There’s an interesting article in Computerworld today about the need for more integrated management of wired and wireless networks.

There often seems to be an assumption that integration is the responsibility of the hardware vendor — and often hardware vendors seem to believe that offering a wireless controller on a blade in a switch constitutes “integration.” That’s consolidation, not integration.

Truly integrated management must involve existing network management frameworks — integrating wireless data and location information with existing service desk, asset management, event correlation, and other applications. This means that the major network management software providers need to make their applications increasingly ‘wireless aware’ through integration with wireless systems. This simply is not happening today.

Only when these NMS providers step up their level of activity will we truly achieve wired-wireless integration.