Enterprise Wi-Fi vendor Aruba
Networks is going to buy AirWave Wireless, a multi-vendor WLAN management
company, in a bid to take business from Cisco.
The purchase may prove awkward for rival companies who work with AirWave.

AirWave, which Aruba is buying for $37 million, provides software to build
legacy standalone wireless access points from other vendors into networks managed
by products such as Aruba's mobility controllers. It has been working with Aruba,
and rivals such as HP and Colubris,
as well as Avaya, AirMagnet
and Tivoli.

"Management is an Achilles Heel for many vendors," said Roger Hockaday,
head of European marketing at Aruba. "There's been a focus on controllers
and network design, and not on reporting and diagnostics." Large vendors
such as Hewlett-Packard and Juniper have been making use of AirWave to boost
their wireless LAN products (in HP's case, re-badged versions of Motorola/Symbol
technology), to give them features comparable to those of specialists like Aruba.

Most of AirWave's customers, however, have Cisco standalone access points -
and Aruba has been using the Airwave platform to "adopt" these for
more than a year. "We can extend the life of a thick access point by two
years, giving people a more gentle upgrade," said Hockaday.

The software can also manage access points from vendors like Meru and Cisco,
if users want to change supplier, he said, and it can include WiMax and outdoor
mesh networks too.

AirWave's ambitions before the purchase were to be the "HP OpenView of
wireless LAN management," and Aruba has promised to keep its independent
status, by operating it separately to its own management software.

"This is not about taking AirWave and making it an Aruba product. We want
to be the leader in multi-vendor networks," said Hockaday. "We're
making a commitment to expand the number of products supported in the Airwave
platform." There will be some customers where Aruba will sell only software,
he said, but over time Aruba's own management software will merge with AirWave.

"Network management is an essential component of every WLAN solution,
but is usually the piece that receives the least attention," said Michael
Brandenburg, Enterprise Network Systems Analyst for Current Analysis. "We
consider Aruba's acquisition of Airwave to be a strategic move that sets it
apart in its ability to centralise management of the all too common multi-vendor
WLAN deployment."

» posted by abennett

Techworld.com

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