Wednesday, February 6, 2008

TR-069 replacing CAPWAP - A thought

It appears that there are too many standards to manage devices remotely - We have our old friend SNMP, TR-069 and its associated data models from DSLForum, OMA Device Management from open mobile alliance and CAPWAP to manage access point devices from IETF.

I had one thought - Why not manage access points using TR-069.

Certainly CAPWAP is versatile in wireless world- It can provision and control Split-MAC and Local MAC based access points (Wireless Termination Points). If the requirement is only to provision and control LOCAL MAC based access points, then TR-069 can be used effectively by placing TR-069 Server (Auto Configuration Server) in wireless controller and TR-069 agent (client) in WTPs.

Like CAPWAP, TR-069 protocol also defines operations such as enrollment, mutual authentication, image synchronization and configuration update. It also has mechanism of 'Inform'ing central server on state changes (Parameter Value Changes). CAPWAP has additional advantage though i.e securing the traffic between WTPs and Wireless controller. I believe that this additional secuirty can be achieved by running IPsec tunnel between WTPs and Wireless controllers.

I believe that network security appliance/gateway vendors would be adding TR-069 based central mangement in their hub appliances to manage branch office boxes. I believe that wireless controller functionality is going to be included along with security gateways and appliances. Rather than having one more managment middleware, I believe that vendors would prefer to have one management middleware. CAPWAP is primarily focused on provisioning wireless devices. TR-069 is versatile. Hence, I feel that TR-069 has an advatange.

Srini

4 comments:

Tj said...
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Tj said...
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Tj said...
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Tj said...

Thank you so much for many of my doubts regarding the relation between TR-069 and CAPWAP are cleared with your Post(thought).
But the problem the people are facing is that a WLC(controller) of Vendor 'X' is able to manage and control the WAP(access point) of the same vendor 'X'. Which means that they are expecting an 'Interoperable Protocol'.
How can this be addressed with this TR-069?
I am a student with a very little knowledge on these protocols. So requesting a detailed explanation regarding.
Expecting a quick reply.
Thanks in advance,
Tj
(Kokkanti Tejaswini,M.Tech)