Aerohive latest to offer mobile access control, spectrum analysis
Wireless LAN vendors are working to help enterprises gain control over personal mobile devices accessing their networks and to identify and mitigate sources of interference as Wi-Fi usage volumes ramp up.
Aerohive Networks, for example, is the latest to announce a new version of its Wi-Fi operating system and network management software that addresses these issues.
2 Wi-Fi vendors adding cloud-based networking
The company’s WLAN architecture doesn’t require controller equipment; it bundles control functions into its distributed access points (APs), which directly intercommunicate via special protocols. So the software enhancements, available at no cost, apply to the company’s APs and its NMS software, which can run as a VMware server application or as a cloud service.
The newly announced HiveOS and HiveManager Version 4.0, to ship June 20, add spectrum analysis and access control capabilities to the Aerohive management toolbox. Spectrum analysis, which uses spectral signatures to identify exactly what types of devices are causing interference, such as microwave ovens, has been built right into Aerohive APs.
As for access control, each Aerohive AP has a captive Web portal built into it, explains Stephen Phillip, vice president of product marketing. For guest Internet access, the portal serves up a private preshared key (PSK), which can be unique to the device at hand and is time-based and revocable, he explains.
The same approach works with employees; however, depending on information collected about device type, Active Directory authentication or domain membership, the employee might gain access to internal resources other than just the Internet. The point is to deliver secure network access without having to support 802.1x configuration on all the personal devices connecting to the network, Phillip explains.
Aruba Networks and Cisco have recently made similar security announcements — Aruba with its Mobile Device Access Control (MDAC) and Cisco with its Identity Services Engine. And Cisco, of course, has received untold kudos for its CleanAir spectrum analysis capabilities that it baked into its Aironet 3500 802.11n APs last year.
Are all created equal? One glaring difference is that Aerohive doesn’t charge you for these features.
“We’re looking to solve the same access control problem [as the Aruba MDAC] offering,” Phillip acknowledges. “But we can do it without asking you go buy an expensive additional Amigopod [mobile device management server]. Similarly, we’re not charging you for spectrum analysis; you can get it in any of our APs. Cisco’s approach was to introduce a premium AP to handle it.”
