How Does Ekahau ESS Stay Current For APs and Antennas?

So I’m sitting on a bench at the mall, and this guy plops down on the other end. I can hear him sobbing a little. I’m thinking “poor bastard, must be a death in the family, or his wife split…” But then I hear his kid about 10 feet away say to a pal “my dad is a complete loser- he doesn’t even know how the world’s best Wi-Fi survey and planning tool gets updated for new APs and antennas!”

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I really don’t know how it happens, either. I’m a loser too!

But there’s a big difference between me and Sobby Bench Guy. He’s not a gonzo bloggist with a license to ask the tough questions. That’s my turf, and that’s just what I did to get my mind right on the topic. I put on my Interrogator Fez and went gunning for everyone’s favorite European guy, Jussi Kiviniemi. Sure, he’s Ekahau’s VP of Wi-Fi Tools, but I don’t mind running in those circles now and then. I grilled Dr. J pretty good, and he gave me what I was looking for. Read on.

Q. How long does it take to get a new WLAN AP or antenna added to ESS, once Ekahau
has the technical information?
Jussi: Depending on load & urgency, it takes 1 day to 3 weeks to get it done. It’ll be published in next sw release (sw updates about every 2 months).

Q. Does Ekahau have a strategy for retiring old APs or antennas from the software
Jussi: Good question. Not really. Happens organically through Wi-Fi vendor acquisitions. We actually should probably take out the 802.11b stuff if we haven’t already 😉

Q.  How does Ekahau find out about new APs/antennas from the major vendors?
Jussi: It varies. Today, they often send the new or upcoming stuff proactively. That’s good for their business too. If not, we ask. Often customers ask us, then we ask the vendor. 

Q.  Why is it advantageous for vendors to get their stuff into ESS?
Jussi: A lot of their partners use our tool (we are tool of choice for Cisco, Aruba, Aerohive,…). And they often want to design using the actual stuff as it is more accurate. 

Q.  What’s the oddest antenna you’ve seen in ESS?
Jussi: At first, the Xirrus arrays were different. I wish we had the planner already back in the Vivato days, that would have been interesting. Also, the Ventev floor mount stuff is refreshing. 

Q.  Any other thoughts on the topic of adding products to ESS?
Jussi: I highly encourage the public and vendors to contact us to tell us which APs or antennas they are missing. It’s a free service to add them. Twitter, web site form or wifidesign@ekahau.com all work. 

We also add things like multi-SSID MAC combining as one radio, and multiple radios into one physical AP.  This requires specs from vendors too. 

And there you have it. Just a little behind-the-scenes information on how a great tool stays fresh. I’ll echo Jussi’s last point: if you see something missing, give Ekahau a shout to get the program updated. ESS is huge tool in the WLAN industry’s toolbox, so keeping it current is a win for everyone.

Additional Resources:

• Jussi’s presentations
• About Ekahau’s Wi-Fi Tools

 

Xirrus Loses One, Wins One

One of the more curious WLAN players in the market, Xirrus is always interesting. The wireless array company certainly doesn’t sit still from a development perspective, and is usually among the first WLAN vendors to get major popular new features announced. I’ve met with Xirrus at Wireless Field Day 5 (their presentations here) and WFD 6, and followed their evolution through the years with a number of articles written about them..

Of late, Xirrus has a bit of a bad news/good news story to tell.

The bad news- they’ve been dropped from Gartner’s 2015 Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure Magic Quadrant. Many of us in the WLAN industry have fairly low regard for Gartner’s current methodology in this space, but at the same time those in the market for business Wi-Fi frequently refer to the report for information on the pros and cons of industry players. I don’t agree with Xirrus’ exclusion, but it is what it is.

On the sunnier side, Xirrus has just announced a potential game-changing feature for customers struggling to do secure guest Wi-Fi. Called “EasyPass Personal”, it’s easy to mistakenly equate the new offering to the likes of Aerohive’s Private PSK. Xirrus differs significantly from just PPSK in that EasyPass Personal allows the guest/visitor to set up their own SSID and private pre-shared key. Yeah, read that again because it’s pretty wild.

See more on Xirrus’ web site here.

My thoughts on EasyPass Personal: I’ve not tried it, so can’t speak to the feature first-hand. My only real concern is whether the generation of personal guest networks in the air creates a lot of management overhead traffic (seems like it could, at first thought). But beyond that, I applaud Xirrus for bringing an innovative new option to the ridiculously challenging paradigm of secure guest access. Hotspot 2.0 is the promised “official” answer to secure guest Wi-Fi, but it’s both complicated and going nowhere. EasyPass Personal *seems* like a nice methodology, so I’d love to hear from Xirrus users who try it.

