802.11v Answers The Call For Order In Wireless LANs

Enterprise wireless LANs today can be described as controlled chaos: The heat is on for companies to deploy and manage a growing fleet of untethered devices, so you never really know where, how, and what kind of mobile users are going to connect to the corporate WLAN. Meanwhile, wireless network management abilities currently end at access points, leaving devices to fend for themselves.

In response, the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance are working on 802.11v, a standard that aims to calm that chaos by creating an interface that enables a network to be managed and optimized all the way down to client devices, and leverages existing infrastructure and WLAN standards to do it.

The standard, expected to be finalized in mid-2010, should be near top of mind for network administrators and CIOs alike because it can help them get a grip on wireless usage, while potentially saving power and minimizing network disruptions.

Read the whole article here.

-Ken