Aruba's 10000th 802.11n AP

Aruba Networks announced that its shipments of 802.11n enabled access points have passed a milestone 10,000 units. Aruba announced its dual-radio AP-124 and AP-125 802.11n Access Point family in November 2007, and volume shipments commenced in February 2008. The company's AP-124ABG and AP-125ABG field-upgradable access points were announced last month. Based on 2nd generation RF chips, the access points can be powered from a single 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet source and feature 3x3 MIMO operation and ultra-compact packaging.

"The second half of 2007 saw the first shipments of coordinated enterprise-class '802.11n Draft 2.0 Wi-Fi Certified' access points," said Gartner Senior Research Analyst Christian Canales, author of Gartner Dataquest's 2008 Market Share: Enterprise Wireless LAN Equipment, Worldwide, 4Q07 and 2007 report. "Worldwide revenue from sales of WLAN enterprise equipment increased more than 10% from 2006 to 2007, and coordinated access points accounted for 48% of the overall enterprise access point shipments in the last quarter of 2007, versus just 39% in the last quarter of 2006."

The California State University system, recipient of the 10,000th 802.11n access point, selected Aruba's wireless networks for use across its 23 campuses in September 2007. With nearly 450,000 students and 46,000 faculty and staff members, the California State University system is the largest in the country. Aruba was selected after it passed a stringent functional test, and demonstrated the lowest total cost of ownership for the specific criteria used in the evaluation.

Aruba's implementation of 802.11n offers substantive ease-of-use, performance, and interoperability advantages over competing solutions. Aruba's Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) technology automates wireless LAN set-up and maintenance, and adapts the network in real-time to accommodate user behavior, interference, and nearby networks. ARM features include:

• Airtime fairness to ensure that slower 802.11b/g clients have minimal impact on high speed 802.11n clients in lecture halls, trading floors, convention centers, and logistics facilities with densely deployed clients
• Co-channel interference management for the highest possible throughput in the presence of nearby access points and RF transmitters;
• Intelligent client steering to provide high speed clients with access to the greatest available bandwidth by associating them with the best band, channel and access point.

Interoperability tests published in March validated the efficacy of ARM - laptops containing wireless radio chip sets from Atheros, Broadcom, and Intel delivered the highest throughput with Aruba's 802.11n solution compared with three competing wireless LANs.

"Ease of use, high performance, and interoperability are the hallmarks of Aruba's 802.11n solution, and the fast uptake of our 802.11n access points reflects the importance of these features to customers," said Keerti Melkote, Aruba's co-founder and head of products and partnerships. "Not content to sit on our laurels, we continue to drive innovation into the 802.11n market. A case in point is our new line of economical 802.11a/b/g access points that can be upgraded via software download to 802.11n Draft2.0."

Source Aruba Networks

Aerohive launches new 802.11n AP's

Aerohive Networks announced a portfolio of 802.11n HiveAPs. This includes the attractively designed dual-radio HiveAP 320 for indoor use, the metal-chassis dual-radio HiveAP 340 for indoor-industrial use, and the waterproof three-radio HiveAP 380 for outdoor use. Each product has two Gigabit Ethernet ports that provide power-over-Ethernet (PoE) using Aerohive's patent-pending Smart PoE technology. Aerohive's cooperative control architecture eliminates the need for costly centralized network controllers, enabling Aerohive to provide a resilient 802.11n solution for the cost of most vendors' 802.11g solutions. More information about the new products and the company's cooperative control wireless LAN architecture is available at www.aerohive.com.

Cooperative Control Unlocks the Power of 802.11n

Aerohive's controller-less wireless LAN architecture is ideal for 802.11n networks, because it eliminates the need to deploy the expensive, high-capacity controllers that are required to handle the increased throughput of 802.11n. Removing controllers from the network also eliminates the bandwidth bottlenecks, latency, and jitter that result from backhauling traffic through a controller. Resiliency is also increased when the single points of failure found in controller-based architectures are eliminated. The result is a scalable wireless LAN that can support high-performance, mission-critical applications.

"The wireless LAN in our Emergency Room environment runs mission-critical applications," said John Gaede, director, information systems, El Centro Regional Medical Center. "We evaluated three other leading WLAN vendors and chose Aerohive for our .11n deployment because of the Aerohive architecture's benefits of scale, resiliency, and ease-of-use. Of all the systems we evaluated, Aerohive also had the best performance, the least packet loss, and the best coverage. Cooperative control is the wireless LAN architecture of the future."

"The problems generally associated with centralized network controllers - cost, capacity, performance, and availability - are exacerbated in an 802.11n environment," said David Flynn, chief executive officer, Aerohive. "By contrast, the benefits of our unique, controller-less architecture become even more apparent in 802.11n deployments. Every organization interested in 802.11n needs to reconsider their WLAN architecture, and when they do, they will see the compelling advantages of Aerohive's cooperative control architecture."

