Meru Networks high-performance, scalable wireless LAN Solution

Today the Meru Virtualized Wireless LAN is serving thousands of customers around the world including the Education, Hospitality, Healthcare, and Retail industries.

Welcome to the new enterprise

Meru wireless LANs are specifically designed for environments where high-density wireless traffic depends on business-critical applications. These conditions first emerged in places where the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend is in full force and weak networks are unacceptable: hospitals and airports, universities and schools, hotels and other enterprises.

Today, the BYOD phenomenon is pervasive. In all kinds of enterprises, IT managers are finding that wireless demands are beginning to exceed the capabilities of their current networks—legacy systems meant for casual use and low-volume traffic. With the rapid consumerization of IT, they’re facing more and more mobile devices that have to be provisioned and managed easily and securely. They’re confronting high-bandwidth applications demanding more and more resources.

They’re struggling with the need to scale up an old network to accommodate the rising tide of wireless traffic and to accommodate users in many locations, from headquarters buildings to home offices.

They are experiencing the emergence of the distributed mobile enterprise, and the stress of an infrastructure that is unprepared. And they’re turning to Meru for solutions.

A high-performance, scalable wireless LAN solution

Ninety percent of Meru networks replace legacy microcell networks. Why? With a Meru Virtualized WLAN, IT professionals can easily:

Expand the Wi-Fi network to support more users bringing more devices. A Meru Virtualized WLAN scales up easily—without time-consuming and costly site plans.

Manage the Wi-Fi network with small staffs and tight budgets. A Meru Virtualized WLAN is simple to deploy and manage, with low total cost of ownership.

Ensure consistent, high-quality mobile services. Meru creates a reliable, seamless network with no soft spots. Real-time RF resource optimization allocates bandwidth fairly and predictably.

At the same time, Meru lets IT managers leverage their existing investments in virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility—the technologies that allow today’s enterprise to become fully distributed. Meru provides a high-performance wireless infrastructure that is easy to deploy, manage, and expand.

Future-proofing the network

The Meru infrastructure is built from the ground up to support high-density use, mobile users, and business-critical voice, video, and data applications. It’s an all-wireless network that delivers a consistent, interactive experience for all users—no matter what applications they are running, no matter how many other users are on the network.

Most of all, it’s a flexible, easily scalable platform that keeps IT departments ahead of the curve as their users become more dispersed and mobile, and their network demands grow. It’s an infrastructure designed, from the beginning, to future-proof the enterprise network.

Industries

Higher Education

For schools that need to provide pervasive Wi-Fi connectivity to support the flood of Wi-Fi devices from BYOD, Meru provides the WLAN equipment and management software you need for classroom and campus coverage, secure guest access, and multimedia support for video and audio learning applications.

Student benefits:

Connectivity – 24x7x365 for students and devices – No Excuses Mobility – Seamless device mobility across entire campus Applications – VoIP, Video & Multimedia

IT benefits:

Simplicity – Deployment, monitoring and management Fast on boarding – of new students and their devices during freshmen move in, and

throughout the year Density – 500 devices in close proximity

K-12/Primary School

Meru and LanSchool deliver a Wi-Fi based uninterrupted learning management solution for classroom, school, campus or district-wide deployments. With Meru and LanSchool, schools can easily support 1-to-1 and BYOD initiatives; IT can manage the wireless network, teachers can manage the class and students can manage their assignments.

Meru and LanSchool are working together to support iPads, laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices in schools, for uninterrupted learning over the Wi-Fi network. By partnering,

Meru and LanSchool reduce several common barriers to the successful implementation of the digital classroom:

IT is able to simplify mobile device connectivity and Wi-Fi network operations using Meru’s unique virtualized wireless network architecture.

Teachers are able to detect and deter common distractions such as Web surfing, games and instant messaging during class time, with real-time monitoring capabilities from LanSchool.

Students are able to collaborate with their peers and connect directly with their teachers with screen-sharing, chat and mobility solutions from both vendors.

HEALTHCARE

Drivers for Wi-Fi adoption in hospitals

In the last decade, hospitals have made significant investments in wireless technologies to improve:

Patient Safety by deploying connected medical devices such as smart IV pumps, smart beds, and telemetry that alert clinicians to intervene in a timely fashion.

Clinicians’ Productivity by providing care coordination systems such as Wi-Fi phones integrated with nurse call systems, EHR access from computers on wheels, etc.

Patient Satisfaction by providing Internet access to patients and visitors so that they can connect with friends and family and receive support from them.

But the promise of these improvements remains unfulfilled without a suitable Wi-Fi infrastructure.

Microcell Wi-Fi is the problem

Hospital Wi-Fi ecosystems comprise life-critical, mission-critical, and consumer-critical applications with each having different requirements from wireless. Wi-Fi is a shared medium and in a conventional microcell-based network the applications compete for the same resources and interfere with each other. Microcell-based Wi-Fi networks have other significant limitations, especially in highly mobile environments that make it challenging to deliver high reliability in hospital environments.

