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The leader in secure, reliable, manageable and scalable distributed enterprise networks.

Aruba Whitepapers



Network Rightsizing

The End of the Wire: Rightsizing the Enterprise LAN

The migration to wireless LAN is already well under way: many users already make Wi-Fi their primary connection to the corporate network. Indeed, user demand is a strong driver: where there is a choice between a wired and wireless connection, wireless is preferred. Users will migrate to the WLAN, and away from the wired LAN whenever offered the choice.
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I Can See Clearly Now: Bringing Wireless Broadband Video Into Focus

Sending broadband video over wireless LANs (WLANs) used to be a trying experience, with jitter and dropouts marring picture quality, and bandwidth limits restricting the number of available channels. Three developments have transformed the video landscape by making it possible to transmit multiple channels of high-quality video over a multiuse WLAN that is also carrying data and voice.
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The Convergence of Enterprise Telecom Services: BlackBerry Mobile Voice System on the Aruba Networks Wireless LAN Infrastructure

The combination of FMC/UC offers significant benefits for both remote and mobile employees, and for the corporate IT group. When well-implemented, it can deliver seamless, one-touch communications tools wherever the employee wishes to work.
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Fixed-Mobile Convergence with UMA for Enterprises

Advances in voice-over-IP (VoIP), and cellular networking technologies are driving opportunities for businesses to improve productivity while saving on telecommunication expenses. One fast-developing area, Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) allows mobile phones to connect to Wi-Fi networks when available, taking advantage of the low cost, high bandwidth and extensive indoor coverage of Wi-Fi networks.
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Unwiring the Enterprise: A Fresh Look at the Risks and Rewards of Abandoning Wired Access for WiFi

WLANs are no longer a novelty for tech savvy home users. In recent years, there have been major developments targeted at making WiFi applicable to the corporate world; most notably in the areas of security, speed, interoperability, and QoS. Due to recent IEEE standards such as 802.11i (wireless security), 802.11e (QoS), and 802.11a/g (bandwidth, stability and scale), WiFi is now a more mature technology, able to solve enterprise mobility requirements and offer significant cost savings.
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Interoperability Considerations for Today's Wi-Fi Networks

As Wireless LANs (WLANs) have expended rapidly over the recent years, the adoption rate for the IEEE 802.11 technology has seen a tremendous growth. Such market demand for unwiring enterprise networks have created business opportunities for companies to introduce wireless access equipment and client devices to meet such demand.
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Enterprise Network Mobility: A TCO Analysis

This paper quantifies the total cost of ownership (TCO) savings achieved by deploying a centrally managed overlay WLAN solution versus a network integrated WLAN solution.
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Aruba's Mobile Voice Continuity (MVC) Solution

Evidence shows that Enterprises are ready for a dual-mode Wi-Fi - Cellular mobility solution, this interest has prompted Aruba to look at the state of the art in dual-mode handsets, IP PBXs and the different forms of FMC (fixed-mobile convergence) solution available in the market.
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Advances in Wireless Infrastructure Control: Optimizing Client Behavior for Improved Network Performance

While it's very clear that the core objective for wireless overall is to duplicate the capabilities and performance of wire, such also serves to highlight the essential differences between these two as interconnect and access technologies.
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Cutting Costs Through Convergence for Higher Education Institutions

Convergence, or the collapsing of multiple, disparate infrastructures into a single, homogeneous communications utility is changing the face of network infrastructure design. This once overpromised, under-delivered concept has finally found technology in the Internet Protocol (IP) that lives up to its claims.
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Dartmouth College: Realizing a Campus-Wide Video and Voice Network

Over the past five years at Dartmouth College, the CIO of Dartmouth College developed the industry’s first totally converged wireless IP network. This paper is intended to provide some insight into the vision behind its deployment and to provide a collection of “best practices” learned from that experience.
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Location-based services for cellular phones using Wi-Fi: The University of Cincinnati's system for emergency call location