Cooperative Control, Smart PoE Technology Accelerates Migration to 802.11n
The Aerohive cooperative control architecture makes it easy for enterprises to upgrade their wireless access points to 802.11n on an as-needed basis. Aerohive 802.11n HiveAPs may be seamlessly deployed along with 802.11a/b/g HiveAPs. Aerohive also enables easy migration to 802.11n from autonomous or "fat" access points. If 802.11n HiveAPs are deployed on the same subnet or VLAN as an enterprise's fat access points, network users can even roam between the HiveAPs and their old fat access points, which is often not possible with controller-based 802.11n deployments.

The new HiveAPs also facilitate the transition to 802.11n by providing flexible support for legacy network switches. Aerohive's Smart PoE technology automatically detects the level of Power over Ethernet (PoE) being delivered by the connected switches. Most legacy switches can provide a HiveAP with full power via a single 802.3af PoE connection. If required, HiveAP services can be automatically reduced to fit within the delivered power envelope.

When the HiveAP's dual gigabit Ethernet ports are connected to two PoE ports, the HiveAP is always fully powered. If the HiveAP is connected to two separate switches, it can optionally support dual homing for increased resiliency. If the HiveAP is connected to two ports on the same switch, the HiveAP provides Ethernet link aggregation for increased bandwidth if the switch supports link aggregation. A single PoE+ or 802.3at connection will also fully power a HiveAP. When two PoE+ connections are available, the HiveAP will also support redundant power and data resiliency.

Resilient 802.11n for the Price of Other Vendors' 802.11g

Aerohive's resilient 802.11n wireless LAN solutions cost approximately the same as competitors' 802.11a/b/g resilient solutions. The Aerohive cooperative control architecture, with its inherent resiliency, eliminates the need for costly network controllers and backup controllers. In addition, critical features, such as wireless mesh capability, security, and QoS, which are commonly separately licensed, are included in HiveAPs at no additional charge. Aerohive's 802.11n HiveAPs are priced approximately the same as competitors' 802.11n access points. As a result, solutions that require network controllers will nearly always be more expensive, often 200%-300% more expensive, than an Aerohive controller-less solution.

Pricing and Availability

The HiveAP 320 indoor access point has a U.S. list price of $1299 and will be available in July. The HiveAP 340 indoor-industrial access point has a U.S. list price of $1499 and will also be available in July. The HiveAP 380 outdoor access point has a U.S. list price of $2999 and will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Meru launched a new 802.11n AP

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr. 21, 2008 – Meru Networks has introduced the AP440, a four-radio IEEE 802.11n wireless access point that provides the data rates and functionality to let enterprises replace aging wired infrastructures with wireless networks without compromising access speed, throughput capacity, security or resiliency.

The AP440 has four radios that can each support the full draft IEEE 802.11n standard, in either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz band. Meru's "channel blanket" architecture means that all four can be in use at once, though likely set-ups will probably use one radio for monitoring, intrusion detection, and protection from rogue access points.

Each of the AP440's four IEEE 802.11n radios supports access at up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps), for 1.2 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) capacity. Because the four radios work together to provide internal redundancy, load-balancing and security, enterprise users can dramatically reduce the number of access points and additional security sensors they need, realizing significant savings on cabling, connection and deployment/installation costs.

"By 2010, we predict that 79 percent of new connections will be wireless," said Rachna Ahlawat, Meru's vice president of marketing. "Security is no longer the number one concern - it is now reliability, followed by capacity, scalability, security and price."

Although the access point will be announced at next week's Interop conference in Las Vegas, it won't be available until the third quarter of this year. This could be useful in that it may allow electrical power to catch up with it. The current standard for power over Ethernet, IEEE 802.3af, will not deliver enough electrical power to run four Wi-Fi radios, but the next specification, 802.3at, should start to be available in products by then, said Vaduvur Bharghavan, Meru Networks chief technology officer.

The four radios should operate omni-directionally and without interfering with each other, said Bharghavan. With four channels, it will be easier to avoid unexpected interference, such as that from microwave ovens, said Bharghavan. "The best thing is to have a parallel channel available in the same band," he explained, saying traffic can move across right away, whereas in a channel-planning WLAN, such as those of Aruba, Trapeze and Cisco, moving an AP from one channel to another would mean dropping all the clients, and then changing the channel - and then changing channels on neighbouring APs. "If clients need to change channels, we are optimised to do that. It's not been done before."

The access point also includes a USB port, so the user can plug in a Wi-Fi monitoring device, on a few access points, such as the Metageek Wi-Spy spectrum analyzer, which improves on plain Wi-Fi monitoring by spotting other sources of interference such as microwave ovens and Bluetooth. "We have software on the AP that interfaces and pulls spectrum analysis off the Wi-Spy" said Bhargavan. "As spectrum analyzers get more sophisticated, it won't require a hardware upgrade to the AP - you can just plug in a different analyzer."

