Here is a question that I hope can create good discussion. The success of a secure wireless implementation, specifically an implementation that uses some type of EAP method, depends in part on the ability of the wireless client to support it "effectively and efficiently". I mention these last two words because we all know that there are a variety of Operating Systems, supplicants and wireless adapters that support "secured wlans". But in environments like ours, the education community, and with the vast array of systems and devices that are part of our networks, support of a secured wlan can be very challenging.
For a wireless client to successfully connect (and stay connected) to a secured wlan, drivers must be up-to-date and in some instances settings on the adapters themselves must be tweaked. Roaming aggressiveness, power management, mixed mode, CCX, etc. All these settings in a way affect the performance of the wireless clients and in some situations defaults work fine, but in others modifications must be made. I mention this because in our campus we have the usual complaints from users that view wireless as very unreliable and complicated, when in fact the problems usually originate on the client side, either because the drivers need to be updated or the wireless adapter is "sticky" or not "sticky" enough, etc. What I'm getting at is this, I'd like to know if you guys are experiencing the same challenges and if so I'd like to know how you approach them. Do you rely solely on information you provide to your users via a website or some other type or do you take more of a proactive approach by implementing some type of NAC solution. We have good documentation on our website with quite a good number of tips on how to solve common problems, but I feel most users don't like to bother with that. We use Autoconnect to make the configuration easier, but this doesn't take care of drivers or other settings in the adapters. Thanks, Hector Rios Louisiana State University ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
