infoTECH Feature

November 15, 2011

Aruba Networks Enhances its Instant Family of Products

Aruba Networks (News - Alert), the leading provider of network access solutions for the mobile enterprise, recently expanded its Aruba Instant family of products with the addition of a number of enterprise-grade software and hardware. The company said that the move is intended to further optimize the solution for enterprise branch offices and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs).

Aruba Instant features the virtualization of Aruba Mobility Controller capabilities on 802.11n access points (APs). This translates into a high-performance, enterprise-grade wireless LAN (WLAN) solution, which, according to Aruba entails lower cost of ownership than many consumer and small office/home office wireless solutions. As many as 16 Aruba Instant APs can be managed as a single group, and multiple Instant network groups are easily centrally managed with Aruba AirWave (News - Alert).

Aruba Instant product family offers many additional benefits. The product can be easily upgraded to a centralized mobility controller architecture for enterprise-grade scalability.

Also, Aruba Instant can be deployed easily and within minutes. Minimal IT support is required for the deployment. No further investments are required in forms of ongoing service fees, licensing fees or management appliances.

According to Ben Gibson (News - Alert), Aruba’s chief marketing officer, the Aruba Instant family of products were designed to integrate the security, performance, and reliability of enterprise-grade Wi-Fi in a single product line.

This integration approach proves to be particularly helpful for the small and medium businesses, who cannot afford to maintain a large IT staff. The Aruba Instant family of products is one of the fastest-ramping product portfolios in the company’s history, Gibson claimed in a press release.

In its enhanced version, Aruba Instant incorporates a new feature called “self-serve” guest access feature. Guests in the hospitality industries and employees in the corporate environments, often face difficulties in accessing the wireless network through their mobile devices.

Enabled by Aruba’s Amigopod solution, the “self-serve” feature will help ensure ease of access and security in wireless environments. In addition, Instant will also provide rogue access point detection, which is a requirement for PCI (News - Alert) compliance.

The addition of the 900Mbps IAP-134 and IAP-135 access points, will help businesses cope with the increasing number of devices on their networks and the high-bandwidth voice-and-video traffic they carry.

In the release, Aruba notified that its Instant product portfolio consists of five access points starting at US $395. These include the Aruba IAP-92, IAP-93 and IAP-105, as well as the newly added IAP-134 and IAP-135. The IAP-134 and IAP-135 feature 3X3 MIMO and operate at a maximum throughput of 900Mbps.

In other news, SYNNEX (News - Alert), a leading distributor of IT products and services, recently  announced that it has signed an agreement to distribute the full line of products from Aruba Networks.

Through SYNNEX' Technology Solutions Division program, CONVERGESolv Secure Networks, the company has expanded its existing offering of tier-one wireless networking solutions to the channel for both the small-to-medium enterprise (SME) and the small-to-medium business (SMB) markets.



Madhubanti Rudra is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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