IRONPOINT FES
IronPoint-FES Wireless Solution
IronPoint Benefits
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Most Flexible WiFi Architecture
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Leading Standards-based Security
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Enterprise-class Mobility
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Advanced AP Functionality
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Centralized Management (wired & wireless)
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Integrated RF Monitoring & Management
However, with the many different solutions available in today’s
rapid growing WLAN market, the decision of which WLAN
solution is best for your company may be a difficult choice.There
are many questions to be answered.
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Thick,intelligent,or thin access points?
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WLAN switch or no WLAN switch?
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WLAN appliance with 3rd party APs?
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Where should the authentication be?
The Modern Wireless Network
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Where should the encryption be?
Enterprise-class Wireless LANs (WLAN) have arrived and
they’re giving IT managers the ability to provide “anywhere,
anytime” connectivity to their users. Wireless LANs provide
many benefits including:
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Can the solution scale to fill future needs?
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Is the solution upgradeable to future 802.11 standards?
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Mobile computing
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Increased productivity
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Rapid setup and deployment of network connectivity
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Lower long term capital networking costs
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Solves traditional cable plant issues
As enterprise-class wireless technology matures and changes,
the WLAN solution you select today may not scale to meet your
wireless needs of tomorrow.And that can be a serious problem
in today’s cost conscious business models.The answer for many
companies is not easy and there are many benefits and drawbacks
to each approach. Foundry IronPoint wireless solutions provide
the answers by allowing flexible topology configuration with
software upgradeable functionality. IronPoint APs can adapt
to any wireless topology architecture by simply changing their
software modules—from Full-Featured AP to Intelligent AP to
Real-time RF Monitoring Sensor. IronPoint wireless solutions
are fully backed with enterprise-class central provisioning,
management and reporting features.
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The Topology Debate
The rapid growth of WiFi has spawned several different
approaches for adding wireless technology to your existing
enterprise wired networks.There is the age old debate of FullFeatured Thick APs verses Thin or Dumb APs. There are
solutions requiring the implementation of dedicated WLAN
appliances. Some solutions allow the use of any 3rd party AP
offering plug & play capabilities, but little or no management
of the APs. Multiple vendors new to networking have
centralized critical security functions back into the WLAN
switch to create a new piece of networking equipment—the
dedicated WLAN Switch.
For detailed information on Foundry’s IronPoint 200 AP,see the
Foundry IronPoint 200 Data Sheet located on Foundry
Networks’WEB site:
http://www.foundrynet.com/solutions/wireless/index.html
LAN C
Corporate
Network
LAN B
Truth be told, the WLAN topology debate is new and not well
understood by many IT professionals. There are benefits and
drawbacks to each of these topology models and the topology
the customer selects will depend on their company’s current and
future WLAN requirements.
LAN A
The Full-Featured Thick AP
Full-Featured Thick APs provide the following benefits:
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Simple rapid deployment using existing network architecture
Lower cost with no WLAN Switch or dedicated WLAN
Appliance to purchase
Self contained APs with radios,authentication,security,POE,
and management
INM Manager
Figure 1: Harnessing the Power of IP200 APs
With IronView Network Manager
The Thin AP…
Thin APs working with a dedicated WLAN Switch or WLAN
Appliance can provide the following benefits:
Better data encryption scalability
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Better scalability with centralized management
With central management and provisioning,they can scale to meet
large deployment needs
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Centralization of security and radio management
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The traditional drawbacks of Full-FeaturedThick APs have been:
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SoHo-class APs don’t offer the strong radio support and security
required by enterprise customers
Without central management and provisioning,they are good for
small WLAN deployments and remote branch offices with a small
number of employees
Many SoHo and Small to Medium Business (SMB) solutions do
not provide strong centralized management with enterprise-class
reporting capabilities
Foundry recognized the benefits of deploying Full-Featured
access points and the needs they help fulfill.The IronPoint 200
APs are created with strong enterprise-class radio, security, and
management features to overcome the traditional short falls of
Thick APs. Coupled with Foundry’s IronView Network
Manager (INM), customers can deploy wireless LANs ranging
from a just a few APs to thousands of APs—greatly simplifying
deployment,provisioning,management,reporting and lowering
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Sophisticated features such as Layer 3 roaming,user access control
policies,Power-over-Ethernet,and location-based services
Optional security features such as WEB-based authentication,
VPN termination,or VPN Pass-Through
But there are drawbacks to this topology as well. There has
been no standardization of which functions should be performed
by the access point and which should be performed by the
WLAN switch. Lack of standards have created proprietary
approaches in the industry and have led to incompatible
solutions amongst vendors. Depending on where each major
WiFi function is performed,AP or WLAN switch, the benefits
and drawbacks differ between vendor solutions.
