Meru Networks has brought the techniques of virtualization to the wireless world, enabling the optimization of radio frequency (RF) resources to bring wireless LAN performance and reliability level with wired networks, reducing the price of wireless networking to a fraction of its wired equivalent.
Meru’s established “virtual cell” WLAN architecture, first launched in 2003, puts all access points on a single radio channel. This benefits companies by reducing or eliminating the need for costly RF planning, while ensuring excellent quality of service for mobile users.
With today’s introduction of Meru’s new “virtual port” capability, every wireless client device accessing the WLAN (laptop, phone, PDA, scanner) gets its own unique identifier (BSSID) that stays with the device wherever it moves within the WLAN.
This lets enterprises control the WLAN resources that an individual client device gets – just as in a wired switched network – providing enterprises with the ability to predict the cost of managing, provisioning and growing the wireless network in the way they have managed servers, storage and wired network resources.
The increased control realized with virtual port technology is especially important as wireless becomes the primary edge technology for network connectivity in an increasing number of environments, and as new and diverse wireless devices, based on the high-performance 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, proliferate throughout the enterprise.
Virtual port technology is available with Meru’s System Director 3.6 software, which is available now. Meru customers with active support contracts can upgrade to virtual port capability at no charge.
