If you follow the announcements from major networking vendors you will have noticed a trend, at least in the marketing, for new solutions that are emerging from these companies. Every whitepaper or datasheet you read will have the key words “Simple”, “Secure”, and “Scalable” littered throughout the document. The reason for this is because, from a high level, these are some of the most important factors for customers when making a purchasing decision.
One solution I have found that lives up to those key words is Aruba’s new SD Branch solution. This solution is intended to help enterprise customers modernize their branch networks for the ever-evolving network requirements that IT needs to support. According to Aruba, the new SD Branch offering is
“Ideally suited for distributed enterprises undergoing digital transformation, Aruba SD-Branch delivers optimized branch experiences with simplicity at enterprise scale and integrated, best-in-class security. Retail, hospitality, and healthcare organizations can manage SD-WAN, WLAN, LAN, and unified policy for thousands of sites in the cloud.”
But how is it delivering on those marketing key-words?
For enterprises, this new SD-Branch solution offers cloud-based management option that allows them to provide remote, centralized provisioning and management of both wired and wireless connections within the branch and through WAN and internet connections in the SD-WAN infrastructure. The idea behind it is to give IT the ability to implement new services and make network changes quickly even across huge environments that are distributed throughout different locations and departments. So you can manage everything from one centralized console without needing multiple programs for different functions or parts of the enterprise.
Within the branch, Aruba’s new service offers granular QoS through application, user, and device contextual awareness. This functionality also extends across the WAN for SaaS, mobile UC, and other remote applications. This is meant to simplify how LAN and WAN traffic gets prioritized and routed, both inside and outside of the branches, giving IT teams the ability to deliver a consistent experience across the organization regardless of device type, user role within the organization, or physical location on the network.
Of course, security is a major concern with basically any new tech offering. Aruba offers intra-branch and WAN policy enforcement capabilities that are both automated and granular. Aruba has a new set of Aruba 360 security exchange technology partners that deliver cloud-based firewall and threat protection to help IT keep all of the organization’s digital assets safe and protected.
Aruba’s SD Branch solution is managed and configured in the cloud using a tool called Aruba Central. Central has been around for a while now and is most commonly used to manage large dispersed wireless access. The management functionality, along with the new “WAN analytics” piece I discussed above, have been extended to include the branch gateways at each location. Being a cloud management tool first and foremost Central can scale to meet the demands of any network (as they have been doing for years with some of Aruba’s largest dispersed customers), so customers have the peace of mind that their investment will be protected, no matter how large they grow, for years to come.
If you follow the announcements from major networking vendors you will have noticed a trend, at least in the marketing, for new solutions that are emerging from these companies. Every whitepaper or datasheet you read will have the key words “Simple”, “Secure”, and “Scalable” littered throughout the document. The reason for this is because, from a high level, these are some of the most important factors for customers when making a purchasing decision.
One solution I have found that lives up to those key words is Aruba’s new SD Branch solution. This solution is intended to help enterprise customers modernize their branch networks for the ever-evolving network requirements that IT needs to support. According to Aruba, the new SD Branch offering is
“Ideally suited for distributed enterprises undergoing digital transformation, Aruba SD-Branch delivers optimized branch experiences with simplicity at enterprise scale and integrated, best-in-class security. Retail, hospitality, and healthcare organizations can manage SD-WAN, WLAN, LAN, and unified policy for thousands of sites in the cloud.”
But how is it delivering on those marketing key-words?
For enterprises, this new SD-Branch solution offers cloud-based management option that allows them to provide remote, centralized provisioning and management of both wired and wireless connections within the branch and through WAN and internet connections in the SD-WAN infrastructure. The idea behind it is to give IT the ability to implement new services and make network changes quickly even across huge environments that are distributed throughout different locations and departments. So you can manage everything from one centralized console without needing multiple programs for different functions or parts of the enterprise.
Within the branch, Aruba’s new service offers granular QoS through application, user, and device contextual awareness. This functionality also extends across the WAN for SaaS, mobile UC, and other remote applications. This is meant to simplify how LAN and WAN traffic gets prioritized and routed, both inside and outside of the branches, giving IT teams the ability to deliver a consistent experience across the organization regardless of device type, user role within the organization, or physical location on the network.
Of course, security is a major concern with basically any new tech offering. Aruba offers intra-branch and WAN policy enforcement capabilities that are both automated and granular. Aruba has a new set of Aruba 360 security exchange technology partners that deliver cloud-based firewall and threat protection to help IT keep all of the organization’s digital assets safe and protected.
Aruba’s SD Branch solution is managed and configured in the cloud using a tool called Aruba Central. Central has been around for a while now and is most commonly used to manage large dispersed wireless access. The management functionality, along with the new “WAN analytics” piece I discussed above, have been extended to include the branch gateways at each location. Being a cloud management tool first and foremost Central can scale to meet the demands of any network (as they have been doing for years with some of Aruba’s largest dispersed customers), so customers have the peace of mind that their investment will be protected, no matter how large they grow, for years to come.
In the past few years, we have seen some significant advancements in wireless technology. Starting with 802.11ac Wave 1, we saw about double the theoretical max data rate (from 600Mbps to 1.3Gbps) from the previous standard 802.11N. Thanks to the addition of 80MHz channels and 3 spatial streams. The next generation, 802.11ac Wave 2, increased those numbers even further by adding 160MHz channel support and Multi-User MIMO.
The advancements in these AC technologies were much needed in the industry, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them “game changers”. The increase in channel frequency was achieved by bonding more channels, meaning that the extremely dense real-world deployments could not effectively take advantage of the technology due to channel overlap. Even MU-MIMO was an advancement of a technology that had been around for over a decade – single user MIMO.
