 Live from Santa Clara, California. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE. Covering next work 2015. Brought to you by Juniper Networks. Now your host, John Furrier. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in Santa Clara in the shadows of Levi's Stadium. This is theCUBE, our flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE. And my next guest is Ron Gill with Rutgers Wireless, Vice President of America's Enterprise Sales. Welcome to theCUBE. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. Before we rolled on, we both have a little history in the wireless, but it really is so important. You guys had a great success, public offering, great stuff, and just, you know, wireless is now part of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs in people's lives. And I remember when Centrino Chipset came out, you had a previous life in the early days of the Metro Wi-Fi and we were trying to, really the emergence of that concept. It's amazing how it's changed the world, right? No doubt. So there's really some nuance here and we don't want to go over the history lesson, but there's been a lot of awesome work that you've been involved in, we've all been part of, but now it's scaling, okay? Scaling up huge because now Wi-Fi is instrumental. LTE is now booming and you got the, certainly the cellular networks now are part of the digital transformation. Absolutely. This snapshot of the current state of the industry because you still got to move that wireless traffic through backhaul onto the internet, so it's the state of the industry. Well, I mean, certainly Wi-Fi is the tip of the spear. Okay, in any engagement, and you know, here we're at a, you know, a Marriott property in Santa Clara and in the hospitality industry, it is all about Wi-Fi. And you know, in the experience that we as, coming here for a show or as guests at the hotel, it is just an expectation that we have Wi-Fi access. And as a customer on that network, we want to have a good experience, that good experience starts with connectivity, but it also talks about how we get onto the network. It needs to be, it needs to be simple, it needs to be easy, and once we're on the network, we want to be able to move around this property and have access and not have to re-authenticate as we get around the property. Well, certainly we know about Wi-Fi has a limitation on distance, it's radio frequency, so there's a lot of interplay going on, so there's a lot of different versions of Wi-Fi out there. Certainly everyone can relate to it, a consumer level, even my kids, it's like Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, you know, they're all growing up, digital natives. But architecturally, talk about the transitions and the transformation in the network architecture because it used to be bolt on Wi-Fi, you backhaul it, there wasn't a lot of usage uptake, even Bill Schlau, CIO of the San Francisco Giants, I interviewed him last night on a special sports data SV event here in San Jose, and he said, you know, really, they saw the uptake on Wi-Fi, they had bolted on, have some access points out there, but really when the iPhone hit, skyrocketed. So there it is, so architecturally, what's the transformation? Well, when you asked me that question, I was ready to reach into my pocket and grab this because this literally did change everything and it really changed everything in terms of building out a network infrastructure. You know, we used to be able to do a hotel like this and we would have one access point for every 10 rooms because the user in those days was a laptop. Laptops aren't mobile. Okay, laptops go on somebody, on a table, on a lap, and you move- And more power. Absolutely. More battery power and more range. But this- Email. Is exactly, but this is the lowest common denominator and they're wonderful devices in terms of what we get out of them, but think about this, not only am I moving around, but let's say that intent is up here at the top left-hand corner, and all of a sudden now as I'm walking around, I move it here and look at where my hand is. Yeah, yeah. That changes everything. And so to make sure that we can have consistent communication with this device, it means we have to put more density of APs to ensure a great user experience. So, first of all, I could geek out, we could probably do an hour segment on this because that's so much fun, but you just brought up a couple different things and you didn't even talk about Snapchat and video. Just on the throughput side, flowing water, if you will, or content through the system. There's a lot of technology around with the antennas that could really screw up the network, meaning I'm retrying, I'm trying to link-beat or whatever the Ethernet version of that is. Absolutely. I'm talking to the antenna, so a lot has to go into the device. So a rogue device just who's maybe malfunctioning or poor battery is trying to overdrive to talk to the connection. Absolutely. That holds the port up. Now multiply that times 70,000 fans at the stadium. Well, and that's when you're leading me into one of the core differentiators of Ruckus Wireless. Okay, and when Ruckus entered the marketplace in 