Aruba Upgrades Wi-Fi To Match Smartphone Use

Wireless network maker Aruba has revved up its ArubaOS Wi-Fi system to handle higher densities of smartphones and other mobile devices, and a greater demand for multimedia.

For years, office Wi-Fi vendors have said that their products can replace Ethernet cables to the desk, and said users will need higher performance wireless networks to support mobile use in the office. The explosion in smartphone use, and the predicted growth in tablets, is finally justifying these claims, according to Aruba chief executive Dominic Orr.

High density, new thinking?

iPad sales are expected to reach 10 million this year, and the total number of portable Wi-Fi devices shipped will be half a billion, according to Orr, who says good 802.11n Wi-Fi coverage is about to become a necessity: “Before, we were selling vitamins, now we are selling aspirin.”

Aruba is the largest independent wireless LAN vendor and, after more than twelve years, there’s not really a lot it can add to wireless LANs, so its upgrade is simply about doing existing things better – tightening security, blocking interference more effectively, and helping applications get better performance.

The new version can screen out neighbouring wireless LANs better, can identify applications and apply quality of service on voice and video, and has continuous spectrum analysis, which can spot problems from other radio sources. The wireless intrusion prevention system apparently works faster, so threats are taken out without hurting client performance.

“It is non-trivial to do this,” said Orr. “If you don’t do this stuff in the air, you can do it later on in the copper network – but you need to apply it in the air, because that is the scarce resource.

Room for discussion

Despite the maturity of Wi-Fi networks, there is still room for discussion about the best way to build them. Aruba has produced new technical guides to implementing wireless LANs, and is focusing on the issue of high densities of laptops in an auditorium (PDF), as well as the use of iPads in the enterprise (PDF).

Wi-Fi vendors are also upgrading. Motorola, which absorbed the Wi-Fi pioneer Symbol, has upgraded its “WiNG”” architecture with similar promises of better reliability and performance. “WiNG 5 delivers an improved quality of experience by giving users better application performance on a more trusted network,” said the Motorola release.

Like ArubaOS, the new WiNG uses intelligent traffic forwarding and better RF handling to boost the capacity and resilience of 802.11n networks. Again like the Aruba system, it is apparently able to “self-heal” from radio interference, and includes sensors in every AP to handle problems. It also allows remote management, and branch networks.

Aruba announced in August that Dell is re-selling its kit under a Dell badge. It has also launched a cloud-based branch office system.