IP Networking for voice and data, and new bandwidth, has been a growing and successful business for DV02. Applications seem to multiply, devices get ever more hungry and we’re no longer surprised the need for more bandwidth just keeps on going.

Reviewing our strategy recently, we decided that Business Wireless LAN (WLAN) networking was going to be a major trend for us and our customers, especially for next generation devices.

The current technology is reaching a point where 1GB just isn’t anywhere near enough, and there is a pending demand, just around the corner.

Choosing a solution was an interesting experience, and we thought we’d share the process.

What’s driving Wireless LAN Growth?

• Users have wireless networking in the home now expect better wireless networking in the office.
• Hosted Software Applications (private or public) mean lots of bandwidth use
• Multimedia: use of video increasing
• Social Media communications drives more multimedia use
• Mobility across multiple sites means laptop and mobile device use is growing

How much growth?

This year, devices with embedded wireless local area networking (WLAN) capability will top one billion and by 2015, we’re told that number will double

Today’s and tomorrow’s devices are feature rich, video capable and bandwidth hungry. According to the FCC, devices now have 3 or more transmitters more often than not.

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/documents/reports/wirelessdevices.doc

Wireless Bandwidth needs have only just begun by the looks of it.

Choosing the wireless LAN Criteria

Having a wide range of customers does mean supporting a wide range of environments. As a whole, our customer base is demanding:

• Centralised control for distributed Solutions across multiple locations
• Partitioned networks for internal and external users, for security
• Internal, External, Office, Industrial and Retail Wireless Access Points
• Scalability, to suit a wide range of needs, and cope with growth
• Competitive, to offer best value
• Ease and simplicity of use,
• Highly available and redundant options for support

Given a hard earned expertise in the integration of voice and IP networking , we do uncover some rather advanced requirements.

And whilst expensive solutions can do anything, not everyone wants to afford the budget for them. It needs to be competitive whilst offering all the functionality for now, and the future.

The Wireless LANscape*

Wireless does seem to be a bit of a challenge for the traditional networking suppliers.

The common networking names like Cisco, Aruba, HP and Motorola crop up, although wireless does seem to be an ‘add on’ instead of the core focus.

Wireless Networking is pretty interesting because out of the box, it needs to offer a richer functionality than its wired older cousin. It needs more Security, Management and Separate Network settings for private and public users.

Multiple issues with existing traditional networks and Wireless LAN, in summary;

• It isn’t easy for traditional networking companies to ‘add’ wireless functionality to existing architecture
• The growth in devices, needs new higher density Wireless Access Points.
• Existing Wireless LAN controllers from networking companies won’t handle the growth that is coming. They will almost without exception need replacing, and new high capacity almost always means very ‘expensive’ and complex.
• The bandwidth of the old controllers isn’t enough, and buying a bigger, very expensive box isn’t an attractive offer.

So, as well as traditional names, we looked at a bunch of innovative solutions.  It is a very active space, probably because of the challenges we came across above.

*we meant to spell it this way

Wireless Networking Innovators

Technology is always evolving, but you do see big shifts from time to time when leaders are leapfrogged by more nimble companies. And so it was with Wireless LAN equipment.

New manufacturers like Meru, Ruckus, Meraki and Aerohive and most have something new to offer, if in different ways.

The key for us, the thing that most helped our decision, was the ability to scale new wireless functionality.

It is simpler when not having to route all traffic through a very expensive and ‘limiting’ controller tied into an old LAN infrastructure (with the associated licencing)

After all of these considerations we decided to partner with Meraki.

The flexibility to add more wireless components instantly and without masses of configuration to existing networks is just so simple in comparison. We send a box, plug it in, and through a browser  based controller, switch it on.

Choosing Meraki

With Meraki, the boxes are all ticked with regards to the ability to scale, security, and the rich functionality to support internal, external and distributed customer premises.

And, to be fair, whilst most newer wireless vendors are anticipating the wild levels of growth and the need for new capacity, the major reason we decided on Meraki was because of Wireless LAN controllers.

The Fat Controllers

For us, replacing today’s wireless controllers with bigger wireless controllers involved too much in the way of upgrades, training and support, complexity and cost.

Meraki’s simple solution to this is a hosted controller.

Just as Google Apps is a successful hosted enterprise email solution, the Meraki approach benefits from the same sort of economy of scale (and two factor authentication for security)

In fact, we did notice that Google were an early venture partner in the Meraki business, so they clearly believe this will be a successful approach.

The benefit of hosted controllers

Instead of having thousands of controllers to provide upgrades for, all supported locally within the business – a hosted solution lives in a private cloud and is looked after by the people who built it.

• Resilience is built in, no duplicate premise based solutions
• Installation is easy, there is no controller installation
• Upgrades ‘just happen’

It’s important to know that the network traffic doesn’t go through the cloud, it is just the management of the network settings and reporting that is hosted. This is different to the old way where all traffic went through the controller. Bottleneck anyone?

There is no bottleneck. And there is no need for duplicate high throughput capacity controllers.

Wireless LAN Security

That said, the security of the network was the most important thing for us, and we were concerned whether this might not be acceptable for our clients.

The recent addition of Two Factor Authentication does help this enormously. It’s exactly the way we do our banking online, if you have the physical device to go with the password then it’s incredibly difficult to get into.

For us particularly, the Meraki solution does give us enormous range.

Scalability and competitiveness

The ability to be competitive with our smaller clients together with the very largest of them is a result of Meraki scalability. Just as companies can afford enterprise Google email capability with just 10 users, the Meraki wireless solution scales from tiny numbers to hugely distributed and capacious networks.

Ease of Implementation and Support

People have enough to do. Installation of Wireless Access Points is simple, and the configuration is web based, which means remote installation and configuration – by us, or by customers.

Installing Meraki has been a breeze. And whilst networking is never easy, the hassle of spending days on site sorting things out is never a prospect for us or our customers.

Plug and go with our trial solution

New architecture

“skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now” does hold true with Wireless Networking

When you come across a company fast growing, has great customers and clever investors, we took note, and then we took their product. We’ve already had good success and look forward to a mobile future.

Looking at the next generation of mobile devices and 4G bandwidth, it won’t be too long before the office network is very much the poorer cousin, and will suffer in comparison.

With Meraki, we hope we can keep our customers ahead of the growth curve.