Wireless Monitoring Improves Operations

Every year, more organizations depend on wireless networks for productivity and communication. One element that should be included in any new upgrade is wireless monitoring. As organizations have grown dependent on wireless networks, wireless monitoring has become analogous to an insurance policy to protect their investments. All too frequently, we see organizations make major advancements in new wireless networking infrastructure, but then fail to include wireless monitoring tools as part of the complete solution. 

Without wireless monitoring, employees and managers who experience problems connecting to the network won’t know how to resolve their issues quickly. Furthermore, IT staffers will struggle to define the problem and could end up troubleshooting for hours. The result: The entire organization may slow down or even stop when an issue arises.  

Here are four reasons wireless monitoring solutions are a must-have for wireless-dependent organizations.

Even if an organization plans for its wireless network to meet industry best practices and installs the appropriate number of access points for its environment, wireless users might find that they’re not able to connect with the speed and reliability they expect. One common culprit: interference. For example, if you’re in a high-rise building and the organizations on the floors above and below you are operating their wireless networks on the same channel as your business, you likely won’t get the sort of throughput you anticipated when you planned and designed your network. This can be an easy fix, but only if IT staffers have visibility — via wireless monitoring tools — into the radio frequencies causing interference.

Wireless monitoring solutions are especially important in environments, such as hospitals, where the consequences of a dropped connection are dire. The stakes are high as well in other settings, such as higher education campuses and public-school environments where wireless connectivity is now essential for learning. Or, consider a large convention center: Many conferences have gone mostly paper-free, relying on mobile apps and other digital tools to disseminate information, including event schedules and venue maps. If wireless users can’t connect, the experience is completely lost.

Next-gen wireless networking upgrades are a costly endeavor, and organizations maximize their return on these investments by including wireless monitoring in the total cost of the solution. One common trap is trying to fix performance issues by simply tossing more access points (and, therefore, more money) at wireless connectivity problems. With wireless monitoring tools, organizations can get to the root of their performance issues, avoid wasted time and lost productivity, and ensure that every dollar they put into their wireless networks is money well spent.

In recent years, workers have come to rely almost exclusively on wireless mobility to power their day-to-day work. This means two things: One, there are more devices than ever on enterprise wireless networks; and two, when the wireless goes down, employee productivity goes down with it. Wireless monitoring tools help organizations find the root of their wireless issues and ensure their workers stay connected, preventing costly downtime. Without these solutions, IT staffers must work through a laundry list of potential chokepoints, including internet service providers, employee devices and end-user applications. But with wireless monitoring in place, they can quickly identify wireless issues, fix their problems and get their people back to work.

Story by Sven Rasmussen, a passion for technology and for helping people explore the infinite use cases for wireless networking. Sven is an enterprise networking team lead at CDW, where he helps guide network strategy and enablement for CDW’s network solution architects.