Boost WLAN Sales With Security

An advertisement in a recent women's magazine had the headline "WARNING: You won't just turn heads, you'll break necks." The ad was for a breast enlargement procedure and prominently featured a woman who looked like a regular on the television show "Baywatch." For obvious reasons, the ad got my attention. However, grabbing the attention of your prospective customer is only half the battle.

VARs selling wireless LANs (WLANs) can make all sorts of enticing pitches. Stay connected any time, any place! Become more efficient with real-time inventory visibility! Get more dates with a WLAN! (OK, maybe not the last one.) But most companies already understand the value of a WLAN and are probably as familiar as you are with the hardware's features. Instead, wireless security expertise is what will turn your customers' heads.

Combine Network Security, WLANs
When $10 million Adaptive Communications LLC (Portsmouth, NH) started in 1998, its focus was on virtual private networks (VPNs), a technology that end users were reluctant to deploy because of security concerns (i.e. regarding leveraging the Internet for business). That VPN experience led Adaptive to the security market, ultimately becoming a partner with security vendors Check Point Software Technologies (Redwood City, CA) and Enterasys Networks (Andover, MA). The company then began selling WLANs in 2002 and yielded $400,000 in sales revenue from this technology that year. "The market interest in WLANs ties very nicely into our security practice," states Stephen Thorpe, Adaptive's president. That's because, despite the return WLANs can generate, some companies are still reluctant to deploy them because of security concerns. Adaptive's strength in network security helps seal the deal for WLAN projects.

"We absolutely see WLANs being one of the fastest growing areas of our business in 2003," Thorpe says. "In the first half of the year we completed WLAN proposals for a diverse group of clients, including schools, hospitals, marinas, golf courses, campgrounds, and corporations." Thorpe cited one client that needed to provide network connectivity to a building across a state highway and to a second building that was through some thick woods. Adaptive used Enterasys Networks RoamAbout access points (APs) with yagi antennas to reach the first building and then relayed beyond that to the second building. With this wireless solution, the customer didn't need to acquire any right-of-way or a permit from the state.

Who Is On Your Professional Services Team?
When Adaptive decided to add WLAN technology to its line card, Thorpe didn't rush to hire a WLAN expert. Instead, he relied on the networking - and more importantly - security expertise of the seven engineers on Adaptive's professional services team.

He says he always tries to hire employees with 8 to 12 years of networking experience with end user organizations. Although he usually pays more for these types of employees, he insists the payback in credibility he receives is worth his investment. "Our professional services staff comes from companies such as Nortel Networks, Cabletron, and Dun and Bradstreet," he explains. "In many cases, our team members have had the same titles [i.e. IT directors] as our clients."

Promote Annual Network Security Reviews
Wireless APs form the foundation of a WLAN but are also the technology's biggest security risk. On average, these devices can transmit 300 feet, are relatively inexpensive, and are simple to plug in - all factors that give an IT director a headache. Rogue APs with misconfigured or no security encryption/configuration are commonplace and provide a gateway to network intrusion.

At Adaptive, WLAN security begins with network design and site survey services. After these phases of a project are completed, the company provides installation, optimization (e.g. correct signal, throughput), and "ethical hacking" services. The latter, designed to identify network vulnerabilities, has been used by at least a dozen of Adaptive's clients.

To help with these services, the company recently purchased Yellowjacket handheld wireless network analyzers from Berkeley Varitronics (Metuchen, NJ) (see photo at left). These units provide detailed site survey information such as network signal strength. "Organizations are starting to understand and accept the fact that network security is truly an ongoing process, not just a series of products to be installed and walked away from," asserts Thorpe. "The frequency of network reviews can range from quarterly to annually, with major audits conducted every one to three years."

Standards Fuel WLAN Market Growth
Thorpe says he tries to choose WLAN products that support the 802.1x security standard because it is important to be able to take advantage of security features like EAP (extensible authentication protocol) and support for rapid rekeying. (A key is a variable value used to encrypt text. Rekeying is the process of constantly changing a key's value to avoid unwanted decryption.)

Wai Sing Lee, an analyst with New York-based research firm Frost and Sullivan, says the most promising wireless security standards to watch are WPA (Wi-Fi protected access) and 802.11i (go to www.ieee.org for detailed information on these standards). He says WPA is usually fine for most companies, but government agencies or those with heightened security needs will probably require products certified with the proposed 802.11i standard. He also expects more use of the temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) for improving wireless data encryption.

Adaptive's overall security practice, which includes LAN hardware such as intrusion detection devices/software, firewalls, and VPNs, raked in $2 million in 2002 and is expected to pass that mark this year with the company's extra focus on WLANs. "If you asked me a year ago what effect the economy was having on Adaptive, I would have said we were managing to stay profitable, but it felt like for every step forward, we'd take a step back," Thorpe says. "Today, with more revenue coming from WLAN and security sales, it feels like we're taking two steps forward for every step back."

Indeed, the current status of the WLAN market should help the company's growth in this area. According to research firm The Dell'Oro Group (Redwood City, CA), worldwide wireless networking equipment unit shipments for the first quarter of 2003 rose 6% to $4.8 million as compared to the fourth quarter of 2002. More good news came in June of this year when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) approved the 802.11g specification as a standard, which should encourage more production of WLAN devices with 54 Mbps (megabits per second) speeds in the 2.4 GHz band. The IEEE is also currently investigating the next standard, 802.11n, which may have a throughput of at least 100 Mbps. If VARs can combine speeds like that with ironclad security, customers will find it hard not to gawk at WLAN solutions.