Wireless Wellness - Part 1 of 2
So in this video, I want to talk about one of the core innovations that has come out of Meru recently, which is this concept of wireless wellness. Now, as I've talked about in a companion video, the whole premise of founding Meru was that the edge becomes all wireless over time. And of course with 802.11n we are seeing that happen. We have a plethora of different devices with different drivers, different settings, different options, running a variety of different applications. And what we are seeing, particularly in our highly advanced customer base, is that people are starting over time to depend on wireless as a utility and run their core business over the network. So while wireless might have started off as a network of convenience for a lot of enterprises, and many vendors still sort of thrive in that market, Meru's core premise is that wireless is not just a network of convenience, it is the wireless edge or it is the edge. When you have a network like that, you cannot afford failures.
So a lot of our customers are really high-end, power users of wireless like hospitals, like trading floors, like universities where 90% of the traffic is going over wireless. In such networks, downtime is something really critical because it impacts productivity. So the long and short of it is that we are trying to translate wired experience and bring it into the wireless network. One of the key aspects that emerged over the few decades of evolution of wired networks is the ability to proactively monitor a wired network, and figure out when there is a problem before the end-user experiences it. So as you can imagine, in a hospital, you can't tell a nurse in an ICR after the call is dropped, hey hold on a few minutes, I'm going to go figure out what the problem is. That's catastrophic, potentially. So it's really critical to be able to proactively figure out the problem before the end-user sees it, and the question is how.
So if you look at how people have solved this problem hereto, there are really three approaches people have used. The first is that they might do truck rolls. So what do I mean by that? Send people out. If you are rolling out a new application, like let's say a clinical patient auto entry system, or a nurse call system, or something that's absolutely crucial, what you do is you start shipping people out, have them walk around with the application and the devices, test them out and figure out if they work.
The second option is doing site surveys. So what do you do here? You take a look at all your access points, you put them in a planning tool, you plan for coverage and then you actually walk around with the device and make sure the coverage works or the application works.
The third approach is people have put sensors. So what is this? This is an overlay system, essentially of RF monitors or access points that do not serve but simply look at what's going on over the network, try to capture all the packets and then you do offline processing. These are, short of do nothing, these are the only mechanisms or tools that people had. Now notice that truck rolls are very expensive. Site surveys are done at a point in time, therefore they lack repeatability. And sensors, while they do capture what's going on over the air, are inherently passive and reactive. Because if there is no traffic going on, there's nothing to sense.
So how do you know there was a problem before it happens, if all you are doing is passively monitoring the network? Or all you're doing is reacting to it after the problem had happened? Or doing your checks at a point in time, but not actually doing the check when the problem happens? So fundamentally, the problem that we are trying to solve is eliminating cost while creating repeatability and inducing traffic in the network so it transforms from being just a passive monitoring system into an active monitoring system, and the question is how do you do it?
This is where Meru's core architecture and unique innovation of the single channel Virtual Cell architecture comes into play. So let me explain to you what we do, and then talk about the implications that it has in terms of the underlying network architecture, and then try to contrast it with the systems that exist out there. So, remember, bear in mind that these are the three key problems that w are trying to solve. One of reacting in an expensive manner, creating repeatability, and making sure that we transform from passive to active. So bear that in mind for the rest of the video.
For more info visit: http://www.merunetworks.com
Loading...
9:33
Meru Networks Wireless Virtualization Architecture - Part 1by merunetworks1,785 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)