2010......Year Of The "Fi"

Although it has been a relatively rough year for IT professionals, improvements in the field of networking technology show a promising new year for wired networks in general and wireless networks in particlular. For some strange reason, I detected a lull in chatter about wifi. This may have been due to the fractured economy resulting in enterprise networks backing away from spending. There have been many posts predicting the IT environment for the big one-zero. I tend to take these predictions with a grain of salt based on past accuracy. I vividly recall the following:



Fiber Optics to bring thousands of jobs to Gotham. Still waiting.


ATM networks boosting IT hiring. Where?


"We feel that Vista will be the last major release of an OS........we'll see more incremental udates coming along". Sort of.


Truth is, there have been little "on the money" predictions in years. I have noticed that 90% of these predictions focused mainly on the big fish. It's like the NCAA and the NBA, no one pays attention to Gonzaga basketball, West Virginia appears to be from another country. In the NBA, who cares about the Bucks, New orleans or Oklahoma. Everyone focuses on the big fish. The world of networking is no different, big name, big budget, big focus. I am happy to see this is changing. What a welcomed change! Monopolies often lead to tyranny. A sense of entitlement fostered by well crafted advertisement blitzes, buy outs and flexing of intellectual muscle. I think of the New York Yankees, very soon they would have to compete against themselves if they continue buying up all the competition. Look at American basketball, so dominant, so fearsome that it fell asleep. Giants should not sleep.


Today in IT the little guys are shaking things up, bringing a breath of fresh air to a long stagnated, captured industry. Today we have the Dirk Nowitski's of networking. Companies like Aerohive, Ruckus, Meru, Arubanetworks, non conventional, but boy they got game. It takes a lot of gonads to break away from the norm, from what is expected and accepted. Going against the grain, if you will. Dirk does it! play him like a typical 7 footer and he will hang some 3's on ya! These companies have captured my attention with vision, creativity and simplification.When I first read about a controller-less WLAN my first reaction was, "what the hell?" Then I started investigating this "blasphemy". Low and behold it proved to be logically sound, seriously tested and validated.


Holy smokes! This is gonna shake up some folks, I pondered. What are these guys doing? Airtime fairness, cooperative control, mobile routing protocols, an access point that almost lives? Truth is, the more you read and understand, the more valid these concepts are. Allow me some artisitic wiggle room but I am all for it. These companies have brought a revolution to WLANs. I particularly love their battle cry, SIMPLI-FI. I think it is long overdue, not only for the money saving positives offered to businesses large and small, but also for the user friendliness that will prove valuable to IT staff. Honestly I don't want to be a genius with sophisticated configurations and a target when something goes wrong. If I can simply get things working, let's rock.


Education is going through puberty, the time when authority is questioned. Yes there will be mistakes along the way but the result may be wonderful. Twitter has uncovered a truth long ignored but silently accepted truth. We are in a time of brevity, give me the facts. If it can be said in 140 characters, hold the excess. Likewise with WLANs. If it can be fully robust, manageable, cheap, and gets the job done, "twitterize" it. From a learning point of view,, it opens the door to creativity. I have already found myself questioning some of the IEEE recommendations. Not that they are incorrect, but I have been bitten by the "simplifi-bug". I believe it is healthy for technological progress to afford us the right to present an alternative to the status quo. being an instructor for far too long, I can't wait to run a class where the theme is "simpli-fi".