Craig Mathias

Author Archives: Craig Mathias

IT needs to make mobile unified communications a priority

The need for safe, reliable, and easy-to-use communications tools has given rise to unified communications (UC), a strategy that integrates multiple communications modalities under a single management and security umbrella. The result is more effective communication, improved collaboration, and a boost to security and regulatory policies. Now that mobility is the primary networking vehicle for end users, it’s time for IT departments to make mobile unified communications (MUC) a priority.The most important benefit of MUC is the ability of organizations to finally leave behind the uncontrolled, untracked mish-mash of consumer-centric, carrier, and third-party communications tools traditionally applied over the years. Communications are a critical organizational resource; MUC is a much easier vehicle to manage and scale, and MUC offers the visibility and control that’s essential to enterprise IT deployments. These advantages will enable MUC to become the dominant provisioning strategy and mechanism for organizational communications over the next five to 10 years.To read this article in full, please click here

Wireless spectrum shortage? Not so fast

The wireless industry has always had to deal with regular (and alarming) pronouncements that we're somehow running out of radio spectrum. We’re not. But the misconception regardless gives many IT and network managers pause. After all, if the availability, reliability and especially the capacity of wireless were to degrade to the point of a de-facto shortage, the situation would be dire for communications at the edges of both the LAN and WAN.So let’s start putting to rest any conjecture regarding a spectrum shortage and focus on reality: Thanks to a combination of continual advances in wireless technologies, recent enhancements to spectrum regulatory policy, and novel thinking around spectrum allocation, we can be assured that a “spectrum shortage” is, and will remain, an abstract theoretical concept.To read this article in full, please click here

How to tame enterprise communications services

Communications capabilities are essential to the success of organizations everywhere. Voice, email, text messaging, multimedia messaging, file sharing, streaming video, conferencing, collaboration, and more – you can’t do business without them. But as traffic volumes and the number of communications services in use continue to grow, so do the IT and operational challenges.Communications services have historically been provisioned by, and are of course still widely available from, broadband landline and wireless carriers who seek value-added revenue to offset the commodity nature of their “big dumb pipe” core businesses. But there are also numerous third-party solution suppliers, private implementations, and unified communications (UC) product and service capabilities. In addition, an increasing number of cloud-based services – many of which are often aimed squarely at consumer end-users rather than organizations – are seeing significant organizational application, and unfortunately often via backdoor or shadow-IT routes.To read this article in full, please click here

How to tame enterprise communications services

Communications capabilities are essential to the success of organizations everywhere. Voice, e-mail, text messaging, multimedia messaging, file sharing, streaming video, conferencing, collaboration, and more – you can’t do business without them. But as traffic volumes and the number of communications services in use continue to grow, so do the IT and operational challenges.Communications services have historically been provisioned by, and are of course still widely available from, broadband landline and wireless carriers who seek value-added revenue to offset the commodity nature of their “big dumb pipe” core businesses. But there are also numerous third-party solution suppliers, private implementations, and unified communications (UC) product and service capabilities. In addition, an increasing number of cloud-based services – many of which are often aimed squarely at consumer end-users rather than organizations – are seeing significant organizational application, and unfortunately often via backdoor or shadow-IT routes.To read this article in full, please click here

Network operations: A new role for AI and ML

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are still viewed with skepticism by many in IT, despite a decades-long long history, continuing advances within academia and industry, and numerous successful applications. But it’s not hard to understand why: The very concept of an algorithm running on a digital computer being able to duplicate and even improve upon the knowledge and judgement of a highly-experienced professional – and, via machine learning, improve these results over time – still sounds at the very least a bit off in the future. And yet, thanks to advances in AI/ML algorithms and significant gains in processor and storage performance and especially the price/performance of solutions available today, AI and ML are already hard at work in network operations, as we’ll explore below.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Network operations: A new role for AI and ML

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are still viewed with skepticism by many in IT, despite a decades-long long history, continuing advances within academia and industry, and numerous successful applications. But it’s not hard to understand why: The very concept of an algorithm running on a digital computer being able to duplicate and even improve upon the knowledge and judgement of a highly-experienced professional – and, via machine learning, improve these results over time – still sounds at the very least a bit off in the future. And yet, thanks to advances in AI/ML algorithms and significant gains in processor and storage performance and especially the price/performance of solutions available today, AI and ML are already hard at work in network operations, as we’ll explore below.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

How to boost Wi-Fi performance: Experts talk planning, troubleshooting

With wireless now the preferred, default, and increasingly only access in the majority of in-building, campus, metro-scale hotspot and wide-area settings, achieving optimal performance is a key objective for IT departments.Since radio-frequency (RF) propagation always involves a high degree of variability, it’s often difficult to predict the precise behavior of a given installation. Variables include operating conditions, user and application traffic demands, and the capabilities and settings of individual vendor products. When mobility, Wi-Fi testing and verification are also taken into consideration, performance evaluation can become very complex indeed.To read this article in full, please click here