WLAN switch and appliance solutions that perform
authentication and encryption functions in the dedicated
WLAN component may not scale as well when more
throughput is required. As additional APs are added to the
central WLAN switch and the demand for more bandwidth
increases, the ability to perform the authentication, encryption,
and policy management may degrade—sacrificing performance
and throughput for strong security.
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Remote
Office
Remotely
Managed APs
WiFi users loose wireless services with
downed WAN link due to centralized
services on WLAN switch
Downed
WAN Link
LAN C
Corporate
Network
LAN B
LAN A
Central WLAN Switch Performing
Critical Services for Remote APs
(eg. authentication, encryption, etc)
Figure 2: Centralization of Critical Services May Cause Downtime
Certain centralized WLAN switch solutions offer the ability to
add Remote Thin APs to allow remote offices to share a
centralized WLAN switch management system. By centralizing
authentication on aWLAN switch or appliance far away from the
Remote Thin AP, higher risks for downtime become a reality.
Any outages to the wide area network or backbone connections
that link the WLAN switch and Remote Thin AP together will
likely cause outages at the remote site for all wireless users—as
authentication and encryption to theWLAN switch or appliance
is no longer possible.
Customers need to fully understand their current and future
wireless LAN and topology requirements before designing and
selecting their wireless LAN vendor.
Foundry’s IronPoint Wireless
Solutions
Foundry Networks’ IronPoint Wireless Solutions are truly
revolutionary and provide all the features that enterprises are
demanding in a leading edge,enterprise-class wireless network.
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Strong Security
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Seamless Mobility
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Enhanced User Policies
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Centralized Management
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RF Monitoring & Management
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Leading Standards-based Solutions
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Seamless Integration With Wired Networks
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Flexible Topology Configuration
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Strong Investment Protection
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Ease-of-Use
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Backed By An Industry Leading Profitable Networking Company
Foundry Networks is the first network solutions provider to
eliminate the confusion of wireless topologies and offer
customers an industry first, “best-in-class” approach for both
Thick and Thin WLAN architectures. By allowing customers
to load different software images onto both the FastIron Edge
Switch and the IP200 AP, the WLAN network can be quickly
re-formulated to suit their needs as requirements change.
All equipment is reusable and adaptable to architectural changes
to gain the benefits of Thick and Intelligent APs where they
are needed.
The Foundry IronPoint-FES
Foundry IronPoint Wireless Solutions are built upon Foundry’s
legacy of performance and “best-of-breed” price/performance
value. With the introduction its latest wireless component,
the IronPoint-FES, Foundry expands the capabilities of its
IronPoint 200 Access Points and moves the enterprise closer to a
truly integrated wired and wireless network. IronPoint-FES is
a software upgrade for Foundry’s award winning and featurerich Layer 2 FastIron Edge Switch (FES) platform.
IronPoint-FES offers all of the wire-speed switching and
security benefits that comes with the FastIron Edge Switch plus
the integral parts of wireless technology. Through port-based
WiFi Enablement, the FES switch seamlessly integrates
Intelligent IronPoint 200 APs into the wired infrastructure.
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Figure 3: Flexible Central Management with Thick and Intelligent Architecture
IronPoint-FES allows the customer to fully customize every
switch port to its fullest capabilities to create a fast and secure
network for both wired and wireless clients.
For detailed information on Foundry’s FES switch, see the
Foundry FES Data Sheet located at Foundry Networks’
WEB site:
http://www.foundrynet.com/products/l23wiringcloset/fastir
on/FIedge.html
Integrated IronPoint Flexibility
Customers control which ports are “WiFi Enabled”. When
switch ports are programmed as a WiFi Enabled ports, the FES
switch automatically turns on the necessary wireless features
needed to fully integrate the IronPoint 200 APs. All other
non-WiFi Enabled ports that are not supporting IronPoint APs
can be used for wired workstation,file server,or uplink support.
Non-WiFi Enabled ports can even provide connectivity for any
other 3rd party thick AP and be fully managed through its WEB
interface with IronView Network Manager’s Element Manager.