Xirrus Debuts EasyPass for Simplified WLAN Access

I say it often: any more, access points have become secondary players in the bigger Wi-Fi story. Sure, it’s fun to read about new APs- especially with Wave 2 fueling whopping performance claims- but what makes a WLAN system truly usable is all of the other stuff that vendors are adding to their WLAN solutions. APs either work well enough to keep a company in business, or they don’t. But the magic for Wi-Fi goes way past RF doings, as evidenced by Xirrus’ newly announced EasyPass.

EasyPass isn’t exactly revolutionary unto itself, but seeing Xirrus join others in the field doing similar means that wireless users are also getting the attention they deserve amidst the running hype of new hardware announcements. That’s a good thing- and Xirrus delivers it’s new onboarding solution without added appliances to manage.

Read more on EasyPass.

As I reviewed the PR materials on EasyPass, I was struck by one notion in particular: with no need for certificates,etc, Xirrus’ new feature set has a similar feel to Aerohive’s Private PSK. I’m a huge fan, and wish every vendor offered this for guest WLAN. I did query Xirrus to make sure I was on target for EasyPass’ secure onboarding.

From Bruce Miller, Xirrus VP of product marketing (I run in those circles, you know):

Yes, security for EasyPass Onboarding is achieved through what we call a User PSK with every user assigned a unique PSK. The number of devices per user  allowed can be controlled, e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc. This allows individual Wi-Fi security and control per user without captive portals and without the complexity of 802.1x/RADIUS, for example for BYOD users and headless devices. 802.1x security with a captive portal is supported as an option. EasyPass eliminates the agent / app downloads of other onboarding systems that add significant complexity to the process. We have seen that many organizations find their employees defaulting to use the non-secured guest network for access because of its relative simplicity.

Well done, Xirrus.

Beacon Baby Steps

As I put this blog together, I do so knowing that I risk the ridicule of those who have gotten a lot farther in both understanding beacons and using them for some real-world value proposition. Though I understand transmitters of all types very well and I’ve covered other beacon-related initiatives (like Aerohive’s integration of beacons in APs ) and done my share of reading on how beacons are gaining in popularity as building blocks in a number of applications, I’ll admit to really not “getting” them yet to any technical depth. But that is starting to change, as I’ll tell you about here. And as an added bonus to you, I get to drop a few names of really smart people that I have the privilege of interacting with on occasion.

Free Beacons!

Awhile back, Ryan Adzima turned me on to a beacon giveaway that netted me three of these. Not being one to pass up free cool stuff , I got my beacons- and they ended up sitting on a shelf almost a year (I basically didn’t know what the hell to do with them.)

Fast Forward- Renewed Interest

I follow a lot of industry goings on as a freelance analyst. It’s no secret that Location-Based Services/Analytics is a running topic du jour in the tech media, and many a WLAN vendor has announced their own beacon story- like Aruba and Cisco’s Meraki. Knowing that there’s a lot of buzz around beacons, I worked them into my daily Twitter #WIFIQ question on June 4. The conversation that ensued reminded me that I was overdue to play with my Qualcomm beacons.

What sparked me to get back on the path that Ryan Adzima started me down was conversation with AccessAgility’s Zaib Kaleem and Extreme Networks’ Mike Leibovitz. Zaib turned me on to some beacon-related apps, and Mike triggered my interest on proximity to beacons being used as one component in banking authentication. Newly energized (see what I did there?), I busted out my Qualcomm Gimbals and got busy gettin’ busy.

Time to Play

Laying hands on my three neglected Gimbals first brought back the clueless feeling I had when I first looked at them and put them on the shelf. But this time I wasn’t content to stay in the dark. I took the bold step of cracking each one open and getting the watch battery connected, then I found the Gimbal Management App in the Apple app store.

At first, the App couldn’t see my beacons! Gotta be dead batteries, I thought… but then I went to the Gimbal Manager site, recovered my long-forgotten password, and figured out that I needed to activate each beacon.

I also needed to configure each and upgrade firmware, which was quite easy. (We’ll come back to the “configure” thing.) Bingo! They showed up in the iPhone app.

