Network upgrades often needed to support BYOD

Companies implementing BYOD strategies often have to consider supplementary network upgrades.

By Max Burkhalter
October 3, 2012
The bring-your-own-device movement creates major challenges for IT departments in almost any business setting. Typically, discussions in this area focus on the security implications of the technological process. However, allowing users to deploy their personal smartphones and tablets also has a major impact on network operations. According to a recent Network Computing report, organizations supporting BYOD have to evaluate how it will impact the network and strategically adjust processes in response.

IP address space
Now I know the whole IP address availability issue has been talked to death over the past few years. The amount of warning given to businesses about preparing for IPv6 has been staggering. At the same time, businesses have been able to extend the lifecycle of IPv4 through various methods.

The time could soon be here when companies can no longer get by with IPv4. The news source explained that when companies add BYOD, one of the greatest changes to the network is in the sheer number of devices accessing corporate infrastructure. When responding to this problem, you have to consider either extending your plans to make the most of available of IPv4 space or accelerate the move to IPv6.

Network design
Another problem that you will likely run into when enabling BYOD has to do with the actual WLAN architecture. The report said companies enabling BYOD have to deal with a significant rise in Wi-Fi use, creating an environment in which businesses must consider strategic upgrades to the network design in order to meet throughput requirements.

Dealing with backhaul
With Wi-Fi bandwidth requirements rising, businesses need to consider how they will provide backhaul for bandwidth-hungry mobile users. While you may be tempted to focus on making sure the WLAN is designed to handle ongoing bandwidth requirements, that is only the end result of the networking plan. If the wireless network is going to handle growing data throughput requirements, it will need the backhaul capacity to support such functionality.

One of the best ways to achieve this is through fiber-optic cabling installation in the backbone infrastructure. This can alleviate many bandwidth concerns, but also depends on configuring the network to support both fiber and copper-based media. Putting fiber to Ethernet media converters into use can alleviate this problem, allowing network engineers to use fiber for backhaul and seamlessly attach it to the internal Ethernet infrastructure that supports wireless bandwidth.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160km.

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