2008, there were already a number of Wi-Fi providers in terms of enterprise-class providers, and whether it was Cisco, Aruba, Trapeze Networks back in the day, Maroon Networks, they were all out there. So when Ruckus entered the marketplace, we came at the marketplace with something unique. When you look at the AP, the access points, even of today, for the most part, they're reference designs. They're taking a chip set from a chip provider in where that's a Qualcomm or a Broadcom or a Marvell, putting that chip set into an enclosure, some standard-based antennas, and that's a wireless access point. Ruckus on the other hand, we literally have almost 100 patents that are part of every AP we provide. We take that same chip set from one of those providers, but then we have core intellectual property on top of that that makes it unique, and so how we handle Wi-Fi, how we handle those retransmissions in terms of our antenna types, we've developed something that we call BeamFlex, okay? And we are looking for the best route of traffic on a per-packet basis, on a per-user basis. So we're typically taking our energy and emitting that to a user and getting them on and off our network, okay? So it's an intelligent software layer that you're building kind of independent of the APs. And also our own antennas, okay, so multiple directional antenna, both horizontal and vertically polarized. Are you working with Earthquakes at all? We have worked with the Earthquakes, yes, but we are not in their network today. Okay, so I got to bring up the backhaul piece because now you've got Intelligent, you guys have been very successful with that Intelligent software that manages the AP and all the interactions with the hand-chicking, the radio frequency, you got that, awesome, congratulations. You went public, huge success, big differentiator. But let's talk about the backhaul because now you've got to send the traffic. You're talking about Snapchat, Instagram, a live streaming, I did a live stream yesterday on the Zamboni at the Shark Tank over Facebook, had to go over LTE, but I'm most unsure if it went over Wi-Fi. There's auto sensing, things of that nature. You got to be network aware. Yes, always. Talk about that dynamic and where does Juniper fit into all this? Well, I mean, Juniper, of course, is at the core of most networks and that's why they're, for us, they're a very, very exciting partner because at Ruckus Wireless, we're a Wi-Fi provider, okay? Everything we do is related, is Wi-Fi, okay? So certainly we need to have edge switches, we need to have a core network and of course at the end of that, we need pipe, okay, which is what we're speaking of as it relates to the backhaul. 40 gig connections? Or larger, or larger, depending on the opportunity that's out there. So you look at Juniper as a strategic partner? Yes, very much so. What do they do that's different, that makes you guys stronger? Well, I mean, certainly the industry is going through a consolidation, okay? And more importantly, as you look at enterprise clients, they're looking for an end-to-end solution and a lot of those decisions, a lot of times, are made, they need to upgrade their Wi-Fi network. They want to have best-in-class Wi-Fi. In today's market, that might mean AC Wave 2. But to get AC Wave 2 and have that run at the desired rates, they might have to upgrade their switch architecture. They might have to upgrade their backhaul into their network based on that use case. So it's really important for Ruckus, even though we might be the tip of that spear, at the end of the day, we're not the biggest spend. Okay, when you look at a stadium environment, like Levi's Stadium, which we'll be at this evening for an event, they've got a Wi-Fi network in there. That Wi-Fi network was probably less than 20% of the spend of the overall infrastructure. Yeah, but in terms of value proposition, they consider it primary. Yes, yes. I mean, it's interesting, right? Yeah, absolutely. So they have to engineer the backhaul because if I can't get my Instagram photos out, I'm pissed off consumer, I'm not happy at Levi's. Absolutely. Brand. As a tip of the spear, I have to have great partnership all the way back, okay, to the core to ensure we deliver a great user experience. So what is this open convergence framework I've been hearing about? What is that all about? It's our Ruckus as part of this announcement. Well, yeah, I mean, and you've seen today, we started with a virtualization product last June, taking what we do and our controller architecture and virtualizing that. Today we have over 700 customers using that solution with over 200,000 access points deployed in a short four month window, if you will, and that architecture can scale to dramatic heights to where we can support over 30,000 access points with over 300,000 users. Ron, talk about the differentiates for Ruckus. Now, where do you guys win and why do you win? What's some of the examples? It really starts with, it really starts with what I started to talk about earlier, it's that user experience, okay. Ruckus has always hung its hat on best in class Wi-Fi and it starts out with the fact that we have core intellectual property in every