At this point, I realized/reminded myself of a few basic important facts:

• Until the beacons were added to my account online, they were dead to me despite being powered up. (Private is default, you can make them “public” so anyone can see them, btw.)
• My online account and my iOS account are synced for beacon management.
• The beacons report their battery strength and the ambient temperature, and the mobile app tells how strong each beacon is being received
• Though I now have three live beacons that can be managed, I still don’t know what to really do with them… no use case, no business application to hook them to, etc.

Knowing that beacons are all about proximity and location, I embarked on a simple exercise. Down a long hallway with three pictures hanging on the wall, I put one beacon on each picture frame, then watched my app show signal strength for each as I walked the hall.

This seemed like a reasonable way to see what might go on behind the scenes at the signal level on a walking tour, or in a retail environment where different app events are triggered by a customer coming close to a beacon. Here, this is the view as I transitioned from Beacon 1 and got close to Beacon 2, with Beacon 3 at farthest point down the hall.
.

Big deal, right? To me, it is. That’s because yesterday, I had ZERO first-hand working knowledge of beacons. With this these simple steps, I now get the technology and how it’s managed at a very, very basic level. I feel like I get the foundation, and I do understand many of the big use cases for beacons. It’s that middle ground of real-world implementation that I have yet to learn. Baby steps…

Back to the beacon config thing. For such a simple device, there are infinite permutations for what you can do with them. I think this is what is so hard to wrap your head around, especially given that along the line you may have to do some coding (or steal somebody else’s code). Zooming in on the menu gives a sense of just how many directions you might go bringing beacon-based use cases to life:

So… I now know a little, and know that I still don’t understand really USING beacons despite understanding the scenarios where they are employed. But with what little I now have touched and brought to life, I do understand links like this and this a bit better. Still a long way to go though, but ya gotta start somewhere!

Download Free WLAN Troubleshooting Booklet

If you’re interested in the finer points of WLAN support and troubleshooting, have a look at this excellent freebie. It’s actually a slice from the current CWNA study guide, provided by the good folks at Aerohive, delivered as a swanky booklet for your use and enjoyment.

Put it on your e-reader and use the magic of technology to get ya an eyeful of excellent, easy readin’ content, baby!

Download a free booklet about WLAN Troubleshooting | HiveNation.

 

That is all.

Two More Engagement Platforms Hit The WLAN Market

The basic paradigm of simple wireless client access is fast becoming a minor part in a Wi-Fi story that gets ever bigger. With mobile device counts still expanding at unparalleled rates, business opportunities built on the premise of “everyone’s got a mobile device, how do we make money off of that?” will continue to drive new services and stretch the definition of the modern WLAN well into the future. For now, we’ve seen two new examples hit in the last month, with Aruba and Aerohive both making announcements.

Monitize Retail Wi-Fi With Aerohive (and Cloud4Wi)

When a cloud-managed WLAN company teams up with a cloud-based Wi-Fi enhancement platform, the result is Aerohive’s new Personalized Engagement Platform.

As with competing engagement platforms used in retail spaces, the goal here is to leverage the captive audience of shoppers that connect to store Wi-Fi. For those shoppers who chose to play the game, their shopping habits are the fuel for “an enhanced experience” in the form proximity-based coupons (I’m standing near the shoes, the Wi-Fi/becon system knows this, and up pops a coupon for shoes). The merchant gains ever more customer data under the heading of analytics, increased customer loyalty (hopefully), and if executed right the shopper feels like it’s worth opting in to the ecosystem.

One big win for Aerohive’s retail customers is that the new offering is free, to a certain scale. For no additional costs, you get payment gateway integration and up to 6 couponing campaigns before you jump to a tier that costs $$. Available now.

Aruba Networks Mobile Engagement- Flexibility For Any Venue

Coming in early 2015. Aruba’s own Mobile Engagement platform promises great flexibility for any and all WLAN environments. Back  in 2013, Aruba Networks bought indoor location newbie Meridian Networks, and the pending Mobile Engagement platform is an evolution of the Meridian paradigm. Leveraging Aruba’s large WLAN customer base and strong market position along with new tech like Aruba’s own Bluetooth beacons, we’re seeing powerful location-based/enhanced magic that can provide a range of services via push notifications to client devices in sports venues, hospitals, airports, universities, and of course retail settings.

Having done early eval on Meridian, I know that Aruba is well positioned to do big things based on the platform. I was greatly impressed, to say the least.