This note describes a novel system developed by the University of Cincinnati which enables on-campus location-based services for conventional voice calls from cellphones by recognizing and locating the Wi-Fi signal associated with the handset via the campus WLAN.
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The WLAN in the Hospitality Industry

While the earliest Wi-Fi application deployed by hotels was guest “hotspot” access, limiting the WLAN to supporting this application squanders many opportunities to increase productivity, and enhance services.
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Virtual Branch Networking

Virtual Branch Networking (VBN) 2.0 and the Emergence of Cloud-Based Branch Offices

VBN 2.0 from Aruba Networks® delivers the corporate network to small offices with up to 60% capital and 75% operational cost savings compared to traditional branch routers. By migrating network and security services to the cloud, VBN 2.0 replaces costly branch routers with a simple, compact and affordable centrally-managed device called a Remote Access Point (RAP).The VBN 2.0 architecture encompasses both wired and wireless remote access, with options that scale from very large branch offices all the way to home workers and business travelers. It also integrates seamlessly with centralized administration to reduce operating expenses. With VBN 2.0, content security services are moved into the cloud, which eliminates the need and capital cost for on-site equipment to support these services. And finally, VBN 2.0 ensures a high-quality IT experience for branch office users and gives them secure access to the same resources they would have at corporate headquarters.
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Rethinking Remote Access: Pervasive Enterprise Mobility

Mobility in the corporate world is increasing at an incredible rate with users traveling around the globe and working partially or fully at home. The ability to move and remain fully connected is the paramount concern. The office connection must be pervasive, and it must be available no matter where the user is on the planet.
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Best Practices to Simplify Retail Mobility Operations

Enterprise mobility has been and continues to be essential to retail operations. With mission-critical wireless applications to support and locations distributed across regional and even global geographies, they must put effective processes in place to ensure the uptime of their wireless LANs (WLANs). However, a number of factors create significant complexity for network management in retail environments. To simplify their mobility operations, retailers need an effective operations model that encompasses planning, management, and troubleshooting processes across the entire infrastructure. This whitepaper identifies Aruba's seven best practices that make up such an operations model.
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In-Store Mobility – Realize Your Vision

Mobile applications in retail are not new. Over the years, barcode scanning enabled mobile applications in the retail storefront, in the back room and in warehouse locations have helped retailers reduce operating costs by improving productivity and greater supply chain visibility. Mobile applications such as inventory tracking, shelving, labeling, etc. started as competitive differentiators and now have become an integral part of how retailers conduct their business.
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Technology Advances in Retail

Wireless technology has increased revenue and decreased costs by making improvements in areas such as supply chain management, inventory management, customer experience, and loss prevention.
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Secure Enterprise Mobility for Government Telework

Government Telework initiatives are increasing with many Federal agencies and Congress supporting programs to allow federal employees traveling around the globe or working from home to access their agencies’ network. The ability to remotely connect to all resources in a reliable and secure manner is of paramount concern. Regardless of location, teleworkers connection to federal resources must be highly secure and meet policy objectives such as NIST FIPS 140-2 and HSPD-12.
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PCI 1.2 Requirements Mapping for Aruba Networks' Endpoint Compliance System (ECS)

Numerous high-profile security breaches in the retail and payment card processing industries drove the development of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a mandatory standard that is having a significant impact upon all retailers and credit card processors. This paper describes the role played by Network Access Control solutions, and Aruba Networks' ECS, in helping to meet the requirements of PCI DSS, and to secure networks more effectively.
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Campus

Operating Wireless LANs for High Reliability and Performance: Six Best Practices That You Can Implement Today

802.11n technologies have reached maturity. They are reliable, high-performing, dependable, secure, and often very affordable. These characteristics are making it possible to offer the benefits of enterprise mobility to everyone, everywhere. Organizations are deploying 802.11n infrastructures to expand existing wireless LANs (WLANs) to more locations, replace older, less reliable technologies, and rightsize their wired networks.
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802.11n: The End of Ethernet?