access point we sell and we've been able to prove over time that in every Ruckus access point, we, you know, the net net of it is we provide more capacity and broader range than anybody in the marketplace. What that leads to is great user experiences. Our biggest vertical today globally is hospitality, where we work with all the leading brands of hotels. We're a brand standard at Marriott, Starwoods, Four Seasons, Commencal, and whatnot. It used to be a real pain in the butt to get on Wi-Fi. Radius server or some sort of access method was a pain in the butt. I move multiple devices and I have, I mean, these are issues, right? Yes, absolutely. Do you guys solve those issues? We do, okay, but first and foremost, it's about providing a great class of service in terms of connectivity, but also making it easy to get on and off the network. Okay, to be able to roam, which people want to roam today, that's very, very important. So talk about the growth opportunities. What's next in Wi-Fi? I mean, because, you know, again, I truly believe that user experience now with the phone is just, we're in still a toddler. I mean, it's only since 2007, the iPhone's only seven, well, dog years, it's, you know, it's 49 years old, but I mean, it's only been 2007 since the iPhone. Yeah. So just kind of just say 2010 when it broke open, but five years of growth. What's next? Yeah, you know, what's next is, you know, when you look at the, you know, Wi-Fi is now everywhere. So we're really looking at a replacement market in most cases. So we're typically replacing older Wi-Fi infrastructure and renewing that with, you know, with a new standard, which today is Wave 2 AC, but the argument is moving, okay? The argument is moving now away from Wi-Fi and more to, again, onboarding, mobility. How do you onboard customers? How do you onboard customers with multiple devices? I got the iWatch. Exactly. So the iWatch is a sensor. Yeah. It's a network, but it's tethered to my phone, Bluetooth, but that brings up the IoT opportunity. If you guys have intelligence software, I can almost connect the dots and say, hmm, maybe IoT's in the future. Yeah, for sure, and of course, you know, the other big mover is analytics, okay? Whether it's retail, whether it's a hotel, whether it's a school system, they want to know what people are doing on their networks. They want to know where they are on their networks in terms of proximity, and those are huge things that are going on. So I got to ask you about security. Two questions, a lot of overhead involvement in security, but also with the internet, it's just an underbelly, packet spoofing, we search stories of stuff going to China, you know, slow boat to China, getting hijacked over here. People want a direct connection. They want to end to end. Internet was cheap, the backhaul. You just plug into the internet and hey, stuff happens, low-cost routing. So that's kind of where Juniper kind of kicks in. How do you talk to your customers and give them the confidence that security will be there? Well, I mean, it really gets- Is it Juniper? Do you push it off the Juniper? We can, okay, based on customer type. Needless to say, within the Wi-Fi standards, there's a tremendous amount of encryption already built into the solution. But then when you really get into an overall network architecture and working with the CIO, working with IT directors to understand what they're trying to do inside of those networks and build that product portfolio to deliver against that. Well, you got it on the air, so sniffers in the RF cloud, if you will, so, and then there's the network. So there's two, and you're covered there and you have a good story? Yeah. You're solid? Okay, so what's there to take on this event? Share it with the folks out there that are other customers that are like you guys that Juniper customer. What are they missing out on here? What's the big story? Well, I think the big story is really collaboration, okay? This is really an event where Juniper's partners and Juniper's customers are collaborating, not only about what is here today and in regards to some of the new announcements that were made this morning, but also about what's next, okay? And looking towards finding solutions to common issues. And if you look at the customer set that here, it's everything from service providers, okay? To retailers, to universities, it runs the gamut. But we're all trying to solve common problems, okay? It's all about users getting on and off networks, getting on them securely, and also as IT folks having the analytics of what's going on on those networks. Ron, thanks so much for sharing your insight here in theCUBE and the data, moving it out across the networks wired, across the wired networks, wireless networks. You always go to SiliconANGLE.tv, wireless or on the wire, on the internet anytime. Thanks for sharing, again, the perspective. Great to get the perspective on the computer industry, how wireless is transformed. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much, John, appreciate it. Be right back with more here live at the exclusive coverage of Juniper's next work customer summit. We'll be right back with more after this short break.