Aerohive Networks, a developer of controller-less wireless LANs and provider of cloud-based management solutions for the enterprise market, “announced the launch of a public education campaign to highlight the ramifications of controllers on enterprise IT departments,” as disclosed in a post last week reported on BroadwayWorld.com. The Aerohive’s “Controllers are Dead” campaign aims to raise awareness of the impact of controllers on IT costs, user experience and complexity, as well as the technical limitations and operational issues imposed on IT departments, that can cost millions in capital. With no controllers, customers can have increased reliability and reduced cost.
This makes the campaign critically important to those enterprises opting to implement and deploy WLANs, based on the new 802.11ac standard. It also educates businesses about how the “controller-based networks may adversely affect user experience and require expensive upgrades and added management complexity,” as explained by Aerohive Networks. The purpose of the campaign is to inform those looking to build high-speed Wi-Fi knowing they can do so without over-building and overspending on their networks.
The new 802.11ac standard provides a personalized mobile experience for every user and device on the network. It is the latest wireless computer-networking standard in the 802.11 family. The emerging standard has been approved by the IEEE in January of this year. This “5th Generation (5G) Wi-Fi Breakthrough" improves the WLAN user experience by providing data rates up to 7 Gbps in the 5 GHz band, more than 10 times the speed that was previously standardized, as explained the IEEE Standards Association.
With 802.11ac—the Next Generation WiFi Standard—each client has a faster and more scalable version of 802.11n. They will have improved coverage, reliability, data rate performance and quality of wireless communications. Moreover, the new standard couples the freedom of wireless with the capabilities of Gigabit Ethernet that offers increased range and optimum channel bandwidth.
Recent findings in a report prepared by Infonetics Research tells of the drastic increase in the shipment of APs as a result of the expected rapid adoption of 802.11ac starting in 2014 and 2015. It may make sense to upgrade to 802.11ac in order to take advantage of the number of new technology enhancements. Here is a standard that supports all existing Wi-Fi clients and offers up to 1.3Gbps of wireless connection speed, says Matthew Gast, the Director of Advanced Technology at Aerohive Networks, where he leads development of the core software technologies in Aerohive's controller-less Wi-Fi network system. With the expected increase in access points, it is important businesses are aware of controller-less options.
According to Gast, businesses need to address current and future mobility demands with past Wi-Fi solutions and consider the upgrade to 802.11ac for the benefits it provides them and the potential savings from a controller-less network system. “Between controller and hardware costs, this could [potentially save] businesses around $184,000,000,” noted the post.
As Aerohive Networks explains on its website, in a post entitled “Aerohive Launches Public Education Campaign to End Wasteful Spending on WLAN Controllers,” which discusses using controller-less Wi-Fi for 802.11ac, controller-based technology may no longer be apt for the new mobile-first enterprise deployments and the challenges of modern businesses. “Controller-based WLANs were designed for an era when there was insufficient processing power in APs […] Aerohive’s controller-less approach and mobile management solution is different.” It is aiming to simplify enterprise networking and personalize mobility in a manageable and cost effective way; and it does that by providing enterprise-grade Wi-Fi without the additional hardware expense of a controller. This is great news for SMEs that can count on the scalability, security, and simplicity they need, explains the post. More discussions on using controller-less Wi-Fi for 802.11ac can be found within Aerohive's HiveNation online community.
For those that missed Matthew Gast’s keynote lecture on 802.11ac that took place earlier in the month, Aerohive will be also hosting a special online event on February 27 from 10:00am PT to 10:30am PT to commemorate the contributions of controllers during their life and discuss how organizations can move forward without them. Register for the event here.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker 
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