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Las llaves al Reino: Cómo los profesionales de redes de
hoy gestionan un mundo cada vez más inalámbrico
Findings from a recent survey of more than
175 Network Engineers
“Organizations no longer see WLAN as just a cost-cutting tool,
but as a means to change how they operate through the use of
technology, including ubiquitous access to the network and the
adoption of new types of devices. 1 "
INTRODUCCIÓN
Taken from IHS’ Wireless LAN Strategies and Vendor Leadership survey of North American enterprises last October, the above quote
shows just how essential wireless has become. No longer a nice to have, the wireless local area network (WLAN) is now a critical
component to network infrastructure.
The same IHS survey reports investment in wireless continues to grow faster than any other part of enterprise access networks, as
organizations move from providing wireless as a convenience to counting on it to drive digital business transformation. 2
All of which means that in a hyper-connected, always-on world increasingly dominated by wireless access, Network Ops is more than a
gatekeeping function; it’s absolutely essential. It can either dramatically help an organization move forward or greatly hinder its progress. In
short, the Network Ops team truly holds the keys to the kingdom.
Which is all very well and good—unless, of course, you’re the network engineer expected to maintain perfect uptime and no slowdowns.
Then it’s no longer the stuff of future legend; it’s just an ever-present challenge.
So, how are today’s Network Ops pros managing an increasingly wireless world? NETSCOUT recently surveyed more than 175 network
engineers from mid- to large-size organizations in North America across a variety of industries to find out.
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Top Takeaways:
As networks get more complex, it’s getting harder for Network Ops teams to keep up
There is a distinct disconnect between how Network Ops pros spend their time and the top priorities and concerns of their department
There is no single standard for how a WLAN is configured and managed, which means network engineers must learn and apply new
processes, tools and gear as they move from company to company, or even job to job.
Tras considerar todos los datos de estudio y puntos clave, hemos concluido que dada la naturaleza crítica de la transformación de WLAN a
negocios y los desafíos significantes a los que los operadores de redes se enfrentan, las listas de verificación y procesos estandarizados
facilitarían el trabajo de los ingenieros de redes y al mismo tiempo el rendimiento de la red sería mejorado.
In the pages that follow, we share the survey results, examine the key takeaways and explain how WLANs, a legendary World War II
airplane and critical-care processes in an intensive care ward share a common need.
Key Data Points:
63% of network ops teams
comprise less than 10 people, but
45% of all teams manage 20 or
more sites, the majority of which
have at least five access points
80% of network ops groups have
no dedicated WLAN team, despite
investments in WLAN growing
faster than any other part of
enterprise network access
networks3
10% of network engineers spend
more than 25% percent of their
time fixing WLAN networks, with
another 29% spending at least
12% of their time on
troubleshooting, instead of
planning projects or
configuring/upgrading their
network
As a group, respondents reported
using 21 different equipment
vendors and 27 troubleshooting
tools
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Takeaway #1
Conforme las redes son más complejas, se está haciendo más difícil
que los operadores de redes puedan gestionarlas.
When Norman Abramson, a professor at the University of Hawaii, invented
the first wireless computer communication network in 1971, it was a fairly
rudimentary network of eight computers deployed over four islands and was
based on ham-like radios 4 .
Since then, WLANs have circled the globe, adding billions of users and
millions of access points (APs), offering greater performance, reliability,
convenience and—of course—complexity. Today’s network engineer is
spread pretty thin. The majority of survey respondents (58%) reported
supporting more than 10 geographically disbursed sites, with 45% supporting
20 or more. This is compounded by the number of APs at each site, usually
more than five. That number of APs will only increase, according to the IHS
survey, in which organizations said they expect to increase the number of
Figure 1a: Number of sites supported
APs by 15% annually over the next two years 5 .
From a technology perspective, it doesn’t get any easier. Two-thirds of
respondents (67%) manage WLANs running on a hybrid of network
standards. Given the cost of upgrades, the move to 802.11ac will likely take
place over an extended period of time. Of the organizations represented in
the survey that haven’t already migrated to the new standard, only 21% will
have migrated before the end of the year, while 36% will have only partially
migrated, and 43% are further out.
Figure 1b: Average number of APs per site
Considering the increasing complexity and investment in WLAN equipment,
it would make sense to have a corresponding increase in networking pros
dedicated to wireless, but that’s not the case, according to survey
respondents. Roughly 80% said their organization had no dedicated wireless
team.
