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Getting a grip on a wireless network is like trying to rope the wind, but we rounded up a trio of software tools that can help. WildPackets' analyzer took our Editor's Choice by a breath. BY PETER MORRISSEY AND DILIP ADVANI
WLANs are challenging to implement and maintain primarily because we can't control the data flow in the style to which we've become accustomed on switched networks. Wireless traffic is all over the place. Radio waves aren't always strong enough to make connections, or they can leak beyond the boundaries of a corporate site, into the parking lot or beyond. Anyone can purchase a cheap, consumergrade wireless access point and set it up with little or no security enabled. And these rogue access points can clash with corporate access points if they're configured on the same channel. The ensuing contention can be devastating to those depending on corporate connectivity.
The good news is that the ubiquity of wireless LAN radio signals lets an analyzer easily listen in on everything that's going on, and even attempt to make sense of it. We set out to find the best full-fledged wireless analyzer. We identified the three contenders in the space-Network Associates' Sniffer Wireless, Network Instruments' Expert Observer and WildPackets' AiroPeek NX- and gathered them in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs(R). All three are capable of listening to the 2.4-GHz DSSS (direct-sequence spread-spectrum) signal employed by the IEEE 802.11 lb protocol, which is commonly used for WLANs. Each vendor gave us a product that shipped during or right after our March tests, and obviously the companies are paying attention to one another, the industry or both, because all the products did well in our tests.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
Remember the problems with shared Ethernet? Wireless networks are deja vu all over again. Like shared Ethernet, 802.11b wireless is a broadcast medium-packets go everywhere. A few factors, though, make wireless more problematic than shared Ethernet. One, wireless transmissions aren't confined to the installed wiring. Yes, WLANs have distance guidelines, but you can't control their boundaries. An analyzer can't control boundaries either, but it can help you assess them and make sure proper security mechanisms are in place.
For example, the analyzers we tested could tell us if WEP (Wireless...