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I am trying to understand the basic difference between these two approaches. I have been told that the switches comes from a layer 2 going upward while the EWG comes from top to bottom approach.

Can someone explain to me the difference in approach? To my understanding is, wireless switches brings the intelligence of the APs into the switch instead of having intelligent AP distributed in the network. How about the EWG?

Enterprise Wireless Gateways use FAT Access Points
and a controller which controls all the FAT AP's.
EWG's have a Firewall,AAA Module ,VPN Server ,controller,funtionality.EWG is all in a BOX solution.

I beleive that in Fat AP's all the changes in the
attributes like(WEP,WPA,SSID) are all made in the
controller and the configuration files are uploaded to FAT AP's by a single click from the controller[EWG].

The advantage of having FAT APS is that it can cater to more number of Users.

how about switches?

with thin AP, all the AP functionality are within the switch? the thin AP is merely a dumb device and really just a physical device connecting the switch to the clients?

Lots of misinformation here.

EWGs are just expensive, high powered VPN concentrators. Really, they are an outdated product because wireless security is best set up at the MAC layer if you can use 802.11i.

WLAN switches come in many varieties. Some are essentially management software in a fancy appliance. Some are devices that do virtually all of the traditional processing functions of an access point. Many WLAN switches use "fat" access points and just manage them.

Hi CGO,
"To my understanding is, wireless switches brings the intelligence of the APs into the switch instead of having intelligent AP distributed in the network" Sounds like you got it right!!! As in a wireless deploiment, the AP's add up the $$. Using thin AP's saves $$. Using the switchs to config more than one AP at a time (Roving Plant can do 10 at a time now). But alot of people would like to have the APs to be alittle more smarter!
EWG, are wireless Firewalls. They do have alot more in them! They are set to have the traffic coming in/in. Meaning, the traffic you want to block is coming in, but your clients are also coming in. But they are packed with everything that the Edge would have. But, I wouldn't want to have a Pix, vpn300, Radius, ect.. for the wireless side to!! This way, you will have then, but you don't need that much. And the ports are not slow like on a wired gateway (T1, DS3, to slow for wireless!). I could not find anything about controlling APs!! BlueSocket has a EWG, Bluesecure line..

Phil

Yes, you can do this with something else.