Foundry’s IronPoint solution removes the need for dedicated
WLAN switches and appliances through topology flexibility.
Remote offices or small wireless LANs can be deployed with the
centrally managed IP200 APs while larger campus environments
requiring enhanced enterprise-class features can deploy the
IronPoint-FES solution. For enterprises with remote offices
or campus buildings supporting a lower number of users, the
savings of not having to deploy dedicated WLAN switches or
appliances in each location may be substantial.
There is no longer the need to purchase expensive dedicated
WLAN switches or appliances to add wireless capabilities to your
enterprise network. Customers can now take advantage of
Foundry’s class-leading FES switch to perform both wired and
wireless networking and lower initial capital investment and
obtain the industries best Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Best of all, Foundry’s IronPoint-FES capabilities are offered
through a simple software upgrade to both the FastIron Edge
Switch (POE and non-POE) and the IronPoint 200 access
points. For customers who already own FES switches, this is a
great leap forward in lowering of TCO and centralization of
management.The ability to gain the features and benefits of an
integrated WLAN switch architecture without the cost of
dedicated WLAN switches or appliances is truly an “industry
first”with Foundry’s IronPoint-FES wireless solution.
Enterprise-class Network Management
With Foundry’s IronView Network Manager (INM),
management of all wireless and/or wired components is just as
flexible. INM allow customers to completely centralize
management or create distributed departmental management
with tiered management levels and functional privileges.
INM gives customers full control of AP and switch deployment,
provisioning, device management, change management, real
time and historic reporting, RF management, and
troubleshooting functions.
Customers who already own Foundry switches and routers can
now leverage INM’s ability to manage both the wired and
wireless infrastructure—taking control of their entire network
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and managing it as one single entity. By managing both the
wired and wireless network seamlessly,customers can reduce the
costs associated with learning and managing separate dissimilar
networking components and isolate faults and security flaws
much faster.
IronPoint Wireless Solutions managed with IronView Network
Manager offer customers the most flexible centrally managed
wireless architecture in the industry.
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For detailed information on Foundry’s IronView Network
Manager, see the Foundry INM-IP Data Sheet located on
Foundry Networks’WEB site:
http://www.foundrynet.com/solutions/wireless/index.html
Maximizing Performance—Distributed Model
By leveraging the same principles used in high performance
“distributed computing” models, Foundry has created an
extremely scalable wireless LAN architecture. IronPoint-FES
Wireless Solutions use powerful intelligent APs to perform
critical functions to allow the entire network to scale linearly as
each access point is added to the wireless infrastructure.
By not moving all of the critical authentication and security
functions to the backend WLAN switch or appliance, network
performance,scalability,and resiliency are enhanced.Unlike thin
APs,the Foundry IP200 AP is designed with powerful CPUs and
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400
200
0
# of APs
Total AP Mbps
1
4
8
12
16
20
24
44
176
352
528
704
880
1056
Lowest “High-Performance”TCO —Leveraging each AP’s
Maximizes Capital Investment —IronPoint-FES functionality is
achieved through a simple software upgrade to existing POE or
non-POE FastIron Edge Switches.This helps to lower the cost of
each WLAN enabled port and allows all non-AP ports to be fully
utilized by other wired hosts.Apply wireless where your enterprise
needs it without deploying dedicated expensive WLAN switches
or appliances.
1000
600
Built-in Resiliency —With each IronPoint 200 AP performing
authentication and data encryption,not only are performance
bottlenecks removed,but redundancy and network resiliency is
naturally built in.Failure of one intelligent AP will not affect the
remainder of the network.With centralized WLAN solutions
providing authentication and data encryption in a single device,
failure of either the authentication or data encryption modules will
affect all APs and users attached to the device—causing wider outages.
powerful CPU and memory architecture eliminates expensive
WLAN switches or appliances required to perform high-speed
data encryption.IP200 APs perform TKIP and AES encryption
in hardware without the cost of dedicated encryption boards inside
each IronPoint-FES.Single points of failure for data encryption
are removed.
1200
800
Distributing Data Encryption —Centralized data encryption
with a single WLAN device is usually associated with performance
bottlenecks or expensive encryption co-processors.By not centralizing
CPU intensive data encryption protocols such as TKIP/MIC,
AES,or IPSEC into the IronPoint-FES,performance bottlenecks
are removed from the network and linear scaling of encryption
performance is achieved with each new IP200 AP added.
