Aruba, Meru air WLAN wares

Aruba Wireless Networks this week plans to announce wireless LAN products that address the needs of small companies and branch offices. Separately, Meru Networks says its latest offering zeroes in on wireless security.

The new Aruba 200 Mobility Controller packages the company's high-end WLAN features into its smallest and lowest-priced product. The 200 model can have six access points attached and supports about 100 simultaneous users. The company's previous low-end controller, the Aruba 800, can connect 16 access points and 250 users.

A key change is ease of installation, Aruba says. Office workers plug in the power cord and attach some cables, and the 200 model automatically creates a secure IPSec VPN link to an Aruba master controller at a central office. The 200 model then downloads user information, security profiles and settings, and configuration settings for itself and attached access points.

Competing in this market are Cisco's Integrated Services Router fitted with a recently announced WLAN blade, Symbol's WS2000, and similar products from Trapeze Networks and others.

The 200 model starts at $1,750 (the 800 model started at $5,000).

Also new from Aruba is the Mobility Management System, which shifts from the company's controllers to a server or an appliance an array of tasks, including WLAN planning, radio frequency management and network monitoring.

Farpoint consultant Craig Mathias likes the idea of a management appliance. "It's all in one place, you turn it on, and then you don't have to do a lot of work setting it up and managing it," he says.

The Mobility Management System is available in a rack-mounted appliance and as software that can be loaded on existing servers.

The appliance version starts at $22,000 and supports as many as 250 Aruba access points. The software-only version starts at $4,000 for 50 access points.

Meru's move

Meru is expected to release an optional application called the Security Services Module for its wireless controllers. The code can manipulate the radio signal from Meru access points, adding a layer of security to a corporate wireless network, according to the company.

The software adds three capabilities. First, it enables an access point not only to process traffic destined for it but also to act as an RF scanner in the time between frames. Other vendors make use of separated, dedicated radio scanners, or force an access point to switch sequentially between processing and scanning, says Meru CTO Vaduvar Bhargavan. Switching takes times, and adds latency that can degrade or disrupt voice and video traffic, he says.

Second, the software lets a controller order an access point to jam a detected rogue device by transmitting a signal designed to collide with the rogue's signal while the access point maintains links with authorized clients. The rogue, in effect, disappears; wireless clients can't see it and therefore ignore it. Rival products have the access point send out de-authenticate packets to a rogue, a technique that consumes bandwidth, according to Bhargavan.