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Please explain the statement

"Enterprise wireless gateways may be able to do same functions for wired users as they can for wireless users" .

This was taken from 3rd edition study guide for CWNA.

I am guessing this is referring to the security side?
I know most places would like the wired/wireless to integrate with each other and be invisible to the network - treated the same.

of course, I could be wrong, but definetly one of the two! LOL

An enterprise Wireless Gateway may have RJ45 ports that wired clients can use. A Gateway will have routing functions that a thin AP will not have. There may also be additional services running at layer 3 and up that both the wired and wireless clients can use as the make their way onto the backbone and beyond. A Gateway, either enterprise or SOHO, is not the same as an access point.

An EWG does not have RJ45 jacks for end users. It also does not have a wireless radio.

Think of it as a high powered IPSec VPN/Firewall device.

I know that users would not plug into an infrastructure divice, however a Gateway is often connected to switches and or routers thus allowing the wired and wireless clients to pass traffic. I have seen this in a regional medical center where they were just used as routers/gateways for the bounded clients. ( The new CIO did not want wifi in the hospital but the devices were already in hand. )
In order to keep my last post shorter, I did not state that you also need APs for the wifi side, sorry for the confusion. EWG's are placed between the AP and the bounded network. For a more complete discussion, see the CWSP study guide pages 348-355.

I wasn't having a go at you, Bryan. I just thought that less experienced folks could have been confused.

Ben,

The are devices out there that are listed as EWG had do have radios in them as well as RJ45 for wired client connections.
http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=viewSubCategory&localeCode=EN_USA&cid=94&scid=102

I did not think you were picking on me. Although you can if you like. I enjoy humor. I did not want to seem curt either. I just had to get back to my class. I have seen the EWG with radio cards as pointed out by wbritt. New comers should know that a lot of what goes on in wifi is driven by marketing departments not the standards or IT people, such as Super G.

That link is not to an EWG. A hotspot gateway is an entirely different thing.

You are right that a lot of it is marketing. That said, in terms of answering test questions for the CWNP Program an EWG is a wired appliance that segments the network, offers VPN functionality and has some type of access control (RBAC, stateful firewall or whatever you want to call it).

In terms of reality, EWGs are somewhat dead. They are still out there, but vendors don't sell them for wireless-specific purposes anymore.

Well said