 Wireless in the EnterpriseThis newsletter is sponsored by NetAppNetwork World's Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 11/07/07802.11n vendors strive for 802.11n migrationBy Joanie WexlerPerhaps the loudest buzz around 802.11 these days comes from vendors trying to prepare customers for the “all-wireless enterprise,” which they maintain will be made possible with high-speed 802.11n networks. The latest to outline its 802.11n migration strategy is Aruba Networks. The company this week announced 802.11n access points (AP) and controller modules that help companies scale existing environments up to 802.11n’s 100Mbps-and-up speeds. Aruba competitors have criticized Aruba’s current data center-centric controller architecture, which they fingered as particularly bottleneck-prone because of all traffic traveling back to one spot. Aruba has always countered that additional controllers could be deployed in clusters or in a hierarchical fashion to alleviate congestion. The new Aruba system, to ship immediately, however, supports four concurrent forwarding architectures to allow a mix of distributed, centralized, split tunneling and mesh traffic-forwarding decisions based on application and traffic type.
Among the highlights of the system, which includes an 8021.11n-aware upgrade to the ArubaOS operating system and software-definable AP services: * A Multiservice Mobility Module (M3) that plugs into the company’s existing MMC-5000 or MMC-6000 controllers or can be ordered as a stand-alone new controller. Backplane throughput scales to 80Gbps, and the system supports more than 32,000 users. The company is also shipping an 802.11n-aware controller for smaller enterprises that supports up to 2048 users and has an 8Gbps backplane. * Dual-radio 802.11n APs that the company says use so little power they can support 3-by-3 dual radios using existing 802.3af power-over-Ethernet (PoE) connections. They reportedly support wireless access, intrusion detection, traffic analysis, enterprise mesh and remote AP applications. In many newly emerging architectures, a question remains about how distributed forwarding - which uses AP-to-AP bridging to bypass a central controller to alleviate back-end bottlenecks and reduce latency - enforce security, which is often handled by a centralized Layer 3 firewall in a data center. Aruba has always offered a Layer 3 firewall in its APs, though, for distributed security. In a similar vein, Motorola’s forthcoming 802.11n-capable gear is likely to include a Layer 3 stateful firewall in its 11n-aware APs, according to Sujai Hajela, VP and GM of Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility business. The products are due to ship in 2008. Since Motorola is currently suing Aruba for patent infringement, we might expect their distributed security solutions to look very similar to Aruba’s. Editor's note: Starting Nov. 12 week, you will notice a number of enhancements to Network World newsletters that will provide you with more resources and more news links relevant to the newsletter's subject. Beginning Monday, Nov. 12, the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, written by Joanie Wexler, will be merged with the Wireless News Alert and will be named the Wireless Alert. You'll get Joanie's analysis of the wireless market, which you will be able to read in full at NetworkWorld.com, plus links to the day's wireless news and other relevant resources. This Alert will be mailed on Mondays and Wednesdays. We hope you will enjoy the enhancements and we thank you for reading Network World newsletters.
|
| Contact the author: Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at joanie@jwexler.com. This newsletter is sponsored by NetAppARCHIVEArchive of the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE90% of IT Managers are leaving their company at risk for a DNS ATTACK. Get the tools and resources you need to keep your DNS healthy and secure. Run a DNSreport on your domain today - 56 critical tests run in 8 seconds. Visit www.dnsreport.com to learn more. (apply coupon NWW2007NLA for a 25% membership discount) PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
No comments:
Post a Comment