* Will AP, switch vendor partnerships help enterprises?
Most people involved in the wireless LAN industry now agree that having centralized control over large numbers of distributed access points is a positive thing.
True, the sniping continues over just how intelligent the APs themselves should be. That’s fodder for a future discussion. However, if you’d like to register your opinion on this and other WLAN-related issues, please take a few minutes to fill out the second annual Webtorials State-of-the-WLAN-Market survey at https://www.webtorials.com/survey-05-2.htm this week. I’ll be analyzing and reporting the trends reflected by the results here in mid-April.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, WLAN switch/appliance makers Trapeze Networks and Aruba Wireless Networks are striking partnerships with third-party AP makers to make their centralized gear and software work with APs other than their own. As you likely know, the centralized WLAN management concept came to market as APs grew too voluminous for enterprises to configure, manage and secure them one at a time.
What eventually disconcerted some users, however, was that when they bought into the thin-AP-with-WLAN-switch-architecture, they became beholden to buying both components from the same vendor. The reason is that, today, the protocol used for communication between switch and AP is proprietary to each vendor.
Until the emerging Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) switch-to-AP protocol arrives, Trapeze and Aruba have taken measures to open up the management and other value-added software features in their switches.
Last week, Trapeze announced that AP-maker D-Link is now shipping an enterprise-class AP that works with Trapeze’s Mobility Exchange WLAN switches and RingMaster management software. D-Link represents Trapeze’s first partner in its new Open Access Point Initiative (OAPI).
Trapeze code should also soon also be available for 3Com 8250 and 8270 standalone, intelligent APs, allowing them to plug into Trapeze switches and potentially protecting significant existing enterprise hardware investments. The Trapeze-3Com development partnership was announced last summer.
Meanwhile, Aruba announced a similar program called Aruba Certified, an initiative under which AP makers can partner with the company to reconfigure their devices with code and basically transform them into Aruba “thin” APs. Netgear is Aruba’s first partner, apparently choosing this path into the enterprise WLAN switch market.
Aaron Vance, senior analyst at Synergy Research Group, summed up these developments as a “step in the right direction. It’s a good move for companies like Aruba and Trapeze to show leadership and innovation while [WLAN switch competitor] Airespace products are stagnating” during Airespace’s acquisition by Cisco and as Airespace products are assimilated into the Cisco product line.
Agreed. On the other hand, in effect, Trapeze and Aruba are simply turning other vendors’ APs into Trapeze and Aruba APs (though some of the AP vendors’ hardware internals remain intact). You have to buy new D-Link APs – you can’t upgrade old ones – to get the benefit of the Trapeze software features. Does it really matter who you buy them from? Pricing hasn’t been announced.
And how many enterprises are even running Netgear APs today, as opposed to consumers, let alone wanting to upgrade them to Aruba APs?
At this juncture, this is more of a channels play for the vendors than a benefit for enterprises – except, perhaps, in the case of 3Com customers.
If you want a truly mix-and-match enterprise-class environment, a Wavelink-plus-AirMagnet-style management and monitoring setup is also worth investigating. The catch here is that while Wavelink was created to manage heterogeneous wireless infrastructures, most notably missing in the list of equipment that Wavelink’s Mobile Manager software supports is Trapeze and Aruba gear.