5 best practices to boost Wi-Fi performance

Wi-Fi experts from Cisco, Aruba, Ekahau, Extreme Networks and Mist Systems talked with Craig Mathias, principal with advisory firm Farpoint Group, about Wi-Fi performance optimization. Based on those interviews, a few best practices for establishing and maintaining optimal WLAN performance clearly jump out.For more details see our feature: Experts offer tips for boosting Wi-Fi performance  Perform WiFi needs analysis Start with an initial needs analysis, with a careful enumeration of requirements relating to throughput, applications and coverage. Experiment with potential equipment in the production freespace environment to establish a baseline for initial performance expectations and evaluation. Add in the impact of any planned or even anticipated infrastructure additions, new applications and growth in numbers of users and devices.To read this article in full, please click here

How to boost Wi-Fi performance: Experts talk planning, troubleshooting

With wireless now the preferred, default, and increasingly only access in the majority of in-building, campus, metro-scale hotspot and wide-area settings, achieving optimal performance is a key objective for IT departments.Since radio-frequency (RF) propagation always involves a high degree of variability, it’s often difficult to predict the precise behavior of a given installation. Variables include operating conditions, user and application traffic demands, and the capabilities and settings of individual vendor products. When mobility, Wi-Fi testing and verification are also taken into consideration, performance evaluation can become very complex indeed.To read this article in full, please click here

Wi-Fi analytics get real

A number of Wi-Fi analytics tools have been brought to market over the past few years, and while most organizations have yet to dip their toes in the Wi-Fi analytics waters, our research shows that those who have are realizing significant benefits.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Wi-Fi analytics get real

A number of Wi-Fi analytics tools have been brought to market over the past few years, and while most organizations have yet to dip their toes in the Wi-Fi analytics waters, our research shows that those who have are realizing significant benefits.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Network World’s searchable glossary of wireless terms

This is a glossary of terminology frequently used in describing and discussing wireless technology – from amplifier to wireless network topology  that will come in handy when trying to understand articles about wireless devices and networks.It is designed to enable those familiar with networking but not necessarily with radio and wireless technologies to quickly cut through the clutter and understand the meaning of these terms.[ Check out our hands-on wireless-product reviews: 5 top hardware-based Wi-Fi test tools and Mojo wireless intrusion prevention system. ] The entries are arranged in alphabetical order except for this initial entry, radio, which is meant to set the stage for all the rest.To read this article in full, please click here

Network World’s searchable glossary of wireless terms

This is a glossary of terminology frequently used in describing and discussing wireless technology – from amplifier to wireless network topology  that will come in handy when trying to understand articles about wireless devices and networks.It is designed to enable those familiar with networking but not necessarily with radio and wireless technologies to quickly cut through the clutter and understand the meaning of these terms.[ Check out our hands-on wireless-product reviews: 5 top hardware-based Wi-Fi test tools and Mojo wireless intrusion prevention system. ] The entries are arranged in alphabetical order except for this initial entry, radio, which is meant to set the stage for all the rest.To read this article in full, please click here

What is virtualization?

No advance in information technology in the past six decades has offered a greater range of quantifiable benefits than has virtualization. Many IT professionals think of virtualization in terms of virtual machines (VM) and their associated hypervisors and operating-system implementations, but that only skims the surface. An increasingly broad set of virtualization technologies, capabilities, strategies and possibilities are redefining major elements of IT in organizations everywhere.Virtualization definition Examining the definition of virtualization in a broader context, we define virtualization as the art and science of making the function of an object or resource simulated or emulated in software identical to that of the corresponding physically realized object. In other words, we use an abstraction to make software look and behave like hardware, with corresponding benefits in flexibility, cost, scalability, reliability, and often overall capability and performance, and in a broad range of applications. Virtualization, then, makes “real” that which is not, applying the flexibility and convenience of software-based capabilities and services as a transparent substitute for the same realized in hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is virtualization?

No advance in information technology in the past six decades has offered a greater range of quantifiable benefits than has virtualization. Many IT professionals think of virtualization in terms of virtual machines (VM) and their associated hypervisors and operating-system implementations, but that only skims the surface. An increasingly broad set of virtualization technologies, capabilities, strategies and possibilities are redefining major elements of IT in organizations everywhere.Virtualization definition Examining the definition of virtualization in a broader context, we define virtualization as the art and science of making the function of an object or resource simulated or emulated in software identical to that of the corresponding physically realized object. In other words, we use an abstraction to make software look and behave like hardware, with corresponding benefits in flexibility, cost, scalability, reliability, and often overall capability and performance, and in a broad range of applications. Virtualization, then, makes “real” that which is not, applying the flexibility and convenience of software-based capabilities and services as a transparent substitute for the same realized in hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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