Engagement: A Big Story That Will Get Much Bigger

Given that we’re really just getting started with what beacons, location services, and related analytics can do, I think we’re in for a pretty interesting ride here. I personally look forward to the day when we’re past the buzzword phase of these systems (Monitize! Incentivize!) and move beyond simply making money off of the mobile masses and figure out how turn the technology loose for public safety, emergency response, and similar more altruistic applications (while balancing it all against the Big Brother effect that comes with this sort of technology).

We certainly haven’t heard the last announcement for Mobile Engagement, by any stretch. You can bet your beacon on that.

 

Aerohive and AirTight Announce IoT “Firsts”

There aren’t too many opportunities in life to claim “we’re the first to _____!”  There’s a bit of a glow that comes with being first to market, even if the first whatever isn’t really monumental or exactly disruptive.  In the last couple of weeks, both Aerohive and Airtight (cloud-managed WLAN vendors for those of you late to the party) made a “We’re first!” announcement, each with Internet of Things (IOT) implications. Let’s take a look at both.

Aerohive- First Integration of WLAN and iBeacons

Here’s the official news from Aerohive. The nuts of it is that Aerohive and beacon-maker Radius Networks are pals, and Aerohive APs can directly host ibeacons via USB port on the access point. The notion of ibeacons (and altbeacons) is really just getting started, so this could become big and will likely ripple out far beyond it’s infancy in retail spaces. Though the companies are partners on the initiative, there’s really no changes per se to Hive Mananager that goes with having RadBeacons attached to APs.

Here’s my own coverage of the story at Network Computing. If you’d like to further the iBeacon discussion, please post comments over there.

Then there’s this:

AirTight- First Access Point with ‘IoT-ready’ WiPS

I’ll admit to being underwhelmed when I saw the press for Airtight’s new C-65 access point. Sure, any new 11ac AP is worth noting, but the up-play of it’s “IoT readiness” seemed to be a stretch. So, I asked- what makes this one so special versus the competition?

Here’s what AirTight says about the C-65 in their own words:

Two key things in IoT readiness for WIPS are system scalability andoperation scalability because of increasing device volume and diversity and growing attack variants.

 

1.     System scalability

o    AirTight increased the ability to monitor active wireless devices from 500 to 2000 per AP/sensor

o    On the cloud side, we increased the ability to scale to hundreds of thousands of devices being monitored across multiple geographies and customers

 

Scalability bottleneck in IoT will be coming from neighborhood devices that you need to track for threat detection, compliance reporting, etc, rather than your own APs that you manage in the cloud.

 

AirTight’s tests and customer POCs have shown that because the competition does not have this scalability today, device history is not maintained long enough; alerts are quickly purged to maintain scalability; reporting and forensics are thin; and threat detection is slow.

 

This happens today; what will happen tomorrow with hundreds of IoT devices in your wireless neighborhood?

 

2.     Operation scalability

o    The detection is behavioral based rather than signature-, rules or MAC heuristics- based

o    “Zero day protection”: no learning or adding of signatures is required

o    Minimal human intervention required

o    False alarm free

o    Reliable automated prevention without neighbor disruption

 

Our detection algorithm has matured over the years because of our focus on WIPS and is able to handle nuanced protocol implementations. So AirTightWIPS is better suited to handle device diversity. Other vendors are mostly doing MAC heuristics to detect rogues and have not invested in detecting all variants of threats and attacks.

 

Again, we have seen the impact of this in POCs and internal tests. We have seen competition raising false alarms (false positives and false negatives), along with creating large number of alerts for the administrator to sort through. Some products even discourage users from turning on automated prevention via product messages and technical documentation.

And there you have it.  Neither of these announcements is mind-blowing yet at the same time they serve as examples of where WLAN vendors’ heads are regarding IoT at this stage.

In case it isn’t obvious, we’re likely to hear a lot more about how the Internet of Things will shape wireless solutions, and how vendors think we should be preparing for the IoT onslaught. It’s gonna continue to come at us in little chunks as the seeds of IoT take root, so keep your eyes open or you’re going miss something.

The Importance of the GGOOE In Cloud-Managed Networking

If you already do cloud managed Wi-Fi or WAN/LAN, you know the value of the GGOOE. If you’re thinking about making the jump to the likes of Aerohive or Meraki for far-off sites, you better make sure you line up a GGOOE, I’ve pulled off some pretty slick networking projects hundreds of miles away and across oceans, but just as much credit goes to the GGOOE.

What’s a GGOOE, you ask? It’s the incredibly valuable Good Guy On Other End, unless it happens to be the Good Gal On Other End. 

