Like the teenager with no driving experience who takes the family SUV on the open highway, even the simplest devices that are connecting to corporate networks have the power to participate in an attack and cause serious damage.Courtesy of Moore’s Law, anything with an IP address must be now considered a potential threat. Ironically, 802.11ax introduces terrific new security features such as WPA3 and OWE. But, it also makes the WLAN even more IoT-friendly, given the support for dense concentrations of clients in environments such as smart buildings, where devices like lighting controls are as likely to be connected wirelessly as wired.To read this article in full, please click here
In our homage to the iconic David Letterman Top Ten List from his former Late Show, Silver Peak continues to count down the Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router. Click for the #7, #8, #9 and #10 reasons to replace traditional branch routers with a business-driven SD-WAN platform.To read this article in full, please click here
By now you’ve heard countless stories for how insecure public Wi-Fi networks in coffee shops, bars, and large venues can be too dangerous for users – malware can infect personal devices, hackers can acquire usernames and passwords, and ransomware can hold private data hostage.In places like airports, potentially millions of travelers are at risk to these types of cyberattacks because of open networks. According to an assessment by Coronet in a CNBC article, you can put a stop to these problems by not joining an open, public Wi-Fi network at all – or if you do, update your device software and use different passwords for different accounts in the event you do get hacked.To read this article in full, please click here
With homage to the iconic David Letterman Top Ten List segment from his former Late Show, Silver Peak is counting down the Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router. Click for the #8, #9 and #10 reasons to retire traditional branch routers.To read this article in full, please click here
Patrick LaPorteBlog Contributor Full bio
Over the last decade, mobile has fueled unprecedented innovation. The economy is booming, and productivity has reached new heights. But the reality is that technology we use every day – mobile devices and applications included – consume an organization’s finite resources. With technology fueling customer experience and employee productivity across offices, schools and stores, organizations are always looking for ways to conserve energy and reduce costs.To read this article in full, please click here
Digital Transformation touches the network
Applications are moving to the cloud – a lot of them. IDC estimates that by 2020, 90% of enterprises will use multi-cloud, i.e. multiple public and private cloud services and platforms, to support their ever-expanding application requirements. Service providers have a unique opportunity to leverage a high-performance managed SD-WAN solution to deliver the best possible cloud connectivity and therefore the best “quality of experience” to enterprise users.A new breed of applications with different needs
Applications require a different quality of experience based on business priority, geography and security considerations, and consequently, they must be handled accordingly across the WAN. Some trusted business applications like Office 365, Skype and SAP can be sent directly to the internet with confidence, while recreational applications such as Facebook and Twitter might require higher security controls in order to meet enterprise security and/or compliance requirements. Simply put, the SD-WAN internet connectivity option must include the ability to differentiate traffic based on each application to ultimately enforce granular security policies.To read this article in full, please click here
The all-electric powertrain Tesla model S provides a ludicrous acceleration. The car’s most performance-centric model, the P100D, uses its 100-kWh battery and two electric motors to achieve the highest speed—0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds, 762 horsepower, and 687 pound-feet of torque. It can comfortably seat five people with a sizable trunk while making the snowy drive to the mountains safe and comfortable. The sheer power, beauty, and luxury of a Tesla has been a recurring theme as we launch our first series of 802.11ax access points at Aruba.Introducing the latest 802.11ax access pointsPowerful, reliable, and high capacity are what you get from Aruba’s new 510 series 802.11ax (now known as Wi-Fi 6) campus access points. As more mobile and IoT devices rely on wireless access, networks have to accommodate a broad mix of devices, applications, and services. And that is even more challenging, especially now that we have very low tolerance for a bad user experience. Any voice delay or video jitter is no longer acceptable. So, before we jump into the 510 series, let’s see what 802.11ax is all about.To read this article in full, please click here
I’ve been spending some time the past few weeks researching the potential role of SD-WAN in enabling service providers to augment existing managed private cloud connect services with a “managed Over-The-Top (OTT) cloud connect service.”What if managed service providers could expand their managed cloud connect service offers to include an OTT Cloud Connect service powered by SD-WAN?Today, most managed service providers offer a private cloud connect service that enables enterprises to securely connect their on-net sites to their cloud-destined application traffic, leveraging the provider’s MPLS or Ethernet network. The applications are then backhauled to the closest provider PoP, where the service provider has “direct connects” to each of the major IaaS (AWS, Azure & Google Cloud) and some SaaS providers (SFDC, Oracle, SAP).To read this article in full, please click here
