Our recent White Paper on Virtual WLAN controllers brought the idea of running the controller as software in a virtual machine into focus. I recently spoke with a user who's put the concept into practice - and couldn't be more pleased.
I posted a blog entry last October on what I think is the start of an important trend in WLAN architecture – virtualizing the controller. By this, I mean implementing the controller as software running in a virtual machine. I covered all of this in detail in a White Paper available through the link above, but I’ve been dying to speak with an IT manager actually using the technique to verify that my assumptions were correct. Well, I recently did, and they are. This is going to be big.
Specifically, I spoke with the key network manager at Kronos Inc., a large user of Bluesocket wireless LANs. They’ve been using the virtual controller approach on a portion of their WLAN, and couldn’t be more pleased. Rather than enumerating all the details here, I’ve written this case study up as a Farpoint Group Application Note, which you can of course download at no charge. The bottom line: I think Bluesocket is really onto something here – virtualizing the controller will, I believe, become very popular indeed.
