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Gigabit Wi-Fi Maintains Rapid Adoption as Enterprise and Educational Sectors Prepare for the All-Wireless World
[September 30, 2014]

Gigabit Wi-Fi Maintains Rapid Adoption as Enterprise and Educational Sectors Prepare for the All-Wireless World


SUNNYVALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)--

Aruba Networks (News - Alert), Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN) today announced that a growing base of customers ranging from enterprises to educational institutions are upgrading their network infrastructures with 802.11ac Wi-Fi to prepare for an all-wireless world. #GenMobile employees and students, 31% of whom spend more than 14 hours a week working on their mobile devices and prefer Wi-Fi over all other connections1, are driving this trend to gigabit Wi-Fi.

Mobility and the adoption of 802.11ac, with over 750 devices already Wi-FI CERTIFIED™, are transforming the way people work, live and learn. Traditionally, the early adopters for emerging technologies like Wi-Fi have been educational institutions. Milton Scott, CTO for the Catholic Education Office in Sydney, explains "The classroom will look like a very different place in just a few years. Computers will be the learning hub for virtually everything that students and teachers do. This positions an advanced wireless infrastructure as the critical ingredient in the education recipe."

Since introducing its first gigabit Wi-Fi access point (AP), the 220 Series, just over one year ago, Aruba has seen strong demand for 802.11ac from its customers, outpacing the growth it saw when the 802.11n standard was introduced to the market. This growth is consistent with general industry trends. According to research firm Dell' (News - Alert)Oro Group, global 802.11ac revenue skyrocketed 85% last calendar quarter with projections that it will exceed 802.11n revenue by more than 13% in 2015.

Both general enterprise customers and those in nearly every vertical market are making the shift to 802.11ac. Warner Bros., which is part of the Time Warner (News - Alert) family, is a leader in providing content delivery of entertainment services. The company is relying on 802.11ac to support a number of its business goals as it evolves into the office-of-the-future. "Our clients are not just our employees, but also independent product companies that use our facilities to produce content, said Doug Crawford, VP of Global Network Operations, Warner Bros. "By moving to an .11ac infrastructure worldwide, the company will be able to provide the best innovative, creative environment required for our business. With .11ac, we can expand our network offerings to better support the growing number of business applications as well as live and streaming video, which are critical to our clients."

To stay ahead of market demands and customer mobility requirements, Aruba has delivered the broadest portfolio of 802.11ac products in the industry for organizations of all sizes and requirements. Adding to its flagship AP-220 Series access points this year, Aruba introduced the 270 Series APs, the first enterprise-grade gigabit Wi-Fi solution for all outdoor environments, followed by the introduction of the 200 Series APs, a set of introductory-level dual radio APs that are ideal for medium density Wi-Fi environments. Filling out the 802.11ac product portfolio, Aruba most recently introduced the 210 Series AP for high-performance requirements in medium density deployments. Aruba's entire 802.11ac portfolio incorporates key technologies exclusive to Aruba including the patented ClientMatch™ technology and the ability to operate in either controller-managed or Aruba Instant/controllerless mode.



Ranked 34th among Top Public National Universities by US News and World Report, Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York (SUNY), recently deployed Aruba's 802.11ac solutions in 56 of its main campus residence halls. "With over 10,000 students living on campus, we needed to upgrade our network to support what seems to be an infinite demand for Wi-Fi," said James Hart, Director of Network Services at Stony Brook University. "Given the success of our initial Aruba 802.11ac deployment in our Javits Center, we knew it was the right solution for our residence halls and in fact, we will standardize on 802.11ac going forward."

In addition to existing customer upgrades, Aruba has also been attracting new university customers with its superior Wi-Fi performance and resiliency. Illinois State University, ranked among the top universities in the nation by US News and World Report, is currently replacing its Meru infrastructure with an Aruba 802.11ac network. "In order to best support our academic mission and the mobile requirements of over 20,000 students, 3,600 faculty and staff, and thousands of guests and visitors annually, we are committed to upgrading our network across campus," said Ryan Johnston, Interim Director of Infrastructure, Operations and Networking at Illinois State University. "After completing a proof-of-concept in our campus library system comparing both Aruba and Cisco (News - Alert), we decided to move forward with Aruba's solutions due to its ability to support a high density of mobile clients with impressive speeds and reliability."


In addition to adoption in enterprises and educational institutions, Aruba's 220 Series APs, along with the Aruba 7200 Series Mobility Controllers, recently earned FIPS 140-2 (Federal Information Processing Standards) certification, making Aruba the only WLAN vendor with a FIPS-validated 11ac solution available for the federal market. This gives Aruba federal customers assurance that these Aruba FIPS- certified products exhibit a level of security, integrity and interoperability that has been confirmed by independent means and that they will be interoperable with the protocols tested and listed in the federal security policy.

With solutions that address both the premier and value ends of the market, as well as both indoor and outdoor environments, Aruba expects to continue seeing strong uptake of its mobility portfolio. Aruba channel partners reflect this growth and are finding significant opportunities for the newly-introduced cost-optimized 200 Series APs.

InterVision Systems Technologies, an award-winning Aruba partner, has seen rapid growth over the past year in their wireless deployments ranging from Web 2.0 startups to global enterprises. "Aruba's powerful line of 802.11ac solutions is a new dimension in wireless and addresses the needs of a wide variety of our customers," said Jason Gress, founder and president of InterVision. "Their platform is especially well suited for customers that are upgrading to 10G/40G networks or have stringent performance requirements. With their expanding breadth and depth of 802.11ac solutions, Aruba has opened the door for InterVision to capture more opportunities in the red-hot wireless and mobility market."

About Aruba Networks, Inc.

Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention. The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational costs.

Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com. For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products visit Airheads Social at http://community.arubanetworks.com.

© 2014 Aruba Networks, Inc. Aruba Networks' trademarks include Aruba Networks®, Aruba The Mobile Edge Company® (stylized), Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks™, Aruba Mobility Management System®, People Move Networks Must Follow®, Mobile Edge Architecture®, RFProtect®, Green Island®, ETips®, ClientMatchTM, Virtual Intranet AccessTM, ClearPass Access Management SystemsTM, Aruba InstantTM, ArubaOSTM, xSecTM, ServiceEdgeTM, Aruba ClearPass Access Management SystemTM, AirmeshTM, AirWave (News - Alert)TM, Aruba CentralTM, and "ARUBA@WORKTM. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

1 Report surveyed more than 5,000 respondents across France, Germany, Nordics, UAE & Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and USA (March 2014)


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