ARUBA NETWORKS ANNOUNCES MOBILE VOICE OVER IP ENHANCEMENTS TO THE ENTERPRISE MOBILE EDGE

Unique Voice Flow Classification Capability Ensures Superior Voice Quality, Security and Scalability

Interop, New York, December 12, 2005 - Aruba Networks, the Mobile Edge Company, today announced Voice Flow Classification (VFC), a unique packet inspection and classification capability enabling a collection of advanced Voice over Wireless LAN (VoWLAN) functions. With VFC and the associated feature suite, Aruba delivers the industry's highest quality, most secure and most scalable VoWLAN solution. The new capabilities are:

• Advanced Call Admission Control (CAC): Enables call-state monitoring and sophisticated load-balancing of voice-capable devices to assure network availability and performance for both voice and non-voice clients
• Quality of Service (QoS) Policing: Raises and lowers the priority of individual flows based on both the user role and the actual traffic type
• Voice-Aware Scanning: Inhibits an Access Point (AP) from scanning other channels during an active voice call to avoid noticeable speech interruptions
• Voice Client Security: Leverages Aruba's integrated firewall to allow access for less secure voice devices without compromising WLAN security
• Early Media and Ringing Tone Generation (RFC 3960): Delivers a ringing tone to the caller to prevent speech clipping before the call is accepted and connected

These new capabilities, combined with Aruba's new VoIP interoperability alliances (see companion release - "Aruba Announces VoIP Interoperability Alliances for VoWLAN Deployments"), enable Aruba to deliver the industry's most comprehensive enterprise VoWLAN solution.

"We have worked closely with Aruba since the start of our VoWLAN field test in late 2004, and the results-to-date have been excellent," said Shuichi Takahashi, general manager of the Wireless IPC Business Unit for Uniadex in Japan. Uniadex, a subsidiary of Nihon Unisys Group, is a professional IT services and solutions company with 200 offices in Japan and international offices in over 150 countries. "As we roll out VoWLAN broadly, we expect to have more than 1,500 wireless voice devices active on the network. Aruba's architecture makes them the only vendor capable of meeting our VoWLAN needs in terms of performance, security, scalability and voice quality. As we continue to collaborate with Aruba, we look forward to other new capabilities in the areas of VoWLAN, location services and mobility."

Voice Flow Classification Enables Call Admission Control (CAC) and Load Balancing

Aruba's Mobile Edge architecture is built around centralized mobility controllers, each equipped with an integrated stateful firewall. Voice Flow Classification leverages the stateful firewall to identify, classify, and prioritize voice traffic. VFC supports all common voice signaling protocols including Session Initiated Protocol (SIP), SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP), Vocera and Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP). Once identified and classified, Aruba's mobility system can act on the traffic flow accordingly.

VFC provides continuous monitoring of every voice call on the WLAN, tracking in real-time the actual number of active (off-hook) calls. This information is used by Aruba's advanced Call Admission Control (CAC) function to limit the number of calls on a particular AP, preventing voice degradation from excessive high-priority traffic and preserving a predictable minimum amount of bandwidth for data and other traffic types.

When the maximum number of voice calls is reached on a given AP, other voice-capable devices not on call in that AP's cell are seamlessly load-balanced to adjacent cells, avoiding disruption of calls in progress and ensuring network availability for new calls. This approach is far more accurate than other WLAN implementations that rely on well-behaved clients that understand AP load advertised in beacons, or proprietary methods that only work with one vendor's clients.

VFC and Aruba's integrated stateful firewall also enable QoS policing which controls the priority of every flow. VFC compares the role or user, the device, and the actual traffic being sent. In turn, QoS policing can raise the priority of legitimate voice traffic, even if the packets do not originally carry high priority tags, or lower the priority for multipurpose or data clients sending data traffic at a high priority.

Aruba's VFC and CAC implementation are ready to accept inputs from the new IEEE 802.11e and Wi-Fi Alliance's Wireless MultiMedia (WMM) specifications, including TSpec signaling, as handsets supporting these are introduced in 2006. Therefore, Aruba Networks will simultaneously be able to support both pre-WMM and TSpec-capable VoWLAN clients on the same infrastructure.

Voice-Aware RF Management Ensures Voice Quality

Traditional RF management solutions that scan the RF spectrum for interference are known to cause significant degradation of voice quality due to their inability to distinguish a voice flow from a data flow. Aruba's mobility controller detects when an AP is supporting an active voice call and, during that time, stops that AP from scanning other channels in the RF spectrum. The AP resumes scanning when no more active voice calls are present on that AP. This capability significantly enhances the voice quality when a call is in progress while simultaneously delivering automated RF management functions. VFC is the enabler for this unique capability.

Security for Insecure Devices

Many voice devices do not support enterprise-grade security capabilities, such as advanced authentication and encryption (e.g., WPA2). IT administrators have addressed this issue by either not implementing VoWLAN or by setting up a dedicated voice SSID and VLAN. However, these VLANs pose a security risk by intruders impersonating a voice client and jumping VLANs to access data resources.

Aruba's VFC prevents this by comparing each flow's protocol and destination with that device and user's role-based policy. A role that allows voice blocks all non-voice traffic to or from that device, thus preventing a voice client impersonator from sending or receiving data.

High-Quality User Experience

Aruba's VFC makes possible other capabilities designed to ensure good call quality and a positive user experience, including early media ringing tone generation.

Early media, defined by IETF RFC 3960, allows SIP agents to send a ringing, or ring-back, tone to the caller after a successful signaling exchange. The caller will continue to hear the ringing tone until the media channel is opened. This prevents a caller from starting to speak before the call recipient is actually connected.

Pricing and Availability

VFC and the associated feature suite enhance voice performance, quality, security and scalability for Aruba's Mobile Edge solution. Aruba's recently-announced mobile edge architecture is designed to enable full enterprise mobility, not only for data, but for voice as well, with wireless as a primary means of connecting to the network.

VFC and the associated capabilities are included in ArubaOS 2.5. ArubaOS is a sophisticated software suite that serves as the operating system and application engine for all Aruba mobility controllers. ArubaOS 2.5 is available in December 2005 at no additional charge as an upgrade for existing customers with support.

About Aruba Networks, Inc.

Aruba Networks is a fast-growing enterprise infrastructure company enabling the mobile edge, an evolutionary new network architecture that addresses three top concerns of IT managers--mobility, security and convergence. The mobile edge extends the reach of enterprise networks, providing secure access to information and voice services anywhere a user needs them, enabling new applications, allowing organizations to compete more effectively, and bringing about dramatic economic benefits. To deliver the mobile edge, Aruba manufactures and markets a complete line of fixed and modular mobility controllers, wired and wireless access points, and an advanced mobility software suite. Privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California, Aruba has operations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and employs staff around the world. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.