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Takeaway #2
Existe una clara desconexión entre cómo los profesionales de la
operación de redes pasan su tiempo y la preocupación/prioridades de
su departamento.
While network pros cite many of the same concerns as their employers, the
way they spend their time shows greater focus on reactive issues, rather
than proactive efforts. In our survey, 39% of network engineers cited
performance and reliability as their top concern, followed closely by security
(26%) and then capacity/coverage (21%), the latter probably the result of
being closer to individual user complaints.
Figura 2: Top concerns
These priorities dovetail with the IHS survey, where organizations said
security was their chief concern (46%), followed by reliability (31%) and
performance (26%). If the IHS survey had combined reliability and
performance into one category (as the NETSCOUT survey did), the order of
concerns would be a perfect mirror.
Interestingly, 2 respondents reported having “no concerns” whatsoever.
We’ll let readers make what they will of that particular statistic.
However, day-to-day activities show a decided tilt toward reactive
firefighting. Roughly 39% of network engineers spend at least five hours (or
12%) every week fixing WLAN networks. And 10% spend a whopping 25% or
more on troubleshooting.
While some could argue a portion of that time is spent fixing security
problems or performance/reliability issues, the statistics are troubling from
the standpoint of not anticipating those same issues and problems so they
can be avoided in the first place. The point is, no IT organization wants
users to serve as an early warning system.
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Takeaway #3
There is no single standard for how a WLAN is configured and managed, which means network engineers must learn and apply
new processes, tools and gear as they move from company to company, or even job to job.
Whether asked about technologies, processes, policies or practices, respondents’ answers in every case covered an incredibly wide range,
leading us to conclude there is no one perfect way to design, configure, manage, and upgrade a WLAN.
While that conclusion seems like a no-brainer, the impact on a network engineering pro’s career progression isn’t. As noted earlier, only
20% of organizations represented in the survey have dedicated wireless teams; meaning, everyone on the team is expected to “know”
wireless networking. But the ways different organizations approach WLANs are so varied, it puts individual network engineers at a
disadvantage when they start a new job or take on more responsibility in an existing one.
For example, respondents as a group named more than 20 different vendors who supply their organizations with network infrastructure
equipment. And when asked what vendors supply their troubleshooting tools, the group named more than 25 different companies. The
implication for network engineers is that they will likely be required to learn all-new tools and technologies several times over their careers.
Compounding things further, when asked about the mix of Wi-Fi clients in their network environment, responses were all over the map.
While just over one-third of respondents had no fixed clients, the other two-thirds did. Portable and mobile clients were more lopsided in
terms of whether organizations had them or not, but the percentages varied greatly, affecting how network engineers approach their day-today responsibilities.
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BYOD is another area of variation. When asked about how their
organization’s BYOD policy affected their network, nearly one-quarter (23%)
said they had no BYOD policy, while others alluded to specific security
policies, a list of approved devices, use of a segmented network, or no
personal devices allowed.
Either as a result of BYOD or equipping employees with multiple devices to
access the network, many organizations will see the number of clients
accessing the network climb above the number of employees at a particular
site. However, respondents to the survey indicated a wide range of
approaches to planning for this situation. While 7% plan for just one device
per employee, a significant percentage (41%) plan for two or three devices.
And at opposite ends of the spectrum, 10% plan for more than three devices,
while 42% either don’t know how they plan for multiple devices per person,
or they don’t plan at all.
Figura 3: Impact of BYOD
The above data on BYOD practices and policies is worrisome, given the data
from the IHS survey, in which responding organizations indicated they
expected the percentage of user-owned devices accessing the network to
grow from 39% to 47% percent (in addition to the increase from 29% in late
2014) 7 . This shows how just how pervasive BYOD has become.
Outsourcing practices are just as varied. For example, while 46% of
organizations represented in the survey don’t outsource any work, the
remaining 54% outsource at least one key function that contributes to
institutional knowledge that would help internal teams better manage their
WLANs, such as design (10%), verification and site surveys (16%),
installation (23%), and troubleshooting (6%).
Figura 4: Devices per employee
Among survey respondents, use of the cloud for managed Wi-Fi broke
roughly 2:1 in favor of not currently or planning to use the cloud (68%
vs. 32%). And for those who wouldn’t be using the cloud, 82% said it had
nothing to do with any “no-cloud” policy.
