17 August 2011

Two Different Worlds, Two Different Wireless Networks

Posted by Lee H. Badman
August 09, 2011

Just back from a whirlwind two weeks working in both Great Britain and Haiti, and I feel compelled to reflect on the specifics and profound differences of creating WLAN environments in each location as I document the efforts. Certainly the cultures are dramatically different, but so were the solutions used, and neither is what I typically deal with in my day-to-day network administration duties. It’s been interesting, to say the least.

Let's start with London. My university (Syracuse) has a remote site in London, and for years it has limped along mostly as an island when it comes to IT. It turns out the site has a respectable wiring infrastructure, but its switching, wireless and overall networking approach was disjointed, undersized and underperforming, to the point where users would often leave the building and go elsewhere to actually get work done over the network. After a site visit from one of our managers, the right words were said and my group was on the hook to make things right for our faraway colleagues by creating a solution that allowed for us to monitor the environment from across the pond while giving the London folks some much-appreciated local administrative capabilities.


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