Xirrus RF Innovation: Wi-Fi Service Assurance

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Xirrus®, the Wi-Fi "Power Play" that delivers the most coverage, bandwidth, and user density in the industry, announced today its next step in RF innovation on its Wi-Fi Array platform -- Wi-Fi Service Assurance.

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Xirrus Wi-Fi Service Assurance is designed to improve the resiliency and availability of wireless networks as well as simplify issue troubleshooting and resolution via active monitoring and verification of the Array and network resources.

"A primary goal of any IT manager is to prevent problems from occurring, but perhaps even more important is being able to identify, isolate, and resolve problems as quickly as possible when they do occur," said Mike Rydalch, Principal Technologist for Xirrus. "Xirrus Wi-Fi Service Assurance not only helps identify and isolate problems, but will proactively remedy the problem if possible. The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array provides distributed intelligence in each Array, not centralized in a closet controller like traditional thin AP systems. This intelligence enables us to do more at the edge of the network to identify and address issues as they occur."

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Service Assurance offering is comprised of two primary components – Radio Assurance and Network Assurance.  

Radio Assurance

With Radio Assurance, the Array periodically sends wireless traffic back to itself to verify that all of radios are up and functioning properly. The Array's dedicated monitor radio is used to emulate a Wi-Fi client and sends traffic to each user-servicing radio to ensure operation. If it is determined that a radio has issues, Radio Assurance notifies the network manager and will fix the problem if possible. This enables problem resolution directly at the edge of the network and minimizes potential impact on end users.

The multi-radio architecture of the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array offers several advantages for self-monitoring and maintenance:

• With a dedicated monitor radio, none of the radios servicing stations need to be taken offline to perform testing.
• If maintenance is needed on one of the radios or it is down, other radios are available within the Array to maintain service continuity.
• The monitor radio is located in the same device as the radios being tested, ensuring full RF visibility between the radios for the test. Other assurance solutions rely on adjacent access points or other remote devices to emulate the clients, which may be out of range or visible at only low signal levels for the testing.

Network Assurance

Xirrus Network Assurance provides for the monitoring of network resources in addition to the Array. Networking issues are often difficult to isolate with many systems involved, including core switches and routers, edge switches, data center servers, network services, and the user stations themselves. Network Assurance helps identify where a problem is occurring by checking the availability of network resources such as NTP, DHCP, and DNS servers that are crucial for network operation.  

If network resources are unavailable, Network Assurance will send notifications indicating the problem and identifying the service that is not available. By proactively identifying network resources that are unavailable, the network manager can be alerted of problems potentially before the end-users notice an issue. The distributed intelligence of the Array provides this monitoring at multiple points across the network, adding to the ability to isolate the problem and expedite the resolution.

"The distributed Architecture of the Array offers a significant advantage when doing network validation," explains Benny Cheung, Xirrus Software Engineer. "With each Array performing these functions, problems can be more quickly found and identified.  With a standard thin AP/controller solution, the centralized controller provides the brains for this type of validation and there are only a few of these devices in the network. With the integrated controller in the Array, there are multiple tests points throughout the network to provide greater visibility to the issue."

To learn more about Xirrus' Wi-Fi Service Assurance and other product offerings visit the Xirrus website at www.xirrus.com.

Learn valuable lessons from others deploying Wi-Fi by visiting www.xirrus.com/customerdeployments.

About Xirrus

Xirrus, the only Wi-Fi Power Play™, manufactures the Wi-Fi Array® architecture that displaces both overlay Wi-Fi offerings and switched Ethernet or Fast Ethernet to the desktop. Unlike traditional access points, the Wi-Fi Array integrates 4, 8, 12, 16 or 24 802.11abgn radios along with a high-gain directional antenna system, onboard multi-gigabit switch, Wi-Fi controller, firewall, dedicated Wi-Fi threat sensor, and an embedded spectrum analyzer into a single energy-efficient and cost-effective device using 75% fewer devices, cabling, switch ports, power, space, and installation time compared with any other offering.  Xirrus products are designed and manufactured in the United States.  Xirrus is Wi-Fi, Verisign, PCI, FIPS 140-2, and ISO 9001:2008 Certified. For more information, please visit http://www.xirrus.com.

Xirrus. Switching: Without Wires™

Xirrus. The Only Wi-Fi Power Play™

Xirrus. High Performance Wi-Fi™

Xirrus. The Wi-Fi Array®

Follow us at twitter.com/xirrus, facebook.com/xirrus, and youtube.com/xirrustv.

SOURCE Xirrus

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