Motorola adds Smart adaptability to Enterprise WLAN

The Enterprise Mobility business of Motorola, Inc. has announced its adaptive access point (AP) wireless solution providing secure wireless connectivity and service to mobile users in remote branch offices and support for future 802.11n wireless LANs (WLANs).

Motorolas adaptive AP wireless solution also offers enhanced mobility and management to medium and large enterprises, single site and campus WLAN deployments.

Branch offices such as retail stores, nursing homes and financial offices can use adaptive AP to provide a centralised point for managing APs at any location over a wide area network (WAN) connection with a wireless switch located at the headquarters or data centre. By switching to an adaptive AP architecture, enterprises get the benefits of centralised management and local networking. As a result enterprises will save by reducing the need for additional networking equipment and dedicated IT staff at each branch office.

Motorolas new WLAN architecture deploys like a thin AP, but offers advanced capabilities usually found in smart APs - such as local termination of 802.11 traffic, encryption/decryption coding on the AP and the ability to bridge traffic locally. In the event that the connection to the Motorola wireless switch is lost, it can still operate, providing remote site survivability to enterprises. Additionally, it can restore the connection to the wireless switch seamlessly without rebooting or disassociating any client devices, which makes the AP extremely robust and IT staff friendly.

As wireless LANs take on mission-critical roles as the primary access in applications across essentially every industry, reliability is a key concern, said Craig Mathias, principal analyst for Farpoint Group. Motorolas Adaptive AP offers the best aspects of centralised management and local wireless-LAN control, making it ideal in distributed, high-availability environments.

Available on the AP-5131, AP-5181, as well as future-generation independent, full-function APs, the adaptive AP wireless solution is designed to minimise the impact on a wired network by reducing the amount of network traffic to and from the AP and the wireless switch. For example, the adaptive AP wireless solution can segment local traffic in a remote branch office, which is beneficial for scalability and helps alleviate the upgrading of an entire existing wired network to support future 802.11n deployments that have much higher speeds than Fast Ethernet. Adaptive APs also support mesh technology, which further simplifies wireless deployments by eliminating the need to run wireless cable to each wireless access point in the enterprise campus.

Motorolas adaptive wireless architecture enables customers to have the best of both worlds a centralised management for security and scalability, and the benefits of performance and remote site survivability at branch or satellite locations, said Sujai Hajela, vice president and general manager of Enterprise WLAN, Motorola Enterprise Mobility business. Another benefit with adaptive AP is providing pre-configured connectivity, giving home office workers simplified access to the corporate network without requiring a VPN.

Motorolas Enterprise WLAN solutions enable seamless mobility within buildings and across campuses. Products in the Enterprise WLAN portfolio include thin, full-function and mesh access points, wireless switches and radio frequency (RF) switches that can manage up to 3,000 access points.

Enterprise WLAN is part of Motorolas portfolio of innovative wireless broadband solutions and services that complement and complete IP networks. Delivering IP coverage to virtually all spaces both indoors and outdoors, the portfolio includes fixed broadband, mesh, broadband over powerline, WiMAX and Enterprise WLAN solutions for private and public networks.

About Motorola

Motorola is known around the world for innovation in communications.  The company develops technologies, products and services that make mobile experiences possible. Our portfolio includes communications infrastructure, enterprise mobility solutions, digital set-tops, cable modems, mobile devices and Bluetooth accessories. Motorola is committed to delivering next generation communication solutions to people, businesses and governments. A Fortune 100 company with global presence and impact, Motorola had sales of US $36.6 billion in 2007.