Any business that takes credit cards for payment of goods and services needs to install and maintain a firewall configuration as one of the twelve requirements to be compliant to the Payment Security Card Data Security Standard*.  Whether you have a wireless network or not a business that handles sensitive information, like credit card numbers, needs to protect themselves from hackers who could physically compromise your network.  Protection from hackers is not just bad for business, it is can open you up to legal issues if you manage other sensitive data like healthcare information and patient records. Kari Breseman from Motorola recently stopped by RACO to talk about AirDefense, a security, compliance, and troubleshooting system.  The vendor-agnostic wireless intrusion prevention system monitors your network and lets you know if there’s a rogue device that is transmitting your secure information.  AirDefense provides wireless device inventory, threat index analysis, location tracking, advanced rogue management and automated protection.

With this tool, administrators can perform wireless assessments, security audits, locate and manage rogue access points.  To see if you need AirDefense to protect your business from costly security breaches, contact a RACO product specialist at 1-800-446-1991. RACO’s Advanced Solutions Group can configure, install, and support AirDefense and has the expertise to assist your company with any wireless network project.

 * The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that ALL companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.

For more information, visit RACO’s PCI Compliance Definition and FAQ page.

Wireless Guru,

My company has twelve 802.11b/g wireless access points installed throughout a 185,000 square foot facility.  We recently deployed a large number of WiFi enabled mobile computers running the Windows Mobile 6.0 operating system.  We've encountered issues where devices freeze up regularly and lose their IP address.  Many times, the devices require a restart in order to reconnect to the WLAN.  We've verified that the signal stregnth is adequate throughout the building and all devices are configured correctly, what could be causing this?  Please Help.

Initially here is the problem that I think you are running into with your wireless infrastructure.  Though it may seem like a converged network, the stand alone access points/wireless routers will not communicate together and will therefore never negotiate a handoff or roam from one access point to another.  Each access point is broadcasting the same SSID and quite possiblly the same channel, and know nothing about each other.  Therefore there is a huge disconnect between what the handheld expects and what the multiple networks can deliver.  Bottom line, if a device ever roams correctly it is not by design but by chance and luck.  Whenever a device does have to roam it will have to disconnect from the network and then reconnect again, and that will only work if every access point is setup exactly the same.  And even if they are setup correctly you will still not be able to effectively roam.  In this setup each access point is a completely separate network.       Now you did not mention DHCP, but each of these units could be acting as a DHCP server, however in practice you never want to have more than one DHCP server and one in this scenario, will not work.

The solution to the problem is a converged network, a central controller which then controls all of the access points.  The controller has all of the network configuration and it manages all of the access points.  The controller will also manage all of the roaming and ensure that devices are always connected to the wireless network.    

To avoid the problems you are experiencing, centrally controlled or mesh is the only way to go in a multiple access point environment.  These type of networks are something we do have a lot of experience with, either troubleshooting or design and installation.