Enterprise mobility is driven by the demand for seamless access to information anytime, anywhere, and from any device. Mobility can facilitate business continuity, improve collaboration, simplify teleworking, and increase employee retention. In addition, many younger workers are pushing enterprises to embrace mobility solutions. Employees want the convenience of being untethered.
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ARM Yourself to Increase Enterprise WLAN Data Capacity

Performance in the IT world is measured in terms of the volume of data transferred in a specified time, and the benchmark has inexorably risen every year as a result of advancing standards and innovations. In the field of enterprise Wi-Fi networking, that benchmark has now reached the point where wireless LAN (WLAN) performance exceeds that of a 100BaseT wired LAN. As a consequence, WLANs now have the capacity to supplant wired ports as the primary form of network access for many enterprise users.
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The T-Mobile HotSpot@Home UMA Service on a University or Enterprise WLAN

In recent years the features of dual-mode devices (cellular voice and data clients with additional Wi-Fi radios) have grown increasingly sophisticated. The burgeoning capabilities of these devices have attracted the attention of IT staff at enterprises and universities with campus environments because of potential synergies with already installed wireless LANs. More specifically, the potential exists for a user to carry a single device that leverages Wi-Fi coverage where cellular reception is poor, thereby lowering telecom expenses and improving the user browsing experience because of Wi-Fi's higher data rates.
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The All-Wireless Workplace Is Now Open for Business: Using 802.11n As Your Primary Network

Wi-Fi technology has been steadily improving for some years, to the extent that many workers now rely on wireless as their primary data connection to the corporate network. Wi-Fi infrastructure for manufacturing and retail organizations, hotels, universities and schools is already a $1 billion market, with annual growth in double digits. Adoption to date in enterprise offices, also known as 'carpeted space' has been slower, as many CIOs and users still regard a Wi-Fi connection as inferior to a wired Ethernet connection. 802.11n is a game changer because when properly deployed it has the potential to displace wired networks to enable a completely all-wireless workplace.
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It Takes Two to Tango: Using Wi-Fi and WiMAX to Deliver Broadband Wireless Services to Fixed and Mobile Clients

WiMAX as a technology is ready for takeoff, but various non-technical obstacles have conspired to keep it grounded thus far. Nevertheless, WiMAX offers cutting-edge wireless performance, a 'flat' network architecture ideal for IP-based services and the strong commitment of a pivotal vendor of client hardware. How soon will WiMAX emerge as a successful technology, and in what guise? How could WiMAX be made to work in conjunction with a Wi-Fi deployment? This paper seeks to answer these questions from the viewpoint of a Wi-Fi network manager and, along the way, clears up many misconceptions that have arisen over the capabilities and timelines of WiMAX technology.
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WLAN RF Architecture Primer: Single-Channel and Adaptive Multi-Channel Models

In this paper we examine one of the questions central to the technology debate: the advantages and disadvantages of the single-channel RF architecture when compared to the adaptive, cellular-like alternative. The RF model is a significant aspect of WLAN architectures, and as we shall show, the initial selection of a single-channel model drives significant consequences, both good and bad. This article compares the two models in technical detail, allowing the reader to follow the science behind marketing claims, and develop an informed and objective opinion of the merits of vendors’ solutions.
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The Indestructible Network: Wireless LANs for Industrial and Outdoor Applications

Many organizations require data and voice communications in industrial and outdoor environments. Historically these needs have been met by a patchwork of copper or fiber-optic cable in the ground, low-bandwidth 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz wireless links, and depending on the particular site, satellite networks too. While wire-line networks can support high data rates with high reliability, it is not always feasible or cost-effective to dig trenches or string overhead wire across chemical plants, container ports or off-shore oil platforms. Manufacturing plants and storage facilities with explosive atmospheres and ignition hazards have specialized installation requirements, raising the installation cost and complexity of wired networks. Consequently many deployments utilize both wired and wireless technologies, often combining licensed and unlicensed spectrum across a number of different frequencies.
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Designed for Speed: Network Infrastructure in an 802.11n World