Hospitals compensate for such limitations with workarounds, such as relying on wired connectivity for Life Critical devices or overhead paging despite deploying Wi-Fi phones, or asking nurses to stop walking when they get a voice call. Such workarounds create patient safety risks, slow down clinicians, and ultimately make patients unhappy.

The Meru Uninterrupted Care Network is the solution

With the specific needs of hospitals in mind, Meru developed the Uninterrupted Care Network (UCN). UCN enables hospitals to create separate, dedicated channels for life-critical, mission-critical, and consumer-critical applications, utilizing unique RF Channel Layering technology. UCN empowers hospitals to:

Improve patient safety and quality of care by isolating life-critical applications from all other wireless traffic

Increase clinician efficiency by providing reliable, pervasive Wi-Fi coverage for mission-critical applications and by enabling physicians to use the mobility platform of their choice (BYOD) in the hospital, clinic, or home

Improve patient satisfaction by allowing patients to stay connected with family and friends and to stream music and videos

HOSPITALITY

Yesterday’s hospitality Wi-Fi networks don’t cut it

Just a few years ago, the Wi-Fi needs of hospitality were pretty simple: support guests sitting in their rooms, using laptops for email and web surfing, and that was it. Now, it’s a whole new ballgame: guests are streaming video, moving about the property with smartphones and tablets, having video chats, accessing secure applications and services. What’s more, staff need to access mission-critical data and applications. As a result, hospitality Wi-Fi needs to be more robust, more consistent, and higher performance.

Meru’s next-generation Wi-Fi provides the uninterrupted service that keeps guests coming back

Wi-Fi is the most requested guest amenity in today’s hospitality world. It has to be pervasive and consistent, and it has to support the multitude of devices that guests and staff bring onto the property. Meru’s patented single-channel virtualized Wi-Fi solutions deliver that performance. Easy to install and manage, Meru Wi-Fi solutions help deliver guest satisfaction everywhere: in their room, in a meeting room or conference space, in a stadium or event arena.

Some Key Benefits of Meru Hospitality Solutions:

1. Meru Wi-Fi is easy to install and manage.Because of Meru’s patented single-channel technology, there’s no channel planning and mapping necessary. So you save a lot of time and money before you even begin. Expanding your network to meet your growing needs is easy, too. Just plug in additional access points, and you’re good to go. Since all access points are on the same channel, Meru wireless is dead simple to install and manage. It doesn’t get any easier than this.

2. Meru delivers picture-perfect video and crystal-clear voice.With a blanket of seamless coverage across your venue or property, Meru solutions deliver picture-perfect video with no annoying dropouts. Meru wireless is simple to install and manage. And Meru Wi-Fi delivers jitter-free performance for your critical voice applications as well. So, whether it is guests streaming video in their rooms or your staff using the Wi-Fi network to communicate, Meru Wi-Fi delivers superior service that won’t let you down.

3. Your guests are happy and return more oftenIt’s no secret: lousy Wi-Fi service makes for upset guests and can really hurt your business. Meru wireless solutions deliver service that’s so reliable, it keeps your guests happy. And happy guests are more likely to come back, more likely to tell their friends about their positive experience. Happy Guests = Happy You.

The Meru Technology Advantage

Only Meru gives you a choice: Deliver wireless in our patented single-channel architecture, where all the access points run on the same channel, thus reducing annoying roaming and handoff disconnects and eliminating extensive channel planning and mapping. Or, if your requirements call for it, you can choose to deploy in “native” mode, where access points can be set up to run on separate channels. Either way, Meru Wi-Fi solutions have the flexibility to meet your needs.

Meru technology keeps you in control

Leveraging our MobileFLEX architecture, Meru enables you to create context-aware layers or CALs – using separate dedicated channels for different applications and usage contexts. Streaming video in the meeting rooms? That’s one channel. The wireless voice supporting F&B ops? That’s another channel. Attendee Internet access – just for tablet users? That’s another one. All in the same physical space. Meru MobileFLEX gives you lots of ways to help optimize your business processes and elevate guest satisfaction!

RETAIL

Wireless access makes retail businesses more efficient, more effective, and more profitable—if it works the way it should. Meru’s Virtualized WLAN architecture supports mission-critical retail applications such as point-of-sale systems, just-in-time supply-chain management, and RF inventory tagging. It delivers high security and PCI compliance. And it lets you use wireless for other applications, including toll-quality voice and video.

Combine wired Ethernet-class performance with the mobility of cellular. Give data applications the bandwidth they need—alongside toll-quality voice. Deploy multiple lines of defense against physical and virtual attacks. Give every customer in your busy store a fair share of the airwaves. Control diverse retail devices, with proactive management and automated troubleshooting.