The next generation of WiFi promises to be that “game changer” technology the wireless world has been waiting on. This blog will focus on the total redesign that went into 802.11ax, and the benefits that this technology will soon be bringing to mobile networks hopefully by early 2019.
802.11ax is designed specifically for high-density public environments, such as libraries, stadiums, conference centers, airports, etc. But it also will be beneficial in Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, in heavy-usage homes, in apartment buildings and in offices that use high bandwidth applications like videoconferencing. Perhaps the most exciting feature of 802.11ax is that it was designed for cellular data offloading, allowing cellular networks to offload data to a compatible wireless network in cases where poor cellular connection is present. Note – I’m a little biased on this feature since my house only gets “2 bars” of cell reception on a good day.
802.11ax touts a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 14Gbps, delivering single streams at speeds up to 3.5Gbps. Thanks to the new multiplexing technology that was adapted from the world of LTE (cellular), a single AP can deliver 4 of these 3.5Gbps streams to equal that theoretical max bandwidth number of 14Gbps. Thanks to a higher order of QAM modulation, which allows more data to be transmitted per packet, 802.11ax delivers nearly 40% more real throughput when compared to 802.11ac technology. The total number of available channels will also increase in 802.11ax. There has been talks of the FCC opening up more of the radio spectrum, however this is not how 802.11ax achieves a higher number of channels. Instead, 802.11ax creates broader channels and splits them into narrower sub-channels. This will drastically increase spectrum utilization and decrease interference on the wireless network.
802.11ax also made some significant improvements to the Multi User MIMO technology. With AC Wave 2 AP’s arecapable of transmitting 4 concurrent down-streams of data. 802.11ax allows for 8 simultaneous streams, and makes use of a technology called explicit beamforming to better aim the streams at the receiving client radios. This will provide better reception, range, and throughput while minimizing interference on the network. Even more importantly, 802.11ax piggybacks on MU-MIMO with an LTE cellular base station technology called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). This allows each MU-MIMO stream to be split in four additional streams, boosting the effective bandwidth per user by four times. From a user perspective, the network will seem much less congested than with 802.11ac.
The final big improvement in 802.11ax comes from the device side, rather than the network. As wireless technology improves client battery life typically also improves due to data being transmitted faster and further, meaning the client device does not need to work as hard. 802.11ax has built on this trend by introducing a feature called “time scheduling”. This enables Aps to tell clients when to go to sleep and provides a schedule of when to “wake” to receive the next transmission. These are very short periods of time, but make a huge difference in the overall battery life of a device as the wireless card is no longer “always on”.
In conclusion, 802.11ax aims to increase network efficiency, range, speed, and reception while minimizing the issues that haunt us today in dense environments: inefficient spectrum utilization and interference. Consumer grade 802.11ax routers have already begun shipping, starting with Asus who shipped their router on August 30, 2017. Enterprise access points are expected to begin shipping around mid 2018. As with 802.11ac wave 2 the major bottleneck looks like it will again be client devices. To take full advantage of the technology client devices need to be equipped with AX capable wireless cards, giving them access to the 8 MU-MIMO spatial streams. However, I expect client device adoption to be much swifter with this standard because of the significant battery life improvements (which is a big selling point for phones). Only time will tell, but the good news is that 802.11ax is backwards compatible with both 802.11ac and 802.11n devices.
Ensuring that all wireless clients get the service levels they need is a major challenge, especially when smartphones, tablets and other devices control their own connectivity and roaming decisions on the network.
ClientMatch® is a RF management technology developed by Aruba Networks that puts the connectivity and roaming control back into the wireless solution. The idea behind this is that the wireless solution will have a much better idea of which access point is the most appropriate client, based on the information the Access Points are constantly collecting. This allows the controller (or Instant Controller) to make these decisions about what to do with a client in real time, which drastically increases performance of a wireless network.
The old adage of “one bad apple spoils the bunch” is especially true in wireless networking, particularly now with the greater than gigabit speeds of 802.11AC. Once attached to an AP, clients tend to stay attached even when the user begins to walk away from the AP and the device signal weakens. When these devices do not roam to a new access point, it drags down the throughput of everyone else on the access point they are “stuck” to.
We call these devices “sticky clients,” and a few of them can even bring modern wireless networks to their knees if they do not know how to handle these clients. The process of moving clients to more appropriate AP’s within a network is called Client Steering.
In addition to addressing the problem of sticky clients, ClientMatch® also helps devices connect to the best available radio. Let’s say a dual-band client attempts to connect to a 2.4GHz radio on an access point with a 20MHz channel, ClientMatch® will steer that client to an avaiable 40MHz channel on a 5GHz radio – provided there is one in the client’s range with good signal strength. This allows the wireless system to take full advantage of the client’s capabilities to essentially double its throughput by forcing it to connect to the correct radio. This feature within ClientMatch® is called Band Steering.
Whether we are talking about Band Steering or Client Steering, Aruba always takes the Access Point Load into account when making these calculations. Dynamic Load Balancing addresses client density problems by dynamically distributing clients across available AP’s and Channels, ensuring that individual APs aren’t overloaded and client performance is continually maximized. This is a very important feature in client dense environments like auditoriums.
An analogy I like to use to explain all of this is the highway analogy. A true BYOD network will have a diverse set of devices that all need access, similar to a highway and its diverse set of cars and drivers. One or two slow drivers can cause serious delays in your morning commute, as all of the traffic behind them begins to pile up. However, simply steering these “slow drivers” to the correct lane will increase the total speed of the highway (user experience) immensely.
ClientMatch® is included in both Instant and Controller deployments. It is a base, unlicensed feature of the Aruba Operating System. It is available as part of AOS 6.3 and higher. For more information download this tech brief.