Your customers want more than a just great product. They want a great experience. Businesses all around the world are embracing digital transformation to deliver new memorable, personalized experiences. Airbnb immerses guests into each host’s unique world. Experiential retail is bringing shoppers back into stores. Hospitals are reinventing themselves to create patient experiences that feel more like a “home away from home” to improve patient outcomes. While the digital era is disrupting business and creating new opportunities, it also brings with it challenges and rising expectations.User Expectations are GrowingPeople want a great connected experience wherever they are, whether at work, in the classroom, at their favorite store or at the stadium. They are relentlessly unforgiving when their applications are slow or the Wi-Fi is spotty.To read this article in full, please click here
How often have you been on a VoIP call only to experience dropouts or garbled sound? Or endured a video conference with pixelated images or even a frozen screen? The expanding use of Unified Communications (UC) applications has placed increased pressure on IT to deliver an exceptional user experience to employees. But when user experience deteriorates enough, it results in a flood of calls to the IT help desk. Delivering consistent, high quality real-time communications is difficult, if not impossible, with a traditional router-centric wide area network architecture.Why? Because conventional routers can’t overcome inevitable packet loss that negatively impacts quality voice and video communication quality and the user’s experience and productivity. WAN architectures based on traditional routers typically backhaul all traffic to a headquarters-based data center, adding latency or delay that contribute to poor quality.To read this article in full, please click here
As enterprises continue to rapidly migrate applications and infrastructure to the cloud, SD-WAN technologies are quickly gaining traction. Industry analyst firm IDC estimates that 80 percent of business is transacted from branch and remote offices, which is driving enterprises to deploy SD-WAN solutions to provide secure and direct branch connectivity to the cloud while lowering overall WAN costs.The Silver Peak® Unity EdgeConnect™ SD-WAN solution has been engineered from the ground up for the cloud. Microsoft’s recent announcement of the Azure Virtual WAN service comes in response to customer demand to optimize branch connectivity to their IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud services. By integrating with the Azure Virtual WAN service, Silver Peak enables enterprises to easily connect branch sites and users to Azure services and Microsoft’s global IP backbone.To read this article in full, please click here
In the form of the iconic David Letterman Top Ten List segment from his former Late Show, Silver Peak is counting down the Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router. Click here for the #10 reason to retire traditional routers at the branch.The #9 reason it’s time to retire traditional routers at the branch: Sub-par SaaS Performance!
We often hear from customers that their employees complain that Salesforce.com (or Office365 or Workday or any of myriad SaaS apps) is more responsive from home or from Starbucks than from the branch office.To read this article in full, please click here
Aruba
Tom Hollingsworth, Blog Contributor
The industry is on the cusp of a new wireless protocol. It's been almost 10 years since 802.11ac was proposed, and five years since final ratification. 802.11ac has been built upon to deliver speeds past 1 Gpbs and has become the preferred method of wireless connectivity for computers and mobile devices alike.To read this article in full, please click here
For the past three years, the software-defined WAN or SD-WAN, has been one of the most talked about technology trends. By some estimations there are 60+ vendors, all marketing their products around the concept of SD-WAN, each vying to carve out a piece of this emerging multi-billion-dollar market. While all the discussion and hype around SD-WAN has helped shine the spotlight on the business value enterprises can realize by changing the way they build their wide area networks, it has also led to confusion and in some cases delays of adoption.That is why today’s release of the first ever 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure is such an important milestone for us. Gartner has long been one of the most influential industry analyst firms in the world, providing highly credible perspectives on technology vendors and markets. By listening to thousands of enterprise customers, reviewing each vendor’s solution in detail and analyzing their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision, they have published a comprehensive report to provide their view of the Leaders, Challengers, Niche Players and Visionaries in this rapidly changing market (to get a copy of the WAN Edge Magic Quadrant click here). This new Continue reading
When building networks in the ‘real world’ like city centers, stadiums, apartment buildings, and even office buildings, we frequently come across situations where many access points, installed independently or managed as one network, create overlapping coverage areas. When these access points choose to use the same channel, the performance of all users in such an area is reduced, as the Wi-Fi algorithm used to avoid collisions on the air is quite conservative.One focus of the next Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ax is to improve the performance of ‘real-world’ networks. To this end, the new standard includes a feature enabling more simultaneous transmissions. This feature is known as ‘spatial reuse’ or ‘BSS coloring.’To read this article in full, please click here
Borrowing from the iconic David Letterman Top Ten List segment from his former Late Show, this new blog series will countdown the Top Ten Reasons to Think Outside the Router.The #10 reason it’s time to retire traditional routers at the branch: It’s getting cloudy!
