Businesses have much to gain by embracing the bring-your-own device (BYOD) trend. While most organisations are already moving in this direction, many have yet to fully understand and address the multitude of effects that BYOD has on enterprise WLAN performance, security and compliance. Fluke Networks shares four network BYOD impacts every organisation should be aware of when monitoring the corporate network.

IT initiatives to tackle BYOD challenges often focus on mobile device and data management. Those measures can be critical for successful BYOD adoption. For example, using a mobile device manager to provision secure WLAN settings and remove them after device loss, theft, or retirement. However, these do not fully address the many ways in which BYOD affects corporate networks.

Chris Taylor, regional sales director – Asia Pacific – HATA Region, says “Today’s BYOD challenge is to find effective methods and tools to discover smart devices used in the workplace, assess their impact on the corporate network, reduce unwanted side-effects and facilitate trouble-free business-appropriate use.”

Four network BYOD impacts every organisation should be aware of

1. Unplanned devices compete for scarce airtime and drain WLAN capacity. Network planners have traditionally designed for the capacity required by corporate assets such as the number of IT-procured laptops. However, the number of smart devices carried by each individual continues to grow, surging in unpredictable ways. When employees return to work after a holiday with new BYO smartphones and tablets, capacity planning assumptions can be quickly blown out. Not only does competition for shared channels grow, but Wi-Fi chipsets in consumer electronics differ.

2. BYODs behave in unexpected ways, degrading overall performance. When IT departments select a smart device, network planners can first verify interoperability and isolate constraints like unsupported Wi-Fi data rates or modes that cause some clients to use more airtime. However, IT has little control over BYOD selection. Most BYODs are less robust consumer-grade devices. For example, although iPads support 5GHz, they aggressively prefer 2.4GHz, which can lead to unexpected starvation of Wi-Fi phones and other single-band devices sharing limited 2.4GHz channels. Android tablet and smartphone Wi-Fi behaviours are even more varied.

3. BYODs may operate insecurely, jeopardising corporate assets. Today, virtually all Wi-Fi-certified smart devices, including BYODs, are capable of supporting WPA2-Enterprise security. However, corporate WLANs secured with WPA2-Enterprise are sometimes off-limits to unapproved BYODs that aren’t enrolled in directories or issued certificates for 802.1X authentication. These unapproved BYODs may then resort to using open guest WLANs where they expose traffic to eavesdropping and various man-in-the-middle attacks. When IT does not monitor BYOD activity, such exposures go undetected.

4. Even approved BYODs can be difficult or costly to troubleshoot. Consumer-grade smart devices often lack remote diagnostic interfaces and tools for help desks to investigate and resolve problems. For example, remote control agents supported on laptops and Windows phones are unavailable for iPhones and iPads due to Apple iOS restrictions. While some Android original equipment manufacturers (OEM) offer proprietary extensions for logging and diagnostics, the vast majority of Android BYODs support very limited administrative application programming interfaces (API) that don’t help IT troubleshoot remotely. As a result, malfunctioning BYODs often remain a mystery, sapping WLAN performance indefinitely. Further, BYODs have grown so numerous that IT departments may not have sufficient staff to troubleshoot them.

Chris says, “Ignoring the BYOD impact on corporate networks can degrade business efficiency and increase operating costs. Until organisations acknowledge and address these challenges, they can’t harness the business benefits such as using BYOD to reduce monthly telecom spend and liability for personal use of corporate phones.”