Cisco Cisco 4402 Wireless LAN Controller White Paper

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•  Mitigating security risk was another major catalyst for migrating to a centrally managed, 

wireless architecture. By allowing the system to detect and shut down rogue access points, 
organizations can proactively find and eliminate potential security or ad hoc interferences; 
which is critical in many organizations especially where compliance with data security 
standards is concerned. It also simplifies any investigation effort and reduces the costs 
associated with periodic site survey audits. 

 

From the information provided in the in-depth interviews, Forrester has constructed a TEI 
framework for those organizations considering implementation of a Cisco Unified Wireless Network. 
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that impact 
the investment decision.  

Based on the interviews with the four existing customers provided by Cisco, Forrester constructed a 
TEI framework, a composite company, and an associated ROI analysis that illustrates the areas 
impacted financially:  

•  The composite organization that Forrester synthesized from these results represents a US-

based organization with 5,000 employees.  

•  Prior to migration, the total number of access points reached 750 distributed across four 

campuses: 500 access points in headquarters, and 100, 100, and 50 in each of three 
regional campuses. The organization expects to use WLAN-based voice and location 
services in the future. 

•  Two years ago, the organization’s IT staff migrated its WLAN deployment from autonomous 

wireless solutions to a centrally managed, wireless architecture. By centrally managing the 
implementation, the organization gained operational efficiency within IT and its business 
units. To complete the migration, the organization used the free software to upgrade its 
existing 700 802.11a/b/g standalone access points to operate as 802.11a/b/g lightweight 
access points. The remaining 50 Aironet access points that could not be migrated using the 
free software upgrade were traded in for new Aironet 802.11 a/b/g lightweight access 
points.  

Table 2 lists the discount rate used in the PV and NPV calculations and time horizon used for the 
financial modeling.  

Discount rate 

10% 

Length of analysis  

Three years 

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.