In fact, it’s already cloudy. In November 2017, Forrester projected that 2018 would be the year that more than 50% of enterprise applications would be hosted in public and private clouds. Here we are in 2018, and 96% of 997 SMB and enterprise companies surveyed now use cloud services. The migration to cloud-based applications and infrastructure continues to accelerate and is happening faster than anyone predicted. The challenge: enterprise router-centric WAN architectures weren’t designed for the cloud.To read this article in full, please click here
The next advance in Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, is fast approaching. As we seek to raise the performance bar yet again for the sixth generation of Wi-Fi, the traditional techniques used in 802.11n and 802.11ac – wider RF channels, more MIMO antennas, higher QAM modulation – have been pushed almost to the limit, and it’s time to look for new ideas.802.11ax introduces techniques for ‘massive parallelism,’ especially OFDMA, multi-user MIMO, and ‘BSS coloring.’ All of these require the access point to make control decisions that have a significant effect on network performance, a new emphasis for Wi-Fi that will move access point networks closer to cellular base station infrastructure in terms of functionality.To read this article in full, please click here
As we explore the new features appearing in 802.11ax, the list is unbalanced. Some would say there’s a pig in the python. One feature – OFDMA – seems much more significant than the others. First, a brief background, then a view of its implications.A Quick Review of OFDMAOFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is an extension of the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) architecture. OFDM takes an RF channel, such as the 20 MHz channel often used in Wi-Fi, and instead of using a single carrier-frequency modulated by AM, FM, or other means, sets out a number of sub-carriers. 802.11ac used 52 data-carrying sub-carriers in a 20 MHz RF channel, while 802.11ax has 234.To read this article in full, please click here
When SD-WANs first began to be discussed, the focus of the discussion was on the potential cost savings that would result from incorporating more cost-effective broadband connectivity into the WAN. Reducing cost is clearly an important goal, but achieving that goal is only meaningful if the WAN is also providing all the requisite functionality. This blog will discuss the importance of WAN functionality such as security and the ability to effectively support cloud computing. This blog will also identify the key characteristics of a secure SD-WAN.Required WAN Functionality
The functionality that WANs must provide was identified in the 2018 Guide to WAN Architecture and Design. That guide presented the results of a survey in which the respondents were presented with fifteen factors and asked to choose the top three factors that would likely have the most impact on their WAN over the next twelve months. The factors that were the most important are shown in Figure 1.To read this article in full, please click here
Today we focus on when new 802.11ax access points and client devices will become available. The Wi-Fi industry has made these questions uniquely difficult to answer, but this blog explains what we expect to happen. If you have the patience, save these predictions for rereading toward the end of 2019!The three important milestones along the path to commercial equipment are the IEEE 802.11ax standard, the Wi-Fi Alliance 11ax certification, and integrated circuit chips. These are a sequence in time, but with a lot of overlap.The First Milestone: IEEEThe IEEE writes standards: very detailed definitions of the packet formats, fields, and functions that make the protocols work. IEEE 802.11ax is written as an amendment to the current 802.11 standards and eventually will be folded into the mainstream 802.11 document. Even as an amendment, however, it is 600 pages long. Getting every detail of such a standard correct requires scrutiny from many experts, and the IEEE process involves reviewing drafts and submitting comments and corrections, which then update new drafts, and are reviewed again.To read this article in full, please click here
Brand Post