Sunnyvale, CA, May 12, 2009 - Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN), a global leader in wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions, today announced its new Virtual Branch Network (VBN) solution. The VBN transparently and securely connects remote users with enterprise applications and resources, greatly simplifying the management of branch offices, clinics, home offices, and teleworkers while significantly lowering costs. The remote networking market targeted by VBN comprises roughly half of the nearly $11 billion WAN edge market.* Growth in this segment expected to be driven by the need to support increasingly dispersed workforces, lower operating expenses by reducing real estate holdings, and encourage sustainability through teleworking, among other factors.
The VBN solution includes new software for data center-based Aruba Controllers, as well as three new families of wired and wireless Remote Access Points (RAPs) and Branch Office Controllers (BOCs). One of the new RAPs, the RAP-2, has a U.S. list price of just $99, making it the least expensive, centrally managed enterprise branch networking solution on the market.
Today, networking solutions replicate routing, switching, firewall, and other services at each remote location. The equipment required is expensive and the services are complex to set-up and manage, consuming IT resources during the initial deployment as well as subsequent adds, moves, and changes.
Instead of replicating complexity at each remote location, Aruba's VBN solution virtualizes complex tasks at data center controllers and pushes them to inexpensive RAPs and BOCs for execution. A centrally controlled, policy enforcement firewall in the data center controller governs user access to the network and its resources by pushing policies to dissolvable firewall agents in every RAP and BOC. These agents automatically enforce the policies for every user and service.
Since all of the complex tasks are centrally managed and automatically disseminated, RAP and BOC set-up is quick and easy. Secure one-click installation allows a non-technical person to provision a branch office in minutes, with no intervention or assistance by IT. RAPs and BOCs are transport-independent, and work with virtually any wide-area network - including 3G cellular for instant connectivity. A RAP can literally be mailed to a remote user, connected to power and the WAN, and be fully commissioned following a single data entry. No truck roll, no IT intervention. VBN does for branch connectivity and security what data center virtualization did for desktop applications.
"The VBN solution lowers the cost, complexity, and IT overhead associated with deploying branch offices and teleworkers," said Keerti Melkote, Aruba's co-founder and chief technology officer. "Taking a page from the application virtualization playbook, we are bringing the cost-saving and security benefits of centralized control and management to remote networking. One button installation, zero-touch IT involvement in simple deployments, and a range of elegantly simple and remarkably inexpensive RAPs and BOCs - these are the remedies for the pain points users experience with remote networking today."
Introduced as part of the VBN solution are three new families of remote devices. All of the devices offer policy-based local and remote packet forwarding, and Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) technology for optimized Wi-Fi operation. A diagnostics feature displays status on a simple user interface, and provides one-button debugging and one-button reset to factory defaults. Other key features of the new product families include:
A single Aruba 6000 Multi-Service Controller equipped with VBN software will support up to 8,000 RAP or 600 series devices, and up to 32,000 users.
"Aruba's new VBN solution addresses a major challenge we've tried to overcome for years - cost-effectively networking remote facilities without dispatching IT personnel," said Bryan Prince, Sylvan Learning's IT Director. "The set-up of the RAP-5 was so simple that we had the first unit deployed in just a few minutes. VBN is a truly robust and cost-effective remote networking solution that is invaluable in today's economy."
The RAP-2, RAP-5, and controller software are shipping now. The 600 family will ship in June 2009. For additional information please see us at Interop Las Vegas booth 2051, May 19-21, or visit www.arubanetworks.com/remotenetworking [1].
* Wm. L. Hahn and Nhat Pham, Dataquest Insight: Global Telecommunications Market Take, December 2008, 19 December 2008, Gartner, Inc.
People move. Networks must follow. Aruba securely delivers networks to users, wherever they work or roam. Our mobility and network virtualization solutions ensure that the enterprise network moves in lock-step with users:
The cost, convenience, and security benefits of our secure mobility solutions are fundamentally changing how and where we work. Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com [2]. For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ArubaNetworks [3].
© 2009 Aruba Networks, Inc. AirWave®, Aruba Networks®, Aruba Mobility Management System®, Bluescanner, For Wireless That Works®, Mobile Edge Architecture, People Move. Networks Must Follow., The All-Wireless Workplace Is Now Open For Business, RFprotect, Green Island, and The Mobile Edge Company® are trademarks of Aruba Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Links:
[1] http://www.arubanetworks.com/remotenetworking
[2] http://www.arubanetworks.com/
[3] http://twitter.com/ArubaNetworks