developments we should expect to see in the coming year.

1. Wireless as the Primary Enterprise Access Medium – spurred by large-scale adoption of 802.11n equipment, more organizations and employees will increasingly rely on Wi-Fi networks for the bulk of their work. Although a complete shift to Wi-Fi is unlikely except for a minority of organizations aggressively seeking expense reduction, most organizations will realize that the benefit of a scaled-down switching infrastructure, eliminating unused switch port capacity, and deploying greater capacity Wi-Fi networks to handle mobile workers.
   
   
2. Smart-AP Architectures Begin to Emerge from Market Leaders – just as 2010 saw established competitors challenge the common wireless controller architecture, market leaders will look to begin migrating to a more distributed architecture with smart APs. As industry experts continue to recognize that controller features can now cost-effectively be implemented in smart APs, market leaders will be forced to react and keep pace, or face continuing erosion of market share to innovative up-and-comers. However, the transition for large established equipment manufacturers will not be easy, having to support current customers with a deployed base of controllers as well as customers still running legacy autonomous access point architectures. Watch for product feature sets to begin migrating back into the smart APs in 2011, but don’t hold your breath for a viable large-scale controller-less solution, as ditching the controller will be tough given their wealth of feature that need to be migrated. Also, implementing coordination among smart APs will be limited to small groups of APs upon first release to ensure product stability. Watch for the large vendors to position these smart APs in parallel to existing controllers to prevent erosion and cannibalization of existing revenue streams, targeting smaller SMB/SOHO deployments for initial product releases while continuing to recommend controllers for larger installations.
   
   
3. Consumer Device Adoption in the Enterprise Becomes the Norm – enterprise Wi-Fi networks are a bit of an anomaly, having gained broad adoption in the consumer space long before enterprise. As such, Wi-Fi is viewed more as a utility by employees, who more commonly expect to connect any device to any network to get connected. Underscoring a major societal and cultural trend of the connected lifestyle, enterprises will be forced to support consumer-grade devices on corporate networks. This will present challenges for IT departments to provide secure and controlled access to corporate data. Mobile device management (MDM) solutions will increasingly be sought after to manage the great diversity in client platforms. Wireless network engineers will need to take care to architect solutions to alleviate poor consumer device performance and ensure mission-critical devices and applications achieve the required QoS and SLA required. Watch for organizations to take baby steps in support of these devices while they develop broader strategies for device funding, liability, and security compliance. Support may initially be limited to Internet and/or thin-client access to corporate applications and data, with broader access following strategy definition and procurement of management solution.
   
   
4. Mobile Commerce Leads to More Retail Hotspots – if 2010 was the year of mobile advertising, 2011 will be the year of mobile commerce and greater consumer interaction. Retailers are looking to keep pace in highly competitive markets and adjust to shifts in consumer behaviors, specifically targeting mobile commerce applications. Wi-Fi hotspots have long been a staple of cafés and bookshops, but will see increasingly broad adoptance among other retailers looking to provide a mechanism for customer engagement while in-store where they have the most influence at the product location. Wi-Fi will serve as a foundation for mobile commerce and marketing applications due to its pervasive presence in consumer smartphones and the lack of adequate 3G/4G cellular data network coverage within many brick-and-mortar facilities. Retailers will need to be careful to ensure the content is engaging, relevant, and provides a great customer experience. Watch for more hotspots to spring up throughout 2011.
   
   
5.  Emergence of Smart Meter, M2M, and Sensor Networks – wireless sensor networks have long been confined to the realm of university research and limited deployment mainly in the structural engineering field. However, this technology is maturing to the point where mass-market adoption is within the realm of possibility. Use-cases in the enterprise for smart buildings, energy efficiency, and better facilities monitoring and management coupled with commercial products for the consumer market with products to enable a connected home (thermostats, televisions, blu-ray players, home entertainment and set-top boxes, etc.) will bring smart meter, machine-to-machine (M2M), and sensor networks into the mainstream. Manufacturing costs are reaching low enough levels to allow product pricing to reach inflection points which could drive mass consumption by consumers. Enterprises, on the other hand, will be slower to adopt this technology due to investment in current systems, and deployment will likely be reliant on the rebound of the economy to spur new facility construction. Also watch for government funded economic stimulus projects to make increasing use of this technology. Sensor networks hold the potential to radically shift how Wi-Fi networks operate, shifting from human interaction networks to largely automated systems that require higher levels of stability and consistent network operation. Wi-Fi engineers should be able to proactively identify these shifts and manage network changes to provide greater availability and capacity.

What trends will you be watching for in 2011?

Cheers,

Andrew

Introduction to NFC on the Google Nexus S

Following up on my previous post about how NFC Smartphones Could Mean Greater Customer Influence, here is an introduction to the capabilities in the first iteration of NFC available in a U.S. smartphone, the Nexus S by Google and Samsung.

As mentioned in the video, NFC is currently limited to reading data from tags. The phone cannot send data to another NFC device at this time due to security concerns. This prevents contactless payment applications at this time, but I would expect to see enhanced NFC capabilities in the not-to-distant future once developers have worked out security considerations for this type of functionality.



It will be interesting to see which retail establishments are early adopters and lead the pack in innovative uses for this functionality to interact with their customers. I would expect to see a period of minimal NFC application availability initially as retailers evaluate technology use-cases and test interactive applications in limited markets. However, look for the market to pick up dramatically in time for the Q4 holiday shopping season next year as retailers push for competitive advantages in mobile commerce to drive increased store visits by consumers.

All signs point to mobile as the big strategic initiative for retailers in 2011!

Cheers,
Andrew