Unparalleled Flexibility —Hybrid design capabilities combining
both Full-Featured IP200 APs and IronPoint-FES Intelligent
APs offer customers the greatest flexibility when designing their
wireless network.With INM,flexible management of the entire
network is made possible – for both wired and wireless Foundry
components.
IT Professionals Now Have a Choice
Figure 4: IP200 Linear Scaling With
Strong Encryption
ample memory allowing it to perform many of the strong
security and throughput demands. By leveraging all CPUs in
both the APs and the FES switch, wire-speed performance is
retained and heavy processing of data encryption is distributed—
just like the modern super computing platforms.
The advantages of Foundry’s distributed IronPoint wireless
technology include:
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Distributed Authentication —By allowing each IronPoint 200
AP to be setup with a primary and secondary authentication
server,satellite offices can authenticate locally or to a remote central
authentication server.This flexibility helps eliminate the service
outages that can be caused by backbone or WAN link outages.
With Foundry’s IronPoint Wireless Solutions, customers now
have the freedom to design and implement their wireless LANs
to fully suite their business requirements.If requirements change,
IronPoint’s flexible adaptive technology allows the wireless
hardware to change—eliminating the unnecessary cost of new
hardware.
Combining leading edge industry-standard wireless technology
with an award winning FES switching architecture gives
customers the “best-of-breed”wireless and wired solutions they
are demanding today. Strong security, seamless mobility,
centralized management, flexible topology, ease-of-use, and
strong investment protection all backed by a mature and
profitable networking company that knows how to integrate
wired and wireless.
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Foundry IronPoint Wireless Solutions. The
Power of Flexibility and Performance!
Networking & Mobility Features
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Layer 3 Mobility
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AP Plug & Play
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Foundry Discovery Protocol
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Managed POE
IronPoint-FES Feature Highlights
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Link Aggregation—802.3ad
IronPoint-FES wireless solutions offer all the benefits and
features of Foundry’s Full-Featured IronPoint 200 AP plus a host
of enterprise-class features required to create advanced highperformance wireless networking environments.
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Virtual Access Point *
Reporting Features
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Real-time AP Reports
Enhanced Security Features
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AP Utilization & Trending Reports
Network with confidence. Start by calling
your Foundry sales representative today to
learn more about Foundry’s leading edge
wireless and wired solutions.
VPN Pass-Through
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User Session Tracking & Reporting
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Authentication Intrusion Detection & Lockout
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Full RF Monitoring & Management
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Automatic Port Disablement
High Availability Features
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AP Authentication
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Redundant Power Supplies—FES
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Management VLAN
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Centralized Configuration Management—INM
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Rogue AP,Ad-Hoc User Detection *
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Automated Backup
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AAA Accounting *
* Available for both Full-Featured IP200 APs and IronPoint-FES wireless solutions
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Enhanced Security Trap & MIB Capabilities
Additional IronPoint Information
For more information on the IronPoint components,please visit the following Foundry WEB sites.
IP200 AP: http://www.foundrynet.com/products/PDFs/IP200_DS_012604.pdf
INM-IP: http://www.foundrynet.com/solutions/wireless/IronView%20Netwk%20MNGR%20IP%20R4.pdf
FastIron Edge Switch: http://www.foundrynet.com/products/l23wiringcloset/fastiron/FIedge.html
Foundry Networks, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
2100 Gold Street
P.O.Box 649100
San Jose,CA 95164-9100
U.S.and Canada Toll-free:
1-888-TURBOLAN (887-2652)
Tel:+1 408.586.1700
Fax:+1 408.586.1900
info@foundrynet.com
www.foundrynetworks.com
Although Foundry has attempted to provide accurate information in these materials, Foundry assumes no legal responsibility for the accuracy or
completeness of the information.More specific information is available on request from Foundry.Please note that Foundry’s product information does
not constitute or contain any guarantee,warranty or legal binding representation,unless expressly identified as such in duly signed writing.
© 2004 Foundry Networks, Inc.All Rights Reserved. Foundry Networks, BigIron, FastIron, NetIron, ServerIron, IronPoint,
Terathon, JetCore, EdgeIron, IronView, JetScope, IronShield, MetroLink, IronWare,TrafficWorks, Power of Performance and the
‘Iron’ family of marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. in the United States and other
countries.All others are trademarks of their respective owners.
DS-025/Rev1/06-04
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