The GGOOE is indispensable for cloud network projects, and I salute them. For me, the GGOOEs in my world are named Marco, Kevin, the other Kevin, Fabio, and Patti. They are the right eyes, hands, and minds on the other side of a cloud-managed network that make what I designed stay healthy, or in some cases, to get implemented at all.

Here’s a few real-world examples of the importance of the GGOOE factor:

• Bringin’ it to Jolly Old. A few years back, I took a leap of faith and did a little project in London. The results have stood the test of time, and our first brush with cloud-managed networking was a smashing success. When I went over, I didn’t know the site or any of the people, but a GGOOE named Marco happened to be there. During installation, he was my right hand man. Three-plus years later, he’s the on-premise resource that shares network administrative duties and guides the day-to-day operations, responding to power issues, the rare user problem, and making sure that the network continues to serve the operational need. 
• Rocky Mountain High. Well, this has nothing to do with the Rocky Mountains (my clever bullet point hooked you though, didn’t it?), but it is in New York’s Adirondacks. Having gotten comfortable with the benefits of cloud networking, I headed a small team that made a beautiful place a little nicer with a network environment that shines, and that can be managed from the same dashboard I use for London. The GGOOE here? A dude named Kevin (and when he’s not around, alternate GGOOE Amber). Being out in God’s Country, the site is subject to wonky power and DSL service. Kevin and Amber never hesitate when asked to reset a DSL modem, check the power status in a building, or whatever. The GGOOE keeps it going, baby.
• Parli nuvola, bambino? In the most brash exploitation of the GGOOE factor to date, I just popped up a 5-building LAN and WLAN topology in Italy that is currently serving hundreds of clients a day.

Or did I? 

I certainly conceived the design and selected the product set, but this cloud-managed network came to life 4,000 miles away without me ever getting on an airplane. Yeah- you guessed it: there was GGOOE action on the far end. Kevin and Fabio formed the two-man GGOOE team that made my diagrams and cloud-configs come to life at the physical layer, and will provide ongoing GGOOE service as needed. Life is friggin’ sweet, thanks to GGOOEs.

The examples go on on and on. Like with GGOOE Patti in NYC who has far bigger fish to fry in her role as an Executive Director. But when we Upstate need help with our environment Downstate, it’s Patti that we go to and Patti who helps- every time. 

Make Good Choices 

Here’s what’s really cool about the GGOOEs in my world: none of them are really network people. Some of them aren’t even IT people. But they’re smart, team-oriented, and get the value of being a clear mind and directable hands where needed.

That being said, I have an obligation to make choices that enable the success of my Good Guys On Other End. If I put together a crappy solution and leave them holding the bag, I end up with F(rustrated)GOOEs.

And that’s not good for them, me, or the clients that we all support.

What about you- do you have a GGOOE that you rely on?

Aerohive Brings New Access Point To Maturing 11ac Market

Though many WLAN environments have yet to purchase their first 11ac access point, the 11ac market is certainly maturing. As counter-intuitive as that may sound, we continue to see more 11ac products and released almost weekly in the Enterprise Wi-Fi space. We also have a lot of exciting news afoot regarding 11ac client device capabilities. Both are important for a number of reasons, but before we go there let’s talk about Aerohive’s newest 11ac access point- the AP230.

I say “newest” because this is not Aerohive’s first 11ac offering. The AP370 and external-antenna version AP390 marked the company’s initial volley in the 11ac game. Now, the AP230 launch puts Aerohive on par with the likes of Cisco and Aruba who have also launched a couple of  different 11ac APs to date. So… what’s the AP230 all about? 

It’s a mix of technology and philosophy:

• This is meant to be the new default Aerohive 11ac AP for carpeted spaces
• 3×3, with 3 streams per band- 11n in 2.4 GHz, 11ac in 5 GHz (TxBF, 256 QAM, 80 MHz)
• 2x Gig Ethernet with Link Aggregation
• Application Visibility and Control (AVC) and the other features that come with your cloud-based Hive Manager account
• As with all Aerohive access points, no controller is required for the AP230
• Works on standard PoE (802.3af)
• List Price: $799  Details here.

At theAP230’s price point, Aerohive hopes to make 11ac compelling enough to overcome cost concerns of those that might generally continue deploying 11n, while adding 11ac only to user-dense spaces to save on WLAN costs.

