Advancing SD-WAN Fuels Latest Riverbed, Xirrus AP Release

August 01, 2017 - Riverbed announced the release of a new Xirrus Wi-Fi access point (AP) that utilizes SD-WAN and supports intelligent management and edge computing devices.

The Riverbed Xirrus Wave 2 AP operates on the 802.11ac standard and was built to support mobile environments, as well as on-premises devices. The AP supports wireless and wired LAN capabilities for Riverbed’s software-defined networking in the WAN (SD-WAN) solution SteelConnect.

Riverbed stated that the growth and demand of mobile applications requires organizations to ensure their wireless infrastructure can keep up with the demand.

The AP can be managed both on-premises or in the cloud, and includes an integrated controller for layer 7 application visibility. Organizations can then monitor how their applications are interacting with the network.

The AP also has three radios, including Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and offers secure access for Wi-Fi users and Internet of Things (IoT) devices via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. It also has 3.9Gbps total Wi-Fi bandwidth and its controller allows organizations to control application policies, integrated location services, and software-defined radios at the networks edge.

This can potentially cut back potential costs and complexities by eliminating additional controllers and service requirements.

The AP also provides network management and control on-premises or in the cloud with Xirrus Management System. This management gives IT administrators visibility and control over all devices and applications connected to the network.

The Aps EasyPass SaaS solution integrates with Microsoft Azure and Google applications so users can use single sign-on for both the network and their integrated applications.

“The rapid pace of change and the need to do more with less fundamentally impact IT decision making today,” Riverbed Technology Xirrus Vice President Bruce Miller said in a statement. “Operational efficiency and agility are key to the ability of organizations to adapt to changing business conditions to remain competitive.”

Riverbed is still building up its Wi-Fi technology to meet present and future demands by embracing SD-WAN.

Riverbed acquired Xirrus back in April to expand its SD-WAN and cloud networking solution, Riverbed SteelConnect, to offer unified connectivity and policy-based orchestration across entire distributed networks, including WAN, LAN/WLAN, data center and the cloud.

“In today’s digital, cloud, and mobile world, enterprise networks are more complex and unpredictable than ever before and IT is struggling to manage all of this,” Riverbed Chairman and CEO Jerry Kennelly said in a statement. “A fundamental rethink to networking is required and with this acquisition, Riverbed and our partners are uniquely positioned to provide CIOs and businesses with a software-defined networking approach that delivers unified connectivity and orchestration across the entire network.”

SDN uses virtualization to remove the intelligent management software from network hardware. By doing so, SDN creates a centralized, more intelligent, and easier managed network architecture.

SDN allows network administrators to manage the network through abstraction, which gives apps and programs a simplified platform to operate on. 

Better policy-based orchestration can be achieved by implementing an SD-WAN solution over traditional network management solutions.

“Legacy approaches to network management have become completely untenable,” Riverbed SteelConnect Senior Vice President Paul O’Farrell said in a statement. “IT must move beyond the days of managing individual network devices using arcane CLI commands and scripts and instead move to software-defined approaches that are based on global policies, automation and orchestration.”   

Healthcare organizations are seeking integrated management solutions that will give clinicians the ease of single sign-on, as well as give IT administrators visibility and control over the network.

SD-WAN solutions consolidate many network management functions in to one place and offer healthcare organizations much more control over their network. Entities then do not need to deploy multiple security and network management solutions to protect the network.