Regardless of the size of your business, you’ve had an almost enchanting opportunity over the past several years to enjoy the technological advances that have given way to a new era in communications. But, you’ve also likely had to suffer with some of the challenges those same advances carry with them, thanks to their growing complexity.
That often overwhelming complexity has been a thorn in the side of every IT manager, and particularly those that are charged with overseeing networks for distributed organizations. Let’s face it, the typical model for delivering communications capabilities to remote offices has meant mimicking much of the infrastructure at the main office, which also means significant time and effort for the IT staff.
Fortunately for the IT world — and through them, for the entire global workforce — there has been a tremendous push lately towards simplifying deployments of new technology in order to ease transitions and growth, especially in multi-site facilities. The latest vendor to tackle that challenge, though, is one that might not be your first thought when it comes to connecting
remote sites.
On the other hand, Aruba Networks (
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Alert) certainly is a name well known in the
wireless LAN space. The company has, now, however, taken its networking experience to branch connectivity with its new Virtual Branch Network (VBN) solution. And why not? If Aruba’s Head of Strategic Marketing Mike Tennefoss is anywhere close to accurate, the $6 billion market is an opportunity well worth the investment for a company that has for years been at the edge of this space, but on a much smaller scale.
Aruba, recognizing the complexity involved with the traditional branch office model, has taken a page from the
virtualization space, adopting something of a
SaaS approach to remote site connectivity with its VBN solution, looking to eliminate both cost and complexity in extending main office services to branches and remote workers.
No longer do IT groups have
to bear the burden — and cost — of replicating routing, switching, firewall, and other services at remote locations. Instead, by deploying a main branch controller, which acts as a policy enforcement firewall, access to resources can be assigned and managed from the home office, while remote deployment becomes exponentially easier.
For remote deployments, Aruba has developed three product lines designed to address the needs of low, middle, and high-end markets.
- RAP-2 Family (pictured left) — Is about the size of a deck of cards, designed for 1-5 users. It includes 802.11b/g connectivity, and two Ethernet ports (for VoIP phones and other wired hardware), as well as enterprise-grade security. List price starts at $99.
- RAP-5 Family (pictured right) — Looks like a home DSL modem and includes five high-speed Ethernet ports, a USB port for a broadband 3G cellular modem, hardware accelerated encryption, and, and includes and option for WiFi (News - Alert) capabilities. List price starts at $395.
600 Branch Office Controller Family (Model 651 pictured left)— A “branch-in-a-box” solution for sites with up to 256 users, it offers a broad range of WAN connectivity options, network-attached storage, gigabit Ethernet, PoE, Express Card slot, USB, and integrated 802.11n. List price starts at $1,495.
- A single Aruba 6000 Multi-Service Controller equipped with VBN software will support up to 8,000 RAP (Remote Access Point (News - Alert)) or 600 series BOC (Branch Office Controller) devices, and up to 32,000 users.
Though the three product lines address different segments of the remote branch market, they have all been designed to address the key pain points of all IT managers today.
Of course, price is always a primary concern, and Aruba offers various options to meet most budgets. Importantly, for remote worker scenarios, the $99 price point is not only the lowest-priced product Aruba has ever brought to market, but it reflects a sensitivity to the financial needs of its customer base as well.
Speaking to the TCO of a complete Aruba solution for a deployment with 50 branch offices with 200 teleworkers, network management, firewall, installation, two years of maintenance, Tennefoss estimates Aruba would cost about $670,000. He says a comparable solution from Cisco would cost nearly three times as much.
Of course, remote site connectivity can also be costly, especially if your hardware relies on expensive T1s, as many competing solutions do. Instead, Aruba leaves that option to each customer, who can choose any available WAN option, from consumer DSL to cable modems to T1s and even
3G wireless. The latter also serves as a convenient business continuity solution, which is also a consideration for any responsible IT manager.
Finally, and this has surprisingly been the solution’s biggest selling point to date, is Aruba’s “zero-touch” deployment model — meaning that IT staff never need to touch the remote site equipment. Of course, that means the end user needs to be able to install the product, which is accomplished by simply connecting the device and entering a single piece of information — the IP address of URL of the main data center. The rest is done from the main facility, including configuration, assigning security policies, and access to network resources from any edge devices.
“What’s fascinating is the initial customer reaction,” said Tennefoss. “The one-click secure installation is what really makes their eyes light up.”
One of the first adopters of Aruba’s new solution was Sylvan Learning, which had its first RAP-5 up and running in just a matter of minutes.
“That’s unheard of for a branch office solution,” added Tennefoss.
“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 entire system is managed by Aruba’s
AirWave management system, which not only handles all the Aruba hardware, but has the added — and increasingly important — benefit of being able to also control wireless network solutions from more than 15 other vendors, including Cisco. That brings with it not only additional cost savings from having to deploy only one management platform, but also eases the burden on IT staff for the same reason.
In fact, Tennefoss says that, “Most of Cisco’s largest wireless LAN deployments in the U.S. are all using the AirWave (
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Alert) management console because is offers more flexibility that Cisco’s own systems and it manages every generation of Cisco’s wireless LAN. Cisco itself doesn’t have a product that does that.”
Cisco is not alone, though. Many
WLAN vendors have developed their platforms with the hope of handcuffing their customers into a single-vendor solution, which, at one time, was commonly held as the most effective approach — for both end users and vendors.
But with today’s standards-based solutions and interoperability work, not to mention the varying needs of businesses as they grow, the customer side of the equation has moved to a multi-vendor approach to network deployment. That’s something most vendors have yet to accept, which presents a real market for companies like Aruba. That conversation, then, paves the way for discussions of other products, like how customers can effectively support their growing remote workforces with Aruba’s VBN solution.
Erik Linask (News - Alert) is Group Managing Editor of TMCnet, which brings news and compelling feature articles, podcasts, and videos to nearly 3,000,000 visitors each month. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by
Erik Linask
