Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Wireless Terminology


These are some of the wireless terminologies used in the industry.

Terminology

Description and common usage

Area of usage

802.11a

ü An IEEE standard for wireless area network which operate in the 5 GHz. Wireless product must support 6,12, and 24 Mpbs data rate as well as this can go up to 54 Mbps.

ü This is used in 802.11a wireless networking

802.11b

ü An IEEE standard support 11 Mbps of data rate and operating range between 2.4 GHz – 2.4835 GHz. This uses CSMA/CD for path sharing. These wireless devices suffer interference with other devices like, microwaves, codeless phones, etc which operate in same frequency.

ü This is used in 802.11b wireless networking

802.11g

ü These devices operate range between 2.4 GHz – 2.4835 GHz and support data rate of 54 Mbps in most of the devices. These devices are backward compatible with 802.11b devices. These standard support better security such as WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), WPA2 with pre shared key or RADIUS server.

ü This is used in 802.11g wireless networking, Routers, laptops,

802.11n

ü Latest IEEE standard which support bandwidth upto 600 Mbps. This standard support 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band and backward compatible with 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards.

ü This is used in 802.11n wireless networking, routers, laptops, PDAs and 802.11g and 802.11b devices which are compatible with 802.11n.

dBi

ü Decibel is the unit which measures the gain of wireless antenna.

ü Used in every standard due to its usage to measure the signal strength.

Antenna

ü Antennas are used to transmit and receive wireless signals from wireless bridge. Antennas are connected to bridge and bridge is connected to local area network.

ü Used in all standard.

Fresnel Zone

ü The area around the line of sight of WLANs which used to transmit signals between WLAN devices. This are should be free with disturbance for strong signals

ü Used in all the standards.

RADIUS

ü Remote Authentication Dial In User Service an authentication and accounting which used to authenticate dial in users usernames and passwords. This service is used by ISP (Internet Service Providers)

ü Used in all the standards when needed to authenticate.

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)

ü This is a security layer which used by wireless network. WEP used shared key by source and destination devices to encrypt and decrypt communication.

ü PDAs, Wi-Fi areas, hotspots, WLAN, WPAN,

SSID (Service Ser IDentifier)

ü This is the public name which identifies the wireless network from other networks.

ü WLAN, WPAN, WMAN, etc.

PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association)

ü External peripheral device which is comes in size of a credit card. This can be fixed to laptops to get wireless connection.

ü Laptops, PCs

Access Point (A/P)

ü Help users to connect to WLAN or wired network. Mobile users are automatically shifted to next AP while they are on the move.

ü WLAN, WPAN, WMAN, etc.

WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access)

ü Security mechanism better than WEP which provide better security.

ü WLAN, WLAN, WPAN, PDAs,

WLAN (Wireless Local Area Connection)

ü High frequency radio waves or infrared can be used for communication between nodes. In this Local Area Network used wireless transmission for communication.

ü

WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network)

ü Similar to WAN except the implementation of wireless technology for communication. These enable users to interact with corporate email, applications and information as they do in the wired environment.

ü

WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network)

ü With help of IrDA and Bluetooth we can communicate in a short distance such as 10m. This enabled personal area network which equipped with personal devices like, PDA, laptop and wireless printers, etc.

ü

WMAN (Wireless Metropolitan Area)

ü Wireless communication network which covers a metropolitan area which use multiple WLAN in the range of 50km.

ü

War Driving

ü This is a process of travelling around buildings to find out available wireless access points to gain access to networks and internet. Hackers use war driving to gain unauthorized access to corporate networks.

ü This can be used in any wireless network.

RFID Implementation.


RFID (Radio Frequency Identifier) is an interesting and booming technology in tracking, monitoring and administration in many industries. These RFID devices automatically transmit radio frequency which has a unique serial number for identification that particular devices uniquely. RFDI technology uses few main components in their architecture to provide complete and comprehensive system. Main components are RFID tag, Tag readers, RFID antennas, RFID controllers, RFID premises servers, and RFID integration servers.

RDIF architecture is shown in below diagram for better comprehension.

Implementation of RFID projects needs to be thoroughly planned and organized due to its nature of complexity, cost and needed expertise knowledge. First of all network administrator should have clearly identify the use case of RFID project. Planning, designing, and implementation of RFID project is based on the use case. Hence, meeting all the requirements of users is a great achievement but very difficult task for the implementer due to compatibility of hardware/software, environmental, budget, and organizational structural issues. When implementing RFID project minimum of below points needs to be adequately addressed.

Project objectives must be clearly defined and understood by the RFID team before hand doing anything. To understand clear objectives you need to identify why the organization is required to have RFID implementation, to serve what purpose. Whether it is trying to comply with some regulations or trying to improve productivity, efficiency or cost reduction in long run for their production environment or warehouse. This identification of reasons and setting objectives based on the facts you collected will help having smooth implementation process.

There should be a proper site survey to analyze the current infrastructure to identify places needs implementation of RFID. Selection of RFID product such as RFID tags, RFID readers, RFID antennas, etc need to be determined by the project team to suit the project budget. This is an area where there are lot of questions been rose. Your budget may not be enough to purchase required hardware devices such as RFID tags, RFID readers, etc with expected quality thus, this may leads to improper operation of devices when integrating, mismatch of your requirement or low quality of service. It is important to point out the disadvantages of having a fixed budget which cannot facilitate the organizational main purpose, thus get your budget approved for correct devices or else proceed with compromised budget, which is not recommended. On the other hand make sure your devices that are going to be purchased are well tested and have met quality and compliance standards in industry. There may be other RFID systems already in place in the organization or different system using radio frequency, in these conditions proper investigation should be carried out to identify the interferences that these existing systems may have on the RFID project you are going to implement.

Next step is to align your project to the organizational processes. Your organization’s business in the main concern, and this RFID implementation should benefit to the organization as a whole and improve the processes without adding burden. Due to new RFID implementation there may be a need to process/procedure realignments, adding new process/procedures, removing redundant processes/procedures, etc, which have to be well analyzed and adjusted to suit the business needs and implementation of RFID project.

Software configuration and integration of RFID devices play an important part in the RFID project. All the devices need to place in appropriate places as decided during the planning stage and configure software to connect all RFID devices and meet organization expectations. It is acceptable to start with the default configurations for general purposes applications. But fine tuning to get maximum accuracy and high performance needs well trained professional knowledge.

When all the things are in place monitor how interdependent components behave in the system. For instance all processes, equipments, software, and human aspect of the entire system needs to operate in collaboration to produce better result. Monitor all aspects to identify places where it needs adjustments to smooth the operation of RFID system to improve performance and efficiency.

One main aspect needs to address above all stages is education, awareness and training for users and manage the positive/negative resistance of users. People might have a misunderstanding of that implementation of RFID system will eliminate the human resources in the process which may results in loss of employment. If this situation cannot be managed diplomatically, this might result in a project failure with large amount of financial, and human resources wastage.

Applying RFID in real time or in line process just to serve the purpose of customer compliance is not going to give you a cost effective solution. But if the customer compliance is going to make huge difference in the market place than when it is not compliance, then the implementation is definitely going to give financial advantage. If the customer compliance is not going to add ad impact to your market place, then these are going to add some additional cost to the production due to its implementation of RFID tags. Thus, if the organization can find another a place where they can improve a production process, streamline warehouse operation, or improve logistic services, etc with the implementation of RFID system along with complying customer requirement, then the organization is reaping the true benefit of implementing RFID system.