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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Aruba Wireless Networks Secures Voice Over Wi-Fi
LONDON, WIRELESS LAN EVENT, OLYMPIA CONFERENCE CENTER, April 5
Aruba Wireless Networks(TM) (Aruba) today unveiled the
industry's first complete solution that lets enterprises securely operate
voice over Wi-Fi (VoFi). Aruba's Secure Voice, a new AirOS software module, is
available immediately as a free upgrade to Aruba's entire line of WLAN
switches.
"Voice is going to be a core driver of the adoption of wireless LANs in
the enterprise," said Craig J. Mathias, a Principal with the wireless advisory
firm Farpoint Group (Ashland, MA). "Aruba has really nailed this issue --
successful implementation of voice over Wi-Fi (VoFi) involves bandwidth
management, traffic classification, and support for a broad range of
subscriber units."
In a related release, Aruba also announced that it is working with leading
VoFi equipment suppliers, including SpectraLink(TM), TeleSym(TM) and
Vocera(TM) to deliver integrated and fully-interoperable voice over wireless
solutions that include VoFi phones, PC- and PDA-based soft phones and voice
communications badges.
"To be widely adopted by enterprises, voice over Wi-Fi technology has to
mature from its roots in vertical applications to a VoIP-based enterprise
solution with support for all aspects of voice," said Keerti Melkote,
co-founder and VP, Product Marketing for Aruba Wireless Networks. "Aruba's
Secure Voice strategy leverages the movement towards centralized WLAN systems
and provides a comprehensive, standards-based framework that addresses all the
key elements of enterprise VoFi integration including security, QoS, fast
handoffs and radio resource management (RRM)."
Secure Voice Over Wi-Fi
Many of today's VoFi phones and other handheld devices cannot be
effectively authenticated on wireless networks because there is no way to pass
credentials into the infrastructure. Consequently, when these devices are
allowed access to the network through methods such as static WEP keys and MAC
address authentication, security holes are created. MAC addresses can be
easily spoofed in a WLAN environment and can be used by an intruder to gain
illegal access to the network.
Aruba's stateful firewall technology contains these threats by
automatically identifying traffic and enforcing security polices that restrict
where voice devices, and specific traffic from them, are allowed to go on the
network. Aruba's products also incorporate unique wireless intrusion detection
technology to provide a multi-layered security strategy for protecting voice
communications.
Centralized WLANs Deliver Fast Handoffs and Happy Users
Similar to cellular networks, supporting VoFi requires an architecture
that supports fast handoffs as users move across multiple access points (APs)
in the network. Handoffs must take under 50 milliseconds in order to not
impact voice quality. Distributed "fat AP" architectures are severely hamper
AP handoffs as all the wireless intelligence is distributed in the AP itself.
Handoffs require that APs talk to each other, constantly transferring user
state.
Aruba's centralized architecture borrows from the best practices of
cellular networks and eliminates the need for APs to talk to each other. This
is achieved by centralizing user state across many APs inside the WLAN switch.
This results in inter-AP handoff times well under 10 milliseconds.
Aruba's inter-switch handoff solution is also based on cellular handoff
technologies such as Mobile IP and delivers handoff times of less than
20 milliseconds. Mobile IP has been standardized by the ITU as the mobility
protocol for networks based on CDMA technologies and forms the basis for
achieving the goal of a seamless handoff between the enterprise and cellular
wireless environments.
Stateful Voice Flow Classification (VFC) for Trusted QoS
PDAs and laptops equipped with soft phones generate both voice and data
traffic. But dedicated SSIDs or MAC address prioritization doesn't allow these
different traffic types to be recognized or prioritized. In turn, Web traffic
receives the same high priority as voice traffic.
Only Aruba Wireless Networks stateful voice flow classification (VFC)
technology allows mixed voice and data traffic coming from a single device,
such as a laptop or PDA, to be automatically identified and prioritized
without having to alter the infrastructure in any way. This allows enterprises
to create a QoS trust model where the network is placed in-charge of flow
classification and prioritization instead of trusting the client to signal the
network for a desired QoS level based on the application.
Aruba's APs and WLAN switches support multiple queues that can used to
prioritize traffic and have built-in support for the emerging IEEE
802.11e / WME (eight hardware queues in each AP) quality of service
specification.
Dynamic Radio Resource Management Extends Battery Life
To conserve battery life, voice handsets require different schemes for
power management in the air than do laptops. Unlike a laptop, a phone only
needs to be active when it either makes or receives a phone call. Aruba's
WLAN system now delivers voice handsets with a unique power management profile
that conserves battery life by maximizing opportunities to turn off the radio
on the handset.
Administrators can also use Aruba's dynamic Radio Resource Management
(RRM) capabilities to tune the RF environment for optimal user experience. For
instance, when a voice call is being initiated, Aruba's VFC automatically
reserves the required amount of bandwidth in the air, can deny the call due to
congestion or redirect the call to another AP better able to support it.
E-911 Support for Real-time Location Tracking
Aruba's system is capable of triangulating an 802.11 signal to within five
meters and visually depict the location of the RF source on a floor plan. This
capability can be applied to support the regulatory E-911 requirements for
detecting the location of a user and reporting it to the authorities in real
time.
Integrated VoIP Support
Aruba's WLAN switch is the first to support the stateful classification of
the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP is considered the primary protocol
of choice for enterprise and carrier migration to VoIP and forms the basis for
many leading VoIP solutions in the industry. In addition, Aruba's switches can
also classify the SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP) protocol for automatic
identification and classification of SpectraLink calls.
Highest Call Capacity per Switch
Aruba's system now has the highest capacity of any system in the industry
with support for over 5000 simultaneous voice calls on a single Aruba 5000
WLAN switching system that can now support up to 256 APs. Aruba's thin APs
have also been tested to support greater than 20 voice calls per 802.11b radio
and deliver one of the highest call capacities of any AP in the industry.
Pricing and Availability
Aruba's AirOS Secure Voice module is available immediately as a free
upgrade for its entire line of stackable and modular Wi-Fi switching systems.
About Aruba Wireless Networks
Aruba Wireless Networks develops and markets centralized systems that
enable corporations to secure their networks from the dual threats of Wi-Fi
and mobility. Aruba's solution consists of a full range of programmable
security platforms designed to securely connect mobile users and mobile
devices to corporate applications. Aruba is privately-held and has operations
in the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific and India and employs staff around
the world. Aruba has received over $30 million in two rounds of venture
funding from top-tier venture firms -- Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, and
Trinity Ventures. Visit Aruba Wireless Networks at
http://www.arubanetworks.com .
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