Wi-Fi technology has carved a path of ever-increasing performance from the earliest pre-802.11 standards through 802.11b to 802.11a/g, with peak data rates rising from 2Mbps to 54Mbps. The latest set of innovations is a package known as 802.11n, which was ratified by the IEEE in September 2009 and offers performance improvements of 5x to 7x over previous standards.
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Running for Coverage: A Review of Femtocells

This note offers a Wi-Fi infrastructure vendor's view of femtocells. While femtocells differ from Wi-Fi access points in some ways, they seek to solve many of the same problems and are often considered to be competitive solutions. Thus a Wi-Fi viewpoint will be informed by knowledge of many key issues, but with a detachment not shared by many in the cellular infrastructure business.
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Signs Of Trouble: Locating E9-1-1 Callers Over Wi-Fi

If we or a colleague make a 9-1-1 call, we want assurance that first responders can reach us as quickly as possible. In the United States this is assured by the E9-1-1 system, and the reliability of E9-1-1 is an important article of faith for most people, at home and at work. Very few of us have a good understanding of how E9-1-1 works. As we shall discuss in this paper, the legal requirements for E9-1-1 are fragmented, with only 16 states legally mandating E9-1-1 compliance for businesses as of early 2010. Nevertheless, TDM PBXs have incorporated sophisticated and dependable emergency call handling features, so whether mandated or not we have come to rely on E9-1-1 and it has performed well.
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Interactive Learning 2.0: How Wi-Fi Enhances Learning and Improves Student/Teacher Interaction

The virtualization of smart classrooms, coupled with the propagation of interactive learning throughout and outside the classroom, is just the start of a movement to extend and improve the quality of learning. Ubiquitous Wi-Fi deployments are enabling these exciting new paradigms and wireless technology is now available to easily deploy and manage high quality, interactive learning environments.
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The Whys and Hows of Deploying Large-Scale Campus-wide Wi-Fi Networks

Ubiquitous Wi-Fi across an enterprise or campus is a very positive and exciting experience for your students, faculty, staff and visitors to your institution. Having instant access to email, the internet, and other IT services irrespective of location can dramatically change the way your constituents live, work, study, learn, and play. If wireless coverage is also converged with voice and video, the experience is even further enhanced. And today, everyone who comes to your institution has experienced wireless access to the internet somewhere-at home or work, or in coffee houses, libraries, airports, or hotels. As a result, it is no wonder that when people come to your campus they not only want but most often expect wireless access to all the information and services your institution provides.
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Connect Every K-12 Laptop... Wirelessly, Effortlessly, Securely

The increased use of laptop computers in K-12 schools has created a unique opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of teaching and learning. The integration of audio, video and graphics animation, coupled with interactivity, has enabled new teaching paradigms that expand the learning opportunities for all students. In addition, the Internet and other communications networks have opened access to a plethora of information never before available, taking students well beyond their classroom resources. Every laptop now includes Wi-Fi connectivity, which when used in conjunction with next-generation wireless access infrastructure from Aruba Networks, can deliver secure, high-speed network access to every laptop at a price that enables ubiquitous deployment of this new, effective teaching tool.
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Lessons in Wireless for K-12 Schools

The networks in Primary and secondary (K-12) educational institutions are unable to satisfy today’s requirements. The necessary sharing of resources and the mobile nature of students, teachers and administrators make the network requirements even more challenging.
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Medical-Grade, Mission-Critical Wireless Networks

Designing an Enterprise Mobility Solution in the Healthcare Environment
By Steven D. Baker and David H. Hoglund
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Requirements for Building Effective Government WLANs

With governments just now beginning the adoption of wireless LANs as a key component of their network connectivity strategy, the purpose of this White Paper is to enumerate the issues and solutions now available that lead to successful government WLAN installations.
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Network Management

AirWave VisualRF: Improving Operations Efficiency Throughout the Wireless Network Lifecycle