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Survey Conclusion
Given the critical nature of WLANs to business transformation and the expectation of highly variable environments, standardized
processes and checklists would make network engineers’ jobs easier while improving network performance
For anyone reading this document who is now shaking their head over the value of using something as simple as a checklist, a brief history
lesson.
The year was 1935. The place was Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. Three aircraft manufacturers were competing for a major military contract
to supply more than 100 planes, but it was pretty much a done deal. The Boeing entry had already flown circles around the other two
entries, and the military pilots who had tested it couldn’t wait to get their hands on the plane. This final demonstration was considered
window dressing.
Except for one thing: when the airplane taxied down the runway with two highly experienced military pilots at the controls, it rose smoothly
into the air, but then suddenly turned on one wing, fell and burst into flames on impact, killing two of the four people on board and one of
their rescuers.
So what happened? The lead pilot neglected to release the elevator lock prior to take off, a simple thing to remember for such an
experienced pilot. The military wasn’t quite ready to give up on the plane, so a group of pilots put their heads together and decided
something was needed to make sure all steps for takeoff, in-flight changes and landing were followed in the correct order. And thus, the
aviation checklist was born, saving the Boeing Airplane Company (as it was known then) from bankruptcy and launching the legend of the
“Flying Fortress” – the airplane given much of the credit for helping end WWII in the European theater 8 .
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Commercial aviation has followed suit, creating literally a notebook of checklists for each airplane model and then reviewing them after
every major airplane incident. It’s no exaggeration when test pilots say there’s a dead body behind every step on the checklists they follow.
Another example of highly skilled professionals needing checklists to save lives: doctors.
In his book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” surgeon Atul Gawande writes how intensive care doctors and nurses have used checklists to save
trauma victims, nearly eliminate hospital-acquired infections and improve the quality of care.
Every day, intensive care nurses (and doctors) perform an average of 178 actions on each patient under their care 9 . The potential for error
is immense, with deadly results. The disparity in outcomes between hospitals that use checklists and hospitals that don’t has been proven
through multiple studies. Hospitals testing the use of checklists saw dramatically improved survival rates, as well as greatly reduced
infection rates and other hospital errors.
So why aren’t we hearing more about this miracle? Because so many hospitals and the medical professionals who run them resist the idea
that something so simple would be required by the brilliant minds (and large egos) of surgeons and other doctors. It’s human nature to
dislike being told what to do, how to do it and in what order, but the data is irrefutable.
If we were to apply the same lesson to the ever-changing WLAN environment and the network engineering pros who oversee them, the use
of standard processes and checklists could potentially make their jobs easier, less stressful and less costly to their organizations.
For example, let’s go back to all those functions that may or may not be outsourced. If enterprises required their vendors to follow standard
processes and guidelines for design, verification, installation and troubleshooting, the network ops team would have a firm grasp on their
WLAN environment just by reading the documentation.
Given the large number of network infrastructure and troubleshooting tool options in use by different organizations (and not likely to change
anytime soon), the need for standardized processes and checklists looms even larger. Newly hired network engineers would get up to
speed more quickly. Recently promoted IT managers would have a better sense of the entire environment, not just the areas where he or
she previously worked. All of these would combine to save the organization money and improve user experience at the same time.
That last point bears repeating. If network ops teams were to adopt the same approach as pilots and surgeons use to save lives; that is,
using checklists to ensure processes are followed to the letter and in the right order, network engineers could do the same thing for their
enterprise users who claim they would die without perfect uptime and performance.
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Notes on Methodology
The survey was conducted in late March 2016 among more than 175 network engineers, representing mid to large enterprises in financial services,
retail, healthcare, manufacturing, education, public sector, services and other industries. To qualify, respondents were required to be actively
involved in managing their organization’s wireless networks.
The survey results are not based on a probability sample; therefore, no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. All decimals in this
report are rounded to the nearest percentage point, which may result in certain numerical totals adding up to slightly more or slightly less than 100
percent. Results expressed as percentages are based on the number of respondents who answered that specific question.
1
IHS, Inc. “Wireless LAN Strategies and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey” by Matthias Machowinski, October 2015
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN, accessed 28 de mayo de 2016.
5
IHS, Inc. “Wireless LAN Strategies and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey” by Matthias Machowinski, October 2015.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
New Yorker magazine. “The Checklist” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist, accessed 31 de mayo de 2016.
9
Ibid.
© 2017 NETSCOUT. Rev.: 2/2/2017 10:07 a.m.
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