Aerohive is quick to point out that at current list pricing, the 11ac AP230 is less expensive than most competitors’ 11n offerings. Many Aerohive customers (and potential customers) will like the full-featured 11ac paradigm offered by the AP230 without the need for switch upgrades to PoE+, though top-end power output will be less than the AP370 (and some competitors’ offerings- this is one of those details you really have to drill into for clarity). For many of us, we seldom run APs at max available power in our dense WLANs, so the low cost and feature set of the AP230 will likely outweigh whatever transmit power concession you may feel is in play.

Aerohive’s latest product release is among a number of interesting milestones afoot that indicate 11ac is not only here to to stay, but is also proving to be a fast-advancing technology despite the fact that wide adoption is just beginning. To learn more, take a listen to the second-ever wirednot podcast. Here I talk about the general state of 11ac, and recent developments that you should be thinking about.  (Had an odd audio thing going on in spots, still learning the ropes on getting this right).

 (Play or Download)

There’s certainly more to come on 11ac, as this is one big story with no end end in sight at this point.

 

An Outsider Looks At AirTight’s Recent Hires

I don’t get to the Silicon Valley very often, but I am a professional free-lance media type and have been monitoring and covering goings on in the WLAN space for a lot of years. Last night I got an email regarding Steven Glapa leaving Ruckus, and heading for AirTight networks as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer. I don’t usually give coverage to staff changes in the Valley, as there are just too many of them that happen frequently, and I’m not big on puffing up egos by reporting on individuals’ career decisions. But something about the AirTight email got me thinking beyond their new CMO.

The sender of the email used the words “snagged” and “talent poaching” to describe the luring of Glapa away from Ruckus, and perhaps that’s what set the Hook of Deeper Thinking into my handsomely chiseled jaw. I have no knowledge of what made AirTight appealing to Glapa, or what it is about Ruckus that made him want to move on, and frankly I don’t really give a rip. But being a habitual Big Picture thinker, here’s what Glapa’s move got me thinking about.

• The notion of Validation has gotten used often lately. Cisco buying Meraki validated cloud-managed wireless, which also made Aerohive and PowerCloud happy.  More recently, Aruba Networks released their opening cloud volley, followed by an interesting offering from Enterasys– again, validating the model. AirTight is part of the growing cloud-managed WLAN space, and though it’s roots are in the love-it-or-hate-it security overlay realm, has picked a hot direction to evolve given all of the validation of cloudy wireless going on these days.
• AirTight also recently “poached” a couple of high profile staff assets from Aerohive Networks, in the forms of one Devin Akin and one Andrew von Nagy. Again, staff moves aren’t my kind of news as a rule, but there is a significance here- cloud-managed wireless has matured to the point where cloud vendors can steal each others’ expertise, as there is now an experienced cadre of cloud-savvy networkers to court. This wasn’t the case not so long ago.
• Perhaps a “shaking out” of this market sector is imminent? AirTight gained a CMO from Ruckus, two “Evangelists” (I’m starting to of tire that term, Jimmy Swaggart) from Aerohive, and all three companies are arguably “small”. Though wireless itself is a big and growing market, could these sorts of moves reflect some hidden gloom at the “donor” companies? This is pure speculation, obviously, but also a natural mental path to wander down. How many smaller and/or cloud-managed companies can the market sustain at this point?
• AirTight better make a splash soon, as none of these guys are probably working for cheap. Akin certainly has name recognition as a WLAN deity, with von Nagy no slouch in this regard. I don’t know much about Glapa, but given that Ruckus has been on fire at times, he must have a good business touch. So three strong HR adds have been made to a company that has a product line that needs to do some catching up before (in my opinion, at least) it legitimately competes with Meraki and Aerohive for robustness of feature set. Hopefully the new guys hasten that development for AirTight’s sake, given that payroll seems to be swelling for a company “new” to the WLAN access market.
• Despite all of the growth and media coverage of cloudy WLAN of late, the controller-based folks still own the market. But… the division between controller-based and cloud-managed is being blurred as more vendors are doing unholy things to the control and data planes and diluting the bajeezus out of the controller model at times. The point? There is still an awful lot of industry evolution to be done. Each and every vendor in the mix has the daunting task of evolving while not losing customers or overwhelming them with constantly changing license models, lexicon, and topologies. Whether controllers completely age out and the cloud wins, or whether we end up with options in a few years remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the religious wars surrounding each kind of WLAN will rage on.

And that pretty much ends my lunch hour of deep thought- back to work I go.