October 18, 2004

ARUBA AWARDED "BEST-IN-TEST" IN INDUSTRY'S MOST COMPREHENSIVE INDEPENDENT WIRELESS LAN SYSTEM REVIEW

Business Communications Review and Miercom Recognize Aruba's WLAN System as the Most Complete Wireless LAN Product

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SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, October 18, 2004 - In the most rigorous independent testing of 802.11 wireless products to date, Business Communications Review (BCR) has awarded Aruba's wireless LAN system as Best-in-Test for delivering the most comprehensive suite of capabilities and highest performance of any enterprise-class WLAN system.

One of the most prestigious industry publications, BCR commissioned exhaustive testing of leading wireless LAN systems to be performed by Miercom, a respected and well-known independent testing center. Miercom tested a wide range of wireless and security capabilities including configuration, security, management, administration and performance against products from Aruba, Bluesocket, Chantry and Meru. No shows included Airespace, Cisco and Trapeze.

"We view the composite security capabilities and overall performance of Aruba as the clear Best-in-Test," said Miercom testers. Support for WPA2, integrated per-user stateful firewalls, rogue AP mitigation, unique classification and expediting of voice traffic streams, system resilience, comprehensive RF security and management and scalable performance were all highlighted as key differentiators of Aruba's WLAN system.

For security, Miercom ran through a battery of tests that addressed five key areas:

  • Authentication of wireless users
  • Strong encryption of wireless LAN traffic
  • Defending the network from wireless security threats
  • Detecting, monitoring and locating unauthorized rogue APs
  • Disabling rogue APs through containment or mitigation capabilities

In addition, Miercom conducted a series of performance tests that measured unsecured and secured throughput for single and multiple clients, taking jitter, delay and packet loss into consideration. "With all performance metrics considered, Aruba emerged a clear winner in this category, earning a 90 percent rating," stated Miercom reviewers.

Aruba took the top prize delivering the highest throughput for encrypted and unencrypted traffic while exhibiting the lowest delays and packet loss. Aruba also showed the best inter-switch failover times, an essential requirement for enterprise wireless deployments.

Finally, Aruba's management and administration capabilities were viewed among the strongest. Reviewers noted "strong" features and functionality including graphical planning, auto-configuration tools for APs and RF calibration, SNMP support and "very good" integral reports.

"Aruba's continued participation in industry testing proves that our systems are built to last and not just designed for winning specific tests," said Keerti Melkote, co-founder and vice president of Product Management and Marketing at Aruba. "Enterprises have deployed our systems in some of the largest and most demanding wireless environments globally. This recognition is proof that Aruba's WLAN systems continue to be the best in the industry."

Complete results of the WLAN testing are summarized in the October 2004 issue of BCR in the article entitled "Taking Control of Your Airwaves."

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