AirWave VisualRF provides an end-to-end wireless network visualization and lifecycle management solution, from initial site planning to ongoing RF monitoring. As a built-in module of the AirWave Wireless Management Suite, VisualRF uses dynamic signal propagation technology to accurately calculate signal coverage and the precise location of every wireless device in range of the WLAN. This white paper describes VisualRF's features and benefits and provides an architectural overview.
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Driving Operational Efficiency: A Guide to Using AirWave 7 for Service Desk Troubleshooting

This white paper provides a step-by-step guide explaining how the service desk can use AirWave 7 for triage and troubleshooting, so that the network engineering staff can focus on the real Level 3 problems.
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Using AirWave RAPIDS to Implement Your Wireless Security and PCI Compliance Strategy

Wireless networks are quickly becoming the connectivity platform of choice across all types of organizations because of their flexibility, convenience, and ability to improve productivity. As WLANS evolve from best-effort to mission critical infrastructure, organizations are finding that the operational aspects of network security take on much greater importance. They are discovering that technical requirements are only one part of the equation; regulatory requirements relating to wireless networks are also consuming a significant amount of time and resources. As these requirements have affected more organizations, many are rethinking their approach to security in their network operations.
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Building Global Security for Wireless LANs

As wireless devices become more and more common in today’s enterprise networks, now is a good time for CIOs and IT managers to plan their strategy for overall control, deployment, and management of Security.
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Network Access Control for Mobile Networks

While it is unanimously agreed that network access control is a problem, opinions differ about how to address it.
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Banning Wireless Doesn’t Stop Users: Understand How to Protect Your Network and Support WiFi Enthusiasts

Despite great strides in wireless LAN (WLAN) technology, many organizations continue to choose a “nowireless” policy causing potential internal threats, where legitimate users compromise the integrity of the network or gain access to privileged confidential data.
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A Closer Look at Wireless Intrusion Detection: How to Benefit from a Hybrid Deployment Model

Wireless intrusion detection methodologies have diverged among wireless and security vendors. When selecting a WIDS vendor, it is important to first understand the deployment methodologies supported by each system.
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Integrating Wired IDS with Wi-Fi: Using Open-Source IDS to Complement a Wireless IDS/IPS Deployment

This whitepaper will examine the weaknesses and challenges in using traditional WIDS systems to attempt to monitor the upper layers of the OSI model, and will identify techniques used by attackers to exploit weaknesses in WIDS systems.
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Six Strategies for Defense-in-depth: Securing the Network from the Inside Out
An Opus One Whitepaper

Defense-in-depth requires that relationships between network resources and network users be a controlled, scaleable and granular system of permissions and access controls that goes beyond simply dropping firewalls between network segments.
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Security Is In The Air: Complying With The PCI DSS v1.2 Standard

Aruba Networks is a participating organization within the PCI council, and supplies wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions that numerous leading merchants have used to comply with PCI standards and prevent network breaches. This white paper discusses the PCI requirements in the context of wireless network security, and explain how merchants can cost-effectively and reliably meet these requirements.
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Developing a Sound Security Policy for Mobility at the Department of Defense

As mobility becomes more prevalent in DoD operations, there has been an aggressive stance taken to mandate security of these networks. While the DoD represents a typical enterprise network in many respects, it also has unique requirements that set it apart from commercial deployments. Due to the nature of information that these networks transport and the stringent availability requirements for many mobile applications, an aggressive security posture has been established, one that only the most capable networking vendors have been able to comply with.
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Doctors Without Wires: Secure Wi-Fi For Healthcare Applications

The performance of enterprise wireless LANs (WLANs) over the past few years, and especially since the introduction of 802.11n, has evolved to the point where industry analysts now expect Wi-Fi to replace wired Ethernet as the network connection of choice. An infrastructure upgrade to 802.11n, with its significantly enhanced speed and capacity, makes possible a wide range of services running over one commonly-shared Multi-purpose Medical Mobility (MMM) network, saving considerable capital and on-going operating expenses.
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