Meru is also announcing a virtual-reality visualisation tool which can display three-dimensional "heat-maps" of Wi-Fi coverage in a building. It relates access points on different floors, so should give a better indication of coverage, and allows the network manager to move through the building checking on likely coverage from his or her desk. This is an additional extra to Meru's existing management software, and costs $9,995.

The AP440 Access Point is priced at $2,995 and the MC5000 4-Gbps Acceleration Module at $15,000 (U.S. list). Both products will be available in the third quarter of 2008.

More: Meru

Trapeze launches RingMaster-200

Wi-Fi network maker Trapeze Networks has launched a pre-configured appliance that can manage up to 5000 wireless access points or 1000 wireless switches - and won a giant contract for 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The RingMaster-200 is a hardware version of Trapeze's RingMaster network management software, and is pre-tuned to manage wireless LANs. “Today, it’s common for enterprise Wi-Fi networks to include thousands of access points cover hundreds of acres and span multiple sites," said Ahmet Tuncay, Trapeze's marketing vice president.

Before this product, Trapeze's largest hardware device managed around 200 access points, while rival Aruba was ahead with its MMC-6000 which can manage 2048 APs. Both companies use software to manage larger installations, which has normally run on general purpose servers. Aruba's recently purchased AirWave management platform uses software to go up to 50,000 APs. Trapeze's appliance will make the process of design and management simpler, says Trapeze, saving hundreds of IT hours.

Ringmaster was central to Trapeze's recent success in winning what it calls "the world’s largest deployment" of the new 802.11n standard, a $15 million, five-year upgrade to the wireless LANs at the University of Minnesota. The upgrade will include $3 million on access points alone, swapping out existing APs from D-Link, Cisco and other vendors for around 9,500 of Trapeze's 802.11n access points. Ringmaster "…allowed us to quickly import our own CAD drawings and immediately begin Wi-Fi planning for 300 buildings, including 1,300-plus floors," according to Steve Cawley, the university’s vice president of IT.

RingMaster has been a big part of Trapeze's WLAN strategy from the beginning, for dealing with Wi-Fi propagation issues, and managing the lifecycle of WLANs. The appliance can make a "virtual" site survey based on architectural drawings, and configure access points for specific locations before they are installed.

The appliance is based on a Linux OS, and has two redundant 250GB hard drives to gather monitoring and performance data. The basic unit costs $19,000 (£9,515) including a licence to support 250 APs, which can be extended in steps of ten to 1000, up to 5000, if users buy software keys.

Trapeze's claims - like most claims in the ever-competitive Wi-Fi world - have already been disputed. Aruba told us that it already has an appliance that manages 5000 APs, called the MM-200. We have been unable to find this product on Aruba's site, however.
See more here

Motorola launches 802.11n AP and switch

Motorola has announced a new wireless LAN switch and a new Wi-Fi access point, both designed to support the faster 802.11n draft specification.

The access point, called the AP-7131, is the first on the market with three radios built in, and will sell for $1,199 (£600). The new RFS6000 switch can support up to 48 Ethernet ports to connect to access points. The eight-port version starts at US$2,900 (£1,400), Motorola officials said. Both devices will ship next month.

Motorola joins a growing group of companies supporting the 802.11n specification, which is still in draft form. But it's far enough along for Siemens Networks, Cisco Systems, Trapeze Networks, Aruba, and others to ship devices.

Customers can feel secure that while the final specification for 802.11n might result in a software change, the hardware will not be changed and will not need to be replaced, said Sujai Hajela, general manager of the enterprise wireless LAN unit at Motorola.

Some customers have found that some access points using 802.11n require more power than that provided in the current Power over Ethernet standard (known as 802.3af) and Motorola confirmed that all three radios will not work with that much power output.

However, an emerging 802.3at standard provides for the power needed for all three radios. To reach a receiver at 75 to 100 feet from the access point, power will support only one radio, said Manish Rai, director of product marketing for enterprise wireless LAN.

However, Rai noted that Motorola's 802.11n products offer much faster speeds – as much as four times faster – compared to those provided by 802.11a/b/g radios. And 802.11n works over longer distances.

The new AP and other Motorola wireless point-to-point technologies is being used by one Californian school to connect four school campuses, while two IT managers who have been using Motorola 802.11a/b/g in retail environments said they will evaluate the new 802.11n gear, but have no immediate deployment plans.

One of those managers, Todd Dvorak, from Circuit City Stores in Richmond, Virgina, said Wi-Fi has been a valuable tool in support of wireless tablet laptops carried by sales personnel to look up information for customers. However Circuit City upgraded its networks three years ago to accommodate IBM -based point-of-sale systems